An interesting essay written by “Zombie” of Zombietime fame has a climate change component worth noting. I don’t agree with all of it, but it does explain some behavior we have seen in the past decade.
“Zombie” writes:
I recently wrote an essay called “Progressive Racism: The Hidden Motive Driving Modern Politics”, and in the essay I had a section about “climate change” with a thesis you might find intriguing.
CLIMATE CHANGE
- Progressive position:
- Institute a variety of penalties, taxes and incentives all designed to discourage production and use of carbon-derived energy by industrialized nations.
- False public rationale offered by progressives to justify their position:
- This is not a political position: it’s simply a scientific fact that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels then the resulting greenhouse gases will render the planet uninhabitable.
- Conservatives’ inaccurate theory of progressives’ real intent:
- This so-called “crisis” is just the latest in a long series of fabricated environmental pseudo-crises not based on fact but on an irrational Luddite loathing of civilization; your wildly exaggerated hysteria about “global warming” is merely a mechanism to manipulate and control the citizenry and cripple the economy.
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Viewed globally, the real long-term consequence of all the “climate change”-related policy proposals is to transfer massive amounts of wealth from the First World developed nations to the Third World underdeveloped nations, while simultaneously crippling the ability of the developed world to maintain its economic dominance.
What could motivate this seemingly suicidal economic policy by First-World progressives? In a word: Guilt. Specifically, “white guilt” by Europeans (and those descended from Europeans) for having unfairly exploited backward regions and non-white peoples over the last few centuries to establish white economic hegemony over the rest of the world.
This rationale is openly discussed at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conferences, where representatives of Third World nations demand payback and reparations for colonialist exploitation, and where the descendants of those colonialists grovel in abject apology for the wrongdoings of their ancestors.
But deeply embedded in those apologies and guilt is a racism that far surpasses even the naive racism of yesteryear.
If you enter into competition with a rival you deem approximately equal in skill to yourself, and then you win fair and square, then it would never occur to you to apologize for winning nor would you feel guilty about it — because it was a fair fight. On the other hand, if you compete against and then easily defeat an opponent whose very nature you believe makes them inescapably inferior to you — for example, getting in a fistfight with a small child — then afterwards you might very well feel guilty and apologize for taking advantage of a lesser opponent who had no chance against you due to their inherent inadequacy.
So when a modern progressive apologizes for his ancestors’ past colonialist dominance, he is really saying: “I’m so sorry that we smart organized aggressive white people took advantage of you lesser peoples whose inherent cultural and intellectual shortcomings made you incapable of fending us off: it wasn’t a fair fight, and I apologize.”
In other words: Apologizing is an unconscious backhanded way of declaring your innate superiority.
If these modern progressives felt that their ancestors had achieved global dominance by defeating rivals of equal stature, then there’d be nothing to feel guilty about, and thus no need to pay reparations and hence no need to devise the “climate change” crisis and attendant suicidal economic policies.
Full essay here:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2014/03/10/progressive-racism-the-hidden-motive-driving-modern-politics/
My mantra is “Trade not aid”. Giving charity money to African and other countries stops them from building up an industry and developing themselves out of their poverty. Trade barriers also hinder this.
What we should be doing is exploiting them. We should be using their cheap labour because in the long term it means that they can grow businesses and factories and all the other things that we in the west have already gone through.
China has done this and the wages of the workers are growing at 25%/year, so much so that China is now looking at Africa for it’s cheap labour. The Chinese don’t have this guilt trip to worry about and can exploit the Africans.
I remember seeing on Top Gear all the roads that Chinese money is helping to build. That’s what we should be doing, not giving money that force subsistence farmers to stay subsistence farmers eking out a living and depending on not having droughts and disease.
We should be kicking them off their land so that they work in factories and allowing big farms to make maximum economic use of the land. The workers can then earn enough to get consistent good food and health and living accommodation.
Sarc on/
Be patient comrade. Soon Germany and the other EU countries industries will be hamstrung and we can take it all and they would have done it to themselves…..!!
‘Guilt’ – may be some in the mix. Then perhaps the Babylonian Syndrome – an arrogance and over estimation of not only our impact but our abilities, a delusion fed and pumped by the progressive Green left in the name of ‘save the planet’. The goal – the installation of global socialist governance in the hands of UN Agenda 21 funded by growing environmental taxes and levies. You’ll be deluded you have democratic influence, but this will be strictly limited to the election local community governance. Few will be privileged to even glimpse let alone be part of an unelected progressive bureaucratic monster at the centre of the world. No one will see the tiny handful of elite at the pinnacle.
Spurn this as you would a rabid dog.
Manny nailed it. Props to you, friend.
It feels like a religious belief because it is. Left liberals are just as human as the rest of us. This means they have a “belief” center in their brain, something that tells them there is something bigger and more important than their individual distance. For some, left or right, it is stronger than others. Righties gravitate towards a more traditionalist haven to express it, while lefties see that omnipotent power that being fulfilled by the State.
I believe in a God, but take a very deist approach to the issue. What grinds my gears about liberals is how they not only refuse to believe that they are akin to hard-core Evangelists, but also that they have the advantage in our society. These days, religion has a diminished voice and is easy to avoid the influence of if you so choose, but the power of the government over my life only grows and it matters not if I choose to believe.
While the separation of church and State is vital to a free society, the separation of State and individual is getting narrower everyday and few seem to care; many, no doubt the Greenies, rather welcome with open arms. I do fear for the future.
Karl Popper capped off his seminal development of falsification as the criterion of demarcation with the equally powerful Open Society and Its Enemies, and The Poverty of Historicism. ‘Open Society’ is a powerful critique of the dialectic as syllogism leading to historicist prophesy.
In my eyes there are a few types of people driving CAGW – those that are making the money, guys who are grabbing power and/or prestige and the useful idiots. In the first category you have the green energy companies, oil companies, guys like Al Gore and Elon Musk; the second contains the IPCC, Michael Mann (although he falls in Category 3 as well) and other scientists, and Obama; the final category is filled with every guy on the internet who says we have to do something (while not doing anything themselves).
It’s a cause that fulfills the needs of a lot of people in a lot of ways, trying to pigeon-hole it into white guilt doesn’t come close to being complete.
Can our sins become absolved by renouncing CO2 and saying three Our Fathers? (our father being AL Gore, that is)
Yup … HK being an example of “white guilt”. What were we thinking?
It’s a false premise, though. Imagine Africa, for instance, had never seen Europeans. Would living standards be higher or lower than today? This is an extremely easy question to answer.
The real foundational error of progressivism is pretty simple: incentives. By rewarding economic incompetence, progressivism becomes a cultural mechanism that advocates for dysfunction. Culpability for economic incompetence (where progressivism spends so much of its time) is irrelevant. Behavioral reality knows only one iron law: Whatever is subsidized is promoted.
When the First World nations have de-industrialized, and our civilization lies in ruins, what wealth will be left to transfer?
The fundamental error of progressivism are its unintended consequences.
“God helps those who help themselves!”
Hezekiah 6:1
This verse, of course, is not in the Bible. Hezekiah sounds plausible enough, but is not a real book of scripture. “Yeah! That’s from the book of Hezekiah, isn’t it?” is the code-word for these kinds of phantom texts.
This would seem old news by now, but just recently a friend of ours was scandalized when we told her this “verse” did not exist.
More important, this “verse” is unbiblical in its meaning. It is exactly the opposite of the message of scripture.
Jer 17:5 (NIV) This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD.”
Prov 28:26 (NIV) He who trusts in himself is a fool…
Per:
http://www.acts17-11.com/cows_helps.html
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New news to me.
Does it negate the meaning ?
Could you break that s##t down into some English language version that we can all share?
“God helps those who help themselves!”
Hezekiah 6:1
The shoplifter’s charter !
Oh well. It’s a neat little theory but that’s all it is. It reminds of the equally unsubstantiated theories of Lewandowsky. (On a side note, I always pronounce his name “Levandovski” – it seems more fitting for one so rooted in the USSR school of psychology.)
Anyone who imagines that “wealth redistribution” via a non mandated body with no accountability and safely outside of all jurisdictions in the world will result in anything other than total corruption obviously did not get the recommended slap on the arse when they were born. They are still in some foetal dream.
The only wealth redistribution that will happen will be in favour of bankers, bureaucrats and third world cleptocratic dictators.
The religious suggestions fit my opinion. As a life-long democrat, and a Christian for a bit over ten years, and as a scientist, and someone who has worked as a paid environmentalist, with many friends in these camps, I can see all of this well.
My view is this: The Judeo-Christian God is genuine, as, generally, is the theology.
Each of us can either fall in line with this reality, or we are doomed to re-create it.
The ways that either the materialistic/intellectual educated class, or the socially-savvy educated class, attempt to re-create, or parallel, the God-determined human experience, are many.
The Tower of Babel story is the most obvious example: let’s build a building that gets us up so high, we see from God’s perspective – and so don’t need to listen to God.
Adam/Eve eating the forbidden fruit in order to have the view of God is yet another straight-forward example.
There are numerous examples. The climate models emerge from prophets – those who can foresee the future. The disasters to befall us are very similar to those noted in Revelation – specifically, upon the opening of the seventh seal. The one disaster NOT predicted by Revelation, but predicted by the AGW scare-mongers, is this: death by flood. Curiously, God promises we won’t die this way ever again after the Flood.
We are trying to re-define the family, we are trying to re-define where life comes from, we are trying to re-define virtue and guilt. God wants us to multiply and fill the earth, but we believe we need to control population. God gives us stewardship over animals, and we believe we should not eat meat. God places us in a special role above other animals, and Pete Singer makes us equal, or less than equal to animals, giving animal rights precedence above us. Words are very important and powerful in God’s eyes, having spoken the world into existence and identifying Jesus as the Word, yet the speech od us liberals is filled with “you know,” imprecise terms, and well-peppered with curse words that should be accepted, not frowned-upon. God acknowledged and recognized ethnicities and nations, and we have decided there should be none. God produced on people/nation out of one person – Abram, and we have upped God by making a people and nation out of none: the manufacture of the Palestinian people/nation. I could go on and on, since this is a pet topic of mine. But this type of virtue-structure between Judeo-Christianity, and those who are so educated to know better, is uncanny.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Thanks, A. An interesting article.
I do agree there is a sick psychological component to the belief. And the perception of guilt has been successfully used as a driver by religions and cults since man appeared on Earth.
Now I understand why I don’t understand ‘progressives’.
Well there are yeas and nays for the essay. I think it is a good mix of both and depends where you are in the scheme of things. There is the “Gee, look what we are doing to the planet”. as a motivation for soci_alist ideology to garner control in a New World Order (the prominent places of such as Maurice Strong and Soros in all this stuff is clear). With it goes the desire to destroy wealth and capitalism – they look at the underpinnings of prosperity and the chief one is cheap abundant energy – down with Nuclear, coal, fossil fuels – they are now getting shrill on fracking because this revolution promises to usher in a new era of properity even if they have killed off coal (temporarily). Progressives lefties are opportunists of the worst kind. They know CAGW is looking more and more ridiculous but it represents too big a taxing opportunity to let go of.
Now the guilt of the ra_cist. It is definitely getting a lot of action, only partly for a dishonest rationale for massive “redistribution” (and therefore utter destruction of wealth). I have worked in Africa at various periods between 1964 and 2000 – not as an NGO which is no small part of the New World Order crew – and I have seen this in operation. The attitude in aid programs is all very feel good, but it does engender the notion of inferiority of the recipients and they feel it and state it. In a discussion with a Nigerian intellectual, he marveled that Europeans (by which he meant also North Americans) didn’t understand how the black man could take their money with one hand and slap them in the face with the other. The worst example which is thought to be clever from, I believe the UN, is: (something like) “You can give a hungry man a fish a day or you can teach him how to fish so he can feed himself each day.” Teach him how to fish!!! When I first heard that piece of hubris, I was amazed at its blatant racism. Yeah, it’s there.
Gary Pearse says:
March 22, 2014 at 2:29 pm
I believe the UN, is: (something like) “You can give a hungry man a fish a day or you can teach him how to fish so he can feed himself each day.” Teach him how to fish!!! When I first heard that piece of hubris, I was amazed at its blatant racism. Yeah, it’s there.
You think that phrase is from the UN? WTF!
It’s actually an ancient Chinese proverb.
Still worked up over its “blatant racism”? Sheesh.
Nice theory and all, but wrong. Just read Agenda 21, it’s all there in black and white. CC is just a tool of Agenda 21 designed to limit our energy supply and as a result of that push us together in high rise concentration camps. Reducing the haves to the uninformed rabble of the have-nots, destroying the informed middle class, that in general opposes the socialist/communist agenda. The dumbing down of our schools with socialist busywork aids in the destruction of an informed populace, no socialist dictator wants an informed populace. We must fix our schools, we must restore competition within and amongst schools.
It’s about power, power to the unelected bureaucrats that dominate the UN bureaucracy, CC penance to the UN is the funding source for Agenda 21, guilt is just the way we are being manipulated to deliver power to them. If it were as zombie says then we would be building the third world power plants and distribution networks, not windmills, solar panels, and dung fireplaces.
Remember always, altruism is never the aim in politics, power is. In politics if anyone is behaving alruistically, then ask your self this question…
WHY?
3×2, In English: If you pay people not to work, and you tax people who do work to pay for it, then you are going to get more people who decide not to work and get paid, and fewer people who decide to work for less money.
Many commenters here given far more moral intent to those who espouse progressive ideology than it is due. A more Machiavellian model is far more accurate.
Commenters like Bob Johnston, Dirk H, Manny and others are strike far closer to the mark. No doubt many progressive/environmentalists are motivated from a self described “moral high ground”, but their narcissistic arrogance, in accordance with human nature, quickly eroded to base power politics.
History is replete with examples, one the most profound in human history was a progressive movement described quite succinctly by George Keenan a.k.a. “X” in 1947, in his essay the “The Sources Of Soviet Conduct,”
Which can be found at: http://www.historyguide.org/europe/kennan.html
Keenen illuminated the evolution of the USSR’s communist leaders ideals resulting in a pure struggle to consolidate power (and wealth) at the expense of the welfare of the people.
“They doubtless believed — and found it easy to believe — that they alone knew what was good for society and that they would accomplish that good once their power was secure and unchallengeable. But in seeking that security of their own rule they were prepared to recognize no restrictions, either of God or man, on the character of their methods. And until such time as that security might be achieved, they placed far down on their scale of operational priorities the comforts and happiness of the peoples entrusted to their care.”
This same description is eerily similar to the dynamics of the progressive/environmental movement affecting western nations today. Though there is a token movement of wealth to third world nations, the majority of the wealth finds its way only to a very select few, mostly those who are the elite progressives of western nations, such as Al Gore, George Soros etc..
The current efforts to redistribute money form the middle class and poor of the developed nations to the elite progressives aka Climate warmists, will last only until they find more effective methods. Yet whatever the party line, until their ends are achieved they will not tolerate decent, or debate of their political/environmental position. They demand profound credulity from their followers, and they seek to silence their opponents by belittling, pseudo-shaming, and persistent multidirectioal attacks.
If one were to replace “Communist” with “Progressive”, and “Soviet” with “Environmental” then Keenan’s words about the communists in 1947 are perfectly applicable today, revealing a dynamic that so frustrates global warming skeptics, that the progressives do not deal in objective reality bur rather pure relativism.
“On the principle of infallibility there rests the iron discipline of the Communist (Progressive) Party. In fact, the two concepts are mutually self-supporting. Perfect discipline requires recognition of infallibility. Infallibility requires the observance of discipline. And the two go far to determine the behaviorism of the entire Soviet (Environmental) apparatus of power. But their effect cannot be understood unless a third factor be taken into account: namely, the fact that the leadership is at liberty to put forward for tactical purposes any particular thesis which it finds useful to the cause at any particular moment and to require the faithful and unquestioning acceptance of that thesis by the members of the movement as a whole. This means that truth is not a constant but is actually created, for all intents and purposes, by the Soviet (Progressive) leaders themselves. It may vary from week to week, from month to month. It is nothing absolute and immutable — nothing which flows from objective reality. It is only the most recent manifestation of the wisdom of those in whom the ultimate wisdom is supposed to reside, because they represent the logic of history. The accumulative effect of these factors is to give to the whole subordinate apparatus of Soviet power an unshakable stubbornness and steadfastness in its orientation.”
Keenen made many germane observations of human nature in a progressive movement and is worth reading for his profound insight. The context of his essay was a geopolitical conflict between the USSR and the western powers, namely the United States, but his insights are still relevant today.
Yo, “Zom” bee,
You know who here to say hi.
If “Lt. for life John F.Kerry says it true , then we all know it is a total made up fraud of an award and citation.
Now Europe took the lie “hook line and sinker” cut coal power, cut nukes, no fracking, no oil and gas drilling. Now they have to toe Putins line of freeze to death and not have any manufracutring aka stuff to sell.
You should be able to pull up some photos of the start of “Earth Frist” and trace the more radical of them straight to the “Commie Red Book Kooks”.
The U.N. is a lie and their number one lie is this Climate Change lie to tax and spend other peoples money.
Have a nice day.
ps I still have a sock active on lgf’s and Charles does talk to my sock direct on the blog and has no idea it is me.
sweet