At 3:51 AM 1/13/96, Peter Colley / Cathie Sherrington wrote: >Green issues are now moving back up the political agenda in Australia but >they are a volatile matter rather than one which achieves consistently high >or growing support. This may be because Greens haven't successfully articulated a vision of a future without hair shirts. You cannot win too many friends politically by telling people they overconsume, if these people are scrambling to make the rent. Too many Greens either openly profess or covertly emit signals of deep Malthusianism, and a preference for nature over people. The anti-enviro Wise Use movement in the US is very large, and by the admission of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (the funders' cartel), truly a grass-roots movement. One of Wise Use's selling points is the palpable elitism and antihumanism of mainstream and even some "radical" Greenery in the US, be it the Rockefeller Bros. or Dave Foreman. I'm certainly not saying that the earth can support current American consumption patterns forever; certainly it can't. Production and consumption must be radically changed if we are to avoid snuffing ourselves, and they can't be changed without the socialization of ownership. But for the green agenda to have more than volatile political support, it has to explain better how less can be more. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>
