John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA, featured prominently in Brit Hume's recent segment on MPI film Mine Your Own Business. "This movie is obviously a piece of propaganda. It's paid for by a Canadian mining company," he said on camera, conceding that "They have a right to their Madison Avenue attempts at confusing the public."
Passacantando may be willing to concede, however grudgingly and contemptuously, that Mine Your Own Business has a right to exist--but he's not so willing to admit that the public should have the right to see it.
When he learned that the National Geographic Society's Grosvenor Auditorium will host Wednesday's Washington, D.C., premiere of MYOB, he expressed surprise and disappointment that the Society--which he regards as an environmentalist organization--would make MYOB available for public viewing.
"If I wanted to rent out space at Greenpeace to show the film, my members wouldn't let me," Passacantando told Corporate Crime Reporter.
But the National Geographic Society, to its great credit, is more open to multiple viewpoints and the debate that arises from them than either Greenpeace or--according to Passacantando--its members. When asked to explain its policies on who can rent the auditorium, the Society's Betty Hudson explained that the NGS takes a content-neutral approach to facilities rental. "The auditorium is rarely available, but when it is available, we rent it out," Hudson said. "Usually, it's not available. This time it was."
The folks at Corporate Crime Reporter pressed Hudson on this issue:
Can anybody rent the auditorium?"Yes, assuming it’s available."
Well, you wouldn't rent it out to show a pornographic movie, would you?
"I would guess we wouldnt, no” Hudson said.
What about a pro-Nazi propaganda film?
"I guess we wouldn't, no."
So, not just anybody can rent out the auditorium?
"We are not taking a position on this particular movie," Hudson said. "We did not preview the film. We looked at the trailer. It is a different point of view. It is a different perspective. We may or may not agree with it. But that is not the issue here. It is a different point of view."
Kudos to the National Geographic Society for its willingness to permit a range of viewpoints to be shown on its screen. Such a position is far more democratic, and far more respectful of the public's ability to think for itself, than the censorious position Passacantando ascribes to Greenpeace.
Passacantando's working assumption appears to be that exposure to alternative viewpoints regarding environmental activism is damaging to the cause. And he may be right--Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney's film makes it quite clear that the environmentalist movement has a dark side. But surely suppression of viewpoints such as those expressed in MYOB is far worse--for environmentalism and for democratic process--than the viewpoints themselves. At the very least, it confirms that environmentalism's dark side is dark indeed.