Environmentalism vs. Eco-Facism...

I was just catching up on all of these posts and I have a few comments.  
In regards to Mielants' original post of the woman at Negative Population 
Growth, there was actually an interesting break within the environmental 
movement in the late '70's.  Moreover, most of these "environmental" 
groups openly tout Malthus as their savior.  I'm posting below a clip 
from an article I have written for a Mexican periodical not yet 
published.  I think it connects the anti-immigrant and population 
discussions on the list (minus the latest eco-veg discussion):
------
...The environmentalist movement took two routes:  one was the 
progressive movement with which we are all so familiar, concerned with 
the environmental health of the earth.  The other route the 
environmentalist movement took, which is the concern of this article, was 
tainted with the Malthusian notion of uncontrolled population in the 
³third world² which became a focus of the eugenics movement.   This vein 
of environmentalism emerged out of books like Ehrlichıs The Population 
Bomb (1968).  This book put white Americans into a frenzy over the 
growing population in poor countries and amounted to an attack, blaming 
poor countries for their impoverished conditions and stigmatizing 
non-white populations around the globe.  Both in the U.S. and the 
international community, population became a primary focus.  
Domestically, in 1969 President Nixon fed into the population frenzy by 
establishing the ³Commission on Population Growth and the American 
Future² which was headed by J. D. Rockefeller (Reimers, 1998).  
Internationally,
³the neo-Malthusian strategy of putting the blame of poverty and hunger 
in the 
colonized countries on the poor themselves was systematically developed 
by the pillars of corporate capitalism and imperialism, first by the 
Rockefeller Foundation, the US State Department and the US Agency for 
International Development (AID), then by the World Bank, which sold it to 
a large number of Third World governments and practically to all Western 
governments² (Mies, p. 121, citing Mass, 1975).  
The response of UN organizations to what they saw as a ³population 
explosion² was to spur development through ³family planning² programs.  
In poor countries this usually meant the sterilization of and testing of 
birth control methods on women, and, for the world economy, it meant not 
only a workforce with fewer potential health concerns (pregnancy and 
ultimately children), but an extra valuable workforce of women whose 
labor power in the context of patriarchy already garnered less pay for 
the same work.  
        Today, over thirty years later, we have come to see just exactly 
what 
this ³development² policy had to bear.  Ultimately, ³population control² 
has led to magnified global inequality where, on one hand, corporate 
profits have risen more than 500% since the 1960ıs; and where on the 
other hand, high percentages of women in maquiladora factories who are 
sterile, or forced to comply with various birth control methods live in 
dire poverty unable to support their families even with the overtime they 
are forced to work.  Moreover, the continued uprooting of traditional 
economies has left people landless and underemployed.  In short, there 
are more poor people in the world today than ever because of the world 
economy and not because of ³uncontrolled² population.  Unfortunately, the 
Malthusian-minded domestic and international commissions and policies set 
a precedent years ago that many are still following.  
        Most established environmental groups like the Audubon Society, 
Friends 
of the Earth, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Parks and 
Conservation Association and the Sierra Club, took on the issue of 
population control at their inception.   These nationwide groups in 
effect helped to spread the elitist and racist ideology which suggested 
that population causes poverty in poor countries.  In fact, it was the 
Sierra Club that published The Population Bomb  in 1968.   This book 
directly instigated the formation of Zero Population Growth that same 
year which now has 70,000 members.   Today, ZPG continues to proudly base 
its group on not only Ehrlichıs work, but also that of Thomas Malthus 
(1798).  
        The racist tendencies of the environmentalist movement took yet 
another 
turn for the worse in the 1970ıs, culminating in the 1980ıs and 1990ıs.  
It was at this time that the current wave of anti-immigrant sentiment 
began to well in the United States and other core countries around the 
world.  A number of prominent people within the environmental 
organizations began to target immigrants as a major source of 
environmental deterioration in the U.S..  Because Mexicans are the 
largest immigrant group in the United States and, moreover, since 
Mexicans and Chicanos have always bore the brunt of racism particularly 
in the Southwest, it was Mexican immigrants and, by default, anyone who 
looked Mexican, who became the main target.  Anti-immigrant 
environmentalists clung to the work of ecologist Garrett Hardin who 
argued in 1968 that ³Œthe US can only support so many people ... and for 
the future of Americans we simply cannot take in large numbers of 
immigrantsı² (Reimers, p. 54).
        However, most of the major environmental groups which held up the 
banner 
of Malthusian population control refused to join the anti-immigrant 
crusade.  
³It is ZPG's view that immigration pressures on the U.S. population are 
best 
relieved by addressing factors which compel people to leave their homes 
and families and emigrate to the United States. ...ZPG believes unless 
these problems are successfully addressed in the developing nations of 
the world, no forcible exclusion policy will successfully prevent people 
from seeking to relocate into the United States.

ZPG, therefore, calls on the United States to focus its foreign aid on 
... the root causes of international migration. Studies show that of the 
people who emigrate to the United States, the majority would have stayed 
in their home countries had there been economic opportunities or 
democratic institutions.² (Zero Population Growth, 2000)
When ZPG refused to espouse anti-immigrant sentiment by promoting 
restrictive unilateral policies, numerous frustrated members split off 
and formed their own organizations.  These offshoots included ³Negative 
Population Growth² (NPG) which formed in 1972 and now has over 18,000 
members; the ³Federation for American Immigration Reform² (FAIR) which 
formed in 1978 and now has over 70,000 members; and ³Californians for 
Population Stabilization² (CAPS) which formed in 1986 and now has over 
10,000 members.  Executive Director of CAPS, Danielle Elliott confirmed 
that 
³John Tanton, who was  a very active member of Zero Population Growth, 
[was]
concerned about the issue of immigration and focused primarily on 
immigration by forming FAIR.  The same situation exists today where we 
have a lot of environmental groups that will not focus on those core 
issues that are creating the problem in the environment.  They wonıt deal 
with domestic population.  Theyıll deal with global population, but not 
domestic.²  (Interview with Californianıs for Population Stabilization, 
2000)
The Sierra Club targeted immigrants up until their landmark decision to 
change their policy in 1996.  This decision in turn spurred the formation 
of a separate organization: ³Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization² 
which specifically targets fertility and immigration.  Additionally, a 
number of other environmental groups have also targeted immigrants as the 
source of societal decay in the U.S..  In California alone, they include: 
 California Wildlife Defenders; Central Sierra Environmental Resource 
Center; Ecology Center of Southern California; Fossil Fuels Policy Action 
Institute; Friends of the Trinity River; International Society for the 
Preservation of the Tropical Rainforest; L.A. EarthFirst!; Monterey Bay 
Action Committee; Resource Renewal Institute; and Sacramento 
Environmental Education Council.  In the 1980ıs these ³environmental² 
groups began to merge with a number of other anti-immigrant organizations 
that were forming under the auspices of a variety of special interests, 
but all of which blamed immigrants for social and economic decay in the 
U.S..
...

------------
Overall, the anti-immigrant groups deny immigrant rights often at every 
level and have mobilized successfully against immigrants in the political 
arena.  Together, the anti-immigrant groups are a very mixed alliance of 
racist middle class whites, angry African Americans, former INS 
officials, off-duty police officers, wealthy whites in gated communities 
and of course the "environmentalists," among others.  Some of the groups 
are quite openly racist, most of those I interviewed, however, spent a 
good portion of the interview completely without provocation explaining 
to me why they are not racist, but how pro-Latino groups are the 'real' 
racists.

(please don't forward this beyond the list without my permission.  
Thanks.)

Regards,

Carina

********************************
Carina A. Bandhauer
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Sociology
Binghamton University
State University of New York
Binghamton NY  13902-6000

VoiceMail: (607) 777-2203
Fax:       (607) 777-4197
Email:     br00162@binghamton.edu
*********************************