“Green is the new red.”
If you’re of a certain age, you might recall the 1977 spy thriller “Telefon.” The set-up is, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets plant several dozen deep-cover spies on our shores, brainwashed to the point that they have no idea they’re agents. In the event of a future conflict, they would be told a post-hypnotically planted phrase which transforms them into automatons that then go off to commit acts of sabotage against key military and civilian installations. Cut to 15 years later. Just as detente is taking hold, a rogue KGB operative (Donald Pleasance) has got the code book and is hell bent on starting World War 3 by activating the sleeper agents. The good guy KGB colonel, played by Charles Bronson is clandestinely sent to America to stop Pleasance and prevent an international brouhaha before anyone find outs.
Although it’s not a bad flick (solid “B-minus” on the Sef-tonometer), this KGB-concocted 5th column is nothing compared to what’s really been happening to this country for nigh on 50 years. At this stage, you’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see that academia from kindergarten all the way through post-graduate has been virtually hijacked by radicals, leftists, multiculturalists and other miscreants who have a raging hatred for everything American, western and Judeo-Christian. The poison fruit from that tree can be seen far and wide, not just in the media and entertainment but sadly in the default mindset of too many people from all walks of life.
But getting back to “Telefon,” aside from overt acts of sabotage in the event of a shooting war, the infiltration by Communist sympathizers and agents into the heart of American society was an act of war and in an ironic twist of fate continues to this day. With the fall of the old Soviet Union in 1991 and the liberation of millions of oppressed people from behind the Iron Curtain, Communism was seemingly tossed onto the garbage heap of history. Yet the true believers refused to say die, and like Vladimir Putin, considered it a catastrophe to be avenged and reversed.
Along with academia, one of the greatest avenues of infiltration has been the environmental movement. Like other “feel good” notions, it allows people to take up the mantle of a cause – saving the planet! – to make them feel part of something, good about themselves and give their anonymous lives meaning. Essentially, this is at the core of the liberal mindset. Crucially, it also empowers them to take a self-righteous tone at anyone who doesn’t recycle, doesn’t drive a Prius or “denies” global warming. So now you have a movement and a mass of willing dupes ready to do your bidding. All you need is to give them some direction. Forget ICBM’s, EMP’s and neutron bombs; what better way to take down your enemy than to have its own people dismantle their own economy, the greatest engine for prosperity and wealth creation ever conceived, than by convincing them that their way of life is not only killing them but killing the planet?! And this is at the heart of what is known as the De-growth Movement.
I first heard of the De-growth Movement a week or so ago on Mark Levin’s program. He devoted a considerable portion of his program actually reading from their manifesto. Aside from the typical platitudes, puerile pronouncements and completely discredited “solutions” to non-existent problems, eventually you get to the heart of it all: capitalism and consumerism will be the death of the planet and the only solution? COMMUNISM.
“Le ‘bonk-bonk’ sur la tête pour tu, mauvais enfant!”
One of the leaders of this movement is Serge Latouche (rhymes with…), a Parisian professor of economics who:
…denounces economism, utilitarianism in social sciences, consumer society and the notion of sustainable development. He particularly criticizes the notions of economic efficiency and economic rationalism. He is one of the thinkers and most renowned partisans of the degrowth theory.
Did you see that? It’s not even about sustainability. It’s about radically turning back the clock on every advancement of the human condition for the past 200 or more years. Another leading light of this movement is a woman named Naomi Klein, whom Levin described accurately as “an influential radical climate activist, a fanatical anti-Capitalist, and the daughter of Communists – all accurate.” During a recent interview, Klein stated:
“Capitalism increasingly is a discredited system because it is seen as a system that values greed above all else. There is a benefit to climate discussion to name a system that lots of people already have problems with for other reasons. I don’t know why it’s so important to save Capitalism, a pretty battered brand. Just focusing on climate isn’t getting us anywhere either. Many, many more people recognize the need to change our economy but if climate can be our lens to catalyze the economic transformation that so many people need, for others’ even more pressing reasons, that may be a winning combination. This economic system is failing the vast majority of people. Capitalism is waging war on the planet’s life support system.”
Naomi Klein and a future disciple
So, it’s not even stealth Communism anymore. It’s in your face. And with the popularity of fruitcakes like Bernie Sanders coupled with the indoctrination of our youth 24/7 on campus and in entertainment, insanity like this will have a very receptive audience. If that wasn’t bad enough, Ms. Klein is now an advisor to Pope Francis on climate issues where, considering the Pope’s sketchy background and recent statements about capitalism, she is sure to find a receptive ear.
None of these schemes are remotely possible without ultimately resorting to the use of force. At first it will be onerous laws and regulations, whether “legally” passed by a rubber stamp Congress or by executive fiat through one of the two most odious bureaucracies in DC, the EPA (the other of course being the IRS). And this agenda is in perfect alignment with President Obama’s mission to cut America down to size, if not destroy it, the free market and individual liberty that are at the core of the nation. But this time, the agents of totalitarianism will not present themselves as strident militants, sporting berets, raised fists and shouting slogans. They will come at you with a cute little snail with a smiling face, appealing to your conscience to do the right thing… for the children.
You’ve got to break a LOT of eggs to make the omelette that these lunatics want.
And they’re perfectly fine with that.
My first question to Klein and Latouche would be simple enough: do THEY own cars, take planes, use computers, have big-screen teevees, a/c and power-operated kitchen utensils, and do they buy consumer goods? If so, they are, simply, frauds, and should be told to go away and come back when their lifestyles match their rhetoric.
The simple truth, at least in my experience, is that damn near every proponent of anti-consumerism, every Defender of the Planet and every advocate for a Classless Society is unwilling to make any personal sacrifices. Every Communist I’ve met wants to be a commissar, too, sitting in an air-conditioned office giving orders to the tractor drivers.
I hope someone can figure out a way to make the pious hypocrisy of the “activists” apparent to the civilians. It’s hard to take seriously someone you’re laughing — or sneering — at.
Well, they both are wearing clothes and eyeglasses that I’ll go out on a limb and declare were not handmade by them.
Dude, this is spooky. I was going to make that exact statement!
“It’s about radically turning back the clock on every advancement of the human condition for the past 200 or more years”
They should join with radical Islam. Hilarity ensues.
Andrew McCarthy is way ahead of you:
“The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America”
Ben Wiker makes a similar point in passing in “Worshipping the state.”
I wish he had expounded on it, but the book was admittedly about other things (and worth a read.)
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