Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 11:43:14 +0200 (MET DST)
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]



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