Eco-Optimisim

[Ken Hanly]

I wonder if the influence of relativist ideas and work such as that of
Foucault with its emphasis upon power relationships is not partly
responsible. It is power not truth that is important. Empower people. Also
activists are interested in changing the world rather than worrying about
the "truth" of everything they say. Language is used  instrumentally. Those
opposed to GM seeds for example seem much more sophisticated in their
propoganda than Monsanto. This is not to say there are not risks with GM
seeds. There are many. However, the complexity of the issue is consistently
ignored in favor of blanket condemnations. An otherwise intelligent leftist
I know claimed to be against all biotechology. This is a fellow who is
widely published and has some excellent analysi. I just cringe when I hear
statements like that. I cant understand how it is possible to be so careless
and just plain stupid.
Yeah. Like we are going back to all animal insulin. Stop using microbes to
do oil cleanups. Hell. No more brewing...
Recently pro-GM websites have expanded but still Google searches would turn
up more anti-gm websites I imagine. Michael Pugliese can check this out.
Anyway I am wandeirng. I guess Marx's injunction that the point is not to
understand the world but to change it, is being taken without the corrollary
that you had better understand it before you change it or you wont be able
to change it or if you do the result may not be at all what you thought.

        If grain prices get much worse and input prices continue to rise
there will be a lot more land turned into pasture and woodlot around here
Already I see several sections down the road gone back to the bison with
woodlots and pasture. A lot of land was broken in the early days that ought
not to have been. I imagine in the former soviet union this phenomenon will
be evident on a great scale. At one time there were a great many new areas
opened for agriculture that were not really suited for it. The same is true
in parts of the prairies. There are many areas around here that have school
markers, abandoned homsesteads etc. grown over with woodlots with some
pasturing.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2001 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: Eco-Optimisim


> Gar Lipow:
> > ...
> > For comparison I can think of a lot of occasions when feminists have
> > gotten their facts wrong. (For example male violence against women does
> > not peak during the Superbowl.)  And it is not that uncommon for
> > individual feminists to be contemptuous of working class men. In spite
> > of this would anyone fail to recognize that the an attack on the
> > feminist movement as either counterfactual or anti-worker is
> > fundamentally wrong.
> > ...
>
> I think the question is not the validity of environmentalism
> or feminism or their application to the poor or the working
> class, but whether lying is a good strategy for advancing the
> causes, and if not, why it was employed.  I speculate that it
> is a bourgeois habit, which can be observed in their way of
> dealing with the government and the media.  Unfortunately, I
> don't have the resources to track down the geneaology of
> each fiction, so my speculation remains a mere speculation.
>