Wanna send your kids to Brown…?

According to the Greenwash Guerrillas YouTube video description…

Thomas Friedman, the author and NY Times columnist, was invited to Brown University to give a keynote speech on Earth Day, before a packed auditorium. His talk, titled “Green is the new Red White and Blue” was about how corporate environmentalism (based on putting a price on the atmosphere, and investing in biofuels and techno-fixes) can restore America to its “natural place in the global order.” Luckily, this outrageous neoliberal capitalist propaganda was interrupted with a suprise visit from the Greenwash Guerrillas. Leaflets were thrown to the crowd, stating:

Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face…

* because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet

* for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand.

* for helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged

* For his long-standing support for the US Occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Such committed support to the US War Machine and its proxy states overseas cannot be masked behind any twisted mask of “green” – the US Military is the largest single emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

* for his pure arrogance. On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists — we, the Greenwash Guerrillas, declare Thomas Friedman’s “Green” as fake and toxic to human and planetary health as the cool-whip covering his face.

One of the little punks who referred to himself only as “Colonel Custard”, “the corporate criminal creamer” (you know the type), called The Brown Daily Herald…

The caller challenged Friedman to a “debate duel,” but added that the motivation for the protest was not specific to Friedman.

“It’s not just Thomas Friedman. It’s what he stands for and what he promotes,” the person said. “It’s a pie in the face of corporate environmentalism and capitalism.”

A radical environmentalist, the caller said he and Little targeted Friedman – an environmentalist himself – because of what he calls a wrongheaded approach to climate change.

“The climate deniers are easy to take down because they’ve been proven wrong,” he said. “If we’re actually going to do anything about the problem, we need to look at the false solutions.”

“Things like biofuels are just as harmful as climate change itself,” he added.

My middle finger is itching for the next academic who recites that ol’ promoting an atmosphere for the free expression of ideas crap.

WARNING: I’m not an 90-pound Ann Coulter; one of those whom the Greenwash Guerrillas have pied. Should I do some public speaking and some kid charges the stage, (in the fine tradition of self defense) someone’s getting dropped. I’m too old to be running away from spoiled, belligerent children.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Bob Parks, Politics, Video, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.