LENIN AND GREENIES HAVE MORE THAN A LITTLE IN COMMON

In 1955, then Soviet Premier, Nikita Krushchev ordered April 22nd be designated a day to celebrate Communism. In 1970, it was chosen to be Earth Day by Gaylord Nelson, one of the founders of the event. Those founders had 365 days from which to choose. They chose Lenin's birthday.

When Communism was imposed on Russia in 1917, the first thing it did was to outlaw the ownership of private property. Under Communism, the State owns all property and all natural resources. In recent years in the United States, the Clinton-Gore Administration has declared millions of acres of mineral and oil-rich areas to be national monuments. The U.S.government already owns more than forty percent of the nation's landmass. Individual States own property as well, bringing the total closer to fifty percent. There are measures in Congress right now that would provide a dedicated stream of funding to insure that States will purchase still more property to put off limits to any use or development. The keystone of Capitalism is the ownership of private property. The Founding Fathers felt so strongly about this the Fifth Amendment protects this right, stating that no private property shall be taken for public use without just compensation. Across the nation, however, the government has effectively "taken" private property through such devices as the Endangered Species Act that denies the use of any property on which a listed species is found. Owners of such properties effectively lose them to government control. Wetlands legislation has a similar effect on owners of private property, denying them the use of their property if it is designated a wetland. These are environmental laws.

The similarities between the philosophy and programs advocated by the Greens and totalitarian forms of government are numerous. What better way to undermine the economy of this nation than to deny its citizens the benefits of its natural resources? Even access and use of national parks is being increasingly restricted.

Today, fully a third of all federal laws and regulations are devoted to the so-called "protection of the environment." They impact property ownership and the use of all energy sources. Vast areas of the U.S., despite known, huge reserves of oil and coal, have been put off limits. Virtually no structure can be built without an environmental impact study being undertaken. Right now, there are Administration efforts to destroy dams providing hydroelectric power in the northwest, ostensibly to save salmon. In countless ways, so-called environmental laws impact our lives, even down to the amount of water one can use to flush a toilet!

Leading voices for environmental and related causes express views comparable to the Communist philosophy of total government control. In his book, "Earth in the Balance," Vice President Al Gore, Jr., has written that "Adopting a central organizing principle means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, every treaty and alliance, every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action to use, in short, every means to halt the destruction of the environment." He has called for "a wrenching transformation of society" to achieve this goal of total centralized government control, the hallmark of the former Soviet system.

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GREENIE KILLERS

I confess it took me a long time to realize that much of what passes for the environmental movement or environmentalism involves imposing restrictions that (1) destroy economic growth and (2) often destroys lives. A perfect example of both these Green objectives is the utterly vile efforts of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) that have been directed of late against major financial investment companies such as Citicorp and Bank of America. Both ceded their lending decisions to RAN in 2004.

Their latest target has been J.P. Morgan whose CEO, William Harrison, has been under siege in his home in Greenwich, CT. As Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com has noted, "RAN wants to dictate J.P. Morgan Chase's lending policies for the developing world, especially with regard to energy projects and logging. As an extremist group railing against oil, wood, and meat consumption, RAN wants to block lending to projects it claims may contribute to global warming or involve logging in `sensitive' areas."

One of my personal heroes, Niger Innis, the national spokesman for CORE, has said "RAN does not deserve a seat at the table of any bank, and certainly should never been given veto power." He criticized the World Bank, Citigroup, and Bank of America for having "shamefully compromised" their lending policies as the result of RAN's threats. An Ugandan, Diana Koymuhendo, asks, "What right do they have to tell poor people they must settle for whatever crumbs Rainforest Action tosses to them?"

Without an investment in the provision of energy in Third World nations, they are going to remain mired in poverty. Nothing happens in this world until you flip a switch and a light turns out, a water pump starts up, or anything else we associate with the modern world begins to function. Life without electricity condemns people to a life of poverty, disease, and premature death. Would you believe that, worldwide, two billion people still have no electricity? If RAN manages to intimidate J.P. Morgan, that condition will continue because it will elect not to support the changes needed to truly create a global economy. With other banks having already caved in to these outrageous demands, poor Third World countries will have nowhere to turn for financing. Which, of course, is RAN's agenda; for them they will all remain traditional, indigenous, and impoverished, requiring few if the Earth's "finite" resources, and keeping their populations in check through disease, malnutrition, and starvation.

That means 800 million people will be chronically undernourished with 14 million Africans facing starvation in southern Africa alone. More than 230 million children will continue to suffer from Vitamin A Deficiency and a half million of them go blind every year. Two million will continue to die from problems directly related to VAD.

None of this is necessary. Modern biotechnology can save lives while preserving wildlife and habitats. It would let farms grow more food on less land, but RAN and other Greens declared war on biotechnology years ago. They cry out that it requires widespread use of pesticides, but that is just another Green lie. Biotech crops can withstand insects and viruses without heavy use of pesticides. Some crops have been created to grow better in saline and nutrient-poor soils. Others can thrive despite severe droughts. Meanwhile, RAN and its allies spend $35 million a year battling the introduction of biotech crops....

There is something obscene to the opposition of Green organizations to anything that would improve the lives of the very least among us, the poor and the starving masses of the Third World, but that is their objective. Their concern is for wildlife or for forests that anyone knows can replenish themselves. Cutting down a tree does not mean another will not grow in its place, but not cutting down a tree often leaves people without ground on which to grow crops or an income from that tree when sold as lumber....

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ENERGY BILL: SLANT! SPIN!

Note how the "water-polluting gasoline additive" is immediately brought up without the slightest attempt to say HOW polluting or how dangerous the polluting is. I think we can guess why

"The House passed a long-awaited, much-disputed $8.1 billion energy bill Thursday, allowing for drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge and protections for producers of a water-polluting gasoline additive.... The Senate last year voted down a House energy bill that included plans to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil drilling.

The bill also offered multibillion-dollar protections for companies that produce methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, a water-polluting additive in gasoline that helps it meet clean-air regulations. The new House bill includes both, though Democrats fought hard to have the provisions dropped. According to published reports, some Senate Democrats vowed to filibuster the bill if ANWR was included.

Platts echoed President Bush, who has repeatedly called for a broad energy package, in calling for a comprehensive plan focused on conservation and alternative energy. Like Bush, however, Platts admitted the bill would not curb high gasoline prices right away. "Getting an energy bill done will not change things overnight," he said. "But the longer we wait, the longer we won't get to a solution."

The White House promoted the energy plan despite some initial differences over tax breaks and incentives. The bill grants more than $8 billion in tax breaks to the energy industry over 10 years and calls for $2 billion more for deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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