Contumelious liberal columnist Joel Connelly reports that the Anti-Defamation League has condemned the BIAW for a newsletter article that compared environmentalists to Nazis.
The BIAW article, which Connelly doesn't link to, is here on p. 8. Reasonable people can debate whether the BIAW's comparison of today's environmentalists to the environmentalist strain of the Nazi movement was offensive, rhetorically effective or historically accurate (and Postman went to town on this). But it's hypocritical for Connelly to charge that
Linking greens to Nazis has become a frequent tactic on hate-talk radio, and among global warming deniers.In multiple columns, Connelly has himself labelled anybody who presents reasoned scientific arguments against global-warmist political orthodoxy as "mak[ing] more excuses than Holocaust deniers", "a 21st century equivalent of Holocaust denial" and even "a greater danger than the lingering industry that denies the Holocaust".
If the ADL condemns the BIAW, it should also condemn Connelly.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 21, 2008 10:00 AM | Email ThisPardon my language ... but suck on it.
Posted by: jimg on June 21, 2008 10:15 AMEnvironmentalists use populism to gain greater control by the state over the public. They are willing to use the the "BIG LIE" or hyperbole to achieve their ends.
The difference lies only in what populist cause is used and which "Big Lie" or hyperbole they exploit. The mechanism is the same. They use the same playbook.
We have much evidence of fascists resorting to wholesale butchery to achieve their ends. The environmentalists have no such record - so far (biofuels?).
Posted by: deadwood on June 21, 2008 10:22 AMPretty good educational article, lots of facts, should be easy to fact check. However, just because a Nazi did it doesn't mean it was wrong.
I don't like the statement that links to Nazis just trivialize what happened in WWII. There are a lot of links to Nazis and Hitler that are very relavant today.
The modern American eugenics movement started as a compassionate yet racist view of eliminating negros and had a lot of direct contact with Nazi Germany. They have done exactly what they set out to do, Blacks get far more abortions than other races, they are decreasing as a percentage of the population. It is easy to draw a direct line from Nazis to the Abortionists today with no logical leaps.
On the positive side our Interstate Highway system, has it's roots in Nazi Germany, so does our rocket program.
Finally, the Nazis were socialists, so it is not surprising to see fellow socialists coming up with similar ideas albeit independently.
A few years back I realized the green movement is on a course to do nothing less but exterminate billions of humans after all of "the solutions" do not work. Of course it will be to save the planet! What a great religion they have! Praise Sustainability, Praise Organic! Praise Bikes, Praise Abortion, Praise Gray Water! Glory to you oh neighbor that does as I say as my faith is to fear and to fear is good and to act in fear is divine!
Without wisdom the people will perish and the false wisdom of global warming is a open door to a great purge of billions.
So if the ADL and JC don't like the criticism of their pastors and the message why care? If the pastors and the message are true then so what others say right ADL and JC??
Got that, BIAW?
Posted by: Michele on June 21, 2008 12:53 PMI have been offended by that simile from the very beginning. It's offensive for Holocaust victims to be used and their legacy manipulated by Gore and Company. It's repulsive to have what is a scientific issue, open for debate, to have free speech squelched by using a Godwin on anyone who dares to open his mouth.
Posted by: John Bailo on June 21, 2008 03:04 PM Science has nothing to do with this anymore.
It's all about private property.
Socialism.
Smug liberals like Connelly know this is going on all over the country in our public schools and elsewhere, starting as early as daycare.
I wouldn't go so far as to call the environmental leftists that control the education of our children Nazis. Surely however there must be an appropriate name for them.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on June 21, 2008 04:55 PMConnelly is the self-appointed arbiter of all things good vs. evil, and green vs. brown. He's full of the latter up to his eyebrows, but hey, he gets away with it because he's always been that way.
Maybe he'll quit his job and just go work for Gregoire?
Posted by: NorthernLights on June 21, 2008 07:55 PMhttp://soundpolitics.com/archives/003189.html
Posted by: Richard Pope on June 21, 2008 10:36 PMMark Musser (on the page 8 mentioned BIAW newsletter) made an apt comparison between the Nazi's anti-industrial fervor and those of today's environmentalists.
This excerpt from the Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff seems chillingly familiar:
".... Nazi literature heaps abuse on wealth, cities, machinery and Germany's preoccupation, in Hitler's words, with "an industrialization as boundless as it was harmful." The credo of modern society, writes the Nazi Werner Sombart in a bitter denounciation, is: "More motors, more currency, more goods! More rapid production, more rapid travel, livelier enjoyment! Prosperity! progress! Without end, without end!" The antonym of such progress is indicated by the second part of the Nazi slogan: "Blood and Soil." "Soil" in this context means the life of the humble, unthinking peasant, or of the state-run, racially pure agricultural communes, as against the life of the "cunning," "mongrelized" city dweller. It means the selfless martial discipline of Germany's Middle Ages, as against the modern desire for economic comfort and well being. It means the mystical merging with primitive nature, as against an atmosphere of insatiable, profit-seeking production and "cold," calculating mechanization....."
Posted by: Bill K. on June 21, 2008 10:45 PMhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange
Posted by: Scott on June 23, 2008 09:36 PM