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The inescapable fact is that eco-imperialism perpetuates poverty and misery – allowing its proponents to live in splendor, while their victims continue to live in squalor. It’s hypocritical, immoral and lethal. We need to start holding these groups accountable, and compelling organizations, foundations, courts and policy makers to understand the consequences of the policies they are imposing on our Earth’s poorest citizens.
My book and a recent CORE teach-in on eco-imperialism are a beginning. But much more needs to be done. Decent, compassionate people everywhere need to become involved. Thankfully, judging by the response we are getting, that’s exactly what’s happening.
FP: Your book demonstrates how organizations such as Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals demand certain ethical standards from corporations that they themselves do not even live up to – and consistently violate. They pretend they are acting out of “social responsibility,” yet are really only pursuing their own selfish agendas. Could you give us a highlight or two of this reality?
Driessen: Everything we’ve been discussing exemplifies selfish agendas masquerading as lofty examples of social responsibility. Every one of them involves results that are clearly foreseeable, but have been callously or recklessly ignored. Which brings us to the matter of accountability.
If you or I or a business breaks a law, or engages in negligent or reckless conduct that injures someone, the consequences are real, immediate and often severe. The pressure groups, lawyers, media and public demand it, and the legislators, regulators, courts and juries deliver.
But when it comes to eco-radicals, accountability is rarely in the cards – even for felonies, much less for the misery and death we just discussed. When an Earth Liberation Front terrorist actually got caught, convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for torching a car dealership, University of Oregon professor Michael Dreiling ranted that the sentence “clearly reflects a no-tolerance attitude for political dissent.” That’s the kind of attitude we have to change.
Environmentalists and their allies also demand “transparency” with regard to possible corporate donations to free-market think tanks. But when someone asks them to open their books, and divulge corporate, foundation or government grants, their silence is deafening – even when the topic is liberal foundations and organic food companies that since 1995 have given more than $500 million to activist attack groups that target agricultural biotechnology and cause so much malnutrition and death in developing countries.
In another egregious case, a federal court ordered former EPA Administrator Carol Browner to safeguard computer files, detailing her agency’s grants to radical environmental organizations. She deleted them anyway – and got away with it. So much for transparency, accountability, and a single system of laws, ethical standards and justice for everyone.
Speaking of which, where do we go to ensure accountability for the directors of the WHO, USAID, green pressure groups and foundations that fund them – for the gross medical malpractice, obstinate opposition to life-saving pesticides, and countless deaths from malaria that could easily have been prevented, if green ideologies hadn’t stood in the way?
Bear in mind – What many of these groups engage in is nothing less than rampant, criminal law breaking, ranging from trespass to assaults on people wearing furs, and the malicious destruction of biotech crops, laboratories and millions of dollars in scientific research. Greenpeace has been indicted on criminal charges for illegally boarding a ship, and many of its members have been prosecuted for trespass and willful destruction of GM crops and other property.
PETA regularly engages in assaults, intimidation and property destruction as a standard tactic and basic policy. It’s also used its tax-exempt funds to pay the legal expenses of eco-terrorists like Rodney Coronado. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk has applauded the sending of threatening letters booby-trapped with razor blades and sent to biomedical researchers – and the posting of researchers’ names, addresses, photographs and home telephone numbers on the Internet, so that they can be targeted by eco-fanatics. Meanwhile, the ELF website offers detailed instructions for building firebombs and destroying buildings.
This goes way beyond civil disobedience, as practiced by Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King. These are the actions of a vigilante group or lynch mob – acting as legislature, judge, jury, prosecutor and hangman. And yet, these organizations still insist that they should not be prosecuted or have their tax-exempt status revoked, because they are “saving the animal planet.” Not only do they not want to pay the price for their criminal activity; they demand continued government, foundation and corporate subsidies to further their misdemeanors and felonies.
It’s simply outrageous, and it has to end.
FP: When you look at what these radical environmentalists are doing, it becomes clear that they couldn’t really care less about the environment, or the people for whom they purport to speak. They exploit environmental concerns to camouflage their hatred of their own society and their ferocious war to destroy capitalism and civil society. That’s what this is really all about isn’t it?
Driessen: I think that’s a pretty fair summation. Michael Crichton calls ideological environmentalism “one of the most powerful religions in the world today.” What it espouses has little to do with science or reality. It’s all a matter of blind faith, part of a quest for an eco-utopia, a return to some mythical Garden of Eden.
Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore argues that the movement really became radicalized after the fall of the Berlin Wall and USSR. That’s when hordes of activists left their Communist Party jobs and joined the environmental movement – bringing their anti-business, anti-American, anti-science, anti-trade, anti-civilization extremism with them.
“When I helped create Greenpeace in 1971,” Dr. Moore reflects, “I had no idea it would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics to silence people who wish to express their views in a civilized forum. I had no idea the movement would oppose genetic engineering and other programs that could benefit mankind – and adopt zero-tolerance policies that so clearly expose its intellectual and moral bankruptcy.”
He likewise had no idea it would become so hypocritical. Eco-radicals say they want to save habitats, but then they oppose biotechnology and promote organic farming, which would require that we plow under most of our remaining rainforests and other wildlife habitats to feed people, Dr. Moore points out. They say they want to preserve US forests, but viscerally oppose any thinning that could prevent the catastrophic wildfires that immolate trees, wildlife, streams and soils. They claim to oppose over-fishing, but do all they can to stop aquaculture.
In short, says Dr. Moore, “The environmental movement has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity. The pain and suffering it is imposing on families in developing countries must no longer be tolerated.”
Environmental activists who’ve never known starvation, never had to live without electricity, never had to watch their children die of malaria or dysentery, must no longer be allowed to put their anxieties, priorities and agendas ahead of the desperate pleas, the most basic needs, of destitute people who wish only to improve their lives, and save their children’s lives.
That’s why the battle against Eco-Imperialism must become the civil and human rights campaign of this century. With the help of CORE, the Center, Frontpagemag.com and other caring organizations, we will do exactly that.
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Visitors can also find this interview at http://www.FrontPageMag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=11989
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