Guest post by Thomas Fuller
Well, with the calming passage of 24 hours, let’s take another look at the 10:10 video showing the splatterfest of gore as skeptics play the more volatile roles from the worst portions of the movie ‘Scanners.’
It’s still disgusting.
I spent four years in the Navy and have seen a lot. The film did not upset me physically or emotionally. My reaction was mental (Cue Michael Tobis: “See? Fuller’s going mental…”)
What disgusts me first is its target. The video is meant for the young. Young people get blown up by a calm and engaged teacher in the first scene, and music and sports and film figures appealing to the young are both victims and perpetrators throughout.
Our reaction is irrelevant. They are not talking to us. They are talking to our children.
What are they saying? That it’s okay to ostracize, bully and dismiss those who don’t agree that climate change is uber alles (Oops! Godwin alert, Godwin alert) and that skeptics or the children of skeptics are fair game for… whatever.
As there is no real attempt at humour in the video, there’s no point in pretending it’s a parody. It’s instructional. It’s not even aimed at helping children work towards reducing emissions. It’s about helping children take aim at those who do not.
This is worse than Orwellian, although Eric Blair would certainly understand the meaning behind this message. And I don’t want to (and internet traditions would forbid me in any case) link this to the propaganda tactics of World War II. So somewhere in between those two, there is a special place in hell reserved for those whose intent it is to legitimize the cruelty of children towards each other based on what has evidently become a religious belief. And I hope that none of the film’s makers reaches that special place ahead of their allotted timespan–but I hope they get there.
Joe Romm and Bill McKibben have already announced they are ‘Shocked! Shocked!’ that gambling is going on in their casino and that their perpetual campaign of invective and calumny has produced people who actually believe them and hate skeptics. So I guess it’s no harm, no foul. Just as it was not their fault when a disturbed environmentalist took hostages at the Discover Channel headquarters, just as when the WWF made an ad showing planes flying into New York skyscrapers, just as when a Greenpeace blogger told skeptics the world over that ‘we know where you live.’ And as Anthony Watts knows full well, they also know where you work. But none of this is the fault of those who whip up the frenzy and the furor of those stupid enough to believe their hyperbole, enough to do something vicious, cruel, stupid or illegal.
So I guess I can’t blame hysterics like Romm and McKibben, who spend their days babbling about hell and high water and related mystical miseries, for any of the troubles we’ve seen. Except for the kids who will be downloading that video tonight. Both William Golding (Lord of the Flies) and J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan) knew full well that children need no help in being cruel. But this gives them license and legitimacy. And for that, Joe and Bill, I do hold you responsible. You sent the message first–it took years for 10:10 to make it explicit.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
Thomas Fuller href=”http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
The authors of “no pressure” pretend it’s funny, and we don’t understand the humour.
Did you ask yourself what did the boys understand ?
I don’t remember the exact words, nut a boy said he was glad to be blown up, in order “to save the world”.
This is not funny, this is the way kamikazes think.
Another boy said he understood that it is right to blow people up, if the reason is a good one.
That’s what they understood.
And what else could they understand ?
There’s no fun in those scenes, there’s gore, so much gore, a huge amount of gore all over their dresses and walls. Just gore. No joy, no gaiety, no high spirits, no light-heartedness, no fun at all, just gore, plenty of gore and plenty of horror.
Do you see anything that let us understand that killing people should be wrong ?
Nothing of that kind, and what should those boys understand ?…just what they understood…. that it is right to kill. A good start to become terrorists.
When shall we see the first “deniers” killed by a “nutter” who strangely thought it is right to kill for a good reason ?
“A good reason”… and who decides “this is a good one” ?
The AGW hypothesis is not a good one.
In my opinion.
The problem with inspiring violence is that should you win, the violence must still be fed, or it will feed on you. In the end, violence becomes master, and it can never be sated.
I can only hope that this argumentum ad baculum backfires, and those responsible are utterly stripped of funding. This is not civilized behavior, and is beneath anyone who claims to be civilized. Of course, this is the post-modernist West, so perhaps it cannot be helped.
Genocide is not a Left or. Right thing. The next big one will be brought about by nature.
Anyway, you guys are the ones with all the guns.
Franny Armstrong is quoted in the Guardian today as saying:
“The key question remains: ‘why are we failing to protect ourselves from climate catastrophe?’ ”
My question is: Who will save the planet from the economic meltdown proposed by people such as Armstrong?
According to ActionAid: We did it because evidence shows children are deeply concerned about climate change and because we see the impacts of it in the developing world where a lot of our work is.
But isn’t the developing world the very demographic being targeted – how are these Countries to develop if starved of cheap affordable energy?
Seems ActionAid have their priorites somehow confused – reminds anyone of DDT?
Mister Creosote says: October 2, 2010 at 2:20 pm
“Actually, I commissioned 10:10 to do this in the hope of eliciting tendentious comments from humorless twits.”
Not that I believe you, but assuming you were responsible for this in any way…
Actually, we’re criticizing the fantasies of the sick, psychopathic[snip] in the world. Such as yourself. That said, while I think you are indeed one sick puppy (as your little freakshow illustrated), I defend to the death your right produce and disseminate your trash. Of course, I am but one humble man, and I have better things to do… Gotta have my priorities, ya know? 😉
Oh, and what do you say to all those AGW supporters who also said it was a tasteless peice of garbage? Are they also humorless twits? Or just us skeptics?
It was sick and puerile (and let’s face it – so too was Black Adder much of the time).
However I still rate the British government’s ad about drowning pets etc also aimed at children as just as bad: state sponsored child abuse.
“if the show isn’t going well, let’s send in the clowns”
(Sondheim)
NOW… SEND IN THE POLAR BEARS, quick!!
‘Clockwork Tomato’ is a total failure.
mike roddy says:
October 2, 2010 at 2:59 pm
“Genocide is not a Left or. Right thing. The next big one will be brought about by nature.
Anyway, you guys are the ones with all the guns.”
You’re wrong. I don’t own a gun.
I have scissors.
Where on earth did they get the idea, or how were they inspired to make such a clip? It boggles the mind.
Madame Laframboise asks :
” Would those who found the film “extremely funny” have a similar reaction to a film that depicted gays being blown to bloody pulp by religious fundamentalists?”
It depends on whether the congregation explosively disciplining their pastor found him in bed with a deacon or an altar boy.
For those who somehow believe this was a calculated publicity stunt, please explain the intended message, because any other than “choose to toe the line or die” is still lacking.
Glad to see someone posted the new parody above–tell me, all those who claim those who don’t find the real thing funny are just somehow clueless, is the parody funny?
This copy of an email was posted on Climate Progress indicating that this is how the 10:10 folks were initially promoting the film:
Hello 10:10ers,
Even by my not-entirely-downbeat standards, I really am extremely over-excited to tell you that our Richard Curtis-written mini-movie, “No Pressure”, is premiering right now on the front page of the Guardian website, see pic below. (If it’s off the Guardian by the time you get this message, you can watch at: http://www.1010global.org/no-pressure )
The 4-minute mini-movie stars The X-Files’ Gillian Anderson, together with Spurs players past and present – including Peter Crouch, Ledley King and David Ginola – and features music donated by Radiohead. It’s a fairly simple and to-the-point premise, I’m sure you’ll agree: we celebrate everybody who is actively tackling climate change… by blowing up those are aren’t. So if you’ve ever wondered what the inside of David Ginola looks like, here’s your chance to find out.
I am completely blown away, pun intended, by the sterling efforts from our 40-person professional film crew, who all donated their time and equipment for free. Please, please, please, please forward the info below to as many friends and pretend facebook friends as you possibly can manage without getting sacked from your job, as that’s by far our best chance of going viral and waking a whole load more people up to the climate crisis.
Thanking you all very much. And looking forward to seeing everybody in action next weekend for 10:10:10.
Onwards and upwards,
Franny
Founder of 10:10 and
Director of The Age of Stupid
A copy can also be found here:
http://www.ohnoyoudidntsaythat.com/
If this is for real, stupid (no matter what age) doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I think we should find out who gave such a vivid understanding of what is really going on in these groups of eco-nuts. This says more about the and their thoughts than it does anything else…
So if you won’t go along with the hoax, they want to kill you? How Mao is that.
AndyW says: October 2, 2010 at 6:05 am
Andy, the first thing I did when I started to suspect AGW was the science research. Then I wrote it up, click my name and some. I hold this science right in front of my inner vision, constantly. I apply Scientific Method as to what to do next, constantly. Because I am passionate about restoring integrity to Science. The great issue here is, how can these 10:10 people have become so far removed from the true science? Here we know that the science institutions are in large measure to blame. If you do the science, honestly, as I did, as many here have done, there is no other conclusion, frightening as it may seem – so frightening, it appears, that folk like 10:10 do not even wish to consider the possibility that all the major science institutions are at fault.
Yet that is the inescapable conclusion of doing the science. Teaching oneself. Testing and checking right back to first principles. The GHG effect of CO2, in theory and in practice. The reality of amplification, in theory and in practice. The temperature data issues according to the official keepers and according to Watts and co-workers. The paleo temperature reconstruction issues according to Michael Mann and Steve McIntyre. The claims, based on Mann, of “unprecedented” warming. And on and on. Eventually one knows the truth about all this.
And still these 10:10 folk are acting beyond both science and sanity and humanity. Scientific method is not just about science as conventionally understood. True Science is the servant of love and compassion, albeit it’s mostly focussed on some far more specific issues, because great focus is needed to advance beneficially. Love of Creation and compassion for our human existence. Those who abuse the trust Science has gained, involving little children in the process, are doing great harm, even evil. They may be pitied, but they need to be stopped. The irony is that they say something like this about us. But we know who has done the science.
That is what concerns us. We are sharing our concerns here, to help each other find ways to restore integrity to Science. Behind the words is a powerhouse of thinking and contemplating and reports of action, I suspect there are many others like me, burning the midnight oil in a battle to restore and redeem Climate Science. There is even a great deal of new and good climate science developing in this new discipline of Citizens Science.
Incidentally, your figures are somewhat exaggerated and misleading. Science works by concentration, distillation, focussing… you will find the science posts far more focussed, often with leads to others’ websites that also need careful evaluation, often a slow process. WUWT is the basilica where many own-blog scientists meet to share – as full human beings, because true Science never forgets the fullness of our humanity.
I must be missing something here, or reading more into it than others are. I work at a mine. The mine uses explosives daily to break rock. Pushing the button to set off the blast only works once the explosives are in place. (aside – That eco-fascists would want to kill their opponents doesn’t really surprise me, they would have to get to “sustainable” levels somehow. ) The Big Brotherish aspect that first hit me when I saw this wasn’t that schoolkids and everyone else who disagreed were detonated, it was that it was expected (indeed, the “joke” depends upon) that everyone in the world should have explosives strapped to them, and that they (as benevolent leaders) would have the wherewithal and capability to monitor everyone. 1984 was less intrusive than the system that is modestly proposed.
A modest proposal it is, give them the power over all of our lives and they’ll make that bad things go away. Along with any people that aren’t fully and visibly supportive. No pressure, just love Big Brother.
mike roddy says: October 2, 2010 at 2:59 pm
“Genocide is not a Left or. Right thing. Anyway, you guys are the ones with all the guns.”
Well, if that ain’t a pin-headed jab at empty air… Honestly, where do you [snip] come from? Oh, whatever! Guns have come as close to causing a genocide as rocks, spears, and bows. “No pressure” policies, on the other hand…
Reaction to the video is well over the top – just what the makers of the piece expected. They are taking the mickey out of you and your [snip] responses. Its juvenile, adolescent, call it what you want – but its them and us. I could never see anything funny about Black Adder but my son was completely hooked on it. Likewise, comedians of my parents generation such as Arthur Askey and Tommy Trinder did nothing whatsoever for me when I was young. We all like the comedians we were brought up with and satire is a matter of taste. People raved about Monty Python. My father in law was an avid fan – but I just thought it was silly. Take a breath and move on. It isn’t supposed to be realistic. Its a campaign stunt.
I’m british.
The film is vile.
DirkH says:
October 2, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I have scissors.
Well said, Dirk. Needles, too, no doubt. I have tennis rackets and baseball bats, all acquired in the natural way.
Apology in advance if this has already been posted
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/vickiwoods/8038012/Im-exploding-about-climate-change-actually.html
Steve,
Biofuel programs cause food shortages. So people starve to death.
————
carol clapham,
It is the disparity of seeing a Uber-OTT video and then someone in response saying our concern is OTT that is weird about this situation.
The root issue is what are the fundamental values/thoughts of 10:10 environmentalists who had the video made? And how do their values compare to the dominate trends in modern civilization? Please do your own research. Compare what you find with the 2000+ year wonderful ascent of man. (J. Bronowski, Ascent of Man).
Will you find that you must pick between whether to accept either the world view of the kinds of folks who made the video or of the achievements of modern civilization? That is the question you will need to deal with. Good luck.
John
evanmjones says:
October 2, 2010 at 1:09 pm
AndyW’s deep concern for the scientific integrity of WUWT is somewhat analogous to the mainstream media’s heartfelt concern that the Tea Party will harm republican prospects this November.
lol!
I always liked Samsung more than SONY.
No, for US readers it may look that way but we have swallowed nothing. We are simply left in a situation where we have no (non-violent) means of registering opposition. Oppose carbon scamming all you like there are no “November elections” here in the EU my friend – ever.
“obedient and uncritical .. less capable of independent thinking..”? Even a cursory glance at the history of this part of the world will surely demonstrate that once the lid blows, Europe is a very dangerous place for Emperors and their thieving lackeys.
A prolific local writer (and regular reader of WUWT) pointed out recently that the real problem is that the political classes across Europe have simply lost their fear of the population. Well keep an eye on European news. US readers should understand all too well what eventually happens when people are taxed without representation.