 June 29, 2007
 Time to Kick Out the Corporate Bastards Toward a New Environmental Movement By
JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK
 The environmental movement is on life support. Some would say it is already dead.
Even though climate change and Al Gore are fast becoming the conversation du jour
around the American dinner table, it also happens to be the rallying cry for
do-gooder conservationists and corporations alike.
 Call it the eco-economy. Virtually all major corporations now claim they are going
“green”. Toyota dealerships cannot keep the hybrid Prius in stock. Apple, after
heavy lobbying from Greenpeace and others, declares they are going to make their
computers environmentally friendly. Genetically modified corn, which produces
ethanol fuel, is being hawked by Monsanto as an alternative to petroleum based
gasoline. Ethanol advocates are calling their program “Fuels for Profit”, while
they sip McDonald’s organic coffee. The environmental movement has been
corporatized.
 Big green groups are not helping the situation. Their hands are tied by both the
large foundations that pay their rent and the Democratic Party to which they are
attached at the hip. They long ago gave up on challenging the system. Most groups
today are little more than direct mailing outfits who have embraced a sordid
neoliberal approach to saving the natural world. The true causes of planetary
destruction are never mentioned. Industrial capitalism is not the problem,
individuals are. Not the government’s inability to enforce its weak regulations.
Not big oil companies, or coal fired plants. These neoliberal groups argue
ordinary people are to blame for the impending environmental catastrophe, not
those who profit from the Earth’s destruction.
 Meanwhile, on the ground, grassroots environmentalists engaging in arson as a
response to unfettered sprawl and our car addicted culture are dubbed terrorists
by the Federal government. Despite their extreme and counter-productive methods,
the cases are quite informative. In our post-9/11 world young eco-radicals are
viewed by the FBI and corporations as if they are as dangerous as bin Laden. All
activists, no matter their cause, should take heed. It is the first step in
cracking down on radical activism.
 Torching SUVs in the middle of the night, unfortunately, will not bring about any
massive radical change, except, perhaps, in our “anti-terrorism” legislation.
There are militant direct actions that are prevailing, however, from Paul Watson’s
crusade to protect the wild creatures of the sea, to the environmentalists who
stake out in trees for weeks at a time, to the grandmothers who chain themselves
to logging trucks, despite the dangers.
 Such actions, coupled with the organization of the working class, could help steer
the environmental movement in the right direction. The philosophy of the great
wilderness advocate Bob Marshall may prove to be quite prescient in the age of
foundation driven conservationism. Marshall believed wilderness was for the
regular folks. He believed wilderness was a “minority right” and argued that
elitism inside the movement would be inherently corrupt. He’s right. The burdens
of a coporatized society are great, not only for our forests and rivers, but to
the workers who are consistently exploited and poisoned for profit.
 Marshall believed the radical trade unions and socialized forestry was one answer
to countering the destruction of the wild places he loved so much. Now is the time
to once again embrace such an environmental ethic. Wilderness, that living symbol
of freedom, exists for all to enjoy. It is not ours to exploit. The salmon and
grizzly bears deserve better.
 Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me:
the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. His newest book is End Times: the
Death of the Fourth Estate, co-written with Alexander Cockburn.
 Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals
Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey
St. Clair, the editor of the forthcoming Red State Rebels, to be published by AK
Press in March 2008.
 They can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net
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