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Nikki Williams, chief
executive of the NSW Minerals Council, is a grim example of why public
relations exercises always fail against green fanaticism. Her response to the
greens' phony claim that mankind is warming the
planet is to surrender to these fanatics. (The Australian, We can
bury carbon dioxide forever, 9 March 2008). In other words, run up the
white flag and issue yellow-striped jackets to the mining industry's
executive. In my not-so humble opinion it's PR
personnel who should be buried, preferably after they have been
defenestrated.
The mining industry —
including coal — has endured a sustained assault on its activities by
green revolutionaries. It goes without saying that it failed dismally to
effectively defend itself. This failure is easily traced to the fact that
industry representatives have been completely unable to grasp the fact that
they are engaged in a fierce ideological struggle and that their enemy's sole
aim is their utter destruction. I was not being rhetorical when I called
Greens revolutionaries. They are revolutionaries and their literature and
public statements make no secret of it. What else would you call someone who
wrote:
Building an environmentally
sustainable future requires restricting the global economy, dramatically changing
human reproductive behaviour, and altering values and lifestyles. Doing this
quickly requires nothing short of a revolution (Lester Brown, president of
the Worldwatch Institute, cited in Environmental
Overkill: Whatever Happened to Commonsense, Dixie Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo, Regnery Gateway, 1993,
p. 202).
Then we have Judy Bari of
Earth First saying that
I think if we don't
overthrow capitalism, we don't have a chance of saving the world
ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecologically sound society
under socialism. I don't its possible under capitalism. (Ibid., p. 203).
She went on to claim that
socialism is the solution. (Isn't it always).
According to British greens Porrit and Winner:
It is industrialisation
itself — a 'supra-technology' embraced by socialist countries, as well
as the capitalist West — which threatens us. (Ibid., p. 203).
David Brower, founder of
the grossly misnamed Friends of the Earth, gave us this little gem of green
compassion:
While the death of young
men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of
mountains and wilderness areas by humankind. . . . Loggers
losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes,
no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shutdown. (Ibid.,
p. 204)
So much for the suffering
of those who died fighting Nazism and Japanese aggression to make the world
safer for Bower and his ilk. This is the same David Brower, incidentally, who
stated:
Child-bearing [should be] a
punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government
license. . . . All potential parents [should be] required to use
contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen
for childbearing. (Dixie Ray Lee and Lou Guzzo, Trashing the Planet,
Harper Perennial, 1992, p. 169).
Speaking for the German
greens, Carl Amery stated:
We, in the green movement,
aspire to a cultural model in which the killing of a forest will be
considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year old
children to Asian brothels. (Ibid., p. 169).
And then we had this
disgusting item:
Environmental crusader Paul Watson says the
deaths of at least three seal hunters last weekend north of Cape Breton
are a tragedy, but the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups
"is an even greater tragedy". (The Canadian Press, Watson
says loss of sealers less tragic than loss of seals 2 April 2008)
Watson is the fanatical
co-founder of Greenpeace and a deep green who nurses contempt for the lives
of others. Fortunately, the vast majority of people, unlike Watson and most
'journalists', have no problem in distinguishing between the contemptible and
the admirable, the moral and the immoral.
Nevertheless. Australia is
not immune from the greens' vicious lunacy. Trish Caswell, former left-wing
head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, was asked by The
Australian (our only national newspaper, unfortunately) to name one of
the "great villains" of the twentieth century. She chose Henry Ford
(sic). My god, mankind's political chamber of horrors is filled with monsters
like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot et al., and she chooses the
father of the Model T-Ford as her 'villain'. Naturally, our fawning
interviewing 'journalist' found nothing to condemn in her choice of
'criminals'. (Incidentally, when Hugh Morgan was CEO of WMC who put Caswell on the
payroll. No wonder WMC no longer exists).
And then there is Professor
Singer. This prominent Australian green has the sickening audacity to claim
that newborn babies have less value than pigs! (It says much for intellectual
values that Singer was given a post at Princeton).
Surprise, surprise, hardly one journalist condemned him. Frank Devine of The
Australian was one of the notable exceptions. (By the way, Singer was run
off German campuses by disabled students. Something our 'journalists' chose
to suppress). Singer also publicly lamented the collapse of socialism
(communism), once again revealing the greens' socialist ideology.
By now it should be clear
that there is no appeasing the green movement. Its claims, like those of the
Nazis, are inordinate, its ideology relentless. Yet the mining industry still
treats this cult as a public relations problem. As one green confidently told
me: "No PR company ever beat us." He's right, too. Are mining
industry executives so ignorant that they really believe they can sway
prejudiced 'journalists' with a dinner, a tour and fancy coloured PR kits? One
only has to read the papers to realise just how naive that is. It is time for
executives to wake up: The vast majority of the present crop of 'journalists'
are not onside, never have been and never will be. And that's the truth, regardless of what any PR hack might say to the
contrary.
Industry executives must
face the facts. The vacuous make-me-look-good approach of PR companies has
proved a ghastly disaster for the mining industry and the country. PR is
intellectually barren and that is why it can not help. It has no feel for
history, no respect for history, no understanding of ideology, no grasp of
green intentions and values, no intellectual
qualifications, standing or respect. It has no substance, no commitment and
no convictions. These are things that can not be bought because they are
qualities and values. There is no market in such things.
So What is the solution? The
qualities and values that are vital in the battle against the greens can not,
as I have said, be bought and sold. Nevertheless, though people with these
necessary values, qualities and knowledge can be hired, they themselves are
not for hire! This means that they will only give commitment and loyalty to a
cause in which they have unwavering faith. These are the people the industry
needs.
Now we finally put our
finger on it. Industry executives have not grasped that what they are
defending is a cause, not a business, not an industry — but a cause. And
causes need moral, emotional and intellectual commitment. You don't get these
things in intellectually vacuous PR courses or in vapid media studies. The PR
mentality is essentially mercenary. It is the highest bid that counts and not
how moral or how just your cause is. That is why PR is damaging to the mining
industry. Fearful of losing their jobs PR personnel will use every means
available to deny executives access to alternative views and tactics. To do
otherwise would be to admit failure.
It is high time the
industry rethought its 'tactics'. Only when its executives finally accept the
moral imperative of their case will they have any hope of successfully
defeating the greens and recapturing the moral high ground which rightfully
belongs to the industry.
Carbon taxes and Keynesian
insanity
Why is the Centre for Independent
Studies supporting the destructive carbon tax?
Why a carbon tax would hit living
standards
Carbon taxes versus living standards
Gerard
Jackson
Brookesnews.com
Gerard Jackson
is Brookesnews Economics
Editor
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