Earth Day – part of cultural Marxism
By Terry A. Hurlbut
Earth Day is here, yet again, and for the fifty-fifth time. As CNAV did two years ago, we will review the history of Earth Day and discuss what it really means. In fact, Earth Day represents yet another variant of critical theory, which today has become a core principle of Marxism.
When and how did Earth Day begin?
The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970. Most people alive today cannot appreciate the real pollution concerns that existed then. Factories belched smoke, and their owners spared barely a thought for that smoke as unpleasant at best, poisonous at worst. Other factories dumped toxic sludge into rivers. Some of us remember the Public Service Announcement campaigns of the period, including:
• The Native American paddling down a polluted river, then walking beside a highway. An uncaring car passenger throws litter literally at his feet, and he looks up, shedding a tear. Or how about:
• The boy hiking beside a river – and past industries dumping sludge and noxious brews into it.
Or how about Comedian Pat Paulsen’s spots? He made at least two:
• He’s in a junkyard, catching his foot on a discarded pipe, and eventually taking out a key chain and twirling it. “I could have sworn I parked my car around here someplace!” he says. Or:
• He’s standing in an intersection, talking about noise pollution. Then the noises start drowning him out, so he talks ever louder to talk over the noise. Suddenly the noise stops, and chirping birds replace it. “What was that?” he asks.
To this day, Earth Day has its own advocacy group, which keeps the official history of the event. That history mentions certain things ordinary people did without the slightest thought. Like using gasoline containing tetraethyllead, and driving cars that consumed a prodigious amount of fuel per mile.
About Ira Einhorn
One name this organization does not mention, is that of Ira Einhorn – the Unicorn Killer. That’s because he likely “conned” others into believing he was the founder of the movement. He even stood on a stage, proclaiming himself to be the founder, so that someone took his picture. But before the decade was out, he killed someone. A jury would, decades later, find him guilty of killing his girlfriend and trying to turn her into compost. Apparently a landlord broke into his apartment to clear the bad smell, and found the body. Ira Einhorn went to prison for that act in 2002, and died shortly before Earth Day 2019. Which goes to show that “murder will out.”
https://twitter.com/PhillyNewsGuy/status/1246173655450693632
A made-for-TV movie chronicled Ira Einhorn, his “unicorn” moniker, and how he misrepresented himself as the chief organizer of the first Earth Day. At least the official keepers of the history say that, and CNAV has no good reason to believe they’re lying.
But Ira Einhorn’s case illustrates one other thing: how easy it is to con the legacy media with a message they want to hear. Time Magazine admits that Ira Einhorn fooled them and many others into believing he planned the Philadelphia Earth Day event. According to one witness:
He was not even a member of the committee of 33 men and women who did [organize the event]. The photo you ran was taken during a one-hour period when Einhorn literally occupied the podium, refusing to get off the stage and delaying Senator Edmund Muskie’s keynote speech. It was an unsuccessful attempt — at least at that time — to seize 15 minutes of fame. Now a notorious murder, flight, trial in absentia and foreign capture are giving Einhorn the national media attention he so desperately craved.
It also gave Earth Day bad publicity, which it probably didn’t deserve – on this account. The real significance of Earth Day is as a reflection of the environmental movement as a whole.
The Marxist origins of Earth Day
Cultural Marxism relies heavily on critical theory – the imperative to criticize “dominant,” therefore “oppressive,” peoples and activities. Recall the essences of critical theory, as they apply to race, sex, and the Alphabet Soup movement. Racist ≡ white, sexist ≡ male, homophobic ≡ heterosexual, and transphobic ≡ cis-gendered – or in general terms, oppressive ≡ normal. (The mathematical operator ≡ means “is identical to.”)
Earth Day comes with this essential message: Polluter ≡ captain of industry. And: Accessory to pollution ≡ end-user of industrial products. Any human activity (except maybe for speech) more sophisticated than the behavior and habits of a wild animal, is ipso facto a polluting activity, or one that enables pollution.
In a seminal speech last year to the European Parliament, Dr. James Lindsay set forth the principles of “Woke.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVZPYQS1dFA
He discussed “woke” in terms of equity, the new substitute for equality of opportunity. In this context he discussed classical economic Marxism (“Communism”), radical feminism, and critical race, “queer,” and post-colonial theories. But he left out what CNAV calls critical environmental theory, which is what Earth Day is all about. If all other critical theories require a religion of the socialization of humankind, then critical environmental theory requires the religion of worship of the Earth. The first time anyone referred to “Mother Nature,” anti-Marxists should have taken a clue. They didn’t, and that’s why we are at our present pass.
From redress of legitimate wrongs, to invention of wrongs
The best way to play grievance politics starts with identifying legitimate wrongs. All critical theory starts with such a wrong. Race-based slavery, abject (and unloving) subjugation of women, and simple bullying are the classic legitimate wrongs that excuse critical race theory, radical feminism, and Alphabet Soup primacy, respectively. And the headlong rush to industrialization, lacking consideration for the side effects of wasteful practices, excuses critical environmental theory.
The Bible tells us that carelessness about the environment is as old as the Exodus. Shortly after the Red Sea crossing, the Israelites came to a certain body of water. Very soon they called it Marah, which means bitter – because they had embittered the waters with their unhygienic camp practices. Moses – following Divine instructions – had his people place logs of “sweet wood” into the water – to depollute it. He then gave them strict guidelines on camp hygiene to avoid a repeat of that episode. (Exodus 15:22-27.)
Thus the Bible teaches environmental stewardship, which derives from the principle of not trashing your own house. (Ecology literally means study of the house.) But critical environmental theory invents outcomes that are not polluting. That’s because its real purpose is not to tell you to take care of your own house. It is to tell you to tear your house down – and not even to have one. In fact, the real goal of critical environmental theory is that you not exist.
The Green New Deal
Earth Day will no doubt highlight the manifestations of critical environmental theory – and its demands, and the Green New Deal. “Anthropogenic climate change” is the latest craze. It starts with bad assumptions and lately has reached an absurd conclusion – the indictment of an entire nation-state.
As Rea Hederman of the Buckeye Institute points out, the United States has led the way in genuine environmental stewardship. That demonstrably includes substituting natural gas for coal. Natural gas consists of simple molecules that yield carbon dioxide and water vapor when they burn. Contrary to propaganda, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. In fact it is the preferred oxidizing agent for plants, and enriching the atmosphere with it makes plants grow. (The oxygen that plants release comes from water. Plants reduce carbon dioxide to make sugar, starch, and cellulose.) More to the point, natural gas does not produce the particulates or noxious gases that often come from burning coal.
But that doesn’t satisfy the Green New Dealers. They insist that automakers build a class of vehicle that failed its Great American Road Test. Furthermore their unworkable policy prescriptions for farmers and ranchers clearly shows they want to abandon farming and animal husbandry. For that same reason they push “cultured beef” and a diet of engineered sheet mushrooms – and insects.
Four years ago, Michael Moore produced a film, Planet of the Humans, detailing the failures of many environmental “substitute technologies.” The problem is: Moore and producer Jeff Gibbs ended up saying humans should simply die.
Reject the Marxist anti-religion
All these attitudes bespeak a new pseudoreligion – or an anti-religion – whose object of worship is the Earth itself. Earth worship provides an excuse for a regime of engineered scarcity, central planning, and rationing. All this appeals to a twisted desire for control for control’s sake – the essence of Marxism. One could almost believe that Ira Einhorn did found Earth Day after all. The mania for control on the part of many environmentalists, parallels whatever mania ultimately drove Ira Einhorn to kill his girlfriend and try to turn her into compost. If he didn’t actually found Earth Day, then he found its inherent totalitarianism attractive.
Americans – and other freedom-loving peoples – should reject this idea. Sensible principles of stewardship are one thing – but a deliberate preference for scarcity as a means of control, is another. So start with Exodus 15:22-27, and the basic principle it articulates: don’t trash your own house. Bear in mind that this Earth is a gift that one should not abuse, but is not an object of worship. America was once on track to building a sensible environmental policy. We should use this occasion to get back onto that track.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2024/04/22/editorial/talk/earth-day-part-cultural-marxism/
Joshua Crompton’s announcement of Ira Einhorn’s death:
https://twitter.com/PhillyNewsGuy/status/1246173655450693632
James Lindsay speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVZPYQS1dFA
Declarations of Truth X feed:
https://twitter.com/DecTruth
Declarations of Truth Locals Community:
https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/
Conservative News and Views:
https://cnav.news/
Clixnet Media
https://clixnet.com/
Putin distinguishing among Americans
By Terry A. Hurlbut
Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, barred five hundred more Americans from entering his country. Most of the names attracted little notice – scattered Senators and Representatives, and “military industrial complex” wheels. But some of the names are now infamous for words and deeds – either designing and promoting present U.S. policy in the Ukraine theater, or persecuting those opposed to that policy. In fact Putin extended his reach further, to bar those who have persecuted Americans for speaking their minds. Why should he care about what such Americans think? Perhaps because he does not see all Americans as alike. And maybe he sees some of us as the enemies of his enemies.
The latest Putin stop list
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a “stop list” containing five hundred Americans’ names last Friday (May 19).
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1659599446592614403
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1659650134257311758
The Hill was among the first American organs to report this list. According to it, Vladimir Putin barred these five hundred in response to American economic and other sanctions against Russia. But, says the MFA, those names also include many who “spread ‘Russophobic’ attitudes” or worked for outfits that did so. Then the Ministry added this: they list those involved in the “persecution of dissidents” who took part in the January 6 Event.
User “Daniel G” at We Love Trump Report obtained and translated the full list. The names appear in rough Cyrillic alphabetical order – though the Russians seem to have translated English names beginning with J as beginning with Yu or Ya, never as Zh. Thus Nina Jankowicz alphabetizes at the bottom of the list, with the Cyrillic letter Я (Ya).
That list contains several Senators and Representatives – most of them Republican, more’s the pity. It also includes the Attorneys General of California and New York.
Barack Obama shows up as the most prominent name on that list (Number 268).
https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1659600909150584832
https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1659599754693869568
Perhaps Putin listed him after finally associating him with Hillary Clinton. (He feared her enough to cancel a foreign trip and issue a ukase that his people arm themselves immediately. That happened in the summer of 2016).
Why is Michael Byrd on the list?
But then, have a look at Number 29 – Michael Leroy Byrd. Who is he? He’s the Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbett.
https://twitter.com/TriuneTimes/status/1659690944130854912
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1659640335079710722
But who is Michael Byrd to a man like Vladimir Putin? Compared to Nina Jankowicz, formerly of the Disinformation Governance Board, Michael Byrd is a nobody. Why should Putin bother about him? To understand why, read this thread, that reminds us of the timing of this latest list.
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659624521282797582
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659624858139934736
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659624909503381534
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659656038650458112
Ostensibly, Russia barred these five hundred after the U.S. refused to issue visas to Russian journalists traveling with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the U.N. last month. But this list bars the people on it permanently. And again, why does it include Byrd? Because Putin was reacting to the Durham Report. He sees that as yet another attack on Russia – using his country as a “Baba Yaga” to influence an election.
But there’s more. Putin has been over this before. He granted an interview to Keir Simmons of NBC. Simmons asked him about why he threw a key opposition leader, Aleksandr Navalny, in jail. To which Putin quoted a Russian aphorism:
Don’t be mad at the mirror if you are ugly.
An American would doubtless say,
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Then he asked straight-out:
Did you order the assassination of the woman who walked into the Congress and who was shot and killed by a policeman?
Play this video to hear him ask that.
https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/1404774101793886208
CNAV has mentioned Ashli Babbett at least three times before.
It’s about more than Ashli Babbett
But Putin expressed concern about more than Ashli Babbett. He counted 450 people languishing in prison over the January 6 event. “And they did not come to steal a laptop,” he said – perhaps referring to Hunter Biden’s Laptop. “They came with political demands,” he said – and accused the American government straight-out of prosecuting people for their political opinions.
So Michael Byrd does not appear on that list by coincidence. Neither does Nina Jankowicz – or Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.
The same people pushing the narrative that Donald Trump led an failed insurrection on January 6, 2021, are also pushing the narrative that Russia has imperial designs on the world, or at least that Russia attacked Ukraine without provocation. Furthermore, those same people began their attack on Trump by claiming he was a Russian asset. In fact, Hillary Clinton’s campaign collaborated with another sort of Russian – probably Putin’s opposition.
Those people are pushing another agenda: depopulation by recruiting people into the LGBTQIA+ group of lifestyles. Putin and his Security Council Deputy Chairman, Dmitri Medvedev, have noticed.
Small wonder, then, that two hundred American and Canadian families might well have pre-purchased houses in a new Russian village! Or that Russia would approve and even offer the labor to build such a project. Yes, for a pre-construction price – but sill!
And to think that some of the same people pushing an anti-Russian narrative now, loved Russia fifty-five years ago. But Russia had another name then: the Soviet Union.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2023/05/22/editorial/talk/putin-distinguishing-among-americans/
AFP’s first tweets about the sanctions list:
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1659599446592614403
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1659650134257311758
The full sanctioned Americans list:
https://cnav.news/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Sanctioned-US-citizens-full-list-19-May-2023.pdf
Mentions of Barack Obama being on the list:
https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1659600909150584832
https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1659599754693869568
Mentions of Michael Byrd being on the list:
https://twitter.com/TriuneTimes/status/1659690944130854912
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1659640335079710722
Brian Allen’s thread:
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659624521282797582
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659624858139934736
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659624909503381534
https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/1659656038650458112
Video of Putin asking about Ashli Babbett’s death:
https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/1404774101793886208
Declarations of Truth Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/DecTruth
Conservative News and Views:
https://cnav.news/
The CNAV Store:
https://cnav.store/
Our Silver Lines
https://oursilverlines.com/
Rob Reiner – hypocrite, con artist
By Terry A. Hurlbut
Rob Reiner – actor, director, and leftist scold on Twitter and elsewhere – should add “hypocrite” and “con artist” to his name. Yesterday a now-prominent Twitter user, drawing inspiration from journalists like Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger – dropped an embarrassing thread about Rob Reiner. According to it, Rob Reiner has a decidedly checkered past, involving “misuse of taxpayer funds” – in short, government program embezzlement. But worse than that, he collaborated with the most dangerous financier in the world, George Soros.
Who is Rob Reiner?
Rob Reiner is the son of Carl Reiner, an actor with many motion-picture and television credits. Perhaps the elder Reiner’s most famous is his appearance as struggling television writer Walt Whittaker in the 1966 film The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! Five years later, the younger Reiner would land his breakout role – as Michael Stivic in Norman Lear’s All in the Family. In fact, Rob Reiner twice won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Comedy Actor for that role.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jYDpAf4XLM
In 1984 he directed his first film, This is Spinal Tap, a pretend documentary about a totally factitious heavy-metal band. And that project probably defines his career today, in entertainment and in politics. For Rob Reiner spends his time in a world of make-believe. Make-believe that a heavy-metal band that never existed, did exist and hired him to tell their story. Make-believe that the crudest President ever elected is an unblemished Hero of the People. (LBJ, 2017.)
And now, make-believe that socialism works – and anyone who says otherwise is lying. But most of all, make-believe that you are never guilty, no matter how guilty you might be of breaking the law in ways you accuse others of breaking it. Surely he must have read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals in his spare time. Yesterday, someone finally called him out on putting those Rules into practice. After this, no one should take Rob Reiner seriously ever again.
The thread
This thread comes from Dom Lucre, Breaker of Narratives. He actually pre-announced the thread the night before last, close to midnight:
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634406201181044739
Then, yesterday morning, he dropped the main thread.
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582969296773131
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582973210042368
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582977618272262
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582981783310339
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582986577289220
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582990381543428
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582995859304450
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634583001433612288
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634583008786235393
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634583017850040320
Much of that thread is quite jarring, though it tells very little that diligent researchers couldn’t find out for themselves. Everyone who cared to know, knew that Lyndon Baines “Corn-pone” Johnson was one of the crudest Presidents ever elected. To see him using a racial slur when talking to his political operatives – and then talking to community leaders of that race and turning on the charm – perhaps serves an example of two propositions. Actor Richard Jordan, as “Jeffrey Pelt” in The Hunt for Red October (1990), illustrated one:
I’m a politician, which means I’m a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies, I’m stealing their lollipops.
The second proposition is to beware of anyone, especially a politician, who turns on the charm. Chances are, it’s a false front – and small wonder, therefore, that some find charm highly overrated.
The salient point, however, is this: Rob Reiner presented a false hagiography of Johnson in his film LBJ (2017). As before: make-believe. So now he regularly, on Twitter, makes believe that Donald J. Trump is the worst criminal to be elected President. Scarcely a day goes by that he does not issue a tweet to that effect. But let no one say anything against Johnson – or Biden – today!
Reaction
Most of the reaction was positive, with appreciation to Mr. Lucre for the story behind Rob Reiner and his campaign. Perhaps one user tried to hold up Reiner’s favorite narrative against Trump.
https://twitter.com/BigEOnFire/status/1634583943230939137
Most of the replies he got either chastised him for “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” or shared damaging information about President Biden. All were negative.
A few users made some allegations against Rob Reiner that went beyond what Dom Lucre revealed. They are probably not worth repeating, unless and until someone in authority is ready to indict him on their account. But in the first four hours since the thread dropped, no one, except for that one user, had anything sympathetic to say about Reiner. And even he confined himself to saying, “But Trump!”
Analysis
In his breakout role, Rob Reiner took many insults from his acting colleague, Carroll O’Connor. The most common one, of course, was a word that stands for a stupid or dull person. But Rob Reiner is neither stupid nor dull – and if he were, that might almost excuse his attitudes. Instead he is clever – though perhaps “too clever by half” fits the bill. Definitely he is hypocritical, and a true radical, obeying one of Saul Alinsky’s cardinal Rules. Which is: always accuse your opponent of that which you yourself do.
He cuts a truly pathetic picture on Twitter. CNAV will not quote any of his tweets here, because they all contain the same message. Donald Trump is a criminal; why won’t authorities do their job and indict him; a-ha, he won’t skate this time; et cetera ad nauseam.
Now he turns out to be either a venal shakedown artist – or worse, someone who lends new meaning to the phrase “public funding of political campaigns.” For his embezzlements seem to have been not so much for pecuniary gain as to make taxpayers fund his leftist politics without ever knowing it. He’s also intellectually dishonest, and guilty of the logical fallacy of special pleading.
The most striking irony might be this. Throughout his career, he advocated for something loosely called Russia – when it was actually called “Soviet Union.” Now he accuses a President of colluding with post-Soviet Russia. He has never explained that irony – and he also has much else to explain.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2023/03/12/editorial/talk/rob-reiner-hypocrite-con-artist/
Video: Mike meets Archie for the first time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jYDpAf4XLM
The teaser:
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634406201181044739
The thread:
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582969296773131
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582973210042368
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582977618272262
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582981783310339
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582986577289220
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582990381543428
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634582995859304450
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634583001433612288
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634583008786235393
https://twitter.com/dom_lucre/status/1634583017850040320
The one negative reaction to the thread:
https://twitter.com/BigEOnFire/status/1634583943230939137
Declarations of Truth Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/DecTruth
Conservative News and Views:
https://cnav.news/
The CNAV Store:
https://cnav.store/
Our Silver Lines
https://oursilverlines.com/