8-4-5

Do you trust the authorities to tell you the authorised version –or tell you what’s good for you? Whom do you believe when it comes to such issues as ‘jobs versus the environment’, the “economy versus social good”, “war versus loss of the nation” – and other, similar rhetorical beat-ups and false dichotomies?

            When people protest to save the environment, money makers and corporate interests paint them as dupes, or as paid employees of foreign powers or hidden interests. But it’s obvious to anyone who the vested interests are in this debate; the corporations have a vested interest in destroying as much of the environment as quickly (efficiently, economically) as possible. The protesters have a vested interest in preserving their ecosystem – and their lives and those of their grandchildren.

            When people stand up to save forests, rivers and ecosystems, many farmers, loggers, truck drivers and miners – the overworked and undereducated – actually believe it when they’re told the demonstrators have an agenda of ending their industries entirely – and that they’re being paid to protest. In fact, the protesters end up with lifelong criminal records and have to pay all fines themselves, as individuals. Such unselfish behaviour is incomprehensible and unbelievable to people who willingly destroy the planet for money. They use the word ‘watermelons’ to describe environmentalists – ‘green on the outside, pink on the inside’. How timeworn.

            The farmers, fishers, miners and loggers who work illegally to make ends meet occasionally do wind up ahead, but most poor loggers and mill-workers, like many farmers and fishers, actually end up losing money instead of making it – even exploiting the resources of soil, wood and minerals which governments allow them to take for nothing, in practice. When subsidies and costs are factored in, countries actually pay corporations to take their resources – even ‘developed’ nations get less back from royalties for their resources than they pay out to exploiters. Naturally, politicians often do profit privately at their nations’ expense, however. If you need examples of corrupt leaders, open your eyes – see if their lips are moving.

            Smaller-scale farmers (and other resource exploiters) do less damage than larger agro-businesses and mass-mechanised industries and often poison themselves and the public a little less. But you still can’t trust them to tell you the truth, even in the event they understand the term. It’s in their short-term interests to destroy rivers and ecosystems with logging, cattle and mining and most of the damage is felt downstream from their operations anyway. Someone else will clean up their mess.

            Rich businesses and acreage-rich landholders have vested interests in having no one know what they’re doing. Poor protesters often don’t even have vests – but they do have an enlightened self-interest.

            So who do you believe – the TV and newspapers run by planet-destroying industrialists, governments and others who profit from the destruction? Or those who hope to save the planet for their grandchildren – and for its own sake?

            In peacetime you have an easy choice - which side are you on? In wartime there’s no truth, no justice, no ‘American Way’, and protesters are jailed or shot when they try to stop the warmakers taking trees, oil, water - and nations - away from them.

            ‘Better active today than radioactive tomorrow’.

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