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
Interesting the dearth of Indian, Pakistani, and Asian, of any nationality, children in that classroom in the opening scene. Not exactly a modern UK classroom. Hmmm… Not enough stage parents in those populations, perhaps? Maybe they’re too busy getting their kids educated in science and math?
You know, in “Mars Attacks” the Martians running around saying, “We’re your friends!” while firing blasters at people was funny (actually that was probably the funniest part of that movie – the Indian Love Song part was funny, too). Good spoof of B-sci-fi movies, and the “Friendly ET” genre.
Similarly, “No Pressure” might have been funny if it was a spoof. As it is, it’s more of a litmus or Rorschach test to distinguish those with an abnormal sense of humor or psychology who find it excusable. Not a test in an ugly political way, but some, small minority of, people just aren’t normal.
Also curious, along with Mike D, about the prewiring. How are those explosives rigged? Magical exploding buttons? Comedy can’t suspend disbelief in any old way. It needs a comedic explanation.
“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.”
Mike, Mike, Mike, I just can’t think of a polite way to call you an idiot.
“The next big one will be brought about by nature.”
Yeah, well maybe in your mind, Roddy.
This apalling piece of work should be rewarded by the UK Government withdrawing all funding to the 10:10 group and to any other group which supported the 10:10 group, and to many other group affiliated with that group.
Unless the UK government wishes to be accused of wanting to blow up its citizens.
The Guardian should likewise take the same actions.
But first head over to the 10:10 website and have a look under “partners”. All the major fake (>50% UK Gov. funded) “charities” and “campaign groups” are there. Your UK tax money at work.
A couple of clicks (partners of partners and all that) from 10:10 takes you to our old friends at (drown those puppies) “Act on CO2” . All funded by HMG. Anyone seeing a pattern here yet?
Where have people seen something like this already? Ah, right, when Islamistic terrorists were beheading a victim in front of a camcorder.
The 10:10 guys are learning fast … and no prosecutor is going to stop them?
It’s for a noble cause, I see.
Has nobody else noticed the following? Please, anyone here, show evidence if this is true. Because if it is, Curtis is not an idiot but a whistleblower in the same vein as FOIA “A miracle has happened”.
TomFP says:
October 2, 2010 at 6:53 am
No Lucy,
I am pretty sure Tom made that up.
Thee are plenty of one paragraph quotes sprinkled among the various stories, from Mr. Curtis, that completely put the lie to the ridiculous theory that he somehow “put one over” on these evil jerks.
It just isn’t so. I guess you just don’t get his best work for free though.
I am sure 10:10 speaks for everyone with views that differ from the bulk of the folks who visit this site. As long as we speak in generalizations and paint with broad brushes and throw critical thought to the wayside, we are headed in the right direction.
Keep up the good work.
For those few still determined to defend this video, might I make two observations. First, the oft repeated phrase “those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it” leaves out one important point. When you, in your inability to see the parallels between this video and the precursors to the worst atrocities in history, condemn yourself to repeat it, you condemn the rest of us as well. Accuse us if you will of over reacting, but we know which role you have, consciously or not, selected for us. Having learned the lessons of history, we are not willing to play that role, and there is no amount of objection that is “too much”.
Secondly, again often said, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. The notion that the planet is in danger from climate change has spawned all manner of debate and acrimony. When those with good intentions, out of frustration that they cannot persuade the masses to follow them turn instead to threats and intimidation, they have set both feet firmly on the road to hell, determined that for the good of humanity, the lessons of history must be repeated with new atrocities. By defending this video, you are discarding history’s lessons and following like sheep the road down which the villains of 10:10 are already walking.
I wish also to comment on several mentions recently of “Nuremberg” trials for those skeptical of global warming and for those who make their living in the industries accused of causing it. I find this suggestion as repulsive and ignorant as the 10:10 video itself. Those tried at Nuremberg were accused of ordering innocent people to be slaughtered, or of themselves doing the killing. It is grotesque to suggest that running a company that produces oil which is in turn used for everything from making plastic water bottles to heating greenhouses to transporting food to running irrigation systems to fueling cars and airplanes and farm machinery, is as great a sin as locking a mother and her children in a gas chamber so that the killers are spared the horror of watching them die in each others arms. The suggestion is as repulsive as the 10:10 video, it is a blatant attempt to paint skeptics as Nazis, a tactic almost identical to the use of the word “denialist”, by those who intend to repeat history by paving the road to hell with their “good” intentions.
I saw this before the uproar. I watched until the kids got blown up.
I couldn’t blog it. Not an embeded video. Not a link. Not a word.
This is the most evil disgusting video I have ever seen in my life.
I’m glad (in a way) that WUWT has blogged it so I don’t have to.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece
“Rapley, who formerly ran the British Antarctic Survey, said humanity was emitting the equivalent of 50 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.
“We have to cut this by 80%, and population growth is going to make that much harder,” he said.
Such views on population have split the green movement. George Monbiot, a prominent writer on green issues, has criticised population campaigners, arguing that “relentless” economic growth is a greater threat.
Many experts believe that, since Europeans and Americans have such a lopsided impact on the environment, the world would benefit more from reducing their populations than by making cuts in developing countries.”
There is not a brush made that is broad enough to paint this psychotic nightmare-scape.
The radical Muslim parody is actually funny especially because it names the two exploded children Jesus and Mary.
It is analogous to a sceptical version of the 10-10 video designed to be satirical about underlying Greenie attitudes.
If it were a Taliban produced item then it would not be funny because we would know that it represented more directly their underlying hateful intent so we would be angry and fearful.
So the 10-10 video as produced is analogous to the latter and not funny at all.
To those who defend the 10-10 version I ask how they would feel about the radical Muslim version if it had been produced and disseminated by murderous Muslim extremists and not someone spoofing them.
Small point, but I’ll make it:
Many have heard the statement: “Franny Armstrong, 10:10 founder, said the shock tactics were justified. “We ‘killed’ five people to make No Pressure – a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change.” ”
However it was not five, but seven people, who were “killed” in No Pressure. (2 school children, 3 workers, one athlete, one voice-over.)
Obviously Franny cannot count.
Her arithmatic suggests that her first job involved adding up temperature numbers for Hansen and GISS.
Stephen Wilde at 7:08, there are plenty of documentary radical jihadi videos available on the web, even of decapitations. If little Franny wants to really see a “few amputations” they are available too.
I found the link to the 911 photojournal of a man who was woken by the first impact in NYC on 911 and took his camera into the streets. This is the photo of the unnamed hotel employee covering the remains of human beings. Look closely, anyone of stout heart. If this photo is inappropriate, forgive me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hiro_oshima/127764965/in/set-72057594105816396/
It is part of a fascinating eyewitness photo log, and perhaps may explain some of the “cultural lag” some Yanks have in our humor about the splattering gore in this idiotic self righteous and self-stroking 10:10 oeuvre.
barbarausa says:
October 2, 2010 at 7:20 pm
“there are plenty of documentary radical jihadi videos available on the web, even of decapitations.”
Too true but we don’t expect to see support for them from within our own ranks do we ?
Defenders of the 10-10 video are like our own people supporting jihadist propaganda. Do they not see that ?
Philemon says:
“…Also curious, along with Mike D, about the prewiring. How are those explosives rigged? Magical exploding buttons? Comedy can’t suspend disbelief in any old way. It needs a comedic explanation.”
—————-
Comedy arises , in part, with the juxtaposition of incongruities, but it has to occur quickly enough that rational interpretation doesn’t ruin the moment.
I don’t know how many precedents there are for this type of idiotic video, but the “evil sport ka” campaign foundered with a car’s sun-roof guillotining a cat. ( youtube has that one, too.)
Even if one thought this was funny when one first saw it, surely, one could imagine that the fun wouldn’t hold up for long.
I believe that Simians are the only other members of the animal kingdom that exhibit behaviour that could be called laughter, and they do this as triumphant posturing when, for example, a rival group is vanquished.
It’s not unreasonable to expect an opponent to jeer and gloat, but it doesn’t speak well for their critical faculties when they are so oblivious to how people might react.
It can’t be that they expected to win converts from the other side, and they couldn’t possibly imagine that legions of fence-sitters would be shocked or delighted into a lightbulb-changing frenzy, so, I have to conclude that this whole fiasco was a funny, little, self-absorbed war-dance. Look! There’s that word funny, again.
1) In American schools now, it is illegale to talk about, draw pictures of, or in any way advocate shooting or blowing anyone up.
2)This will be seen by children of school age, and, in fact, the video shows this actually happening AT school, perpratrated BY the teachers and other authority fugures associated with them.
3) It therefore advocates conducting an illegal act, occording to present law.
4) Therefore, the actions to be taken should NOT be condemming it here. That is just wimping out, laying down, and surrendering.
5) The action that should be taken is a bunch of people march into the offices of the people responsible for this (ALL of the people, in ALL their offices). and inform them that they are under citizen arrest, the charges, “incitment to riot” and “making a terrorist threat” (at the very least, probably more charges since this involves children).
Really people, they have in fact committed a crime, visible on utube for millions to see, and we know who the perps are. These people have shown that they are not above using, or twisting, the law, to shut down any business they think “harms the envorenment” (such as a coal fired power plant, or a cattle farm) or suppressing free speech such as even mentioning firarms in any school (can you say “zero tolerance?”). They have in fact invented these laws and policies which should now be used against them as they deserve. Occording to they themselves, what they have done here is AT LEAST two crimes, and probably more. They should not only be charged with these but then sued in civil court as well for endangering children by the parents of those children (which means all parents of all children who have seen the video).
These are the people who have been twisting the law for years to shut down or punish dissent or people or bisinesses they don’t like, they need to be given a taste of their own medicine.
And then we can get around to things like lying to congress, missapropriation of government funds, and don’t for get the Sierra Club for legally harrassing the US Corps of Engineers for years, or even decades, for daring to suggest that the levees around New Orleans should be strengthened, when it was a well know fact what could happen should they not be, they should be not only stuck with the ENTIRE bill for fixing that city, but then arrested for terrorism, endangering public safty, at the very least negligent homicide (many counts), etc.
Really, these are the people who invented “zero tolerance”, its now time to show them what that means.
Or don’t you believe in the law?
By the way, one other thing to think on. If we were to cut back CO2 emissions 80%, putting us back to about 1850 tech in effect, how many people were there around in 1850? Would 1850’s tech be able to support the number of people on earth now? Since it is obvious it will not, what will happen to those people?
This isn’t about some minor policy difference or scientific disagreement, this is about SURVIVAL. Can you say “genocide”? Are you willing to watch your children starving to death?
But don’t worry, you won’t have to, since it will be too dark to see them.
Stephen Wilde at 7:32, I am reminded of the passage in Sophie’s Choice, when the group is at the beach, and Sophie becomes disgusted with the group of young privileged Americans untouched by the war discussing their psychoanalysis, and describes it as “picking at their little scabs”.
The “creative class” that produced this dreck has no more clue than a bird what they are advocating–not really.
They are picking and stroking their self-created scabs, because they have been so fortunate in life as to not know what it really means to do what they seem to espouse.
Who but a coddled clot of unreality could waste so much time being afraid of life itself, with all of its choices and risks? Who but his majesty the babies could think that pressing a button and EXPLODING those who disagree with the imperial “we” is any solution?
How else to explain the scions of postwar wealth having the temerity to do such as call anyone they dislike a Nazi, and then sneeringly and in full superiority mode backtrack by answering any objection with a superior dismissal of a lack of “humor”?
It is the out of any spoiled child called on the carpet for spoiled excess, and cannot be conscioned any more than same. Just witness the non-apology on the website.
“Sorry if it bothered some stupid people.”
Yes, hit it hard, hit it relentlessly.
These are the essence of the banality of evil.
Stephen Wilde says
“Defenders of the 10-10 video are like our own people supporting jihadist propaganda. Do they not see that ?”
Darn good point as are all the latest posts here.
I suspect and this is only my opinion, that to some extent, worrying over the climate, and worrying over the jihad are somehow mutually exclusive positions, but I am
not about to try to explain why.
Jimash;
I suspect and this is only my opinion, that to some extent, worrying over the climate, and worrying over the jihad are somehow mutually exclusive positions, but I am
not about to try to explain why.>>
In Osama bin Laden’s vision of the future, he stands before a class of young students and begins the lesson with a prayer. Upon noticing that some of the students are less than enthusiastic about being asked to participate, he produces a small box with a red button…
10:10 and Osama bin Laden are not so much mutually exclusive as they are competitors with near identical products. Only the faith is different, although it could be said that one is more advanced than the other in terms of implementation.
So they made a child porn snuff film. I wonder if a jury trial would convict?
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The Left knows no limits, has no decency. Time to vote them out of office and the centralized government infrastructure that enables all this behavior. Return the power of domestic governance to communities of no more than 300,000, allow the British subject / U.S. citizen and their enterprise to vote with their feet as well as their ballot and competition for productive people between communities will settle once and for all this nonsense.
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A large central government has become a liability and a clear and present danger to freedom. It’s past the time to turn our back on them and put our trust in our neighbors and friends.
They are mutually exclusive in logic, but apparently not in method anymore for some.
Now this is satire.
Satire because it mocks the 10:10 video.
Satire because it mocks the 9/11 and 7/7 bombers (real events).
Satire because you know that the makers of the 10:10 video will have apoplexy and shout wildly: “you cannot make a film like that, it is bigoted, intolerant, illiberal, and it unfairly stigmatises an entire community.” Thus the very makers of the video will be horrified by such a film – a film of their own creation.
Absolutely brilliant.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
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