It seems that climate advocate Bill McKibben has jumped the shark. As evident on the 350.org website, it is no longer about climate in any way shape or form, of course, based on past behavior, it probably never was. Just have a look at some of the recent pronouncements from the 350.org website:
and from two days ago…
Listen to what McKibben and some of his fellow protestors have to say:
But even our own Willis Eschenbach thinks the XL pipeline issue is ridiculous, because there is really only one question: Where will the oil be burned?
I think this image sums up this farce pretty well:
I wonder what corporate airline Bill McKibben uses to jet around the world to speak of the evils of CO2 and corporations?
The only thing missing from the picture (though it is likely in there somewhere) is Apple Corporation, purveyor of (in my opinion, highly overpriced) computers which have an almost fanatical following in some circles.Now before you launch into an automatic Mac-vs-PC war, please read why I’m pointing this out.
Apple is company number one (according to Bloomberg) in growth and revenue, and #1 in tech (according to NYT) but the same people who complain about Wall Street, think nothing of getting fleeced by Apple for a computer you can buy for about a third of the price elsewhere.
While everyone is free to choose what computer works best for them, I find that lack of labeling of Apple as a “greedy corporation” very ironic, particularly in light of the worker abuse, child labor problems and environmental problems left in the wake of the manufacturing of Apple’s products in China. It is doubly ironic that some of the loudest and most acidic voices about climate and greed, are Apple product users, and raise not a peep about such problems. Apple gets a pass, probably because the Goreacle endorses the company and sits on its board.
But that’s a side issue, especially when one of the most intelligent and reasonable persons I know, WUWT author Willis Eschenbach, is a Mac user. I only point out Apple Corporation in this context because the occupy protesters and climate activists don’t see the very profitable and ethically/ecologically questionable Apple Corporation as being in the same class of evil corporations they protest for the very same reasons.
The real issue with “occupy” is the lack of rational thought and direction by this “movement”. Even the MSM and some university newspapers are noticing this. For example, watch this video from “occupyAtlanta”. They are actually proud of making a civil rights leader leave.
And in case you were wondering about the political angle, be sure to recite the Marxist chant:
The mindless droning has spread to Seattle:
They may as well be chanting Imhotep Imhotep! Imhotep!!
There’s a name for people like this: useful idiots.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
That Seattle get together had the feel of a religious revival. Call and response of the snakeoil evangelist.
Useful idiots. The perfect description of emotional Manics blindly reacting without thinking.
Frustration without rational thought.
michael says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Exactly. This is 99% about getting Obama re-elected. It’s not like he can run on his record.
__________________________________________________________
Never thought of that. But you could be correct.
The Blair-Rockefeller Poll conducted after the mid term elections showed the Democrats are losing the traditional base of support among older voters who “….vote in high percentages, compared to younger cohorts, clear support for the Democratic Party is confined largely to African Americans…. If these trends continue, the 2012 presidential election will require the Democratic Party to continue to bring young, and often unreliable, voters to the polls.” http://blairrockefellerpoll.uark.edu/5292.php
The “Tea Party”/Ron Paul supporters are the group who are anti-Federal Reserve, anti-big government and against the Mega-corporations/government collusion often called neo-corporatism. This looks like a smearing of that message and converting it into a “socialist” message to confuse the youngsters who get caught up in the drama of it all.
Big Al, and the Gorcs……
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/we-will-roc-you/
Steele says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Precisely. Foaming at the mouth right-wingers (like the Tea Party) see big business and government colluding to screw regular people over, and they somehow get the weird notion that the problem is the government.
Peaceful, nonviolent, well groomed moderates (like the Occupy Wall Street crowd) see the same thing but they understand that big business are the ones who have guns and can put you into jail for not using their product correctly.
I’d also like to point out for the record that if standing around chanting slogans doesn’t count as “fighting for change” then why is Manhattan under water? Why have we had a record number of hurricanes making landfall this year? Their pithy slogans are causing climate change, and that’s what 350.org is in favour of.
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Seems both the left (occupy wall street folks) and the right (tea party folks) are just generally angry.
====================================================================
Well, their are marked differences between the two, hygiene not being the least. Respect for the law, and general decent respect for local venders and general cleanliness in care for the areas of the rallies. Oh, yeh, one other thing……… the Taxed Enough Already party actually has specific areas when peacefully assembling when asking for redress from the government.
Grizzled Bear says:
October 9, 2011 at 12:53 pm
“And when major corporations like GE can get away with paying little or no taxes, that’s just plain wrong. ”
That was an effect of losses they incurred the year before.
Of course they don’t have the remotest idea of what they are talking about. Everyone of the mentioned corporations either actively or tacitly supports AGW remediation. Most drastically. GS is the primary carbon trader in the USA. The established oil companies love the artificial scarcity created bu CO2 hysteria.
350 methodology. Find a parade, stand at the front, and pretend everyone is following you. Hijack the movement for your own benefit.
There is an economic problem in the US and Europe. A lot of investment money is sitting on the sidelines, largely as a result of uncertainty over public policy. As a result we are told we have a “debt crisis”.
However, what we really have is a policy crisis. The money is there, it is simply sitting on the sidelines due to uncertainty. Politicians in the US and Europe continue to live in a world where you can replace CO2 with taxes and the economy will create jobs. Investors are not convinced, so there is no money to finance the debt to pay the taxes. Thus there are no jobs.
This is most obvious when you compare China, the US and Europe. Historically economic prosperity has been tied to CO2 production and there has been no recent development or technological breakthrough that would change this. The growth of all three economies, along with the relative change in prosperity of the citizens, remains in lock step with their CO2 production.
CO2 levels in Europe and the US are down about 7% annually, while at the same time CO2 levels are up about 13% annually in China. At this rate the prosperity of the citizens of the US and the EU will be cut in half over the next 10 years, while the prosperity of the citizens of China will quadruple. This mirrors what we are seeing.
Love this interview on the CBC (!) with “Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author Chris Hedges”, who has clear Marxist sympathies in his defence of the “occupiers”. Best part is Kevin O’Leary taking Hedges to task, and Hedge’s descent into incoherence. :-> Must-see TV.
Envy, misplaced anger, entitlement society, a need for drama, way too much time on ones hands, and a coddling political class.
The anger part I get, but why not protest in front of the White House or Congress, where the policies that enabled human greed to run rampant in the housing sector, were born.
Time to face facts, the Government has no more money to hand out.
Get a job, your payroll taxes can then help pay off Government promises.
Do it for the children, it was done for you.
Rant/
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:17 pm
People are angry, R. Gates, just plain ordinary people who have been abandoned by thier leaders.
The streets are no different than the blogs, with trolls aplenty out to misdirect and steal the movements.
People are getting wise to the game. There is no list of grievances for a William Jennings Bryan to sell to the Democrats and Republicans for the express purpose of disbanding the protest and absorbing the platform as thier own.
Irregardless of the matter at hand, whether Science or Politics or Economy, the selling of Agenda Swaps is losing it’s customers. Junk Issue salesmen, like Al Gore, are feeling the pain, so now we find one Bill McKibben out in the street hawking his wares.
The days of consensus sales are numbered.
100 years of occupation?
In Vancouver (BC, Canada) they are also planning an “Occupation”. Canada also has useful idiots. Our economy is not doing bad but again.
I live in the Fraser Valley and there are lots of vegetables and fruits to pick up. The people doing the picking are easily recognizable. They have turbans and are usually dark skinned. They often come on a seasonal work visa and go back to their country at the end of the season with loads of money.
If those people wearing tagged clothes and having the latest tech gadget don’t have anything else to do and complain they don’t have money could just take a ride to the area, there are plenty of jobs here. You don’t need to live in a big mega-city.
There are lots of jobs out there, just don’t be so picky and difficult. I don’t see those people in the fields complaining… on the contrary.
… and this is not sarcasm.
Useful Idiots is the correct term. The term was apparently coined by V.I. Lenin in reference to western liberals.
What really gets me about these wall street protesters is the zombie chant repetition of everything they are told by their “leaders”.
What is that about? It just makes them look and sound stupid.
What the zombies in NYC, Atlanta and elsewhere are protesting about is that there has been no global protest movement since the Vietnam war. So climate change is the designer cause du jour for the rebel without a cause, 2011 edition. Oh, and something rad about Wall Street … something, something, mumble, mumble. This is what you get when rebellion skips a generation. As we say in Australia, give us a spell!
Is an astrotruf movement, and the high level acceptance and credulity given to it by much of the media any surprise since we have a self-described “community organizer” serving as President?
OWS, corporate shakedowns, greenmail, etc. are all the tools of “community organizing”.
We are seeing only the tip of the iceberg.
The Tea Party really scared the lefties: How dare middle class tax payers actually agitate and demand anything other than the right to pay their taxes and do as they are told by their progressive betters?
So, we have the extreme left agitating in their incoherent whining fashion, and more and more pseudo-scientific groups like 350 will join in.
It will be massively entertaining and maybe a bit dangerous before it plays out. The lefties that are carrying out our President’s deepest wishes don’t see themselves as the losers they actually are. They delude themselves that they are heroic revolutionaries.
Leon Brozyna says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:04 pm
One of those spontaneous outpourings of emotion, by people against everything, who see conspiracies everywhere, and who spend months organizing a movement that appears to spring up overnight. Once it catches the media’s eye, it’s becomes birds of a feather all flocking together.
________________________________________________________
II agree with you that it was probably organized. However there are protests all over the place especially in Washington D.C. The Media ONLY films those that are “On Message” as determined by their board of directors/owners.
Main Stream Media Control:
U.S. Congressional Record February 9, 1917: J.P. Morgan interests bought control of the media. http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Morgan-Buys-Newspapers9feb17.htm
JP Morgan: Our next big media player? (April 13, 2010) JP Morgan controls 54 U.S. daily newspapers,and owns 31 television stations. http://www.newsandtech.com/dougs_page/article_f3a45be0-4717-11df-aace-001cc4c03286.html
Then there is MSNBC, Comcast and General Electric not to mention the interlocking board of directors.
http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/prostitution-journalism-yup-mainstream-media-is-intentional-propaganda-accept-the-evidence
http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
@polistra says at 12:50 pm “The carbon bandwagon has been pulled by Wall Street speculators who see an entirely new market for derivatives and securitization.”
For at least the last decade, “global warming” and “climate change” have been exclusively about monetizing and taxing the air.
That covers everything one needs to know about the interests of Wall Street, DC, and the U.N.
These hippie “occupiers” are once again the ignorant dupes of those interests.
The U.S. political system is awash in corporate money. And to a lesser extent, union money.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem.
Elections must be funded with public money, and free access to broadcasting. If the government can’t be used to ensure free and fair elections, what can it be used for?
American politicians come out of elections beholden to special interests. That is wrong on its face.
It is all the same people with all the same “Agenda.” No matter how you view the climate truthers, they are all in the same camp as the others who want to crush the economy, do away with moral behavior, and by all means do away with Christianity. These people who are Occupying the streets are just goons of the same mother.
Your offhanded dismissal of this movement is very saddening. “Down with evil corporations” is not the message. “Get the big corporate money out of politics” is the message. The AGW crowd trying to get involved is irrelevant. A government of the people, by the people and for the people, not of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. I think you may have stepped out of your area of expertise on this issue. Maybe you’re unaware the your country has been looted.
The bankers got to keep their money and unload their debts onto the taxpayer and the governments went along with that, (that’s the money that gets them elected) so now 90% of the people are screwed.
As to the Apple part of the post- Not to date myself, but I really appreciated the graphical capabilities (and curve fitting capability) of cricket graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CricketGraph compared to my alternative (lotus 123) back in early 90’s. Personally, the premium price for a Mac/Apple (OS2 based system) has always been more then I have been willing to pay.
Some of the early (non-server) based experimental design software (e-chip http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=0h&oq=e-chip&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS318US318&q=e-chip+experimental, and business simulation software- Powersim 2.5 http://sydney.edu.au/science/uniserve_science/newsletter/vol8/chapman.html) -that I used were written for PC based systems as that is what most engineers used. The graphic capabilities (which I associate with the sales and marketing side of things) of the mac/apple products were the benchmark way back when. For response surface (RSM) graphics e-chip worked well for me.
You have to be living in a cave if you don’t understand what the Tea Party and the OWS crowd is protesting against. The last thirty years has seen a tremendous concentration of wealth at the top, a bubble-driven economy for the rest, and significant loss of wealth for the middle class.
This state of affairs has not come about by natural laws or divine edict. It is a result of national policy over the last 30 years. The policies in effect concentrate wealth among a few people at the top. We can change the policies.
@DirkH The Pirate Party movement is both international and quite well defined in what future they would like to see. Sweden voted a pirate into the EU parliament in 2009 and has managed to cause quite a bit of ruckus with regards to secrecy around ACTA, copyright and US influence over EU legislation.
Have a look at http://www.pp-international.net/
(This being an american blog I know everything must either be “left” or “right”, but the Pirate Party movement is neither. Refreshing)
The global warming scare was never about science, it was always about the theft of the West’s wealth by UN kleptocrats:
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
~ Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, UN/IPCC WG4