Posted on 01/19/2008 8:07:55 AM PST by ElkGroveDan
Eco-Anxiety? More like faux rapture insanity.
Lenin called this kind of political speech “agitprop,” short for “agitation propoganda.”
Using agitprop on a population does exactly what this article mentions - it raises anxiety and a sense of foreboding. These are good feelings for political elites to use, since anxious and fearful people will search for anything or anyone to bring back tranquility. It doesn’t matter if the agitprop is based on true, partially true, or false information, as long as the population’s feelings are manipulated to be negative and uneasy.
The Bolsheviks focused on “capitalists” (or, in the Chinese version, “capitalist roaders”) and the Nazis focused on “Jewish interests” when creating their agitprop. That was all very crude, like watching a black-and-white film from the 1930s, compared to the slick modern versions of agitprop, like global warming, nooses on schoolyard trees, glass ceilings, and invisible carcinogens spewed forth by evil faceless corporations. However, the effect is the same. Agitated people seek out those offering solutions (without realizing that those offering the solutions are the same groups promoting the agitprop).
As always when I write like this, I fear for my son’s future.
I think people should be able to collect disability from this. How can I be expected to find a job with all these polar bears dying?
The comparison to the War of The Worlds panic is a very good one, but to me it's a bit more sinister. Like Jonestown writ large. The hypnotic, zombielike way leftists behave in this matter really creeps me out sometimes.
And how can I be expected to do an honest day’s work while I am so stressed by my eco-anxiety? How will I ever be free of my eco-anxiety? And what caused it? Did Al Gore’s global warming lies make me sick? Shouldn’t all of the eco-anxiety sufferers have a class-action suit against Al Gore?
This just shows that America is a rich nation. What other people have the income and leisure time to worry themselves sick about things over which they have absolutely NO control?
I think people already are able to collect SSI for "eco-anxiety".
That would fall under the "crazy checks" category, wouldn't it?
I remember a Penn & Teller show on Showtime talking about what a scam Recycling was. Turns out aluminum cans are the only thing worth recycling. The rest of it was just the usual feel good blather that we are exposed to every day.
A one mile square, 500 foot deep garbage dump could hold all the refuse produced in the United States for the next thousand years. There is no shortage of landfill space.
No doubt the pharmaceutical companies will be right behind the latest fear du jour with some kind of tranquilizer to which many will become addicted.
The best freedoms of all are facing those issues which you fear and give you anxiety - it is winning a war within yourself and the relief is immense.
Builds strong people as well.
I wrote about this back in 1994 and posted it here in 2004:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1250450/posts?page=30#30
ECO–TOTALITARIANISM
“What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.” Quotation by F. Hoelderlin in The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek, 1944, p. 24.
The cruelest and most oppressive regimes throughout history have merged manmade religion with the power of the state. The high priests of Judea, Annas and Caiaphas, were instrumental in manipulating Pontius Pilate, a Roman ruler, to accomplish the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In this century, communism and Nazism have been hallmarks of oppression and untold suffering. These governments used a pseudo–science to give a veneer of respectability to ideological beliefs and provide a ‘rational’ basis for their acceptance. The Nazis (National Socialists) claimed that the science of genetics proved the Aryan race to have superior abilities. The communists claimed that “scientific socialism” (Marxism–Leninism) would end poverty and exploitation of man by his fellow man. The state religion in each case offered an escape from the manufactured ‘enemy’ by establishing a counterfeit moral ideal upon which tyrannical actions could be based. This counterfeit moral basis conceals the real evil about to be committed. These historical examples recall the philosopher George Santayana’s maxim, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Communism
The communists essentially said, “Poverty is bad. We are opposed to poverty and want to eliminate it. To do this, we must be given the power to violate your individual rights. We are practicing the moral ideal by helping others. Trust us.”
Nazism
The Nazis’ message was only slightly different. They said, “The destruction of Germany is bad. We are opposed to this destruction and wish to stop it. To do this, we must be given the power to violate your individual rights. We are practicing the moral ideal by helping others. Trust us.”
These state religions had common characteristics:
1. A position is taken that nobody will disagree with, i.e., poverty is bad or national destruction is bad. There is absolutely no political risk in taking these positions, they are uncontroversial and require no change in opinion by the people.
2. A solution to the uncontroversial problem is offered, if only the public will grant the group coming to power the authority to violate individual rights.
3. Each predicted some kind of apocalyptic scenario would occur if the people did not listen to them. The Nazis predicted that a wealthy Jewish elite would destroy the purity of the German race and nation. The communists said that the forces of American imperialism would overrun mother Russia. In each instance, these state religions fostered an intense hatred toward the perceived enemy of the state.
4. Each movement justifies the violation of individual rights on the morality of altruism, i.e., doing ‘good’ (as the state defines ‘good’) to others is the only standard for correct behavior. Contrast this with the standard for right behavior in Matthew 22:37–38, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” Making ‘doing good’ to someone or something the only standard for correctness enabled these tyrannies, and the environmental party, to come to power. The people must be persuaded (via the media) to recognize this counterfeit moral ideal. If they do not, they may object to the intrusion of the state because of higher principles—for example, their Constitutional rights.
Altruism as a moral ideal means that you can deny the self–interest (individual rights) of yourself or of others in the name of ‘doing good.’ Thus, those who claim that they were harmed by the communists or the Nazis can be labeled as selfish and opposing the moral ideal (‘doing good’) of the state. The state can thus treat them without regard to their individual rights (as indeed they were). It is the motivation that must be ascertained. Service to others out of love and a genuine concern for human welfare is honorable. ‘Doing good’ to animals and plants at the expense of human welfare is devilish.
5. Each ideology resulted in millions of deaths and the enslavement of millions more (World War II, Stalinist purges, etc.)
These ideologies worked by using a bit of truth, a ‘good cause,’ to which is attached an evil and devilish ideology. This is similar to a worm on a hook. Those who swallowed the communist and Nazi ‘worm on a hook’ experienced great suffering and often death.
Environmentalism
Now compare the above description of communism and Nazism to environmentalism. The message of the environmental party is very similar: “Pollution is bad. We are opposed to pollution and want to eliminate it. To do this, we must be given the power to violate your individual rights. We are practicing the moral ideal by helping others. Trust us, we’ll do it right this time.”
The moral ideal of ‘doing good’ is now directed at animals, insects, trees, and plants rather than people. Under communism and Nazism they were directed at a specific group of people (the working class and the German race, respectively). The familiar apocalyptic predictions are now framed so that the entire biosphere is up for grabs, i.e., unless we adopt the socialist solutions proposed by the eco-religion the very future of the earth is ‘in the balance.’ The state–sponsored hatred used by the communist and Nazi regimes is now directed at all humans. For example, many members of the Green Church want to control human population by state coercion (as Communist China now practices). Environmentalism is an ideological sister to the tyrannies of Hitler and of communism. However, the human tragedy will be far worse if we allow the environmental party to reach its goal of control over the use of all natural resources.
The devil is an expert in using counterfeit causes to conceal his motives and actions. He routinely adapts his methods to the times and conditions to be most effective in drawing people away from the true God. The conditions found at various times in history have been exploited by the god of this world to set up ‘red,’ ‘brown,’ and ‘green’ tyrannies. Each tyranny also required a ‘sacred’ text that often launched it. Many consider the publication of Silent Spring in 1962 by Rachel Carson to be the birth of today’s environmental movement, with the Earth Day of 1970 its initial rise to power.
A similar comparison is made by the late Dr. Petr Beckmann, an immigrant to the United States from Czechoslovakia with first hand familiarity of the deception by which Marxism–Leninism was sold to the masses. The following account is from a visit he made to Russia and related in his newsletter Access to Energy in November 1991.
From Sept. 15 to 21 [1991], I was in St. Petersburg, Russia, to co–chair an international conference on non–Einsteinian space–time. I speak Russian with a thick foreign accent, but fluently, and spoke to many people, though mostly scientists. . . . Last time I was in Leningrad was in the summer of 1960, 31 years ago. . . .
I am interviewed by Smena (Shift), a newspaper for the young. It is “independent,” meaning without government subsidies, financed by shareholders, income mostly from advertising. The reporter is 17 years old, but highly intelligent. . . . He came to interview me about Einstein, but he does not know much physics, and talk about the journal I publish, Galilean Electrodynamics, turns to Access to Energy, which fascinates him. I explain about defending science against the Luddites, about the Greens and their real agenda.
“But what’s wrong with clean air and fresh water?” he objects.
“Nothing,” I answer. “And what is wrong with world peace, brotherhood among the nations, and ending exploitation of man by his fellow man?”
He looks at me and now his jaw drops. Then I feel something click in this 17–year old brain. . . .
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