Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 12:50:31 +0100 (MET) Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #27en: 3/5 Who fights "green" fascism? UNITE! Info #27en: 3/5 Who fights "green" fascism? [Posted: 02.02.97] [Continued from part 2/5] A CRITICISM OF THE "SOCIALISME MAINTENANT!" ARTICLE "LE CAPITALISME ET LA CRISE DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT" (ctd.) *The main theses of the "SOCIALISME MAINTENANT!" article* (ctd.) Characteristic for this article is that it goes on and on, in more or less its entire length, complemented with corresponding pictures too, about the purported poisoning of the whole globe with various substances mentioned, one after the other. There is talk of chemical wastes, heavy metals, pesticides (this *not* concerning their important positive effects, *only* about their negative ones - actual or imagined), plutonium "contamination" of the oceans (a quite ridiculous invention; the amounts of such stuff are millions of times smaller than any that would matter in the least) etc, etc, so that reading it, you might think the earth was more of a big scrap heap or garbage dump than anything else. Industry in general of course does give rise to certain environ- mental problems because of its wastes etc; this shouldn't be denied either. But these problems can and should be solved in various concrete ways, by industrial methods - *not* handicraft ones, as advocated by the "green" ideology and already put into practice by the bourgeoisie in various places already - of cleaning up and/or sorting these wastes. They naturally mustn't be taken as pretexts for doing away with industry itself or cur- tailing its development. But this is precisely what the main bourgeois forces are doing, since 2-3 decades or more back. And the AS article openly supports it. The article mentions, as a forerunner of that "environmentalism" ("écologie politique") it says it is criticizing, the primitive so- called Luddites of the early 19th century, named so after Ned Ludd, who in Britain in 1779 smashed the first machines there manufacturing stockings. From the same period, btw, originates the word "sabo- tage", which comes from the French word "sabot", for "wooden shoe" - peasants "mobilized" into manufacture would throw such into the machineries which they regarded as competitors of theirs. But does the AS itself in this article, almost 200 years later, even rise above the level of those Luddites or "original" saboteurs? No. Even if the article doesn't quite openly cry out: "The development of industry should be stopped!", certain things which it does say imply exactly this, which thus in reality is a further "main thesis" of it. On p. 4 col. 5 - p. 5 col. 1, it talks about some recent "decades of *savage*[!] development of industry" ("quelques dizaines d'années de développement industriel sauvage") and also, once more, about that "unlimited waste" ("gaspillage sans limite"), both of which "only capitalism" can "permit". On p. 5 col. 3, it criticizes something that it (much too vaguely) calls "productivism" - this in connection with its, in fact not quite wrongly, criticizing the lack of concern for the environment on certain points on the part of the revisionist regimes in the Soviet Union and other East European countries - "which thus has given some people a pretext too for saying that *genuine* Marxism 'doesn't care' about such things". On p. 2, there's a big picture of a mine (surface-quarrying) obviously somewhere in the third world, with people working in it under not too good conditions, and a caption reading: "Les galeries obscures et meurtri=E8res des mines, o=F9 depuis tant d'années suffoquent, gazés, les geules-noirs du monde entier, restent le symbole vivant du capitalisme contre lequel nous luttons." I cannot make out the meaning of this otherwise than that it's the mines themselves, *not* the bad conditions in some of them, that the AS here is pointing to as "a living symbol" of that capitalism which it's "fighting against". But this again is pure Luddism, which is what the main bourgeois forces today *want* and what you, comrades of the AS, Canada, precisely are *supporting*. *The article's "theory" on where the "green" ideas come from* One of the most important lies of the reactionary bourgeoisie in connection with practically all of its phoney "environmentalist" campaigns is the one saying that the ideas of the existence of these purported problems, the "green" ideas, are coming from, and originally came from, "below", from the masses of people and/or from some concerned scientists who "have come to realize" them. They have done a whole lot of stunts in the past 20-30 years, organized one circus after the other, sometimes also managing to involve in them a certain number of people who've been fooled by the massive media propaganda, in order to create the impression that the "green" "movement" is a "genuine" mass movement, a "leftist" one even, one that's directed "against the establishment". Even some people who have considered themselves to have some more than elementary knowledge of Marxism and with whom I've discussed these matters have failed completely to see the real origins of the preposterous "green" ideas. They've either even themselves believed in some of them, or else have thought that they might originate in some petty-bourgeois idiosyncracies or other on the part of some "ordinary people", and haven't seen any reason why the bourgeoisie would actually invent "large-scale environmental (etc) problems" that simply aren't there. If you say that such inventions are taking place you're "advancing conspiracy theories", they've held. The "SOCIALISME MAINTENANT!" article also is 100% naive - if nothing worse - on this matter. On the question of where the "green" ideas originally came from, it's painting precisely the same totally misleading picture that the arch-reactionary mass media do. "When since 20 years back, the consciousness con- cerning the environmental problems has grown, the questions of the quality of life, of the inequal distribution of wealth, of the exhaustion of the natural resources, of the food injustice, etc, have contributed much to the multiplying of people's doubts about capitalism", it says on p. 3 col. 1, here also mixing together and mixing up, in the same manner as the bourgeoisie itself also constantly is doing, questions that are quite different in character. *The real origins and causes of the reactionary "green" anti- industrial ideology* In reality, it's the main ruling forces in the world that since long have ben busy drumming up a "consciousness" about certain "problems" which in reality aren't there. Why? The reasons for this can be briefly outlined with some quotes from earlier postings of mine. I wrote, in that "Info #4en" largely based on others' findings: >The international ultra-rightist forces, quite often operating under >a camouflage of "leftism", of "Marxism" even, since 20 or 30 >years back in fact are attacking the development of industry as >a whole, particularly in the more developed countries and >particularly in Europe. This mainly out of an increasing fear that >the workers, if "allowed" to grow "too" many and "too" strong, will >eventually team up with the oppressed peoples of the third world, >together with them make revolution and smash the entire long >obsolete system of capitalism and imperialism in the world, >which is turning more and more completely into an enormous >obstacle against the productive forces of today, a giant Berlin >wall against the progress of all mankind. Marx back in 1856 pointed out, in the London speech I mentioned: >Steam, electricity and the self acting mule were revolutionists of >a rather more dangerus character than even citizens Barbes, >Raspail and Blanqui. and: >This antagonism between modern industry and science on the >one hand, modern misery and dissolution on the other hand; this >antagonism between the productive powers and the social >relations of our epoch is a fact, palpable, overwhelming, and not >to be controverted. Some parties may wail over it; others may >wish to get rid of modern arts, in order to get rid of modern >conflicts. Or they may imagine that so signal a progress in >industry wants to be completed by as signal a regress in politics. *Some revealing things which the AS article's authors failed to notice in the "modern" Inquisition's propaganda pieces "The Limits to Growth" ("Club of Rome", 1972) and "Our Common Future" ("Brundtland UN Report", 1987)* The article mentions both of these two arch-reactionary and, in their factual contents, completely nonsensical "reports", each of which represented a new stage in the imperialist bourgeoisie's turning more and more hostile to the development of industry, technology and science and to economic growth, but has not one word of criticism against either. On the contrary, these pieces of vile propaganda attack in reality directed against the workers and the oppressed peoples are treated as "telling the truth" and are stated to represent "concessions" by the bourgeoisie to that very, completely phoney, "environmentalist movement" which they precisely had as their object to maniputate into existence. Each of them in fact would merit a separate article of criticism. There are so far only some non-Marxist such. Here I shall only quote a few lines from each which IMO should function as eye- openers to many about what is really going on in the world today concerning the matters discussed - what the main ruling forces are really after, concerning industrial development, and why. The 1972 "Limits to Growth" had behind it some very "establish- ed" forces, i.a. the Ford and the Volkswagen Foundations. Its authors used computers at the MIT, USA, for presenting some mumbo-jumbo diagrams "proving" that "economic growth cannot go on". In reality they used the "principle" computer people refer to as "garbage in - garbage out". Very revealing about the aims actually behind it are those lines from its foreword (re-translated by me from pp. 9-10 of the Swedish issue, the only one I have): "The undesired consequences of technology are only too obvious and constitute a threat, which it may become impossible to turn back, against our natural environment, and people are becoming more and more alienated from society and are rejecting authori- ties [!!]. Drug addiction and crime are increasing, belief is on the wane, not only the religious, which has been keeping mankind up [!] for centuries, but also the belief in the party political system[!] and the the effectiveness of social reforms. All these dificulties[!] seem to grow with increased wealth." >From the 1987 "Our Commun Future", "report" by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development led by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway (Oxford University Edition, 1990, paperback, p. 14): "To bring developing countries' energy use up to industrialized country levels by the year 2025 would require increasing present global energy use by a factor of five. The planetary ecosystem could not stand this [!!], especially if increases were based on non-renewable fossil fuels." This, factually, is utter nonsense. Politically, it's open *fascism*. It shows that the forces behind this report - all those powers that have any say in today's world - want to *prevent* the third world countries from ever reaching that level of energy use which is so very necessary - to begin with. They want to keep the peoples in them in poverty forever, this clearly indicates, so that they can continue to be exploited as particularly cheap labour. And btw, the chemical fuels are *not* "fossil" either. The methane >from which they all stem exists in enormous quantities at great depths and is continually seeping upwards. (See other postings.) *The AS article's sniping attacks on nuclear energy* >From the beginning, phoney "environmentalism's" main object of attack has been nuclear energy. This appears to be particularly illogical and absurd, since precisely this energy source is so particularly clean too. What's the real reason? The main forces of the bourgeoisie today fanatically are striving to make *all* energy as expensive and scarce as they can, in order globally to curtail the development of industry. And since nuclear energy, both fission and fusion, is so incomparably superior to everything else that is known today, it also, precisely because of this, has become such a particular object of hate to the bourgeois rulers. The potentialities of nuclear energy have long been known. A notable and correct assessment of them was made, for instance, by the well-known scientist Linus Pauling (i.a. recipient of two Nobel price awards) with the very last lines of a textbook of his, "General Chemistry" (2nd edition), USA, 1954: "When we remember that uranium and thorium are not rare elements, but are among the more common elements - the amount of uranium and thorium in the earth's crust being about the same as that of the common element lead [Note - deleted here] - we begin to understand the promise of nuclear energy for the world of the future, and the possibilities of its contribution to human welfare. The discovery of the controlled fission of atomic nuclei and the controlled release of atomic energy is the greatest discovery that has been made since the controlled use of fire was discovered by primitive man." And now when precisely this energy source is being combated by and described by the main forces of the ruling class in the world as "the Devil incarnate" (NB this precisely as far as its *peaceful* use is concerned), then that means that the total *bankruptcy* of the social system of that ruling class has gone very far already, or in other words, that the need for proletarian revolution is enormous. [Continued in part 4/5] --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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