Then a rather strange and unexpected turn is taken, considering the fact that this is a revolutionary socialist party's newspaper.
....There is an alternative to this specter that haunts humankind. We must stop listening to the Orwellian doublespeak and cooperating in our own destruction in a state of passive acceptance, either blissfully ignorant or gripped by constant uncertainty and fear.
We must free ourselves from dependence upon this insane form of electrical generation that the human genius is clearly unable to control. There is no need for it, not with clean, renewable energy that is genuinely carbon-neutral—unlike nukes, which produce greenhouse gases at every energy-intensive stage of the nuclear cycle.
Even the UN's conservative IPCC issued a landmark study stating that "Renewable energy can power the world." Locally generated and distributed wind, solar, and geothermal power can be achieved through a crash program funded by the war budget. Also, industry can be retooled and converted for the green production of the necessities of life, including organically grown food, which can also feed the world.
If we are to put and end to environmental devastation and allow the deep wounds inflicted upon the planet's ecosystems by capitalist exploitation and greed to heal, we must live in harmony with Mother Nature. It takes decades to decommission nuclear power plants.
In addition, global heating, due to the profligate burning of fossil fuels, is racing toward irreversible tipping points—so this great enterprise must begin immediately. It has to be done for the sake of humanity, Earth's climate, and the other species with whom we humbly share this world.
Keeping in mind that the human economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mother Nature, this will require a mode of production that puts ecological and human needs before private profits, one that is based on communal decision making and cooperative action. Therefore, an eco-socialist revolution is the only way forward with the toilers of the world—in factories and on farms—in the lead. The future is in the hands of workers and farmers, who have the collective power to grasp the reins of production and put an end to capitalist rape and plunder.
We must free ourselves from dependence upon this insane form of electrical generation that the human genius is clearly unable to control. There is no need for it, not with clean, renewable energy that is genuinely carbon-neutral—unlike nukes, which produce greenhouse gases at every energy-intensive stage of the nuclear cycle.
Even the UN's conservative IPCC issued a landmark study stating that "Renewable energy can power the world." Locally generated and distributed wind, solar, and geothermal power can be achieved through a crash program funded by the war budget. Also, industry can be retooled and converted for the green production of the necessities of life, including organically grown food, which can also feed the world.
If we are to put and end to environmental devastation and allow the deep wounds inflicted upon the planet's ecosystems by capitalist exploitation and greed to heal, we must live in harmony with Mother Nature. It takes decades to decommission nuclear power plants.
In addition, global heating, due to the profligate burning of fossil fuels, is racing toward irreversible tipping points—so this great enterprise must begin immediately. It has to be done for the sake of humanity, Earth's climate, and the other species with whom we humbly share this world.
Keeping in mind that the human economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mother Nature, this will require a mode of production that puts ecological and human needs before private profits, one that is based on communal decision making and cooperative action. Therefore, an eco-socialist revolution is the only way forward with the toilers of the world—in factories and on farms—in the lead. The future is in the hands of workers and farmers, who have the collective power to grasp the reins of production and put an end to capitalist rape and plunder.
Phrases like "Mother Nature," "deep wounds," and "human genius" take us out of the territory of concrete realty where scientific socialism flourishes.
Convergence of reformism and 'eco-socialism'
Instead, we are dropped into a world of fantasy, where the world beyond the city limits of article author Christine Frank's class perceptions do not penetrate. It is a world where actions are not based on class realty or solidarity, but on each individual's insights into the needs of "humanity, Earth's climate, and the other species with whom we humbly share this world."
What about the need for electrification by billions of workers and farmers around the world today?
Neither Socialist Action or Christine Frank are the primary movers of this brand of "eco-socialism." The long retreat of labor, and labor's vanguard, is also manifested in anti-materialist reactions to questions of class solidarity, where nostrums replace Marxism. Organizations like the United Secretariat of the Fourth International long ago abandoned any pretense to Marxism-Leninism; eco-socialist rhetoric became one of the many socially acceptable watering holes along the road taken by the USec toward bourgeois electoralism. The political evolution of U.S. Marxists like Peter Camejo from Red to Green to defender of imperialist war, is another example.
Are workers in imperialist countries really telling fellow workers in a country like Iran that they need to wait several more centuries for there is any chance of a rise in their material prospects?
I will close with a few worthwhile insights from Louis Martin in the 2 April 2012 issue of The Militant:
....The basic facts about what is considered the second worst nuclear disaster in world history [Fukushima] actually provides a very strong argument against the assertion that nuclear power presents a special inherent danger to humanity.
The so-called environmentalist opposition to nuclear power—or other forms of energy—is anti-scientific and reactionary. The various "green" forces and their nostrums provide no earthly option for maintaining modern civilization, let alone for advancing industrial development. They stand in opposition to the development of semicolonial nations oppressed by imperialism and are antagonistic to the needs of the great majority of humanity.
In contrast, the communist movement champions the expansion and extension of electrification and industrialization worldwide, and along with it growth of the proletariat and culture. This is essential for closing the gap between the imperialists and semicolonial world and bringing the world's toilers closer together in common struggle.
The so-called environmentalist opposition to nuclear power—or other forms of energy—is anti-scientific and reactionary. The various "green" forces and their nostrums provide no earthly option for maintaining modern civilization, let alone for advancing industrial development. They stand in opposition to the development of semicolonial nations oppressed by imperialism and are antagonistic to the needs of the great majority of humanity.
In contrast, the communist movement champions the expansion and extension of electrification and industrialization worldwide, and along with it growth of the proletariat and culture. This is essential for closing the gap between the imperialists and semicolonial world and bringing the world's toilers closer together in common struggle.
Jay
20120406
Christine Frank and SA have adopted a religeous and faith-based belief that humanity "uses too much" in terms of resources, that using energy is 'bad' and that with solar cells and wind mills we can run a modern industrial high tech society. The results would be barbarism, IMO. One where the 1.6 billion people of the world, instead of developing the productive forces to a world of abundence, the prerequisite for socialism, that this 1.6 billion would joined by billions more. seems that is their vision. Sad.
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