When I first saw this I thought to myself “maybe posting this isn’t appropriate on Veterans Day”. Then, after additional reflection, I realized this is exactly what our American veterans and the allies fought for: freedom of speech and freedom from tyranny. The seeds of tyranny appear to be taking hold again in the German government at least when it comes to climate change issues. – Anthony
~~~~~~
From Pierre Gosselins “No Tricks Zone”, apparently they really don’t like Fred Singer in Germany.
Branding of Dissenters Has Begun – Clearing The Path To A Climate Science Pogrom
What is it with these intolerant zealots who refuse to learn anything from history?
Right smack on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, German Parliamentarians, in a frontal assault, are now openly calling out and branding scientists for the crime of scientific dissent. These out-of-control Parliamentarians are demanding that the German government take a position against dissenting views in climate science.
What follows makes McCarthyism look like a treasure hunt. What a number of zealous German Parliamentarians are calling for borders on a call to launch a science pogrom.
The climate dogmatists are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the growing scepticism and dissent now spreading in Germany and Europe, and want to stamp it out – and now.
Journalist Dirk Maxeiner here brings our attention to this latest development on the exploding intolerance that has gripped certain factions in Germany. The branding of climate science dissenters has begun. Fred Singer and EIKE (European Institute For Climate and Energy) are the first to feel the sting of the denier-branding-iron. Read background here.
Some may think that I’m being over-dramatic here. I am not. The situation that the few, yet very vocal, sceptics face here is precarious. Just read the following query written by a faction of Parliamentarians to the German Government, translated from the German text at Dirk Maxeiner’s site (emphasis added, and note the use of the term “denier” throughout the text)):
Read the full post here: Branding of Dissenters Has Begun – Clearing The Path To A Climate Science Pogrom
Luboš Motl has an opinion also, here
I am VP of EIKE (European Institute for Climate & Energy http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/) which was named in that scandalous inquiry of the greens in their inquiry to german government. I am sure it is a wonderful opportunity to demask the greens and their supporters in all parties.
I am also proud to be a personal friend of Fred Singer and helped via our institute to organize a couple of events – from which some led to the inquiry named. We have therefore prepared a counter-statement to this inquiry, telling the government the truth supported by facts about Fred, us and climate, and send it to the Ministers who are in charge of responding.
Mid of next week we will publish it on our website (http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/) and make it public. Pierre Gosselin is so kind to translate it. I would be pleased if you Anthony can post it here too, as well as Marc Morano.
I am sure the vast majority of my countrymen are not pleased by what the greens are going to do. The problem is the same as everywhere else, people have neither enough time, nor education to find out that the whole climate issue is a make belief to bring people in good faith to pay immense sums for renewables and other nonsense. As soon as this collapses, the advocates will further try to make people belief about soon shortcomings in oil and gas supplies. What we already see here in germany. But also this will collapse when people find out that every Dollar spend on this is just wasted, but make few people very rich but all of us poor.
In order to support this real view we are now organizing the 3rd. International Climate & Energy Conference in Berlin at 3. & 4th of dec. Readers are invited to join. (Details here: http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/news-anzeige/iii-internationale-klima-energiekonferenz-in-berlin-3-4-dezember-2010-findet-in-berlin-die-iii-internationale-klima-und-energiekonferenz-statt/, please scroll down to see all details in english, all speakers will be translated simultaneously into english or german, applications here: http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/registration-3rd-international-conference-on-energy-and-climate-berlin-2010/) with about 20 international known top speakers.
Visitors from abroad are very welcome. And Berlin – in contrry to London and Paris is still rather cheap.
anorak2
“Middle class” is not a political ideology. You have failed to demonstrate how “The Greens” support Reaganomics, Monetarism or Neo-liberal economics. Can you show me their position on economic issues?
When they represent only 10% of the governing body how can they do anything but compromise on certain issues?
@H. Wilde says:
“The situation here ( In Germany) is much worse than in the US. In the UK and Germany the political alarmists are in total control. we should organise a organising committee now.”
Truly spoken: Media is totally controlled by the Oekofaschists. The average German does know nothing about the discussion going on on sites like this one. They are belivers in their government like they were 70 years ago! Nothing has changed. Sad to say, especially when you are German.
EU plans to spend 1 Billion Euros on renewables and power lines to transfer energie from solar farms in the Sahara and wind farms in the northern sea. Money taken from the people by frightening them with the CO2 lie. Siemens reported record earnings and plans to make 50% of its business with “green technology”.
But German companies are used to make good business with faschist goverments…
Will the USA be able to fix it again???
@poptech, 07:26h
To my:
“This knee-jerk reaction by a lot of commenters of insulting the complete German people (and in some instances/comments the European people) by talking about yellow stars, nazi’s, world wars and socialism in relation to this green-party stupidity is very sad!”
You say:
“Don’t take the few extremist comments posted here as a representation of the feelings of all the commenters here. By doing so you are guilty of the same crime you are accusing us of.”
——-
I certainly did *not* put a label on “all the commenters here”, I was very carefull to say “a lot of commenters”. I absolutely agree with you that the general tone and intelligence of the comments here is of a high level, a breath of fresh air compared to some other blogs.
I just feel that a lot of – not all – comments on this thread are not of that same level, and I stated my objection to that.
Kind regards,
Wijnand
anorak2, sorry for the double post, I didn’t see the one you responded to show up on the board and figured it was lost in the ether. So I reposted a shorter version.
How is it that all of these non-scientists (politicians) who are easily convinced by foolish ideas are in charge of science suddenly? I find it quite depressing that all of the real science thinkers that I know understand the shoddy guesswork involved in AGW dogma, but the ones in control of the science at the moment have no scientific prowess whatsoever.
I truly hope this backfires on them.
http://thetruthpeddler.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/recent-trends-in-global-temperature-and-carbon-dioxide-concentration-show-no-correlation/
You have failed to demonstrate how “The Greens” support Reaganomics, Monetarism or Neo-liberal economics. Can you show me their position on economic issues?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept
This reform of the welfare system brought harsh cuts and much stricter control for the unemployed compared to the previous, comparatively generous unemployment benefit system which had been in place for decades. The “Hartz concept” was phased in between 2001 and 2005. The Greens voted for it, without their votes it would probably not have passed the house.
When they represent only 10% of the governing body how can they do anything but compromise on certain issues?
They can always vote “no” yet chose not to. Besides they apparently weren’t just compromising, they were openly in support. At the time I had colleague who was member of the Greens. He cared about proper waste separation at our office, but not about the welfare cuts. When I confronted him one time, he openly supported it. And I think that is true for most of their supporters.
Google “Oswald Metzger”, a prominent spokesman for the Green party at the time they were in government. Unfortunately I can’t find any English language statements by him, but his homepage is here:
http://www.oswald-metzger.de/
Maybe Google Translation will do a reasonable job of translating some of his statements. Beware that he is not in the Green party now, but in CDU, however he is still the same persona with the same attitudes. He was in several political parties during his life, kind of a party hopper. All he cares for is his carreer. But that kind of personality could and probably still can become a figurehead with the Greens. Just money grabbing scum, advocating cuts for everyone but himself. Very “left wing”, eh?
Some people are calling us racists or xenophobes. Well, myself I was too harsh on germans because I wrote too fast but I immediately corrected my mistake. But I fully agree with Mr Watts comment, Mr Watts talked against tyranny, not against Germans in general. And, besides, I have German blood.
But today socialistic oppressive nonsense “political correctness” is everywhere and if one states obvious facts like how some people are black, brown, yellow or white then invariably one ends up being called a racist or a xenophobe. And if you say, for instance, that brazilian girls often have electrifying beauty and astounding attractiveness and wear sexy long hair, makeup, extremely tight leather pants and high heels and have perfect bodies then you will be called “male chauvinist pig” or something similar for stating such a an obvious but “politically incorrect” fact. It seems nowadays only women can comment on others women beauty because for us men praising women´s attractiveness is “politically incorrect”.
It is absurd to allege that all the peoples of the world are the same. Peoples are very different: Take South America & Caribbean: We tend to have happy lives centered on our addiction to love & beauty and its passions. Such nature comes basically from our genetics. Up there in the USA you have different genetics and different passions, you have a culture of self control and renouncing passions that was crucial in creating the biggest economic superpower that ever existed and in achieving the most technological prowesses that any country ever saw.
Latin America and the USA have many things in common, here too we have lots of people that fled european oppressive regimes –like my German grandfather leaving Germany- but probably readers here know a lot about the USA and little about Latin America.
So we anglo and latin Americans tend to be people that HATE oppresion, because many that hated oppression fled oppressive Europe for the less oppressive Americas (and because of the free spontaneous nature of the tropical wetlands Indians). The great USA has a great tradition of intellectual honesty, respect for the individual, respect for free tought, free contract, free enterprise and private property, limited democratic government and rule of law that is custom while in Europe they tend to have a law that is somewhat more the the imposition of a political class. Such qualities were so outstanding that the small independent American colony became, in EXTREMELY short time (around mid 1800s), the WORLD SUPERPOWER (!!). It is absurd trying to deny the superb qualities of the American people and system, the main quality being perhaps true democracy that actually limits government power and allows a free and prosperous people to exist: It is clear that democracies do not wage wars ON EACH OTHER. Here http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MIRACLE.HTM you can read how democracy has been MIRACULOUS in bringing peace, the mass murderers were dictatorships or democracies using the dictatorial power that a state of war gives a government. (deaths in combat are not counted as government murders)
Alexis de Tocqueville already saw the superiority of the American system over the European system when he wrote “Democracy in America” centuries ago. I know Europeans do not like hearing this, but if Europe had such a superior system they would have not had so much blood and oppression and such serial mass murders by government.
If you take the list of murders by government in the 20th century http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB16A.1.GIF you will see that the only big government murderer in the Americas is Mexico (Guatemala has a high proportions of death). But take Europe and Asia and the deaths will be counted in the HUNDRED OF MILLIONS (!!). That is a HUGE difference between the Americas on one side and Europe and Asia on the other side!.
Extreme socialism is essentially the vice of sadism, the vice of total power & control & taking enjoyment in punishing people and making them suffer. While the passions related to love & beauty will are very strong in South America or Italy, the vice of sadism & power & control will be found more often in Germany than in the Americas or Italy, IMHO opinion that is the reason Germany saw so much bloodshed.
And there is racism everywhere, but socialist northern Europeans tend to be more racist than other peoples: Take our extremely beautiful latin American girls from the rain forest wetlands (here is a very interesting relationship, it seems the more availavility of water, the prettier they are) . Wetland girls from South America and Caribbean haven won several Miss Universe constests, meet them and tell me if you see any racism there. The extreme beauty often found, for instance, in São Paulo, Brazil girls is a consequence of the extreme mix of races, something that too happened, to a lesser level, in the USA “melting pot”. A person of extreme mixed race is likely to be less racist than an arrogant socialist northern european that believes he is part of a “superior race”.
That was my point, germans are a great people and I am proud of my german blood
10 percent is crucial in proportional representational systems such as are common in Europe. US electoral systems would never deliver Green parties that kind of power. Here in Australia, we have proportional representation in the Senate, and individual seats in the House of Representatives (where the Government is formed). The Greens have disproportionate power because of the ‘balance of power’ in the Senate.
The bottom line is, Europe’s system of proportional representation has meant that the Greens have been kingmakers many times, with around 10 percent of the vote. It is quite mistaken to think that most Europeans support them directly.
I am really very sorry for shouting in capitals earlier.
On looking back it was totally wrong and over the top to aproach my point that way.
So I would like to publically apologise to Anthony for doing that.
Thanks for changing the Headline to Germany’s Greens,
ie my point not government or germany as a whole, just the green politicians
johanna says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:09 am
“The standards of civility and rational discussion espoused by wuwt have been thrown to the winds here.”
========================================================
I believe the timing of the post has much to do with the perceived lack of “civility”. You see, yesterday was Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in many parts of the world, in the States, we call it Veterans Day. As noted on another post on WUWT, the memory of the sacrifices of many are still fresh. And the scars have never been completely healed. To that end, I think many may have been a tad bit more defensive and offensive than typically seen here. Context is important. This article was posted with the background I described.
The political attitude referred to in Germany is also found in the UK. Witness this statement by a senior Liberal Democrat MP (now a member of the Coalition Government):
The Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Secretary went on to say; “Do they agree that homophobia, racism, sexism and climate change denial have no place in twenty first century European politics? If so, are they still prepared to strike a deal with these people for the sake of political convenience? Don’t the voters have a right to know?” (4th June 2009)
http://www.windsorlibdems.org.uk/news/000137/davey_conservatives_must_face_the_nasty_truth_about_their_friends_in_europe.html
So there you have it: According to this senior Liberal Democrat MP, “climate change denial” (and we know what he means by that) is equivalent to racism, sexism and homophobia.
Carl Chapman says:
November 11, 2010 at 5:23 pm
“The greens are the new Nazis. Even Hitler didn’t kill as many.”
Hitler did not hold a candle to Joe Stalin or Mao as far as killing people goes. He was a distant third place at that time (even further behind since then). A much better similarity can be drawn between the greens and the communists, who killed mostly their OWN people, the Nazis did not, as a rule. The eco wackos are like a watermellon, green on the outside and red on the inside.
Anthony,
Lots of thanks for posting this article. The folks at EIKE and the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation for Liberty are really grateful and they really appreciate all the help from across the Atlantic. You were (and are) a very big help.
The Germans are excellent people, just like everyone else, as long as they are informed of both sides of the issue. The trouble starts when information and media get controlled by a political and media elite group who all think the same way. That’s the case here. On climate change sceptic views get snuffed out. This is not the fault of the German people. It’s the fault of people like Renate Künast and Jürgen Tritten, the authors of this absurd witchhunt paper.
SouthAmericanGirls says:
November 12, 2010 at 11:00 am
yeah. i went to graduate school in europe. tried living in mexico.
maybe i’ll try Brazil next time i leave the country 😉
P Gosselin says:
November 12, 2010 at 1:48 pm
“The Germans are excellent people, just like everyone else, as long as they are informed of both sides of the issue. ”
You are probably right. But the “Ordnung muss sein” meme might be a small additional factor?
Here in Norway the AGW tipping point is reached. The majority is no longer buying it. But the politicians are. The Government is talking about forced climate quotas for airline traffic from 1’st jan 2012. I wonder how that’s gonna save the world?
Talk about being out of phase with reality!
besso says:
November 12, 2010 at 10:24 am
“EU plans to spend 1 Billion Euros on renewables and power lines to transfer energie from solar farms in the Sahara and wind farms in the northern sea. Money taken from the people by frightening them with the CO2 lie. ”
besso, i suppose you are German and mean trillion (German Billion is American trillion – a frequent mistake).
anorak2 says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:18 am
[About the German Die Linke / The Left :]
“I never denied they are socialists. They are. But you said they were communists, which they’re not. ”
That remains to be seen – they have been working on their party programme for a number of years now and are not done yet.
I guess it’s a tough paint job to hide the communist core values in weasel words. A member of The Left that i happen to know personally (don’t ask) told me “Marx was right in everything” and elaborated that the Chinese never were true communists, because according to Marx, you first have to go through capitalism before you can reach communism.
Go figure. For me, that’s as communist as Coca-Cola is capitalist.
johanna says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:09 am
“What I find so astonishing about this is that American political debate is very robust, including a lot of untrue and absurd personal vilification, on both sides.”
I live in Germany and I am confused about the article and some comments. Does another Germany exist on this planet? You are writing about a Germany I do not recognize.
Let’s try to explain:
Any party in German parliament has the right to ask questions (!) to the government and the government has the duty to answer them.
What’s wrong to pose some questions? I think, it would be more interesting to discuss the answers of the government. Do you know, how we in Germany call this procedure? It’s simply part of democracy, some people here seem to be thinking of democrazy.
By the way:
No newspaper and no citizen in Germany is really interested in either the questions or the answers. Oh, that’s wrong, you have found some.
johanna says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:09 am
“What I find so astonishing about this is that American political debate is very robust, including a lot of untrue and absurd personal vilification, on both sides.”
(trying again)
johanna, you should see the vitriol on the average German warmist blog. This is nothing. The Americans could call all Germans skinhead cannibal zombies, i wouldn’t care. They would be only half right.
Carl Chapman says:
November 11, 2010 at 5:23 pm
“The greens are the new Nazis. Even Hitler didn’t kill as many.”
Do I have to write down the number of victims in word war II and holocaust? Shame on you.
In 60 years of the Federal Republic of Germany the green party was 6 years represented in a government. And one of the greatest success was resisting George W. Bush in playing war in Iraq. I’m proud of it. Seems to be sensible and successful investing in green energies instead of wasting money in useless wars.
@anorak2
I get where you’re coming from. I supported the German Green Party until they got into government and proved themselves to be more interested in power than their principles; last straw for me was when they admitted sanctioning illegal arms deals.
Die Linke was never an option for me, couldn’t help suspecting the lot of them of wishing the same East German system back they’d been fighting until 1989. Not that I found it that dreadful, I was too young, but I don’t want it back all the same.
After looking at the climate change issue closer, I lost all sympathy even for the British Greens. Their manifesto is way too anti-science for me. I supported the LibDems instead, and if you follow what’s going on in the UK right now, it’s another sell-out for power, hopefully swiftly followed by a massive loss of voter support. They’ve lost mine, that’s for sure.
Might be interesting doing the test on the Political Compass website: http://www.politicalcompass.org/index