Lorna Salzman, environmental writer and all-around shameless agitator, Suffolk County Green Party congressional candidate in 2002 and in 2004 and seeker of the U. S. Green Party presidential nomination, making no sense that I can see:
What has been smudged over here is the difficulty of replacing the present model of greed, accumulation and exploitation (of resources, markets, and people) with a model in which people readily accept, without coercion, a reduction in consumption, profits and economic expansion. . . . which most environmentalists, ecologists and bioregionalists have been promoting since Earth Day 1970, without success . . .
Without success? Maybe people DO NOT readily accept. Whoda thunk?
Foster (and Hedges) [that would be the University of Oregon Sociology Professor John Bellamy Foster and popular journalist Chris Hedges] presents, regrettably, the notion that ONLY socialism can be the vehicle for achieving this model. . . .
. . . The height of Foster’s blind fealty to an absurd ideology is when he says that only socialism can bring together the ecological awareness with a class consciousness. Again, this notion that a class consciousness must be the foundation for a revolution hits us like a wet dirty mop. Will we never be rid of this antiquated, moth-eaten shroud with the image of 19th century Marx, a shroud that is as credible as the Shroud of Turin?
I find it remarkable but depressing that an informed academic like Foster and a world-travelling journalist like Hedges have not been able in this day and age to entertain even a shred of doubt about socialism. They remain devout worshippers at this shrine, no less deluded than the worshippers at churches, mosques and synagogues who unquestioningly accept the faith and doctrines of their ancestors. The secular faith of socialism seems as unshakeable as organized religion. But it deserves no more public credulity.
Who is left to agree? It was the Shroud of Turin that caught my attention. It was the insanity of the essay that made me want to make you, the reader, suffer along. I have friends that tell me that environmentalism run amok is like a religion. You know, they might be right. Fundamentalism of another sort, as well.
Suffer more: WriteNow: Snickersnee: Marx’s Ecology: An Oxymoron
We have made progress. Recycling and river cleanup are good examples. We have a long way to go and we won’t get there by ridiculing the majority of American people who believe in God.