'New New Left' hits close to home

It's hard to get any rest in Bloomington lately. The radical, uppity left has woken up yet again from its hibernation and are sprouting up like weeds -- with the help of hijacked trees -- all over the Monroe County area. It might be a national trend.\nEco-terrorism, cries for censorship and free-market bashing are in high gear. Not having former President Bill Clinton to defend has left the left with a lot of time on its hands -- time its members are investing in screaming, not research. \nThe local left has risen with some unlikely and unfortunate encouragement. Nationally, The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Molly Ivins have been screeching that President George W. Bush is poisoning the environment. \nDowd, obviously not on decaf, opined in her April 1 column: "(Bush) has set off the specter of a mushroom cloud of carcinogens and carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power and 'China Syndrome' fears, rapacious drilling and retrenchment on women's rights, the missile shield, spy tensions and the cold war." \nDowd makes use of pathetic emotional pitches, even the use of a movie reference to make a point she won't make with facts. \nThe established liberals and their younger cohorts, the "New New Left," are engaging in a serious bullhorn assault on facts and the political sphere. These arguments are more emotional than informed. Little wonder, Michael Knox Beran writes in the March 5 edition of National Review. Beran maintains the quasi-anarchist, quasi-socialist left has been agitating since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, who famously referred to them as the "lunatic fringe."\n"History is repeating itself -- not, this time, as a parody, but as a grunge-soaked road trip," Beran writes. \nThis sympathetic vibration reaches across the land, from Dowd's office to college campuses. Locally, some professors and Monroe County officeholders are sympathetic to the anti-sprawl, anti-growth, anti-commerce, anti-pollution and anti-whatever-else arguments of the disheveled lefties. Some have gone too far in encouraging them.\nDavid Haberman, an associate professor of religious studies who teaches on the subject of religion and ecology, went so far as to try to objectively credit the sometimes violent Earth Liberation Front with Thoreau-type motivations in an interview with the The Herald-Times: "Individuals engaged in such acts, whether misguided or not, are following a commitment to a vision of human responsibility that transcends individual self-interest… They are not terrorists as the word is commonly defined, but see themselves as protectors of life with a vision beyond economics."\nSorry, sir, but who cares what their delusions are? People who set fires are known as "arsonists." And people who set fire to Monroe County Republican Party headquarters are known as "political terrorists." \nOn another front -- at a strip mall -- the Bloomington Police Department felt the need to cut a deal with the radicals during their "Week of Resistance." Bravely standing up to Old Navy on opening day, police agreed to let protesters go if they promised to behave after a four-hour disruption that included two people bike-locking themselves to a truck. They got a better deal than I did on my last seat belt violation, and they were performing outright criminal mischief that demanded punishment.\nThe New New Left bash morally lazy Americans for our humming economy and all the unfortunate activity it generates: belching out emissions, cutting down trees and shopping incorrectly. Even homelessness is no longer chic. Instead, the left whines we are spread and sprawled out too far from the cities.\nTheir solutions are more radical than worrying about whether 50 parts per billion of arsenic are more unhealthy than 10 parts per billion.\nThe Fairfax County, Virginia Observer reported that John Thoburn, the owner of a golf ball driving range, was arrested recently for failing to comply with zoning regulations. Apparently, he hadn't planted enough trees -- 700 instead of 1,000 -- and his screening ledge was a bit too high. He was found in contempt of court for not complying with a court order to change his operation, and was thrown in jail, where he still sits in protest. FOX News reported the county-owned driving range had similar, unpunished problems. This is what we all might have in store for us if the eco-police ever take control. \nFortunately, there is still time to resist and educate these misguided youth before they turn into Democratic office holders or county planners. One method might be to convince them of the lack of originality in their methods and protests.\nBeran writes: "A hundred years ago the prosperous nations confronted a similar collection of anarchists, nihilists, labor organizers and self-styled revolutionaries" who protested their nation's prosperity. Beran warns their activism could turn uglier or decay Western society with a "cruel idolatrous creed." \nThe immediate answer might be to enforce the law. Maybe a few hours in lock-up with Billy Bob will deter future actions and give them time to catch up on their Thoreau.