Sunday, 28 May 2017

Good Guys vs the Rulers.

I just read a biography of the American environmental pioneer Rachel Carson. She has now become one of my heroes.

Apart from anything else, her story further vindicated my utter mistrust of big business and senior politicians. These are the people who largely run our culture with dishonesty, disinformation and deceit – and all in the cause of making personal and pecuniary gains – while the Rachel Carsons who work tirelessly and selflessly to promote a restrained and sensible approach to environmental practices have to struggle to overcome their sleazy barriers.

The best quotation I saw came from one of the politicians opposed to her unquestionably laudable mission. His name was Ezra Taft Benson and he was a former US Secretary of Agriculture. He wrote to the then US President, Dwight D Eisenhower, claiming that Rachel Carson’s unmarried status while being a fully fit woman meant that ‘she is probably a Communist.’

It has everything, doesn’t it? Fallacious presumption, bigotry, prejudice, and irrationality, not to mention the petty vindictiveness which led to the writing of the letter in the first place.

No comments: