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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (82438)	3/15/2003 5:14:36 PM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

zmag and wsws both are extreme socialist/marxist "publications" using the term loosely. The ZMag reference turned up in a Google search. I have appended some paragraphs from it highlighting the role of the "Wandervogel" movement as an involuntary precursor to Nazi groups. I don't find this extract objectionable, and in my view the topic of the role of nature in extreme political movements is one worthwhile to be discussed. Perhaps the clearest evidence of an ideological affinity between the Greens and older German movements is Ludwig Klages’s prophetic manifesto Man and Earth, which was reprinted in 1980 to honor the founding of the West German Green Party. Dubbed by one historian as the greatest "manifesto of the radical eco-pacifist movement in Germany," this essay was originally written for the Wandervogel, the independent German Youth Movement, and presented at their large outdoor national gathering on Mesissner Mountain in 1913. The similarities between the essay and contemporary Green thinking are undeniable. As Peter Staudenmaier notes: "Man and Earth anticipated just about all of the themes of the contemporary ecology movement. It decried the accelerating extinction of species, disturbance of global ecosystem balance, deforestation, destruction of aboriginal peoples and of wild habitats, urban sprawl, and the increasing alienation of people from nature. In emphatic terms it disparaged Christianity, capitalism, economic utilitarianism, hyper consumption and the ideology of progress." Klages also shared a viewpoint with many contemporary eco-feminist Greens—including Charlene Spretnak. Inspired by a German archeological scholar who claimed as far back as 1860 that Neolithic Europe had been the site of several peaceful, Goddess worshiping cultures, Klages urged society to reject the now dominant patriarchal principles of exploitation and violence and embrace instead a gentler, more egalitarian relationship between men and women and between humanity and the earth. As influential as he was within the Youth Movement, Klages was but one voice among many. The political perspectives voiced at the Mesissner Mountain conference were numerous and varied. One of the sponsors of the gathering was neo-conservative publisher Eugen Diederichs, who later became an early supporter of the Nazi Party. In contrast to the pacifist tone set by Klages, one speaker closed his remarks with this haunting statement about the future: "German units are taking over the guardianship of culture; Germany is awakening, and no other people in the world will be able to retain its place. They flourish while Germany slumbers and they will perish when Germany awakes." Gustav Wyneken, a prominent left-wing advisor to the youth movement, urged in contrast, "We must dare to keep a certain distance from the Fatherland and from the unthinking patriotism in which we have been educated." For most participants, this diversity of viewpoints was welcome. A common slogan of the German Youth Movement during this period was, "Our lack of purpose is our strength." Indeed, one of the defining features of the Wandervogel was their independence from all political or religious organizations. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews all had adult led youth groups, as did the Conservative, Communist, and Social Democratic parties during the Weimar Republic. Yet, the 60,000 largely middle-class members of the Wandervogel (German for "wandering birds") sought refuge from such narrow ideological constraints—at least until World War I. They sought this refuge in each other’s company, and in their frequent excursions to Germany’s forests, mountains, and rural countryside.