The 1960s-70s environmental counterculture guru and convicted murderer Ira Einhorn died at age 79 on April 3, not that you would have known if you read only dominant media organs or peruse the “news” sites of ABC, CBS, and NBC. They all ignored it completely. The Associated Press, meanwhile, did report on Einhorn’s death but left out any mention of his foundational role in the creation of Earth Day. It’s just another example of how supposedly “neutral” journalists take sides as the big-box media titans carry water for an environmental movement that would like the world to forget the homicidal green hippie it once fawned over ever existed, much less played such an important role in crafting its cherished secular holy day.
Weaving New Narratives
This would be called following a party line. The revisionist directive on Einhorn, which, of course, appeared only after the decomposing body of his former girlfriend was found in a trunk in his Philadelphia residence in 1979, states that the notably filthy yet reportedly charismatic guru had almost nothing to do with the staging of the first Earth Day event on April 22, 1970. Time magazine tossed out the fevered notion, two days before 2018 Earth Day observances, that the idea that Einhorn played any role whatsoever in the original Earth Day is a hoax similar to global-warming denial.
Two 1970 Earth Day organizers told Time that Einhorn wasn’t involved, and despite their obvious desire to distance themselves from the disgraced murderer, that’s all the data the magazine needed to put the case to rest.
Yet tragically “rumors of a connection between the founding of Earth Day and the crime still linger,” Time lamented … “But these days, Earth Day activists are busy trying to debunk conspiracy theories, such as the one that global warming is a hoax, that are perhaps more worrisome than anything the original 1970 organizers could imagine.”
Call it a conspiracy theory, frame it as a hoax, and the progressive mind is more than satisfied to unquestionably accept a new truth.
Yet Einhorn’s key role in Earth Day was widely acknowledged in media circles for decades. A 2011 article posted on NBC News’ website is titled: “Earth Day co-founder killed, composted girlfriend.” The opening of the story reads: “Ira Einhorn was on stage hosting the first Earth Day event at the Fairmount Park in Philadelphia on April 22, 1970. [Several] years later, police raided his closet and found the ‘composted’ body of his ex-girlfriend inside a trunk.”
Emotional Lefties Were Conned Again
Numerous sources over the years cite Einhorn as “master of ceremonies” for the first Earth Day event, and a photo shows him prominently appearing on stage. This all must be forgotten, or progressives might learn a much-needed but painful lesson on the hazards that come with emotion-driven political mindset.
Einhorn was indeed a cause celebre in leftist ranks in his prime. At his original murder trial in 1981, “[t]he great and the good of Philadelphia rallied round,” the U.K. newspaper The Guardian reported in 1999. “At his bail hearing, priests, university professors and company directors testified to his non-violence, his gentleness, his general beatitude.”
Einhorn was able to procure the services of famed local attorney Arlen Specter as his defense counsel. Specter, who went on to serve decades in the U.S. Senate as a RINO Republican from Pennsylvania and later converted to the Democratic Party that he better aligned with, managed to get Einhorn’s bail set at only $40,000. Again utilizing his network of connected progressive supporters, Einhorn had Barbara Bronfman, a wealthy Seagram heiress, post bail for him, and then he promptly fled to Europe.
By all accounts he lived a comfortable life in Europe during 15-plus years on the lam. After being recaptured in France in 1997, Einhorn fought extradition to the United States by calling on his well-to-do European leftist pals. One of these was superstar British rocker Peter Gabriel. “Einhorn’s lawyer, Richard Cannon, says Einhorn visited Gabriel at the singer’s Wiltshire millhouse on several occasions,” The Guardian reported in 2002. “‘He [Einhorn] thinks Mr Gabriel’s testimony could be very helpful.'”
A leading European “anti-racism” group, SOS Racisme, funded to this day by progressive billionaire George Soros, vigorously supported Einhorn’s attempts to prevent being returned to America. “Fodi Sylla, a founder of the enormously influential S.O.S. Racisme, lamented the ‘climate of hysteria … [the] Sacco and Vanzetti climate around Ira,'” Salon reported in 2002.
Einhorn eventually was returned to the United States, retried, and sentenced to life in prison in 2002. For obvious reasons, from 1978 on, his story made for major news headlines on repeated occasions. Yet with his death coming just a few weeks before the next Earth Day observance, it appears major U.S. news outlets were determined to erase him from existence. Einhorn was “disappeared” from big-box media coverage, much like a former colleague of Joseph Stalin, who had been taken out and shot, was photoshopped out of pictures with the brutal Soviet dictator.
What the media fail to report can be just as effective propaganda as what they do. For example, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore has been speaking out strongly against the hysterical fear-mongering of the modern environmental movement for years now. You just don’t get to hear him say it, that’s all. In May 2019, Moore pulled no punches:
“The ‘climate crisis’ is a lie, a hoax, a fraud, an affront to science and logic, a travesty, an economic and social sinkhole, a fake phoney baloney preposterous fabrication, a boondoggle, a massive waste of time and money, a pain in the arse, and it’s really silly too.’”
Do you recall reading much about the co-founder of Greenpeace making statements such as this in the establishment press? Burying Einhorn long before his body was ever in a coffin is just par for the course for a biased dominant media bound and determined to manipulate their reporting (and non-reporting) to advance the agendas they favor.
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Read more from Joe Schaeffer.
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