White House, John Holdren's office both issue statements on Ecoscience controversy

Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 8:40 pm

The controversy over John Holdren’s co-authored book Ecoscience has reached the White House.

According to this article in the Washington Times, both the White House and John Holdren’s office have issued official statements from Holdren and his co-authors in which he distances himself from the words published in Ecoscience 32 years ago. From the article:

When asked whether Mr. Holdren’s thoughts on population control have changed over the years, his staff gave The Washington Times a statement that said, “This material is from a three-decade-old, three-author college textbook. Dr. Holdren addressed this issue during his confirmation when he said he does not believe that determining optimal population is a proper role of government. Dr. Holdren is not and never has been an advocate for policies of forced sterilization.”
…

The White House also passed along a statement from the Ehrlichs that said, in part, “anybody who actually wants to know what we and/or Professor Holdren believe and recommend about these matters would presumably read some of the dozens of publications that we and he separately have produced in more recent times, rather than going back a third of a century to find some formulations in an encyclopedic textbook where description can be misrepresented as endorsement.“

(The second quote above is from page 2 of the article.)

In my original report, I asked Holdren “to publicly renounce and disavow the opinions and recommendations he made in the book Ecoscience.”

I ask my readers: Do you think this counts as the renunciation and disavowal I requested?

And who wants to take up the challenge from the Ehrlichs issued by the White House to look into “some of the dozens of publications that we and he separately have produced in more recent times” to uncover “what we and/or Professor Holdren believe”? Seems like territory ripe for exploration! Post any research you uncover either here in the comments section, or on your own blog. Anything that John Holdren or the Ehrlichs have written since 1977 is fair game — according to the Ehrlichs themselves.

It’s quite unusual for a blog post to cause such a fuss that it elicits a response from the White House. Why did they bother responding to my post and not the countless other posts critical of the Obama administration?

[Note: Yes, I know the Washington Times is owned by the Unification Church, and is known to have a conservative slant, but in recent years they've become more mainstream and it looks like they've diligently done their homework this time.]

94 Responses to “White House, John Holdren's office both issue statements on Ecoscience controversy”

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1CattusMagnus on Jul 15, 2009 at 7:41 pm:

Zombie shakes the White House!

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2Bakunin on Jul 15, 2009 at 7:44 pm:

-Don’t feed the ego-

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3Tony on Jul 15, 2009 at 8:16 pm:

wow, your gaining some fame zombie

whitehouse if your reading…

when are you gonna provide that birth certificate?

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4Kade on Jul 15, 2009 at 8:31 pm:

Wow, this is awesome.
Too bad the massive traffic shut down your site for a bit, but I’m proud of you.

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5calcajun on Jul 15, 2009 at 8:58 pm:

Very scary indeed.

But, according to the White House, these aren’t the droids we’re looking for and we should move along…

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6richb on Jul 15, 2009 at 9:46 pm:

Keep up the great work Zombie! The media has fallen under the spell of Obama, and refuse to report on the nonsense (and sometimes crimes) of his cronies. This administration is loaded with radicals that shouldn’t be working at, let alone running our government. Are many of these people less radical then they were in the 1960’s? Not really, they may be trying to change the message but the goals are still the same. It would lead to an America that few Americans want.

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7MikeHu on Jul 16, 2009 at 10:02 am:

Since when does the White House issue clarifications for private citizens like the Ehrlichs?

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8Phil on Jul 16, 2009 at 10:13 am:

“rather than going back a third of a century to find some formulations in an encyclopedic textbook ….”
No, no. It’s going back a thirtieth of a millenium!

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9Anonymous on Jul 16, 2009 at 1:06 pm:

Congratulations Zombie. And despite what Charles Johnson is saying over at LGF I consider this less of a renunciation and more of an obfuscation.

Read this phrase carefully:

“rather than going back a third of a century to find some formulations in an encyclopedic textbook where description can be misrepresented as endorsement.”

If you read it quickly you might think they are claiming Holdren’s statement was merely a description.

If you read the statement like a lawyer you see they are claiming ANY formulation in a text book statements COULD be misrepresented as endorsement. They are not talking about any specific formulations or statements tied to Holdren. And even if they are, they are simply saying those statement CAN be misrepresented as endorsement. The are NOT saying his statements were in fact misrepresented.

If that is too confusing (I know it is confusing to me and I am a lawyer) try this:

The WH is saying any statement in a textbook can be misrepresented as endorsement.

I could similarly say there is a substantial likelihood a monkeys will soon fly out of my ass.

The WH is NOT saying Holdren’s statements were misrepresented.

I am not saying monkeys are GOING to fly out of my ass.

If the statements do in fact represent Holdren’s beliefs the WH can claim it never said otherwise.

If the monkeys never emerge from my ass I can say I never actually said they would.

When you need to parse a denial like a question on the bar exam it is not a denial.

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10CattusMagnus on Jul 16, 2009 at 1:20 pm:

I can’t believe the White House and Holdren’s office bring up the fact that the book is 30 years old, as if that somehow excuses it’s detestable content. Way to not take responsibility guys! They did this with Ayers and Dohrn too. Because everyone was an extremist in the 60’s and 70’s right?! Holdren, that little rascal, was simply going through the “radical” portion of his liberal evolution. And, as everyone knows, radical texts have a half-life of exactly 10.5 years so as not to be a pesky little nuisance when one gains political office! So how can one possibly held accountable for antiquated text like Ecoscience?!

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11MikalM on Jul 16, 2009 at 1:59 pm:

Once again, your work reaches the highest levels of political discourse, yet nobody credits you. Thanks as always for what you do, Zom.

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12Kowa B on Jul 16, 2009 at 3:47 pm:

#10 Cattus
They’re pointing out that it’s 30 years old because 30 years ago (before the effects of the agricultural green revolution were assured worldwide), overpopulation was seen as a VERY serious threat by very serious people. A Malthusian population collapse was widely judged to be imminent, or at least possible, until at least the mid 1980’s. Very reasonable people truly thought the vast majority of humanity would be starving to death by our present day, unless the worldwide population was controlled.

Holdren didn’t write the book because he loves abortions and birth control, or because he is a huge liberal. He wrote it because a population collapse of the type predicted at the time would be a thousand times worse than anything mentioned in the report.

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13Ken on Jul 16, 2009 at 3:59 pm:

Wow…it’s strange to think of the power a mere blog has.

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14Druid on Jul 16, 2009 at 5:36 pm:

And who wants to take up the challenge from the Ehrlichs issued by the White House to look into “some of the dozens of publications that we and he separately have produced in more recent times” to uncover “what we and/or Professor Holdren believe”?

Recent times? RECENT TIMES?!

In his own Curriculum Vitae, “Recent publications”, proudly presented as Item #3, Ecoscience (1977).

http://tinyurl.com/ngd96e

You’d think if he renounced it he wouldn’t plug it as “Recent publications”,

rhetorically speaking, does Byrd still list his KKK work on his CV…

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15OhPlease on Jul 16, 2009 at 10:33 pm:

You realize that story says his book was highlighted on *several* blogs critical of Holdren, and that zombietime is never actually mentioned or quoted, right? So they weren’t really responding to “your post” …

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16zombie on Jul 16, 2009 at 11:33 pm:

#15 OhPlease

I realize that. What I’m saying is that my post originated the controversy, and the White House felt it necessary to intervene in the controversy. As MikalM correctly noted above, very few places actually credit me for anything — my story was openly plagiarized and unapologetically ripped off and re-written by hundreds of sites. (And hundreds of other sites were kind enough to acknowledge me, but then those sites themselves get cited as the source, and the original “blog zero” of the epidemic gets lost in the shuffle.) But the entire current wave of Holdren hysteria derives entirely from my post, whether or not the White House or the big news sites realize it or mention me.

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17MrBaracuda on Jul 17, 2009 at 1:47 am:

Hey zombie,

thanks for your work. But now look what the idiots over at this bullshit site have done: http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-science-advisor-called-for-planetary-regime-to-enforce-totalitarian-population-control-measures.html

They’re basically stealing your work, photographs and all.

Have a nice day,
MrB (You might remember me from the LGF comment section)

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18OhPlease on Jul 17, 2009 at 9:48 am:

Zombie, your post did not originate the controversy.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34198

Note the date on that article.

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19Cletus on Jul 17, 2009 at 9:49 am:

Holdren and his buddies gave a non-answer. If he was really against it he would have said out and out “this is not what I believe”. The evasive semantics prove otherwise.

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20zombie on Jul 17, 2009 at 10:03 am:

re #18 OhPlease

Did you even bother to read my essay? In particular, this passage RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING:

“This report was originally inspired by this article in FrontPage magazine, which covers some of the same information given here. But that article, although it contained many shocking quotes from John Holdren, failed to make much of an impact on public opinion. Why not? Because, as I discovered when discussing the article with various friends, there was no proof that the quotes were accurate — so most folks (even those opposed to Obama’s policies) doubted their veracity, because the statements seemed too inflammatory to be true. In the modern era, it seems, journalists have lost all credibility, and so are presumed to be lying or exaggerating unless solid evidence is offered to back up the claims. Well, this report contains that evidence.”

The whole point is that FrontPage published their article in February and nobody noticed or cared. It fell completely flat. When I decided to publish the actual evidence, that’s when the story took off. Do a search and try to find blog Holdren references prior to July 10. You’ll find they were comparatively very few, but after July 10, the Holdren coverage explodes exponentially. And what exactly happened on July 10? I published my essay, which was then immediately picked up by several top blogs, and spread everywhere.

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21MrBaracuda on Jul 17, 2009 at 10:13 am:

Since I am not too knowledgabe about American law, I’ll just ask: How would you got about getting rid of Holdren if you would want to pursue that course?

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22zombie on Jul 17, 2009 at 10:55 am:

#21 MrBaracuda

There’s no way to get rid of him (i.e. get him out of his post). He was appointed, and he stays there at the President’s discretion. The only way for him to get the boot would be if that enough political pressure was put on Obama to fire him, then Obama would have no choice but to let him go. But that’s extremely unlikely to happen.

But I don’t actually want Holdren to go away. I want him to stay in his position as he gets more and more discredited. The end result will be that he’s just a burden around Obama’s neck, making him look bad by association. The worse Obama looks to the public, the better, in my opinion.

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23MrBaracuda on Jul 17, 2009 at 10:58 am:

I see you are an avid fan of Comrade Chairman Obama! xD Thought as much, although I expected something like an impeachment process for the appointed people. Thanks.

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24Fenris on Jul 17, 2009 at 3:07 pm:

#17 Son of a…I knew it, Jones latched on, and didn’t even have the sense to give credit. Now the rest of us who aren’t in his cult are never going to hear the end of it.

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25MrBaracuda on Jul 18, 2009 at 12:43 am:

I wonder if zombie is in the shill category because she doesn’t buy into the “grand scheme of things NWO stuff” bullshit.

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26ThirdOfACentury? on Jul 18, 2009 at 12:58 pm:

It’s interesting that they fault you for going back to a book written in the 70s.

1. First, Paul and Anne Ehrlich repeatedly cite that same work in their 1990 book “The Population Explosion” (see http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.ditext.com+the+population+explosion+holdren). Why cite a work from the 1970s if they don’t agree with its ideas almost 15 years later?

2. The fact that population alarmists (including Holdren) were proven drastically wrong in the 1970s is relevant for evaluating a science adviser’s credentials. Would anyone be questioning the capabilities of a political scientist as a potential appointment to the National Security Council who had been writing for 20 years that international terrorism is not a threat? Smart people are often wrong, no harm there. But refusing to own up to a mistake in judgment–when that judgment was used to advocate for radical intrusions into personal freedom–and criticizing instead those who point it out certainly raises legitimate questions as to fitness to serve in a political capacity.

3. No one has a right to a political office. If Holdren wants to prove his qualifications, he can please direct us to his substantive work post-1977 wherein he explains changed his point of view. It is not my job to dig through his work to prove the negative–rather, I would argue it is the job of the White House staff for whom vetting is a particular weakness.

Good work going back to the source documents.

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27Plagarism on Jul 19, 2009 at 6:58 pm:

This was covered months ago:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34198

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28Fenris on Jul 20, 2009 at 5:45 am:

#27

Hence, comment #20.

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29Anonymous on Jul 20, 2009 at 6:14 pm:

Zombie you are the (wo)man!
You are great!
Thanks for doing this work.
Gaby

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30Anonymous on Jul 20, 2009 at 6:18 pm:

BTW I completely disagree with the view that the above statement from the white house amount to anything but trying to cover up the scandal.
If any of Holdren’s rebuttals were issued before there was any talk about his nomination, I would have given them more significance.

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31Busted on Jul 20, 2009 at 8:49 pm:

#28, look at the date of that link in post #27.

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32zombie on Jul 21, 2009 at 8:10 am:

#27 Plagarism
#31 Busted

Before embarrassing yourselves further and shooting your mouths off like idiots, perhaps you could bother to read comment #20 and the essay itself and see that I fully cite and give credit to FrontPage right off the bat, and state up front that my report is nothing more than a follow-up to the FrontPage article, providing the hard evidence that they neglected to include.

Furthermore, pointing out that Holdren’s grotesque opinions were also described by another publication in no way lessens their horror. That’s got to be the most moronic attempt at a refutation I’ve ever encountered.

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33Fenris on Jul 21, 2009 at 10:52 am:

#32 zombie:

Probably a stretch, but that person might know, but is trying to send us in circles. Call them trolls or griefers or what you will, most of them are just in it for kicks.

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34CattusMagnus on Jul 21, 2009 at 2:12 pm:

#12 Kowa B,

You kind of just proved my point. What you’re saying is Holdren’s conclusions/solutions were perfectly reasonable when viewed throught the political/social prism of the 1970’s. So his heart was in the right place, right? Even if overpopulation was a “VERY serious threat,” which it wasn’t, how exactly does that justify forced abortions, sterilizations of those who supposedly contribute to “social deterioration” and implementing a totalitarian “planetary regime” to control humanity? These kinds of things are interesting in a dystopian science fiction novel, but they take on a new and horrific quality when Holdren and his ilk suggest applying them to real life. You must consider that there are academics/philosophers/scientists in every single decade running around screaming that the sky is falling. And the sky doesn’t fall. Don’t be taken in by them.

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35OldNews on Jul 21, 2009 at 11:12 pm:

Well lookie lookie what 1 minute of Google searching turned up:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34198

Nice “investigative reporting” zombie. Sheesh.

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36Clax on Jul 22, 2009 at 7:44 am:

#35

Good lord dude..reread

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37zombie on Jul 22, 2009 at 8:33 am:

Everybody: #27 Plagarism, #31 Busted and #35 OldNews are all the same person, posting from the same IP address, just using different names (I just checked). I’m leaving his comments visible so everyone can see the kind of juvenile antics that the Left gets up to. But a warning to the commenter: leave one more comment like that, and I will ban you. Three troll comments are enough to illustrate your childish ill-intent; anything beyond that becomes boring. You’ve served your purpose of showing how idiotic the Left can be — thank you for that. Now go away.

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38Horse on Jul 22, 2009 at 1:45 pm:

“he said he does not believe that determining optimal population is a proper role of government. Dr. Holdren is not and never has been an advocate for policies of forced sterilization.”

Their response does not count as a renunciation and/or disavowal of the content of the book. He may not believe one aspect of it proper, or advocate one of the policies, but he understands why it all might be necessary; he is still sympathetic to the positions. It’s like having a head prosecutor who doesn’t advocate the crimes being committed in the city, but has written a book and goes at length explaining how he understands why the criminals are compelled to do what they feel they must do and why society must help them. Wrong person in the position, fox guarding the hen house, etc…

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39Gaby on Jul 22, 2009 at 1:58 pm:

(to Horse)
A person desperately trying to get or retain his Czardom also might simply lie and obfuscate his position in order to present him/herself as less controversial. So I would not pay any attention to anything coming out from Holdren or white house now, only to what he stated before there was any talk about the nomination.
Gaby

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40zombie on Jul 22, 2009 at 3:55 pm:

You’ll all be happy to know that “Plagarism/Busted/Oldnews” tried it again, and is now banned.

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41Snapple on Jul 23, 2009 at 5:26 am:

Dr. Holdren’s book is still cited by writers, so his ideas are still making the rounds.

The fraudulant former professor Ward Churchill, who has very crazy ideas about the environment and population control, seems to have “cited” Dr. Holdren on page 28 in a book Churchill edited called “Islands in Captivity.”

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&q=holdren%20%22islands%20in%20captivity%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wp

Of course, Ward Churchill often mischaracterizes what respected scholars say to give his research credibility.

It is very disturbing to see how extreme theories can snowball. Ward Churchill has joked in three of his scholarly books that American mothers should “snuff” their babies and kill themselves to “do the planet a real favor.”

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42Snapple on Jul 23, 2009 at 7:59 am:

Ward Churchill “cites” Dr. Holdren’s co-authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich more often than John Holdren.

For example, search “Ehrlich” in Ward Churchill’s nasty essay “I Am Indigenist.”

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19679

Maybe these authors have changed their thinking, but Ward Churchill is “citing” these authors and advocating their ideas. Of course, he may be mischaracterizing what they said.

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43Gaby on Jul 23, 2009 at 12:43 pm:

BTW zombie, can you publish the IP address of Plagarism/Busted/Oldnews. You can usually tell the area from which the person sends the messages by the IP address, sometimes you can tell even more than that.
Thanks
Gaby

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44Ken on Jul 23, 2009 at 3:24 pm:

#43

Publishing an IP address, I think, could constitute an invasion of privacy (note your “sometimes even more than that”). I should think Zombie wouldn’t resort to something that could leave others open to potential harrassment unless they actually did something to deserve it (a death threat, for example), what with the high esteem Zombie itself places on anonymity. An IP ban is enough of a response to a mere annoyance like those comments.

#41 & #42:

I like some of Ward Churchill’s books. His personality is pretty annoying, though. I hate that haughty tone of voice he uses when giving speeches.

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45Snapple on Jul 23, 2009 at 5:06 pm:

To #44

Ward Churchill’s essay was not studied by CU, but it is full of a lot of dishonest ommissions and factual errors. Here are some ommissions and errors:

http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2008/01/ward-churchill-ties-his.html

You have to check every word he writes.

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46Gaby on Jul 23, 2009 at 5:29 pm:

I am not an expert on internet law but I do not think that publishing an IP address of a user especially a malicious one, is punishable. In particular I remember Charles of LFG publishing a Reuters IP address from which he received threatening messages.
I know that some leftwingnuts were publishing the real (not internet) address and the phone number of Michelle Malkin. I do not think they were punished for that.
Most of the time you cannot figure out a person’s e-mail by the IP address, just the country and area where it was coming from, sometimes also the organization.
I am just curious about the location of that mysterious and malicious user.

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47_RememberTonyC on Jul 23, 2009 at 6:14 pm:

Zombie ….. There may be a scandal concerning how the Uighers ended up in Bermuda. Here’s a post from LGF today with some info. Feel free to pursue if you think it’s worthwile.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/showc/445/7476682

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48Ken on Jul 23, 2009 at 6:23 pm:

I didn’t mean punishable by law. I just meant it wasn’t something I’d like done to me and, therefore, not something I’d like seen done to others unless there was a serious reason for it. I mentioned death threats specifically. The user is banned and I don’t remember his/her comments being particularly meanacing. Who cares where they were coming from? They’re gone now.

As for Michelle Malkin’s address and phone number being revelead: Totally unacceptable and wrong, too. Just like with Yoo. I’m a firm believer that every individual should have the right to their home being a kind of fortress away from all the crap slung around in the outside world.

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49Tony on Jul 24, 2009 at 5:28 am:

” I’m a firm believer that every individual should have the right to their home being a kind of fortress away from all the crap slung around in the outside world.

pfffft, ken what kinda communist are you anyway?

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50zombie on Jul 24, 2009 at 11:41 am:

#46 Gaby:

“Plagarism/Busted/Oldnews” was posting out of Santa Barbara, California.

#44 Ken:

I will never publish anyone’s IP address — even people who send me death threats (which has happened). Just an inviolable principle of mine — I respect internet anonymity under all circumstances.

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51zombie on Jul 24, 2009 at 11:46 am:

#48 Ken

Michelle Malkin was forced to sell her house and move to a different city to flee from the stalkers who were harassing her and not only publishing her private info publicly online but sending her home address to known extremist groups. The people doing this were anarchists in Santa Cruz (California). They were never punished.

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52centaur on Jul 24, 2009 at 3:39 pm:

Off topic. Iron Fist just got banned by Charles. It’s pretty crazy over there.

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53Kowa B on Jul 24, 2009 at 5:24 pm:

Zombie

Curious to see what you think about this article
http://www.scienceprogress.org/blog/

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54Ken on Jul 25, 2009 at 1:37 am:

#49

“ken what kinda communist are you anyway?”

A good one!

Every person has the right to make an ass of him/herself on the Internet without being identified, provided he/she doesn’t break the law (by making a threat, for example). Over here in this country we’re having a big problem with people leaking personal information onto the Internet and a privacy bill is sloooooowly making its way through the National People’s Congress. Hopefully it’ll pass. People have to deal with so much junk at school or work, with bosses or teachers making fools out of people, the only place they can find sanctuary is at home. But if their info gets out online, well, so much for privacy at home. And if you can’t enjoy privacy in your own home there where else is left? I don’t like to see that. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me…I don’t do it to others. Tony, I think you’d probably agree with me on this one.

#50

“Just an inviolable principle of mine”

You are a principled person, indeed. I have alot of respect for that.

I’m not a big fan of either Yoo or Malkin, but there is certainly no honor in publishing their private information for all to see. A gentleman who took offense at them would issue a scholarly rebuttal or criticism in the appropriate forum, not direct a bunch of idiots to their homes to harrass them. Some people, man…

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55Tony on Jul 25, 2009 at 7:34 am:

yeah, ken…..i do agree with you on this one, i think publishing someones personal info on the internet is inappropriate, and if something happens to that person, the group or person who published the info should be held criminally and civically (spelling) liable.

with that being said…

i was just poking the bear ken

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56Bakunin on Jul 25, 2009 at 11:44 am:

#51 zombie

That happened because Michelle Malkin published the private info of members of Students Against War publicly online, to which they received numerous death threats and anti-Semitic comments through phone calls and emails. SAW asked Malkin to remove there info, but she decided to repost it on numerous occasions . If you can’t take it, then don’t dish it out.

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57zombie on Jul 25, 2009 at 12:50 pm:

#56 Bakunin

You’re repeating the exact same ridiculous lie that has been thrown around and debunked a quadrillion times since that controversy began. You are adopting and repeating the narrative of the anarchists without checking up on their claims. You’re about two years behind the curve.

Here is what ACTUALLY happened:

The anarchist group “Students Against War” sent out a press release to everyone they could think of in the media, hoping that it would get reprinted far and wide to promote some cause of theirs. One of the people in the media who got ahold of their press release was Michelle Malkin, and, exactly as they had hoped, she reprinted it. Except she didn’t reprint it to promote their cause — she reprinted it to mock their cause.

The anarchists were outraged that anyone could have the gall to mock them, so they pulled out of thin air a ridiculous complaint: That the phone number that THEY included on the press release and that THEY requested be reprinted wherever possible as the contact info for their cause was in fact someone’s “private phone number” that was “illegal” to publish. Which was a completely laughable claim, because they themselves had already published it as their group’s contact number and which they had specifically requested be included wherever the press release was reprinted. They simply didn’t like their cause being publicized to a non-sympathetic audience which laughed at them. So they whined that their “privacy” was being violated.

To top it off, and to make their childish tantrum seem to have some significance, they claimed without any evidence whatsoever that they had gotten “anti-Semitic” phone calls and threats, probably unaware of the nature of Malkin’s political stance and ignorantly imagining that she was some kind of old-school anti-Jewish paleo-con John Bircher or something — unaware of the new pro-Zionist pro-Jewish type of conservatives that Michelle Malkin and her supporters are. So their obviously false (and unsupported) claim that some anti-Semites threatened them rang totally hollow.

Anyway, they only made those claims to justify what they did next, which was not just to publish Michelle Malkin’s home phone number in revenge — which in and of itself would have been unethical, because unlike them she had never requested that it be published and had never published it herself — but they upped the assault significantly by publishing her home address and photos of her home and then encouraged people to go to her house and threaten her and her family. Furthermore, then some other groups (if I remember correctly) then started publishing personal and private info about the daily locations of Michelle’s family members, putting them at risk.

What the anarchists did was astronomically out of proportion to the “offense” that she had committed in the first place, which was actually no offense at all.

Of course, you couldn’t be bothered to check any of this out, because you side with the anarchists and want to promote their narrative.

I’ve been down to Santa Cruz and seen and spoken with these people (unrelated to this incident), and can say that they are extremely unpleasant, aggressive, borderline-violent, self-righteous scary nasty people, and I give absolutely zero credibility to ANYTHING they claim. As a revealing point of comparison, their brethren anarchists at Berkeley would routinely make completely outrageous accusations and statements that were totally unconnected to reality, just to stir up a violent reaction from the crowd. (For example, at various ‘Save the Oaks” rallies in Berkeley, the anarchists would announce through bullhorns that one of their members had minutes earlier been murdered in jail by the police [completely untrue], or that the University was poisoning them, etc.) They knew they were lying –but they also knew that lies travel around the world seven times before truth can get its boots on, so the lie serves its purpose.

You fell for the lies, but you did so consciously, so you have no excuse.

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58Tony on Jul 26, 2009 at 5:17 am:

I have a couple of questions for you personally zombie.

you have been doing your brand of journalism for a while now (covering stuff that the other MSM’s won’t), and i havn’t seen to many people ask you questions about how you feel when your out there doing your thing.

1. How do you feel personally when your coving some of these wacky and far out demonstrations? for example some the stuff in the “zombie hall of shame” is pretty intense, i imagine you must have had some pretty strong feelings one way or another while covering that stuff.

2. Have you ever feared for your own safety while covering any of those demonstrations?

3. How do you find out where some of these activites are taking place? Ive never been to SF, and maybe the stuff is widely advertised, but your always in the thick of it.

4. How much stuff do you see that you missed getting on camera, and wish that you would have? any examples?

5. Do you ever get involved personally with any of the protests or counter protests?

6. have you seen anyone attacked for having a unpopular view (physcially)?

7. LOL what do you think would happen to a conservative solider in uniform if he were to ever show face around one of them crazy rallies?

I don’t mean to pry or anything, but im sure many of your followers on this site would love to pick your brain if ever given the chance.

I don’t think id be able to survive doing the job you do zombie. As a conservative and a soilder, theres NO WAY that i would be able to attend some of those insane rallies and keep my cool. I have a hard enough time with the brain washed college kids around where i live as it is, let alone all the anti-america and anarchist people that you are exposed to on a regular basis.

Once again thanks Zombie, for reporting, and exposing the ugly truths that exist in our society that will NEVER make it onto any MSM platform.

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59zombie on Jul 26, 2009 at 9:30 am:

#58 Tony

In general, I don’t like to reveal anything about myself or my personal feelings, since who I am and what I feel are and should be irrelevant to the reportage. However, here are a few very brief answers:

1. I’m pretty numbed to any emotional reaction from these events. I see and hear opinions like that all day every day anyway — the rallies are simply a visually compelling way to convey the verbal sentiments I hear on a daily basis. So I generally don’t get very upset at all, actually. I know that may seem odd to someone who doesn’t live around here, but intense anti-American feelings are “average” in my world.
2. Yes, a few times. But I’d rather not discuss them, lest I reveal too much about who I am.
3. Again, I’d rather not say how or where I find out where everything is going to happen. I need to keep some secrets!
4. I see stuff all the time that I miss on camera. What I present is generally just a random sampling. There’s no way to record everything that’s going on. What I miss most often are verbal statements that are beyond outrageous but which I don’t record on video (I hate editing video anyway). Since I never like to claim anything I don’t have proof of, I don’t mention the stuff I miss.
5. That information is classified!
6. Never seen much physical violence, since there is only rarely any “dissenting opinion” at most of these things.
7. Nothing, probably — everyone would think he was “joking,” a protester wearing a uniform to be ironic or as part of street theater! But if they actually found out it was a real soldier, I think it would turn into an ugly scene.

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60Tony on Jul 26, 2009 at 12:00 pm:

Well thanks for a lil bit of the personal side of the info Zombie. I’m not trying to find out any info on your identity, just a lil bit into the man (or woman) behind the keyboard and camera. I respect what you do, if it wasn’t for you, the more wild and scary side of the events you cover would probally not make it to the mainstream.

IDK how you would deal with having to see stuff like that everyday, my only guess would be that your either a cop or a student. My hats off to you zombie, because i don’t think i could have the type of patience that you have, in having to deal with people like that everyday.

It is pretty sad that people can become numb to events that go on in there community (in no way is that a knock on you) but i guess if your exposed to lunacy everyday, it becomes part of the back ground noise. i’m glad that the events you cover rarely become violent, although im sure youve probally seen some close calls.

Regardless, in any event zombie, thanks for presenting your unique and important recordings of whats going on in our country right before our eyes. i think if most americans were privy to what goes on over there in SF, they would be pretty disgusted, and shocked.

Keep the good work

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61Tony on Jul 26, 2009 at 1:09 pm:

lol keep “up” the good work lol

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62Gaby on Jul 26, 2009 at 2:43 pm:

Thanks for answering my question, Zombie.

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63Brian on Jul 27, 2009 at 4:43 am:

This is all eugenics. The same think we turned Hitler on to. The same reason to pass this healthcare bill and cap and tax.

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64Ken on Jul 28, 2009 at 1:37 am:

#3 Tony:

“when are you gonna provide that birth certificate?”

Tony, don’t you read Yahoo?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_birth_certificate

He was born in Hawaii. Just accept it, people.

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65Throbert McGee on Jul 28, 2009 at 7:00 am:

Zombie, when you see this, would you mind emailing me? It’s throbertmcgee [Cinnabon] gmail [pinhole] com.

I have a pitch that I want to discuss with you, but I don’t want to spam up your blog comment thread with something long and quite OT. Basically, it relates to a discussion you and I had on LGF some time ago, about the point that the biggest obscenity (and public-health threat) at Folsom Street: Up Your Alley was not the guys pissing all over each other, but rather the fact that barebacking DVDs were being sold right next door to the AIDS Awareness booth with the “Safer Sex Always!”

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66Anonymous on Jul 30, 2009 at 9:38 am:

I think that the Nazi Party best know here in America as the Democratic Party follow Adolph Hitler and his ideas of mass sterilization, a goal of the Democratic Party. “No fetus can defeat us”, and Fetuses do not vote, or you rape em, we scrape em at Planned Parenthood. You Nazis are exposed for what you are. Central planning for all. Central control of all aspects of life. From cradle to grave. Who does what, where, and when. The State knows best for you and everyone. Only the elite can have SUVs, fly on planes, live in the country. All of the unclean masses can live in small apartments on mass transit routs, and drive bicycles to work.

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67Ken on Jul 30, 2009 at 3:02 pm:

The biggest, stupidest, most useless cliche in all of politics: calling your enemies “Nazis.”

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68average_guy on Jul 30, 2009 at 5:03 pm:

Unless you outline how they share important characteristics with actual Nazi regimes from history, in which case it is a valid comparison rather than a cliche.

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69average_guy on Jul 30, 2009 at 7:29 pm:

After further reflection, I can see elements of Mussolini-style fascism that pervade currently as well, along with some 3rd Reich-style blitzkrieg tactics.

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70Ken on Jul 30, 2009 at 11:42 pm:

#68

Then, please, name for me one single important characteristic that the current administration specifically shares with the Third Reich (remember: I said a specific thing they have in common that could lead us to believe Obama was interested in instituting a Naziesque regime in the US, not “vague political concept that has some overlap between the two administrations”). Anonymous seems to think that the Democratic Party “follows” Adolph Hitler which is just about as laughable a concept as I’ve ever heard.

Has Obama suspended the civil rights and citizenship of any particular group of people? Outlawed other political parties? Herded anyone into an extermination or labor camp? Forced the American people to accept a form of political indoctrination that glorifies only him? Calling someone or their party a “Nazi” when there aren’t any particularly menacing similarities between the two is just stupid. #66 was one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever read on here. Hopefully it wasn’t supposed to be serious.

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71average_guy on Jul 31, 2009 at 5:43 am:

I’m not going to pick through history, I don’t have the time nor do I possess the intellect to match wits with you.

What is dissimilar with Obama as opposed to Castro and Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini is the fact that Obama has weakened the defense status of his country. Those dictators from history put honest effort to defend their countries, but they did not have anything pesky like the US Constitution to hinder their efforts at total internal control. What other motivation to weaken the defense of the country could Barack have other than to seize further control when the results of that weakening manifest themselves?

Your point about the Democrat party is well taken, not all of them are in lockstep with Obama, but they all can apparently be bought with a price and therefore are functionally under the same umbrella as our clearly fascist POTUS. When I examine the contents of the healthcare bill, such as mandating that the government have access to all bank accounts with the power to draft funds, the government auditing of the books of all employers that self insure, and other facets too lengthy to include in this post ( a few summary details at the bottom of this page: http://www.morningstarministries.org/Articles/1000054411/MorningStar_Ministries/Media/Special_Bulletins/2009/Special_Bulletin_19.aspx ), I see elements of Führerprinzip that are alive and well in the presence of the “Czars” and their various Unconstitutional functions, which ties this whole thing back into the topic of this thread.

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72average_guy on Jul 31, 2009 at 7:58 am:

As the Nazi slogan said it, “Alles Muss Anders Sein” — “Everything Must Be Different.”

Sort of the Teutonic way of saying “CHANGE”.

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73average_guy on Jul 31, 2009 at 9:28 pm:

I guess you’re right. There is no similarity between The Democrats of 2009 in the USA and the National Socialists of Germany in the 1920-1940 period. What was I thinking?

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74Kowa B on Jul 31, 2009 at 9:52 pm:

Honestly, anybody who believes the current administration has more in common with the nazi’s than the bush administration clearly isn’t bothered by things like facts.

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75GOP on Aug 1, 2009 at 2:47 am:

Please keep up the good work.

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76Damian G. on Aug 1, 2009 at 11:48 pm:

http://politifact.org/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/29/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-claims-science-czar-john-holdren-propos/

It’s amazing how an “unbiased” source such as Politifact can act so nonchalantly when their researchers read Holdren’s book. In context, his words are no less repugnant.

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77CattusMagnus on Aug 4, 2009 at 2:32 pm:

#77 BeenThereDoneThat,

Here’s something for you to note: comment #20.

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78zombie on Aug 4, 2009 at 9:53 pm:

#77 CattusMagnus

Sorry, I had to delete that comment which you were referring to — it was the same troll who posted earlier, and who I banned. I think he must now be using a library computer or something to get around the ban. Some people really really really have nothing better to do with their lives.

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79Kowa B on Aug 5, 2009 at 8:11 am:

Zombie,
After days of researching all the specifics of this “controversy”, i’ve got to say it’s all much ado about nothing. Holdren merely described the extremes he thought people would demand if the population crisis was as severe as many people thought at the time and a population crash did occur. He never came close to endorsing any of the ideas, merely describing them, with some discussion of their legality. At no time does he describe these options as being anything less than despicable.

Anybody not biased by their dislike of Obama would see there’s no issue with the book, or Holdren at all. Sorry to be so direct in my criticism, but I think the problem here stems from bias, not fact.

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80Kowa B on Aug 5, 2009 at 9:03 am:

congrats waybackmachine,

You found something on the internet that confirms your misguided beliefs. That must prove you’re correct.

Please. I can show you websites that “prove” 9/11 was an inside job, joe biden is an alien, israel wants to control the entire middle east, and the rothchild family is taking over the world. Try gathering information from nonbiased sources. For example, Politifact and factcheck.org are both nonbiased; if you don’t believe that then you aren’t grounded in reality. Almost everybody who endorses this story pretty much quotes zombie directly; nobody else has anything different to say. Usually zombie is spot on, but being human, he/she makes mistakes. Such as this crock of fear-mongering crap.

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81Anonymous on Aug 6, 2009 at 4:51 am:

The only renunciation I would accept is Mr. Holdren specifically stating that the Constitution would not permit forced sterilization or forced abortion if there truly were a population crisis. Any other statements are meaningless.

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82zombie on Aug 7, 2009 at 9:13 am:

Everyone: please note that there is a new essay about Holdren’s unsavory views now posted at zombietime; check out this latest zomblog entry.

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83NHTPC on Aug 8, 2009 at 11:39 pm:

This group is run by John Podesta, another scumbags.

http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/07/right-wing-attacks-on-science-adviser-continue/

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84NTPC on Aug 8, 2009 at 11:55 pm:

@67 Ken on Jul 30, 2009 at 3:02 pm:

The biggest, stupidest, most useless cliche in all of politics: calling your enemies “Nazis.”
====

Yep only this time the evidence points to the facts that back it up as not just a cliche but the truth.

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85Watchman on Aug 14, 2009 at 3:43 pm:

The list of dubious associates surrounding Obama leads one to wonder if the more urgent disassociation is from Obama.

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86Anonymous on Aug 31, 2009 at 5:32 pm:

fuckin’ jerks!

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87GoddessMother on Sep 14, 2009 at 12:36 pm:

I myself felt that you can’t hold a book he co-wrote over 30 yrs ago until I read the following. In 1995 he not only still believed what he wrote in the book Ecoscience but referenced it again.
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1995/01/01/000009265_3961219103404/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf

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