In terms of numbers, Green-Left ideologues are marginal. But they punch far above their weight. Their mission is plant preconceptions about eco-Malthusians in the minds of grass roots environmentalists and those few in the media would invite our input. Left unchallenged, this bad rap becomes conventional wisdom, and doors continue to slam in our faces. And these New McCarthyists know it. It is time we gave them a dose of their own medicine. We must expose their corporate funding sources and ask the obvious questions. Whose agenda are THEY serving? Whose interest is served by open borders? Are not the "eco-socialists" and "green" Trots Wall Street's useful idiots?
Green Left Smear Network Always Quick Off The Mark
Here we go again. Always close at the heels of our press releases, he Green-Left network smears the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform once more. http://www.dominionpaper.ca It should be apparent that Southern Poverty Law Centre does not have to set up shop in Canada to hurt us. The eco-Marxists have an international web presence, and rely upon the SPLC and a Chicago-based clone (Centre for New Community) as a clearing house for defamatory profiles of "nativists, bigots, reactionaries and hate-mongers" who allegedly use environmental issues as a screen for their wicked anti-immigrant agenda. Key to the smear strategy is the ritual defamation of opponents and the promotion of a media blacklist to quarantine their views.
Our Unearned Reputation Precedes Us
Many of us already know the experience. An upcoming interview with a television or radio journalist, initially enthusiastic at the prospect, is suddenly cancelled without explanation. Or an op-ed piece that had the green light for publication is abruptly yanked at the last moment with the lame excuse that no space was available--bumped for a trivial story about a council vote on a sports stadium. Or a weekly column that you had in an important online paper is terminated---again without explanation. You become paranoid. You smell the intervention of a Mark Potok or a Green Party hack in Ottawa or an anonymous tipster who left a link to an SPLC publication. And your paranoia is later vindicated.
Lazy Journalists Welcome Home-Delivery of Ready-Made Mischaracterizations and Misinformation
Why do smear organizations like SPLC and the Centre for New Community have the ear of journalists, editors and "progressive" movements? They offer ready-made quotable misinformation that unchallenged, have made them an unimpeachable source of objective, reliable news. In this way the threat posed by their enemies can be inflated beyond its actual scale to attract more donations.
Marxist Refugees Found Sanctuary In The Environmental Movement
Betsy Hartmann and Ian Angus are major players in this broad campaign. Hartmann's lair is New Hampshire College, which acts as a boot camp for feminist population-denialism. Angus is a victim of the puerile disorder of Trotskyism, which like genital herpes, once acquired, seemingly can never be cured. It is understandable why refugees from the ideological defeat of Marxism two decades ago found sanctuary in the warm bosom of open-borders environmentalism and anti-racism. Since the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the manifest failure of command economies everywhere and the retreat of social democracy from higher marginal taxation rates, the class struggle in any guise has been a tough sell. Reframed as "anti-racism", however, it enjoys a resurrection. Now environmentalism is not about saving nature but about saving people from capitalism. It is about social justice, or as it is now called, "environmental justice". Red has hijacked Green.
The New McCarthyists Are More Dangerous For Their Influence Than Their Numbers
It is easy for most to dismiss these New McCarthyists as marginal. But it is not them that we should be concerned about, but the broader constituency they influence---like the readership of Dominion Magazine or Alternet and a spectrum of online forums that deal with legitimate environmental issues. That is where the Fem-Green-Left ideologues do their hunting. Betsy Hartmann, whose infamous article “The Greening of Hate” formed the template for this latest attack on CIPR, as it has for smears against similar organizations and personalities, offers a clinic on reflexive mischaracterizations. Our mission to return environmentalists to the foundational “IPAT” formula is depicted as an effort to beguile and mislead them , and our war on overpopulation is dismissed as a “war on women’s bodies” and an attempt to scapegoat the global poor for the sins of the rich. Why does that frighten them?
Why The Leadership Of Canada's Green Party Junked Direct Democracy
Let me give you one reason. They know that on a level playing field that their smears and arguments can be easily defeated. John Meyer, former President of Zero Population Growth Canada, took them on in October, and after a brief skirmish on Angus's "Climate and Capitalism" forum, they remained silent. They had no comebacks. The Green Party of Canada is terrified of us for the same reason. In 2004-5 they flirted with direct on-line democracy. The membership was invited to vote on policy resolutions. Guess what---- 56% of grassroots Greens voted for a policy that would make the reduction and control of immigration intakes a central part of a sustainability strategy for Canada. The response? The hierarchy shut the process down.
They scuttled their democratic experiment because they realized that if the membership was in control, they would be burdened with a policy that might hurt their career ambitions. Green Party leader Elizabeth May campaigns for an immigration intake 25% higher than the government’s to serve what she calls “Canada’s Great Multicultural Project”. We are to get more cultural diversity at the cost of our biological diversity. Immigration, she insists, is an issue of “trivial” ecological importance. We can grow our population by 350,000 every year, meet GHG emissions targets and save our farmland at the same time. Growth can be “decoupled” from environmental damage. No doubt, in Greendom, ice cream consumption can be “decoupled” from weight gain, and thirst from water.
It Is Time We Exposed The Funding Sources Of Green Orgs On The Corporate Take
Another reason that the soft Greens must prevent our penetration of the environmental movement is that adoption of our policies would threaten their corporate funding. How dare we use Trotskyist tactics on Trotskyists! How dare we turn the tables on them by pointing out who their sordid benefactors are! This is their Achilles Heel. Their smears are largely based on guilt-by-association and guilt-by-funding-sources.
Two can play this game. It is about time we shone the light on them, in the same way that Ezra Levant has exposed Greenpeace and the Washington Post has exposed Nature Conservancy. We need to make noise about Green Inc----the shameless partnerships that Big Green have formed with the Big Corporations whom they now resemble. We must pose questions like, "Why is the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy and its clones on the same side of the amnesty/immigration issue as ADM, the agribusiness lobby, Microsoft, the IT industry and cheap labour employers? Are green NGOs paid not to understand the population-environment link? Who has the hidden agenda? In connecting those environmentalists alarmed at runaway population growth with 'xenophobic' or 'racist' foundations and factions, is the pot not calling the kettle black?"
Our problem is finding a high-profile media platform to ask readers to consider these questions and invite them to connect the dots. Until then, we can only fight the Internet war in the trenches.
Tim Murray
November 17, 2010
Add comment