Essay by Eric Worrall
According to Monbiot, the US culture of frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger, compulsive behaviour and disregard for the environment leads to greens being scapegoated.
To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer
George Monbiot
US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican frontrunnerMon 29 Jan 2024 17.00 AEDT
…
People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.
…
If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end. This process is known as policy feedback, or the “values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled needs.
…
When a society valorises status, money, power and dominance, it is bound to generate frustration. It is mathematically impossible for everyone to be number one. The more the economic elites grab, the more everyone else must lose. Someone must be blamed for the ensuing disappointment. In a culture that worships winners, it can’t be them. It must be those evil people pursuing a kinder world, in which wealth is distributed, no one is forgotten and communities and the living planet are protected. Those who have developed a strong set of extrinsic values will vote for the person who represents them, the person who has what they want. Trump. And where the US goes, the rest of us follow.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/29/donald-trump-americans-us-culture-republican
I agree with Monbiot that left wing greens are blamed for a lot of what is wrong with today’s world, but that is because the economically illiterate policies promoted by left wing greens have repeatedly created a serious mess.
Just look at the grid stability situation in Canada, where Alberta narrowly avoided power blackouts because Saskatchewan’s fossil fuel plants generated enough excess power for Alberta to keep the lights on, after the wind and solar systems simultaneously failed during an extreme cold snap. If Saskatchewan hadn’t pushed back against Trudeau’s green energy policies, well I’ve never experienced -40C (-40F) with no power and no home heating, but I’m guessing it would have been unpleasant.
Or look at today’s gasoline pump price and home heating cost crisis in the USA, caused by the Biden administration cancelling pipelines, blocking fossil fuel leases and harassing fossil fuel companies, all in the name of saving the planet.
As for Monbiot promoting the politics of wealth redistribution and equality as a path to a better society, that really doesn’t deserve an answer, given the 10s of millions of people murdered by left wing zealots in the 20th century, during various brutal attempts to create more equality. Or who knows, maybe if we give it one more try, we’ll get it right this time? Do I need a /sarc tag?
It’s really rather sad seeing George Monbiot degenerate into writing something so hateful. I seriously considered ignoring this outburst, but Monbiot still has a significant following of people who take his rants seriously.
There was a time Monbiot wrote a few sensible pieces, like his eloquent defence of nuclear power, though from memory he later partly walked that back.
A lot of Monbiot’s recent work in my opinion has degenerated into vicious spitballs aimed at people who don’t embrace his unforgiving and intolerant brand of radical green socialism, like the article quoted above.
It feels good to be one of the winners. You know not one of those blaming others continually for their bad behavior, decisions and choices. They are really getting desperate, we need to really turn the screws on them now.
No, not getting desperate, getting into 2nd gear, where they demonize the ‘enemy’ to make it easier to “cancel” them, then to arrest them, and yes eventually herd them into boxcars…
You can be healthy and wealthy or you can own nothing and eat bugs.
Or, you can be super wealthy, private-jet to conferences around the world, and eat all the artery-clogging red meat you want (a.k.a. “bugs for thee, but nor for me“). Nice work if ya can get it.
Even if you are not number one, you can still be a winner. If your situation is improving, you’re winning.
A rising tide raises all boats.
FJB
You are right. The left thinks their ‘poverty’ is because the rich have more than their fair share of wealth. They don’t understand that, ultimately, wealth is unlimited, They can’t bring themselves to earn more lest it impoverish even poorer people. The ignorant left get the life they deserve.
“Monbiot still has a significant following of people who take his rants seriously.” — Left wing Greenies, eliminate them from the equation and all returns to normal.
I actually think greens have their place, I think green thinking is a dysfunction of an important evolutionary survival mechanism.
People who jump at shadows, sometimes the threat in the shadow is real – so occasionally the only survivors are those who jump at shadows. Of course, jumping at shadows wastes a lot of energy, energy which might be needed to face a real problem.
So what is the dysfunction I believe is occurring? The problem is the last few decades the shadow jumpers became too dominant, and society wasted a crazy amount of resources and effort jumping at shadows.
But I strongly suspect their time of dominance is coming to an end. Why else would people like Monbiot be so bitter?
Why is Moonbat so bitter? He’s a British intellectual. It takes decades of miseducation, and probably the right social background.
“He’s a British intellectual. “
He’s a British middle class misanthropist.
It seems to be that the term “British intellectual” is rapidly becoming an oxymoron..
Monbiot definitely falls into the latter part of oxymoron
Shadow jumping has been weaponised by the west.
The media is now fantasising over WW3 and nuclear conflicts. Utter nonsense of course.
All supposed to happen during a Trump presidency of course……..
My wife is a shadow jumper. I’ve learned to call out her name several times before approaching her, just to warn her that I am in the room. Otherwise I’ll get a loud scream and whatever she is holding thrown at me. (Bad news when she’s in the kitchen.)
I had a friend in college. Coming up behind him and tapping him on the back could be a life ending event. He was 6 foot 6 and built like a tank.
I hate it when green/socialist holier than thou types try to psychoanalyze their political opponents – “don’t have any facts to prove then wrong so lets say they bad people”.
Just like other fascist/communists do.
It’s called: Projection
Monbiot is all the things he claims Trump is
Exactly.
Of course, all lefties are hypocrites – it is part of their ethos.
Perhaps not simple hypocrisy. I think that Marxism and the Progressive movement are based on the art of being able to lie to yourself until you truly believe a stark contradiction.
I personally think it is more about seeing the world from a moral, rather than a practical standpoint.
Never mind if it will work, as long as it’s fair and humane.
But there isn’t much fair or humane about a Russian Cruise missile.
Make that “as long as you think it’s fair and humane”.
It doesn’t matter if in the real world, it is neither fair nor humane, as long as you think it is.
There is nothing fair, humane or moral about stealing from the rich to give to the poor. It just makes everybody poor which suits the moonbat type.
Strange how all the predictions made of Trump – global wars, nuclear wars, authoritarianism, book burning etc. all manifested themselves under Biden.
all manifested themselves under Biden.
And are still blamed on Trump.
I’ve been observing politics for decades. Democrats always take credit for anything good that happens while they are in office, even if they have only been in office for a couple of days. They also blame everything bad on the last Republican administration, no matter how far in the past that may have been.
I was having a debate with (I think) an Obama fan one time. He tried to claim that the improving economy was because of Obama and his policies. I pointed out that the economy started improving 6 months prior to the election. He replied that this was because business leaders had realized that Obama was going to win, and this growing optimism was the reason why the economy started improving.
“Democrats always take credit for anything good that happens while they are in office, even if they have only been in office for a couple of days.”
That may be so but Trump is not shy about taking credit where there is none.
‘We have an economy that is incredible,’ the former President said. ‘We have an economy that is so fragile. And the only reason it’s running now is it’s running off the fumes of what we did – what the Trump administration did. It’s just running off the fumes.’
Henceforth whenever I see these five letters on WUWT, ‘S’, ‘i’, ‘m’, ‘o’, ‘n’, I shall now connect it with this image:
So no intelligent answer once again. At least you are consistent.
Says the guy who’s never had an intelligent comment or response.
And as a committed marxist-leftist, totally and completely humorless.
You forgot communist.
Oh here’s another one Mark. This woman taking credit taking credit for a bill she voted against.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4435658-gop-salazar-cannot-recall-vote-chips-appropriations-bills/
So you see it is not just those evil dems who take credit for stuff when they shouldn’t.
Really, is that the best you can come up with?
In every corner of the world the incumbent party takes credit for all that’s good and blames the previous party for all that’s bad. That’s party politics not left and right. Im not sure which is saddest — that the voters buy it or that the politicians think they do.
There are voters who don’t buy it.
“That’s party politics not left and right.”
It’s human nature.
Presidents can do a few things to help an economy such as lowering taxes, and doing away with restrictive regulations, and making sure there is plenty of energy resources to keep the economy humming.
Presidents can do a LOT of things to harm an economy, including raising taxes and increasing regulations and gutting the coal, oil and natural gas industries, along with automobile and the trucking industry and rail lines, and over spending which causes inflation that takes money out of everyone’s pockets slowing economic activity, and no amount of government spending is going to compensate for this inflation.
The U.S. has a strong economy. It’s coming back strong from the covid pandemic, but don’t get too enthusiastic because there are signs that not only is the U.S. economy slowing, but the world economy is slowing. I heard one commentator the other day say “nothing” was going on in China economy-wise. Apple’s stock is down after reporting earnings yesterday, and the downside is reported to be because of a China slowdown.
The U.S. economy will do just fine if the government will leave it alone. Democrats will not leave the economy alone, they want to micro-manage it to the detriment of all of us.
Free Enterprise is the ticket to success. You don’t get that from Democrats or other socialists/marxists.
PofN: Yup. You can witness a gathering of the rich and powerful like a murder of crows every December in Davos. Schaub, Soros, Zuckerberg, Gore, Bezos, Gates, Bloomberg and many more – nearly all advocating for leftist socialist policy and global government. And all wealthy as a result of ruthless capitalism. Seems like once they’ve climbed to the top they want to pull the ladder up. Hypocrite seems like much too mild a term.
None of them will take it to their grave. It all gets reused.
Refusing to work with community, means that conservatives still refuse to do what the left tells them to do, even after the left has carefully explained how evil the conservatives are.
If you really want to see someone who is a total and absolute LOONY-TOON-KOOK !
Moonbat is the guy !!
“more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.”
Introspection is a fine thing, Moonbat !
He and his type don’t own mirrors and have no self-awareness of how the psychoanalysis they want us to undertake is exactly what they should do to better understand their own irrationality.
Meanwhile, this guy has been doing what he does to spread disinformation for more than a decade. Every bit I highlight in his 2009 article in my screencapture here is false, sourced from no less than a person arguably earning the label of “the queen of disinformation.” If he was a real journalist back then, he would have castigated her for all the falsehoods she put out.
Awesome screencap, what a vile individual this creep is. It was probably about that time that I actually learned something from him – the principles of censorship and shadow banning and the like at the Guardian. I was reading the comments on a particularly crap piece of his on the beauty of wind turbines and, on reading the comments, I realized that probably 26 or 27 of the 30 I read were written by the same person with different screen names. Might even have been him or his mum. It was so obvious, as if there were no pretense to hide it – which shows the level of nitwittery that people like Simon and griff and the others, who quote that toilet paper, ascribe to. I wish I too had hit the screencap keys at that time.
….. and yes, I do know that it’s still rampant here, there and everywhere. I still have a couple of aol email addresses, so often read immensely useless crap. The comment sections aren’t as bad as the above example (and even seem to be improving a bit). Great way to find out what’s not reality though.
Why do people vote for Trump?
He’s not the typical babbling politician. He may be an economically illiterate idiot, a xenophobe, you can call him anything you want, but you always know where he stands. Obama promised to close Gitmo on his first day, made one half–hearted attempt, Congress shut him down, and he never mentioned it again. Trump spent four years trying to build that wall on the border with Mexico, and every time the courts or Congress shut him down, he tried something else. No other politician has ever done that.
He scares the piss out of other politicians because he is, in some respects, the most honest transparent President the US has ever had. Doesn’t make him a good President, or a bad President. It makes him the scariest President every other politician has ever encountered.
And that’s why people vote for him.
Lot of truth in your post. I’m small l libertarian but have known Biden was for sale as soon as I paid attention in the 80’s so Trump got my vote. Probably not this time (not that it matters where I live). Trump talks a better game than he walks. He was relatively better because gridlock kept Congress from passing stupid laws and he could use EO’s to cut some regulation at the margin. Doesn’t matter who wins, we are headed over an economic cliff. R’s (save for a handful) are not serious about reducing government either so the guano will hit the ceiling fan, it’s just a different timetable. Nothing will change before very bad things happen to the world economy.
I’ll add that you are right that people who like him do realize that the technocratic/government upper crust and monied lefties are hell bent on policies (energy in particular) that will make them poorer and wreck the future for their kids. It will take a carefully planned set of actions to alter this course of action and Trump isn’t the guy to do things that way. It’s too monumental of a task for one guy to dismantle the Beltway Grift in any case.
That’s why you should vote for like-minded republicans down ballot. Trump’s major roadblock was the crazy leftists and the go-along-to-get-along congress critters.
We have three parties in the U.S.. Constitutionalists, leftists, and power/money grubbers that don’t care who wins as long as they get their cut.
We need to get rid of the leftists and power/money grubbers before we can hope to cut the bureaucratic state parasites.
iow: Government has got too big – the parasite is killing its host.
So you have surrendered to the deep state? If you will not vote for TRUMP!, you will vote Democrat? Why?
TRUMP!, with enough conservative Senators and/or Representatives will make major changes this go round, IMO.
If nothing else, he will stop all government borrowing. and as POTUS, can decide what to cut when there is not enough money to fund everything. Yes, I know, the left will sue in Hawaii and get a court to try to determine what CAN NOT be cut, but then the SCOTUS will be there to stop the steal. Other than “entitlements” I know of nothing that congress has done to set priorities for what is funded FIRST, but the OS Constitution does, military, boarders, etc. are actually mentioned.
Ultimately the Dems and RINOs will try to override the veto of the borrowing cap and MAY succeed, showing the uniparty of cronies for what they are, but I think the House will have enough votes to stop the override.
4 years of TRUMP! deciding what NOT to fund WILL change the federal government.
The FIRST funds to be terminated is to EVERY NGO getting pass through cash. All for liberal full employment policies.
And then prosecuting all the major corporations for funding NGOs like BLM for failure to maximize profits, and the turn around of terminating the liberal leaches from their federal and corporate feeding trough will be complete.
He won’t even need any new legislation. Just a pen and a phone.
A primary way NGOs get their cash is through the foreign aid triangle trade—congress sends money to a corrupt government, the corrupt government sends a cut to the NGOs, and the NGOs spent it in America to advance their marxist-leftist insanity. Soros & Co doesn’t have to spend his own cash.
Yes, if you vote to give the Democrats political power, you are voting your freedoms away.
Some Democrats are ok, but the Democrat leadership, which you vote for when you vote for any Democrat, are a bunch of extremists who are bent on stealing the nation for themselves by hook or crook.
Voting for any Repubican is better than voting for a Democrat. Democrats are not your friends, even if they have a lovely smile.
Democrats in power is a recipe for disaster. Witness the last three years.
If you don’t vote for Trump you are voting for the Communists. So you are really one of them in disguise. Quit pretending to be a libertarian.
If you vote for a Democrat for president, then you support the weaponization of the federal government against the People.
That’s what we are getting now from the Biden administration. They are using the power of the federal government to persecute their political opponents, in an effort to retain political power for themselves.
If you want more of that, then vote for Democrats, and kiss the U.S. Constituion and your personal freedoms goodbye.
I’m a Brit with little skin in the US game, but I thought that between Trump and Hilary, Trump was marginally the lesser of two evils.
Six months into his presidency and he was beginning to tick off his pre election manifesto list and I realised I couldn’t have been more wrong about him.
He made promises to the American people that they liked and he bust a gut to deliver them with a huge headwind.
If Trump get’s elected in November and can make peace with Putin (It doesn’t seem there’s a problem between them personally) they will take revenge on the globalist’s they both despise, and it will be a metaphoric blood bath.
America now has a big problem as far as I can see. The Democrats will run an election campaign that will make 2016 and 2020 look like a walk in the park. Assuming RFK Jr. runs he’s going to take votes from them like there’s no tomorrow, irrespective of who runs for the Dems. Trump is then the guy in pole position.
At the end of the day though, and as likeable as I find RFK, he’s a socialist at heart and I suggest Republican voters thinking of switching to him bear that in mind.
However, were it ever possible, the prospect of him working with Trump to dispense with the deep state makes even me salivate.
Even Trump is not stupid enough to make peace with Russia, surely? It’s not his place. If America steps back from Russia, China will take Taiwan.
By that statement you admit there is conflict between America and Russia?
What has Russia ever done to America to make it such an enemy?
There are around 750 US military bases around the world, many of them in Europe with nuclear missiles pointed at Moscow. How many Russian bases are outwith Russian borders?
You can count them on the fingers of one hand. There is one in Syria, at the invitation of the Syrian government. America has at least three known military bases in Syria, all of them illegal by international convention.
The UN head office is in New York. I’ll leave to you to decide why those illegal bases in Syria are tolerated by the ‘international’ community.
China has no need to “take Taiwan”. Taiwan has been part of China since the allies helped China defeat Japan on the island and it was agreed that it would become part of China in 1945, as registered under the Potsdam Accord.
You have been listening to far to much western government and MSM propaganda.
The west want’s Taiwan because it’s the world centre of advanced semi conductors so we are creating yet another Ukraine, this time in the far east.
Trump says he will end the war on his first day in office. I say that’s just hyperbole.
I don’t doubt he would try to do something about stopping the war, but the Ukrainians are going to have a say in it, and the last thing I heard from them is they intend to reclaim all the territory Putin has taken from them and that may take a while.
So, no, Trump won’t stop the war on the first day. He should stop saying that. He might get it stopped eventually, but it won’t be on the first day of his new term.
Trump’s leadership is very much needed in this world today. The Appeaser, Joe Biden, just makes things worse with every half-hearted effort he makes. The Iranians are now crowing that Biden won’t attack them. So much for deterrence, Joe.
The only way to deter the Mad Mullahs is to hit *them*. Hitting their minions means nothing to the Mad Mullahs. They can get an endless supply of minions. No skin off their backs.
The Bad Guys of the world have no fear of Joe Biden. This creates a *very* dangerous situation. It emboldens the Bad Guys to do all sorts of things they wouldn’t normally do.
Joe Biden is the posterboy for Appeasement. Do you see what appeasement gets us?
The Bad Guys *only* respect and pay attention to force. They will back off if you apply enough force to them, but a leader has to be willing to take those steps and obviously, Joe Biden, is not willing to take on the Mad Mullahs. Not because the U.S. could not reduce Iran to a smoking ruin, but because Joe Biden thinks his and Obama’s nuclear deal is more important than anything else, even if the Middle East blows up in his face.
We have a timid, appeaser as president, and it is putting all of us in greater danger by emboldening our enemies.
Democrats are not fit to lead the United States. They screw things up like this every time they get into power, and then the Republicans have to come along and play cleanup.
And others say “what the hell is wrong with the United States?” The thing that is wrong is Democrats periodically get into power and screw things up royally, like they are doing now.
Democrats are irresponsible, and Republicans have to compensate for this. It makes it look like the United States leadership can’t make up its mind about what course to pursue. Democrats go one way, Republicans go the other way. Democrats screw it up, and Republicans fix it back.
Here we go again.
I heard an interview of a black voter in Chicago this morning, and he said he was going to vote for Trump this time around. He said, “I had money in my pocket with Trump”.
A lot of people who didn’t vote for Trump the last time are changing their tune.
It’s easy to see why. All they have to ask themselves is: Was I better off under Trump, or under Biden? The answer is obvious to anyone who goes shopping for groceries.
Trump delayed USA’s journey toward NutZero by 4 years and managed to reduce dependency on external energy sources. USA is still benefitting from that delay.
No other conservative leader in the west was as clear as Trump on the climate scam after Abbott was rolled in Australia. Australia has been going down the NutZero path since Abbott went in 2015.
There is no doubt politicians live in bubbles – DC, Canberra, London, Brussels, New York being notable. The current action by farmers in Europe is getting attention and bringing reality into the bubbles.
The farmer rebellion is an important development. The politicians are going to have to pay attention now.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/02/01/eu-farmers-escalate-protests-france-concedes-to-demands/
Scarecrow Repair: “…economically illiterate…”? Trump has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, and was the author of what is still an important book regarding business, The Art Of The Deal (with ghostwriter Swartz, who received $1.6 million in shared royalties). Here is a telling meme: plot the USA Labor Participation Rate, from GW Bush to Biden. The stunning decline during the Obama Administration is countered by the start of recovery under the Trump Administration. Sure 9/11 and Covid produced interruptions, but looking at the plot there is no objective reason to say Trump…economically illiterate…
and his policies on tariffs?
On foreign goods, where many countries want to take advantage of USA markets Shirley you’re not defending Biden as regards dealing with unfair foreign competition?
Tariffs on countries who routinely but up non-tariff trade barriers are the only weapon we have to fight unfair trade.
U.S. farmers and steel workers liked Trump’s policies on tariffs. Trump’s actions kept them in business.
Trump tariff policies were about evening the playing field. “Free trade” is not “free” when it goes only one way. China in particular was a target because its own markets are not open to US products; the CCP subsidizes export products and severely limits the ability of foreign businesses to sell to or operate in China.
Tariffs in general may not be a good thing, but if your “trading partners” are not willing to freely trade, at some point you need to do something.
‘Tariffs in general may not be a good thing, but if your “trading partners” are not willing to freely trade, at some point you need to do something.’
AGW, TA, TPN, RL et al,
US producers and consumers are not hurt by Chinese / foreign competitors but by awful US regulatory policies. Trying to paper over these policies with high tariffs is futile.
High tariffs + bad regulatory policy = economic disaster
Taxation and regulations are the biggest hinderances to U.S. businesses.
Even if they were cut considerably, it would still be difficult to compete with countries that utilize slave labor and don’t give a rat’s ass about pollution (CO2 is not pollution).
Then you too suffer from TDS, shown by not reading the rest of that sentence, and by knee-jerk reaction to any perceived criticism of Trump.
Actually, Scarecrow Repair, nothing I do is “knee-jerk”. I am a Scientist with 55 years of practice, a lot of introspection, six times company President (including now), and have three mining discoveries in production, and more on the way. And you?
Sadly IME MBA=Mostly bloody assholes.
IME? International Management Education or Institute of Management Education? I have worked with both an MBA from Wharton and one of Uncle Miltie’s (Friedman) MBA’s, both very effective.
Trump is definitely not an “economically illiterate idiot”. He understands economics and is a very shrewd negotiator. He is very transparent. When he was in office his website said what he was going to do and he did what he could to accomplish his goals. His just underestimated the size and evil nature of the Washington swamp.
He certainly underestimated the evil nature of his medical and science advisors/agencies.
Fauci had all the creditials, he just didn’t have the honesty. None of us, including Trump, knew that at the time.
Trump did overrule Fauci. At the beginning of the covid pandemic, Trump stopped all air traffic from China, against the advice of all 27 advisors in the room, including Fauci.
They all said don’t stop the traffic, and Trump said stop the traffic, and the traffic stopped.
Trump subsequently stopped traffic from Italy and a few other places. If Trump had stopped traffic from Italy a week earlier, he might have delayed the onset of covid in my State, as just a few days before traffic was stopped, a person arrived in my State from Italy that ended up being the first case of covid here.
Not that covid wouldn’t have eventually reached here but some lives might have been saved with a delay.
A traffic stop was called for under the circumstances. Trump saw the logic of it even if his advisors did not, and Trump took action.
My point was that the agencies and many of his advisors were working their own agenda rather than what is good for the citizenry. It wasn’t just Fauci, although he was certainly a posterchild for the swamp.
I would agree with that.
Trump replaced a lot of Obama’s fence by a wall.
Yes, and Trump had to fight several dozen lawsuits in the process. Trump’s efforts were resisted every step of the way.
Trump has worked business deals with people from all over the planet. Not exactly the deeds of a xenophobe.
Democrats labeled him a xenophobe, when in response to the growing pandemic in China. Even to this day, the Democrats condemn him for not acting sooner, even though the criticized and tried to block, every move he made at the time.
Yes, he is more like an independent. He stays pretty true to himself good or bad. This trait does not fit party politics. He is in some respects a vision of the future but where all are independent and constrained and moderated by being so.
Monbiot is one reason why Offa’s dyke should be rebuilt….
Monbiot described sheep farmers as “wooly maggot farmers” in 2013. I’m not sure what that did for his relations with his farmer neighbours, but my experience living in Wales suggests his offended neighbours probably didn’t express their hurt feelings with lots of empty words.
The farming neighbours wonder if George is OK?
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/10/the-green-war-on-sheep/
Where is this place? I’ve never even heard of a country without destitute people. Maybe Tristan Da Cunha?
I think he meant Martha’s Vineyard…
Yeah they just export their destitute…
A flight of illegal aliens was sent there once.
They received less than a warm welcome.
They were not there long, either. They were gone the next day, weren’t they?
Iceland and Denmark.
https://www.borgenmagazine.com/inside-the-countries-with-the-lowest-poverty-rates/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20available,poverty%20rates%20in%20the%20world
“In 2017, Iceland’s poverty rate even hit 0%, according to the World Bank.
Nordic countries place a high emphasis on welfare to ensure a high quality of life for citizens, access to the necessary services and a sturdy social safety net. For instance, free education, cost-free health care and a strong pension system. The Nordic model works through a combination of “free-market capitalism” and a tax-funded welfare system.”
And you take their word for it that this is true? Cost-free health care is also health-free health care. None of the countries with socialized medicine have reasonable systems. Waiting for 6 months to a year for appointments when you have a potentially fatal disease is not a good option. I know someone missing a leg because of the wonderful Canadian socialized medicine system. The Canadians I worked with all came to the US to take care of major surgeries because they wanted it done right and in a reasonable amount of time.
Mexico has the so called free medical system as well as a private medical system.
My wife grew up in Mexico, and she tells me that only those who have no choice, choose the “free” doctors.
Two *small* countries with fairly *homogeneous populations* who share *similar values*.
Flood either of the with immigration of those who don’t share said values and who come to take advantage of their “social safety nets” while CONTRIBUTING nothing or next to nothing, and their “model” falls apart quickly.
That sounds like the Biden Model for the United States.
Well Iceland has virtually no immigration and certainly not the hordes of criminal muslim scum infecting a lot of western Europe. Their degree of isolation has meant their population is very pure and ideal for gene research. And their population is so small everyone is listed in the phone book by their christian name – and yes, I checked when I was there.
The easiest way to get rid of poverty, is to redefine it.
In the US, the poverty level is set as a fixed percentage of the median income. Because of this, no matter how rich the people get, the problem of poverty never goes away.
Only in the US is it possible for families with two cars, live in a 3 bedroom house, have TV’s in every room, a cell phone for every member, to be considered “poor”.
I think that’s the case in most developed countries.
See https://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/poverty/ for Australia.
On that basis, most retirees are living in poverty.
One has to carefully define poverty. I spent my entire legal career working for people who qualified as “in poverty” and therefore eligible for my services. My clients had late model cell phones, fancy expensive manicures, nice clothes, and seemed well-fed. Most smoked, as well, and neither cigarettes nor the other stuff is cheap. If you can afford all that stuff, you are not truly poor.
Scandinavian winters take care of a lot of social problems. I once saw this in action while walking around Oslo, a heroin addict had overdosed early evening in subzero conditions, was falling asleep. His girlfriend was going frantic but everyone else just walked by. If he made it to morning he was very lucky.
There’s also a reasonable argument that cold winters will result in an increase in the percentage of people who do not have the resources to keep themselves safe and warm. In other words, one would expect countries with cold winters to have a higher rate of poverty due to the higher expenses required during winter.
No tax funded health care is free, you and your neighbours pay for it even if you don’t use it, on the flip side if you get ill you won’t go bankrupt. Contrary to TPN if you are in extremis you will get treatment expeditiously, I know this from personal experience, my wife had a stroke and I had sudden onset kidney failure, we both received excellent treatment immediately here in British Columbia.. Recently I had an onset of ulcers on my lower leg, I was seen in Emergency, two hour wait, was put on IV antibiotics post assessment, and the next day was admitted to a day care clinic for daily IV antibiotics for a week. No out of pocket expense, no bushwa from an insurance company.
The Monbiot essay was a bull’s intrinsic gut contents after they had become extrinsic. A convoluted load of psychobabble trying to disguise good old bigotry.
Amazing how if we don’t vote for the socialist hell hole people who cheerlead for the climate nonsense want us to, it’s always got to be some psychological issue or partisan politics that prevent us from “seeing the light.”
How about we just want to free and not have our choices and standard of living dictated by the modern version of the idiot pacing the sidewalks with a sign telling us that “The End Is Near” and preaching to us about what must be done to “save” ourselves (from nothing).
The left wing echo chamber is so tight, that leftists find it impossible to believe that there are legitimate reasons for opposing them.
Those are not the eyes of a sane and balanced, rational person. And for clarity, I am talking about the one on the right of the image.
The rant and look suggest he needs an intervention by family and friends.
A medical consultation might prevent an intracranial hemorrhage.
Well he is a vegan and he came from a fairly wealthy family, was educated at Stowe School a fee paying Public School and Oxford Uni and both his parents had strong links to the Conservative Party his mother even being a Tory councillor.
Probably still rebelling against his upbringing!
Monbiot lost the plot long ago at a time when the Guardian just kept marching to the precipice regardless. His columns are no longer go to reading and are simply appeasing the simple minds of the rag’s agenda driven editors and sponsors.
The Freud’s would have had a field day researching ‘projection’ among the green left, covering almost all their silly attempts to look innocent in the face of so much destruction by their hands and their hands alone.
If it is wrong to discriminate then would these unpleasant individuals like to justify their cancel culture to all the poor folk they have damaged along the way? Just how their outrageous prejudices don’t quality as much worse crimes than those they accuse of others I really do not understand.
These unpleasant individuals don’t go anywhere near the poor folk.
George is a very lucky fellow.
“Lord McAlpine – An Abject Apology
I have helped to malign an innocent man.
By George Monbiot
https://www.monbiot.com/2012/11/10/lord-mcalpine-an-abject-apology/
Luckily for George McAlpine passed leaving him off the hook
A better description of Monbiot and his personal characteristics than this, written by him, would be hard to find. vis
People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.
How does the saying go?….hoist by his own petard
Is he talking about Bill Gates?
In the current state of media affairs how influential is Monbiot anyway? The percentage of Americans that even recognize his name must be infinitesimal and members of the choir to whom he preaches. In the US the problem with misdirected efforts is laid directly at the feet of the opportunists, graduates of an insular east coast academia surrounding a decaying, feeble leader who was never capable. A “democratic” system that produces any of the White House residents since Grover Cleveland is an international embarrassment. The people, in fact, deserve the blame for this state of affairs by accepting it and considering the situation to be a normal contest between rival world views. It isn’t.
” how influential is Monbiot anyway?”
Interesting question. Most copies of the Guardian are bought by the BBC, so what sales does the Graun have?
“The Guardian: 105,134 (July 2021)
[The Sun: 1,210,915 (March 2020)]”
https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/most-popular-newspapers-uk-abc-monthly-circulation-figures-2/
Outside a few green outfits, 6th form common rooms etc etc Monbiot is a [well to do middle class] who?
I don’t think anybody in the US who doesn’t read WUWT has ever heard of the loon.
He was mentioned from time to time on National Review. Mostly to laugh at him.
Comparing the two. One of them has extreme and unhinged views on the environment and is driven by a fanatical zeal to push his political ideas down humanity’s throat. The other one runs for the presidency of the USA.
I love it when greenies whine that no one is listening to them. Like spoiled little children, they throw tantrums when they don’t get their way.
I’ve been enjoying the recent videos on YouTube of Europeans removing and running into greenie protesters blocking the roads. I think they need to make it more painful. Maybe pouring tomato soup on them would help.
Perhaps throwing tomato soup at them. Preferably still in the can.
Make sure you heat that soup up first!
Moonbat is pushing the old Stalinist “wreckers” trope, that the reason why the socialist nirvana has not arrived is due to opposition. Clap really loudly, and Tinkerbell will live!
Trump Derangement Syndrome Meltdown of the Week — ZOMG ‘ENVIRONMENTAL APOCALYPSE’ Edition – PJ Media
To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer
.. no, they don’t. The best reason as to why people keep voting for Trump was wrapped up in the simple description of .. “It’s the middle finger of politics”.
The “expert class” as shown in the COVID fiasco, have failed to deliver. Years after the peak of COVID, the CDC and other “experts” still can’t (or won’t) tell us why there has been a continuing uptick in ‘excess deaths’. It doesn’t take a psychologist, let alone psychologists, to figure that out. If our “experts” have failed with COVID, what would make anybody believe that these “experts” on Climate Change are any better ?
Trump has the right enemies. There is likely no better endorsement someone could receive.
I once, long ago, quite admired Moonbat.
Now he’s just a swivel eyed loony.
It’s called ‘growing up’.
Something that Moonbat seems incapable of doing.
I was no more grown up then than I am now, Moonbatshit crazy regressed to childhood fantasy.
These people are so dense they can’t even see that all the negative characteristics they ascribe to conservatives are actually their own traits plus a generous helping of virtue signaling – and how is that working out for sanctuary cities
So called Sanctuary Cities, threatening to sue border cities and states, for sending some of the illegal immigrants, that they claim to champion, to their cities. The irony, so rich you could cut it with a knife.
Since the moon is made of green cheese, anyone stranded there will never starve.
See, if you start with an absurd premise you can justify an absurd conclusion.
In this instance:
“..People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. ” and therefore like Trump don’t care about helping other humans.
We all have noticed how Donald hangs around with those at the “extrinsic end of the spectrum” like Zuckerberg, Bezos and Gates, as well as those who traveled to Davos. Absurd logic.
Did you forget the sarc tag?
If not and for clarification to the liberals who visit here:
Yep, Zuckerburg and TRUMP! are so close, Zuckerbucks funded drop boxes in Atlanta, and other heavily democrat cities where allowed to help defeat Trump in 2020. And Bezos’s Washington ComPost always helped protect TRUMP! from the lies told about him, and of course Gates only supports causes TRUMP! favors.
Funny you picked 3 MAJOR Democrat supporting Oligarchs, leaving out the Google and at the time Twitter leftist oligarchs that also had MUCH to do with the dissemination of leftist propaganda re EVERYTHING and obstructed the factual posts of MANY regarding the China virus, masks, the dangers of the MRNA pseudo “vaccine” and CAGW or any “weather” event fraudulently blamed on “global heating”.
Sorry, but I believe most of the followers of this blog are intelligent enough to interpret sarcasm when they see it, without adding a special tag.
No! Are those three Elite Billionaires really Leftists?!? /sarc (OK?)
Poe’s Law applies to WUWT and everywhere else.
Another constant with leftists, is that they never accept responsibility for the problems they and their programs cause.
Sounds like ever leftist I have ever known.
The entire description of the thesis about extrinsic and intrinsic values and their impact on social function is an addle-headed fantasy about socialist doctrine. There isn’t a single shred of objective evidence presented to support the thesis. In the US the pursuit of progressive, socialist policies has done exactly the opposite of what the description predicts. It has sowed social discord, violence, privation and a sense of disenfranchisement that is breath-taking. It has allowed the most incompetent, unintelligent, dishonest and irresponsible individuals to become policy makers and entrenched bureaucrats so that these imbecilic ideas can destroys the lives of the most vulnerable.
All of this is justified as part of the effort to defeat Trump who, when he was president, presided over the lowest unemployment levels especially among minorities, some of the best improvements in wages, a greater investment in meaningful projects for underserved communities, a greater security of energy supplies for all and a foreign policy that saw no new international conflicts and less Middle East violence while signing historic peace accords in one of the most volatile regions of our planet.
So the author of those ill considered statements of values wants Americans to fight to prevent what Trump achieved while encouraging more of what Biden has done. A sane person would have to think this is propaganda from someone who wants to see America self-destruct.
I wonder if this Moonbat fellow stays up late at night wondering why animals run away from fire, why elephants seek high ground during earthquakes, and why animals and birds that cannot tolerate cold migrate to warmer areas (or hibernate) when winter comes?
Seriously, we all know that this very simple psychology is all that is needed to explain Trump supporters (and those who don’t support Dems).
The answer of course is self-preservation. Animals don’t want to burn up in a fire, or drown in a tsunami, or starve or freeze to death when winter comes.
And there are plenty of people who don’t want to sit in the dark for hours (or days), freeze in winter and roast in summer, be prevented from eating the foods they like and be restricted as to where (and when, and how) they can travel. There’s nothing mysterious about that.
Can you document your claim that elephants seek high ground during an earthquake? Most elephants live in areas that are very far away from any ocean.
In Khao Lak, 50 miles north of Phuket along Thailand’s western coast, a dozen elephants giving tourists rides began trumpeting hours before the Dec. 26 tsunami — about the time the 9.0-magnitude quake fractured the ocean floor. An hour before the wall of waves slammed the resort area, the elephants reportedly again grew agitated and began wailing. Just before disaster struck, they headed for higher ground — some breaking their chains to flee.
And from a research study:
We found evidence of both detection of seismic noise and discrimination between the two treatments containing human-generated noise. In particular, we found evidence of retreat behaviour, where seismic tracks with human-generated noise caused elephants to move further away from the trial location. We conclude that seismic noise are cues that contain biologically relevant information for elephants that they can associate with risk.
The USGS Seattle Field Office might think about keeping some earthquake sensing elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo as backup for their standard seismic event detection eqipment. If these elephants suddenly break down the zoo fence and head east towards the Cascades, the local USGS scientists will know that something is very definitely up.
Very interesting.
Moonbat by name, Moonbat by nature…