'Know them by their fruits' By Curt Andersen News-Chronicle At a recent gathering, a man who referred to himself as a Conservative, told the rest of us a lurid story from the Chicago area. He had seen a report on TV that told of a bunch of little kids that were found in a run-down house which was filled with what appeared to be a year’s worth of garbage, dog droppings, and dirty diapers. Police had taken the children into protective custody. Over the years we have seen similar stories on local TV as well. The man went on at length, hissing about the lack of responsibility and initiative by the poor. While the Liberals at this gathering agreed that this situation was terrible, the two sides were at odds on how to deal with the problem. Conservatives wanted to put the kids up for adoption and put the parents in jail. The Liberals wanted to work with these families, and educate them to be better parents. The Conservatives then railed about rock stars who bust up their hotel rooms. “Degenerates!” said the Conservatives. “It’s that Liberal mind-set.” Well, Liberals don’t like this behavior either, so I wondered where these Conservatives scored their overdose of Cranky Pills. Conservatives sneered at the outrageous behavior, saying, “People today have no respect for other people’s property.” The irony is as thick as pea soup. This discussion brought to mind the trashing of other people’s property by Conservatives, and by that, I mean our forests, our rivers, lakes, and oceans, and our air…what is normally grouped into one term, the “environment.” This is public property…it belongs to all of us. Conservatives steal it, sell it, or trash it, and move on. Nature takes its sweet time growing trees and fish and wildfowl. Conservatives think this is their own personal property. Some local fishermen are upset that cormorants are “eating our fish.” Where did the ownership title come from? Who said those fish belonged to anyone? The cormorants are eating to live and they do not catch fish for recreation. Green Bay should have a monument to the cormorants for letting us all know, from their twisted beaks, that we were steeping in paper mill pollution. Another group of Conservatives have polluted the Fox River so badly that those same fish are too toxic to eat. Those Conservatives believe that the Fox River is their personal dumpsite, and they have manipulated federal, state, and local governments to keep it that way, just like the skullduggery of past centuries. When a government is controlled by corporations, it is referred to as “fascism.” Mussolini said “fascism” should be called “corporatism” because that’s where the power lies. Other Conservatives are buying trees from our national and state forests at bargain basement prices, much less than it costs our government, and hence, us, through our tax dollars, to build and maintain the roads needed to remove the trees. This is socialism again, but for the mighty. It is rare that these folks plant their own trees, but when they do, the tree farms are much like a carrot farm…all one species. These private forests do not support shrubs, flowers, moss, lichen, birds, animals, or fish in babbling brooks that meander through. Still another group of Conservatives has been dumping their poisons into our air. Whether by chemical companies or industrial chemical users, or coal-burning electric plants, the by-products spew out of the smokestacks, fouling the air in many cities, then accumulating to create foul air over an entire continent, and now, over the entire planet. No place is safe from these chemicals. Even the Inuit people of the northern latitudes have very high concentrations of PCBs in their blood because of the irresponsibility of polluting corporations. It is not just some ideal of clean air and water that is the issue here, it is public health. All cancer is genetic, and many of the chemicals dumped into our air and water can cause genetic damage that can lead to cancer. That sneering Conservative sure didn’t have his act together. Conservatives are the real guilty parties in this trashing business. Since Conservatives control the media, and because they are very good at propagandizing, even some Liberals are convinced that Liberals are at fault for everything. Anyone with a hint of an IQ should know that no single group can do everything wrong, and no single group can do everything right. That blind faith in Conservative propaganda reminds me of a warning: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15). Check out the Fox River for their fruit…don’t eat it. Curt Andersen is a Green Bay native. He is a 4-year Navy veteran (Communications Technician, CTO2), owns a small business, is vice president of Clean Water Action Council, and is an adjunct instructor at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. You may contact Mr. Andersen at [email protected]