From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: save the earth - ridiculous!
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 13:09:18 GMT

In article <1678600119@igc.apc.org> Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org> writes:
}
}> However, there is a definite historical thread between Hegel, Haeckel, and
}> the Nazis.  Haeckel, originator of the term "ecology," advocated totalitarian-
}> sim as leader of the Monist league.
} 
}Greens are not totalitarian.  Our priority is decentralism which is the
}opposite of totalitarianism.

Not necessarily.  It depends on how decentralism is construed.  Totalitarian-
ism is separate from dictatorship.  It refers to the scope of the State,
not to the extent of decision-making franchises such as voting.  The
totalitarian view is that nothing is beyond the scope of the State.

What do Greens consider beyond the pale for State intervention?

}> }The Greens are for Non-Violence, the Nazis, well....
}> 
}> When have the Greens opposed the violent tactics of Earth First!, Sea
}> Shepherd, Greenpeace, etc.?
} 
}These tactics were proposed to be included in The Green Program as
}acceptable methods.  However, my local unanimously rejected them, and
}they were also rejected by the National Greens Congress which means
}that more than 75% of nationally affiliated Greens also rejected them.

Good, because Mindy Lorenz was ambiguous about this when campaigning for
Congress.

}> }The Greens are for Social Justice, the Nazis, well....
}> 
}> The National Socialist German Worker's Party did much to eliminate the
}> social injustices of the class system left over from feudalism in Germany,
}> which is one of the reasons they were so popular with the poor there.
} 
}Unless you happened to be Jewish, Gypsie, Communist, homosexual, among
}others or were willing to advocate their rights.

True.  My point was that the Nazis thought they supported social justice,
just as Greens think they do.  The Nazis also persecuted allegedly deviant
minorities with terms hauntingly similar to Green allegations about
industrialists.

}> }The Greens are for Grassroots Democracy, the Nazis, well ....
}> 
}> Hitler was democratically elected, and ruled within the bounds of the Weimar
}> Constitution.
} 
}I do not think that Greens in the US would consider the provisions of the
}Weimar constitution democratic.

I should hope so, but Max Weber thought it was: he designed it.

Please see elsewhere in this newsgroup
}where I explain grassroots, consensus oriented democracy.

There's no need to get condescending.

In any case,
}one of Hitler's first orders of business was to dismantel the Weimar
}Republic.

False.  He merely invoked the power vested in him in Article 48 of the
Weimar constitution - perhaps the biggest mistake of Webers, because it
gave Hitler unlimited executive power.

}> }While The Greens are for ecological wisdom, the Nazis a for the worst
}> }kind of "NIMBYism" immaginable:  Kill the foreigners if you can't
}> }throw them out.
} 
}> They believed that their race was polluted to the point that it would die out
}> unless drastic measures were taken.  Uncannily similar to the Green belief
}> that the planet is polluted to the point that it will die off unless drastic
}> measures are taken.
} 
}Please explain what drastic measures you think Greens are promoting.

In a word, deindustrialization.  The romanticization of first-wave society
that I've observed on this newsgroup alone leads me to suspect that such
is the goal of at least some Greens.

Population control seems popular with Greens.  This is quite drastic.  Some
of the "clean air" legislation I have trouble talking Greens out of is
drastic.  Banning vivisection, which I've argued with Greens about, is
drastic.  Banning ranching of endangered species is, too, and I've read
Green support for it.

I may be construing Green more broadly than merely the Green party, but I
have had a copy of the Green party platform, and found plenty of drastic
measures included.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire