Tim Blair writes at The Telegraph blogs about weepy Bill McKibben as examined by a specialist.
![BillMcKibben%28photocreditSteveLiptay%29-lowres[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/billmckibben28photocreditsteveliptay29-lowres1.jpg?quality=83)
Stanley Kurtz examines our old pal Bill McKibben, whose warming obsession evolved from his cravings for victimhood:
In a 1996 piece titled “Job and Matthew,” McKibben describes his arrival at college in 1978 as a liberal-leaning student with a suburban Protestant background. “My leftism grew more righteous in college,” he says, “but still there was something pro forma about it.” The problem? “Being white, male, straight, and of impeccably middle-class background, I could not realistically claim to be a victim of anything.”
At one point, in what he calls a “loony” attempt to claim the mantle of victimhood, McKibben nearly convinced himself that he was part Irish so he could don a black armband as Bobby Sands and fellow members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army died in a hunger strike. Yet even as he failed to persuade himself he was Irish, McKibben continued to enthusiastically support every leftist-approved victim group he could find. Nonetheless, something was missing. None of these causes seemed truly his own. When McKibben almost single-handedly turned global warming into a public issue in 1989, his problem was solved. Now everyone could be a victim …
Global warming allows the upper-middle-class to join the proletariat, cloaking erstwhile oppressors in the mantle of righteous victimhood.
Good call.
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For the record, IMHO and based on some of his current behavior, I’m pretty sure Bill McKibben is becoming a danger to himself and others.
Related articles
- Bill McKibben’s excellent eco-hypocrisy (wattsupwiththat.com)
- The Wannabe Oppressed (educationviews.org)
- Despite being disgusted with Gore for selling out to Al Jazeera, Warmist Bill McKibben’s global warming documentary to premier on fossil fuel funded Al Jazeera (climatedepot.com)
- This week’s ‘Al Gore Jr. Eco-Hypocrisy Award’ goes to 350.org founder Bill McKibben [pic] (twitchy.com)
h/t to Verity Jones
Bill lives in Vermont where all the other looney victim want-to-bes support his craziness like make art work from poems to mother earth written by children and some adults with the mentality of children, or starting a conference on global warming by singing Amazing Grace.
Some talk here about “Original Sin”
Was this not the sin that got Adam & Eve evicted from Eden?
Eve did it. She ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Knowledge is sin. Ergo Humanity is sin.
Talk about a no-win situation.
Caring shows moral superiority. To suffer is to care. To suffer more is to care more.
If he really cared, he would add ritual public self-flagellation to his repertoire. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/flagellants.htm
I love the 10/10 video. Can you imagine if we did one like that – even sarcastically – blowing up global warming alarmists? We would be accused of murderous intent, violence, likelihood of terrorist actions, etc. But from the left, it’s just a “joke.”
RobRoy says:
October 17, 2013 at 9:18 am
Some talk here about “Original Sin”
Was this not the sin that got Adam & Eve evicted from Eden?
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You may be right about Adam and Eve. I’d never heard the term “original sin” until a Catholic lady first mentioned it. I married her, Then, I found out about guilt.
@Alan Robertson – you do not have to marry a Catholic lady to find out about guilt. 😉
Pamela Gray says:
October 17, 2013 at 7:28 am
My public school surely does NOT teach victimhood.
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Bet Robin could prove you wrong. Just because the measurement system is insensitive does not mean the phenomena does not exist. BTW, promoting victimhood mentality is a goal of Critical Theory.
The hypocrisy is what really gets to me. I can handle someone having strongly-held beliefs in a position different to mine (happens all the time) but I absolutely hate these clowns blaming it all on capitalism and the money-men when happily lining their pockets with greenbacks.
And the impressionable young swallow this BS with gusto.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/02/14/rockefellers-behind-scruffy-little-outfit/
@observa –
In re the story about demolishing the bird killers and view despoilers – I can only say, “yee-HAW!!!”
Sic semper wind turbines!!
Charles Nelson said: “The idea of ‘original sin’ is deeply engrained in the Christian consciousness.
It is inextricably linked with being born. Breathing air and exhaling CO2 is simply a modified form of ‘original sin’.”
Were you to consider original sin as an hypothesis and then test it against history, it would be an extraordinarily well-validated hypothesis. And, were you to use it to make predictions about more dreadful behavior by humans over the next 20 years, it would almost certainly be validated again.
OTOH, the hypothesis that breathing air and driving SUV’s will cause catastrophic warming neither fits the past in a robust manner nor has it been able to make useful predictions about the future (until, of course, the future has arrived and the models are refit).
These ideas do share in common the notion that “something is wrong us.” They may share that because in fact, something is wrong us–we do not behave as a species or as individuals as we know we should–and we know that on both a gut level and empirically. I view the “we are murdering Gaia by existing” folks as knowing that truth in their gut but needing to fit it into a post-modern, hip worldview.
Alchemy and Natural Philosophy shared some common basic ideas (e.g, causation and natural order) and common practitioners (eg Sir Isaac Newton). But one turned out to be nonsense and the other one of the key building blocks of modern science. So I would not trivialize original sin by putting it in the same box as the murdering-Gaia-by-existing concept.
What a bizarre psychology that has a person need to claim to be a victim. Very weird indeed.
The problem? “Being white, male, straight, and of impeccably middle-class background, I could not realistically claim to be a victim of anything.”
Except maybe a victimhood worldview laced with stupidity.
I think he’ll look good in a straight jacket when the time comes, as it surely will. The man is deranged with delusions of grandeur and comparison with some of human kinds worst dictators is all too easy. Personally I cannot stomach the man, he doesn’t appear to have a single redeeming feature, he is just plain old nasty. He behaves like a spoilt child throwing his toys out of the pram. His followers demonstrate the classic behaviour of those in Milgrams experiment, just sheeple each and everyone of them, incapable of applying critical thought processes.
Describes almost all of these guys. They fancy themselves as some kind of hero in a climate war. God forbid they actually did something that actually tests you enough so you are wondering where your next breath is coming from, not to mention your next meal from grant money
This is a remarkable, insightful thread on human psychology, probably because professional psychologists aren’t among the contributors. A friend of mine summed up all of psychology in three words uttered in several of its permutations: I am here. Here am I! Here I am. Am I here? Bill seems to fit into all three. Having read Lewandowski, I have no reason to think we need more than these three words for this corrupted ology.
Pamela Gray says:
October 17, 2013 at 7:28 am
“My public school surely does NOT teach victimhood. Where the hell do people get this public school information from????”
Probably (from reading many of your comments) your experience was with a country school. Urban/suburban schools in middle class neighborhoods do at least teach that “we” are to blame for all the the earthly ills (not the children themselves but their parents). Victimhood is a product of this kind of teaching. I don’t believe the teachers themselves are even aware of this. They believe all this socialist stuff. Evils like global warming aren’t analyzed and questioned. It is expected that we are doing all these horrible things. Their minds just incorporate it because they have been set that way by their schooling and university experience.
A niece of mine back in the late 60s was given a “research” topic about pollution caused by sawmills by the sawdust burners in the Fraser delta of British Columbia and she asked me to help. So I got her an appointment for an interview with one of the sawmill operators to hear his side of the story. He advised that they used to burn sawdust but these days it’s too valuable. They make particle board and chip board out of the waste. He gave us a tour of the plant and it was remarkably clean with that beautiful perfume of freshly-sawn lumber permeating the plant. The workers and we ourselves were wearing dust masks, even though there wasn’t much dust to be seen in this mill. She wrote a report on all things the sawmills were doing to protect the environment and health and safety so we could build our houses with wood without the many earlier concerns. She got a “B” despite the fact that she was likely one of the few to put in such an effort to see and hear the facts.
No Pamela, no one is saying it is blatantly obvious. This stuff is insidious for the way it is inculcated.
“”At one point, in what he calls a “loony” attempt to claim the mantle of victimhood, McKibben nearly convinced himself that he was part Irish so he could don a black armband as Bobby Sands and fellow members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army died in a hunger strike””.
WOW!
He support/condones terrorists actions!!! plenty of victims of that in the world.
Perhaps he needs to be reminded of this fawning of terrorists next time he tell skeptics we are all murderers or such like.
Gary Pearse says:
October 17, 2013 at 11:59 am
This is a remarkable, insightful thread on human psychology, probably because professional psychologists aren’t among the contributors. A friend of mine summed up all of psychology in three words uttered in several of its permutations: I am here. Here am I! Here I am. Am I here? Bill seems to fit into all three. Having read Lewandowski, I have no reason to think we need more than these three words for this corrupted ology.
Pamela Gray says:
October 17, 2013 at 7:28 am
“My public school surely does NOT teach victimhood. Where the hell do people get this public school information from????”
Probably (from reading many of your comments) your experience was with a country school. Urban/suburban schools in middle class neighborhoods do at least teach that “we” are to blame for all the the earthly ills (not the children themselves but their parents). Victimhood is a product of this kind of teaching. I don’t believe the teachers themselves are even aware of this.
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My thoughts were similar to Pamela Gray’s. My 1-12 (no K in the dark ages) didn’t teach victimhood, they were too busy trying to turn us into literate human beings. But that was 1965 and earlier in a small southern town. We were also closer to WWII and real victims were fresher in memory. My university was a science, ag and engineering school. In the decade I was there, I don’t recall much in the way of victimhood, other than the way some professors graded. I do recall some displeasure with Viet Nam, but math, physics and chemistry didn’t lend themselves to indoctrination on victimhood. I’m glad I was oblivious to the Brave New World. I’m afraid my youngest got the full course.
Political debate about ones of the “left side” claiming of victimhood can push people away from the main climate advocacy cause in this forum. In some cases, including people whose views are not-so-left in terms of gun rights, producing wealth, and climate science, the victimhood is actuality.
For example, a boy growing up gay in a conservative American familiy, with a conservative house of worship, in a conservative neighborhood, with a conservative (or otherwise unwilling/unable to stop bullying) public school or a Catholic one, at a time when it was plenty politically correct to bash gays. This sounds to me like an actual recent cause of mental illness, suicides, and Americans voting Democrat.
Let’s get the climate change debate back to climate science. I think even exposing gaffes of non-technical nature by big-name players in the climate change debate are not data on the atmosphere, oceans, sun, etc. I wish for as little as that extreme to be the limit of political debate in what I thought was supposed to be a scientific forum.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
October 17, 2013 at 1:32 pm
The hypocrisies, lies & crimes of non-scientist CACA “communicators” like Bill, Al, Steve, Jack & Joe are IMO surely relevant to the debate, especially as they make the lives of climate realists an issue.
I didn’t know there was/is such a thing. Are there genetic tests? Documented bloodlines?
I suspect the real issue is this:
CAGW fear could apply even to the most uncommon bland indoor western civilization spawn.
It would seem that the only thing he is a victim of is false blame for:
Somehow, I doubt he’ll file suit. Not mortifying enough. Perhaps we should ask him what penance he should do personally. Trips, travel, speaking engagements, chanting groupies, etcetera can not be considered punishment for his upbringing and self shame.
*hands globe to McKibben*
Now show me where on the globe the climate touched you…
Very good post. As time goes by the more I am curious about the psychological aspect of the “warming alarmists”. For the most part, it seems like people in McKibbens age group, and of the same psychological makeup who are trying to control the discussion of climate change and environmentalism. For the most part, I think they are mentally ill!!!!!!
I don’t understand why he thinks that he needs to be a victim to be a leftist. Anyone who is concerned with fairness can decide that left-wing politics will attain that end, and you do not have to suffer from unfairness to be concerned with fairness.
Chad Wozniak says:
October 17, 2013 at 10:07 am
Sic semper wind turbines!!
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This translates as “Thus always wind turbines”. Perhaps you mean: “Sic transit wind turbines!” ie good riddance to them!
Angst.