🚀 go-pugleaf

(Harold) wrote:
> When you have a question like this, I tell you what you do.  Turn on
> the old reader (Netscape is nice, and cheap), hook up to, say, Yahoo.
> Then type Reason Public Policy Institute, hit the search key with the
> mouse there, then just sit and wait.  Real soon, up pops a message
> which states:

Now however, as you might expect from the most creative economy the
world has ever known, a new industry has emerged to turn a profit from
all this bad news.  You could call it the Good News industry.

Young writers are pumping out magazine articles and fat books claiming
that these problems have all been dreamed up by hungry environmentalists
who can't see beyond their next direct-mail funding appeal.

Indeed, the main message of the Good News industry is that none of these
problems are very serious, if they exist at all. According to this
industry's pundits, all these problems have been exaggerated, or even
manufactured out of whole cloth, by out-of-work environmentalists
desperate for a handout.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute,
The Cato Institute,
The Hudson Institute,
The Heritage Foundation,
The American Enterprise Institute,
The Reason Foundation,
The American Freedom Coalition,
And the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy

(among others) now have scholar-in-residence programs staffed mainly by
former government officials.  These former bureaucrats spend their days
arguing that all is well with the world and that things could get even
better --indeed, a shining path of infinite progress would unfold before
our very eyes --if we would only come to our senses and get government
off the backs of corporations.

The unspoken belief that all government is harmful and that
corporations are a boundless good --a kind of corporate
libertarianism --is the thread that weaves all these groups and
writers together. Naturally, this Good News industry is
generously supported by donations from the likes of DuPont,
Chevron, Mobil, Monsanto, the Chemical Manufacturers Association,
General Electric, General Dynamics, Philip Morris, Chemical Bank,
Texaco, Westinghouse, the Western Coal Council, and the Reverend
Sun Myung Moon, among many others, because it serves their
interests perfectly, creating just enough doubt to deflect
discussion of the need for real reforms.

The Good News industry wasn't created by the NEW YORK TIMES.  The
TIMES merely made it respectable and lent it a certain cachet.
The industry (at least its current surge) has its roots in the
books of Dixie Lee Ray, former head of the Atomic Energy
Commission, who wrote TRASHING THE PLANET in 1990 and
ENVIRONMENTAL OVERKILL in 1993, the same year Elizabeth Whelan
published TOXIC TERROR: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE CANCER SCARE and
Michael Fumento published SCIENCE UNDER SIEGE.  In those early
days the industry had a definite crackpot tinge to it.  The dust
jackets of Dixie Lee Ray's books carried glowing endorsements
from Rush Limbaugh, Edward Teller (inventor of the hoaxey "star
wars" missile defense system), and Margaret Maxey, who seems to
have coined the phrase, "environmental terrorism."

Other extremist right anti-environmental organizations

THE ABUNDANT WILDLIFE SOCIETY       - Cattle
ALLIANCE FOR AMERICA                - Timber/chemical/mining
ALLIANCE FOR RESPONSIBLE CFC POLICY - CFC makers
AMERICAN FREEDOM COALITION          - Unification Church
AIM                                 - Reed Irvine - Timber/chemical
CATO INSTITUTE                      - Libertarian Timber/chemical
CITIZENS FOR THF ENVIRONMENT        - Timber/chemical
CHRISTlAN COALITION                 - Pat Robertson
COMMITTEE FOR CONSTRUCTIVE TOMORROW - Nuclear
CONSUMER ALERT                      - Timber/chemical/mining front group
ENVIRONMENTAL
CONSERVATION ORG.                   - Land developers
FRIENDS OF THE RIVERS               - Off road vehicles
EVERGREEN FOUNDATION                - Champion Paper
GLOBAL CLIMATE COALITION            - Myth of Global warming
HERITAGE FOUNDATION                 - Coors, chemical, GM, GE
INFORMATION COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENT  - Mining
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE               - Land developers
KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL              - Packaging
LYNDON LAROUCHE                     - Rabid Anti-environmentalism
NATIONAL WETLANDS COALITION         - Land developers
PEOPLE FOR THE WEST!                - Mining/cattle
PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST                - Rabid Animal Rights haters
THE REASON FOUNDATION               - Libertarian anti-environmental
SAHARA CLUB                         - Off road vehicles
SEA LION DEFENSE FUND               - Alaskan fisheries
AMERICAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION        - Birch?




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