Stockholm Shocker
British government documents released in January revealed the existence
of a secret campaign to sabotage the 1972 Stockholm Conference, the
world’s first global environmental summit. According to the New
Scientist, “the Brussels Group” (representing the interests of Britain,
Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the US) was
created a year before the conference to defeat any attempts to
establish international environmental standards. “Universal
guidelines… could cause moral pressure for compliance with
philosophies of doubtful validity or benefit,” the document stated. The
Brussels Group privately complained that a “new and expensive
international organization must be avoided” and even a “small,
effective central coordinating mechanism” would be unwelcome. The
Brussels Group also conspired to defeat any regulation on the sonic
booms produced by France’s controversial Concorde supersonic jet.
One Feld Swoop Shortly after a jury in San Jose, California
acquitted a Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey animal trainer on
charges of animal cruelty, Ringling Chair Kenneth Feld [www.ringling.com] purchased a full-page ad in the New York Times accusing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) of killing
65 percent of the animals it claimed to have saved. Feld demanded to
know how much money PETA spent supporting “extreme groups such as the
Animal Liberation Front (listed as a terrorist organization by the
FBI).” As for releasing endangered species back into the wild, Feld
declared, forget it: Wild nature “no longer exists. People need to know
the truth. It’s disingenuous at best to suggest that endangered animals
should be put back in the wild…. They are dying out there.” Feld’s
solution: Move elephants and other endangered animals into protective
custody, under the perpetual care of zoo and circus employees.
Greenscam Stephen S. Boynton ushered in the new year with a
speech that seemed to possess a familiar environmental stance. “Our
human population is expanding. Our land and water masses are not,” he
declared. But within moments, Boynton was assailing “environmental and
animal rights advocacy groups rampaging about the globe destroying
field tests of… [genetically modified] crops” and using “the tactics
of strong-arm extortionists and thugs against retailers such as Trader
Joe’s.”
Boynton, who is identified as the President of the International
Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources (a name
suspiciously close to the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature), lambasted so-called environmentalists” who use “tortuous
logic” to criticize “agricultural and medical biotech research,
consumption of meat or the use of fur, private firearms ownership,
capitalism… the demise of economic globalization, etc.” According to
Boynton, these green-minded zealots push “harsh ideologies calling for
strict vegetarian (vegan) life styles” and condemn “modern science’s
attempts to feed, clothe, shelter and heal an ever more
population-strained world.”
Why do these enviros take their responsibility for nature “too
seriously”? According to Boynton, “evidence exists that many within
their ranks thrive on the power, wealth and popularity that comes with
the celebrity of posturing as the Earth’s and its animals’ messiah.”
And who is Stephen Boynton? In his speech, he describes himself as
“an advocate for the wise and sustainable use of Nature’s resources.”
The phrase “Wise Use” is the tip-off. The EcoMole has dug up the fact
that Boynton was one of the two operatives who ran the American Spectator’s “Arkansas Project” (which resorted to financial and sexual innuendo in
a failed attempt to drive President Bill Clinton from office). The
$2.4-million Arkansas Project was funded by billionaire conservative
Richard Mellon Scaife.
Spooks in the MediaThe Los Angeles Times reports that the
CIA is running an overt propaganda war on America’s movie and TV
screens. When Tom Cruise starred in Top Gun, Navy recruitment figures
went off the scale. Former CIA operative Chase Brandon (described by
the Times as the CIA’s “first official liaison with Hollywood”)
explains that it took the agency “a long time to follow what the FBI
and the Pentagon have done and engage filmmakers and support projects
that portray us in the light we want to be seen in.” Brandon’s efforts
resulted in no less than the debut of three primetime TV shows - The Agency (CBS), Alias (ABC) and 24 (Fox). Brandon also lent a hand on two forthcoming movies - Sum of All Fears (with Ben Affleck as CIA agent Jack Ryan) and Bad Company (a spy-comedy pairing Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock). Brandon refused to assist the producers of Spy Game because “it showed our senior management in an insensitive light.”
Thanks to Brandon’s efforts, today’s TV generation was treated to an
opening episode of The Agency that showed the benevolent CIA
foiling a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro. (Older
viewers may recall that the CIA actually undertook many attempts to
murder Castro.)
Haunted House When George “Read My Lips” Bush became president,
it marked the first time that a former member of the Central
Intelligence Agency had (knowingly) risen to elective office. That has
changed. The House of Representatives now includes two former CIA
operatives, Rob Simmons (R-CT) and House Intelligence Committee Chair
Porter Goss (R-FL). Spy bonds between ex-spooks are so strong, the
Associated Press reports, that Goss permits Simmons to participate in
classified briefings “even though he’s not a member of the committee.”
Infirmative Action? After an investigation revealed that
hundreds of contractors were still being awarded federal contracts
despite convictions for defrauding the government, President Clinton
signed an order that banned corporate felons from receiving federal
contracts. In January, the Bush administration swept that rule aside,
reopening the federal trough to companies that had broken
environmental, labor, tax and other US laws.
Mole Nip The Mole is morose after learning that Lord Peter
Melchert - the executive director of Greenpeace UK who was busted in
2001 for uprooting a field of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM)
crops - has left Greenpeace for a job with the PR firm
Burston-Marsteller, whose clients include Monsanto, Exxon and Union
Carbide. Burston-Marseller says that Melchert will provide advice on
how to handle environmental protests over GM foods, toxic waste and
child labor. Melchert insists: “I am not going to change my stance. GM
food is a technology that has no future.”
Mole Nip To Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, who pressured
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to authorize construction of a
liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal at Cove Point on Chesapeake Bay.
The storage site sits only three miles from the Calvert Cliffs nuclear
power station. Senator Barbara Mikulski had raised concerns that
terrorists could strike the LNG facility in hopes of disrupting the
nuclear power station. LNG, stored at minus 259 F, has an enormous
destructive potential.
Mole Nip To Madonna, who has taken to shooting birds near her
British countryside home. “I eat the birds,” Madonna explains. “You
have more of a respect for the things you eat when you go through…
the process of killing them.”
Journal staff contribution. Can be reprinted for non-profit purposes. Please credit and notify Earth Island Journal.
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