By Rich Kozlovich
History
is the pathway of the past which leads to the stepping stones into the
future. For more years than I can recall we've heard activists
demand all sorts of insane things, including banning .... welllll.... anything that makes an advanced civilization possible. And "it's all for the children". This, in spite of the fact that most of what they've done has been "to" the children, not "for" the children. The ban on DDT, and the ban of chlorine in water in South American nations are two excellent examples. Both of which cause massive negative health problems. Both crimes against humanity.
Huge numbers of children have suffered and died unnecessarily from “green” policies that banned pesticides and genetically modified foods. Yet we only continue to hear all sorts of theoretical, speculative claims about pesticides and GMO's causing a host of "potential" disasters from the media. Even if there was a grain of truth in these claims, the benefits would seriously outweigh any potential risks. Why do we keep ignoring the facts?
The events surrounding pesticide bans in the undeveloped world should be lesson enough to show that these types of actions are detrimental to the public health; yet we still go along with the activist’s nonsense. So many just really want to be green; yet we have no idea what that means.
Everyone from my generation remembers that great comic strip “Peanuts”. One scenario was repeated over and over again was Lucy offering to hold the football for poor Charlie Brown to kick. Charlie always knew that Lucy would pull the ball out just at the last minute and he would fall on his back. Why was that funny? Because they would go through this dance about how she “always” pulled the ball out at the last minute and she would swear that this time it would be different, and he fell for it each and every time. Believing that activists can be believed to keep a bargain is not one bit different.
No
agreement made with the activists will be kept by them because they have no
command and control structure. If one
group makes a deal with industry, another group will attack them and industry. No agreement will be honored by them. And that goes for government agencies also. No
matter what agreements are made with bureaucrats, just as soon as some activist group starts making demands the agreement be rescinded, it will be
overturned.
What probably sickens me the most of all is the worldwide media! In spite of the vast amount of evidence activists are directly and indirectly responsible for the death of tens of millions, not to mention and the needless suffering of hundreds of millions more because of the implementation of environmentalist’s policies, the media mostly remains silent. By remaining silent or promoting these green activists ideas they are as blood guilty as Walter Duranty was when he won the Pulitzer Prize for say that Stalin wasn’t starving his people to death.
Industry information sources also do not challenge these people because they say that we can’t win in the court of public opinion, or they are not in a position to do so. If industry never challenges them every time they make outrageous claims, how does anyone know? At the very least, information should be made available to the public and to those inside industry that will give them the ammunition to defend industry.
It is painfully obvious to me these leftists intend to destroy developed societies, with little concern over the human suffering that would entail. It is also painfully obvious to me that industry will not have any problem compromising. No matter what the cost may be in human suffering.
Why do so many young people embrace this insanity? Here's some of the rationale offered:
- “They're attracted by the romantic radicalism and emotional appeal of the
‘movement.’”
- “The "movement"
provides them with an outlet."
- “They protest against the seeming inertia of the politicians of the older generation."
- "It is a truly religio-psychological phenomenon.”
- "The clouded vision of the green movement is one
of bio-harmony; like a beautiful rainbow."
That is romantic nonsense that facts and history demands that neither industry or society can justify embracing such delusions.
Leftists demand perfection. The best we can hope for is the most acceptable imperfections. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t attempt to improve what becomes the acceptable level of imperfection, but the solutions presented by the left ignores, derides, and abandons the most effective system for overcoming imperfection the world has ever known. Capitalism!
Imperfections are weeded out by the profit motive. If something isn’t working it's dismissed, and replaced by something that does. And if the dominant companies refuse to innovate, then they become commercially incompetent and someone else will come along and innovate. The end result? Those dominant companies will be out of business or cease being dominant.
IBM gave Bill Gates DOS because “because everyone knows that the money is in the hardware”. Much of what Microsoft and Apple used as the basis for their empires was thrown away by IBM and Xerox.
When Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of New Jersey monopolized the oil industry did things get better or worse for the nation? Let’s take a look at this.
Rockefeller believed it was necessary to take over the oil industry because he believed it was the patriotic thing to do. Shocking isn’t it? In reality he was right! Because the price of oil was based on availability, and no one knew when the next gusher was going to come in. The fluctuation of the price of oil was so dramatic that it was difficult for industry to plan.
Rockefeller reasoned that if he controlled all the oil it would stabilize the price; and it did. It might be noted that he didn’t crush all the oil companies…many of them asked to be taken over because it would stabilize their profits. Before he monopolized the oil industry the price of oil in 1860 was $12.00 to $16.00 a barrel. Between 1879 and 1900 it dropped to under $1.00 a barrel in every one of those years.
The Standard Oil of New Jersey story is often touted to show that breaking up monopolies works because the five companies that Standard Oil was broken up into became much, much larger than Standard Oil ever was. That is a logical fallacy because they leave out the most important part of the story.
What was the number one product of Standard Oil? Kerosene! And gasoline as a byproduct that was thrown away because it was so volatile they had no use for it. Obviously that changes the values of the story. They didn’t become so much larger because they were the product of a Sherman Anti-Trust Act breakup. They became so much larger because the introduction of so many automobiles it turned that volatile product into the energy source to run the huge number of cars and trucks that appeared in America. That is, as Paul Harvey used to say; “the rest of the story!”
We need to start telling the story; the whole story, and that needs to be done by attacking the lies told by leftist activists. The activists attack and society changes to appease them. The activists attack some more and society adapts and changes and continuing to appease them. They attack again, and again, with their successes breeding more attacks. Attacks which become even more virulent.
When society adopts their philosophies becoming compliant, subservient, and obedient, that's not compromise, it's capitulation. Those days are over! Trump is attacking them at their very core, the money! End their funding, and crush them. He's eliminating thousands of bureaucrats, and he's eliminating regulations that are arbitrary, insane, and never passed by Congress.
Will that stand the test of time. We'll see.
Update: This was from my e-newsletter in 2007, and deals with environmental activist Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, says that you are a virus infecting planet Earth. You are a virus infecting planet Earth , and wanted to cut the human population down by 85%. The link no longer works and he's since been forced out over his confrontational tactics, so, you will just have to take my word this is what was in the article...or not just it pleases you.
“Curing a body of cancer requires radical and invasive therapy, and therefore, curing the biosphere of the human virus will also require a radical and invasive approach.” How radical? Watson thinks that the parasitical human population should be reduced to less than a billion, and those chosen to survive should inhabit colonies of twenty thousand or less, with uninterrupted wild areas separating them. (They will all be vegans or vegetarians, of course, and reproduction will be limited to those who are responsible enough, in Watson's judgement, to handle parenthood…JAWA REPORT). Who is he?
The views of a fanatic? Yes, but Watson is also a co founder of Greenpeace and a former member of the Sierra Club board of directors, not to mention one of Time magazine's 20th-century environmental "heroes."
It is unlikely that his support for eliminating 5.5 billion human beings and most modern conveniences will hurt his standing among the green elite. On the contrary: Within the environmental movement, antipathy to population growth and technology is utterly conventional." (Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe)
As I said, since then he's since been forced out over his confrontational tactics, so, you will just have to take my word this is what was in the article...or not.... just as it pleases you.
