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California Politics Environmental Extremism Jane Fonda Occupy Wall street Tom Hayden Water

Origins: Environmentalism, Big Green, Corporate Capitalism, Occupy Wall Street

Toxic Politics of Big Green Initiative: Hayden and Fonda, 1989-90.

The origins of the President Obama’s green agenda now cutting across many federal agencies can be found in substantial part in California from 1990 to the present, e.g. Big Green Initiative and its successors.

Similarly, the sentiments of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 can also be found in the toxic politics of socialist and Communist critics of corporations and capitalism. Tom Hayden and friends led the way.

The Great Apple Scare: The Science and the Nonsense of Environmental Politics; Cancer in Children

The political scene is best set with the great apple scare of 1989.

In February and March 1989, the Natural Resources Defense Council, helped by Academy Award actress Meryl Streep,
Mothers and Others for Pesticide Limits, and a credulous national media,
claimed dangers of cancer from eating apples sprayed with Alar –a hormone used
to maintain the redness and firmness of eating apples.  Actress Streep in an Ed Bradley story on
CBS’s 60 Minutes claimed Alar in apples caused cancer in children.

This despite warnings to CBS of deficiencies in the Alar story six weeks before it aired.

Steve Wood, a leading promoter of low pesticide use, told CBS that banning Alar would lead to the use
of stronger chemicals.  Wood also pointed out that Streep’s and “60 Minutes”s principal source, Natural
Resources Defense Council, NRDC, had used a frequently discredited twelve year
old study showing cancer in rats — fed 266,000 times the normal human
ingestion of Alar.[1] Slightly more than the “apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

The CBS show went on to protect children from cancer no matter what the actual science showed and informed opinion said.

Both the World Health Organization and the National Academy of Sciences had claimed that Alar presented no health risk.[2]

Two food research scientists argued that the EPA’s risk assumptions had overstated actual measures of pesticides in apples by 2,600 times.[3]

Lots of Assumptions, Little Science

The key was the word assumption.  Ronald Hart, director of the National Center
on Toxicological Research, later said, “Our risk models are based on at
least 50 assumptions, none of which have been scientifically
demonstrated.”  The most-shaky assumptions involved using rodents, 1 billion times more cancer-prone than
humans, and then feeding them high caloric doses of substances.  High caloric doses are carcinogenic whatever
the substance ingested.  “The public thinks these animal risk estimates are based on real science, but that simply
isn’t true,” said Assistant Surgeon General Vernon Houk.[4]

One mother called a food trade group asking whether she ought to wash her dangerous apple sauce down her kitchen sink or
take the deadly sauce to a toxic dump.[5]

Apparently responding to mothers and not the others, the EPA banned Alar.

Although 14 scientific societies representing 100,000 microbiologists, toxicologists, and food scientists said
the risk of Alar and other chemicals was effectively zero, Uniroyal Chemical Company took Alar off the market.[6]

Where the Political Possibilies [Are] Greater

Liberal columnist Peter Schrag said the whole
affair was a “wave of sheer unreason, … a growing lack of public
confidence in government controls and inspections … and [a] shift … into
areas where the dangers are much lower, but the political possibilities greater.”[7]

During February 1989, speaking before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Robert Scheuplein of the
Food and Drug Administration said that while carcinogens found naturally in
foods might account for 38,0000 cancer deaths per year out of 500,000, manmade
pesticides probably accounted for 40 deaths per year[8] — a miniscule risk irrelevant to forming the nation’s health policies.

Nonetheless, fear of the food supply was politically powerful overiding science and even common sense.

The greatest risk of eating is bacteriological — natural microbes –salmonella, camppyobacter, etc in meat
and fish.  Microbes are ubiquitous — only chemicals combined with cooking could solve this genuine health
issue.  Cancer from food is a very remote danger.  Cancer of all kinds, except
those associated with smoking had remained the same or declined for
decades.  92 per cent of all cancers has nothing to do with what one eats.  98 per
cent of this small (8 per cent) cancer risk in foods is natural toxins, not from man-made pesticides.

Nutritional Terrorists

Bruce Ames had shown in 1987 that natural sources of chemical carcinogens were 1,500 times
greater than man-made synthetic chemicals.
Natural plant pesticides ingested by humans are 99.9 per cent of all
chemical carcinogens.  Some called NRDC “nutritional terrorists.”

Yet in March 1989, the EPA moved toward a ban on EDBC’s -widely used fungicides — even though the risk of a cancerous
dose was than one in a million and naturally occurring fungicides, such as
aflatoxins, and molds, were 1,000 times more toxic than EDBC’s.  One mushroom has 167 times the carcinogenic
effects as the daily intake of EDB’s and PCB’s.[9] The loss of EDBC’s caused apple growers to
use stronger mite killers later in the season with higher residuals on the
fruit than the EDBC’s.[10] The estimated cost of the EDBC ban was $2
billion a year.[11] By 1991, California would find only 10 wells
out of 2,761 tested with traces of EDB’s and be offering $190,000 for studies
of alternatives to EDB’s.[12] The British avoided all such costs by simply believing their scientists.

Angry over its massive economic losses from the ALAR affair, Washington state apple growers sued the Natural Resources
Defense Council and CBS.  NRDC’s Alan Meyerhoff, a Tom Hayden ally, said the suit was a “strategic lawsuit against
public participation,” a SLAPP.[13]

No Significant Cancer Risk

After the Alar ban, a National Academy of Sciences report, Issues in Science and Technology, based on 6,000
studies, concluded that there was “no evidence that pesticides or natural
toxins in food contribute significantly to cancer risk in the United
States” and urged that Americans double their diet of fruits and vegetables.[14]

The worst case — seventy years of excess ingestation of pesticides by the entire U.S. population — would predict 20,000
cases of cancer per year.  This totally imaginary horror story has to be compared to 956,000 real and proven cases of
cancer deaths per year from more certain causes.  Even attributing two per cent of all cancers
to pesticides requires extraordinary assumptions of guilt for pesticides and
their users with little or no hard physical evidence.  To receive cancerous doses of food, one would
have to eat 20 pounds of fruits and vegetables every day according to Sanford
Miller, a biomedical scientist at the University of Texas.  If the FDA’s “zero risk” were
applied to all foods, “we would have to ban all foods … ,” according to Miller.[15]

“Most of the risks are people’s choices.  They are not imposed … by
corporations. … [Yet] people want to blame someone,” said Robert J.
Scheuplein, FDA’s director of toxicological sciences.[16] Farmers often considering themselves
conservationists, “are shocked to see themselves painted as the
enemy,” said Herb Manig of the American Farm Bureau Federation.  Putting “an inspector behind every
cornstalk … (may) drive up the cost of agriculture” and food, said columnist Alastair Chase.[17]

Environmental Politics, a Leftist Agenda

“Friends of the people” were self designated.  During April 1989, Norman
Lear hired yet another old Hayden hand, Andy Spahn, to head up Lear’s
Environmental Media Association to raise Hollywood consciousness of
environmental issues.

Lear had been inspired by Jamaican Noel Brown’s concerns about global pollution and praise
for Soviet cooperation in the clean up of the world’s pollution.[18] Apparently the dead — (fish) in Lake Baikal,
(whales) in the Pacific, and (humans) at Chernobl — told no tales about Soviet plunder of the environment. [Chinese now leading in green technolopgy]

Corporate Capitalism’s Assault on the Environment

The range of green political possibilities for the left was greatly expanded as was their list of alleged global
environmental disasters that were all attributed to American corporate capitalism —
ocean pollution, off shore drilling (tankers worse), global warming, ozone
depletion, acid rain, pesticides, deforestation, redwoods etc., etc.,.

Bill Bradley, a long time confidant of Tom
Hayden wrote in late July 1989 that Hayden, Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly, and
others saw environmental pollution as a “hot button” issue useful for
defining the public debate for the 1990 elections.[19] Four days later, Karl Ory, a Hayden spokesman
for Campaign California said, “We’re now looking at options for a major
environmental initiative for the November 1990 ballot.  The “we” was almost incestuously
Haydenista — Hayden’s lover since the Dukaksis campaign, Vicki Rideout, was
also an advisor to attorney General John Van de Kamp.  Van de Kamp’s campaign consultant (until
January) was a former Cesar Chavez organizer and Willie Brown aide, Richie
Ross.  Appropriately quoting Tom Hayden, the Campaign California press release said toxics was a “progressive”
cause.  “We hope to announce our plans in a few weeks,” said Ory.

Pay to Play

In the meantime various draft proposals landed among members of environmentalist industries, lawyers, and politicians
around the state who might provide substantive input — including cash contributions.  The Pete Wilson for governor
campaign had received a copy and was given only a few days to read it, comment
on it and endorse it.  By various accounts the Wilson campaign had either “wanted very badly” to
endorse it or found that it was “not good public policy … .”  Later both the Democrat and Republican
candidates for Governor, Dianne Feinstein and Pete Wilson, would independently
claim to have easily refused to contribute $100,000 each for the opportunity to
provide input on the draft initiative and to incidentally help John Van de Kamp’s gobernatorial campaign
against both of them.

Proponents denied these financial demands were ever made.[20] The practice, sometimes claimed – always
denied, was common in financing California’s expensive multi-million dollar
statewide ballot campaigns.  Private environmentalist attorneys had also reviewed the sloppily produced draft, but
local district attorneys who would have to prosecute under the proposed law were not invited to participate.

In August Hayden and state attorney general
John Van de Kamp formally announced that a “coalition” was working to
finalize the initiative.[21] “The entire environmental community …
[would] … put before the people the most far-reaching environmental clean-up
initiative in the history of this state,” said Van de Kamp.[22] There was no doubt, however, that Hayden was
the one “spearheading the Big Green initiative.”

Big Green Is Red

Bill Bradley had named the effort[23] after some discussions with Hayden who “initially loved” Big
Green.  Later Hayden “asked me to stop pushing the name.  It sounded, he
said, like … a big dog … like ‘Big Red’ or ‘Ole Yeller’… And he had his
own name … — EPIC for Environmental Protection Initiative of California.  As it happened, EPIC … was
also … Epton Sinclair’s 1934 Socialist campaign for governor.”[24] Some opponents would privately call the
initiative Big Red or Little Red or compare it to a watermelon — green on the outside, red on the inside.

To gauge the possible negative political impact of Hayden’s leadership role in Big Green, the initiative’s coalition
took a poll in late September.  Stating that it “was put together by Tom Hayden and John Van de Kamp to further
their political agendas,” only 18 per cent said that was reason enough to vote against the initiative.”[25] Several months later, Mervyn Field’s
California poll showed that Hayden’s favorable to unfavorable ratings by voters
was bad compared to other California politicians, 39 per cent to 38 per cent, but not as low as some thought.[26]

The coalition was working on many fronts and venues.  On September 28, Lear’s
Environmental Media Association, EMA, directed by Hayden hand Andy Spahn,
hosted a reception of ten leading environmental organizations.  Also in the fall, a statewide group of local
elected officials of the “think globally, act locally” variety, Local
Government Commission, met in Monterey — its theme being a renewal of the environmental ethos.[27]

On October 11th, Hayden and Van de Kamp announced the details of the coalition’s plan, an Environmental Protection
Act.  EPA aimed to “end a decade of environmental neglect …,” said Hayden.
Van de Kamp said it was a “bill of rights” that “… puts the right to clean beaches and oceans ahead of the right to drill for oil and
dump waste … .”  Its “Findings and Declarations” stated, “neither the state nor
federal government has adequately protected the People of the State of
California from hazardous pesticides … placing adults and especially children in serious jeopardy.”

“On Land, Air, and Sea.”

Environmental Protection Act would enact:

  • a phased ban of any use of cancer-causing pesticides in any amount;
  • a tough “more sensitive” children’s standard of chemical safety for those chemicals missing the outright ban;
  • a phased ban of the most common air conditioner/refrigerant chemicals (chlorofluorocarbons) in seven years anda 40 per cent reduction of carbon dioxide [auto, factory] emissions in twenty years
    since both CFC’s and CO were ozone-depleting chemicals;
  • “health based” limits on corporate discharges into the ocean;
  • an outright ban of off shore oil drilling;
  • homebuilders requirements to plant one tree for every 500 square foot lot developed [6 trees
    per modest single family dwelling];
  • tough federal quantitative standards for local sewage treatment discharges of toxic pollutants;
  • a $200 million budget to acquire ancient redwoods and $100 million to fund nonprofit and government
    planting of trees in “urban forestry” projects;
  • a tax on private oil transport of $500 million to fund public oil spill responses;
  • and, a first time in the nation, statewide elected post of environmental advocate costing
    $750,000 a year with an annual research budget of $40 million.[28]

It took 13,000 words to describe Big Green’s comprehensive plan for clean air, water, soil and food.

Hayden pledged an “all out fight,” which one wag compared to the Marine Corp — “on land, air,
and sea.”  Others said Hayden intended to be the Corp’s Commander as California’s elected Environmental
advocate on land, air and sea.  Hayden denied that this “great office” had been created for him.  The environmental advocate had been variously
described called a “czar” or cop who would have broad authority (exceeding the state’s Attorney General and overriding local District
Attorneys) to conduct investigations, control $40 million in research per year,
and to intervene in pending civil and criminal cases in local courts.[29] John Van de Kamp also hoped to get a
jump-start on his campaign for Governor by supporting the popular initiative.

Political Hot Buttons

Sacramento Bee political columnist Dan Walters said, “Big Green seems to be … more inspired by political
strategy than any rational approach to environmental protection … .  [It] touches all the right emotional buttons,
but ignores many of the underlying issues that would be more unpalatable to
voters.”  Walters said California’s population growth required “housing construction, oil, and food at affordable
prices.”[30] Someone with the Western Agricultural Chemicals Association said, “It forfeits science for emotions.”[31]

Hayden’s friend, Bob Mulholland said, “In a political debate, science doesn’t matter much.  It’s really how you feel about the issue.”[32]

Indeed, politics driven emotion, not science, drove most discussions of ozone depletion and global warming as well as pesticides.

Who’s Who of Radical Environmentalists

In official papers filed in late November the proponents of Big Green were a Who’s Who of Haydenistas:

  • Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly, a Hayden intimate on environmental and Central American issues;
  • Attorney General John Van de Kamp, who had hired Dukasis aide and Hayden lover, Vicki Rideout, for his campaign for Governor of California;
  • Bob Mulholland, political director of Campaign California;
  • Michael Picker, long time CED member and CED fundraiser, a leading member of CED’s Cancer Project and its Valley Oak
    voter registration project, an activist in Proposition 65, and a spokesman for the Hayden influenced National Toxic Campaign[33];
  • Albert Meyerhoff, Hayden ally in anti-nuclear and Proposition 65 efforts and in the Natural Resources Defense Council; and
  • Carl Pope, Hayden ally from the Sierra Club.

Later joining the campaign would be the Planning and Conservation League whose president and vice-president, Gary Patton and Michael Remy, had ties to Hayden’s CED as a member and
its attorney respectively.  PCL was a coalition of groups that included Friends of the Earth, Californians Against Waste, Friends of the River, the Audubon Society, Greenpeace Pacific Southwest,
the Wilderness Society and others.

The League of Conservation Voters came on board and it was another coalition consisting of the Sierra Club, the Planning and Conservation League, Defenders
of Wildlife, Californians Against Waste, and Ralph Nader’s western arm CalPIRG.  Many had previously worked with Hayden.  And the California Democratic
Party also supported Big Green, not surprisingly since two of the party’s subsequent executive directors, Cathy Calfo and Bob Mulholland, would come off
Hayden’s payroll to run the day to day operations of the state party and Hayden
would donate $58,000 to the Democrat Party State Central Committee in the coming
election year.[34]

A Tom Hayden Operation

Still, Los Angeles Times, “analyst” Rich Paddock would later write that Tom Hayden was only “one of seven” sponsors.[35] And Picker and others would deny parts of
their associations and claim other more mainstream activities whatever the public record.[36] Indeed Big Green had gone to the top, recruiting Michael Landon of TV’s “Highway to Heaven” as a spokesman.[37]

The “Big Green” campaign would be managed by Bob Mulholland on Hayden’s payroll for 15 years.  Bill Bradley who was a long time associate of
Hayden since the Hayden campaign for U.S. Senate and afterwards as a CED
activist/contributor/consultant (in Santa Monica, Chico, and Sacramento) wrote politically insightful columns about Big Green.[38]

After denying the author’s detailed claims that he was a “confidant” of Hayden, Bradley finally appeared to
relent sending the author a $100 check for “rendering public relations services.  The author returned the check saying Bradley couldn’t really afford the advertising rates for the many column inches
published about him in the author’s column in the Sacramento Union.[39]

Going Global…into Hollywood

As a frequent Hayden publicist working for a newspaper staffed with Haydenistas, Bill Bradley wrote that Hayden’s
“Big Green” represented an “Eco-globalism” recognizing that “solutions to environmental problems … transcend the traditional
political boundaries of city, county, state, and nation.”  He noted that “Hollywood figures are
becoming increasingly involved in the new eco-globalism, producing public service
messages, inserting ‘green’ messages in TV shows and movies, making public appearances, and raising money.”[40]

At the grassroots level the “think globally, act locally” contingent came out.  In Hollywood Andy Spahn, a former Hayden
spokesman, headed up Norman Lear’s Environmental Media Association, EMA, which
successfully led environmental reprogramming of upcoming TV series and movies.  One EMA meeting co-sponsored by
Norman Lear and Fonda’s $250 million business partner, Lorimar, refused to stop
an evening meeting being conducted just as San Francisco’s Loma Pietra
Earthquake struck on October 17th.  As nearly 300 people died by the Bay, an owner of a fifty car garage, Norman Lear,
held forth on the dangers of strofoam cups to the environment and worried about
automobiles and air conditioners depleting the ozone layer.[41] Bradley wrote that the Bay area quake
“reminds us of our peril in ignoring natural systems.”[42]

Jane Fonda who had divorced Tom, was raising funds for his “Big Green” initiative.

Californian’s Scared of Chemicals

A December survey showed that 77 per cent of Californians in 15 of the states 58 counties were worried about food safety
— 48 per cent of them citing pesticides.  Bob Mulholland explained it: “Baby-boomers start out with
suspicions of government because of the Vietnam War and Watergate…. In the
past few years every institution in America has proven it can’t be trusted.  We’ve had scandals in
government, Wall Street and even among religious leaders.”  Merlin Fagen, a spokesman for the California
Farm Bureau said, “We’re scared, and we’re in a hard spot” while
working on an alternative initiative dubbed “CAREFUL.”  A gleeful Mulholland said, “We’ll just
use that as proof that much of the agriculture community agrees with us.”[43]

Some shopping malls attempted to stop David Cameron’s signature gathering on their property, but a judge ruled, with the
assistance of Campaign California attorney J. Allen Eisen, in favor of free speech.[44]

“We’re not dumb enough to poison ourselves”

California agriculture unveiled its “responsible, scientific” alternative to the Hayden initiative in
late December.  Instead of banning pesticides, it would double testing and research.  “We’re trying to take the hysteria out
of the issue … .  We are consumers [too],” said Stan Lester, a Yolo county farmer.  Bob Vice of the California Farm Bureau said,
“People know we’re not dumb enough to poison ourselves.”[45] Farmers hoped that a public in an
environmentalist mood might just accept their measure because it might appear less controversial.[46]

Opposition Divides

In response Mulholland said the agricultural initiative “divides the opposition.  It spreads their money out, and it reinforces
our message that there are some problems with pesticides that can be solved.”[47] Mulholland said, “Any industry that
tries to regulate itself is going to create suspicion in the minds of the public.”[48] Environmentalists tried to paint the farmers’ initiative “Big Brown.”

Oil

Al Greenstein, a spokesman for ARCO, said banning offshore drilling would only increase oil imports, leak prone tankers,
and gasoline prices — later calculated at 25 to 50 cents per gallon.  Governor Deukmejian suggested a loss of $2
billion to $5 billion in tidelands oil revenues to the state if offshore oil drilling were ended.  After new oil
spills off Alaska and the California coast, the governor noted that banning
offshore drilling meant more tankers and more oil spills.

Timber

By mid-January 1990, following the lead of
agriculture, the timber industry also presented an alternative to “Big
Green” — a $300 million bond to plant trees and to ban clear cutting in
old growth forests.  Kevin Eckerly, a timber
spokesman said that “The 90’s are the decade of the environment” and
“We’d like to have a hand in designing environmental reforms.”  Mulholland responded that the timber
initiative “… helps us because it gives us a clear contrast between
industry initiatives and environmental initiatives” and that having timber
interests protect forests was “like putting prisoners in charge of the
jail.”[49] Leroy McElroy of Forests Forever asked,
“Who do you trust? … industry or … consumer groups?”[50]

The Hayden Initiative

By February 1990, agricultural, refrigeration, pesticide, timber, and oil interests had hired Woodward-McDowell
to conduct a campaign in direct opposition to “Big Green.”  The firm opened an office whose phones were answered
indicating it opposed “the Hayden Initiative.”  Would Hayden be an “albatross” or a
“millstone” borne by the initiative?  The Sierra Club’s Michael Paparian said, “The opponents are
grasping for something to oppose. … [T]hey know the public wants the positive
measures that are in the initiative.”

Clark Briggs a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau agreed with the
Sierra Club’s assessment.  He said that voters will “read the label … and if it sounds good, they’ll vote for
it.”  Paparian said Hayden had been “a very consistent and reliable advocate for environmental
issues….”  Bob Mulholland, “Tom Hayden’s right-hand political operative for more than a decade,”
said “I hope they attack Hayden. … It will make him a better environmental leader.”

Even political consultants and pollsters who
had used Hayden as a campaign issue in the past warned that running against
Hayden might raise money and recruit foot soldiers, but it wouldn’t be enough
to persuade voters to go against “a powerful issue” like “Big Green.”  Indeed September polling
had already revealed only an 18 percent drop off caused by Hayden’s name.[51] Whatever Hayden’s negatives they didn’t
stick.  Was “Big Green” the teflon initiative?  It seemed so.

Corporate Polluters

In early March, 1990 Ralph Nader’s CALPIRG,
California Public Interest Research Group, made its independent contribution to
“Big Green,” releasing its annual report on California’s worst
polluters.  All were large corporations (steel, oil, paper, chemical).  No public
agency was listed despite being some of the biggest polluters.  Three companies who had reduced their
pollutants refused to talk to the Naderites.[52] Nader a self avowed “consumer
activist” as far as can be known did not object to the high costs to the
consumer of implementing Big Green.

Meanwhile Hayden made a shotgun attack upon his enemies.  “We’re up against some
of the most powerful interests there are — Oil, pesticides, … developers….
They are like gorillas in a candy store.  And they’re irritated,” said Hayden.[53] Opponents of Big Green foresaw that they
might have to spend $16 million to defeat it.

Left Mobilizes Troops

Yet by early March, the “most powerful … gorillas” hadn’t stopped the Big Green machine.  Out of the 600,000 signature target, some
500,000 had been collected six weeks before the deadline by a “citizen’s
army” made up of “an enormous pool of volunteers” and not a few
paid collectors both from numerous organizations such as Campaign California,
the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters.  Though by March the “Big Green”
campaign had so far raised only $225,000 in reported funds and had an official
staff of only four, Mulholland would later brag that Campaign California had a $13 million endowment[54]
(capable of producing an annual income of $1.3 million at a 10 per cent rate of return from investments).

Some of the initiative’s zealous volunteers and supporters, the “vanguard,” were calling it the “most
controversial initiative in California history” intending “to do
nothing less than save the Earth” and proclaiming themselves to be part of
an international movement likely to dominate the next decade.[55] Mary Nichols of a Hayden coalition member
organization, NRDC, said, “I think this is going to be the direction
pursued in other parts of the county.”
Christian Science Monitor story said California was “in the
forefront of testing how far the public wants to go in … environmental
concerns … .”[56] How far would California’s mainstream voters
be willing to go to clean up the environment?

Mainstream or Radical?

So in early April Bill Bradley wrote a piece trying to separate “Big Green” from “environmental
leftists” and “deep ecologists” and Earth Firsters.  It was necessary.  Earth Firsters planned a “Redwood
Summer” confronting timber-harvesting operations and that might generate
negative publicity about the environmental movement.

Earth First, California Wilderness Coalition, Sierra Club and Heal the Bay Stung by Bikers.

One secret Earth Firster, Jim Eaton, executive director of the California Wilderness Coalition (an umbrella
organization whose membership includes the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, the
Wilderness Society, Friends of the River, Defenders of Wildlife etc.) donated
$100 to a sting operation alleging to be able to (illegally) insert Earth First
literature into an Exxon oil company mailer. “Frannie” at the Sierra Club in San Francisco, and
“Corey” at Heal the Bay in Santa Monica had expressed interest in the
Exxon project.

The Sahara Club an antiSierra Club organizatiion of motorcycle and off-road vehicle enthusiasts ran sting operation

Th sting tape recorded Eaton promising and delivering money for the scam.[57]

Earth First’s Dave Foreman, arrested for conspiring to blow up a power transmission tower had become a secret hero of
the movement.  David Brower, founder of the Earth Island Institute said, “I would love to introduce him. I would
hate to follow him.  He’s a terrific performer.”  Forman said about Earth
First, “It could be sort of secretly controlled by the mainstream and trotted
out at hearings to make the Sierra Club or the Wilderness Society look moderate.”[58]

Extremists Among Moderates

So this was the context of cooperation among mainstream and extremist groups that explained why Bradley tried to
identify the initiative with the concerns of moderate voters.  Bradley said, “Big Green’ is far
reaching, radical even, but it’s not destructive.  It manages to avoid most of the anti-tech,
anti-capitalist junk that some of its backers desired.”  Soon an official co-sponsor, Michael Picker
of the National Toxics campaign, would appear as a media contact for Greenpeace
Action, surely one of the groups that Bradley would have liked to be, at least
publicly, disassociated from Big Green.[59] And Earth First!ers Darryl Cherney and Judi
Bari narrowly escaped death when a bomb blew up in the car outside of San Francisco.

Big Green was really just what “we
white, middle class, environmentalists” want said Bradley.  It was all rather “doable.” All
“we” wanted was: solar and wind power, efficient cars, mass transit,
new settlement patterns, cleaner technologies and management policies,
recycling, regulate or ban toxic discharges, reduce agricultural use of water,
pest resistant crops, improved worker health and safety, preventive medicine,
medical care for children.  Not much really very much[60], exceptwhen added up.

Big Green a Costly Jobs Killer

Opponents commissioned an April study that claimed Big green would increase gasoline prices 25-50 cents per gallon,
utility rates by 20 per cent, and food prices by 30-50 per cent.  And 1.4 million Californians might lose their
jobs.

Still a cautious Kirk West of the California Chamber of Commerce, didn’t want to appear to be “against environmental quality.”

Jack McDowell of Woodward & McDowell, the firm hired to run the campaign against the initiative, said simply that it
was “too drastic,” signaling his new political strategy to defeat Big Green.  Bob Mulholland reacted saying,
“They are just crying wolf and being extreme.”[61]

Who is Chicken Little?

Later one Big Green supporter, NRDC’s Albert
Meyerhoff, would say its critics were like Chicken Little crying that “the
sky is falling,” — a curious accusation since proponents were the ones
making planetary warnings about global warming, green house effects, and ozone
layers disappearing.[62] The green message of impending environmental
disasters appeared to be working better than their opponent’s message of high
costs for consumers.  By mid-April about 650,000 signatures had been gathered — only 375,000 valid signatures were
required.

April 1990 contained a weeklong celebration of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day with California’s Big Green being the
flagship for the movement.  Columnist Warren Brookes was one of the few national journalists sounding a warning of
the ill winds ahead.  He said Big Green would “cut food production by 15 per cent to 20 per cent and raise prices
30 per cent to 40 per cent on the best cancer-fighting foods we eat …”[63] meaning fruits and vegetables. According to Agricultural Secretary Clayton
Yuetter the impact would be national since California grew half the nation’s fruits and vegetables.[64] Brookes cited the science and concluded that
“big Green’s’ phobia over trivial environmental risks looks suspiciously like witch-hunting.”[65]

Toxic Chemical Soup, Poison for Profits

Earth Day April 22nd turned up the heat.

Speaking in the heart of California agriculture in Fresno, John Van de Kamp said, “The people of this
community live and drink and breathe in a toxic chemical soup like few places
on Earth,” a exaggerated and hysterical remark not well received in the
farm dependant local economy.[66] After word leaked that President Bush might
approve some off shore drilling in California, Tom Hayden took an Earth Day
stage in Santa Monica urging the crowd to “Stand up and say ‘No
Drilling.  No Drilling.”  He predicted “a thunderstorm of
résistance.”[67]

Things looked good for Big Green. Polls showed only 17 per cent considered the economy a major concern and 40 per cent
of the voters described themselves as an “environmentalist.”

Feinstein Endorses Big Green

Within the Democratic Party primary contest for Governor things got stormy.  In San
Jose Van de Kamp attacked those “growers who poison their crops for
profit,” and said that his Democrat opponent and former San Francisco
Mayor Dianne Feinstein was “ducking the issue” of Big Green.  Feinstein promised to “rid the Central
Valley of that pesticide curse.”[68] Then the next day, Feinstein endorsed the
“progressive, state-of-the art” Big Green in Tom Hayden’s hometown of
Santa Monica.  She had piggybacked her campaign upon Van de Kamp’s expensive initiative at its peak of popularity at
no cost to herself.  Republican and former mayor of San Diego Pete Wilson had still taken no position on the
initiative except to object to the Balkanization created by the environmental “Czar.”[69]

On April 26th, a day after Feinstein had caught a free ride in the “thunderstorm,” Hayden and Van de Kamp
conducted anticlimactic day long series of press conferences throughout
California as they turned in nearly 800,000 signatures to qualify the measure
for the November ballot.  They had only needed 372,000 valid signatures.

On June 5th, Feinstein defeated Van de Kamp for the Democrat nomination for governor.
Van de Kamp had spent $1.6 million in campaign funds to qualify Big
Green and two other initiatives dealing with crime and political ethics.  He graciously endorsed Feinstein and said
that qualifying the initiatives had been worth it despite his defeat at the polls.

DDT Suit

In mid-June officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and state agencies sued Montrose
Chemical Corporation for “tens of millions” to pay for dumping DDT
into the ocean 29 years previously and for discharging DDT tainted water into
the ocean 19 years previously.  The guilty facility no longer existed, but DDT doses were being found in sea lions,
dolphins, bald eagles, brown pelicans.  A Big Green coalition member, Joel Reynolds of NRDC said, “It’s the first
attempt to place a value on damages done to natural resources and to compel companies to pay them.”[70]

Grassroots v. Chemical Companies

In mid-July, Michael Paparian of the Sierra Club said, “Big Green is a fight … for our children’s future as well as
our environmental future.”  While the initiatives supporters were running a grassroots campaign, the opponents
were funded 93 per cent by chemical companies.
Hayden elected Sacramento city council woman Kim Mueller said, “This is a tough and comprehensive measure one that is absolutely
necessary to … tackle the problems of environmental pollution in California.”  A Larouche backed
group responded that Big Green was a “a Soviet plot to destroy this country’s timber and agricultural industry” — backed by “Hollywood Paganists.”[71]

In late July, Lloyd Connelly announced that Big Green would begin running half-hour long TV commercials late night and on
cheaper cable channels.  The commercial were intended to raise funds by being used nationwide and in home
showings.  They were narrated by movie stars and contained testimonials of children, seniors, fishermen, and
farmworkers expressing their fears for the environment.[72]

Legislature Suppresses Science

Contrary information about the economic effects of Big Green’s pesticide provisions was suppressed by a veiled threat
from two of Proposition 128’s supporters, state Senator Nick Petris and
Assemblyman Robert Campbell both of whom were chairmen of legislative
subcommittees handling University of California budget requests.  In August they wrote, “… we urge you
not to risk the University’s standing by publishing research involving such highly charged political issues.”
It was a time of “austerity” when “… various institutions will be asked to eliminate programs.”[73]

California Manufacturers

Expecting a “knock down drag out battle,” former state senator and president of the California Manufacturers Association, Bill Campbell, claimed the Big Green
would “devastate the economy” and was an “out and out war on the poor, women, the young and the last hired.”  Campbell cited a privately funded Spectrum
Economics study claiming the initiative would cost $ 8 billion to $12 billion in lost tax revenues, cause a 30 per cent increase in the price of food, result
in a 70 cent per gallon rise in the price of gasoline, and destroy 1 million to 5 million jobs.  Campbell said the environmental czar would have “unbelievable, unchecked power.”

Big Green claimed savings in health care.[74]

Since many of Campbell’s companies represented by his CMA were funding the opposition, the strategy to beat Big Green was not
merely to call it the “Hayden Initiative.”  That only said “Hayden wants to clean up the environment,” according to Mickey Conroy[75]
who had been trying to remove Hayden from office because of his treason during the Vietnam War and his lying about it throughout his pursuit of power in
electoral politics.  The two-step strategy was to use Hayden to get voters to listen to the details about adverse economic impacts.

Big Green supporters tried to raise funds using the usual cast of Hayden characters — in Sacramento Connelly, Mueller,
Ory, Paparian, and Picker with a labor leader Pat Henning and a local Assemblyman, Phil Isenberg, thrown in for a thin cover.[76]

Money Laundering

Thicker cover, very green camouflage, came
from indirect and independent contributions to the environmental cause through public employee contributions to the United Way which had designated the
“non-affiliated” Environmental Federation of California as a possible check-off for tax deductible contributions.
According Nancy Snow, the federation’s executive director, it received approximating $1 million per year in 1989 and 1990 from 100 employer-employee
campaigns in California.  Snow, official of a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, endorsed environmental
initiatives.  Not surprising, the federation’s members included Big Green supporters like the NRDC, Sierra Club,
and others.  Sacramento revealed the politics behind at least one agency seeking contributions for the federation.  Two directors of the Sacramento Municipal
Utility District, Ed Smeloff and Peter Keat, had long time ties to Hayden’s CED and were part of the ruling majority of public utility’s governing board that
approved check offs for the Environmental Federation.[77] And “Environmentalists for Smeloff” — Lloyd Connelly, Bea Cooley of the American River Coalition, Jerry Meral of
the Planning and Conservation League, Mike Paparian of the Sierra Club –backed his reelection to the SMUD board.[78]

In mid-September, Assemblyman Jim Costa representing a farm district and chairman of the Democratic caucus in the Assembly said, Big Green “was written in a
closet by Assemblyman Tom Hayden and a group of his friends.”[79] Perhaps thinking of Costa’s colleagues, Roger
Ramsier, president of Aerojet, accused the legislature of “pandering to radical environmental no-growth, and anti-business forces.”[80] And without Hollywood stars, local farm
groups were raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to oppose the Hayden and his friends.

Zero Risks, Zero Food, Zero Jobs

Joe Smith, the writer of one farm commodity newsletter quipped that “Proposition 128 … promises the voter an
environment with zero risk from pesticide residues … . Zero risks, though eventually means zero chemicals, then zero crops, then zero jobs, the zero
environmentalists.”  And “ethyl alcohol will be one of the items we won’t be able to allow to touch our
food.  You can drink it, but you can’t spray it.  We’re not sure wine sauces will be allowed.”  The September
issue of Science noted that 27 of 52 naturally occurring chemicals in foods showed up as carcinogen in animal tests.
These natural, not manmade, chemicals in 57 foods appeared in concentrations thousands of times greater than synthetic chemicals like
pesticides[81] –virtually zero risk already existed.

In early October, it seemed like one private corporation, Southern California Edison, might have decide to switch
rather than fight — it appointed a co-founder of the NRDC as its Chief Executive officer — John Bryson.[82]

South Coast Air Quality Tyrant

Then the South Coast (Southern California)
Air Quality Management District voted to impose tough emission standards against charcoal lighter, self-starting charcoal briquettes, bread bakery
emissions, deodorants.  AQMD’s James Lent,”one of the most powerful people in Southern California,” had a staff
of 900 and a budget of $80 million per year funded by fines, penalties and permits levied against business.  Peter
Hidalgo of the Commuter Transportation Services of Los Angeles suggested that more workers ought to walk to work — a daunting idea in the sprawling
auto-dependant megalopolis.  Out in the Central Valley, 80 year old Bill Huffman, a thirty year operator of a dioxin
generating smelting plant, wasn’t worried about the effects on children saying “if it’s going to kill me, it had better hurry, or I’ll die of old
age.”[83] Meanwhile oriental fruit flies had landed in San Diego — it had a voracious appetite for some 236 varieties of fruits, nuts and vegetables.

In the October issue of the NRDC Newsline, Al Meyerhoff said, “We believe that Big Green accurately represents … how the public translates its will
into change.  The environmental community needs a big win, Meyerhoff said. “We can’t be a paper tiger. Big Green is our best shot.”

Hollywood Cancer Experts

Big Green added Hollywood macho to its support list — Sylvester Stallone.  A “Big Green” ad asserted, “scientists are unable to find
uncontaminated fish in California waters. Cancer in children is up 20 per cent since 1950. … 20,000 Americans
will develop cancer and 3,000 will die because of pesticide exposure this year.”  Other sources of wisdom came
from Oliver Stone, director of anti-Vietnam war films like “Platoon” and “Born on The Fourth of July,” who said Americans were
“choking to death.”  Actor Jack Lemmon, a California regular for liberal political commercials, said California
swimmers were getting “mysterious diseases.”  Other stars spoke of “deadly fruit.”[84]

Exploiting Dying Children

In late October Big Green was running 30 second ads featuring 4-year-old Collette Chuda dying of cancer — a heart
rending message.  After the election, Los Angeles Timesman William Kahrl wrote, “Exploiting a child’s sickness for
political purposes is bad enough.  What makes the Chuda case worse is the fact that she’s suffering from a form of
kidney cancer, Wilms’ tumor, that ‘seems unrelated to environmental exposure’ according to the National Cancer Institution.”[85] Actress Tracey Nelson, a cancer survivor,
struck similar themes.[86] Big Green’s ads and literature proclaimed, “major funding by environmental groups.”

Public Support Collapses

As the election approached, something was happening on the way to the latest revolution against capitalism.  Ads opposing “Big Green” said it
did too much.  Various sources said it would might reduce crop production by 40 per cent, increase prices 50 per cent,
and cost local government $6 billion a year. The often environmentally crusading Sacramento Bee urged a
“no” vote because it was poorly conceived and might hurt agriculture.  Similarly, the environmentalist City Council
of Sacramento refused to take stand and the County Board of Supervisors narrowly opposed the Proposition.

And some voters were listening.  By mid-October top political consultants on
both sides with access to private polling, told the author that support for
Big Green had plummeted from an original 70 per cent to 40-50 per cent.  Voters were moving away from a
“Yes” vote because the initiative was tried to do too much, was complex, and its identification with Tom Hayden.[87]

Voter Slates for Hire

Also intentionally adding to voter confusion was a phony “Democratic Voter Check off” created by
Democrat political consultant Clint Reilly which opposed proposition 128,
despite the official endorsement of the official state Democrat Party.  Opponents of Hayden had paid Reilly $75,000
to get on his slate.  Reilly often worked with well-heeled clients.  He lived in a San Francisco mansion political insiders called the “House that Insurance
Built” even though Reilly had lost in his efforts to protect the insurance industry from a radical insurance “reform” initiative in 1988.

Reilly had his critics.  The Planning and Conservation League — which in June had taken Southern Pacific Railway money to link highway and public
transit construction to a $900 million “mountain lion” habitat purchase on a single slate — was now protesting Reilly’s deceit.[88]

More Money Laundering

Meanwhile Tom Hayden was conducting his own “ultimate stealth campaign,” said attorney “Chip” Nielsen
in a letter to Bob Mulholland.  Some $1.5 million dollars had been contributed to Big Green through a welter of interlocking
committees.  Hayden controlled seven committees — all used Lloyd Connelly’s law firm (Olsen & Connelly),
Mulholland managed four, Campaign California and Connelly’s law firm provided
them office addresses.  These seven committees reported contributions totaling $689,680 — but none reported their
own sources of funds.  If they had reported their sources of funds, Big Green’s ads might have been required by
law to be tagged “Major Funding by Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Ted Turner, and
the entertainment industry” instead of being deceitfully labeled “major funding by environmental groups.”  Environmental groups in the coalition — the
Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pesticide Watch, the National Toxics Campaign, and National Toxics Fund — contributed another
$260,000 to the measure and also failed to reveal their major contributors.  Only the League of
Conservation Voters filed a report listing its sources of funds.[89] Secret donors, laundered money?  Where was the “grassroots” support
for saving the planet? Had contributors to United Way unwittingly given to Big Green through the Environmental Federation of California?

Big Green Defeated, Public Unimpressed with Hollywood

While the voters picked up little of this pre-election sleaze, 64 per cent of voters resoundingly rejected Big Green.

Indeed, after the election it appeared voters had not been much impressed with Hollywood glitter.  Joe Scott’s California Eye reported on Chuck
Rund’s Charlton Research survey showing that only 13 per cent of voters would admit relying upon Hollywood celebrities as a compelling source of
information.  Eighty-six said that celebrity endorsements were unimportant.  Some 39 per cent were moved by TV ads.
An amazing 70 per cent rated newspaper analyses and the pro-con arguments in their voter pamphlets as extremely or somewhat important.

Economic and environmental concerns drove about the same percentage of voters — 30-29 per cent.  That had been a doubling of concern about
economic issues from 17 per cent rating among voters in June.  The NRDC tried to explain the loss of Big
Green to a massive pattern of “No” votes in the November ballot.  Yet the Rund survey showed that only 5 per
cent of voters voted “No” on all measures. The voters didn’t like Big Green.

Republican Pete Wilson Adopts much of Big Green

Curiously that really didn’t matter, because the newly elected Republican governor Pete Wilson appeared to adopting
many of Haydenista-like personnel and ideas.  Wilson appointed environmentalist Douglas Wheeler as his secretary of
the Resource Agency, formed a Growth Management Task Force, created a new Environmental
Protection Agency, held “bioregional” conferences, had an open door
policy toward environmentalists, made deals on environmental issues in
negotiations with environmentalists, etc.

About Governor Wilson’s formation of a California EPA, in particular the movement of state authority on pesticides from Food and Agriculture to the new
EPA, Farm Bureau president Jay Schneider, “We are concerned that farm families will not understand why our governor … would … embrace the desires
of Tom Hayden.”  Hayden praised the governor for his actions “in the face of extraordinary opposition from the agricultural chemical interests.”[90]

By mid-1991, Tom Hayden, who no longer had Jane Fonda, had a new self described religion — environmentalism — in classes
on “Spirituality and the Environment” that he taught at Santa Monica City College and in interviews he granted to the media, Tom said, “We need
to see nature as having a sacred quality … that forms a barrier to greed and exploitation.  It’s God’s will,” said Tom. Politics hadn’t worked — Big Green.
What was needed was an “earth centered” religion.  And he seemed to find Judaism, Christianity,
Shintoism, Hinduism etc lacking or maybe he would create a new religion out of the rest.  A bit ambitious perhaps, but
then the president of Santa Monica City College thought Tom had “one of the best minds on the planet.”  Tom
said, we are “on the brink of a new religion that embraces nature (and) identifies with the earth.”[91] Environmentalism as a powerful political
issue was not new to Tom and the American left. Only the religion was new.

After all, Hayden’s environmental politics had been devastated after the big loss of his “Big Green” in
1990.  This after a long string of successes in ecopolitics as an assault upon the real enemy — corporate capitalism.

Maybe the real enemy had been Judeo-Christian civilization.

The red tinge of Hayden’s Big Green of 1990 had not been an accident of temporary political alignment.

The fact that Big Green did “too much” was also intentional.

With California leading the way nation would adopt much of the Big Green initiative. Barak Obama and Occupy Wall Street bludgened  corporations, Wall Steet and capitalism with big green hammers and nails.


[1] Warren Brookes, “How the EPA Launched Nationwide ‘Alar-mania,” Sacramento Union, February 26, 1990.

[2] Elizabeth M. Whalen, “Cancer Scares And Our Inverted Health Priorities,” Imprimis, June 1991, Volume 20, No. 6.

[3] Warren Brookes, Sacramento Union, March 5, 1990, p. 13.

[4] Warren Brookes, Sacramento Union, April 16, 1990.

[5] Whalen, Imprimis, June 1991.

[6] Sacramento Union, March 5, 1990; AP, Sacramento Bee, October 25, 1989.

[7] Peter Schrag, Sacramento Bee, April 12, 1989.

[8] Warren Brookes, Sacramento Union, April 16, 1990.

[9] Whalen, Imprimis, June 1991.

[10] Warren Brookes, Sacramento Union, April 16, 1990.

[11] Warren Brookes, Sacramento Union, March 5, 1990, p. 13.

[12] California Department of Food and Africulture, news releases of February 21st and March
26th, 1991.

[13] “Revenge of the Apples,” Wall Street Journal,

[14] Cited in Whalen, Imprimis, June, 1991.

[15] Warren Brookes, Sacramento Union, March 5, 1990.

[16] Sacramento Union, February 20, 1990.

[17] Alistair Chase, Sacramento Union, January 23, 1989, p. 17.

[18] Joseph Farah, Between the Lines, November 7, 1989, p. 4.

[19] Bill Bradley, “Hot Button’ Voting,” Sacramento News & Review, July 27, 1989.

[20] Roger Canfield, “Wilson: Little Green?” Sacramento Union, January 29, 1991, p. A-2.  Otto Bos, Wilson advisor, to Canfield on January 28, 1991.
Doug Willis, Sacramento Union, January 20, 1991.  See also: Joe Scott, “Feinstein upstages Van de Kamp on ‘Big Green drive,” Sacramento Union, April 25, 1990, p. A-9.

[21] Campaign California Report, third quarter, 1989.

[22] “New Initiative Launched,” Campaign California Report, Volume 4, No. 1, (Third Quarter 1989), p. 1.

[23] Bill Bradley, Sacramento News & Review, August 1, 1989.

[24] Bill Bradley, “Big, Green And Good For You,” Sacramento News & Review, April 5, [or 12], 1990.

[25] Bud Lembke, “Hayden’s Name Being Used to Beat Initiative,” Sacramento Union, February 14, 1990.

[26] Cited by Bud Lembke, Sacramento Union, February 14, 1990.

[27] Bill Bradley, “The Growth of Big Green,” Sacramento News and Review, November 30, 1990.

[28] John Rofe, “Tough Environmental Rules Proposed As Ballot Initiative,” Los
Angeles Daily News
and Sacramento Bee, October 11, 1989, p. A-3.

[29] Joe Scott, “DA’s May Oppose Plan For Conservation Cop,” Sacramento Union, January 16, 1990, p. 6.

[30] Dan Walters, “Big Green, A Big Bust,” Sacramento Bee, October 23, 1990, p.A-3.

[31] Cited in George Thurlow, “GET READY FOR THE BIG GREEN,” Sacramento News & Review, March 15, 1990, p. 21.

[32] Whalen, Imprimis, June, 1991.

[33] Known Hayden affiliated persons, besides Picker, appearing on the letterhead of the National
Toxic Campaign in 1991 were; Ed Begley, Jr., Lloyd Connelly, Patricia Duff-Medavoy, Tom Epstein, Mike Farrell, Kim Mueller, Gary Patton, Andy Spahn,Marge Tabankin.

[34] Roger Canfield, “Proposition loophole,” Sacramento Union, October 19, 1990, p. A-2.

[35] Roger Canfield, “Big Green’ or ‘Hayden Initiative,” Sacramento Union, August 22, 1990, p. A-2.

[36] Roger Canfield, “Why Big Green is truly the ‘Hayden Initiative,” Sacramento Union, September 10, 1990, p. A-2.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Roger Canfield, “Hayden confidant? You decide,” Sacramento Union, September 12, 1990, p. A-2.

[39] Roger Canfield, “Bradley’s bill,” Sacramento Union, September 28, 1990, p. A-2.

[40] Bill Bradley, “The Growth of Green,” Sacramento News & Review, November 30, 1989.

[41] Joseph Farah, Between the Lines, November 20, 1989, pp. 1, 8.

[42] Bill Bradley, Sacramento News & Review, November 30, 1989.

[43] Bill Ainsworth, “U.C. Research Shows Consumers Fear Pesticide Use,” Sacramento Union, December 17, 1989.

[44] Sacramento Unoin, December 19, 1989, p. 8.

[45] Sacramento Union, February 4, 1990, p. 17.

[46] An “internal pesticide industry” memo cited by Bob Mulholland in George Thurlow, “GET READY FOR THE BIG GREEN,” Sacramento News &
Review
, March 15, 1990, p. 21.

[47] Bill Ainsworth, “Growers Sponsor Counter-Measure,” Sacramento Union, December 22, 1989.

[48] Bill Ainsworth, “Ballot Box New Battleground For Industry, Environmentalists,” Sacramento Union, February 4, 1990, p. 17.

[49] Sacramento Union, January 18, 1990.

[50] Sacramento Union, February 4, 1990, p. 17.

[51] Bud Lembke, “Hayden’s Name Being Used to Beat Initiative,” Sacramento Union, February 14, 1990. See also: George Thurlow, “GET REDY FOR THE BIG
GREEN,” Sacramento News & Review, March 15, 1990, pp. 20-21.

[52] AP, “Report Targets Worst Polluters,” Sacramento Union, March 2, 1990, p. 16.

[53] John Balzar, “Initiatives: Time For Reform,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1990.

[54] Bob Mulholland in a KCRA, channel 3 (Sacramento), interview in the fall of 1990.

55] George Thurlow, “GET REDY FOR THE BIG GREEN,” Sacramento News & Review, March 15, 1990, pp. 20-21.

[56] Scott Armstrong, “The ‘greening of California politics,” Christian Science Moniter in the Sacramento Union of April 19, 1990, p. A-3.

[57] Roger Canfield, “Over-zealous environmentalist stung,” Sacramento Union, October 16, 1990, p. A-2.

[58]Michael Parfit, “Earth First!ers wield a mean wrwench,” Smithsonian, April, 1990, pp. 184-189.

[59] Roger Canfield, “Green connections,” Sacramento Union, November 2, 1990, p. A-2.

[60] Bill Bradley, “Big, Green And Good For You,” Sacramento News & Review, April 5 [or 12th], 1990.

[61] Scott Armstrong of the Christian Science Moniter in “The ‘greening’ of California politics,”  Sacramento Union, April 19, 1990, p. A-3.

[62] Roger Canfield, “Who is Chicken Little?” Sacrmento Union, October 11, 1990, p. A-2.

[63] Warren Brookes, “Hayden’s ‘Big Green’Initiative is Witch-hunting,” Sacramento Union, April 16, 1990, p. A-9.

[64] Brookes, Sacramento Union, April 16, 1990.

[65] Brookes, Sacramento Union, April 16, 1990.

[66] Jim Boren, “Lots of green will be spent on ‘Big Green,” Fresno Bee, April 22, 1990, p. B-1.

[67] James Gerstenzang, “Bush Likely to Allow Drilling Off California,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1990, p. A-3.

[68] John Howard, “Feinstein supports Van de Kamp initiative,” Sacramento Union, April 22, 1990, pp. B-4.

[69] Joe Scott, “Feinstein win upstages Van de Kamp on ‘Big Green’ drive,” Sacramento Union, April 25, 1990, p. A-9.

[70] Gale Holland, “8 polluters sued over marine life,” Sacramento Union, June 19, 1990, p. A-7.

[71] J.P. Tremblay, “Backers, opponents set to square off over Big Green,” Sacramento Union, July 18, 1990, p. C-3.
[72] UPI, “Big Green’ officials hope to make waves with 1/2 hour TV ad,” Sacramento
Union
, July 26, 1990, p. A-3.

[73] Memo in possession of this writer and cited in Roger Canfield, “Red-faced greens?” Sacramento Union, November 2, 1990, p. A-2.

[74] Trinda Pasquet, “Big battle over ‘Big Green’ grows louder,” Sacramento Union, August 11, 1990.

[75] Roger Canfield, “Green good, Hayden bad?” Sacramento Union, August 23, 1990, p. A-2.

[76] Roger Canfield, “The green party,” Sacramento Union, August 24, 1990, p. A-2.

[77] See: Roger Canfield’s “Under the Dome” columns in the Sacramento Union,
of October 2, December 14th and 18th, 1990, p. A-2.

[78] Roger Canfield, “Ed’s certainly their ‘dear friend,” Sacramento Union, October 17, 1990, p. A-2.

[79] Roger Canfield, “In the closet,” Sacramento Union, September 24, 1990, p. A-2.

[80] Roger Canfield, “Corporate Courage I,” Sacramento Union, October 17, 1990, p. A-2.

[81] Whalen, Imprimis, June, 1991.

[82] Roger Canfield, “Greens in power,” Sacramento Union, October 8, 1990, p. A-2.  My column misspelled the man’s name.

[83] Roger Canfield, “Dioxin plus,” Sacramento Union, October 19, 1990, p. A-2.

[84] Whalen, Imprimis, June, 1991.

[85] William Kahrl, Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1990.

[86] Roger Canfield, “Red-faced greens,” Sacramento Union, November 2, 1990, p. A-2.

[87] Roger Canfield, “Most admit Big Green in trouble,” Sacramento Union, October 29, 1990, p. A-2.

[88] These dollar contributions are reported to the Secretary of State.  See: Roger Canfield, “This time the
Demos are deceived,” Sacramento Union, October 31, 1990, p.A-2.  PCL had previously accepted contributions
and written initiative language that benefitted its contributors in a tobacco tax measure — generating widespread criticism from columnist Dan Walters and
others.  Some said PCL’s massive office space negated its claim to be a “grassroots” organization.

[89] Roger Canfield, “Identities of contributors hidden,” Sacramento Union, Novenber 16, 1990, p. A-2.

[90] Michael Otten, “California EPA closer to reality,” Sacramento Union, July 14, 1991, p. A-2.[91] Roger Canfield, “Hayden marches on,” Sacramento Union, August 6, 1991, p. A-2.

Categories
Arnold Schwarzenegger California Politics Environmental Extremism

Arnold Schwarzenegger: The Bad Record of a Bad Governor

Arnold one year later: though Arnold Schwarzenegger gained public office
through a popular appeal labeling him as frugal and moderate, his first year in
office shows that he is neither,
New American, The / Jan 10, 2005 [He got no better therafter]

by Roger Canfield

In the fall of 2003, Californians cast an historic vote. In a special recall election, they
removed their governor, Gray Davis, who now holds the distinction of being only
the second governor in American history to be recalled from office. In that
same special election, Californians voted to replace Gray Davis with Hollywood
mega-star Arnold Schwarzenegger, a naturalized citizen who had never held an
elective office.

A year later, Operation Arnold launched a petition campaign to amend the U.S. Constitution so
that Schwarzenegger can run for president. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) introduced the amendment in the last Congress.
Arnold’s supporters are running ads on cable television.

Is Schwarzenegger in favor of amending the Constitution so that he can be
president? “Yes. Absolutely,” said the governator during an interview
at the Republican National Convention. “I think, you know, because why
not?” he continued. “Like with my way of thinking, you always shoot
for the top. But it’s not something that I am preoccupied with…. Because
there’s so many things I have to do in California, and my promise was to
straighten out the mess in California.”

Sweeping Out Davis

So how about the mess in California?

Former Governor Gray Davis had fiddled until the lights went out–literally.

Davis had continued the policies of his predecessors, using environmental excuses to prevent the
construction of any new energy plants, even as population and energy use
soared, energy prices skyrocketed, and rolling blackouts contributed to the
Golden State’s economic implosion.

Davis and the Legislature continued a
state-spending binge of windfall revenues from the dotcom bubble. His policy
decisions seemed driven by a Clinton-style “pay to play” fundraising
that amounted to nothing less than political extortion and selling government
service to the highest bidder.

Despite such malfeasance in office, as late as
the summer of 2003 the California media found car chases and celebrity murder
cases more interesting. California’s government sank invisibly and silently
into a dark, deep ooze of incompetence and public indifference. The governor
and the Legislature worked in obscurity. No media covered their chicanery.

Ted Costa, executive director of People’s Advocates, led a grass-roots effort to gather
enough signatures to force a recall of Davis. Leaders of both parties opposed
him, but after a financial boost by California businessman/congressman Daryl
Issa (who had his own designs on the governorship), signatures flooded in. A
successful recall of Davis required a parallel election for his successor. The
governor’s race turned into a circus as over a hundred candidates jumped into
the fray, including a Sumo wrestler, a comedian, a stripper, a porn star, and
various socialists and environmental extremists.

Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy on the Jay Leno show. At his Sacramento
campaign launch, he said, “Please bring me the broom…. We are here to
clean house, to sweep out the special interests, and we are here, number one,
to sweep out Gray Davis.” Schwarzenegger’s celebrity immediately brought worldwide
attention to California.

California’s Republican leaders, who were positively giddy over Arnold’s star power, did
everything possible to undermine support for state Senator Tom McClintock, the
Republican front-runner. McClintock had established a strong pro-life,
pro-family, pro-business, pro-gun record in the Legislature and was especially
noted for his grasp of budgetary matters and his campaigns to drastically cut
government spending. Schwarzenegger co-opted most of McClintock’s economic
program, and the Republican leadership pushed the line that Arnold was a
McClintock who could win, a bigger-than-life movie action hero who could slay
the state’s economic demons as easily as he did the bad guys in his pulp
fiction films. In the end Davis was gone, and the two Republican front-runners,
Schwarzenegger and conservative Tom McClintock, together won over 60 percent of
the vote.

Leftward, Ho!

On day one, Schwarzenegger took over Sacramento lock, stock, and barrel. His State of the
State speech, a media event of the first magnitude, was relocated to a large
public auditorium outside of the Capitol crowded with reporters, dozens of
camera crews from around the world, and network news teams providing live
national TV coverage. Schwarzenegger delivered a speech written with the
rhetoric, if not the substance, of conservative Tom McClintock. Adding
Terminator, Conan, and Predator flourishes, the new governor pledged to throw
out the “special interests” and “blow up” the government
bureaucracy. He promised to reduce California’s high tax and regulatory
burdens. His speech was a big hit. Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute
for the Study of Politics and Media at Cal State Sacramento, commented:
“The enthusiasm is infectious. The content is almost immaterial.”

Unfortunately, O’Connor’s observation has proven to be all too accurate. Schwarzenegger’s
politics confound just about everyone. Conservatives have found something to
like in the governor’s economic rhetoric, but his environmental policies
conflict with his commitment to a better business climate. Similarly, his
social policies–pro-abortion, prohomosexual, anti-gun–are harmful to life and
liberty.

Arnold loves the limelight and loves to wheel and deal. He knows his movie superstar status
charms, mesmerizes, and melts even many of the toughest opponents. He slaps
backs and offers cigars and deals to everyone in sight. He is the consummate
actor constantly seeking and getting adoration. That appears to be his criteria
of success. He loves the camaraderie of making a deal, but backs off from tough
fights. Here are a few examples:

* Car tax: One of the key issues that had
galvanized the recall election was an illegal $4 billion tripling of the car
tax, passed by Governor Davis and the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
Motorists were furious. Tom McClintock led a popular, bipartisan, state-wide
initiative effort to eliminate the car tax completely. Schwarzenegger seized
the issue and pledged to terminate the tax. After the election, McClintock
dropped his car tax initiative because of promises by Arnold’s advisers that
the new governor would support McClintock’s proposals. Once sworn in, Arnold
seemed to fulfill his promise to voters and McClintock. He rescinded the car
tax increase, but left the tax itself intact. He thus left open the possibility
of a doubling or tripling of the car tax at a future date–something the
Legislature has shown in the past it is very willing to do.

* Workmen’s compensation: California’s
workers compensation system for injured workers has long been infamous for the
highest premiums and the lowest benefits in the nation. Some premiums reached
50 percent of a company’s payroll. The system played a major role in 3.3
million people fleeing California between the 1990 and 2000 censuses. Along
with that exodus went thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of
jobs. At Governor Schwarzenegger’s urging, the California Chamber of Commerce
paid $5 million to gather the one million signatures required to qualify an
initiative to comprehensively reform Workmen’s Compensation. But, instead of
following through on that effort, Arnold cut a deal with Democrat leaders in
the Legislature and declared a victory over the workers’ comp crisis. The
Chamber of Commerce dropped its initiative, but Arnold’s deal did not fix this
disaster. It is a fig leaf that will have minuscule impact, perhaps reducing
premiums by 5 percent. But if you’re drowning with a 100-pound anchor tied
around your neck and someone takes off five pounds, are you going to declare
that a victory?

* Illegal aliens: Another catalyzing issue in the recall was Governor Davis’ signing of legislation
granting California driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Stung by the voter
backlash, the Legislature reversed course and repealed the law. Schwarzenegger
signed the repeal as one of his first acts in office. However, he called a
special session of the Legislature to negotiate a deal for an alternative
version of an alien driver’s license legislation. But when a conservative
grass-roots citizens’ effort qualified a ballot initiative to ban the idea he
was forced to back off.

* Homosexual “marriage”: In 2000, California voters overwhelmingly
approved Proposition 22, defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
While San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued marriage licenses to homosexuals,
in public defiance of the law, Schwarzenegger did nothing. He verbally
condemned the mayor, but did not enforce state law. In fact, Schwarzenegger
signed a law requiring insurance companies to provide health insurance policies
to same-sex domestic partners. On CNN’s Larry King Live, Schwarzenegger was
asked, “Where do you stand on gay marriage?” The governor responded:
“Well, exactly what we have now as a law in this state. That everyone has
equal rights and the same rights as a married couple has. I believe in that
very strongly…. [A]nything that makes the relationship, you know, strong and
also gives them the same rights that a married couple has…. I think our law
in California already says we have moved really far along in that area.”

Continuing Budget Fiasco

One of the best measures of Governor Schwarzenegger’s actual accomplishments is the state budget. For his
budget director, he picked Donna Arduin, who had cut state budgets in Florida,
New York, and Michigan. The governor and Arduin began with a bold budget plan
proposing to hold spending at a fixed $72 billion and to cut 16 percent from
state programs and bureaucracies. But time and again Arnold retreated before
opposition from Democrats, public employee unions, and recipient groups.

In a much-ballyhooed deal with the California Teachers Association Arnold advertised a $2 billion cut in the
education budget. In fact, the budget increased by $2 billion. He claimed to
reach a deal to stop long-standing state thefts of local government revenues to
feed bloated state bureaucracies. Liberal Democrats protested. Arnold caved and
“stole” revenues, designated by law for local governments, to use in
his state budget. Locals qualified a ballot measure to fix the problem,
Proposition 65. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigned instead for
Proposition 1A, a weaker version of his reneged deal with local governments.

Seeking to save hundreds of millions, Arnold Schwarzenegger had promised to
renegotiate overly generous labor contracts with a dozen public employee
unions. Particularly egregious was a 37 percent pay increase Governor Davis had
granted to the prison guards union (the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association). In the end the governor only delayed these outrageous increases
for a year.

While Arnold was entertaining liberals and dismaying conservatives, the Democrat party leaders mobilized
public employee unions, people in wheelchairs, sick children, trial lawyers,
and others to oppose his proposed budget cuts.

Arnold backed off nearly $3 billion on measures that he had originally proposed as spending cuts. He folded
before bureaucrats claiming an interest in protecting women and children. He
restored funds for child welfare and child-abuse programs. He signed a bill
raising fees for marriage, birth, and death records to fund domestic and family
violence programs. He gave up on hundreds of millions in savings in health and welfare.

The budget was very familiar–the usual accounting tricks, gimmicks, and book cooking used by recent California
governors and legislators. It understated spending and overstated revenues. It
reached into every cookie jar: sales taxes, property taxes, and vehicle license
fees were taken from local agencies. Tens of billions were stolen from fuel
taxes set aside to build highways and bridges. The theft extended to funds set
aside for airports, marinas, off-road facilities, and 911 telephone equipment.

Having stolen everything in sight and hidden everything else, Schwarzenegger and the Legislature proposed
borrowing heavily to balance the budget, calling for $15 billion in bonds
compared with Davis’s $13 billion. In March 2004, voters approved the
Schwarzenegger plan for $15 billion in bonds to pay off current spending
excesses. To save face, the governor also backed a phony balanced budget amendment,
Proposition 58, that in fact further weakened a relentlessly eroding
constitutional limit on spending and taxes.

By July the Legislature voted for a $105.3 billion budget with no declared tax increases and only $1 billion in
increased “fees.” The first Arnold budget ended with a $17 billion
budget deficit for the current year and deficits projected to be $8 billion in 2005 and $10 billion in 2006.

Just like Gray Davis before him, Arnold Schwarzenegger has failed either to defend his initial budget or to use
his line item veto power to cut the Legislature’s budget.

More Liberal Than Gray Davis? On a wide range of issues Schwarzenegger is
considerably more liberal than Gray Davis:

*Unlike Gray Davis, Schwarzenegger has refused to overturn the state parole
board when it recommends releasing convicted murderers who have served their
minimum sentences. Over five years Davis agreed to release only six. In one
year Republican Schwarzenegger has approved 60 parole recommendations,
including 48 murderers.

* While a federal “assault weapons” ban expired and Congress refused to renew it, Schwarzenegger
signed a state law outlawing .50-caliber single-shot and bolt-action rifles as
“assault weapons.” Gray Davis had vetoed a similar measure.

* He signed a bill by Senator Sheila Kuehl, a militant lesbian activist, that extends hate-crimes to include
“transgender people”–cross-dressers and transsexuals. Davis did not support this idea.

* Schwarzenegger signed a bill granting food stamps to some convicted felons. Davis had vetoed such a measure.

* He signed a law giving up to ten needles to anyone–junkies, diabetics, and anyone else–without a
prescription. Davis vetoed a similar measure.

* Schwarzenegger broke new ground in his active support of a $3 billion proposition for California
taxpayer-funded research upon embryonic stem cells.

* He pushed through state funding for a hydrogen fuel boondoggle costing $75
million to construct 200 government-run filling stations, rather than allowing
the market to decide which technologies would advance.

* Schwarzenegger signed about two dozen so-called environmental bills into law, which include creating a Sierra
Nevada Conservancy to provide bond funds to buy private property; establishing
a five-member Ocean Protection Council to coordinate California’s coastal
regulation: requiring every California resident to have a water meter;
requiring smog checks for all vehicles built since 1976; and regulating cruise
ship pollution of coastal waters.

During a swing through Germany in
December 2004, Schwarzenegger revealed his secret desire for the GOR In an
interview with the German daily, Sueddeutsche
Zeitung
, he complained that “the Republican Party currently covers
only the spectrum from the right wing to the middle.” “I would like the
Republican Party to cross this line, move a little further left,” he said.
Further left? That’s precisely the direction the party leaders have been taking
the GOP for 50 years, ratifying and expanding all the revolutionary Democrat
programs of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter, and Clinton.

Can Arnold sell more leftward slide to the party faithful? “I am a salesman by nature,”
Schwarzenegger said at his inauguration, “If I can sell tickets to my
movies like Red Sonja or Last Action Hero [both were huge box-office failures],
you know I can sell just about anything.” His first year in office proved
that was not an empty boast. But if Arnold represents the future of the
Republican Party, will it be that much different from a Democrat Party
represented by Hillary Clinton?

Roger Canfield worked nearly 20 years at the California State Legislature, was a political columnist for the Sacramento Union, and worked on the
campaign of Tom McClintock for governor in 2003.

 

Categories
Auburn Dam California Politics Comrades in Arms Environmental Extremism Jane Fonda Jerry Brown Tom Hayden Water

Power from the Sun: Big Red, Little Green; Jerry Brown, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda

Excerpts from an unpublished political biography of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden.

Copyright Roger Canfield 2011

Solyndra, the Prequal,

After decades (1984-2010) in the wilderness of National
Public Radio and Oakland California, in 2010 Jerry Brown, 72, was reelected,
really resurrected, as Governor of California where the past is often prologue. The more things change the more they are the same

It was the return of the living dead and the prequal of all solar power scandals.

The former Governor Jerry Brown with the active assistance and
inspiration of Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda is the creator, the originator of
California’s decline from the Fifth largest economy in the world to the Eighth.

Brown nurtured delusions of power from the sun and presided over “public investment” paid to political cronies.

Jerry Brown’s California has led the way in banning DDT and nuclear
power and inspiring the elimination of incandescent light bulb and the
criminalization of carbon, one of God’s own elements. Moreover, Brown’s legacy
as Governor from 1975 through 1984 thrived thereafter during the administrations of
Governors George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Republican governors, the courts and Democrat legislatures extended the
Brown-Hayden-Fonda legacy to the present day’s high unemployment, high taxes,
nanny state regulations and whacko environmental regulations.

Through his former chief of staff, Governor
Gray Davis, and RINO Governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, these
policies of the Brown era have been extended down to today where California’s
first in the nation effort to alter the planet’s climate (green house gas
regulations, AB32) and to build a $100 billion bullet train to nowhere. Though intended to benefit the entire planet they will
continue to impoverish California. This is both the legacy of Jerry, Tom and Jane
and the future of California under Brown 2.0.

Across the decades Brown’s successors have vigorously
sought alternatives to the internal combustion engine, cheap nuclear and
hydroelectric power. These have been demonized in pursuit of fantasies such as
cheap solar power and zero emission (electric) cars.

These ambitions are totalitarian. They require changing human nature, establishing utopian
socialism and altering the very climate of planet earth itself. What is
necessary is absolute power to achieve these absolute goods. The failure to
achieve astonishing environmental goals is really quite irrelevant.

The real game is absolute power.

Command and control of everyone and everything under the sun.
While environmentalists gain power and profits from public funds, they
claim politicians are conspiring with corporations to poison the public and its air and water for
political power and corporate profits.

In early 2011 many of the same faces have return for an encore under Jerry Brown. Early
Brown appointments Mary Nichols, Gerald Meral, John Laird, and Nancy Ryan
promised a renaissance of green energy and red (leftist) politics.

Meanwhile there have been decades of bad consequences in the seeking of impossible dreams.

A No Growth Economy

Beginning with Jerry Brown,
California stopped building roads, bridges, dams, canals, power plants,
refineries, mines, lumber mills, auto painting, independent gasoline stations, factories and yes, gold mines and gravel pits. The Hayden,
Fonda and Brown policies of radical no growth environmentalism, continued
thereafter, turned California’s abundance of natural resources into a scarcity
of water, energy, roads, bridges, timber and housing.

California blessed with a cornucopia of natural resources, sunshine, yes plentiful water, and fertile soils today
imports sand, gravel, timber, gold, oranges and garlic. In the Central Valley, food
basket of planet earth, California feeds its water deprived and unemployed farm
workers surplus canned mandarin oranges from China.

In a cosmic understatement of the problem, Sacramento Bee columnist
Dan Walters recently said, “It’s entirely
possible that California with its high taxes, dense regulatory underbrush,
poorly performing schools, congested and crumbling highways and water supply
issues, may have become noncompetitive in a global economy.”[1] Duh.

California’s decline toward a third world economy, culture and
government began with the first term of Governor Jerry Brown (1975-1983). Doonesbury’s and Mike Royko’s image of him as
“Governor Moonbeam”[2] obscures the true Jerry Brown.

As Rep. Tom McClintock and Gubernatorial candidate reminded us in the
2003 recall of Jerry Brown’s former chief of staff Gray Davis, the once golden
California has been bleeding businesses, people and opportunities to the desert
landscapes of Arizona and Nevada ever since Brown et al. Whole industries have been decimated (timber, tourism,
gold mining, automobiles, auto painting, furniture, independent gas stations)

Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology
Association recently told CalWatchdog that California’s 12 percent of US
population is only producing only 1.5 percent of the nation’s manufacturing.
Jobs that left the state paying $69,000 are being replaced by new jobs at
$43,000. Stewart says green jobs are likely to be illusionary replacements for
those lost.[3] Jobs installing insulation and double pane windows are not replacing jobs lost in
other vanishing industries. In early 2011 some 175,000 green jobs were being proudly
claimed in California out of a workforce of 6 million. 3% green jobs do not an
economic recovery make.

Immaculate Hearts.

It all began in 1971 when Jerry Brown, drop out from a Catholic seminary and son of master builder
Governor Pat Brown, met Tom Hayden at Immaculate
Heart College in Los Angeles. Serially negligent in adherence to Catholic vows
the school invited Tom Hayden to lecture on the Vietnam War.

Who was the Tom Hayden
Jerry Brown met in 1971? Hayden was an early leader of Students for a
Democratic Society, SDS, and author of the seminal work on  “participatory democracy” the Port Huron
Statement. Hayden since 1965 had visited the Vietnamese Communists at war with
the United States and Hayden used Hanoi’s slides and numbers, the enemy’s
propaganda, in his lectures at Immaculate Heart. Like Hanoi, Hayden said, the
Vietnam War was illegal, immoral and unwinnable. Hayden sought a communist
victory in Vietnam and a socialist America by revolution if necessary.
Revolutionary Acts

After meetings with Communist Vietnam leaders in Hanoi, Bratislava and Paris in 1967 Hayden, Dave
Dellinger and Rennie Davis organized riots at the Democrat Convention in
Chicago 1968. An SDS friend of the underground weathermen, Bill Ayers and
Bernadine Dohrn, in Berkeley Tom Hayden and Robert Scheer founded their
revolutionary cell the “Red Family” and operated their International Liberation
School in firearms and combat medicine.

In the spring of 1969, Tom Hayden wrote a manifesto for the Berkeley Liberation
Movement: “We will break the power of the landlords … We will create a
soulful socialism.”[4] In the July 1970 issue of Ramparts,
Hayden wrote of liberated territories (i.e., Berkeley) where private property
would be abolished and tenant organizations would transform local housing into
communal shelters.[5] In mid 1969, Tom Hayden co-sponsored a
revolutionary shindig called the National Revolutionary Conference for a United
Front to Combat Fascism with the Rev. Cecil Williams, one of the prime sponsors
Rev. Jim Jones’ People’s Temple.

Enter Jane Fonda

Meanwhile, Hayden met Jane Fonda in Detroit at a Howard Johnson Motel in early 1971 at the Winter
Soldier “war crimes” show trials sponsored by John Kerry’s Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, which Fonda helped fund. Hayden and Fonda shared their slides
and beds, married and had a son who they named “Troi” after Nguyen Van Troi, a
Viet Cong terrorist who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State Robert
McNamara.

In 1972 Hayden and Fonda’s
Indochina Peace Campaign, IPC, and the staff of Indochina Resource Center, IRC,
formed the leadership of the Coalition to Stop Funding the War (and successor
orgs.) which successfully targeted key legislators to cut funds for the war in 1973-75.[6]

Hanoi Jane and POW Edison Miller

In June 1972, Hayden
helped arrange Fonda’s infamous July tour of North Vietnam headlined by her
many radio broadcasts and her girlish glee at a Communist gun battery posing
shooting down American pilots and their aircraft. She among many others would receive
a ring made from a downed American plane, which she was photographed wearing on
her necklace.  She called America the
common enemy and, along with Tom, was honored as a “comrade-in-arms “ of Hanoi.

During Fonda’s visit of Hanoi on
July 18, 1972 Fonda met with seven American POWs at the Hanoi Hilton, two of
whom, Edison Miller and Walter Wilber were collaborators with the Vietnamese
enemy, who received special treatment and who had voluntarily made broadcasts
over Radio Hanoi. Over Radio Hanoi, Fonda
said the POWs “all assured me that they have been well cared for. … They
are in good health.”[7]

According to AP: “I was looking carefully in their eyes and they were not
glazed” she said, they were not brainwashed.[8]
Edison Miller according to Thomas Elias, “made war tapes for the North Vietnamese;
allegedly in return for better treatment than was given other POWs.”[9] Miller admitted he had made his broadcasts over
Radio Hanoi voluntarily, but that was only after resisting torture for 4-5
years and turning against the war.[10] Yet fellow POWs “claimed that … he received
special treatment, eggs, bread, bananas, and fruit, that the rest of them did
not get.”[11] Edison Miller had an open window, an exercise
area, books, an aquarium, and a bed.[12] Further,
POWs claimed that Miller was an open, active, and voluntary collaborator.  He had gone over to the enemy. Miller made a
broadcast the first, not the fourth or fifth, year of his captivity.[13]

In 1970 on Mother’s Day, Miller broadcast saying,

Mothers have been suffering loss and injury of
sons in time of war since time began. … This war is different … Their sons
are killing fellow human beings and destroying foreign countries for an unjust
cause, making our actions not only illegal, but immoral … Immorality is the
rottenness which is consuming us.  We are
a militaristic nation of the first order. … My country’s immoral and illegal
actions, which are, now culminated in the tragedy of Vietnam is America’s shame
and blight on the world’s conscience.[14]

Navy Captain, POW, and future U.S. Senator, John McCain said that Miller and another
POW made an hour long broadcast. POW McCain overheard Miller making
tapes “not only condemning U.S. participation in the war, but also the
United States as a government.”  Other
POWs said that Miller “praised Socialist systems as superior to our own.”[15]

Coming home on February 12, 1973 Edison Miller arrived at Camp Pendleton to a hero’s
welcome and wild applause.  200 Marines
stood quietly at attention in his honor. Showing his gratitude, Miller mocked
the USMC welcome– “He stopped, held up a clenched fist, and turned full
circle.” His POW commanding officer James Stockdale filed charges against
Miller, but the Secretary of Navy John W. Warner issued a letter of censure and
dismissed the charges. Miller’s public career and involvement with Tom and Jane
was far from over.

During 1972, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda formed the Indochina Peace Campaign. Among IPC
members, besides Edison Miller, were other POW collaborators such as POW Bob
Chenoweth of the POWs “Peace Committee,” and early release POW George Smith.[16]

Fonda calls Tortured POWs, “Hypocrites, Liars and
Pawn” Jerry Brown Defend Hanoi Jane

In 1973 when POWs returned en mass telling of their torture, Jane Fonda
called the POWs “hypocrites, liars and pawns.” Resolutions from the legislatures
of Colorado, Indiana, and California excoriated Fonda. The California Senate
resolution condemned Jane Fonda who “spread the lies of enemy.”

Brown Helps Fonda and Hollywood Elects Brown Governor, 1974

A politically ambitious Jerry Brown was now California’s Secretary of State. Hayden and Fonda met Jane
Bay, an aide of Secretary of State Jerry Brown, who persuaded Tom Quinn to
prevail upon Senator George Moscone to kill the anti-Fonda resolution in the
Senate Rules Committee.[17] The deed was done, the resolution failed and
the Jerry Brown and Hayden/ Fonda friendship was sealed.

During 1974, Hayden wrote a positive
article in Rolling Stone about Jerry Brown and this Watergate year Jerry
Brown had the support of Jane’s Hollywood friends for his successful
November campaign for governor against a moderate Pomona college professor,
Houston Flournoy.

Brown, Hayden and Fonda Antagonistic to Indochina Refugees, 1975

During the spring of 1975 while thousands of civilians fled North
Vietnamese heavy artillery and Soviet tanks and some desperately sought refuge
in America.  Tom and Jane led the way
opposing assistance to refugees and favoring forced repatriation. And Governor
Jerry Brown complained, “We want to dump Vietnamese” on California “which is
suffering a high rate of unemployment.”[18]

As late as April 31, 1988 Tom Hayden was
confronting Vietnamese protesters outside his house carrying a baseball bat. He
screamed expletives at the Vietnamese who objected to Hayden saying the San
Jose Vietnamese were mostly members of criminal gangs.[19]

In 1975, Hayden joined with Institute
for Policy Studies in establishing the National Conference on Alternative State
and Local Policies. Hayden “guided a group decision… to speak to issues
of [among others] …corporate crimes against the environment.”[20] Environmental issues moved up on the leftist
agenda as the Vietnam concluded.

Jerry Brown’s Staff Comes Out of Tom Hayden’s U.S. Senate Campaign, 1976

By January of 1975, as 17 divisions of North Vietnamese troops with Soviet tanks moved toward
Saigon, John Holum, a member of George McGovern’s staff, suggested that Tom
Hayden run for U.S. Senate against liberal Democrat incumbent John Tunney in
1976. No longer the revolutionary befriended by Jerry Brown, Tom Hayden now
claimed to be an ordinary liberal Democrat who had voted for Brown, McGovern
and President Lyndon B. Johnson (unlikely). Liberal Democrat and Senate Pro
Temp James Mills later condemned Hayden’s “ferocious [1976] campaign of
character assassination” against Tunney.[21]

Out of Hayden’s 1976 Senate campaign, Derek Shearer, Larry Levin, Lu Haas, Edison Miller and
Fred Branfman would receive appointments from Governor Jerry Brown. Branfman
would work on Jerry Brown’s 1980 Presidential Campaign.

Who were these future appointees of Governor Brown? Derek
Shearer, co-authored Hayden’s 1976 U.S. Senate platform and a book Economic
Democracy; IPC’s
Larry Levin lobbied Congress to cut off aid to South
Vietnam and spent the last days of the war with the enemy in Hanoi became
Hayden’s campaign manager; Lucien
“Lu” Haas was a Hayden Senate campaign worker as well as a
spokesman for prior Governors and Senators; POW Edison Miller collaborator
voluntarily made broadcasts from Hanoi; Fred Branfman, Policy Director for the
campaign, had headed Project Air War a Hanoi favored attack upon US air power
after US troops left Vietnam, was an Editorial Board Member of Philip Agee’s Counter
Spy
which exposed CIA agents and became a cheerleader for the Sandinista
Regime in Nicaragua[22]

During Hayden’s campaign for the U.S.
Senate against Democrat incumbent John Tunney in 1975-76, Hayden’s platform
condemned “crimes in the suites”[23] one of which was “environmental
destruction.”[24]

Campaign For Economic Democracy

In 1976 Hayden lost his run for the
US Senate, but built the organization that became Campaign for Economic Democracy, CED.

Tom Hayden and Derek Shearer, Institute for Policy
Studies admitted that CED’s “economic democracy” was a very thinly veiled front
for socialism. Hayden saw it as a “transition to socialism.”[25] It sought “to create public control over
the crucial economic decisions…”[26] including “public control of offshore drilling, land use and
water decisions.” CED had a new dream of new industries creating new jobs in
solar, transit and environmental industries. “This dream has a name:  Economic Democracy … controlling giant
corporations, … directing investments…. Ownership and control … spread
among a wide variety of public bodies…” Hayden thought, “An
honest socialist knows the image of socialism is tarnished.” [27] Hence, Economic Democracy was a useful “euphemism
for Democratic Socialism.”

Capitalism and private property were the enemy. CED
promotional brochure was titled the “Stagnant Thing in Our Midst . . .
Corporate Capitalism.” Hayden said, “… a rising demand for a
voice in the decisions controlling our lives — will spread…particularly to the
corporate world where…power is concentrated and in so few hands.”[28] CED was, said Senator Pro Tempore James Mills, a program of “public control
and ownership of the great corporations,” and that made Hayden a Marxist.[29] Corporations did great evil. A Hayden flyer
entitled “Stop the Poisoning of California” said,  “Overuse of pesticides profit only the
petrochemical industry … It’s time to put tougher controls on the excesses of
chemical age.”[30] Fueled demagoguery and public fears, Governor
Jerry Brown and his successors enacted a regulatory apparatus against chemistry
in every setting.

Hayden and Fonda also formed
the Laurel Springs Institute to indoctrinate children and adults in socialist
ideas. Heather Booth, wife of former SDS president and Hayden friend, Paul
Booth formed the Midwest Academy to perform the same functions. Hayden demanded that
landlords return their Proposition 13 property tax cut “windfall” to
renters.[31]

Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda brought the Campaign for Economic Democracy, CED, a
stalking horse for socialism and radical environmentalism into the Governor’s
Office.

Jerry Brown Welcomes Tom Hayden and Economic
Democracy into the Governor’s Office.

Governor Jerry Brown had appointed
Tom Hayden his “special counsel.”[32] In 1977, Esquire’s
Joel Kotkin met Tom sitting at a typewriter in the Governor’s office in the
state Capitol.  It was not an occasional acquaintance with power.

By 1977 Hayden had become an accessory to the governor’s core of advisors. … One
day … I ran into Hayden sitting at a typewriter in the governor’s
offices.  Hayden said, ‘I’m doing a
little work for Jerry … Now it’s the governor and the CED against everyone
else.”[33]

Hayden told Kotkin that Jerry Brown was “the only person around who can give us
power and legitimacy.”[34] Radical
Jeffrey Klein of Mother Jones put it less charitably. Brown would
“hand a curtain of legitimacy that will blur his [Hayden’s] radical
past.”[35]

Gray Davis, governor Brown’s chief of staff, future State Controller, and recalled
Governor said, “Hayden can be very helpful to us…This is not fun and games
with Tom and Jane.  It is as simple as this:  he has the troops, and he has the
funds.  You ignore him at your own peril.”[36] Indeed,
some said the Hayden’s influence meant “Jane and Tom say jump and Jerry
says ‘how high?”[37]

Hayden and Brown also appeared together at rallies dealing with rent control,
anti-nuclear and South African issues.
Fonda biographer Christopher Andersen says:

“Yet much of the Haydens’ influence was unseen.
Brown attended CED meetings closed to the press, and with [songstress
Linda] Ronstadt tagging along, spent weekends at the Hayden’s Santa Monica home
or the Laurel Springs ranch.  There they
conferred on all the important issues facing the state and nation — from solar
power and disarmament to Mexican farm workers and secretaries’ rights. They
talked about what Brown would do if elected president, and who would he would
appoint to the cabinet.  Jane, Brown
agreed, would make an excellent secretary of state.”[38]

“Behind the democratic veneer,
Tom’s very autocratic,” said a Brown official.  “With the governor behind him, he
bullies any bureaucrat he wants.” And in a whisper, “Everything he does is a way station to
power.”[39] And in an ironic development for Hayden who had planned and incited street fights against
the Daley machine in Chicago in 1968, Jerry Brown provided “a network of
patronage jobs for CED supporters, a classic throwback to the Daley-style
political machines”[40]

Brown Appoints Minions of Hayden-Fonda

In addition to “special counsel,” Brown appointed Hayden director, Solar Cal; governor’s
representative, Southwest Regional Border Commission; and member, Governor’s
Public Investment Task Force. Some 60 POWs presented Jerry Brown the
“Benedict Arnold Citizenship Award,” for Brown’s naming a former antiwar
activist Tom Hayden to a federally funded solar energy firm.”[41]

Brown Appointments of Friends of Tom and Jane, 1975-1983

The most infamous appointment of Jerry Brown was of his chauffer and a
traffic court judge, Rose Bird, to Chief Justice of the California Supreme. Tom Hayden and CED had supported Bird. After
nearly 60 decisions against the death penalty, Californians voted Rose Bird out of office in November 1986.

However, the most disastrous of
Browns’s appointments were radical environmentalist pals of Tom Hayden and Jane
Fonda, including Adrianna Gianturco.
Hayden and Fonda’s CED platform favored heavily taxing the “privilege of … private transportation” to pay
for heavily subsidized public transit with low and no fares. CED urged
disincentives for automobile usage and favored car pools.[42] Brown
appointee Adrianna Gianturco
implemented the CED platform, halted road and bridge construction, sold off
rights of way for future highway construction, created car pools and promoted
public transit in the sprawling, low density population of California.  Freeways once the wonder of the world
devolved into the roads of Bangla Desh and the traffic of Cairo.

Brown appointed many other friends of Tom and Jane to major departments
and policy positions. Some, like Fred Branfman and Lu Haas, sat in the Governor’s office along with
Tom Hayden.

Fred Branfman became director of Planning and Research, the major
policy making unit in the governor’s office. Branfman had visited Laos as a key
figure in Hanoi friendly Indochina Resource Center and headed Project Air War
using enemy propaganda, film and numbers. After the war Branfman had stayed in
the Hayden-Fonda home and became a CED founder and developer of “Jobs From
The Sun” for the California Public Policy Center. Lucien “Lu” Haas became Brown’s chief media advisor in a very media astute administration.
Haas, an opponent of the Cold War including the Vietnam War had been spokesman
for Senator Alan Cranston and worked for the George McGovern and CED and
Hayden.

Brown appointed Ruth Yanatta
Goldway (Shearer) to the Department of Consumer Affairs, the state’s
major agency for the regulation of every business and profession. Derek Shearer worked at the renamed Employment Development Department,
EDD, which developed no jobs, but handed out checks for the unemployed and the
disabled. Shearer was co-author of Economic Democracy, wrote Hayden’s
1976 U.S. Senate platform and the working papers for CED’s Santa Barbara
founding conference. He was board member of Hayden-Fonda’s radical training academy,
Laurel Springs Institute, the California Public Policy Center, and the New
School of Democratic Management. He was associate fellow of the Institute for
Policy Studies and an economic advisor to Bill Clinton Shearer who has been an
Occidental College professor since 1981. Shearer might have been one of Barak
Obama’s “Marxist professors” at Occidental where Barak Obama was a member and a
speaker for Students for Economic Democracy, a creation of Hayden and
Fonda.

John Geesman was appointed executive director of the California Energy
Commission (1979-83). Geesman had participated in CED’s founding conference in
Santa Barbara, board member of the Solar Center (an offshoot of the Foundation
for National Progress), and CED contributor. The California Energy Commission
led decades long opposition to nuclear and hydroelectric power, new power
plants and refineries pushing a conservation and alternative energy
agenda.  The Commission supported high
cost, publicly subsidized solar and wind projects. Over time the cost of energy
in California became twice the national average. Geesman returned to the
commission 2003-2008 and 2010.

Stanley Sheinbaum became a regent for the University of California. Husband of Betty
Warner of Hollywood’s Warner Brothers family he came into great wealth.
Sheinbaum financed Hayden’s revolutionary “Red Family” and “International Liberation School” in Berkeley as well as
Daniel Ellsberg and Yasser Arafat.

Gov. Brown appointed still other Hayden/CED people.
Jane Dolan, “CED member”[43], wife of Bob Mulholland and Butte county
supervisor (until 2010) was appointed to the Office of Economic Opportunity.       Brown
appointed Nathaniel Gardels to head the Governor’s Public Investment
Task Force. Gardels was the official CED contact in the Santa Monica area and
today writes for the Huffington Post and with billionaire Nicholas
Berggruen’s Think Long foundations plans to reform California. To the task
force Brown also appointed CED activists Patti Lightstone and Robin Schneider.  Also Cary Lowe.

“Affordable” Housing

Cary Lowe was also appointed
chairman of the Governor’s Affordable Housing Task Force. Lowe was a CED
tenants rights activist, member of the National Lawyers Guild, board member of
the California Policy Center, founding board member of the Liberty Hill
Foundation, board Member of the California Housing Action and Information
Network, CHAIN.[44] The CED platform for housing was to provide
affordable housing as a right through:
rent control; land as a public utility; reduced residential property
taxes; tax speculative profits; pension fund financing, cooperative/non-profit
ownership. In short, expropriation of
private property in stages. In December 1978, Governor Jerry Brown joined Tom
Hayden at a Los Angeles town hall meeting with 500 renters.  A February 1, 1979 article in the Los Angeles
Times
reported that Hayden’s CED and the Coalition for Economic Survival,
headed by Reverend Al Dortch did “the bulk of the tenant political
organization” in Los Angeles and Santa Monica.  Dortch, a former IPC activist, was very aggressive and said his group
was “an organization which challenges political and economic power
structure…” The Coalition was thrown out of meetings of the Los Angeles
County Board of Supervisors.[45] They had better luck with the City of Los
Angeles.  Dortch, Cary Lowe, Hayden, and
Governor Jerry Brown literally harassed the Los Angeles City Council into a
rent moratorium and eventually a rent control ordinance[46] reducing the rental
housing supply and increasing rents in unregulated market.

In a 1988 “Dear Member” letter, CED’s
Executive Director, Cathy Calfo, claimed that CED had “successfully fought
for affordable housing.” CED’s leadership in rent control, no growth and
slow growth in every community where it had power contradicted this claim and
led to housing shortages and inflated housing prices.

Tom Sowell observes, “After the environmentalists and others pushed for
heavy-handed government restrictions on building anything anywhere, San
Francisco housing prices rose to become more than triple the national average.”
The impoverished housing supply has created a great market for government bonds
(1C, 2006) and redevelopment agencies to build a symbolic few affordable
housing units for a few with great fanfare. California’s post WWII building of
cheap housing for returning veterans and a booming economy, was killed.

Today Cary Lowe is a land use attorney and planning consultant
recommending that housing be made green, keeping it very expensive and very
unaffordable. Jerry Brown’s legacy was making housing unaffordable for millions
of Californians.

Larry Levin, became staff
director of Western Sun. Levin had been the top IPC lobbyist and visitor to
Hanoi while the people of South Vietnam fled Soviet tanks in April 1975. By
2010, Levin returned as a spokesman for Berkeley’s far left State Senator Loni
Hancock. Margaret Gardels, wife of Nathan Gardels and a CED contributor, was
appointed regional director of the federally funded Western Sun.

Jimmy Carter Competes with Brown for Hayden-Fonda’s Favors.

In December 1977 Tom Hayden showed up as Gov. Brown’s California delegate to the
White House Conference on Balanced National Growth and Economic Growth. CED’s
impending endorsement of Jerry Brown likely led to a Carter invitation for
Fonda and Hayden to the White House the following February. Carter’s generous
federal appointees out of the ranks of SDS, VVAW, IPS and NACLA had also eased
the way for the Tom and Jane.[47] Carter
was very receptive to Hayden and Fonda’s anti-war sentiments having pardoned
all 10,000 draft dodgers and offered those opportunities to some deserters —
the first day after his inauguration — on January 21, 1977.  One of Carter’s top aides and a close
political and personal friend was Peter Bourne who was an admirer of Fidel Castro
active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War whose Winter Soldier war crimes
conference Jane Fonda had helped finance.

In February 1978 Carter, who could not find time to meet the wives of troops
Missing In Action in Vietnam [48] met privately with Tom Hayden accompanied by
Peter Bourne in the Oval Office of the White House. According to Max Lerner in
the New York Post of February 10, 1978, the visit was stimulated by
Carter’s dislike of Jerry Brown. Carter wanted Hayden’s independence from
Brown.  In return, a Carter aide said
“Tom and Carter are dedicated to the same thing — making the system more
responsive,” making Hayden “an inside-the-system Democrat.”

Hayden gave president Carter a copy of Working Papers on Economic Democracy produced
for CED by the California Public Policy Center.[49]

Hayden:  “We would like our Economic Democracy
considered as a legitimate part of the national debate and we would like a way
to plug our ideas, … into [the president’s] office”

Carter:  “That would be fine.”

Through friendships with both Jerry
Brown and Jimmy Carter, taxpayer funds flowed into Hayden’s CED and his allies.

Carter Patronage to Hayden and Fonda

President Carter had placed 60’s activists, most known to Hayden and Fonda, into his
administration and funded 60’s activists outside of government.  He appointed Sam Browne, antiwar activist, to
head up ACTION with the assistance of Lee Weiner of the Chicago Eight.  Marge Tabankin, led VISTA She had been a
Hayden recruit in his Newark community organizing before riots there in 1967.
Tabankin was a national Student Association leader who signed Hanoi’s People’s
Peace Treaty in Hanoi.  John Froines of
the Chicago Eight worked for OSHA.  CED’s
housing expert, Ed Kirschner handled government loans for the National Consumer
Cooperative Bank for Jimmy Carter and economic democrat Derek Shearer was put
on the bank’s board of directors. The banks provided loans to cooperatives and
nonprofit organizations serving the low income and homeless.

ACTION funded staff for the San
Diego CED (via the Youth Project labor)[50];
Tom and Jane’s CED training arm, the Laurel Springs Institute (VISTA Volunteer
training); Western Sun (Hayden, Director); Citizen/Labor Energy Coalition
(Hayden, Co-Director); and the CED research arm, the Center for New Corporate
Priorities (Derek Shearer’s wife’s organization).  VISTA’s
National Director, Marge Tabankin had first met Hayden in Newark, joined SDS,
and signed the Peoples Peace Treaty in Hanoi, etc. VISTA’s Regional Director,
Loni Hancock, also knew Hayden from his Berkeley days and Larry Levin later
joined her Senate staff.

In 1978, a CED training and research arm, the Center for New Corporate Priorities
(CNCP), received $126,000 from the Department of Labor, under the Comprehensive
Employment and Training Act, CETA.  The
CETA funds were used to covered the salaries of (CNCP’s) director Ruth Yanatta
Goldway (wife of Derek Shearer), and of CETA laborers used by CED affiliated
groups — California Public Policy Center, California Housing Research Council
(successor to CHAIN), and the Coalition for Economic Survival.[51]

Power From the Sun. SolarCal, 1977-78

Back in California Jerry Brown appointed Hayden-Fonda friends to SOLARCAL. SolarCal was Hayden’s creation. The April 17,
1977 issue of the San Diego Union described Hayden’s “public solar
energy corporation.”  Fred Branfman
said Solarcal was a Hayden originated “solar development bank” in the
June 18, 1977 issue of The Nation. The June-July 1977 issue of CED
News
proclaimed CED “leadership … in the development of a state
owned solar industry.”  The December
1, 1977 issue of the Daily Californian said SolarCal was a product of
research by CED and the California Public Policy Center.

Stanley Sheinbaum, the Stern Fund,
Abelard Foundation, New York Community Trust, Pacific Alliance, Foundation
financed Fred Branfman’s study Jobs From the Sun released in February 1978, for
National Progress, DJB Foundation, Daniel Ellsberg and Stewart Mott.[52] IPS funded California Public Policy Center (Fred
Branfman) and the Pacific Alliance (Alvin Duskin)[53] lobbying assistance for “a public solar
energy corporation.” Hayden, Branfman, and antinuclear activist Alvin
Duskin testified before the state legislature and local CED members worked on
key legislators. CED activists and friends of Tom and Jane had endorsed
Solarcal: Rep. Ron Dellums, Lt. Gov. Mervyn Dymally, and Daniel Ellsberg.[54] SolarCal was officially established on “Sun
Day” 1978 with a four-day CED sponsored celebration in Berkeley.

Many CED-affiliated persons were appointed members of the Solar Cal Local Government
Commission. The most noteworthy were:
Supervisor Barbara Boxer, Marin County …… elected to Congress in 1982 and US Senate in 1992; gay activist and
future member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Harry Britt; Supervisor
Wesley Chesbro, Humboldt County, elected to the State Senate in 1998 and
Assembly to the present; Supervisor Rod Diridon, Santa Clara County; Supervisor
Jane Dolan, Butte County; Supervisor Dan McCorquodale, Santa Clara County
elected to the state Senate in 1982; Councilman John Means, City of Bakersfield
– later candidate for the state Assembly; Supervisor Gary Patton, Santa Cruz
County, later Planning and Conservation League; Councilman Wilson Riles, Jr.,
City of Oakland and later California Superintendent of Public Instruction.

CED Supports Brown’s Political Ambitions

It was certainly no wonder that Hayden and CED
endorsed Governor Brown’s upcoming Gubernatorial re-election in 1978.  Endorsing Brown ensured that Tom had not
completely alienated the Democratic Party establishment from his future
political options.[55] And Fonda
promised to raise $3 million to Brown’s impending run for president in 1980.[56]
The solar and other patronage did go forever unnoticed.

Political Patronage Scandals

Bill Wallace wrote articles in October 1979 in the radical Berkeley Barb.  Wallace said, Hayden’s

political machine … put CED members on the payroll of Western Sun, … obtained federal
funding from CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) … to pay wages
to CED members for doing CED work, (and)…. used [another federally funded]
… Santa Monica crime control program called Communitas, … a quarter of a
million dollars, … to promote rent control … dear to CED’s heart, but
completely unconnected to crime control.

Wallace said Brown’s appointments were using taxpayers’ monies to build Hayden’s
personal political machine, his “community action groups”.

Border Commission

Brown’s appointment of Hayden to the Southwest
Regional Border Commission also added Hayden’s political ally Richard Ybarra
and CED’s San Diego founder and Laurel Springs director, Shari Lawson to the
public payroll.  By 1979-80 the Democrat
controlled California Senate and Assembly, Assembly Speaker Leo McCarthy and
Senate Pro Tempore James Mills, fought
Jerry Brown’s prior appointment of Hayden to the Southwest Border Regional
Commission alleging cost over runs[57]
making future funding of the Commission dependent upon Senate confirmation of
Hayden.[58]
By December 1980, Hayden resigned to “rebuild progressive grassroots
forces.”[59]

Western Sun

Brown had also made Hayden the Director of Western Sun, a federal solar project
funded by the Department of Energy.  The Barb’s
Wallace said Hayden “many political allies…on Western Sun’s [Federal]
payroll.”  Mark Vandervelen,
lobbyist of Friends of the Earth, said, “It’s just a big solar pork
barrel. … Tom would … scream if some right-wing Republican put … his
cronies on the payroll … (and) then used them to do precinct work for his own
re-election campaign.”

Wallace reported that Larry Levin, a CED member, a Hayden campaign manager in 1976 and
now the Western Sun field representative met to discuss federal grants with CED
allied officials in Berkeley and Oakland in 1979.[60] Levin had
spoken to CED activists in Berkeley on the subject of “The Battle Against
Corporate Power.”  Judy Corbett, a
Western Sun consultant, and her husband Michael, a Davis political activist and
future mayor, were CED fundraisers.  Two
other CED members also were paid consultants for Western Sun — Kit Bricca of
Santa Clara and Keith Bray of Sacramento. Hayden had received $82,000 from the
Department of Energy for Western Sun as start up monies — well spent.  Others noticed that it was used “to hire
his leftist cronies.  All the people
hired and all the sub-contracting has been to CED members,” according to
SUNRAE, a Santa Barbara solar power group.[61] Other
solar-power groups felt “frozen out.”
If you were not with CED, “you can just go fish.”  And one environmentalist told the Barb’s Wallace
that Tom Hayden was simply a “Piranha of the Left.”  Another told Wallace, “This is really a
no-win situation for the left … the fallout will go to discredit the
movements …anti-nuke, solar power, the whole schmear.”[62]

CETA

In 1979, the Center for New Corporate
Priorities, which had been founded in 1970, returned what remained of its CETA
grant and closed its doors. Later the Los Angeles Times reported that
the Center had “ . . . at least three participants engaged in political lobbying
activities on CETA paid time…”[63] Closing the Center may have headed off the
Department of Labor’s impending investigations of CNCP’s alleged misuse of
public funds.[64]

Overall, from 1978-1980, Hayden’s CED received $743,000 in federal funds.[65]

Hayden used appointments
to wield power within the Brown administration.

Preventing Crimes …of the Landlords

The CED affiliated Comunitas in Santa Monica, headed by Hayden ally Rev. Jim Conn,
received $334,761 in grants from the Department of Justice (DOJ) for crime
prevention efforts — “safe houses, block clubs, and neighborhood
councils” — among women, seniors and minorities to provide
“grassroots” crime prevention services such as neighborhood alert and
target hardening against burglars, muggers, rapists and such.  In fact, Conn’s Communitas focused on block
organization, precinct work and information night meetings on Santa Monica’s
Rent Control initiative. Jim Conn was treasurer of Santa Monicans for Renter’s
Rights headed by CED and Santa Monica City Council members Ruth Yanatta and
Bill Jennings.[66]

A Communitas publication, “A Short History of Ocean Park,” described
its “crime prevention” activities:
land use regulation to reduce development; forced relocation of
businesses; eviction protection for nonpayment of rent; and stricter rent
control.  Communitas wanted to prevent
economic “crimes” that might be committed by capitalists — apartment
owners, small businessmen, and homebuilders — those obvious class enemies of
the people identified at CED’s founding convention.

Thus two grants to Communitas and the soon defunct Center for New Corporate
Priorities helped fund community organization — house to house, among seniors
and low income people, in Santa Monica for the benefit of a CED affiliate Santa
Monicans for Renters Rights, SMRR, which succeeded in 1979– passing one of the
strictest rent control measures in America, electing a majority of the rent
control board in 1979 and in electing a majority of the City Council of Santa
Monica in 1981.  Mayor Goldway appointed
her husband and Hayden’s intellectual mentor, Derek Shearer, to the City
Planning Commission.  She may have placed
CETA employees into CED positions as well.
About the misuse of funds we have a sympathetic George Cornell interview
of Hayden: Noting that no investigations have resulted in prosecutions, Hayden
said, ‘The whole thing is totally made up so it’s got you in a position where
you have to write there’s been no prosecution — which makes it seem like,
well, he must have used his influence with the governor to squelch that.’[67]

Brown’s Continuing Political Favors

Besides subsidizing their far left payroll,
Hayden and Fonda called upon Jerry Brown for many controversial political favors

Dennis Banks.

In 1978 Hayden persuaded Brown to block
the extradition of Indian activist Dennis Banks for sentencing in South Dakota
for his actions in the 1973 Custer County Courthouse riot. At Wounded Knee
Banks and/or his compatriots occupied a courthouse, firebombed a building,
burned two police cars, and injured seven police officers. A South Dakota jury
convicted Banks of assault with a deadly weapon, but he fled to political
sanctuary in California. Governor Brown refused to extradite Banks back to
South Dakota for sentencing.  Banks was also on the lam for firearms possession charges in Oregon.[68] In March
1976, Hayden had called Banks a “political and philosophical leader of
great importance. …  Both claimed Banks
faced death if Banks was returned to South Dakota.”[69] Brown granted Dennis Banks political asylum in
the sovereign state of California on April 20, 1978.

People’s Temple, December 1978

Jane Fonda said, “The church I
relate to most is called the People’s Temple” as it offers “a sense
of what life should be about.” Many of Tom and Jane’s friends were great
admirers of Jones’ community of socialism, peace and justice. Joining the Black
Panthers Governor Jerry Brown attended Jim Jones services at the People’s
Temple in San Francisco as did his Lt. Governor, Mervyn Dymally.  Hayden’s memoirs Reunion, is
dismissive the exotic “religious” cults of many of his old friends in
the New Left, but he does not mention Jim Jones. Attorney Charles Garry said of
Jonestown, Guyana “For the first time, I saw a world where there was no
racism, sexism, ageism, elitism no poverty.”

On November 21, 1978 Leo Ryan, D-San Mateo, and 933 Americans died at the hands of
Jim Jones at an airport outside Jonestown, Guyana. The Congressman and his
entourage traveled to Guyana to investigate constituent complaints of mistreatment
and found the classic Marxist cult of personality and oppression. Jones used
public humiliation, purges, radio Havana, informers, beatings, sex and drugs to
control commune members and to make his socialist revolution.  Back at the commune 933 died in a mass
murder-suicide ritual, drinking cyanide laced grape Kool-Aid.  Subsequent investigation showed that the
“Reverend” Jim Jones planned to move his commune to the Soviet Union
and that $7 million expropriated from his parishioners was to be given to the
Communist Party – of the Soviet Union. One of Jones’ agents, Mike Prokes and
two others left Jonestown with $500,000 in cash earmarked for the Soviet
Embassy where Jonestown leaders had had weekly meetings.

Lt. Gov. Dymally had intervened with
the government of Guyana to help Jones establish his slave colony. Ignoring
Jones’ long-term infatuation with Marxism and his decision to “infiltrate
the church,” the California left had successfully protected Jones from his
critics — Temple defectors and an occasional journalist.[70]

Joan Baez Confronts Jane Fonda et al, 1978-79

In the fall of 1978 in Berkeley,
site of Ho Chi Minh Park, Doan Van Toai spoke to a cool audience about
Communist oppression. Doan was a former Viet Cong agent who had toured American
college, been arrested six times by the Theiu-Ky government, welcomed the North
Vietnamese liberation of Saigon and taken a position confiscating private
property. Disillusioned Doan had a meeting with folk singer and pacifist Joan
Baez who spent $200,000 investigating the Vietnamese human rights record.[71] On May 30th,
1979 Baez, published an “Open Letter to the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam,” condemning human rights violations in Vietnam in a full-page
newspaper ad in five major metropolitan newspapers. Baez’s asked the North
Vietnamese to stop the imprisonment, torture and clearing of mine field with
political prisoners.

A grim mosaic

The jails are overflowing…

People disappear and never return.

People are shipped to reeducation centers, fed a
starvation diet …

Forced to squat bound wrist to ankle, suffocated
in “conex” boxes.

People are used as human mine detectors, clearing live mine fields with their hands and feet.

For many, life is hell and death is prayed for.[72]

Prior to publication Tom Hayden and
Jane Fonda “led the charge on the West Coast”[73] to suppress the publication.[74] Fonda mailed members of the anti-war movement —
including 25 of the Baez signators.
Fonda said, “The repression was not
as bad as the predicted bloodbath…” Baez says, “whoever wrote the
letter…was extremely careless and wrote,
‘I don’t know if we can expect the Vietnamese to turn free millions
of people overnight.”[75]

Jane Fonda called the Vietnamese
refugees, “misfits”[76] Tom Hayden railed against corporate oil
dictators. “It’s the yacht people who caused the boat people’, he said.[77] Similarly, Jim Wallis, frequent war
protester, SDS leader at Michigan State, friend of Daniel Berrigan, editor of Sojourners,
an advocate of Marxist-Leninist social justice and a cheerleader of the Viet
Cong said “Many of today’s
[Vietnamese] refugees… are fleeing to support their consumer habits in other
lands.”[78] Wallis would become President Barack
Obama’s spiritual advisor on matters of morality.

Fonda told Baez she was aligned
“with the most narrow and negative elements in our country who continue to
believe that Communism is worse than death.”[79] Officially, Tom Hayden “endorsed”
Jane’s letter.  He probably wrote it. [80] Jane Fonda said, “We never criticize
revolutionary regimes, don’t you know?”[81] By late
July, a backtracking Jane Fonda said, these “attacks … imply that I am
unwilling to be critical of the new government in Vietnam.”[82]

Baez remembered, “A campaign
was launched to stop me…. The phone rang off the hook with ultimatums and
suggestions that I was naive, that … Toai was … CIA.” Hayden pals Fred
Branfman, William Kunstler, and Gareth Porter of the Indochina Resource Center
were particularly vehement. Baez says, “all hell broke loose…I was a CIA
rat.  ‘It’s an honor to be called both a
CIA rat and a KGB agent,’ I responded. ‘I must be doing something
right.”  Kunstler said Baez was
“cruel and wonton” adding “I do not believe in public attacks on
Socialist countries, even where violations of human rights occur.”  Dave Dellinger wrote, “You have to [be]
naive to [think] that a Leninist revolution will allow any independent
thought.”[83]

Peter Collier says, “Tom and Jane … were opposed to Baez.  So …
was the coalition of old-line communists, neo-fellow travelers, and
unreconstructed sixties radicals… There were no enemies on the left.”[84] These
were clearly friends of Hanoi and Moscow in the United States. The official
party line was published in the New York Times of June 24, 1979.
“The Truth About Vietnam,” said, in part, said, “we are appalled
at you recent attack on Vietnam and embarrassed by the ignorance it displays.
…”

The Baez charges were “Outrageous … without
foundation …without a scintilla of documentation. …Some 400,000 servants of
the former barbaric regimes were sent to re-education camps … agents of the
former repressive regimes.  …  Vietnam now enjoys human rights as it has
never known …  the right to a job and
safe, healthy working conditions … education, medicine and health care …
[which] we in the United States have yet to achieve.”[85]

The ad had provided two clip-out coupons:
One demanding billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Vietnam and
the other seeking volunteers or money for a Soviet front — the U. S. Peace
Council. Really. The Soviets cared about the Baez attack on Jane Fonda. A Los
Angeles Times article, “Soviet Press Backs Miss Hayden” in the
August 15, 1979 issue, had a few words Joan Baez and Jane Fonda.  About Baez, the Soviet press said, “She
must have been ‘singing with someone else’s voice … Recently she sang in
Seattle … where a strong crowd … [confronting her] holding up signs
[saying] ‘The CIA likes Joan Baez’ and ‘Joan Baez likes the CIA.’ Thus sayeth Sovietskaya
Kultura
about Joan Baez.

About Jane Fonda, the Komsomolskaya Pravda said she is “a symbol of
American freedom fighters like Angela Davis, … The name of Fonda is today on
all the blacklists of America… .  She
is like Joan of Arc and they are threatening her with the same fate.”  Yet “Even the strong of the world are afraid
of her.”

Other American friends included the
American Friends Service Committee, whose letterhead was used to denounce Doan
Van Toai as a “CIA lackey.”[86]
Philadelphia SANE Nuclear Policy Committee honored Tom and Jane with
their 1979 SANE Peace Award.[87]

In early August millionaire Fonda
held a $25 fundraiser for an airlift of supplies to Vietnam, Operation
California, attended by hundreds including Robert Vaughn, Mike Farrell,
Governor Jerry Brown’s first sister and future state Treasurer and later
gubernatorial aspirant Kathleen Brown Rice, Brown aide Tom Quinn, CED activist
and POW-collaborator Edison Miller. Fonda hadn’t changed her mind about Vietnam
— the refugee problem could be attributed to American “government
bureaucracy and red tape get in the way of helping those in dire
straits…”[88] Peter Collier observed, “Tens of thousands
of people are mired in unspeakable tragedy while Hayden and Fonda mince words
to avoid offending the Stalinist Gerontocracy that runs Hanoi.”
Collier described Tom and Jane holding a Hollywood gala to raise funds for the
boat people, as if their problems were caused by a natural disaster, “a
potato famine,” rather than political repression.[89]

Jerry Brown Stands By Hayden and Fonda

On October 8th, Governor Jerry Brown honored Jane Fonda at a “Salute to
Women” breakfast in Los Angeles.

Even before the Baez problem
would run its course, another ghost of Hanoi past would appear.  In 1979 at the urging of Jane Fonda and Tom
Hayden Governor Jerry Brown appointed Miller Supervisor of Orange County.

Edison Miller

Tom and Jane recommended that Brown CED activist[90]
and former POW and Hanoi collaborator, Edison Miller, to a vacancy on the
Orange County Board of Supervisors.
Miller’s credentials looked especially fine to the Haydens. As a POW
Edison Miller had met Jane Fonda in Hanoi in July 1972[91]
At a minimum, Edison Miller had been a cooperative prisoner when talking to
antiwar activists and back home Miller worked on Tom’s Senate campaign and
served on CED’s steering committee.[92]

Organized opposition to Miller mounted:  The
California Democratic Party Chairman (Richard O’Neil); the two local Democratic
Assemblymen (Dennis Mangers, Richard Robinson); a top U.A.W. official (Bruce
Lee);[93] and, of course, the Republicans opposed the
Miller appointment.  The Republican
Lieutenant Governor, Mike Curb threatened to appoint someone else if Brown
traveled outside of California.[94] The odds
of Edison Miller being elected in his own right in 1980 appeared low in
conservative Orange County.[95]

Governor Brown was still wanted “to shore up the left” and to gain access to
Hayden’s political machine and Fonda’s money.
The perception was that “Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden could call 50
actors and 50 rock stars and easily raise millions.”[96] Why the
money?  Jerry Brown was running for president.[97] Jane may
have already made her promise of $3 million, though denials of any fundraising
promises would continue for months.[98]

On July 13, 1979, Jerry Brown finally appointed Edison Miller to the Orange County
Board of Supervisors as “the first ex-POW from the Vietnam War to hold
elective political office anywhere in the nation.”[99] Tom
chuckled when he told a crowd of 40 CED activists, “We’re invading their
most privileged strongholds. … It has terrified the political
establishment.”[100]

Once appointed Miller hired five CED members for his conservative Orange county
staff.[101] One, Fred Branfman,  telephoned the good news to
his friends across the country.  Miller fired Branfman.  Not to worry — Branfman
found work with Governor Jerry Brown.
Still another Miller hiree, Pamela Bigelow, had been accused of misusing
CETA funds while at the Women’s Law Center of Southern California.

Edison Miller lost to Bruce Nestande in his first election in June 1980 and blamed
his friendship with Tom and Jane.[102]

Meantime, Jerry Brown appointed yet another Hayden choice to the Santa Cruz Board of
Supervisors —  Chris Mathews.  As the appointed supervisor, Mathews
appointed a “pesticide protester” to the County Agricultural Advisory
Board who had been convicted for planting bombs on a crop duster.[103] Mathews would be defeated at the polls in
1981, but Gary Patton an ally of the Hayden’s would serve there into the
nineties on environmental and other issues.

Jane Fonda on Arts Council

In 1979 Governor Jerry Brown made
still another appointment that caused him even more trouble than Edison Miller
and Chris Mathews — Jane Fonda to the California Arts Council.  Brown appointed Fonda in March, but the
appointment required confirmation by the liberal Democrat led State Senate.
Curiously, Brown had actually pursued the likely controversy. Jane said,
“Drop a bomb in there, blow it up, get people talking about it.  He liked the idea.  I’m hot and there is this controversy surrounding
me.”[104]

After the Baez affair, Hanoi Jane
really didn’t have a chance before the State Senate, which resoundingly
rejected her (28-5) on a bipartisan vote. Democrat Ruben Ayala said, “She
waived her right to serve…. when she went to North Vietnam and did her little
thing.”[105] Governor Jerry Brown defended Jane, “If these senators were as tough and big as
they like to think, why didn’t they invite Jane Fonda to be heard and call her
to her face the names they called her like a bunch of little kids?”[106]

While Jane later said she was
surprised by the Senate’s rejection, Fonda was well prepared with a four and
one half page speech — “hold for release 10:00 a.m., Friday, July 27,
1979” — and an op ed prepared for the Los Angeles Times.  She said it was “a witch hunt … the
spirit of McCarthyism …”

That was the script — tears, anger, and shouts of “McCarthyism.”

In her Arts Council Statement, Fonda said,

“It saddens me … Art can bring people
and nations together, heal their differences, create understanding and respect
where conflict exists,” said America’s greatest film propagandist of class
conflict.  She, artista politica,
opposed injecting “politics into what should have been a discussion of my
merits as an artist to represent the arts community in California.”[107] And “They excoriated my name and reputation
in the most vicious terms. … These Senators appeared to have forgotten the
meaning of Democracy.”  It was “… paranoia, narrow mindedness, … tactics of McCarthy and Nixon …
,” said Jane.

And as for her six years supporting
the enemy in war, “I became a patriot … out of concern for what was
happening to my country and to help end the needless suffering of the
Vietnamese people and the American servicemen who were ordered to fight.
…” The clincher, the campaign theme to come.  “Never again must the spirit of
McCarthyism intimidate us.”[108]

Baez?  “I have spoken with Joan Baez about the
boat people.  We have a common concern
… .”  Another misunderstanding.  “I am perfectly prepared to criticize
brutality, torture or violations of human rights anywhere, regardless of the
ideology of the government involved. …”

The Los Angeles Times dutifully printed a slightly revised version of her original prepared statement
for the Arts Council.[109]

Nearly 300 Hollywood luminaries signed[110] an ad on August 8th defending Fonda from the
fearsome California State Senate:

“THE CALIFORNIA STATE SENATE HAS SAID JANE
FONDA IS NOT A QUALIFIED REPRESENTATIVE
OF THE ARTS.

THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY DISAGREES.

“The leaders of the fight against Jane Fonda, a two time Academy award winning actress, have
characterized her as a traitor. This tactic is all too reminiscent of … when…
Joe McCarthy labeled hundreds of prominent members of the arts community as
communists in order to deny them work. …. We affirm that we will fight any
resurrection of the specter of McCarthyism in California or our nation.”
(McCarthy had nothing to do with the Hollywood’s homegrown black list).

Tom said that it was an example of
the “poisons of history, that are passed on unless they are
expunged.”[111]

A week after the Hollywood ad, State Senator Paul Carpenter, D-Cypress, responded with a paid ad in the Los Angeles Times
on August 15, 1979:

McCarthyism.  Telling lies about people

and then persecuting them on the basis of those lies.

When Jane Fonda accused the State Senate of McCarthyism.

SHE became the McCarthyite.

The State Senate never once lied about Jane Fonda.

She DID travel to Hanoi and make anti-American tapes …

American prisoners of war WERE severely punished because of her visit.

It is Jane Fonda — not the California State Senate — who

is guilty of McCarthyism.

Free speech. … Jane Fonda has free speech. …

In America she is free to say what she thinks. …

The people of California — and their State Senate — are also free. …

[T]hey have decided they want no part of Jane Fonda as their representative.[112]

Though only 12.5 per cent of the liberal Democrat dominated State Senate had voted in her favor, by late August
the people of Californian narrowly split 49-45 per cent in favor of Fonda and
by 54-39 per cent they supported her appointment to the Arts Council.[113]

Tom Still a Revolutionary?

James R. Mills, a liberal Democrat and President Pro Tempore of the California Senate said, “Not only was
[Hayden] a Communist, he was a Stalinist…He lies to us now… He say’s he’s a
Democrat”[114] Mills said, “He denied ever having advocated
violence, revolution and public ownership of business in America.” Yet “his advocacy”
was in “public print” [115] In an interview with Larry Liebert published in
the August 27, 1979 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, Tom said:  “I never believed that there could be a
successful violent revolution in the United States.”  Hayden also denied he had ever been a
Socialist or a Marxist.[116] Columnist Joe Scott  described “confessions,
not nearly as complete as … St. Augustine.”  Scott cited then quoted Hayden in CED’s
September 1979 newsletter: at “the actual moment of showdown” between
two major political forces, “… power is to be won by either by an
overthrow of the existing government or a peaceful transfer at the polls.”[117] Old Ramparts friend, Peter Collier mocked
Hayden “unequivocally disclaiming any past connection with Marx or revolution … that he was always a liberal Democrat …”[118] Collier
said Hayden “… gives something like a broad wink…We’ll have to take him on faith as our Manchurian candidate.”[119]

Brown for President, 1979-1980

Hayden and the CED’s statewide
steering committee endorsed Brown for president in December 1979 promising full
organizational and fundraising support.[120] As leader of “a political machine in a
gentle sense,” Hayden was forced to visit local CED chapters to
“explain” the Brown endorsement.
Despite a $3 million commitment from Fonda, Hayden said that CED’s
support was limited to the New Hampshire primary.  Hayden said CED owed Brown since he had
raised the nuclear issue when other presidential candidates had not.[121] Brown’s
alignment with Hayden’s anti-nuclear and pro-solar agenda had gained him
notoriety as Doonesbury’s and Mike Royko’s “Governor Moonbeam.”[122] Democrat state Senator Paul Carpenter, ran paid
newspaper ads in New Hampshire in January 1980 — tarring presidential
candidate Jerry Brown with the red brush of Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.[123] Brown did
poorly in New Hampshire.  Tom Quinn,
Brown’s campaign director said that Hayden “simply couldn’t produce. …
Hayden … clearly hurt Jerry … .”[124] In late May 1980, Tom Hayden endorsed
Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy.[125]

Jerry Brown remained loyal to CED. A 1981 CED fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton
featured Jerry Brown’s father and former governor Pat Brown as well as CED
member and farm worker organizer Caesar Chavez. Entertainment notables included
Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, Robert Blake, Margot Kidder, Fonda, and Gloria Steinem.[126] Margot
Kidder[127] made a fundraising tour of northern California
for CED in late 1981.  Fonda’s films “Julia” and “Nine to Five” were used as draw for CED
fundraising in 1981.

Medfly

In 1981 led by CED member Bob Brownstein, CED opposed aerial spraying of a
pesticide, Malathion, against the Mediterranean fruit fly then threatening to
ravish hundreds of California crops. Governor Brown delayed a decision until
his chief of staff, B. T. Collins — subsequently a leader to create a Vietnam
veterans memorial, a state Assemblyman, and a critic of Hayden — broke the
policy crisis by ridiculing CED. Collins drank a glass of the stuff before TV
cameras.[128] In 1990 Tom Hayden appeared on Ted Koppel’s
“Nightline” still opposing the spraying to stop the Medfly.

Hayden Given Assembly Seat, 1981-1982

In 1981 Hayden-Fonda political allies Governor Jerry
Brown and Speaker Willie Brown paved the way for Tom Hayden by intervening to
prevent an anti-Hayden gerrymander[129] in the California Assembly. Cleared to run in
1982 Hayden’s campaign “brochure” was a
slick 24-page book.  Signed by Jerry
Brown’s father, former Governor Pat Brown. It showed Hayden, “… is a normal
human being who is just like everybody else:  He has a family, he’s     a father, he fishes, he plays softball.”[130] The Los
Angeles Times
got the picture, “[H]e is a regular guy that just happens to
be an exceptional fighter for progressive causes.”[131] Hayden
also loved dogs and children. Perversely, there was great enthusiasm for Hayden
among Republican politicians who felt Hayden hurt the entire Democrat ticket.[132] Lu Haas,
a CED activist and the Governor Brown’s media advisor, said “ [R]ight
wingers…won’t let it die.  It’s a form of Red scare.”[133] Thereafter Hayden’s long political career in
Assembly and the Senate[134] was halted only by term limits and unsuccessful
campaigns for other offices.

Brown’s Political Legacy

As late as February 1989, Hayden put his whole machine, including his top political operatives, Bob
Mulholland and Cathy Calfo, behind electing former Governor Jerry Brown to the
Chairmanship of the state Democratic Party. CED leaders Bob Mulholland and
Cathy Calfo became political director and executive director of the state
party. This continued into 1991-1992, when the new chairman, Phil Angelides,
selected Bob Mulholland as his own political director.  Mulholland had been on Hayden’s payroll for
15 years since his 1976 campaign for U.S. Senate and today remains a major
spokesman for Democrat party apparatus in California.

Brown leaving office in January 1983 did not end his legacy.

Governor George Deukmejian 1983-1990.

A law and order and fiscal conservative former Attorney General George Deukmejian
gave little attention to environmental matters which had their own growth
momentum in the state bureaucracy, the Democrat legislature and in public
opinion. Short of abolishing an Adrianna Gianturco construct, the Caltrans
Office of Bicycle Facilities and the Office of Appropriate Technology,
Deukmejian’s 1985 budget increased spending on environmental projects.

During the Deukmejian administration the state bureaucracy and the Legislature
aggressively moved against high public perceptions of dirty air and water and
toxic chemicals. Governor Deukmejian renewed the broad mandate of the
Environmental Affairs Agency over the Air Resources Board, Solid Waste
Management Board, State Water Resources Control Board, and the Regional Water
Quality Control Boards, Outer Continental Shelf, Office of Offshore
Development, offshore oil and gas mitigation. Thus the bureaucracy plodded
forward on the Brown-Hayden-Fonda environmental jihad against corporate
poisoning of air, water and life, both human and wild. In an atmoshere of
sustained hysteria, the State Legislature enacted new legislation: the
California Clean Air Act, Integrated Waste Management Act, Beverage Container
Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act,
Proposition 65, Drinking Water Well Protection Act, Underground Storage Tank
Laws of 1983, Toxic Pits Cleanup Act, Hazardous Waste Management Act and
Hazardous Waste Source Reduction and Management Review Act. The regulatory
apparatus and ambitions grew unchecked[135]
year after year.

In his closing hours Governor Deukmejian vetoed a property tax exemption bill for
Solar Electric Generating Stations built by Luz Limited International. Without
this subsidy LUZ went bankrupt and the construction of large solar power
projects were halted for years thereafter.

The Transition: Wilson to Davis to Schwarzenegger

When he was elected Governor in 1990, Pete Wilson appointed Sierra Club Director Doug Wheeler to
run California’s Resources Agency overseeing departments regulating
California’s water, forests, fish and games. Despite Wilson’s tied to corporate
California, it was the reign of the spotted owl, kangaroo rat and suckerfish,
the decimation of the forest products industry, manufacturing, and an assault
upon agriculture and rural communities dependant upon the development of
natural resources.

After Wilson, Governor Gray Davis carried the Brown legacy forward. Brown’s former chief of
Staff, Gray Davis appointed Mary Nichols as Secretary of the California Resources Agency and
former Assemblyman Tom Hannigan to direct the Department of Water Resources and
Jonas Minton, a rafter from Planning and Conservation League as Deputy Director
of DWR. Minton a fierce opponent of water storage continued Jerry Brown and
Gerald Meral’s animosity toward dam construction[136]
and obcession with water conservation including toilet to tap recycling of
water.

Davis signed a California-only law demanding the manufacture of more efficient vehicles to cut greenhouse gas
emissions. This measure charged the California Air Resources Board with achieving
“maximum feasible” cuts in greenhouse gases. In one irony MTBE was
added to gas to reduce emissions, but by early Davis made an executive order to
eliminate MTBE as a gas additive. It polluted water.[137]

Davis signed  an environmental justice statute to ensure
the “fair treatment of all races, cultures, and incomes” in environmental
laws and regulations. After rolling blackouts of electrical power, caused by an
electrical restucturing law creating loopholes for market manupulation,[138]
Davis declared an  emergency and ordered
the California Energy Commission to speedup the backlogged application process
for 38 new power plants, the first in decades. Gray Davis would be recalled, in
part, because his slow respose to the energy crisis.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Bonnie Reiss, a Hollywood friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger became a
principal advisor on environmental issues. As a member of Norman Lear’s
Environmental Media Association, Reiss was a leader among Hollywood’s
environmentalists. [Lear owns a 26-car garage and tells everyone else to get
out of their cars] Yet it was Fonda-Hayden’s
Hollywood “brat pack” Network: Jeff Bridges, Tom Cruise, Morgan Fairchild,
and Daphne Zuniga[139] which formed the Earth Communications Office,
ECO, and made Bonnie Reiss its executive director.

Broadly promoting an anti-market, anti-private property agenda, Reiss’s ECO helped
rewrite Hollywood scripts to deliver environmental ideas such as global warming, green house effect, deforestation,
and cloth diapers. Reiss’s ECO mounted hysterical and anti-business plots about
toxic waste, animal rights, recycling. In the late eighties Reiss said, “We
have only ten years left to do something.” Reiss opposed reforms of
environmental regulations blocking the restoration of California’s roads, water
and electric supplies. Hollywood’s own Arnold Schwarznegger, advised by Bonnie
Reiss, counts as his own legacy California’s law against carbon and climate change.

Jerry Brown replaced Schwarzenegger as Governor returning to same game with many of
the same players. His legacy was waiting for him. Brown had campaigned, in
part, on producing 20,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2020. Awaiting him in
the legislature were bills to: toughen regulation of toxic chemicals in
consumer products; make 30% of California Energy renewable (sans
hydroelectric); and require automakers to build lower emission vehicles.

Despite the distraction of a $25 billion budget deficit, Brown’s early appointments
indicated Moonbeam had returned.

2010 Brown Appointments, 2010

Governor Brown reappointed Mary Nichols to the California Air Resources
Board, spearheading California’s effort to clean the air of planet earth all by
itself. This is to be done by criminalizing and imprisoning carbon, a natural
element in our cells and the air we breathe. Whatever. The earth’s climate will
be changed for the better and lots of people will get jobs, government and
government subsidized jobs. This measure, AB 32, and Mary Nichols herself, are
proud legacies of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yet Nichols has her own continuing
provenance. As part of a Toxic Network in 1986 Mary Nichols helped the
Hayden-Fonda team pass Proposition 65,[140] the Safe Drinking Water Act. Producers and
users of chemicals were engaged in the “manufacturing of death” according
to spokesmen for the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund.[141]

Hence Prop 65 required the regulation of any chemical at any detectable level —
“zero emissions” that are “less than detectable” — in the
water supply for anything that might cause cancer or birth defects. Proposition
65 covered virtually every economic enterprise in California and every commonly
used product –aspirin, beer, cola, paint, vitamins, peanut butter, paper, nail
polish, table salt, white out, soap, gasoline, spot removers, paint and varnish
removers.
Tom, Jane, and CED on their own had contributed and loaned over three
quarters of a million dollars — $766,000 to enact Prop 65.[142] By 2010 the State of
California listed some 800 chemicals as cancer causing and a like number as
having reproductive toxicity, causing birth defects. Only a dozen or so
chemicals, e.g. Saccharine, have been delisted. Experts set “safe harbor’
levels for cancer causing chemicals and “maximum allowable doses” for
reproductive toxicity. A massive bureaucracy holds forth.

Nichols, affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council (of Alar apple panic) also supported the
Hayden-Fonda’s “Big Green” initiative in 1990. It took 13,000 words to describe
Big Green’s comprehensive plan for clean air, water, soil and food.[143] As a package that effort failed at the ballot
box defeated by claims it didn’t go far enough. Not to worry it came back in legislation.

In 2011 Jerry Brown appointed river rafting and dam-busting Gerald Meral
as Deputy Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency charged with saving Delta
Smelt to the detriment of the human users of water, see Chinese oranges above.
Meral, wildlife biologist formerly with the Environmental Defense Foundation
opposing all dam projects except their destruction and opposing pesticides used
to kill weeds hiding burrowing animals weakening flood controlling levees.
After serving the first term of Jerry Brown Meral worked for the Planning and
Conservation League, PCL, a coalition of groups that included Friends of the
Earth, Californians Against Waste, Friends of the River, the Audubon Society,
Greenpeace Pacific Southwest, the Wilderness Society. PCL supported a $900
million “mountain lion” habitat[144] and CED candidates for office.[145] PCL also helped Hayden and Fonda in closing down
the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant outside Sacramento.

In 2011 Brown appointed John Laird Secretary of Natural Resources. A former
Assemblyman and a self-described gay progressive, [146] Laird was a member of the Democratic Socialist Organizing
Committee[147] with which Tom Hayden was also affiliated. CED supported his run for
the Santa Cruz City Council where he and most of his colleagues were
self-described socialists pushing for rent control and aligning themselves with leftists in Central America.[148]

Brown has appointed lesbian Nancy
Ryan as executive director of California Public Utilities Commission. She is an
advocate of alternative fueled vehicles, renewable energy resources and reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions. She served previously as Senior Economist and Deputy
California Director at Environmental Defense Fund, concentrating on reducing
greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and power plants, curbing air pollution
from diesel engines and restoring rivers and watersheds.

Déjà vu all over again?


[1] http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/16/3327302/dan-walters-even-browns-5-year.html#ixzz1BDg1Z26d

[2] Joel Kotkin and ———– Grabowicz, California, 104.

[3] John Seiler, “AB32′s echoes failed policy,” CalWatchDog, JUNE 16, 2010.

[4]Collier & Horowitz, Destructive Generation…, p. 194.

[5]”Tom Hayden, Trial,” Ramparts (July, 1970).

[6] Others in the organization formed at Germantown, Ohio in October 1973 were America Friends Service Committee, Clergy And
Laity Concerned, Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom, War Resisters League, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, People’s
Coalition for Peace and Justice, Fellowship of Reconciliation, SANE, Episcopal
Peace Fellowship. Medical Aid to Indochina, Indochina Resource Center, Don
Luce’s Indochina Mobile [tiger cage] Education Project.

[7] Radio Hanoi, August 15, 1972; See also:  San Francisco Chronicle, July 26,
1972; Thomas E. Elias, Santa Barbara News Press, April 3, 1979; Steven
Denny, 14-15; Andersen, 256.

[8] AP, San Francisco Chronicle, (July 26, 1972) and (August 1,
1972).

[9]  Thomas D. Elias, “Vietnam Controversy Perils Hayden’s ‘Populist’ Image,” Santa Barbara News Press,
April 3, 1979.

[10]  Los Angeles Herald Examiner, July 30, 1979. On Tom’s own “five year” explanation of Miller’s
“anti-war statements” see: Davis-Woodland Daily Democrat, August 15, 1979.

[11]  Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1979.

[12]  Herald Examiner, July 30, 1979.

[13]  Los Angeles Herald Examiner, July 30, 1979.

[14]  John Kendall, “Edison Miller: From Marine Pilot to Censured POW to Supervisor,” Los Angeles
Times
, August 6, 1979, p. II-1.

[15]  John Kendall, Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1979; Herald Examiner, July 30, 1979.

[16] Chicago Tribune, September 28, 1973, 8. See also: Black Panther, June 16, 1975, 15.

[17] W. B. Rood, “Hayden and Fonda: Who Has the Clout,” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1979, p. D-1.

[18] Kissinger taped telephone conversations, TELCON April 26, 1975 10:15 a.m. Ambassador Dean
Brown/The Secretary.

[19] Los Angeles Herald Examiner, May 2, 1988

[20] Kotkin, Esquire, p. 46].

[21] James R. Mills Says Hayden Has No Credibility as a Democrat,” Los
Angeles Times
, January 19, 1980.

[22] Branfman was the first Director of the Center for Development Policy created by the
Commission of U.S.-Central American Relations, an organization with close ties
to the Sandinistas. Powell, Cadre, pp. 237-238, N 67-68.  Also John Feliz,  Network of Networks.

[23] “Issues ’76; Crime Prevention,” Tom Hayden for U.S. Senate, Santa Monica,
[January, 1976], p. 1.

[24] “Hayden Outlines Stand In 86 Page Platform,” Sacramento Bee, January 19, 1976.

[25] Ron Ridenour, Seven Days, (April 11, 1977).  Also cited in Bennett and Dilorenzo, p .  Ridenour came back from Viet Nam and while a
student at Claremont Men’s College blew the whistle on the My Lai massacre which journalist Seymour Hersh made the biggest story of the Viet Nam war.

[26] John Judis, “Perhaps A Great Notion,” In These Times, (May 9-15, 1979), p. 14 cited in Bunzel, p. 45 N 12.

[27] Davis-Woodland Daily Democrat, August 15, 1979.

[28]  Tom Hayden, “America and the Populist Impulse: The New Left’s Legacy,” Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1978.

[29] “James R. Mills Says Hayden Has No Credibility as a Democrat,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1980.

[30] A flyer in the possession of the author.

[31]  Los Angeles Times, September, 21, 1978.

[32] William J. Poole, “Campaign for Economic Democracy Part I: The New Left in Politics,”  Institutional
Analysis #13, Heritage Foundation, September 19, 1980. 2.

[33] Joel Kotkin, Esquire, May 1980, p. 48.

[34] Kotkin, Esquire, May, 1980, p. 48.

[35] Jeffrey Klein, Mother Jones, February/March, 1980, p. 49.

[36]  Kotkin, Washington Post, July 5, 1979 and Esquire, p. 46.

[37] Christopher Andersen, Citizen Jane. 293.

[38] Christopher Andersen, Citizen Jane, p. 294.

[39] Kotkin, p.

[40] Joel Kotkin, Washington Post, July 5, 1979.

[41] Washington Post, May 30, 1978 cited by Dornan in Cong. Record, June 13, 1978, p. 17516.

[42] “Specific Objectives Decided upon at the Santa Barbara Conference on Economic Democracy.” February 16-18, 1977.

[43] CED News, February, 1978.

[44] CHAIN was headed by CED activist Cary Lowe.  It’s Board of Directors included CED members
Bill Bradley, Richard Purkey, Mike Lawson, and Steve Mabs.  CHAIN’s Sacramento lobbyist was Stephen
Hopcraft.  See:  Network, p. 59; CHAIN’s November, 1979
Board in Southern California would include the following:  Mabs, Bradley, Lowe, and Gwen Davis of San
Diego; and Mike Jacobs of the Santa Barbara Rent Control Alliance.  See:  CHAIN, Action Project Narrative Report (November 11, 1979).

[45]Los Angeles Times (November 26, 1979).

[46]Tom Bourne, “The Prop. 13 Boost to the Hayden-Fonda Team,” California
Journal
(August, 1979),  269-270; and Kenneth Reich, Los Angeles Times (April 26, 1979).

[47] Out of the anti-war movement Carter appointed close political friends
like VVAW’s Peter Bourne and his wife Mary King.  besides King at ACTION he would also add
National Moritorium’s Sam Browne, Newark SDSer Marge Tabankin. Also IPS
scholars like Robert Pastor, Guy Erb, and Mark Schneider; NACLA associates like
Brady Tyson. See; Powell, Covert Cadre…, 224-225; William J. Poole, “Campaign
for Economic Democracy Part I: The New Left in Politics,”  Institutional Analysis #13, Heritage
Foundation, September 19, 1980, 10.

[48] Dornan, Cong. Record, May 12, 1978.

[49] Bunzel, 16. Also: William J. Poole, “Campaign for Economic
Democracy Part I: The New Left in Politics,”
Institutional Analysis #13, Heritage Foundation, September 19, 198010.

[50] Youth project annual report for 1978 cited by William J. Poole, “Campaign
for Economic Democracy Part I: The New Left in Politics,”  Institutional Analysis #13, Heritage
Foundation, September 19, 1980 38.

[51] Santa Monica Evening Outlook, February 16, 1980.

[52]  Daily Californian,
December 1, 1977.

[53] San Diego Union, April 16, 1977. Fred Branfman, The Nation,
June 16, 1977. CED News, February, 1978. See also; William J. Poole, “Campaign
for Economic Democracy Part I: The New Left in Politics,”  Institutional Analysis #13, Heritage
Foundation, September 19, 1980, 22-25.

[54] CED, paid ad, Sacramento Bee, February 9, 1978.

[55] See: Jerry Rankin, “Hayden Takes First Step Toward an Elective
Office, Santa Barbara News Press, (December 25, 1977).

[56] Andersen, p. 293.

[57]  .

[58] Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1980, p. 3; Los Angeles Times,
July 9, 1980, p. 22

[59]  Lee Framstad, “Hayden
Forces Jockey for Democratic Party Control,” Sacramento Bee,
December 10, 1980, p. A-9; Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1979, p. 3.

[60] Bill Wallace, Berkeley Barb, October 4-17, 1979. See also,
William J. Poole, “Campaign for Economic Democracy Part I: The New Left in
Politics,”  Institutional Analysis #13,
Heritage Foundation, September 19, 1980, unpaginated
executive summary, [ 2-3].

[61] National Inquirer, October 16, 1979.

[62] William J. Poole, “Campaign for Economic Democracy Part I:
The New Left in Politics,” Institutional Analysis #13, Heritage Foundation,
September 19, 1980 40 cites Wallace, Barb, October 4-17, 1979.

[63]  Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1980.

[64] Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1980.

[65] Bennett & DeLorenzo.

[66] Bill Wallace, Berkeley Barb, October 4-17, 1979. See also;
William J. Poole, “Campaign for Economic Democracy Part I: The New Left in
Politics,”  Institutional Analysis #13, Heritage Foundation, September 19, 198044.

[67]  George Cornell, San Diego Union, Feb. 9, 1981.

[68] On Banks and Brown see: Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1977; Sacramento
Union
, March 30, 1978 and April 20, 1980.

[69]  “Hayden Seeks Aid for AIM Leader,” Sacramento Bee, (March 4, 1976).

[70]  See: Richard Grenier, “Jane Fonda and Other Political Thinkers,” Commentary, June
1979; Midge Decter, “The Politics of Jonestown,” Commentary,
May 1979, pp. 29-34; Don Feder, Boston Herald, March 3, 1984; Don Feder,
“Jonestown and Dallas: The Red Link,” Sacramento Union,
November 17, 1988; Eric Brazil, “Dead Preacher Keeps His Hold on Former
Followers,” Sacramento Union, November 16, 1988, pp. 14, 16.

[71] See: Doan Van Toai, “Vietnam:  How We Deceived
Ourselves,” Commentary, March 1986, pp. 40-43; also Doan Van Toai, Vietnam Gulag.

[72] http://www.phoeniciatimes.com/archivesPT/PT.8.16.2007/pov.html

[73] Peter Collier, Second Thoughts, 63.

[74] They also sought to suppress a Sacramento showing of the “Hanoi Hilton.”

[75] Joan Baez, And a Voice to Sing With, New York: Summit Books, 1987, 275-276.

[76] Joseph Farah, Between the Lines, August 1988, 3.

[77] Antioch Leader, September 30, 1979.

[78] Ronald H. Nash, Why The Left Is Not Right, Zondervan, 1996, 59.

[79] Denney, 16.

[80] Jeffrey Klein, Mother Jones, February/March 1980, p. 42.

[81] Don Feder, Boston Herald,
March 3, 1984.

[82] Jane Fonda, “Statement by Jane Fonda Before the California Arts Council,” July 27, 1979. See
also: Jane Fonda, “Jane Fonda on McCarthyism, Boat People,” Los
Angeles Times
, (undated clipping), late July or early August 1979.

[83] Baez, 1987, p. 280.

[84] Collier, in C & H, Second Thoughts, 274; Among those showing
solidarity with communist Vietnam: Karen Ackerman, Mobilization for Survival;
Phyllis Bennis, National Lawyers Guild; Carl Bloice, Editor of People’s
World
and former campaigner for Red Family founder Robert Scheer; Marjorie
Boehm and Vivien Myerson, Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom;
Susan Borenstein, National Chile Center and Venceremos Brigadeer; Harry
Bridges, President Emeritus of ILWU and long time Soviet agent; Benjamin
Chavis, and Charlene Mitchell, National Alliance Against Racism and Political
Repression; Marilyn Clement, Center for Constitutional Rights; Joseph H. Crown,
Chairman, Lawyers Committee on American Policy Toward Vietnam; William H.
Eisman, U.S. Vietnam Friendship Association (SF); Joan Elbert and Fr. William
Hogan, CPUSA presidential electors in Illinois in 1976[84] and leaders of Clergy & Laity Concerned,
Chicago; Terrence and Vincent Hallinan, Attorneys and fellow travelers; Joshua
Kunitz, writer; Corliss Lamont, Chair, National Emergency Civil Liberties
Committee which had honored Hayden in 1974 and was an apologist for the Stalin
show trials and the Katyn forest massacre; Joseph Miller, Philadelphia SANE,
which soon gave Fonda a humanitarian award.[84]; Michael Myerson, CPUSA and U.S. Peace Council;
Davis Sales, New York Coalition for Peace and Justice; Doris Streiter, Chicano
Committee to Save Lives in Chile.

[85] New York Times, June 24, 1979, cited in Toai, Vietnam Gulag, p. 341-342.

[86] Pat Morrison, “Ex-Vietnam Prisoner in Middle of Feud,” Los Angeles Times,
September 9, 1979; see also: Doan Van Toai, Vietnam Gulag.

[87] Philadelphia News, October 7, 1979.

[88] “Fonda Raises Money for ‘Boat People,” San Francisco Chronicle, (undated clip) early
August 1979.

[89] Peter Collier, “I Remember Fonda,” New West, September 24, 1979, 19.

[90] George Thurlow, “Barnstorming Hayden Has to Cope With His
Success,” The Daily-Democrat, Davis-Woodland, California, August 15, 1979.

[91] Thomas E. Elias, Santa Barbara News Press, April 3, 1979.

[92] Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1979 cited in Network, p. 48.

[93]  San Francisco Chronicle, July 22, 1979; California Journal, November, 1979.

[94]  Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1979.

[95]  Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1979; California Journal, November, 1979.

[96]  W. B. Rood, “Hayden & Fonda: Who Has the Clout,” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1979.

[97]  San Francisco Chronicle, July 22, 1979.

[98] See denial as late as the end of August in Larry Liebert, San
Francisco Chronicle,
August 27, 1979, p. 1.

[99] Qualls and Gulotta, “How POW’s Remember Miller,” Los
Angeles Herald
, July 30, 1979.

[100] Davis-Woodland Daily Democrat, August 15, 1979.

[101] Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1979 cited in Network, p. 48.

[102] Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1981, p. II-1.

[103] Who’s Who in CED, Cypress Institute.

[104]  W. B. Rood, Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1979.

[105]  “Notes on People – Legacy
of Vietnam,” New York Times, (undated) late July, 1979.

[106] Andersen, p. 296.

[107] Andersen, p. 296.

[108] “Statement of Jane Fonda Before the California Arts
Council,” July 27, 1979.  “Hold for release 10 a.m., Friday, July 27, 1979.” pp. 1-5 in possession of the
author;

[109] Jane Fonda, “Jane Fonda on New McCarthyism, Boat People,
‘Witch-hunt Spirit Lives on in State Senate,” Los Angeles Times,
(undated clip) early August 1979.

[110] Alan Alda, Edward Asner, Tony Bill, Cher, Francis
Cappola, Mike Farrell, Bruce Gilbert, Hugh Hefner, Alan Ladd, Jr., Norman Lear,
Jack Lemmon, Albert Maltz, Mike Medavoy, Holly Near, Mike Nichols, Michael
Ovitz, Gregory Peck, David and Nessa Picker, Helen Reddy, Burt Schneider,
Stanley Sheinbaum, Donald Sutherland, Lily Tomlin, Jon Voight, Haskell Wexler,
Robin Williams and many more, not previously or at least publicly associated
with Jane Fonda’s radical politics.
Asner, Lear, Nichols and Tomlin had signed the Baez letter against
Vietnam’s human rights violations despite Jane’s disapproval.

[111] Davis-Woodland Daily Democrat, August 15, 1979.

[112]  Los Angeles Times,
August 15, 1979.

[113] Mervyn Field’s California Poll cited in the San Francisco Chronicle,
September 1, 1979, p. 6.

[114] [Sacramento Bee and Los Angeles Times
of December 14, 1979; also: A.P. December 15, 1979; also Los Angeles Times,
January 19, 1980. Mills would reconfirm his allegations in February 1981, San
Diego Union
, February 1, 1981].

[115] “James R. Mills Says Hayden Has No Credibility as a
Democrat,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1980.

[116] Larry Liebert, San Francisco Chronicle, August 17, 1979, p. 6.

[117] Joe Scott, “Fonda-Hayden Balloon Launched,” Sacramento Union, October 8, 1979.

[118] Peter Collier, New West, September 24, 1979.

[119]  Peter Collier, New West, September 24, 1979.

[120] Los Angeles Times, December 18, 1979.

[121] See Barbara Evans, “Tom Hayden and the Campaign for Economic
Democracy,” Santa Barbara News Review, Feb. 21, 1980.

[122] Joel Kotkin and ———– Grabowicz, California, p. 104.

[123] California Journal, March 1980; Los Angeles Times,
September 10, 1979.

[124] Kotkin and Grabowicz, p. 104; California Journal, March 1980, p. 121.

[125]  Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1980, p. 14.

[126] William Endicott, Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1981.

[127] Randi Eldredge, “No Kiddin’ Actress supports couty
candidate,” Davis Enterprise, December 7, 1981, p. 3.

[128]

[129] Michele Willens, “The Democrat’s Dilemma:  How to Stop Hating Tom Hayden,” California
Journal
, January 19, 1982, p. 14; San Diego Union, May 10, 1982; See also:  Jack W. Germond and Jules
Witcover, “Tom Hayden, Whipping Boy,” Sacramento Bee, undated clip, (March 1983).

[130] David Holley, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1982.

[131] Los AngelesTimes, April 26, 1982.

[132] Claudia Luther, Los Angeles Times, February 11, 1982.

[133] Michele Willens, California Journal, January 1982.

[134] Disclosure the author conducted opposition research for his opponent Rosenthal
in Hayden’s first Senate race.

[135] The Author was Chief of Staff to Ernie Konnyu, the GOP vice chairman of the Toxics Committee which uncritically
charged forward to protect the public from all imaginary and a few dangers of  any and all “chemicals” anywhere.

[136] The author received an award for flacking for this flawed DWR policy.

[137] The author worked on research exposed by WorldNetDaily on MTBE.

[138] AB 1190 in which the author sounded an incomplete and ineffective alarm as a consultant on the
Utility and Commerce Committee of the Assembly.

[139] Joseph Farah, Between the Lines, November 7, 1989, 4 and February 26, 1990, p. 2.

[140] Paul Jacobs, “Political Ploys Seen in Debate on Toxics Law,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1986, 3, 17; Richard
C. Paddock, “Clean Water Plan Wins Ballot Spot,” Los Angeles Times,
June 27, 1986, pp. 3, 26; Economic Democrat, June 1986.

[141] UPI, “Groups Say Firms Violate Label Law,” Sacramento Union, July 6, 1990, p. C-2.

[142] Santa Monica Evening Outlook, August 1, 1988.

[143] Environmental Protection Act would enact: a
phased ban of any use of cancer causing pesticides in any amount; a tough
“more sensitive” children’s standard of chemical safety for those
chemicals missing the outright ban; a phased ban of the most common air
conditioner/refrigerant chemicals (chlorofluorocarbons) in seven years and a 40
per cent reduction of carbon dioxide [auto, factory] emissions in twenty years
since both CFC’s and CO were ozone-depleting chemicals; “health
based” limits on corporate discharges into the ocean; an outright ban of
off shore oil drilling;  homebuilders
requirements to plant one tree for every 500 square foot lot developed [6 trees
per modest single family dwelling]; tough federal quantitative standards for
local sewage treatment discharges of toxic pollutants; a $200 million budget to
acquire ancient redwoods and $100 million to fund nonprofit and government
planting of trees in “urban forestry” projects; a tax on private oil
transport of $500 million to fund public oil spill responses; and, a first time
in the nation, statewide elected post of environmental advocate costing
$750,000 a year with an annual research budget of $40 million.[143]

[144] These dollar contributions are reported to the Secretary of State.  See: Roger Canfield, “This time the
Demos are deceived,” Sacramento Union, October 31, 1990, p. A-2.  PCL had previously accepted
contributions and written initiative language that benefitted its contributors
in a tobacco tax measure — generating widespread criticism from columnist Dan
Walters and others.  Some said PCL’s massive office space negated its claim to be a “grassroots” organization.

[145] Roger Canfield, “Ed’s certainly their ‘dear friend,” Sacramento Union, October 17, 1990, p. A-2.

[146] Donald Miller, “SCAN tradition Or Machine? Progressives build at grass
roots,” (Santa Cruz) Sentinel, November 3, 1988, p. A1, 8.

[147]Lee Frenstad, “Left Moves to Change Santa Cruz,” Sacramento Bee (Februaru
15, 1982), pp. A-1, A-3.

[148]Bill Neubauer, “Voters Against Rent Control Ralley Draws Large Crowd in Santa Cruz,”
(Santa Cruz) Sentinel (April 15, 1982); Lee Fremstad, “Left Moves
to Change Santa Cruz,” Sacramento Bee, February 15, 1982; Phil
Kerby, “Prodigal Son Returns to Angry House of His Fathers,” Los
Angeles Times
, March 18, 1982; “CED Focus,” Economic Democrat,
March 1982, p. 2; See also: Campaign for Economic Democracy reports filed with
California’s secretary of state from 1979 through 1981.

Categories
Auburn Dam California Politics Environmental Extremism Water

Dam Busters in California: Manmade Droughts, Unemployment

California Has Water, Water Everywhere…

[This is a shameful collection and rewrite of Tom McClintock’s thoughts on water. All errors of fact and imprudent language are mineI am Roger Canfield, a former campaign
aide, a former public information officer for the California Department of Water Resources and a volunteer for the Auburn Dam Council. .]

Tom McClintock has aptly observed that World
War II, millions of American migrants, and the election of Earl Warren in 1942 stimulated
the completion of depression era plans from the 30s for expansion of
California’s public works. Under Governor Warren and Goodwin Knight California was prepared for a population explosion and an economic boom that lasted for
decades. Their vision of expanded infrastructure, including water works, was implemented
by Gov. Pat Brown, and continued by Ronald Reagan.

By May 1957 the final engineering studies
were completed, in 1959 the Burns-Porter Act was adopted, and construction
began on what McClintock calls “the most extensive system for water
distribution since the golden age of Rome.” State of California engineers and the
Federal Bureau of Reclamation built the State Water Project and the Central
Valley Project. These along with the Colorado Aqueduct and other projects of
the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California are “among the greatest
engineering wonders of the 20th Century.” Indeed the amount of digging
and the engineering far surpassed the legendary path between the seas known as
the Panama Canal.

Through never completed the State Water
Project constructed 32 storage facilities, reservoirs and lakes and 660 miles
of open canals and pipelines. Some 20 pumping plants move — millions of acre
feet of water from Northern California and pumped it from the Central Valley
floor below sea level to elevations of 3,500 feet in the high deserts of
Southern California. Along the way aqueducts branched south and west carrying
water to urban coastal areas in Napa, Santa Clara, San Luis Obispo, and Santa
Barbara, to Central Valley farms, to the Inland Empire of Riverside- San
Bernardino and the great metropolis of Los Angeles-Orange. The State Water
Project alone supplements local water supplies for approximately 20 million of 40million
Californians and about 660,000 acres of irrigated farmland.

The flood and drought cycle that tormented
Northern California, the inland sea was tamed, and year-round water flows
stabilized the wild swings between fresh water and ocean tides within the Sacramento
Delta. That generation of leaders recognized that it was possible to tame the
inland sea and drain the swamps of the Central Valley. They had the vision and
the political will to provide for the greening of all California from the
resources possessed within California. No longer did a growing population and
economy need to live in dread of California’s predictable and devastating
droughts.

Nor did Sacramento and environs face catastrophic
floods in near every wet year.  And
substantial progress was made against the great floods of Sacramento River and
its tributaries.

As McClintock reminds us with this cornucopia
of water came the construction of 5 large hydroelectric power plants delivering
plentiful, cheap, and absolutely clean electricity. This electricity pumped
water over mountains and across deserts and provided energy to California’s
growing urban population, agriculture, and industry. 

In 1965 California’s water storage was such
that so vast that many communities didn’t bother with water meters.

But during the Sixties, change was “blowing in the wind.” And an ill wind at that. Jerry Brown did not inherit the virtues
of his father.

Elected in 1974 Jerry Brown adopted a radical policy agenda which San Francisco Chronicle’s Greg
Lucas described as the “kumbaya über alles environmental movement.”

Jerry Brown called it an “era of limits” on growth under the “new age nonsense” of “small is
beautiful.” McClintock observes, “It is…a radical and retrograde ideology…with
the simplistic notion that if we stop building things, people won’t come.”

So in 1974 we stopped building things—and people came anyway. [Save for illegal immigration by the 2000s economically devastating taxation and regulations driven thousands of jobs and families out of California.]

Jerry Brown, elected again in 2010, found his policies largely unchanged through two Democratic and two Republican administrations.

McClintock: “The same ideology devastated the water delivery system of the state. We abandoned
dams in mid-construction. We shelved the visionary plans for the aqueducts and
the conveyance facilities necessary to complete the greening of California.

Through 2000 since the mid-1970s California’s population had grown about 60 percent. Water storage
capacity grew only 12 percent. From the 90s to 2000, this disparity got worse–
the population increased 15 percent, water storage capacity has increased by
two percent. “We’ve now reached a day when the state can store less than one
year’s water consumption in its entire system. The Department of Water
Resources has a year-round drought preparedness program in wet years and dry.”

Meanwhile, California lost its ability to overdraft its legal share of Colorado River
water. Stopping dam construction squelched the opportunity for abundant, cheap
and clean hydroelectric power. While population increased  60 percent since 1975, hydroelectric
production increased just seven percent. California’s cost of electricity has
skyrocketed due to high peak generation costs using expensive hydro power. Electricity
imports from out of state have doubled. Californians now pay the highest
electricity prices in the entire United States, save Hawaii. [Tom McClintock, Claremont
Institute, Huntington Beach, May 2, 2003]. Californians pay no less 50% more
than most states.

Environmental laws and regulations have taken, usually without compensation, millions of acre feet
in water rights, particular from agriculture in the name of endangered species
of fish – salmon and smelt-, weeds, water foul. Even the most minor project or
operational decision routinely takes water away from current holders of water
rights. In the relicensing of federal hydro projects 7-10 percent of water is
diverested to private rafting companies and to species of fish and foul—without
compensation. Farmers have rightfully called this a “manmade drought.”

In the past twenty years, no dam, aqueduct or
power plant of any significance has been constructed. Whatever the frantic demand
for water and whatever the level of unemployment in farming communities (the
highest in the nation in 2011), intentional bureaucratic and environmental processes
openly delay and veto projects. Even the most minor project faces death by a thousand cuts.

The drought of the mid 2000s seemed to find relief
in the heavy rains of 2009-2011. There was plenty of water, but most was dumped
into the sea and/or allocated for salmon and smelt at the expense of farmring communities.
In the summer of 2011 nine of the ten communities with the highest unemployment
in the United States were in California. And all of it could be attributed to a
manmade drought.

With some lesser local exception, everywhere California relies upon the water system of the 1960’s.

With the administration of Governor Jerry Brown’s former Chief of
Staff, Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzennegger things did not get better.

At the state and federal levels it was still said that no more dams would
be  And indeed many dams were targeted for
destruction, e.g. Klamath. Dams offend environmentalists. Yet dams and water
projects have stopped the environmental devastation of flooding the Delta and
Sacramento.  Dams and  aqueducts keep rivers flowing through years of
droughts.

Some say there are no more dam sites. That is
not exactly true. While the Colorado River is the principal source of water for
seven western states, the Sacramento River is 20 percent more than on the
Colorado.

Indeed, the flood flows of the Sacramento and American Rivers at the Delta can reach one million cubic feet per second. And
there is far, far more water that escapes to the Pacific every year in the
undeveloped mighty rivers of California’s wilderness, the northwestern coast.
On this coast where only the Klamath and the Trinity have developed water
supplies, the Eel, Smith and other rivers have gargantuan floods that have in
living memory swept away whole towns on the isolated north coast.

There is a vital difference. Some 70 million-acre feet of water are stored on the Colorado. Only 10 million-acre
feet of water is stored on the Sacramento and next to none is stored on the
mighty rivers of the Northwest.

It’s storage stupid.

Water experts have identified a large number
of possible projects. Constructing the Auburn Dam has the added advantage of
protecting the lives and property of nearly a million people downstream. Water
supplies could be increased by raising dams at Shasta, Folsom, Los Vaqueros,
and Friant, and others or by storing water on sunken Delta islands, at Sites,
and at other off stream locations. Virtually every water district in California
has projects filed in its archives, mired in bureaucratic processes, or facing
well organized environmental opposition.

And ALL that is lacking is the political will.

Governor Davis concocted a $2 billion “water” bond – without a dime for surface water storage let alone new hydroelectric
power. “Small, it seems, is still beautiful – except for the price.”

Indeed in recent years other billions of dollars have been raised on three “water” bonds (Propositions, 204,
13, and 50) that improve water quality and give more water to fish and
wildlife, but at best and infrequently, only “study” new water supplies for
humans in California’s great cities and for world’s most productive
agriculture. Finally, CALFED, a state and federal conglomerate of
bureaucracies, has spent billions on environmental improvements, but is still
studying water supply projects, long ago engineered and promised, but never
delivered.

Besides building pretty much
nothing, today’s state “water” bonds serve no statewide purpose at all. They
have become a political grab bag for local politicians eager for photo
opportunities in the hometown newspaper. A water bond in 2001, for example,
added not a drop of surface water storage, despite the fact that California
stores less than one year’s water consumption throughout the entire state
system. Bond funds are rather squandered over hundreds of local projects, like
waste treatment plant repairs, paid for not by the local communities that
benefit, but by all of the taxpayers of the state.

Today, 30-year bonds also are
being used for maintenance, clean-up, grants to community organizations and
administrative overhead. This spending vanishes leaving nothing tangible
behind. Our children will still be paying for this a generation from now.

California continues like Greece, to spend increasing percentages of person than
at any time in the history. There has not been a 40 percent increase in water
storage.

The answer to where the water money goes is into the bureaucracies at the Resource Agency,
California Department of Water Resources, State Water Resources Control Board,
Department of Fish and Game, and at CALFED a ponderous conglomerate of a score
of state and federal agencies. And what little those bureaucracies are
accomplishing using billions of dollars is mind-boggling.

Over $2.0 billion (state,
fed, local) was spent by
CALFED, largely for ecosystem restoration, water
quality, conservation. CALFED
has
completed no new water storage project and there is no date-certain plans for
the design or construction of any project in the near future. CALFED merely
studies possible surface water projects while it plunges ahead on
environmentally correct projects.

A $200 million nine year process to relicense Oroville
Hydroelectric Facilities.
This pays
for meetings and over 75 studies even though the decision is pro forma —
otherwise the whole State Water Project must be shut down. California
bureaucrats want this convoluted process — FERC wants to simplify. The process
reduces actual deliveries of water to cities and farms.

A $30 million Comprehensive Study of flood control needs in northern and central California ordered by
Congress and the Legislature after the devastating floods of 1997 produced
computer models of questionable accuracy and a final report with no flood control
projects in it. None. Zero.

The $20-25 million California Water Plan
(Bulletin 162- 2003) took six years of meetings and hundreds of pages of
documents to recommend no new surface water supply projects.  It has been alleged that water conservation numbers were doctored to quask new surface storage projects.

(Estimated) over $ 5 BILLIONS in three “water” bonds
(204, 13, 50) – virtually no water supplies in any of them.

$ X millions in computer and consulting
contracts (a reliable source) in CERS energy buying unit and in DWR accounting.
CERS software for power purchasing and other transactions is obscenely and
suspiciously expensive. DWR’s internal SAP accounting software is so bad that
water billings to SWP’s 29 contractors (water wholesalers) are based on best
guesses. Coming to a water bill near you?

CALFED. In nearly a decade of spending over $2.0 billion CALFED has completed no new water
storage project and as of 2003 has no date-certain plans for the design or
construction of any project in the near future. CALFED, a consortium of 11
state and 13 federal agencies, which was created to balance environmental,
urban, and agricultural water interests, has instead since 1995 spent a
disproportionate share of its funds on environmental projects at the expense of
vital new water supplies for a growing population.

In recent years CALFED spent over $300 million out of which less than 9 percent was to study new water
storage. Fully $250 million was spent instead on ecosystem restoration – bring
back the swamps, plant vegetation in the flood plain – often at the expense of
flood control and human uses of water. Merely $27 million was spent to study –
not build – three storage projects. By the end of 2004 environmental impact
statements are expected on Sites Reservoir and to raise Shasta Dam and Los
Vaqueros reservoir.

For example, in the 1999-2000
state budget a very modest $10 million was funded for water resources
investigations by CALFED. Yet budget
language severely restricted the use of those funds to $4.2 million for
off-stream storage investigations and only $1.2 million of that could be used
for engineering and economic studies north of the Delta needs – where all the
water is. $ 2 million of $5.8 million storage investigations was earmarked for
a groundwater-conjunctive use study. Hence, there was no support for new water
supply and storage projects.

Overall, CALFED spent a
little more than 1% in the last three years on continuing studies of surface
water storage and plans to spend about 3.5 % for such studies over the next
three years.

A Schwarzenegger endorsed water bond from the legislature in 2010 has been tabled in bad economic times, but it too has no water in it.
A new delta entity claims it will be different. It might build a new canal/tunnel, but framers are reluctant to pay for water they do not get.

Relicensing Oroville Hydroelectric Facilities.

A nine-year and $ 1 billion process of meetings of committees, special interests, and
state and federal bureaucrats and of over 75 studies is working to relicense
the Oroville Dam under federal law before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
FERC. This expensive process driven by California environmental enthusiasts is
making decisions that will significantly reduce water available for human use
on the entire State Water Project.

And — except to buy off with water and/or cash a plethora of special interest groups – is totally
unnecessary. The decision is simple. Relicense the facility that produces the
electricity that pumps the water of the State Water Project. The only other
choice is stark — shut down the State Water Project and forcefully march 20
million or so people out of California. Kymer Rouge environmentalism replaces
Kumbaya uber alles environmentalism? FERC, a federal commission actually would
like a simplified process. It is the Governor Davis appointees in California
who have constructed a monstrous bureaucracy they dearly love.

Flood Control. Similarly,
a comprehensive study of flood control
needs in northern and central California ordered by Congress and the
Legislature after the devastating floods of 1997 came within an hour of
flooding the City of Sacramento completed its work in 2002. The final report
made no recommendations for flood control projects despite a cost of $30
million. All of this despite state and local governments losing flood damage
lawsuits caused by negligent maintenance and over zealous environmental
protection risking life and property. The “comp” study did create elaborate
computer models of river systems which some local citizens in public hearings
roundly criticized as both inaccurate and putting their lives and property in
danger in the name of environmental correctness.

The California Water Plan – A Year Late and Water
Short. DWR’s
Bulletin 162 was once a
visionary document produced every five years by Department of Water Resources
at the request of the Legislature to outline plans and prospects for
California’s water future. In 2003 DWR released a draft document for public
review a year late. The draft was loaded with environmental dogma such as
conservation and global warming, but lacking a “consensus” – an
environmentalist veto, the report did not recommend a single new state surface
water supply project for California despite a population increase to 50 million
by 2030. It deferred to the CALFED studies of surface facilities unlikely to
avoid its own environmentalist veto. The $20-25 million report waxes eloquently
about six years of feel good meetings of a 65-member Advisory Committee,
stakeholders, subcommittees, and environmental improvements. The “kumbaya
über alles environmental movement” is alive and well.

However, “There is a
consensus that that strategies such as increased conservation, conjunctive
management, recycling, desalination, water quality protection, and ecosystem
restoration should all be implemented.” No surface water storage, but all the
above!

Environmentalists in Power

Largely intimidated by radical environmentalist extremists in power, cowed and timid representatives
of farm, business, and urban water users attend hundreds of water policy
meetings and say next to nothing about the need for new fresh water supplies.
Their predecessors completed most of the necessary planning and engineering in
1957 for all the water California will ever need. Those projects were long ago
stopped and forgotten.

Months of meetings go by
without the utterance of the word “dam” or “storage.” Whole days pass
discussing “collaborative” processes and procedures without the word “water”
except as the proper name of a bureaucracy or of a special interest group.
There is talk about fish, public trust, environmental justice, ecosystem
restoration, and unmet environmental water requirements.

The environmental extremists
dominate discussions talking endlessly about economically unfeasible
desalination of seawater, environmentally correct conservation, and politically
unacceptable recycling of sewer water to tap water.

Operating at DWR’s sister
agency, the Water Resources Control Board, environmentalists use every means to
take water rights from farmers and give water to fish and to salt sinks like
the Salton Sea. Legislation enacted late in 2003 gives the regional boards of
the Water Resources Control Board the power to halt timber harvests on private
property and allocate still more water to fish. The Board took away water rights from the federal Bureau of Reclamation timidly defended for building the Auburn Dam.

McClintock excoriated the Board for its lack of vision in taking water right away from one of the most water and power rich projects.

The bureaucracies are growing at the expense of the freedom that produces
prosperity — and in the case of flood control — at the expense of the very
lives and properties of citizens.  In
recent years the largest cuts in the budget of the Department of Water
Resources were in public safety – flood control and dam safety, but not a
single DWR employee has been laid off during the budget crisis. (Most of DWR
budget is paid out of SWP water sales and NOT taxes.)

There is a hopeful note in the instance of Governor Gray Davis exercising political
will against environmentalist roadblocks – DWR drilling emergency wells along
the Klamath during a few weeks in 2001.

During the Spring and Summer of ’01 a political storm raged throughout the 200-mile
long Klamath River Basin. Farmers lost their fifty-year water rights to sucker
fish. Communities in California and Oregon rose up in revolt – actually forcefully taking over federal pumps on July 4, 2002.

Meanwhile, on May 4th Governor
Davis exercising his emergency powers ordered the Department of Water Resources
to find emergency water. The mission objectives were urgent and clear — find
new water to save topsoil in 2001 and discover new groundwater for agriculture
and wildlife to supplement scarce surface water in dry future years. With a
modest $5 million and within six weeks of the Governor’s declaration of a
drought emergency in Tulelake in Siskiyou and Modoc counties, the first water
was gushing onto once dry dirt. DWR supervised private contractors who punched
wells down thousands of feet –past stingy dry sediments and impermeable clays
–into water friendly, fractured rock. Soon nine wells surrendered generous
quantities of water –some trapped in hundreds of feet of broken rocks nearly
half a mile below caramelized high desert landscapes. Many wells produced
10,000 gallons per minute, 3,000 acre-feet in 70 days of pumping.

It was a practical solution based on DWR’s long dormant
technical genius. Like the civil service heroes in a Tom Clancy novel, DWR
people proved that in a crisis a professionally run bureaucracy is not fiction.
DWR’s groundwater specialists indeed had long prepared for a “disaster in the
making” years before.

All that is needed is political will.

Sources: Closing the Era of Limits, McClintock, Speech to the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, May 18, 2001.

Tom McClintock, A Tale of Two Generations, December 1, 1999.

Tom McClintock, Delta Improvements…CALFED testimony before Assembly October 28, 2003.

Tom McClintock, A Citizens’ Guide to the State Budget Mess: A Menu of 217 Proposals to Reduce State Government Spending, May 31,1995.

Categories
Environmental Extremism Water

Bring Water to Klamath

DWR’s Northern District
Helps Bring Water To Drought Stricken Klamath Basin

Klamath Mission Accomp DWR news 8 17 01

By Roger Canfield
Six weeks after the Governor’s May 4, 2001 declaration of a drought emergency in the Upper Klamath River Basin, wells drilled under the supervision of the Department of Water Resources were bringing some relief to parched areas of Siskiyou and Modoc counties.

Working with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES), DWR mobilized equipment and personnel to drill thousands of feet into the earth, past stingy dry sediments and impermeable clays, into water-friendly fractured rock. Some of the water was found in hundreds of feet of broken rock nearly a half mile below the high desert surface.

With most of the 10 wells producing 9,000-10,000 gallons per minute (gpm), and one well yielding 12,000 gpm, it was realized that bigger pipes and special-order pumps would be needed. “You don’t get 10,000 gpm pumps off the shelf,” said DWR engineering geologist Noel Eaves.
The 10 wells, including pumps, collectively have cost $5 million. The money came from State Natural Disaster Assistance Funds administered by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, Title 19 of the California Code of Regulations.

In a broader program, the Department is working with other agencies researching the groundwater resource in the Klamath Basin in order to supplement scarce surface water supplies for agriculture and wildlife in the future. For DWR’s Northern District, this is an effort that began years ago.

“It took an emergency to draw attention to it, but we’ve been working 15 years on this,” said Bill Mendenhall, Chief of the Northern District’s Resource Assessment Branch.

How DWR Brought Water to the Party
Three weeks after Governor Davis issued a drought emergency proclamation at the request of Modoc and Siskiyou counties, DWR groundwater specialists began coordinating the drilling of wells. A well siting committee staffed by DWR, the Tulelake Irrigation District (TID) and OES identified 14 promising well sites and DWR engineered the basic well designs and expedited environmental and archaeological reviews.

“I was amazed at how fast things got done,” said DWR Research Analyst Pat Parsons.

Using the Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS), which instantly provides a command structure to meet logistical and other needs, DWR’s Northern District moved quickly in response to the Governor’s emergency proclamation. “This was not an eight – to – five job,” said Northern District Chief Dwight Russell. “Our team put themselves out day after day, working months on end at peak energy levels.”

Skills
Russell praised the skills of his staff geologists, engineers, and others who helped choose the well sites and watched over environmental, cultural, water quality, aquifer stability, and other issues.

“We had the skills on the spot where they were needed,” Russell said.

Among those at the center of the action were Noel Eaves and Mike Ward of Northern District’s Groundwater Section. Technical staff members of the groundwater section that logged long days, including weekends, in the Tulelakearea included Associate Engineering Geologists Dan McManus, Kelly Staton, and Debbie Spangler; Engineering Geologist Bill Ehorn; Junior Engineering Technician April Scholzen; Civil Engineer Seth Lawrence; Water Resources Engineer Sean Dunbar; Graduate Student Assistant Greg Dwyer; and Engineering Student Assistant John Ayres. The field staff collected geologic and hydrologic data from well sites, oversaw compliance with government regulations, monitored groundwater levels in grids around each new well to measure any impacts on existing wells, and worked with local well owners to mitigate any impacts.

DWR provided technical advice while the Lang Drilling Company, working under contract with TID, completed wells ranging in depth from 571 to 2,380 feet. Nimbus Engineering provided project management around the clock.

DWR moved one well site to protect a Native American cultural site, and at another site relocated a mud pit to protect bank swallows that had taken up residence in a freshly dug pit.

“It was really good to work with DWR,” said Earl Danosky, Executive Director of TID. “DWR was looking out for our interests on environmental, cultural, and other issues.”

Jessica Salinas, a Northern District Associate Land and Water Use Analyst who served as an Information Officer under the SEMS process, responded to media inquiries from throughout the United States, as well as to the concerns of Klamath Basin residents.

“It ‘really hits home’ to read and answer mail from people who in some cases are losing their family farm,” Salinas said. Yet, she said, “DWR received incredibly positive comments…no negatives.”

DWR’s well drilling “brought the first light of hope” to some people in the drought-stricken area, said Mike Ward. “There is immense appreciation for DWR. We gained trust.”

Graduate student John Ayres said there was “a steady stream of local residents watching us log samples on the ground. The local network seemed to know everything about every well.”

DWR’s entire Northern District staff, whether posted to the field or at District headquarters in Red Bluff, pitched in to support the Department’s response to the Klamath Basin water shortage. Toccoy Dudley, a Senior Engineering Geologist and Chief of the Groundwater Section, kept his shop open for regular business while most of his staff was concentrating on the Klamath Basin project. Pat Parsons created the crucial Klamath Basin groundwater maps, assisted by GIS Student Assistant Dorothy Watkins. Engineering Student Assistant Nicole Martin organized the mass of data collected at the well sites. Environmental Specialists Dave Boegner and Perry LeBeouf worked in Tulelake. Earl Hansen, a retired annuitant and Water Resources Engineer, provided technical assistance.

The Payoff
Water was first struck at Well #1 located at Hill and Kandra roads in Tulelake. The first well, and those that followed, exceeded initial yield estimates.

The original goal of 30,000 gpm from 14 wells was achieved with four wells. With the 10th well, the estimated annual production jumped to 70,000-80,000 gpm, calculated at almost 10 percent of the Klamath Project’s annual production. Further, the well production suggests that the Tulelake area has one or more deep aquifers that could provide a long-term supplemental groundwater source to provide water for agriculture, wildlife and emergency topsoil protection during future droughts.

While bringing home the water, DWR also ensured that the wells would be monitored for possible impacts on neighboring wells, aquifer levels, and water quality.
For details of progress on well drilling and groundwater studies, please see the DWR Northern District Web page at
http://www.dpla.water.ca.gov/nd/KlamathDrought/index.html


Klamath a short story
By Roger Canfield

Water has always been precious in this high desert. The federal water projects, begun in 1907, were preceded by 25 years of private ditch companies watering thousands of acres. The Klamath area is rich in frontier and water history. Here the Hudson’s Bay Company trapped beavers, John C. Fremont explored, and the Modoc Indian war captured the nation’s attention. Only five years after the Modoc War ended with the U.S. Army execution of Modoc leaders Captain Jack and Boston Charley, in 1882 a private company, Linkville Ditch Company, dug a two-mile ditch from the Link River to town lots. Private digging for irrigation, and power continued apace from 1882 through 1904.
____________________________________________________

Categories
Environmental Extremism

A New Old Left Religion: Human Sacrifice & Environmentalism

DEDICATED TO ALL MOTORCYCLE RIDERS
A NEW OLD LEFT RELIGION: SACRIFICES FREEDOM, RECREATION, JOBS
by Copyright, 1993, Roger B. Canfield, Easy Rider Magazine
Recently locked out of a park? Experiencing nature’s shrinking availability? You and
your bike denied access to the places you used to go? Lost your job in the
mountains, desert, or Central Valley? Can’t find any government official who
will respond to common sense? Here’s why.
It has a faith, priests, catechisms, rituals, human sacrifice and a value system prescribing what’s good
and what’s bad on Mother Earth. Believers deny this pantheism looks, sounds,
walks, talks, and smells like the old Lefist faiths of Socialism and Communism.
The undeclared religion names itself biodiversity and­ professes salvation for
insect and rat, owl and rat, but never Man, let alone a biker out to enjoy
nature.                 .
President Clinton signed the “Biodiversity Treaty of Rio in late April 1993, but
did not reveal how far advanced its implementation is at home, particularly in California. The undeclared
religion already holds power in newly emerging “bioregional” shadow
agencies in America as well as at the U.N. It has holy places in rain forests
and in the Sierra “Range of Light.”
Over a year ago [1992], Calfornia Resource Agency boss Douglas Wheeler held an
invitation-only summit for the “Sierra Province at Stanford University’s Fallen Leaf
Lake hideaway near Lake Tahoe. The Sierra Summit was attended by 150 top
bureaucrats working in fifteen federal and state agencies and as leaders of ten “ecstatic”
eco-groups who prepared an Environmental Briefing Book. No bikers, hunters,
fishermen cattlemen, property rights advocates, or farmers and very few elected
officials were welcome. No engraved invitations to vehicle users of any sort.
Some of the un-invited – State Legislators – heard of the summit and and
demanded their say. Wheeler and the enviro-crats repeated a mantra, no hidden agenda,
gave the suspicious fifteen minutes as “window dressing” at lunch,
released a sanitized report of the summit, and went home to implement their
agenda. (At a forest parlay in Portland in April, Clinton took care to invite
the unwashed, but don’t expect much help.)
The Sierra Summit was both a milestone in the movement and an insider’s view of a religious-like faith that
nature’s bounty – water, land, mineral, forest- be denied to un-invited humans.
Meanwhile, saw mills, mines, cattle ranches, and jobs, and families in little
Sierra towns like Foresthill, Westwood, and Alturas are  disappearing in the Sierra. California’s
deserts and the Central Valley are also losing jobs.
The Sierra is not a minor province. It is nearly as large as 12 states, makes up 18 of 58 California
counties, has a population close to that of eight states, provides 75 percent
of of the state’s surface water, hosts 33 million tourists a year, and produces
beef, timber and minerals to the world.
The Sierra Summit celebrated great powers.  Eco-worship is no longer silly
60’s hippe sentiments – it is insider power. Biodiversity’s priests are un-elected, unaccountable, and protected in
the civil services. The summit was like an Appala­chian Confab of Mafia dons,
but no one took photos of attire and limousines.
This Cosa Nostra sanctified itself by a prenuptial, a “Memorandum of Understanding: Agreement on
Biological Diversity,” signed by 10 federal and stare agencies. The
obscure Memo fit the political action manual of radical environmentalists.
Outside of mutual agreement, no new authority is needed – current law justifies
all and is being ordered into existence by bureaucrats, the new gestapo.
The summit was a single piece of a larger quilt laid out across the landscape, but
particularly m the mountains, valleys and deserts of California. Indeed, California and the nation are now
mapped by “bioregional provinces,” preserving land, air, and water — except His (Her) big mistake – Man.
“Participation” rituals are guided by the California Coordinated Resource Management and
Planning (CCRM) handbook. This holy writ lays out an official process of
“facilitators” manipulating local groups toward a “consensus.” Dissent is seldom reflected in the “common
ground” announced thereafter. These collective “agreements”
justify civil servants ruling over elected officials and citizens.
(“Partici­patory Democracy” of the 60’s New Left exhausts dissent.)
Many innocents are mesmerized by or seem obedient to the ritual. Resistant
locals are ignored.
The environmental movement is well down the road to its destination. The vehicle seems driven by political
appointees like California’s Wheeler, but back seat instructions come from
greater powers like the Sierra Club and life tenured bureaucrats. Resource use
industries (recreation, agriculture, energy, forestry, mining) pay for the gas
and hang on for the ride. Ordinary citizens (soon without jobs, food, fiber,
fuel. affordable housing) are road kill – human sacrifices proving the ultimate
fanaticism of “biodiversity.”
Taking habitat (land and water) to save allegedly endangered or “stressed” species has created
joblessness, near ghost towns and a new Appalachia of welfare dependency in the
Sierra, The new Appalachians earn $12,000 a year as nannies, maids, and ski
lift operators – mere serfs in the elites’ forests and soon its valleys and
deserts. Consumers face a doubling of commodity prices – lumber, minerals and
soon food. Only bio-correct hikers, rafters, and skiers prosper in the
“sustain­able,” read, subsistence economy of biodiversity.
The model for a policy to take land is the Spotted Owl, easily applied to “sav­ing” of marbled
murrelet, desert tortoise, Mojave ground squirrel, delta smelt, gnatcatcher,
kangaroo rat, and coastal chaparral. Amazingly 10.6 million acres of 14 million
high Sierra acres are under federal control. 24 percent of Ihe Sierra is designated
wilderness – off-limits to all but six percent of the people. 72 percent of the
Sierra is owned by government. The 30 percent still private, under tough state
and federal regulations, remains to be taken outright or regulated for the
benefit of ‘bio-diverse” habitat.
A model for the power to take private land is in use in the Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency and the South Coast Regional Air Quality District, to name only
two. These and other agencies have absolute power over land, air, and water – and people. They succeed
through regulations and by fig leaf “consensus” seldom announcing any
formal transfers of land and political power. Indeed, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlifc Service uses “taking” to describe private land and water not
yet in wildlife habitat. Thus the 5th Amenment prohibition against
the “taking of private property without just compensation” has been
turned on its head.
Their timeline for acquiring habitat is longer than the attention span of critics,
since patient believers have worked for years in the $600 million a year eco-move­ment and on public
payrolls. Many critics may be co-opted by either some cash (50
cents on the dollar), or “consensus” rituals, or worn out emotionally and financially.
The economic recession could slow the process. For example, the Spotted Owl may be given “only”
nine million acres – Massachusetts and Rhode Island com­bined – instead of  eleven million; “only” 30,000 now
lose their jobs instead of I 00,000 later; $1 billion instead of $9 billion in
federal funds is immediately spent for habitat and California bonds for
wildlife habitat stay at $2.2 billion – for a while. Still the faith, bolstered
by pseudo-science, prospers.
Honest wildlife scientists cautiously admit inadequate knowledge, but paid
Biodiversi-crats demand regional governance to acquire wildlife habitat – and to
fanatically deny human habitation, and enjoyment of nature. Scientifically illiterate and ~~
economically uniformed voters do not object- though the EPA is already taking
the equivalent of a family’s annual expenditure on clothing.
Part 2: Why and Where we’re losing.
Continued from Last Month- Part
2: Why and Where we’re losing
Chart I – “Biodiversity Value System” translates the “biodiversity”
literature into what’s good and bad and who wins and loses if the new religion
has its way. In short, the sparse remnants of America’s republican virtues
-Judeo-Christian values and democratic capitalism – would be swept aside.
Into the dust bin would go elections, local self government, property rights, free
markets, private contracts, access to “public” resources (water,
timber, grass, minerals), develop­ment of housing, roads, dams. Couched in
obscure language, these bioregional value choices become clear only when laid
side by side as in Chart I.
Chart II, “Man’s Perceived Threats to Nature,” shows everything harming nature.
Science is not so sure.

Chart I – Biodiversity Value System

Bad (want less)                                   Good (want more)
(Want less)
Man                                                     Animals, fish, insects, plants, grass, bacteria
Humans                                               Cutthroat trout, redhill roaches, yellow-legged frogs
Human pop. Growth                           Wildlife pop. growth
[abortion?]
Human rights                                      Animal rights
Alien (nonlocal) species                      Native local species
“Alien” bull frogs                                Red-legged frogs, yellow- legged
“Alien” brook, brown trout, catfish    Native golden trout, cutthroat trout
Domesticated plants/animals              Wild plants/animals
Domesticated animal breeding           Genetic diversity
Cows and sheep                                  Mountain lions, deer
Domestic pets (dogs/cats)                   Wolverines, badgers, foxes
New (planted) sequoias                      Old growth sequoia redwoods
Planted (Douglas) fir                          Yellow, digger pines, yews, subalpinefir, blue oak
Domesticated grass/bushes                 Weeds, wild scrubs
Livestock/grazing                                Wildlife habitats, native grasses
Grazing                                               Preservation of wetlands
Sewage systems development                        Wetland/marsh filter [microbes?]
Forest harvesting                                 Wild fires. woodpeckers, owls
Large clear cutting                              Small clear cutting
Clear cutting                                       Selective logging
Sustainable productivity                     Biological diversity
Logging clean-up                                Retain deadwood, snags
Range land                                          Pines, mountain meadows
Human housing                                   Wildlife nesting, rearing
Agricultural dust                                 Undisturbed soils of nature
Mining                                                 Wildlife habitat/corridors
Manufacturing industries                    Cottage/home industries
Extractive industries                           Service industries [slavery?]
Mobility:
Cattle ranges                                       Animal trails/corridors
Auto commuting                                 Telecommunicating
Autos, roads                                        Trails, bikes, skis, walking
Railroads                                             Trails
Off-roads, cycles,jeeps,snow              Backpacks, bikes, skies
Parking                                                Walking
Public access                                       Limited, controlled access
Herbicides                                           Alternatives to herbicides
Oil, plastics                                         Wood
Chemical fertilizer/cow dung              Deer dung
B. BAD (Less in the future)
Individual freedom/choice                  Collective decisions, concensus
Voluntary cooperation                        Government mandates, regulations,
Property rights, contracts                    Land use management, planning
Private profits                                     Non-profits,taxes,fees
Free market                                         Regulation/planning
Economic growth                                Growth management
Private research                                   Government research
Private employment                            Public employment
Property sales                                      Property exchanges, barter
Private property use                            Public access, private use denied
Mixed private/public ownership         Public ownership
Private property development             Public acquisition/easements
Privately owned property                   Public property [taking of private property]
Citizens                                               Experts
Elections                                             Group dynamics/consensus
Elections                                             Joint power agreements, memoranda of understanding
Democracy                                          Efficiency,
Elected officials                                  Appointed officials (bureaucrats)
Fragmentation/inefficiency                 Integration/efficiency
Local government,                              Regional/state government
Local restoration                                 Regional restoration
Less government                                 More government
Decentralization                                  Centralization /consolidation
Taxes/fees on’ grazing/mining             Taxes/fees on recreation
Gov’t subsidies to agriculture                         Environmental subsidies
Fees for public parks                           No fees on backpacking trails
Subsidies for grazing/mining                             Subsidized hikers, rafters, skiers
Hunting                                                                       Wildlife watching/photography
Recreational fishing                                                    Rafting
Multiple use                                                                Limited recreational use by a few
Public beaches                                                             Riparian habitat for fish, frogs
Casinos                                                                        Backpacking
Low density tourism                                                   Centralized tourism centers
Power production                                                       Power conservation
Powerline corridors                                                     Wildlife corridors
Dams, diversions                                                         Salmon, trout Conservation
Energy development                                                   Conservation
Water for humans                                                       Water for fish
Farmers’ water                                                             Fisheries water
Reservoirs                                                                   Free-flowing rivers,canyons
Dams/water development/use                                     Habitat for fish, frogs
Continued from Last Month- Part
2: Why and Where we’re losing
Chart II, “Man’s Perceived Threats to Nature,” shows everything harming nature. Science is not so sure.

Chart II – Man’s Perceived Threats to Nature

MAN’S THREATS THINGS SCIENTIFIC
(Must be stopped or reduced) HARMED FOUNDATION
Grazing, mining, logging, Frogs, toads Poor/unknown
damming, toxic discharges
Air/water pollution ” “& snakes, Speculative
lizards, turtles Lacking
Deforestation, grazing Birds: warblers, Poorly quantified
flycatchers, thrushes
Old growth logging, Spotted owls “Known [sic]”
brush removal
Pesticides, lead falcons,eagles “Well estab-
condor, osprey lished”
Logging, grazing, devel- Bighorn sheep, Adequate?
opment mule deer, bears,
mt. lions,coyotes
Logging; grazing, reser- Hare, beaver Very poor
voirs, fire suppression
Climate change Insects Unknown
Burning, dust, grazing, Vegetation Assumed
logging, development
Air: orone, sulfates, nit- Jeffrey Pines Probable
rates, acid fog, dust,
Logging, grazing, develop- Soil erosion Known, poor data
ment, fire suppression On trends
Fire protection of Wildlife resources Doubtful
property
Clearcutting/salvage Diversity of tree Known [sic]
harvest Species
Gt, sequoia “grove Biodiversity known [sic]
enhancrnt”lfire suppression
Cattle/sheep grazing Grass Mt. meadws Known [?]
Air pollution/ozone Yellow pines Maybe
Categories
Environmental Extremism

An Uncommon Cause: The Snails in Miami [A satire]

National Review, February 4, 1972, 100.

We first read of the crisis last Saturday in the San Jose Mercury, America’s greatest newspaper (for the price). The headline read on page twenty, “Monster Snails Rampage Again.” Informed sources tell of an emergency meeting held in the paneled East Room of the White (possibly an unwise location, as the snails feed on the cellulose in wood and the calcium in white paint). An alarmed President called for a national commission to study the problem.

We have on our desk a preliminary report of that imposing commission made up of America’s most renowned natural and social scientists. Professor Hindsight , historian, reports that in 1961 two snails were brought from African via Hawaii against their will by an eight-year-old boy. As snails lack moral restraint, they have since bred asexually and profusely. Sociologist Noble Heartbleed reports they are now living under abysmal conditions in a Miami ghetto.

Some solutions suggested by the unenlightened National Security Center rest on the proposition that not being equal in dignity to man, the sanils ought to be poisoned or bombed. This will be difficult, however, as DDT has been banned. In addition the Russians might retaliate, according to Professor Appeasement, a Brookings Institute political scentist. Ecologists say snails are already an endangered species.

Militant snails have reportedly requested assistance from the UN against U.S. policies of genocide, imperiaqlism, and repression. The American Maritime Commission and the longshoremen have put pressure on a commission member, a Berkeley professor, to recommend sending the snails to Africa as taht is where their cultural and other roots lie. Others are demanding a program of Snail Studies at the nation’s colleges and universities. The presidents of Beerkeley, Harvard, Yale and Princeton report some modified program will be available spring semester.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that the sanils have now lived in America for eight generations and are entitled to the same rights as other Americans under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Professor Dogood, sociologist, points out the present program of public assistance is inadequate for the needs of this oppressed minority. Governor Reagan insists that they work on public projects instead of living off the dole, because only individual initiative can solve their problems. In the meantime, the redneck citizens of Miami have taken the law into their own by rushing out on their lawns to poison or smash the unfortunate creatures. The American Humane Society, the American association of University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Sierra Club have lodged a protest. The five groups plan a march on Washington when all the schools are open in Early October.

Categories
Vietnam

A Black Hole in History: How Americong Won Vietnam War Against America

Filling a Black Hole in History
Comrades in Arms:  How the Ameri-Cong Won the Vietnam War against the Common Enemy—America. Copyright Roger Canfield, 1988-2010.
The excerpt below about an obscure meeting in Germantown, Ohio in 1973 is from a book on Vietnam uniquely important to current events. Today a divided American political elite has a declining will both to fight terrorism and to remain vigilant to a rising Communist China. A large faction of the America political elite, even President Obama, still carries a “blame America” template to all U.S. military and foreign policy. This is contemporary evidence of the power of Hanoi propaganda extended down to the present day.
Comrades in Arms fills a black hole in history by the telling story never told of how closely the top leaders of the American peace movement coordinated their antiwar demonstrations and propaganda themes with Hanoi.  In one place for the first time the book names hundreds of Americans who met the Vietnamese Communists frequently not only in Hanoi and Paris, but also in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Windsor, Havana, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Geneva, Munich, East Berlin, Moscow, Budapest, Helsinki, Sofia, Bratislava, Tokyo, Jakarta, Peking, Phnom Penn, and Vientiane. In these meetings antiwar leaders and the enemy agreed to common political strategies and tactics and propaganda themes. They  coordinated their political actions by date, place and themes. This collaboration and coordination was not to achieve peace, but to defeat U.S. imperialism and impose communism upon Indochina.
Much of what our children learn, our historians write and the mass media tells us about the war in Vietnam is false. In particular effusive accounts of the peace movement, portray idealistic youth and honest pacifists rightfully protesting an illegal and immoral war by U.S. imperialism against innocent peasants in a far away place of no strategic interest to the United States. Au contraire, the book demonstrates how the Vietnamese Communists considered the antiwar movement an essential, ultimately the most critical factor, in their grand strategy for a military victory. Indeed, very many of those named leading demonstrations and lobbying congress happily collaborated with Hanoi. They made the U.S. homeland a second front in the rear of their enemy. After all, by 1972 the United States and South Vietnamese ARVN had both all but won the war on the ground and in the hearts and minds of the people of South Vietnam until America’s national leaders lost the will to win.  The book confronts most of Hanoi’s propaganda themes, point by point. It describes in horrific detail Communist atrocities that far surpass the sins of the allies in Vietnam.
Though scores of meetings and hundreds of persons are named and quoted, the usual American suspects include: John Kerry, William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Joan Baez, David Dellinger, Cora Rubin Weiss, Daniel Berrigan, Tom Harkin, John Conyers and hundreds of others. Similarly, the book describes top Vietnamese Communist leaders meeting American fellow travelers: Ho Chi Minh, Pham Van Dong, Nguyen Van Hieu, Nguyen Khac Vien, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, Nguyen Thi Dinh, Col. Ha Van Lau, Le Duan, Le Duc Tho, Xuan Thuy, Nguyen Minh Vy, Huyn Van Ba, Do Xuan Oanh, Hoang Tung, Hoang Minh Giam, Mai Van Bo and scores more.  The book also names spies, agents of influence and gullible journalists who played critical roles. Of particular interest are reports from American POWs who had ringside seats to observe American collaborators and to learn Hanoi’s propaganda themes.
The whole story has not been told previously this account is comprehensive, covering 1,500 pages, 4,700 footnotes citing long lost or rare documents, interviews and memoirs, letters and leaflets, CIA and FBI files, captured Viet Cong documents, Radio Hanoi and Vietnamese and American newspapers.
**************************************
In January 1973 a peace accord had been signed in Paris, but the Hanoi conquest of South Vietnam was incomplete. The American peace movement played the critical role in that conquest. Tom Hayden, returning from meeting Hanoi and Kymer representatives in Paris, in mid October 1973[1] would bring back a new sense of focus for the peace movement.
Germantown Brings ‘clarity and…coordinated strategy” October 26-28, 1973
In order “to clarity and to develop a coordinated strategyamong over a dozen peace organizations, the Indochina Peace Campaign, IPC, held a National Planning Conference on Indochina October 26-28, 1973, at a chapel in a Methodist camp in Germantown outside Dayton, Ohio.[2] According to Max Friedman the conference had been “delayed for a week for Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda and others to meet with VC/VN in Paris for their marching orders. Hayden actually said this” (on Friday October 26.) Hayden and Fonda’s Indochina Peace Campaign had been on a U.S. road tour from late September to mid October, e.g. Chicago, Austin, and Madison. The week before the Germantown gathering the IPC group met the Vietnamese communists in Paris. [3] Indeed, Tom Hayden was in Paris meeting with PRG and DRV and on October 20, 1973 interviewing Ly Van Sau,[4] a Viet Cong representative and spokesman of Hanoi’s puppet, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam.[5] Ly told Hayden “We want to convey to our American friends to be with us on the long march.”[6] He instructed Tom Hayden that political “action should be pursued” to cut aid to Thieu and Lon Nol, free 200,000 political prisoners and to implement the Paris Peace Treaty, i.e. overturning the Thieu regime. Ly, Viet Cong spokesman of a political-military operations known for terror and assassinations said, it was the Thieu regime which “burn houses, plunder property, raping etc” and it “tortured and massacred” political prisoners.
Ly Van Sau also made promises through Tom Hayden to a larger American audience: “We do not want to build Communism in South Vietnam…We do not want a monopolization of political power in South Vietnam.” The Viet Cong only wanted an independent and neutral South Vietnam. Indeed, “We will be very glad to see the people of South Vietnam to vote freely in elections.”[7] To reinforce this message of peace and freedom, Hanoi apologist Gareth Porter of the Indochina Resource Center wrote that Hanoi was taking no aggressive actions only defending its zones of occupancy.[8]
Responding Premier Nguyen Van Theiu proclaimed there was a real but unseen, “phantom” Communist offensive. If only Hanoi were left with arms, as Hayden and Ly wished, a Communist political and military victory was a near certainty.
Hayden arrived a week late in Germantown, Ohio on Friday October 26, 1973 delivering messages from Hanoi via Paris, which became instructions for future actions of the US peace movement until the final defeat of South Vietnam.
Some 200 representatives from 15 organizations attended the Germantown gathering of mostly hard-left organizations: America Friends Service Committee, Clergy And Laity Concerned, Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, War Resisters League, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, Fellowship of Reconciliation, SANE, Episcopal Peace Fellowship. Church groups were in the majority.[9] Some others organizations performed specialized tasks or represented special interests such as Bill Zimmerman’s Medical Aid to Indochina, Indochina Resource Center, Don Luce’s Indochina Mobile [tiger cage] Education Project, church affiliated International Committee to Free South Vietnamese Prisoners from Detention, Torture and Death[10] and the small, but symbolic Union of Vietnamese in the U.S.A.[11] Together the tax exempted United Methodist Church, Board of Social Concern, United Church of Christ, and the United Presbyterian Church funded the tax exempt Indochina Resource Center,[12] which illegally lobbied Congress despite a demand for records from the House Committee on International Affairs.[13] AFSC/NARMIC was tightly tied to the IPC sharing events, administrative support and Indochina Resource Center[14] research staff–Don Luce, David Marr, Gareth Porter, Mike Klare, and Fred Branfman.[15] We know the names of some of the individuals who attended the Germantown conference from materials listing participants in each of twenty workshop groups on the 27th.[16] Among the most noteworthy organizations and their representatives were; WSP, Trudi Young; IPC, Tom Hayden, Susan Wind, Marianne Schneller, Steve Cagan[17], Ira Arlook, Nina Mohit, Sokum Hing[18] and Allen Imbarrato; Chicago Seven, John Froines; NARMIC, Merlin Rainwater; Indochina Resource Center, Fred Branfman, G.C. Hildebrand, Bill Goodfellow; AFSC John McAuliff, Gail Pressberg, Jack Malinoski, Lo Anh Tu; WILPF, Roland and Paula Westerlund, Beatrice Pearson, Rosalie Riechman; Medical Aid to Indochina, Bill Zimmerman; [19] Union of Vietnamese in the U.S.A, Tran Quoc Hung.[20]
At this conference in late October an earlier IPC offshoot formed in late 1972, the Coalition to Stop Funding the War, changed its name to the United Campaign for Peace in Germantown and thereafter the United Campaign to End the War and the United Campaign to Honor the Peace Treaty.[21] The tax exempt Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church acted as the ultimate Communist front group becoming the major conduit of funds for Hanoi agents in the United Campaign to End the War and the United Campaign to Honor the Peace Treaty and its successor, the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy.[22] Stewart Mott, General Motors heir, used the Methodists to launder $90, 000 to the Coalition to Stop Funding the War.[23]
After Hayden’s trip to Paris to talk to the Vietnamese communist, the IPC’s ad hoc coalition, pursuing a hodgepodge of goals, was transformed into a strategically defined political campaign with quite specific tactical objectives. The tactics created the conditions to achieve the strategic objective of a communist victory in Vietnam.
Prior to the meetings in Paris, an IPC strategy dated October 7th, had contained a long laundry list of calendared objectives involving war funding, political prisoners, amnesty, medical aid, and crisis planning.[24] The final preconference document, almost certainly drafted in Paris, focused with “clarity” upon a single overriding issue, political prisoners, and a single target, members of Congress in selected states. The IPC said South Vietnam had 200,000 political prisoners, many kept in inhumane tiger cages, and had created six millions of refugees. IPC-Hanoi would stick to this 10-year old, story, a political campaign plan, for another two years. If believed to be true this story would reduce the legitimacy of the southern regime making it easier to persuade a credulous post-Watergate Congress to cut off all remaining aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia. The alleged horrific treatment of political prisoners was a powerful moral issue among Americans, which if left unchallenged, was indefensible. Moreover, two other demands not in the October 7 document were payment of reparations and establishing a “government of national reconciliation,”[25] which were elements of the Paris peace treaty giving Hanoi all the fruits of a total victory—both a political coup of Thieu and the plunder of the defeated.  The October Pledge to End the War was replaced with an Indochina Peace Pledge. All these elements given “clarity” in Germantown were North Vietnam’s precise propaganda themes,[26] which IPC had been instructed to clarify, use and coordinate.
IPC outlined a sophisticated grass roots political campaign in key states and Congressional districts to put local service group pressure on U.S. Senators and House members to cut off aid to Thieu. Geoffrey Pope of Atlanta said, they’d “gotten down to the nitty gritty of how realistically to accomplish that goal.”[27] With tactics acceptable to an American majority, the campaign would focus on Congress. This plan was later laid out in tactical detail in the IPC’s Organizers Guide For the United Campaign to Honor the Peace Agreement, 9 February 1974, a document demonstrating a high level of professional political competence.[28] It was what Hanoi wanted– a clear and coordinated strategy.  From Saigon, Ambassador Graham Martin asked Rep. Ron Dellums to place the “manual of instructions” in the Congressional Record, which Dellums did on October 31, 1973.[29]
Indochina Resource Center and IPC produced common pamphlets and sample letters to be used by all groups affiliated with the campaign. National liaison with local groups were Karen Nussbaum (Boston), Ira Arlook (Cleveland) and out of the IPC Resource Center Tom Hayden and Carol Kurtz. IPC national travelers were “nationally funded” to go to designated areas, states and congressional districts, where they would be most effective. IPC states and contacts were: New York, Suzanne Ross; New Jersey, Eldridge; Pennsylvania, David Hughes; Ohio, Jay Westbrook; Michigan, John R, Illinois, Gardels-Culran; Texas, Dan Thibodeau; Arizona, Nina Mohit; Oregon, Brunner and Willens; and California, Ren Mabey and Shari Whitehead. In Washington, IPC had a full time lobbyist, Larry Levin, using the offices of Rep. Ron Dellums (D-CA).
Back on their IPC road tour Tom and Jane were accompanied by as many as 20 bodyguards in coats and ties and collected fees of $1,000 or so with Tom calculating the exact finances of each stop.  IPC introduced Don Luce’s infamous mobile education project on the “tiger cages.” At a Hayden/IPC speaking engagement on the Hanoi-approved topic of political prisoners at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, the event cosponsors were the National Lawyers Guild, Vietnam Veterans, Young Socialists Alliance, Women’s Liberation Union, United Mexican American Students and the Communist Party, USA.[30]
During the fall of 1973 and spring of 1974 (broken by a trip to Vietnam in another episode), Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda and entourage toured 40 cities in 10-12 states. Meanwhile the word from Hanoi and its Hanoi agent, IPC, was presented simultaneously on the international scene.

[1] Max Friedman, Council for Inter-American Security, study in lieu of testimony to Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, Lobbying and Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Hearings, Committee on Oversight, March 12-13, 1987, 403.
[2] Emphasis in original, IPC, “Indochina: A National Planning Conference, October 26-28, in a camp near Dayton, Ohio, initiated by the Indochina Peace Campaign,” n.d., [October 1973] provided by Max Friedman; Conference materials also are in the papers of Jan Waggoner Suter, 1954-1985, MSS-059 at the Ward M. Canaday Center, University of Toledo. Suter, a Harvard graduate, was an antidraft Counselor for the Toledo Area Council of Churches, 1969-1973.
[3] Max Friedman to Canfield, June 5, 2008.
[4] Ly Van Sau was a Viet Cong spokesman at the Paris Peace talks, a journalist and Vietnamese Ambassador to Cuba. Politics in Brief, “Cuban hero’s birthday celebrated,” June 13, 2008.  Http://english.vietnamnet.vn/politics/2008/06/788292/
[5]IPC, “Peace Groups Unite on ’74 Plan,” Indochina Focal Point, November 16-30, 1973 provided by Max Friedman.
[6] IPC, “Peace Groups Unite on ’74 Plan,” Indochina Focal Point, November 16-30, 1973 provided by Max Friedman.
[7] Tom Hayden, IPC, “a Vietnamese vision: interview with Ly Van Sau, ‘be with us on their long march,’ in “Peace Groups Unite on ’74 Plan,” Indochina Focal Point, November 16-30, 1973 provided by Max Friedman.
[8] IPC, “Peace Groups Unite on ’74 Plan,” Indochina Focal Point, November 16-30, 1973 provided by Max Friedman.
[9] Max Friedman, Council for Inter-American Security, study in lieu of testimony to Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, Lobbying and Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Hearings, Committee on Oversight, March 12-13, 1987, 403.
[10] The International Committee to Free South Vietnamese Prisoners from Detention, Torture and Death was affiliated with AFSC, War Resisters League, Catholic Peace Fellowship and Canadian Council of Churches. Sources: CCPF 1/13 folder, Catholic Peace Fellowship Records, University of Notre Dame Archives, Ann Buttrick Collection, University of Toronto Library; Records of War Resisters League, box 25, Collection DG 040, Swarthmore College Peace Collection.
[11] IPC, “Indochina: A National Planning Conference, October 26-28, in a camp near Dayton, Ohio, initiated by the Indochina Peace Campaign,” n.d., [October 1973]; Tom Hayden, “Cutting Off Funding for War: the 1973 Indochina Case,” Huffington Post, March 20, 2007 at huffingtonpost.com.
[12] Max Friedman, Council for Inter-American Security, study in lieu of testimony to Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, Lobbying and Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Hearings, Committee on Oversight, March 12-13, 1987, 403.
[13] Max Friedman to Canfield, November 26, 2008.
[14] Wells, The War Within 567-8N102-3 cite “Notes from IPC National Meeting, Feb 16-18, 1973 (IPC papers SHSW); Santa Barbara IPC, “IPC’s Original, Continuing and current goals,” early 1973; Hirsch, “Notes on Congressional Pressure,” July 31, 1973; IPC Boston/Cambridge Resource Center to IPC state offices, December 15, 1972b; Tom Hayden, “Cutting Off Funding for War: the 1973 Indochina Case, Huffington Post, March 20, 2007.
[15] SDS and NACLA (No. American Committee on Latin America. From an old red family. Max Friedman to author, February 25, 2008. Wells, The War Within 567-8N102-3 cite “Notes from IPC National Meeting, Feb 16-18, 1973 (IPC papers SHSW); Santa Barbara IPC, “IPC’s Original, Continuing and Current Goals,” early 1973; Hirsch, “Notes on Congressional Pressure,” July 31, 1973; IPC Boston/Cambridge Resource Center to IPC state offices, December 15, 1972b; Tom Hayden, “Cutting Off Funding for War: the 1973 Indochina Case, Huffington Post, March 20, 2007.
[16] “Workshops for Saturday,”[27 October 1973] from Max Friedman.
[17] Brother of Leslie Cagan. Rick Perloff, “Radical Family Values: The Activism Gene Rarely Skips A Generation. But Even Protesters Kids Insist On Doing Things Their Own Way,” Cleveland Free Times, Volume 13, Issue 38, January 11, 2006.
[18] A Kymer representative, one presumes, Kymer Rouge.
[19] “Workshops for Saturday,”[27 October 1973] from Max Friedman.
[20] Wells, The War Within 567-8N102-3 cite “Notes from IPC National Meeting, Feb 16-18, 1973 (IPC papers SHSW); Santa Barbara IPC, “IPC’s Original, Continuing and current goals,” early 1973; Hirsch, “Notes on Congressional Pressure,” July 31, 1973; IPC Boston/Cambridge Resource Center to IPC state offices, December 15, 1972b; Tom Hayden, “Cutting Off Funding for War: the 1973 Indochina Case, Huffington Post, March 20, 2007.
[21] IPC, Organizers Guide For the United Campaign to Honor the Peace Agreement, 9 February, 1974; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1660323/posts
[22] Max Friedman, Council for Inter-American Security, study in lieu of testimony to Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, Lobbying and Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Hearings, Committee on Oversight, March 12-13, 1987, 403.
[23] Fortune, March 1974; cited in Max Friedman, Council for Inter-American Security, study in lieu of testimony to Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee, Lobbying and Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations, Hearings, Committee on Oversight, March 12-13, 1987, 405.
[24] IPC “Proposed Strategy for Action in the Coming Year,” October 7, 1973 provided by Max Friedman.
[25] IPC, “Indochina: A National Planning Conference, October 26-28, in a camp near Dayton, Ohio, initiated by the Indochina Peace Campaign,” n.d., [October 1973]
[26] AFSC/NARMIC promotional materials, “From the New NARMIC slide show, THE POST-WAR War, Dollars for War, Dollars for Repression, order form, NARMIC Publications, 11/73 at FBI, FOIA, A, AFSC.
[27]IPC, “Peace Groups Unite on ’74 Plan,” Indochina Focal Point, November 16-30, 1973 provided by Max Friedman.
[28] The author has written and implemented just such strategic plans for political campaigns for candidates and ballot initiatives in California.
[29] Political Prisoners in South Vietnam and the Philippines, Hearings, Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, May 1 and June 5, 1974, 108.
[30] Daily World, November 1, 1973, 11.
Categories
Environmental Extremism

Kill a Rat: Go to Jail

Kill a Rat: Go to Jail

By Roger Canfield, originally written for California State Senator Phil Wyman

In August of 1994 a Bakersfield farmer faced a year in jail
and a $300,000 fine for a strange crime, “kill a rat, go to jail. The farmer
had the gall to plow his own field with his own tractor.

Tuang Ming-Lin and his family were Taiwanese immigrants, free Chinese, who
purchased a 720-acre farm near Bakersfield, their little piece of the American
Dream.

Lin had borrowed a lot of money to buy a tractor and other farm
equipment. Once equipped, Lin got on his heavily mortgaged tractor and
disced his field on his property to grow bamboo, alfalfa and other vegetables to sell to markets that cater to Southern
California’s booming Asian population.

LIN’S life turned upside down when
federal agents claimed his tractor ran over endangered Tipton kangaroo rats.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents showed LIN a dead rat, told
him the rodent was found on his land and accused him of violating the
Endangered Species Act. LIN, 51, pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of
knowingly killing an endangered species and destroying its habitat. If
convicted, he could have been jailed for up to a year and fined $300,000.

In a similar case involving the endangered blunt-nose leopard lizard, owners of a farm in
neighboring Tulare County pleaded guiltyto the same charge. The
owners of that farm handed over part of their land to the Fish and wildlife
Service in lieu of paying a $5,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney KAREN KALIMANIR claimed the
government was simply enforcing the Endangered Species Act. ROGER GEPHART, a
Fish and wildlife Service’agent, said these cases are becoming more prevalent
because of public demand that endangered species be protected. “We’re the
caretakers and the stewards of the land, and we have no right to deny the existence of these endangered
species,” GEPHART said.

The civil suit, which is separate from the criminal complaint, was
filed against LIN’S $50,000 tractor. Agents confiscated the tractor to try to
forfeit it to the government. However, LIN still was obligated to pay the
remaining $37,000 he owed said his equipment company.

“This man is trying to create jobs,” farm manager ROBERT SANCHEZ said. “Isn’t that what the government wants?”

The California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service by their actions have once again placed a higher value on
rodents’ housing rights — habitat — than on lawful, honest human
economic activities. Both departments, in an attempt to enforce the Endangered
Species Act (ESA) , have mercilessly crushed the dreams and livelihood of a family in Bakersfield, sort
of like smashing a bug -­ except that the environmentalist Gestapo protects pests and vermin.

They do not smash bugs; they go after people, their property
and their habitat.

The lives of the Lin family were abruptly and further shattered when federal agents, acting in conjunction with the state Fish and
Game Department, claimed to have found on his property, prime habitat for three endangered species: the K-rat, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, and the kit fox.

Adding vicious insult to actual injury, the U.S. Attorney’s
Office originally had filed a civil suit against Mr. Lin’s tractor.

But in late June, the Department of Fish and Wildlife
rescinded their charge, and dropped the suit against the farm vehicle.

Can’t get real blood out of inanimate machinery.

Origins of ESA

Like all liberal, socialist, collectivist ideas and laws – those seeking absolute, total authority
— the Endangered Species Act was passed with all the usual claims of
warm and fuzzy good intentions.

The Congress wanted to stop thoughtless human predators who
were out shooting and trapping creatures such as the very symbol of America -­ THE bald eagle.

Good patriots in Congress rose to the bait and voted for the ESA.

In California, the Legislature established an ESA tax checkoff to help fund California’s ESA
enforcement.

Whether one agrees that the K-Rat should be on an ESA list,
the behavior of the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service is
disgraceful.

The ESA law has been twisted and mutilated in its
implementation, and it is now a prime example of how regulations can grow into
gargantuan bureaucracies that trample upon the rights and liberties of private citizens.

In terms of midnight raids on private persons and property — without due process of law — federal and state ESA police would
have little to learn from police states Americans fought against from Berlin to Baghdad.

As Mr. Lin’s attorney, Daniel Rudnick, explains, “Just
when he was ready to ‘” make
his dream come true, these people descended on him like storm troopers.”

His only tractor has been confiscated.

He has been ordered to stop cultivating his land until his
case is concluded.

While his livelihood is on hold, his creditors are knocking
on his door to keep him current on mortgage and property expenses.

The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California
Department of Fish and Game are enforcing the ESA with absolutely no regard for
the rights of individuals, in particular, private property.

Enforcement agencies have trampled upon the rights of
individuals and property owners under the banner of this onerously applied law.

The Endangered Species Act, particularly as it is being applied in California, represents a
flagrant and abominable abuse of governmental authority.

Government is stifling growth and entrepreneurship. This is
counterproductive and an affront to hard-working people, not only in California, but everywhere in the nation.

Once again the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife has
placed rodent interests above honest human livelihood.

I smell a rat so too does Tuang Ming-Lin.

On November 29th, Tuang Ming-Lin faced his accusers
before a U.S. District judge and a tractorcade rally
sponsored by the Coalition to Protect and Protect Property Rights gathered farmers, oil workers, real estate and other business and labor groups to support Lin.

It’s time for victory for property rights and freedom lest
California’s most endangered species will remain jobs for people.

(EDITOR: Fast forward by 2010 California’s Central Valley had 20% unemployment, 400,000 acres fallowed because of a manmade drought giving water to the “endangered” Delta Smelt at the expense of human farmers.)

Categories
Environmental Extremism

Care, Feeding & Preservation of Mud Puddles

 

The Care, Feeding
and Preservation of Mud Puddles
By Roger Canfield

The Sacramento Bee blasted away at elected officials who

might possibly vote against its pretentious editorial claims. The Bee is the PC conscience of the River City and all
surrounding environs. The Bee threatened those elected officials who might vote wrongly—against
the Bee–out there on the “far right fringe of politics.” Why? What dastardly
deed was about to be done? Why ought these elected officials hang their heads
in shame and hide before the mighty Bee? Several county supervisors muttered a few modest words in defense
of common sense, decency, property rights, and due process, but none were
uttered against “lefty wing lunacy.” That deficiency is hereby corrected. The
wretched rag—that’s the Bee—really had little to fear.

A major issue was the possible taking and
devaluing of private property. The Bee said, “frankly we don’t care whether any
given landowner is happy with the outcome or not”

Over what grand purpose, what fundamental
principle or what collective benefit does the Bee get into such a spitting
frenzy of righteous indignation. Why is the Bee, other than its socialist
origins, so committed to violating property rights at any price?

The eternal care and perpetual protection of
mud puddles. Yep. That’s it.

Yes, that’s right–protecting uneven
ground—the low spots where water collects when it rains. Unless leveled with a
laser, in the rainy season you too have mud puddles in your own yard from
whence many life forms may emerge. Beware you may be harboring a danger to your
own health and property rights. We speak not of malaria, plague, E-coli. No
ticks. No rats (well maybe…).

Of course, these mud puddles–dry in warm
weather–are called vernal pools. And the venal folks who protect such insist
that even “unnatural vernal pools [provide] species habitat, such as tire ruts
and roadside ditches” AND these too warrant protection sez Center for
Biological Diversity v. Bartel. The Center is for all biodiversity that doesn’t
include Homo sapiens—that be you and me.

These seasonal wet spots provide a place for
species to live some of the year. Let’s be clear we’re not talking about
housing for Bald Eagles or our very own cute, cuddly connoisseurs of road
kill—the California Condor. Nope, we’re talking Fairy Shrimp. Not the kind that
appears under Saran@ wrap and tomato sauce at your local Stop and Rob. In fact,
you need very good optics to actually see these critters. Yes, they really
exist…so I’ve been told.

These teenie weenies have very powerful friends.

Environmentalists say they want to save endangered species.

Who knows what cures for cancer or hangnails may exist in
the DNA or the excretions of the Fairy Shrimp? Bogus. Bull as they say down on
the farm (where the enviros are busy criminalizing dirt, particulate matter, and cow
pies).

The real environmental agenda always turns
out to be the command and control of growth, housing, roads, bridges,
refineries, dams and power plants for our children and grandchildren, It’s to
demonize homebuilders, engineers, farmers, homeowners — the productive members
of our society. It’s to stir up class envy. It’s to take private property and
to put in the hands of government. It is government, which knows what’s better
for yours and mine than we do for ourselves. It’s a power grab pure and simple.
It reaches everything. When do we call it totalitarian? In the local instance
it’s a mere 60,000 acres costing $1.1 billion to expand further the publicly
owned/devalued land above the current 87% public ownership. It takes or
devalues private property.

So the pompously unchallenged Bee says,
“frankly we don’t care whether any given landowner is happy with the outcome or
not” and calls such an outcome “revolutionary.” How very precious and
progressive.

Sounds like that’s coming from the far, left
fringe. Ever heard of Karl Marx, well …Pol Pot, Hugo Chavez?

As is the nature of guvmint, the idea was
sent back for further study in this place not so far away. [EDITOR: names and
locations hidden truly to protect the innocent and the intimidated who are
forbidden to say bad things about the ugly naked thing.]