See other Editorial Articles
Title: Rightwing climate change deniers are all for free speech - when it suits them
Source:
The Guardian
URL Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme ... -change-frank-furedi-witchhunt
Published: Jan 13, 2010
Author: George Monbiot
Post Date: 2010-01-13 22:28:17 by buckeroo
Keywords: None
Views: 314
Comments: 16
Conservatives are no longer allowed to be wrong. As soon as you point out that someone on the right has made misleading claims, you are accused of pursuing a witch-hunt or behaving like the Inquisition. The delicate sensibilities of rightwingers somehow forbid debate: contradict them, point out their mistakes and falsehoods, and you are immediately charged with persecution. This is profoundly ironic, as the very people who make such charges — Melanie Phillips is a good example — spend the rest of their time waging war on political correctness. People should be able to do and say whatever they like, they maintain, regardless of whether it might upset or offend others … until, that is, it upsets or offends them. Then they will rant and rage, insisting (in the name of free speech, mind) that you are absolutely forbidden from calling those who deny climate change deniers, or comparing creationists to flat-earthers. The most blatant exponent of these double standards is a professor of sociology at the University of Kent called Frank Furedi. Writing in The Australian today, he compares Leo Hickman and myself - who had the temerity both to suggest that manmade climate change is real and to criticise journalists and a Tory MP for claiming that the current cold weather in the UK disproves it - to 16th century witchfinders. Furedi is the eminence grise of the weird movement that arose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a Trotskyist splinter that made a name for itself in the late 1970s for disrupting and attacking other leftwing groups. Through its various incarnations – Living Marxism magazine, Spiked, the Institute of Ideas, the Modern Movement and others – this movement has shifted ever further to the right. Today it occupies the furthest fringes of rightwing libertarianism, asserting a doctrine of extreme individualism which would have made Ayn Rand blanch. You would be hard-put to find a movement more antagonistic to protecting people from oppression or protecting the environment from destruction. Living Marxism (later called LM), which Furedi founded and which was run by the RCP, campaigned against gun control, against banning tobacco advertising and against banning child pornography. It argued in favour of global warming, human cloning and complete freedom for corporations. It defended the corrupt Tory MP Neil Hamilton, denied the Rwandan genocide and supported the Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansers. Its offshoots attack all attempts to protect the environment as "anti-human", though nothing damages the interests of humans as much as destroying the biosphere. The movement's theme, spelled out repeatedly by Furedi and others, was that people should not be seen (in the words of LM's manifesto) as "fragile victims in need of protection"; instead they should be encouraged to believe that there are no limits to what they can do or say. But oddly, this works only one way. As soon as you criticise them, they become fragile victims in need of protection, tearfully insisting that their critics are witchfinders who have stepped over the limits of acceptable speech. When, for example, I exposed some of the movement's entryist (political infiltration) tactics, Furedi compared himself to the victims of fascism, McCarthyism and the Inquisition. I have never come across anyone else who appears capable of such extremes of callous disregard of other people's interests and whining self-pity. He seems to me to be a classic example of what Arthur Koestler called a mimophant – someone who has the sensitivities of an elephant towards other people and the sensitivities of a mimosa towards himself. These people can't have it both ways. Either, unconstrained by political correctness, we should be able to state our views clearly and point out when someone is wrong, or we should treat each other like delicate flowers which should never be criticised. But we can't demand the right to contradict others while insisting that they're witch-hunting if they contradict us.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: buckeroo (#0)
George Moonbat
LAST WEEK 700 people, mainly environmental activists, met to build support for the 8 December Climate Change demonstration. The speakers included campaigner and environmental writer George Monbiot and speakers from Greenpeace International, the Climate Change Campaign and an organiser from last summer's Climate Camp at Heathrow. All exposed the role of multinational firms like Shell in degrading the environment and highlighted the catastrophe looming over us due to global warming. Sophie from the Climate Camp showed how after Hurricane Katrina, the poor, those most affected by climate change, got the least government help. She also thought the Kyoto process to reduce greenhouse gases had degenerated into a money-making opportunity for speculators. George Monbiot said that new data claims the situation is worse than previously thought, quoting evidence from the scientific journal Geo-physical Research Papers which suggested we must now reduce carbon emissions by 100%, not the 60% figure he had previously used and the figure quoted by the government. A Labour insider had told him they knew their information was outdated for four years but kept quiet because the employers' organisation – the Confederation of British Industry – would have objected to any policy change. He also put the position (long advocated in the socialist), that rather than cutting consumption to preserve the environment, we must look to substituting polluting technologies with sustainable ones. Monbiot explicitly blamed the capitalist system for environmental problems due to its need for continuous growth. He called privatisation unhelpful for solving ecological problems and advocated, albeit limited, nationalisation of the energy sector. However, he thought replacing capitalism would be a long-term undertaking, whereas action needs to be taken now to tackle global warming, so some other approach is needed in the short run. He said he supported internationally applied, mandatory enforceable ceilings on carbon emissions. If this was George Monbiot's alternative, the big question is how, in the framework of a rapacious antagonistic market system, such ceilings could be enforced when the much more market-friendly Kyoto process proves impotent. Nevertheless, Monbiot clearly understands the urgency of the situation and seems to be searching for a new way forward.
buckeroo knows what to do; it's time to start depopulating...
I wonder if he ever measured his carbon ass print?
if he were a true believer he'd immediately desist from any further pollution...his carbon print has to be MASSIVE.
However, he thought replacing capitalism would be a long-term undertaking, whereas action needs to be taken now to tackle global warming, so some other approach is needed in the short run. Thank you Jethro for the find. Looks like Monbiot is only for freedom of speech when supports him. Monbiot is a example of a communist (and a hypocrite) falsely accusing others of what he is a guilty of doing.
I hope buckeroo is just having some fun with this stuff. Since I know him for 10 plus years, it might be his way of tweaking us. At least I hope so.
Goldwater went insane towards the end, too...
Threads such as this one poses personal problems for you, correct?
“Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.”
I publickly hurt you, didn't I ..... Jethro?
“Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.”
No buck, you don't hurt me. What you do do is embarrass yourself.
Please explain .. and take your time. We are going to have a lot of laffs as I crush you to death here on 4um.
“Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.”
yup, Goldwater's break with reality almost mirrors yours. you're a cup of milk short of a frosted flake dinner, bucko...
The last thing you crushed was a can of Miller Lite. Adios Buck, you're back on bozo. Anybody who isn't ashamed to present a socialist author as an authority to your cause of glowbull warming isn't worth reading.
Look loony tunes, it is over. No one is buying that BS anymore. Already have your loony ass bozoed, but still see the garbage articles you post.
God is always good!
ROTFL ... I love it when old men that claim they know more than anyone else BOZO the rest of us. You fuckers are just too much phun.
“Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.”
#2. To: buckeroo has been reduced to using socialists as climate experts (#0)
www.socialistparty.org.uk...efts/George_Monbiot_/3415
Pete Dickenson
#3. To: Jethro Tull (#2)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams 
#4. To: Rotara (#3)
#5. To: Jethro Tull (#4)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#6. To: Jethro Tull (#2)
Monbiot explicitly blamed the capitalist system for environmental problems due to its need for continuous growth. He called privatisation unhelpful for solving ecological problems and advocated, albeit limited, nationalisation of the energy sector.
#7. To: PaulCJ, Buckeroo, all (#6)
#8. To: Jethro Tull (#7)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#9. To: rotgut (#1)
George Moonbat
#10. To: Jethro Tull (#4)
#11. To: buckeroo (#10)
#12. To: Jethro Tull (#11)
#13. To: buckeroo (#12)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#14. To: buckeroo (#12)
#15. To: buckeroo (#0)
#16. To: Jethro Tull, RickyJ (#14)
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest