Before Babalu, American Thinker and websites, I used to write “letters to the editor” in our local newspapers. It was our only option.
In 1990, I wrote a letter addressing the coincidence that Earth Day 1970 was created on the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday.
Coincidence?
It was published in The Dallas Times Herald, a newspaper no longer around. In other words, I can not link to the letter but can share the content here.
My letter addressed a couple of points:
First, the environmental movement had become a refuge for the left, specially in 1990 following the collapse of the Soviet empire; and,
Two, it was ironically the cities of communist states in Eastern Europe, Cuba and the old USSR with the worst pollution problems in the world.
In fact, The New York Times wrote this in 1990:
While efforts to restore clean air to the United States have met with partial success, there is a far greater ecological disaster brewing in Eastern Europe, a report on worldwide air pollution said today.The report, issued by the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based environmental group, warned that gains in the West are quickly being negated by the unrestricted burning of high-sulfur brown coal and diesel fuel that is blackening cities across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
My letter argued that the communist world was polluted because of a lack of property rights as well as the absence of freedom or the rule of law.
It’s no coincidence that democratic states, like the US or Western Europe, are more sensitive to pollution or dirty rivers. In general, elected representatives are more sensitive to the air that their constituents breathe or the water that they drink.
So is it a coincidence that Earth Day and Lenin’s birthday are on the same day? I doubt the coincidence given the anti-capitalism tone coming from the movement.
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