Posted by
Bill Crawford on Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:27:09 PM
There is a limits to growth, anti-sprawl crowd that follow these summits around, and think they will advance their cause by dressing like it is laundry day at the trailer park and creating all sorts of havoc.
A few years ago, they got so bad on a Presidential visit to Portland that the city has the Secret Service nickname of "Little Beirut".
They rail against all form of global business and trade, lacing it over with some sort of environmental hubris. They don't even try to layer it over with some sort of 'bring the jobs back to us' populism.
Odd thing, though: forget ancient history. Just compare it to 1975. More people live above the poverty line now than ever. Less people live under authoritarian rule than ever. Is this happening because their annual salaries are rising, or because they are getting better drugs?
Even stranger is that all the predictions circa 1975 of this crowd regarding arable land, fossil fuels and population growth have turned out to be palpable bulls**t. How long will this record be out there before somebody in the mainstream press notices that most of these people are living their lives with their heads up their butt?