THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

"Green" vs. "Red, White & Blue"
By Marita Noon
"Our civilization is not indestructible: it needs to be actively defended"--so said a recent Wall Street Journal article highlighting the "Huntingtonian model" as laid out in the classic work of late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington: Clash of Civilizations. In short, the idea is that "a civilization-based world order is emerging in which states that share cultural affinities will cooperate with each other and group themselves around the leading states of their civilization." The three main civilizations are Western, Muslim, and the Confucian-with the West declining in power.
The West includes America.
The article's author proposes a political incorrect idea: survival depends on groups with a shared civilization uniting to defend it against challenges.
Looking at the three-civilization model, The West is declining because we've become dependent on the other two. The Middle-eastern countries-Muslim civilization-for our oil. Asian countries-Confucian civilizations-for most everything else. We, in the Western civilization, manufacture very little. Our computers and cell phones, our furniture and clothes, our dog food and medicines are mostly manufactured in China. It is hard to find consumables without the "Made in China" label.
The Muslim or Confucian civilizations have not become super-powers. They cannot boast about housing any of the world's great institutions of learning. The major inventions do not come from these civilizations. No. Instead, much of the West's demise can be traced back to the emergence of a fourth civilization-a post- Huntingtonian civilization.
"Green."
Though thought to be the salvation of America-and, in fact, the world, the Green movement has morphed into a civilization clashing with the Western world.
The environmental movement had not yet fully geared up at the time of the release of The Clash of Civilizations. They were viewed as a radical fringe in their beginning back in the sixties and moved into a worthwhile cause in the polluted seventies. However, as Patrick Moore, co-founder of GreenPeace (one of the first environmental groups) explained "the 80's ushered in the age of environmental extremism." The basic issues for which he and Greenpeace fought had largely been accomplished and the general public was in agreement with the primary message. In order for the environmentalists to stay counter-culture, they had to adopt ever more extreme positions. "What happened is environmental extremism. They've abandoned science and logic altogether."
Now, the Green civilization is largely responsible for America's dependence on foreign oil-which has become a security issue as well as an energy problem. We have vast supplies of oil and gas right here in America, but we are not allowed to access it. New legislation and regulation is constantly introduced, on both state and national levels, that either shuts off access to energy supplies or makes them more expensive or difficult to extract-making us ever more dependent of unfriendly governments for our energy resources. As a result, we send billions to Muslim civilizations and they are "exploding."
Likewise, the economic assent of the Confucian civilization can be traced, at least in part, to the Green civilization. The "extremism" with which they have pursued their agenda has moved beyond the pollutants of the seventies to the modern-day attempt to eliminate all carbon emissions. They've pushed policy that has determined that the CO2 that humans breathe out and that plants breathe in-a part of the natural cycle of life-is a "pollutant" that must be vanquished. As a part of this effort, energy has become more expensive and industry is viewed as "dirty." Therefore, manufacturing has moved to off-shore locations-specifically China. Then we import it-and think we are "clean." All this has done is shift the C02 emissions to China where they do not have the pollution controls that we have in America. Instead of America producing CO2 emissions, China is spewing so-called greenhouse gases and true pollutants into the air with such rapidity that the cloud of pollution can be seen creeping to America's shores via satellite photo.
If typical, the response to this "opinion piece" will spotlight the clash of civilizations. The "Green" will attack me with vigor. The "Red, White & Blue" will cheer. As an e-mail I received following a recent radio interview said, "Finally someone speaking out against the WACOS!!"
Huntington was right. There is a clash of civilizations. The question is, will we allow the destruction of the "Red, White & Blue" or will we actively defend it?