By IAN ROBINSON, Calgary Sun, 7/27/08
How many Greenpeace activists does it take to change a light bulb?
None.
They'd rather sit around in the dark feeling morally superior.
Nearly 40 years I've been watching the people who belong to Greenpeace annoy the grownups.
The persistence of bad ideas always amazes.Here they are again, performing one of their patented stunts at Syncrude, trespassing, gaining access to a tailings pond where 500 ducks came to an unfortunate and accidental end this year, and unveiling a banner reading: "World's Dirtiest Oil. Stop the Tarsands."
Like Greenpeace, I basically came of age in the 1970s.
It was a goofy decade.
I believed in love and non-violence.
I actually paid attention to the lyrics of Beatles songs and my two greatest heroes were both named Marx ... Harpo and Karl.
Unlike Greenpeace, I grew up and jettisoned a world-view that kids my son's age dismiss sneeringly as "tree-hugging, hippie crap."
Thanks, South Park.
The only thing from that period that has stood me in good stead is that at parties, I can manufacture a field-expedient water bong in about 20 minutes.
A roll of duct tape and a pocket knife and I'm good to go.
The photos Greenpeace released show your typical industrial mining operation.
It is not a pretty thing.
Industry isn't generally pretty.
Coal mines, gold mines, steel mills, paper plants ... all the stuff that civilization rests on?
Not pretty.
On the other hand, the things Greenpeace wants for us aren't pretty either.
Oh, their intentions are good, I suppose.
They're like Marxists that way.
Hell, a lot of them are Marxists. And not the good kind, like Harpo.
The Marxist ideal was a fair economy.
The Marxist reality was the world's largest concentration camps, a slaughter of humanity that made Hitler look like he wasn't really trying.
It led to widespread famine and poverty, environmental disasters, lineups to buy soap, and the world's crappiest automobiles -- the Lada, the Trabant and the Dacia.
Greenpeace, in addition to wanting economies to be fair and for us to quit using limited resources ("No, I can't go to work today. I have to line up six hours to buy a bar of Lifebuoy,")
also wants "an energy revolution" to stop climate change, disarmament (I know, that one's always good for a giggle) and to change farming practices that actually feed people to "socially and ecologically responsible" farming.
Say hello to the $10 loaf of bread.
These people are children who have learned that if you throw a tantrum in the right way and document it,
the news media will help you embarrass the grownup -- in this case, Syncrude and any Albertan who hasn't imbibed the purple Kool-Aid of extreme environmentalism.
Extremists in the environmental movement have been gnawing away at public perceptions for decades.
It's now gotten to the point where throwing away a pop can into the garbage is a social crime that elicits the kind of horror that used to greet bestiality.
The Greenpeace folk and their ilk are actually more frightening than a lot of the totalitarian movements -- and this is a totalitarian movement that wants to change every facet of your life, make no mistake -- that have come before them.
If you check out the aims of Greenpeace and then think them through, something becomes clear.
Nothing that walks on two legs and talks is going to come out a winner.
At least Stalin wanted his people to be able to buy cheap bread.
And even Hitler thought ordinary Aryans should be able to own and operate a car. "
No comments:
Post a Comment