By Erich Veyhl
Compiled by Lewis Loflin
Contrary to the predictable outrage from the environmentalist left, I applaud Jon Reisman and Keep Maine Free for labeling the environmentalist push for massive government land acquisition as neo-communist. As Reisman aptly asks, what else do you call a system where the government, ostensibly for “the people,” owns most land and resources? Or do environmentalists prefer “neo-feudalists”—a term fitting groups like the Rockefeller-funded Maine Coast Heritage Trust?
Many environmentalist leaders emerged from the socialist New Left on 1960s university campuses. They despise private industry and capitalism, advocating government control over the economy—a stance evident in their daily rhetoric. Modern environmentalism has abandoned the common-sense goal most Americans share: preventing harmful pollution to people and property. Today, it means government controlling the “environment”—our entire surroundings—necessitating control over individuals.
Both environmentalism and Marxism trace back to pre-20th-century German irrationalist philosophy. The ecology movement, as it was called in the 1970s, began over a century ago with Ernst Haeckel, who coined “Oekologie” (ecology) in the 1860s. This early movement subordinated individuals to an “ecological whole,” feared human interference with nature, misused science to serve ideology, romanticized primitive survival, and demanded rule by a “scientific” elite. This “back to the earth” ethos became a plank of the Nazi Party. It’s no coincidence the Green Party thrived first in Germany and Europe before spreading here.
Socialism comes in two flavors—neither tolerating freedom or private property: communism, with state ownership, and fascism, with nominal private property under state control. Environmentalists favor both, but their recent Maine land grabs lean communist, as Lewis Loflin’s “New Age Eco-Dogma” notes with carbon capture flops.
While Marxism and environmentalism share collectivist roots, they diverge on people. Marxists claimed to champion “the people,” but their abstraction sacrificed individuals, tanking economies. Environmentalists drop the pretense, openly sacrificing people to nature—trees, rocks, and insects take precedence.
For decades, environmentalism has gutted industry and rural communities in the West, where government owns most land. They’ve escalated, banning timber cutting in national forests, regulating private forestry and ranching into oblivion, and pushing utopian visions over practicality. Mining and hydropower face shutdowns—Bowater in Maine spent $11 million defending its hydro system against eco-attacks, driving firms out. Fishing, including Maine’s lobster industry, faces extinction via absurd claims like whale protection, mirroring Greenpeace’s anti-human stances in “Green Theology is Killing Children.”
Through federal regulations, courts (e.g., Endangered Species Act), and lobbying, environmentalists coerce compliance. Their latest Maine target: a federal “Trust Fund” for land nationalization—$1 billion yearly, off-budget, backed by Clinton-Gore and a pressured Congress.
Environmentalists dodge Reisman’s principles with cries of “conspiracy theories” and “paranoia.” A retired Colgate sociology professor calls it a “Red Scare”; a Nature Conservancy flack deems it “not useful.” James Frey pushes “common ground” with those grinding our rights into “common” property, demanding property owners justify their rights anew—ignoring history, morality, and America’s founding.
No grand Trotskyite coup is alleged—just open eco-agendas in agencies, like Moosehorn Refuge land grabs in Washington County. Conspiracies overstate intent; Reisman’s point is simpler: these collectivist principles, proven disastrous, threaten Maine as they did elsewhere. Environmentalists hide behind “scenery” rhetoric, some aware, others pragmatic dupes, as Loflin’s “Separation” warns of useful idiots.
Ideas, enforced by government, shape outcomes. Reisman’s watermelon-slicing—green outside, red inside—wasn’t a cheap “Red Scare” but a clever expose of principles environmentalists won’t defend. The left’s taboo on “communism” makes it a bold move, not a casual jab. A professor of economics and policy, Reisman knows government forms and their stakes. This isn’t about scenery—it’s about freedom versus collectivism, echoing Loflin’s “Rational Farming” call for reason over dogma.
Erich Veyhl is a property rights activist. Also see http://www.moosecove.com/propertyrights/index.shtml for more on property rights issues.
Acknowledgment: Compiled by Lewis Loflin with assistance from Grok, an AI by xAI, for drafting and refining this presentation. The original work and perspective remain Erich Veyhl’s.
