Greta Thunberg, Climate Protests, and the Reaction

[Iamwhomiam]

Well. I admire the young lady immensely. It's inevitable the ngos involved in quickly achieving a sustainable society will use her to promote their local and global issues where they operate. We already know, as Grete remarked herself, that she was overwhelmed by all, after her NYC arrival, so my concern is for her well-being, as she overextends herself, determined to do all she possible can, and the potential for her hard crash, withdrawal and permanent burn out I hope her parents prevent her from being so overly exploited.

But let's not underestimate what force she's set into action. She's accomplished more within a few months than Gore & McKibben have worked for years to do unsuccessfully.

[JackRiddler]

Leaving out Gore and McKibben as factors either good or bad, anything she has accomplished comes after many years of organizing and persistence and sacrifice and struggle by people and environmental organizations of many kinds around the world. And her moment comes as a new wave of activism has arrived, less inclined to compromise with the status quo of a civilization reaching for global death. A new wave of youth are active, more militant, and taking the lead. She is one of them, she doesn't pretend otherwise, she works with others, they work with her, they are not in competition as the talking point that WRex repeated would have it. She obviously isn't capturing attention to divert it from the climate protests but toward them.

She is savvy and knows how to leverage more attention, which she does without self-aggrandizement but so as to direct it to the points she wants to make. She has the right instincts for playing the media but she is a rare one so far who appears to do it without being consumed by it or enjoying it. She knows how to work this, she doesn't live for it.

She provides a shiny-object effect that attracts the corporate media -- within serious limits that those provoked by her* do not acknowledge. Of course within days or hours the corporate media go right back to the general program of distraction and disinfo. From her capture of attention at given times it doesn't follow either that she is abusing the attention (or a tool of those who would abuse it), or only receiving it as part of an "orchestrated" plan.

People have seen so much media manipulation they are prone to see it as the only explanation for everything that happens. People use the media in a contradictory way: as a means simultaneously to mire themselves and to distance themselves from everything it depicts, real or not, good or bad, complex or simple.

When I hear this reasoning, I wonder how we would have reacted back in the 1950s and 60s to Martin Luther King. Had all-pervasive social media been around then, would we have been filled with such certainty that MLK was nothing more than the black mascot of the white establishment? Because after all, he received lots of media coverage too. Would we have reacted as cynically to the Selma march as we do to the climate strikes today? Would we have told MLK he needed to go back to preaching to his congregation, just as we tell Thunberg to get back to her school studies?

On this board, I have seen people similarly argue that there were sufficient grounds to dismiss or disparage Assange (back in 2010-11), Snowden, anything about the Arab Spring, Panama Papers and many other people and phenomena, solely on the grounds they got attention (however momentarily, and of whatever kind) while others did not. This is not a sufficient indicator to draw that conclusion. The same parties were each also blamed because that attention was spun by the media in ways they could not control, or because they tried to leverage the attention, to play the game once they were already stuck in it.

Just read a comment from Barrett Brown about an entirely different context that is nevertheless very apt here:

What has to be kept in mind is that even some press coverage here and there doesn't matter, and they don't generally worry about it, because it passes, and then you have to deal with the next thing, and the press isn't going to bother after a while.

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* Like Caitlin Johnstone, who has possibly reached her all time low-point with the hateful tweet Cook cites.

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[BenDhyan]

Catchy....

[82_28]

I picture her as being "cunningly" called up to represent "the movement" as it were. When I was young, I joined the Colorado Humanists (yeah, I know) but I was young and impassioned. The old people liked it and would come to me with questions as to how to get the youth onboard and involved. I said I didn't know as I had too many evangelicals and fundamentalists still in my life. Punk rock maybe? I told them. But I quit it because of reasons most namely of which was the bitterness I saw within the membership. She's all good in my eyes as of now. She ain't an idiot.

[Sounder]

The beginning and body of this article at the link and is IMO worthwhile reading.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/21/con ... -the-dots/

.......Why would any rational person look at the Greta phenomenon and not grasp that it is manufactured? There is a LOT of money behind this girl. But the non-profit industrial complex, the UN, the World Bank and IMF — they don’t do things altruistically. Capitalism is investment, not virtue. Capitalism created the crisis, it won’t solve it. Greta also retweeted the now sort of infamous Minh Ngo tweet that was part of the smear campaign against Morales. She is linked and backed, additionally, by Purpose and Avaaz — both of whom are connected to U.S. foreign policy in South America.

But Morningstar has the details here:

She also endorses and tweets support for Hong Kong colour revolution leader Joshua Wong (yet another U.S. asset). She is, as Club de Cordeliers put it (on twitter), ‘the ruling class poster girl’. And this is not even to get into her comments about holding disobedient leaders up against the wall. The infantilism of the western public is well prepared for child leaders. This is a canny gambit by the marketing apparatus and by all indications (and articles like Proyect’s) it is working to perfection.

Greta is not anti-capitalist. She may say a few things that suggest, vaguely, an anti-capitalist sensibility, but the reality (which is what Morningstar provides) is that she works for big money, corporations and FOR capitalism.

You know when Greta gave her last speech in the U.S. … at the UN in fact…(where she flubbed her lines, saying creative PR and clever accounting. It was meant to be creative accounting and clever PR…but learning lines is tough) she sailed back to Europe. The captain had been flown in to sail the yacht on its return voyage.

The whole thing is so ludicrous and idiotic that one really does wonder if the West is not in some trance state. The inability to read marketing as marketing is at this point inexcusable in someone self-identifying as a leftist.

The system sails along, like a billionaire’s yacht, increasing profit at the expense of the everyone not of the top 2 or 3%. Greta is a manufactured distraction, and all those protests that her campaign managed to generate are not to help stop war and exploitation. They are pretty much as meaningless as choosing to drive a Prius.

I will end with a quote from Cory Morningstar (from social media)….

You are about to get slammed by 2 globally orchestrated campaigns

1. #GlobalGreenNewDeal
2. #NewDealForNature & People

And when I say slammed – I mean slammed. Like a hammer over your head. Another campaign to assist both is #SuperYear2020.

Goal: obtaining the social license required to re-boot / save the failing global capitalist economy. To usher in an new unprecedented era of growth. The monetization of nature, global in scale (new/ emerging markets)(see past posts). That is, the corporate capture of nature. Those with money – will literally buy nature.

The pitch: The ruling class, corporations, capital finance – all those that have happily destroyed the planet in pursuit of relentless profit have learned their lesson.They have magically changed. Those that destroyed the biosphere will now save it. And save you. All they need is your consent. Forget that capitalism devours everything in it’s path. They can work around this inconvenient truth. But it’s going to take everyone. There are no class divisions, we are all in this “together”. Yesterday’s capitalists are today’s activists. Accept. Join hands.”

[Elvis]

"pretty much as meaningless as choosing to drive a Prius."

Huh??

Fight teh capitalist power! — drive a gasoline-powered automobile, because teh capitalists want you to drive electric cars!!

[JackRiddler]

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I like this Cory Morningstar better.
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/12 ... ver-heard/

Read that and view the video. Just in case anyone's going to wholesale misinterpret and abuse her work as suggesting in any way that, in order to impose their population control agenda, the corrupt capitalist-liberal NGOs invented the hoax of an ongoing anthropogenic global eco-catastrophe and extinction event brought on by the capitalist permanent growth imperative and the hydrocarbon-powered economy (the thing said corrupt capitalist-liberal NGOs prefer to label as "climate change" to make it appear more reassuring and suggest it allows relatively easy market-based solutions in tech fixes, green consumerism, a continued "mix" of hydrocarbon burning alongside other sources to facilitate "growth," and such ludicrous and deadly diversions such as a carbon tax).

Morningstar's elementary observations about marketing companies and corrupt capitalist-liberal NGOs trying to exploit the opportunities for gain in the crisis, and to spin the youth movements their way, are true and kind of self-evident. Far less so the way she spins these past the available evidence to treat the thesis "ALL IS-WAS OCCURING AS PLANNED BY THEM" as though proven, and to demonize Thunberg in a pretty reactionary way (despite a few disclaimers in the latter parts, that sound about as honest as Trump's characterizations of Thunberg on Twitter). It's the latter that seems to be the appeal of the text to Sounder.

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[alloneword]

"pretty much as meaningless as choosing to drive a Prius."

Huh??

Fight teh capitalist power! — drive a gasoline-powered automobile, because teh capitalists want you to drive electric cars!!

Not wishing to appear pedantic, but I think his point here is that the Prius (most of them) are in fact gasoline-powered vehicles.

They derive their power from their gasoline motor or from a battery which is charged by the gasoline motor - no plugging it in, so no renewables.

It can be argued that the newer ones are marginally more efficient (not the older models, though - I had to drive one for a bit and hated it), but it can also be argued that the increased complexity leads to a shorter service life (as they become uneconomical to repair sooner) which negates any gain in efficiency.

To me, personally, they are something of an icon of techno-cornucopianism.

~ end of public service announcement ~

[Sounder]

"pretty much as meaningless as choosing to drive a Prius."

Huh??

Fight teh capitalist power! — drive a gasoline-powered automobile, because teh capitalists want you to drive electric cars!!

alloneword wrote...

To me, personally, they are something of an icon of techno-cornucopianism.

I like it, great word to grasp a bigger picture with, IMO.

Recently, my wife and I went car shopping. As it happens I live in a county where Tesla and Prius ownership has to be among top ten in the world. So we looked at hybrids and electrics along with the rest. Long story short, after ten years with an electric or hybrid, you have a toxic battery pile negatively effecting resale value, while with a Honda Civic you have a still reliable car that gets 37 miles a gallon and does not look like and drive like a potato while doing it.

Also, driving around encased in a symbol of self-righteousness is not really appealing after awhile.

But yes, clearly we will do well to avoid the major premise of the off-guardian article, there is after all some trivial foe-pax that attention can be directed toward.

[coffin_dodger]

It can be argued that the newer ones are marginally more efficient (not the older models, though - I had to drive one for a bit and hated it), but it can also be argued that the increased complexity leads to a shorter service life (as they become uneconomical to repair sooner) which negates any gain in efficiency.

I also have personal experience of a newer hybrid - my wife (I'm old-fashioned like that and look forward to being sent to re-education camp at some time in the future) has a 2018 VW company-provided car. It claimed a 32 mile electric-only range, but with the lights, heating, soundsystem and various other essential systems running, the most we have had from it is a 15 miles range. In the very cold weather, this drops to 12 miles.
It can only be serviced and maintained at a main dealer. The engine has what can only be described as security tags secured all over it - any of which that are broken, negate the warranty of the manufacturer and disproportionately devalue the car.
This car ties you exclusively to the dealer and dealership prices for maintenance. I know the owners of two local garages (non dealership) and they laughed at the suggestion that they might maintain it, once out of warranty.

The 2018 car has a 'brain' which constantly monitors all parts of it's extensive systems - and will disable the car if any of the componant parts, or their sensors, fail. And there are an enormous number of systems in this car. For instance, it has a radar system built into the front grille, which allows for adaptive cruise control (braking and accelerating on its own), if this system component fails, the car will not run and the replacement cost is approx £2-3000. It also has a electical regenerative braking system that will set you back several thousand to replace, should it become damaged. It needs specialised brake pads and discs which can only be bought from a dealership. I haven't even scratched the surface of the exotic systems in cars being produced now.

Should anything happen to the battery element (housed in the boot area), you are in trouble. If it is damaged in a rear collision, a replacement battery costs approx £7000-£10000. VW claim that there are 15 dealerships countrywide (in the UK) that can fit a new battery (or service it), but the reality - as revealed through user experience on forums, is that there is only one or two places - the main being VW's technical division in Milton Keynes. This means that something that should take a few days to repair now stretches into months, due to the waiting times to access such a miniscule number of workshops capable of doing the job.

Basically, we are now producing cars that are so complex that they will be too expensive to maintain once their manufacturers warranty period has expired. And in many cases, if they are lightly damaged ina road accident. I guess this is the plan. Lots of future work for the robot-factory-owning class. Should also, long term, remove the lower classes ability to own and maintain a form of transport for themselves.

I'd be very interested to see the stats on ownership of electric-only cars like Tesla - I'd wager that over 95% of owners have at least one other petrol/gas driven car, which they use for long journeys. Kinda defeats the object, but easily ignored by the devout as inconsequential.

Some people are starting to notice - https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet- ... chnologies

[Elvis]

driving around encased in a symbol of self-righteousness is not really appealing

[Sounder]

Thanks dodger, your example of the mundane details of 'owning electric' illustrate well how some people are for 'constitutional' reasons, unable to read marketing as marketing.

Face facts; virtue signaling produces higher costs, less value and a public that is willing to be led around by their nose in their slavish pursuit of approval.

From Off-Guardian...
The inability to read marketing as marketing is at this point inexcusable in someone self-identifying as a leftist.

[JackRiddler]

Sounder's currently doing an upper left, though there is a at least one upper right elsewhere on the board:

Greta-Bingo.jpg

[/quote]

(oof, I'll never know why attachments we've uploaded ourselves can't be redisplayed in new posts without re-uploading, but anyway the reference is to the graphic at the end of the original post in this thread, here viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41839#p678018)

[BenDhyan]

^

[FourthBase]

How many chips do I have to bet? I'd like to divide them up and place some here, some there, a little on all four.

Yeah, I take the possibility of the upper right seriously, nevermind the poisonous association of "cultural Marxist" with Nazis. Sorry, lefties, but your side is capable of conspiring, too.