Learing from the radical environmental movement
In honor of the Kyoto treaty going into effect yesterday ...
A good friend of mine, Chris Manes, just published a paper in Yale's, "The Politic," called "Radical Environmentalism: Part II"
Relevant to conversations constantly in threads here is that Chris writes about how the radical environmentalists helped the mainstream environmentalmovement gain control of the language.
It would seem that a radicalized left -- as in deliberately outside the "mainstream" -- has a tendency to pull everything to the left. How? It makes "reasonable" but decidedly progressive positions seem "moderate."
It is exactly what Limbaugh, Savage et al., do for the right. They make garden variety conservatives -- who are bad enough -- look respectable. In fact, they provide "cover" for those conservatives to move right and still appear to be "moderate."
If the leadership of the left had any sophistication at all, they would cultivate the "far left" specifically for this purpose.
For anyone interested, the article is here - it is pretty interesting: The Politic
http://www.thepolitic.org/news/2005/02/21/Features/Radical.Environmentalism.Part.Ii-862866.shtml