July 25th 2008
An Awful Idea For Renaming A Perfectly Good Mountain
N
orth Palisade Peak in the Sierra’s near Yosemite is just a pile of rocks with no voice other than the whistling winds, so all but the Gaeians believe it doesn’t have a voice in the current debate over its name.
Radical environmentalists are proposing that North Palisade Peak be renamed Brower Palisade after one of the 20th Century’s most successful deep green Greenies, David Brower … and of course California’s two Senators, Babs Boxer and DiFi, are on board with the idea. Here’s Babs, quoted in the Sacramento Bee:
“Naming the North Palisade Peak after David Brower is a fitting tribute to a man who loved the High Sierra and all of America’s wilderness.”
And DiFi:
“David Brower was a true champion for the environment, [so renaming the peak] “will be a lasting reminder of his leadership and lasting contributions to the environmental community.”
Yeah, sure. Maybe we should just name it Che Palisade, since Brower was every bit the radical Che was. For your consideration, here’s part of his bio on Activist Cash:
Brower became the first executive director of the Sierra Club in 1952 and held that post for nearly two decades. Along the way he dramatically increased the Club’s membership, but also lost its tax-exempt status for excessive political lobbying. His autocratic style and financial mismanagement led to his ouster in 1969 — the same year in which he founded the League of Conservation Voters and Friends of the Earth. He led Friends of the Earth for ten years, until the group’s board showed him the door. In 1982, Brower founded the Earth Island Institute.
Brower described the increasingly radical arch of his professional career to E magazine:
“The Sierra Club made the Nature Conservancy look reasonable. I founded Friends of the Earth to make the Sierra Club look reasonable. Then I founded Earth Island Institute to make Friends of the Earth look reasonable. Earth First! now makes us look reasonable. We’re still waiting for someone else to come along and make Earth First! look reasonable.”
When you believe that “all technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent,” as Brower does, it makes perfect sense to strive for an ever-shifting landscape of what positions are “reasonable.”
According to the left-leaning “CounterPunch” online journal: “The fiery stance of today’s green militants owes everything to Brower.” Brower certainly didn’t shy away from extremist imagery. He told the Christian Science Monitor: “I’d like to declare open season on developers. Not kill them, just tranquilize them.” That’s a line Brower regularly repeated in his lectures.
Given that the developers he wanted to kill tranquilize built just about every home we Californians live in – and did a pretty good job of it, based on how many people insist on living here – is this really the kind of guy our senators should be lobbying on behalf of? And given that technology – aerospace, computers, biotech – fires the state’s economy, should Babs and DiFi maybe rethink their knee-jerk bubbly enthusiasm for this idea?
Not convinced? Try these Brower quotes on for size:
“While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind.”
And:
“Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.”
How can such views be tolerated, let alone honored, in our oh-so-tolerant world? Of course, it’s because Brower seethes the “right” kind of intolerance, the kind we are supposed to tolerate while calling for a Grand Inquisition against anyone who doesn’t tow the PC Greenie/Warmie line.
The idea is outrageous. Let Babs and DiFi know you think so. Here’s Babs’ email form, and DiFi’s.
Posted in Environmentalism, Greenies | 2 Comments » | |
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July 30th, 2008 at 11:53 am
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
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