Mutants of the Monster
Consider the words of all-but-forgotten philosopher James “Jim Dandy” Mangrum, lead singer and washboard player of Black Oak Arkansas.
If you believe, I mean really believe
follow me and find your way back through time
from the power I possess I can see through the maze
I can see man’s progress cause earth’s dyin days
but if we go back to nature and live in the wilderness
just another animal pure, earth’id live longer and we’d live less
Why do we need to live to be so old
when we could live free to die young and bold
man is an animal gone mad
yes he’s turned into a monster
our generation is his offspring
yes mutants of the monster
My power is magic from a wish on a star
yea earning the wish is karmic to help what good spirits there still are
But when you’ve been granted the privilege of bein heard
yea take great care with this power and watch every word
for when you know someone’s listenin
your words can mean a great deal yea
they can be the key to magic thoughts
havin never been revealed
Mutants of the Monster was released on the 1972 album, If An Angel Came To See You Would You Make Her Feel At Home?. Jim Dandy encapsulated much of the philosophy and spirit of contemporary environmentalism in a few lines. Let’s take a closer look.
Like the contemporary environmentalist, Dandy is a prophet, one granted special insight denied to ordinary men. If you believe him, you too can learn to see through the maze. Dandy, and every other preacher, will tell you two things: that you’re a sinner, and how to get saved. Dandy’s one-two punch is mercifully short and sweet:
I can see man’s progress cause earth’s dyin days
but if we go back to nature and live in the wilderness
just another animal pure, earth’id live longer and we’d live less
Dandy catches not only the message, but the smugness and moral preening of the contemporary environmentalist. He is a prophet, one granted special powers reserved for the few good spirits there still are. Humanity at large is a monster, but those few good spirits, the enlightened ones, are something altogether different. Something better. They are mutants of the monster. I believe we call them boomers.
Dandy was not the only eco-prophet to stride the land in the early seventies. Here is a list of prophecies from 1970, recently republished by the Washington Policy Center.
• “…civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.
• By 1995, “…somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
• Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “…the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
• The world will be “…eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.
• “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…” Lifemagazine, January 1970.
• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• “…air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.
• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
• “By the year 2000…the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
The next post in this series will examine a more recent vintage of this old whine in new skins.
Posted on April 30th, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: eco-catastrophe
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To your enumeration I add Jackson Browne’s “Before the Deluge” (1974) and Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” (1970).
None of these experts will admit they were wrong. Even when he was shown clearly to be light years off target, Ehrlich refused to admit it. If you can find Julian Simon’s “The Ultimate Resource vol. 2″ you will discover these blow-hards have been predicting the end of the world since day one. They were wrong then and they are wrong now and they will be wrong tomorrow.
Al Gore is the worst of them. If he had his way we would live in a totalitarian state run by a priesthood of all knowing tree huggers. My worst fear is that the effects of his preaching may, like many of the last century’s totalitarians, lead to the death of millions of people. Stalin, Hitler, Mao and others had visions of a new humanity that resulted in deaths of millions. Gore, in the name of the voiceless planet, may be pressuring the markets of food sources so much that third worlders will starve.