UPDATE: As is typical with alarmism, some people with a dislike for me and WUWT are spreading rumors on other blogs that these are my words, not of a commenter. And that I’m calling people on those blogs “cockroaches”. Not true. Of course they don’t take time to read the comments, they only run off and spread what they perceive at first, so I’m elevating yet another comment. In my response in comments here, I made it clear what this comment from Alexander Feht is about:
Anthony reply: It is an apt metaphor, one that caught attention of a lot of people prior to it being elevated, and you are reading way too much into it. He sees the USSR politics and Socialism as that. Do I think cockroaches accurately describes people I and many other here disagree with, no. Is it a metaphor for the instruments and actions that oppose freedom, tolerance, and open discourse, yes. Of course it doesn’t matter what I answer, some people will happily run off and distort it. In fact they already are.
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This may or may not become a new weekly feature, but I thought this comment was worth elevating to post status:
Alexander Feht says:
July 14, 2010 at 11:18 pm
I completely understand, why Christopher Monckton felt a need to make an example of a typical reprehensible representative of modern Academia. People like Christopher Monckton make me hope again that not everything is lost yet under the Moon.
And yet… I spent first half of my life battling liars and cockroaches in the former USSR. I would win against any individual liar or cockroach, no sweat. But year after year after year, I was getting more and more convinced that I didn’t want to die in this battle, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of my enemies.
So. I live in a quiet valley now, in Colorado Rockies. Grass is green, air is fresh, sky is huge. But what is this constant swish and rustle coming from the East Coast and from the Left Coast? I know this sound well! There is no escape from the battle: cockroaches are coming.
He adds in comments:
I am completely embarrassed by all this attention.
My heartfelt thanks to Mr. Watts and all the commentators.
The only thing I would like to add:
I’ve noticed that many comments on WUWT (and in other places) are based on the unshaken assumption that the existing framework of democracy, including the established peer-review and other mechanisms in Academia, would somehow, even if only in a long run, fix our worst problems, and extricate the good name of science from the rotten mire it has found itself in today.
The question is obvious:
How the same framework and the same mechanisms that resulted in today’s lamentable situation, are going to have a healing effect?
In other words, are you sure that we have at hand something to populate the house with, after we would have “cleaned the house”? Where are Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts in our cherished established institutions? And, most importantly, what fundamental (and, preferably, bloodless) changes in our society are necessary to bring Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts up, and to bring Bushes, Obamas, Blairs and Prince-Charleses down into oblivion? That is the question.
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Alexander and Anthony:
Thank you, thank you for saying this in print. I’ve devoted my life and my (tiny) fortune to help give mankind the option of someday being able to leave this planet. If we can’t stop communism here, we may be able to start new frontiers.
The battle continues, complete with the usual ups and downs. But,overall, things continue to improve at (in historical terms) lightning speed.
No, nothing is perfect. As Heinlein once put it, even the best soup usually has a fly in it.
But all we have to do to feel good is to appreciate the overall reality.
I am completely embarrassed by all this attention.
My heartfelt thanks to Mr. Watts and all the commentators.
The only thing I would like to add:
I’ve noticed that many comments on WUWT (and in other places) are based on the unshaken assumption that the existing framework of democracy, including the established peer-review and other mechanisms in Academia, would somehow, even if only in a long run, fix our worst problems, and extricate the good name of science from the rotten mire it has found itself in today.
The question is obvious:
How the same framework and the same mechanisms that resulted in today’s lamentable situation, are going to have a healing effect?
In other words, are you sure that we have at hand something to populate the house with, after we would have “cleaned the house”? Where are Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts in our cherished established institutions? And, most importantly, what fundamental (and, preferably, bloodless) changes in our society are necessary to bring Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts up, and to bring Bushes, Obamas, Blairs and Prince-Charleses down into oblivion? That is the question.
Like Robert of Ottowa I have had a very similar moment of clarity over the last year. I used to be fascinated by the history of the phenomenon in which seemingly reasonable and metropolitan civilizations could literally lose their minds within a generation or two.
Looking back at the last 20 years I finally caught myself saying “Oh… that’s how.”
Cockroaches… meet my shoe!!! SQUISH!
Anthony.
The value of this comment to me anyway, is the underlying realisation that the real force behind all this AGW nonsense is not the (now) unmasked pseudoscience but those who wish to control the lives of everyone on the planet. Think the EU and the men in Brussels. It has echoes in the US and elsewhere too. This has been alluded to and even sometimes detailed here by many commentators. It certainly explains to me the deafening silence of the MSM on any questioning of this ‘science’.
So it’s a good selection IMO.
Doug
Alexander’s metaphor is brilliant. Perhaps you should start a new blog, Anthony, devoted to keeping the cockroaches at bay.
A small group of pioneers in the UK are making a start.
Here is the URL: http://www.bankofenglandact.co.uk/
The AGW scam pales into insignificance in comparison with the fractional banking scam, in its effect on the sheeple.
AGW is non-existent, but financial crises are very definitely man-made, and a remedy is at hand. It is not rocket science, just common sense.
Best regards, and keep up the good work!
PJM
Mr. Feht must have felt alone, but there are many now. Only when the younger generations are brought by us to the point where they can clearly see what is happening within our governments with this alarmist global warming will the realists win and these alarming and thievery thoughts be sent back to the abyss from whence they came.
So the system is getting infested with bugs. And not just any ordinary bugs. Cockroaches, oh my.
We will have to continue to validate them out.
“Is not end of world: End of World is big mushroom cloud”
Alexander,
You are not in this fight alone and this is not the USSR…. yet. As we continue stepping on the cockroaches (They make such a pleasant crackling sound under foot!), we must also clearly provide information and substantiating data illustrating the fallacies of AGW to our many friends that are undecided about it. The tides have turned against the AGW crowd, because their arrogance and deceits are continually highlighted and catalogued by Mssr. Watts, McIntyre, and many others. They and the many knowledgeable and credentialed folks that post data analyses for open discussion are providing the ammunition we citizens need to truthfully refute the ill founded presentations by the AGW proponents.
Please Alexander, be of good cheer and confidence that this is a fight we can and will win. As Mama Cass Elliot observed in song “… and the darkest hour is just before dawn!” Be assured my friend, the light from the sun of honest science is rising anew … and the AGW cockroaches are running for cover. Step forward with confidence!
Invictus Maneo!
Alexander,
I continue to work among the cockroaches. I am eagerly awaiting the day that I can escape to surf, sand, and sun. When I was a youngster, academia in the USA was not dominated by cockroaches. Professors took pride in being open-minded and critical. Also, they taught and fostered open-mindedness and a critical attitude in many ways. The beginning of the end was the institutionalization of radical feminism. When someone publishes her twentieth book in support of the thesis that there is in nature something called “maleness” and it is the root of all evil, you know that open-mindedness and a critical attitude are officially on the Dean’s ash pile. We see exactly the same thing in Climategate, a small group of so-called scientists who declare themselves the authority in all matters pertaining to their science and who impose that authority through the peer review process. That is total corruption or “merde,” as the Portuguese so poetically say. As for the IPCC, that is just the UN trying to get in on the action.
Why is this worth elevating? I thought you “didn’t have a dog in this fight” and now you’re posting a comment that paints not only Abraham’s behavior as reprehensible but suggests that reprehensible behavior is typical of modern Academia?
Also, it’s clear this poster (and you, by way of calling positive attention to his statements) don’t think too highly of those of us who choose to live on the coasts, but I can assure you there are plenty of us who do our best to be honest and chase the facts instead of following the mob as it hoists a new “hero” on its shoulders.
So sad and so true, cockroaches and rats can survive even under the worst of conditions. They will be in control when the humans have been overwhelmed and suffocated under a mountain of bull crap.
I hate to say it, but the real humans are doomed to be overtaken by the vermin decepticons. The end is not appealing in the least.
Good selection Anthony.
Those who would imprison others have used our open society, commitment to free speech, and democratic elections against us. AGW is but one Trojan horse. There are many.
This enemy is very cunning and persistent. When I first heard the phrase “axis of evil” I thought it was an exaggeration. No more.
This site has served a powerful service to our country and all Western Societies, by standing for what we believe in, and in good measure, turning the tide of opinion.
There is still a chance for truth to prevail. Thank you so very much.
Well, if you say so, Alexander, but I personally think you have insulted cockroaches everywhere. I would not elevate the people you refer to up to the level of cockroaches.
“They came for the Jews and because I was not a Jew I did not speak up…”
“All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing”
It’s my belief that the universe has a higher power at work keeping the balance/imbalance so that there is always pressure on people to stand up for their truth, as well as freedom for people to choose how they want to respond. I recognize the wisdom of famous quotes because I’ve battled the same processes myself. I know, from my forebears’ momentous words, that life then had challenges just as formidable as those we face today, just different – of course – since they solved many of their contemporary issues.
I love the words of Christopher Fry:
Well, Science can be part of the toolkit needed for that exploration. Can’t it? What’s to stop Scientific Method applied to our inner worlds of feelings, concern, anxiety, for which Feht creates the icon of “cockroaches”? Isn’t that already being developed as Psychology? And there are very similar icons to “cockroach” in the Book of Revelation… which interested Newton even more than the foundations of Science for which he is more generally known.
This is important.
As Feht says, what built it maintains it.
It is now time to rediscover a morality of life- a morality that is consistent with human nature- and make it very explicit.
The renaissances always begin to fail when nobody can properly define ‘good’ in absolute terms.
That’s your real battleground. You win self ownership and dignity or get taken on that field.
“Well, if you say so, Alexander, but I personally think you have insulted cockroaches everywhere.”
Cal Barndoorfer was obviously quite insulted. I’m just sayin’.
@ur momisugly Harold , John M and others.
Like i said its only my opinion. If yours differs so be it, don’t hate me for mine.
As Clint Eastwood once said “Opinions are like assholes; Everyone has got one.”
But like i said : I read some comments that made me do some online searches, read articles, think more and ask more about certain topics then this comment.
I’m sorry but i’m a big fan of theories with facts and data.
regards
Richard
Alexander, you’re on my hero list.
Before us stands yesterday.
“…It would hardly be a waste of time if sometimes even the most advanced students in the cognitive sciences were to pay a visit to their ancestors. It is frequently claimed in American philosophy departments that, in order to be a philosopher, it is not necessary to revisit the history of philosophy. It is like the claim that one can become a painter without having ever seen a single work by Raphael, or a writer without having ever read the classics. Such things are theoretically possible; but the ‘primitive’ artist, condemned to an ignorance of the past, is always recognizable as such and rightly labeled as naive. It is only when we consider past projects revealed as utopian or as failures that we are apprised of the dangers and possibilities for failure for our allegedly new projects. The study of the deeds of our ancestors is thus more than an atiquarian pastime, it is an immunological precaution.”
Umberto Eco [The Search for the Perfect Language]
Alexander Feht says: July 15, 2010 at 12:01 pm
…Where are Mozarts, Darwins, Teslas and Rembrandts in our cherished established institutions?
Oh, Alexander, there are Mozarts Darwins Teslas and Rembrandts around today, just not in the same niches as before, because genius – filled with spirit – bubbles out ever new, in new places that always need new discovery. I have a whole library full of them. Try Secrets of the Soil. Or the work of Emoto or Schauberger on water. Or The Field by Lynne Mc Taggart. To take the scientists first. What the Renaissance was then, the “New Age” is today, at its best. Much of the real genius is sidelined by the authorities as “pseudoscience” because it challenges current paradigms of “Reality” with phenomena that are right under our noses, easy to see, replicate, check. But with the Internet and modern facilities the work is totally available. Academia has always had a somewhat bunker mentality – and with the Internet, this will eventually tend to put Academia out of business. IMHO.
Excellent post. I suggest Richard read “The Road to Serfdom”, a book from the ’40s that spoke to that generation since they had just lost millions, fighting the result of the rise of the cockroaches. They are always so unhappy the our inconvenient constitution restricts what they can do to us. They scurry about in the dark eating at the threads of our liberty, running for cover trying to avoid getting stepped on when the light of truth gets turned their way, i.e. the CRUtape Letters. Unfortunately, the battle never ends.
The road to serfdom is an easy one. The road to freedom is not.
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence,” George Washington presciently warned. “It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
Not something to be put into the hands of unwise men.
#
#
Cal Barndorfer says:
July 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Reply to Cal
Cal I think the sentiment and concern strikes a chord with many, not because of any hatred of academia as such, but more with what we see as the agenda issues. The long standing UN bid for huge sums of money and power under different pretext and issues, the backers and players who stand to gain and cause others to sell their soul to an ideal.
Then there are the spinners and politicians that try to keep Mr and Mrs average citizen as dumb puppets to be manipulated, deals are done behind closed doors, laws are implemented by stealth and regulation, rather than open debate on the issues in a democratic and ethical way.
The longer you live, and just when you think you have found the perfect place, you find intrusions, people who demand a better than equal part of your little bit of paradise and then proceed to change your world to suit themselves and you can see before your eyes that paradise disintegrating and you feel powerless to do anything about it, you are told how you must think, and of course never question or speak up or risk being branded as some terrible bigot, racist, or worse.
Fortunately I have the wonderful thought, that humans have the ability to overcome anything when they are well informed.
In general, society goes through evolutionary stages as values change and children determine to provide better for their children. So you have commune children that were raised to share everything and own nothing, who become the go getter’s of the next generation. They want all the consumer trappings to provide their children with what they didn’t have as children, and they can, because they have the choice.
Scientists have the choice to make a difference and stand up and be counted and if some scientists have slipped on their ethics in this generation, I am sure that the next will demand different expectations and stricter standards, in that thought, yes I am optimistic.
I’m sure that as far as academia and science, I see signs of recognition that a few have let the side down, but annoyance that all are being tainted in the process. That will change as more in Science and Academia join Professor Judith Curry in engaging your perception of the enemy or opposition that have invaded/shaken your piece of reason and paradise, be optimistic please!!
Re the Monckton-Abraham online confrontation, I just saw the following posted over at Climate Progress (apologies if this info has been given before):
Andy Gunther says:
July 15, 2010 at 10:28 am
Joe (and all):
I sent an email in support of John Abraham to St. Thomas University and he responded with a request that indications of support for his efforts to debunk Monckton be sent to Dr Susan Alexander (slalexander@stthomas.edu), who is managing the University’s response to Monckton. You should follow up on what is happening with Abraham, and I encourage all CP readers to send in a message of support for him to his institution.
The instructive thing is: The USSR is gone.
One man didn’t kill it, and it didn’t die quickly; but it died.
This is like serving in the Army. You give it your best for 3, or 4 years, and then turn the fight over to the next Good Guy. Don’t let it eat you alive. [snip] Time, and numbers, are on “our” side.