In Defense of Cory Morningstar & “Manufacturing for Consent”
Hiroyuki Hamada
Image source here.
Good investigative journalism doesn’t only reveal hidden mechanisms of our time; it also exposes those who refuse to confront the mechanisms.
Remember when the late Bruce Dixon courageously and cogently called Bernie Sanders “a sheep dog candidate”?
Remember when Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley and others truly stood with Syrian people in opposing the western intervention?
I do. Those who could not face the reality came up with all sorts of profanities and ill conceived theories to demonize the messengers.
Cory Morningstar has been a dedicated environmental activist with a sound track record, who has closely worked with various NGOs. She is a mother. She is an avid gardener. She is an honest person with empathy, passion, love for people, love for our fellow creatures and love for nature.
Her human character and sense of justice has culminated in her keen insights, observations and analyses. Her writings have inspired many of us to see the depth and scope of capitalist institutions as part of the social dynamics affecting our consciousness. Her meticulous pursuit of facts in illustrating mechanisms of our world evokes a sense of awe. She is a respected colleague in our struggle toward a better tomorrow.
While her latest series, The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg—for Consent: The Political Economy of Non Profit Industrial Complex Volume I and Volume II , has been wildly praised as a ground breaking milestone in depicting the vast mechanism of exploitation and subjugation involving the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, it has been also maliciously misrepresented.
One of the very common, yet blatantly erroneous criticisms, centers around the series’s focus on the young activist.
Why do they attack the author as a child abuser? The series does not attack the 16 year old activist at all. It points out those organizations and individuals which closely surround her in forming a momentum for their agenda. It delineates how the mobilization fits within the larger framework of corporate “environmentalism”, colonialism, global capitalism and imperialism.
The trickery of the accusation that the work attacks a child and smears the youth led activism follows the same pattern of lies and deceptions unfolding against serious journalism for sometime.
It reflects how establishment successfully dominates our minds as it dominates the hierarchy of money and violence. The ruling class actually abuses children by making them pawns for lucrative business projects–such as carbon capture and storage, “renewable energy” schemes, carbon trading and so on (the series discusses why they do not work extensively).
They trick the innocent youth into digging their own graves while making profits out of it.
Remember people called you racist, when you pointed out President Obama’s drone killings? Remember people called you misogynist when you criticized Secretary Clinton’s colonial policies? Those who did didn’t mind brown people blown into pieces, and didn’t mind the colonial oppression of women in colonized lands.
The capitalist hierarchy structurally forces us to embrace the values, norms and beliefs of the ruling class, as it trains people to climb the social ladder as expected.
The momentum to accuse Morningstar’s work as a child abuse stems from the same psychological projection of accusers’ own complicity in consecrating a teenager as an invincible saint of their movement.
Then there is the most typical argument to condone obvious institutional tendencies of inhumanity: “things aren’t always black and white”. Of course there are good environmentalists doing good work as well.
We have gone through this in so many incarnations.
When we point out police brutality, we hear “not all police officers are bad”. When we point out obvious racism among us: “not all white people are racist”. Those are certainly true. But could we also say “not all slave masters were evil”, “not all Kings and queens were evil”, “not all colonizers were evil” and so on?
Well, sure. But does that mean we can bring back slavery, feudalism or colonialism? No. Refusal to talk about the systematic inhumanity inflicted by the system tolerates the status quo as acceptable.
And please do stop with “but the movement gives us hope” nonsense.
What happened when we were sold “hope”, “change” and “forward”, and received colonial wars, big bank bailout, global surveillance and loss of legal protections during the Obama presidency? We got Donald Trump.
When the system squeezes already oppressed people while shuttering their hope and making them embrace fear, people try their best to hold onto whatever they have.
They embrace an illusion of salvation in authoritarian lies and hatred against “others”. It is extremely important that we strive to discuss such a mechanism among us instead of jumping into the same momentum. We must discuss the true hope of building a momentum moving beyond the lies and deceptions coming out of the destructive hierarchy.
Morningstar states in The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg—for Consent: The Political Economy of Non Profit Industrial Complex Volume II Act IV:
Consider that collectively, the populace appears to believe that not only is it possible to colonize another planet, but that we will do so in the not-so-distant future. This is incredible considering the massive odds of and colossal barriers to such an endeavour succeeding. Thus, it is alarming, that this same populace appears not to believe it is not possible to create new societies where necessity is detached from want (superfluous consumer goods).
This begs the question – have we been fully conditioned to believe only those that represent hegemonic interests? It is a sound question considering the billionaires of the world are currently petrified of the capitalist system collapsing – while those oppressed by the capitalist system believe it cannot be dismantled.
Yet we can dismantle institutions. We can dismantle the capitalist economic system devouring what remains of the natural world – but not if we identify with our oppressors and the very system that enslaves us. It is our natural world and her living natural communities that sustain us. Not industrial civilization – not technology.
Hopelessness and cynicism do creep up to justify the status quo. But we also must recognize that such a position does away with putting our efforts toward standing with the truly oppressed ones.
Morningstar’s series meticulously documents how powerful global organizations seek ways to cultivate a consensus for their trajectory. And it carefully states, with facts, why the trajectory does not lead to achieving their promises – preventing climate change and other environmental calamities.
The illustrated mechanism has been revealed over and over through their past crimes – the coordinated actions of industries, bankers, politicians, NGOs, UN, global financial institutions and media have culminated into colonial wars, coverups of nuclear disasters, regime change, and other corporate, colonial and imperial policies.
There is nothing speculative, coincidental or conspiratorial about the series. It is based on careful research, honesty, courage to face the real issue and true love for humanity. It is again curiously indicative that those who engage in a conspiracy to mobilize the people according to their agendas accuse those who see through the attempt as “conspiracy theorist”. The use of the derogatory term invented by the US intelligence agency to label dissidents as tin-hat wearing nuts jobs hardly proves their legitimacy.
Moreover, I must say that it is extremely odd and disingenuous that the series has been portrayed as a refusal to take any action, instead insisting on ideological purity. Such an attack has been coming out of those who have been pointing out the same moneyed network in forwarding corporatism, colonialism and militarism by manipulating popular opinions.
What is the difference between opposing destructive colonial wars and opposing colonization of nature/co-optation of activism? More specifically, what prompts some of them to say “what is your solution?”, “we can’t wait for capitalism to be overthrown to solve climate change” and so on. The obvious falsehood of such an angle is the stark absence of solutions within their own “green momentum”.
Morningstar’s research does not talk about the necessity of establishing a communist statehood or overthrowing capitalism in order to solve the impending crisis. It simply states facts in a cohesive manner.
Consequently, it certainly indicates the systematic structural issues presented by the hierarchy of money and violence. The research clearly names individuals and organizations that are involved in mobilizing the population in installing government policies that are lucrative to the associated corporations and beneficial to the imperial framework. Capitalist hegemony does present itself as a source of predicaments of our time. But is that new to us?
Needless to say, for those of us who believe in the Marxist perspective, the solution amounts to a structural transformation of our society into one that doesn’t monopolize the means of production for the ruling class.
The economic activities must be subservient to harmonious existence of the people, environment and other species. And our social interactions must be under a control of such aims, instead of financial and social power of the ruling class. But make no mistake that that is simply an ultimate direction.
Just as we voice our objections against any form of inhumanity regardless of our systematic problem, when we see certain environmental policies being subservient to the corporate agenda, likely to result in worsened conditions for the people, we discuss them.
There shouldn’t be anything different about pointing out the US military aggression and the fallacy of US environmental policies, especially when they are forwarded by the same western establishment. When we find the carbon capture schemes to be disingenuous, for example, we simply point it out.
We demand an answer to why corporate “solutions” are upheld as people’s “solutions”. And people who buy into false narratives should be noted as not credible leaders in people’s movement.
So the question “what is your solution?” really should be directed at those who subscribe to those erroneous “solutions.”
They need to be asked how those solutions would be a worthy cause at the first place, and why cogent criticisms against implementations of destructive schemes can not be embraced because “we can’t wait for a socialist revolution”.
What people desperately need today is good investigative reports like the one presented by Cory Morningstar, along with our educational efforts to reveal the mechanisms of our time.
We must learn how the unprecedented wealth accumulation among the very few ends up protected by layers and layers of moneyed social institutions coordinating to perpetuate the system, while progressively oppressive financial pressure and state violence against already oppressed people keep herding people into the capitalist framework.
When we face the sad reality of people embracing policies that allow the powerful minorities to exploit and subjugate them over and over, what we need is not a popular mobilization guided by vague slogans easily subsumed by the imperial framework. Such a method would lead to draconian enforcement of corporate “solutions” according to their definition of “problems”. It is a recipe for bringing about a fascist order.
What we need is openness and willingness to learn how we are domesticated by the authoritarian framework so that the actions are guided by the interests of the people in forming a society that allows true liberation of the people in a mutually respectful and harmonious manner.
Please do read The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg—for Consent: The Political Economy of Non Profit Industrial Complex Volume I and II. It gives us an excellent starting point in learning how to build a better tomorrow for all of us.
Hiroyuki Hamada is an artist. Exhibiting widely in gallery and non-commercial settings alike, Hamada has been the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, twice received New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in sculpture, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Alongside his career as an artist, his writing can be found at various outlets online.
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This is a truly brilliant article that I will share widely. I wrote an article entitled “Not This Kind of Green” on the Solarian website (it’s a “dot ca” by the way, not a “dot com”) making some of the same points, but I like the way Hamada delves into why and how we need to have this discussion and not accept Astroturf solutions like carbon sequestration at face value. Superb!
To be honest, saying that “So the question “what is your solution?” really should be directed at those who subscribe to those erroneous “solutions.” ” is absolutely disingenuous.
It is like asking a dog for the solution for its barking at things. That’s dogs do, that’s what colonial capitalists do.
Marxists have yet to produce a realistic alternative proposal. And yet they complain at everything.
UBI and the change of the work dogma is the only practical way forward, tangible, transformational and possible. Yet the Marxist fail to let go and embrace proposals that could actually change everything by just changing some parts, instead of wanting to change some parts by changing everything.
James Corbett has a great documentary which, at the very end ,tells us what the next hoax (spoiler: climate change) will be: How Big Oil Conquered the World
https://youtu.be/ySnk-f2ThpE
Having ploughed my way through most of the jaw-dropping series, “The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg”, all I can say is that the ruling class has reached depths of conscienceless manipulation that even I never suspected them capable of. Everything must be presented as “an exciting business opportunity”. Saving the planet is “an exciting business opportunity”. Killing the planet is “an exciting business opportunity”. A nuclear war would be “an exciting business opportunity” (And should it turn out that there is an afterlife and a God, then these too present “exciting business opportunities”)
And today I was perusing the magazine racks of Tesco’s and, in amongst the glamour mags, the celeb mags, the rich-list celebration rags, the “mindfulness” mags (telling you to “find your inner peace and fuck everyone else”) and the endless lifestyle mags, there is GQ magazine with a picture of Greta Thunberg with a black jacket sporting the words “CAN YOU HEAR ME?” and a title telling us she is the “game changer of the year”. And all the world’s problems are solved by a fashion switch based on another “exciting business opportunity”!
For a human who has been on the planet long enough to know that (A)Man made destruction of this planet is real and (B)Sometime in the early noughties, a few of the climate change activists worn down by the powerful combination of corporate obstructioinism, greed and threats to their and their families’ lives stupidly encouraged the take-over of environmental policy by corrupt neolib politicians, the Thunbeg phenomena is entirely predictable – as is the wild claims by the stupid and/or corrupt that climate change is a crock.
Apart from a few terms at University of Kent, I didn’t study too much science, although a swathe of friends and family did and I have no doubt that back in the bad old days when the alleged establishment was trying desperately to marginalise environmental activists, that those at that time young activists were speaking the truth.
I still know that, just as I know the current cries to throw the baby out with the bath-water by trying to discredit the excellent science behind global warming on the grounds that Thunberg & co are put up jobs, is playing right into the greedy paws of corporate capital.
Right now those types are laughing up their sleeves cos they imagine they just cannot lose. Either Joe/Jo Blow is gonna get behind the Thunberg nonsense and be caught up in the inevitable scandal which must follow it, or they will see through the scam straight away and be vulnerable to nonsense claims that global warming is a crock.
Neolib fishwraps like the graun encourage all to hop about the train to nowhere, whilst the torygraph etc pick at the incongruity of an inveterate truant claiming an ability to educate us all.
Both are completely wrong, but you will have a fruitless time if you search for any news vector that points this out.
Fully agree.
Too much is presented as if the climate change movement of the 1990s didn’t exist. There were heaps of protest – genuine protest by real dissidents who took their arguments (specifically against globalised capitalism) to the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF and the G7. They locked their bodies onto trees, in tunnels, onto machinery and tripods. They were tear gased, beaten, smeared, derided, ignored, arrested and shot. They set up information networks that were some of the first casualties of online censorship (Indymedia) well over a decade before today’s shutdown.
Anyone who was involved in any of that looks at what is going on today and would have to agree with you. Bait and switch doublethink with chips.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
‘Twenty five years before Greta, there was Severn, and we ignored her.
“Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future. Losing my future is not like losing an election, or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come . . . We hear of animals and plants going extinct every day, vanishing forever . . . Did you have to worry of these things when you were my age? All this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions. I’m only a child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you. If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it.”
Reading this you could think it was from any one of the youth climate strikers. Greta Thunberg, or Saoi O’Connor from Cork. Instead, these words were spoken more than 27 years ago, by then 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki at the plenary session of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.’
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/twenty-five-years-before-greta-there-was-severn-and-we-ignored-her-1.4022656
The truth always wins out in the end, there’s no uncertainty about that. What is unclear, though, is how damaging and turbulent the correction to our self-deception and ignorance – wilful or otherwise – will be. Fair dinkum and BigB (below) remind us that something as fundamentally insane as capitalism – which is in essence the process of exploiting Other in blinkered pursuit of perpetual economic growth – cannot succeed in corrupting all minds forever. Its ‘successful’ co-opting of various movements across recent history is felt by its elites to be a tried and true strategy, which is no surprise, but at some point the deeper truth of “As we do unto Other, so we do unto Self” wins out. And whether you see reality as netted consciousness – as I do – or netted ecosystems, my sense is that more and more people are ready to embrace this truth and adapt their behaviours accordingly. If this attitude prevails, it will produce systems of governance that are about ‘tending our garden’ rather than ‘feathering my nest’.
Recently, I was talking to a friend who has conversed with the founder of XR. My friend is a lifelong activist so has a well-trained sense of people’s commitment and authenticity, and his opinion was that the guy is genuine and not for sale. Perhaps the same is true of Greta Thunberg. It may therefore well be that capitalism’s inevitable demise will be hastened by its overly arrogant extend-and-embrace of the incorruptible: the earnest desire to do the Right Thing married to an informed and balanced knowledge of what the Right Thing is.
I have completely abandoned what I would call “secondary or tertiary opinion making”. That is the reliability of anyone else to assess my opinions for me. Including Cory …with zero loss of respect, I must add.
In practical terms: I joined XR …even if it was pre-recuperated (co-opted from the outset) and purposely intended toward green neoliberal ends. That as maybe: it is also authentic. At grassroots: everyone I’ve met is motivated by their humanity and out of a shared respect for the environment and an authentic ecology. If there are corporate shills – I’ve yet to meet them.
If anyone thinks that everyone in XR is naive and being manipulated: think again. Perception may be being managed: but not at grassroots. We just want a future. I’m 57: many I’ve met have got 20 years on me. We’ve seen it all come and go. Promise built on empty and hollow promise. My hope is the genuine sentiment breaks out of any managed bounded perception. It’s a potential – by no means certain – that genuine sentiment will prevail. The more authentic people – who want a future – that join the better. There is much to disagree with …but distance disagreement changes nothing. In realpolitical terms: XR is the best chance of a future I know of.
Capitalism is collapsed. See my comments on Frank’s forum on the EU. The Fed has been pumping $75bn a day into the global economy all week. It is set to continue open-ended QE from tomorrow. That is the Fed throwing in the towel. Capitalism is dead (it has been for 12 years.)
For which we have been totally blindsighted by lies. There is no future under capitalism. There is no alternative to capitalism. When are we as human beings going to start to laying claim to the mythology of sapiency? I see or hear very little other than uninformed opinion …jealously guarded and egoically cherished bullshit. Even on this page.
The pretense that we can continue with our perpetual motion infinite growth imagination is killing us. It’s over, and we are totally unprepared in our self-deceptive solipsistic imagination to build a humanistic alternative. If you don’t want a neoliberal neo-feudal alternative designed by billionaires: join XR and make sure it is not perception managed that way.
Or sit at home: pretend there are no problems that demand deep adaptation …and contribute to climate change with the hot air of your own worthless CO2 as it conveys nothing useful …except an absolutised sense of self-importance.
The binary you present – ‘join corporate-managed XR or sit at home and do nothing’ is completely silly, and you must know it.
Better advice – quit XR, admit to being conned and work on informing yourself and those around you of the complex realities beneath the simplistic and corporate-sponsored climate memes.
Fascism brought to us in the name of faux environmentalism is maybe the major danger of our time. The PTB have realised that a large swathe of left-leaning Greens are emotionally receptive to any legislation that promises to save the planet, and likely will not see the bait and switch until too late.
The last thing this situation needs is rationalisations for closing down on skepticism
Quit XR? You completely bypass what I am saying and then provide your own reductionist reactionary judgment. On what criteria are you basing your judgment? Your own, or someone else’s second hand opinion? Have you met or spoken to anyone at the grassroots level? Or are you basing your criteria on media perception management?
Rightly or wrongly: I have at least met with some of the activists. Initially, with a great deal of skepticism. But I at least wanted to find out in person. And compared to the billionaire corporate agenda for ecological idiot savants that will come out of Brighton this week – there is a great deal of sense being spoken. At least at local level.
Do you even know what deep adaptation is? Repatriating all vital systems and making them functionally resilient. That is through appropriate technological means: not high tech, high-maintenance, energy and resource draining (high energy input) solutions that pretend that capitalism will grow eternally. (Such as Labour’s ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ that is coded into the green neoliberal GND.) That particular POV (imaginary eternal growthism): which is the basis of the opinions many of the contributors here – is becoming more untenable day by day.
Financial solutions include distributed (non-centralised) local currencies – perhaps backed by sovereign currency. Shall we compare that to the economic illiteracy that will salve the false bourgeois dreams of middle class prosperity – at the green imperialist expense of child miners and sex slaves – that will be uncritically digested by the sycophants of corporatism under the ‘pro-business’ McDonnell mantra …chanted by cargo-cult economists this week in Brighton?
There is no comparison. The false binary narrative you have created is that there are no
non-corporate choices …unless we make some. And if we can’t agree and do nothing: the neoliberal corporatocracy win anyway. It’s make or break, put up or shut up time for humanity. Greta gets that much right.
Those who do nothing lose. Those who vote for Labour’s GND, vote for green neoliberalism and the financialisation of nature. Which is ecocidal and suicidal. The GND – however it is formulated and policied out – will be humanities suicide pact with the TNCs. The TNCs that have destroyed the climate, the environment, humanity itself, and are proceeding to wreck the economy at the rate of $75bn a day.
If you cannot see the writing on the wall? The reason I follow Cory and Hiroyuki et al is that they have never fallen into the false binary narrative trap. There is an existential crisis we are in the midst of. If all genuinely concerned and authentic people quit XR then we will have financial collapse and invert totalitarian fascism for sure. If the undoubtedly recuperative XR Rebellion can be colonised by good people who want a future for the children – like everyone I have met so far …then there may be a infinitesimally small chance that we won’t.
Bevin is right (he catalysed my commitment): sitting at home is a vote for green fascism. The GND is a vote for green fascism. Denialism is a vote for green fascism. And XR may well be a vote for green fascism. But if we can mobilise its authentic grassroots: it might not be. When all available options entail green fascism: I’ll take the realpolitik risk with XR. What will you be doing next month?
[BTW: can you tell me who has brought any more nuance to the holistic psychopolitical, economic, and ecological debate than me? I deconstructed the GND in February and exposed the Avaaz/Change.Org/Justice Democrat/AOC/Exley/Labour GND agenda. Most of that was original, as far as I know. Bevin certainly did not like it. And Corbyn made any links back to Soros dark money web ‘antisemitic’. What is he trying to hide? Please do not say I am not aware of the complex realities: I exposed many of them. If you care to check. The least we could do is hold judgement on XR until they release the results of this summers discussions. And if they are attenuated toward corporate agendas: don’t worry …I’ll expose them too.]
The biographer of Ezra Pound, Eustace Mullins, identified the source evil decades ago. Worth a look.
” And Corbyn made any links back to Soros dark money web ‘antisemitic’. What is he trying to hide? ”
I would be very interested to see a reference. Thanks.
Research “Resource Based Economy” from The Venus Project. I think you will enjoy a highly feasible alternative.
There is a lot of info in Cory’s series. One thing I don’t remember reading is that Greta Thinberg’s close associate and ‘coach’, a young woman called Luisa-Marie Neubauer- was made Youth Ambassador for One Foundation back in 2016. Neubauer can be seen in many photos with Greta, and is credited as a major organiser for the School climate strikes.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190209123959/https://bv.antrag.gruene-jugend.de/buko51/Luisa_Neubauer-46919/pdf
https://www.one.org/us/about/
Odd how all these humanitarian and activist websites including ONE use much the same language and ideas (about “partners” and gloating about their achievements) and sometimes even similar website themes and templates. Almost as if they’re taking instructions from the one set of sponsors.
Yes, she is kind of a body (and mind) guard for Greta: keep her on the straight and narrow. Not easy with a troubled school skipping teenager who loves to preach.
I have searched widely – and on One’s website – for credible mention of her as a Youth Ambassador, and found none.
Strange as (what seems to be) her own bio (linked above) mentions it.
Free Greta Thunberg!
I just realised that the prophet Johnny Mathis foretold Greta Thunberg:
“And all of this happens because the world is waiting,
Waiting for one child
Black, white, yellow, no-one knows
But a child that will grow up and turn tears to laughter,
Hate to love, war to peace and everyone to everyone’s neighbour
And misery and suffering will be words to be forgotten, forever”
The Greta Thunberg phenomenon is another example of capitalist manoeuvre of presenting whatever bullshit you want to sell as representing what most people want. They want bold heroes “speaking truth to power”? Fine we’ll give them that! (Just as long as they don’t realise that the speaker is a puppet being worked by the power being spoken to.) Also – don’t forget to use the current demon terms. Just as Corbyn was branded “anti-Semitic” (implication: he’s a Nazi) then be free with the ultimate provocation: claims of child abuse.
‘They trick the innocent youth’
Tricks that will backfire when some of the the innocent youth put two and two together and find that it adds to CORPORATE MALFEASANCE and mass murder.
Let’s give em a bit of credit.
Our numbers grow.
I follow Greta on Twitfeed. She speaks a lot of sense. The media massage her corporate image very well. She definitely went went off script at COP OUT 999 in Katowice. Avaaz quickly perception managed that. She has linked up with Prof Kevin Anderson on occasion. His POV is definitely anti the climate aristocracy.
You may be right to give her some credit. She may yet turn to bite the hand…
…after all, don’t teenage girls reject all parental authority right about her age?
This analysis hits all the points that we, especially activists have been facing and it is quite simply that society is so indoctrinated and enmeshed as well as self absorbed that they immediately go into denial and oppose any notion that is contrary to what they have been brainwashed. I liked what you said about demonizing the messenger. I believe that happens to all of us who are trying to speak truth to power in turbulent times.
You can see how easily young people are being indoctrinated and manipulated in the Hong Kong regime change operation, the Great Global Warming Hoax and LGBT degeneracy.
All it takes is a bit of astroturfing from the likes of Soros and the NED, a few vacuous platitudinous slogans, plenty of CIA money, and the Amen Corner of the MSM echo chamber.
Any critical thinking can be left at the door.
We are saving the planet, so anything goes.
And besides, it’s such good fun playing wag from school and smashing things up.
Strange how none of these lavishly funded organisations suddenly materialise in multiple countries to campaign for an end to the war in Yemen. or demand an end to immigration.
What it really takes for young people to climb aboard something is a celebrity. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less.
Well put. The Report from Iron Mountain (hoax!) detailed the artificial green movement 50 + years ago.
According to her mother Malena Ernman (48), 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg can see CO2 with the naked eye. She writes that in the book ‘Scenes from the heart. Our life for the climate’, which she wrote with her family.
“Greta is able to see what other people cannot see,” writes Malena Ernman in the book.
“She beginning can see carbon dioxide with the naked eye. She sees how it flows out of chimneys and changes the atmosphere in a landfill.”
And the climate scientists believe her.It seems they are beginning see CO2 also.Soon it will become a mass hallucination.
It sounds as if Greta is being used as a modern version of divine intervention with a supernaturally gifted child.
Let the Children’s Crusade begin! 😀 😀 😀
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Crusade
Excellent article Hiroyuki, thanks. By coincidence, was looking at Cory Morningstar’s blog ‘The Art Of Annihilation’ before checking the latest story here, and, voila. “The deceit is so thick you can cut it with a knife” from the front page of her blog.
I regard Cory Morningstar as one of my go too sources for the reality of the Neoliberal turbo charged capitalist world we live in. With all its consequences; both for us humans, and the planet we live on.
The work done by Cory Morningstar is indispensable in understanding the machinations of the psychopaths who rule us, and the co opting of groups like AVAAZ Get Up, and 350.Org to name a few. There are many many billions $$$ to be made from the green washing of Capitalism.
It’s just so good to finally have company in promoting the invaluable research of the wonderful Cory Morningstar. I’ve been doing it for a while. Patrick Henningsen has also made sure that people know about her. He interviewed her. It wasn’t a great interview, but so what? As Noam Chomsky said, people don’t listen to him because he’s a great talker.
I stumbled across Wrong Kind Of Green blog maybe 3 years ago – the detail she goes into is quite awe inspiring. I know a few OffGuardian commenters are fans of her work also. Such deceit and Machiavellian machinations in the world Arby, and such co opting of allegedly progressive organisations. Another co opted one; Change.Org just had a puff peice in the Big Issue mag (that I sell in Aussie) along with enthusiastic coverage of the Hong Kong protests, and Extinction Rebellion, but despite the theme being about ‘protests’ not one word about the Gilets Jaunes in France -apparently they don’t exist, and not one word of the Palestinians ongoing protests against the brutal apartheid occupation. Apparently the Palestinians don’t exist either. But gushing coverage of Hong Kong (with zero mention of NED or US agencies). Appreciate your reply.
Noted. Agreed.
What’s going on with the extinction rebellion stuff is utter rollocks; in fact it’s the biggest psyop I’ve ever seen; quite breathtaking.
Aside from the fact that these psychos are terrifying children (“It’s the end of the world!”), which is in fact a crime called child abuse, there’s an alarming number of adults who buy into this crap.
Don’t worry kiddies, the world is not about to end. It’s all just propaganda and mind control. We’ve had all this ‘end of the world’ nonsense, not just in the modern propaganda era, but throughout history.
There’s not one peer reviewed scientific study that backs up anything extinction rebellion says (and I’m sure I don’t need to add that you just have to look at who funds groups like extinction rebellion).
It’s not about facts, it’s about “how I (ie, the big corporations) feel”.
Jesus Christ, Scotty, beam me up out of here…
Quick scotty, beam him up.
I repeat, can anyone point me towards just one peer reviewed study, from a respected academic institution (and not the likes of totally corrupt UN projections) that actually gives some basis to what extinction rebellion are saying? (and terrifying children about)
“Jim, it’s life, but not as we know it”.
There is a journal called Climate which is open access. Several hundred papers there to get through.
The top 20 journals on the subject are listed here:
http://archive.sciencewatch.com/ana/st/climate/journals/
I would not have interjected if someone had written that they thought the science not settled, or that they thought that they didn’t believe any science has any validity at all, or that they thought XR are part of a phenomenon of exagerated predictions [not that I would agree with any of those necessarily].
But to write that nothing XR say is backed up by any peer reviewed paper is just plain false. There is plenty in their presentations which refers to peer reviewed work (right or wrong).
There is nothing about Cory Morningstar’s work which necessarily lends weight to the notion that climate science is not a huge and compelling body of work. She is herself a longtime activist for action on the issue.
It is ironic that the circulation of her work by climate change sceptics (or pseudosceptics, depending on your position), probably far exceeds that by those (like me) who are convinced of the scientific arguments but unconvinced by the ‘response’ that we are now seeing in the shape of The Greta Thunberg Machine and ‘the Extinctionists’.
Can we get past the false dichotomies ?
Can we get past the false dichotomies?
False dichotomies are the very essence of ruling-class mind-control propaganda. If you’re not with us, then you’re with the terrorists.
But you already knew that.
I am with those against double think….
…………..
…..anyone…..?
No, you’re wrong, Rob! We’ve only got 12 years/ 11 years/ 4 years/ 27 minutes to save the planet!!! We have to dismantle our economy, impose trillions in green taxes, and get Goldman Sachs trading in Hot Air Certificates!!! It’s the only way!!! No time to lose!!!
and remember: according to Al Gore in 2006, we all died three years ago
If you’re as old as me (just 55 years old) you’re now on about your fourth afterlife, what with rabies, AIDS, the ozone layer, and all the rest of it.
Any excuse to air this one again: Jefferson Airplane -White Rabbit…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
Last I heard, Grace Slick was living in a nuclear bunker in the Nevada desert.
“Silent Spring”, so on and so forth.
Any dissertation on climate change that doesn’t include the effects of long term man-made geo-engineering of weather is incomplete.
Damn! You’re probably old enough to remember global cooling! Seriouslyl, remember all that talk about a ‘new ice age’ back in the 70s? Whatever happened to that?
“Ten years ago, Thomas Peterson, William Connolley and John Fleck published a paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society which looked back at the climate science of the 1970s: “The Myth of the Global Cooling Scientific Consensus” (hereafter called PCF08). The goal of the paper was to look at the peer-reviewed literature of the time to see what scientists were saying about the future projections of climate. In the decades since the 1970s, some “skeptics” of global warming/climate change have made claims that “all the scientists” in the 1970s were predicting “global cooling” or an “imminent ice age”. But, the PCF08 survey of papers from 1965 to 1979 showed that while there were some concerns about future “cooling”, especially at the beginning of the time period, there were many more concerns about future warming caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide.”
https://www.skepticalscience.com/70s-cooling-myth-tricks-part-I.html
It was so long ago, I don’t remember right off if anyone ever made the claim back then that “all” scientists were predicting a new ice age. But it was a topic of discussion in the media to some extent, was it not?
By the same token, what do we really know about what “all” scientists today are thinking, except what the media choose to tell us? Can I, for example, independently confirm that 98% (or whatever percentage the media are claiming now) of all climatologists presently believe in AGW? No, of course I can’t. In fact, I don’t happen to know a single climatologist–let alone a representative sampling of them! So how can I confirm such a factoid? It’s impossible.
“For climate change, there are many scientific organizations that study the climate. These alphabet soup of organizations include NASA, NOAA, JMA, WMO, NSIDC, IPCC, UK Met Office, and others. Click on the names for links to their climate-related sites. There are also climate research organizations associated with universities. These are all legitimate scientific sources.
If you have to dismiss all of these scientific organizations to reach your opinion, then you are by definition denying the science. If you have to believe that all of these organizations, and all of the climate scientists around the world, and all of the hundred thousand published research papers, and physics, are all somehow part of a global, multigenerational conspiracy to defraud the people, then you are, again, a denier by definition.
So if you deny all the above scientific organizations there are a lot of un-scientific web sites out there that pretend to be science. Many of these are run by lobbyists (e.g.., Climate Depot, run by a libertarian political lobbyist, CFACT), or supported by lobbyists (e.g., JoannaNova, WUWT, both of whom have received funding and otherwise substantial support by lobbying organizations like the Heartland Institute), or are actually paid by lobbyists to write Op-Eds and other blog posts that intentionally misrepresent the science.”
https://thedakepage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/how-to-assess-climate-change.html
All sides are funded in this, the time is over for claiming the climate debate is a David/Goliath face off between ‘the scientists’ on one hand and Big Oil on the other. The Thunberg Roadshow has made that obvious. Both sides are co-opted. Making distinctions about how some of the co-opted are worse than others is just an attempt to defend a dead position.
‘Denier’ as a concept was invented to close down debate and impose binary thinking. People busy abusing each other with these weaponised words are essentially neutralised as effective independent citizens.
Just been watching the child narrative on BBC1 News. It’s all about easy options that will be paid for by the poor and give the middle classes a warm feeling…all dressed in clothing dependant on the petro-chemical industry.
It’s nonsense.
‘ Caitlin Jonhstone
I would change that to ‘economic and monetary systems’.
Also, we must be clear that any ‘overhaul’ must be in a preferred direction. It looks likely -from witnessing events unfold and pondering them in reflection of Cory’s work, that ‘an overhaul’ is very much on it’s way, and the PR is there to build social momentum to help it through any resistance. Unfortunately, the changes seem, on close inspection, terrifying, and destined to make the environmental, political and social, situations distinctly worse. Indeed at odds with whatever vague vision held by the ignorant people who are dancing to the piper’s tunes today.
The ‘overhaul’ is well underway and quasi-global. It started in earnest at Davos, as you know. Then we have the philanthrocapitalists working in allegiance with the class traitors in the Zionist Labour party – with Zack Exley going between AOC’s launch of the GND and the Zionist Labour party launch of the Climate Emergency …and subsequent launch of the Zionist party ‘Labour for the billionaire GND’. That association is ongoing with the invite of two of the Soros’ Justice Democrat’s to speak on Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, both AOC and Ilhan Omar had to turn class traitor Corbyn down when they found he supported fascist racists Watson and Regev …(to be fair, so do they).
Apart from the Zionist party continually kotowing to fascist rascists like Regev and Watson: the really big development is that nearly all the world has been converted to green neoliberalism under the guise of the fascist racism known as Eurasianism. Which pretty much covers the world island or supercontinent, as it is now known. This is Putin/Xi’s version of anti-humanity fascist racism – with the same old cuddly 4IR, sovereigntist, harmony with nature ecological neo-Volkisch fascism – posing as environmentalism. With a magic sprinkling of occult fascist racism thrown in.
Even Carnage’s SHC blockchain currency is part of the ‘New Agenda’ that the FT are pushing. Which is cuddly corporate free-enterprise racist fascism. Fascist racism posing as ecology: it’s fucking everywhere, bros. The Global Climate strike started this week. And XR are planning for a month of activities next month. There is the big UN meeting and another big report due to drop (IPCC interim …I might have made that up: a big report for October).
As I said: this is the agenda for the rest of our lives. And, quite plausibly – the rest of civilisation. Which, at the rate we are going …won’t be nearly as long as people think. I guestimate about 30 years – based on extrapolated data from several sources. Which is hopeful, but it should almost see me out. Having been more thoroughly exposed to the crass stupidity of idiots in the general populace: and even those that have percolated among the good commenters here …I don’t see much to hope about.
The most potent force in the UK is the XR Rebellion, now ain’t that the fucking irony. Of which I am a member. It’s either the billionaire controlled Zionist party UK: if who’s idiot leader is the moral probity of a corrupt nation, we’re fucked anyway. With his coalition against the billionaires; endorsed by the billionaires; fronting the death protocols of the GND for the billionaires …which virtually no one can see as humanities longest suicide note.
So what if the XR is another corporate front: show me a political movement that is not? At least XR are not backing NATO and child murdering jihadis, or endorsing the annexing of the West Bank whilst pretending to stand for Palestinian rights. Like Tom fucking fascist racist Watson!
At XR: Jem Bendell’s ‘Deep Adaptation’ paper is central to policy. Billionaire backed or not: it is so far in eclipse of the corporate manslaughter; green imperialism and other life-blind death protocols that the Zionist party endorse – including murdering Palestinian children …have not heard that being proposed by XR yet.
Whatever the XR leaders are up to – and I’ve yet to hear Rupert Read speak out of turn. Hallam can go fuck himself. But the actual people are just like me. We just want a future. Which just about everywhere else morons and idiots are condemning the human race to evolutionary history. And I can say ‘EROI’ and people actually know what that means!
So, I’m afraid, as much as I support her position – I’m striking out against Cory and Hiroyuki. Not that I even disagree with them. But unlike some braindead denialists posting here …we really do only have a few short years to save the species. And quite frankly, anyone who thinks we will just keep on growing eternally just to support their sadfuck solipsism …well, right now I’d quite happily see them go the way of the dinosaurs …if only I did not have to share their fate.
Fair play to you Big B. I can relate to a lot of those sentiments (even though they kind of echo what Bevin says about supporting Labour just in a different degree). I don’t think you need telling, but watch yourself in that group setting. Things will get pressured up, psychology applied, minds twisted, absurdities believed, atrocities committed. These are mythical times.
Something like XR, which basically sets out to take on the entire Machine, I think, needs to have some pretty strong footing both in it’s understaning of how and why we have arrived where we are, where we can realistically go in order to survive/ salvage, even a clear narrative of what the human condition is really about.
It is only anecdotal, but I have not seen much in the way of these things from my own interactions with the ‘movement’, so don’t feel inclined to be a part. I spent some time talking with Bendell at a monetary event some years back. He’s pretty clued up, although I tried to press him on deeper political matters and he silenced out.
Truth needs to be told. All of it. XR should be shouting from the rooftops that the Non Profit Industrial Complex can fuck the fuck off, and not trying to shoot messengers (your good self excluded).
Yeah, the silenced out strikes a chord. Anti-capitalism is met with “We’re non-aligned or apolitical”. Read has come clean and said capitalism will have to end. So did Hallam. Privately, so do a lot of people.
I’ve seen the videos on Cory’s site. Being arrested is no picnic. I’m ‘Bound Over’ so I won’t be putting myself forward as an ‘arrestable person’. Thanks for your concern, but I’m pretty savvy really. Things are going to get nasty anyway. Entropy is exponential and nearly 100% of people can’t see its effect. The economy will crash long before the climate. The current economic contraction is keeping the lights on a bit longer. An astute populace would use this as a chance to change. You know the score on where we are really at: close to 100% denial.
I’ve just been forging connections. Most everyone I’ve met so far seems genuine enough. The movement will change as the political climate changes. For better or worse they beat the Zionist party UK. And the GND.
The Citizens Assembly and sortition might work: depends on the experts? I’d love to get in it: for shits and giggles if nothing else! Or we all vote Zionist with Bevin (who probably can’t vote in the UK anyway) and start carving dum dum bullets for fascist racists. I’ll take my chances with XR. What could possibly go wrong? We mostly seem to be gleefully accelerating toward our own species extinction anyway!
“The economy will crash long before the climate. ”
You may have seen this site?
https://www.facebook.com/cosheep/
Needless to say that I am always thrilled when I get proof that I am indeed not the only one that sees it this way. Having grown extremely tired of getting ridiculed and defamed by the same lackeys that support the continuation of business as usual – because there is no alternative in their narrowminded myopic view of the world and its problems created by such a view.
Suffering from PTSD, it is next to impossible to not be overwhelmed by the assault on reason and ingenuity – which are both extremely important to overcome this greatest obstacle in human development: the sacrifice of the more positive aspects of humanity and the destruction of nature for greed and self-absorbing temporary entertainment as delivered by the present business-as-usual model of imperialist materialism, enabled and backed up by ruthless military force.
It also prevents a fluent and seamless collection of words into a work of literature, or journalism of the likes of Cory Morningstar and the supporting article by Hiroyuki Hamada. Leaving only my heartfelt gratitude for the expression of what I would like to write myself in such clarity and coherence.
Nottheonly1
Great post. Something I and am sure others here can relate to in some way. A few years ago, I experienced a feeling of utter frustration and powerlessness with world events and other peoples attitude. The world hasn’t changed for the better but for my issues,I managed to find a good few strategies. Vindication of my beliefs as you touched on was the main one and I got my many thoughts in far better order and now dont let the Louis’s of this world get to me. All the best and agreed – a great enlightening article.
With you on the PTSD, NTO1. thanks for your comment.
Leaving aside the conspiracy-mongering that underpin’s Morningstar’s “analysis”, she draws a dichotomy between the good “land defenders” of the Global South (ostensibly those in Brazil that are opposed to Bolsonaro’s invasion of the Amazon) and the bad movement led by Greta Thunberg that is focused on reducing or even eliminating greenhouse gases while being funded by the Gates Foundation, et al. So what are people in the North supposed to do? Move to Brazil? Write blog articles like Morningstar supporting Brazilians opposed to Bolsonaro? Write comments here in support of Cory Morningstar whose website is ranked 1,086,659 globally by Alexa?
What folly.
How perceptive Louis. No one in a small minority is ever right. Truth is measured by Alexa-ranking.
Wise of you to avoid further contribution on the 9/11 discussion, by the way. You’ve learned some prudence since 2016, when you were made to look very silly by Pained Scientist, and subsequently ran away.
Let’s hope the same fate doesn’t befall you here.
Very well stated.
…mmm…
this starts with a Manichean picture (that is not supported by the author) and ends with
a “Straw Man” fallacy….
Interesting, how the mind works.
@ Louis P
You start with a kind of ad hominem ( ahem…’conspiracy-mongering’ ; NB no examples), but then move swiftly to the false dichotomy, and wrap it up neatly with an appeal to ‘authority’.
Not bad for one paragraph. But then again you are something of a whizz at this.
What fallacies !
funnily enough, crank, and probably not a coincidence, but this is the exact same playbook used by the corporate perception-management machine to discredit anyone who dares to think outside of the proscribed group-think, and used in place of any kind of real reportage these days..
insult>argue different points from your mark to introduce straw-man>smear as a result>reference other corporate organs doing same. a wrap-up smear, i think nancy pelosi called it
embedding is important.
Go back and read Hiroyuki’s article before posting again, Proyect. Here’s what he has to say in answer to your question, “So what are people in the North supposed to do? “
The fake leftist shill is back
Morningstar’s series on Thunberg is excellent, as is the OffG article on her views.
The Media Lens editors, think differentky. They think that the Thunberg phenomenon is genuine, and Morningstar is wrong in suggesting that Thunberg is a bought and paid oracle for ‘green’ capitalism (which, btw, is similar to ‘happy’ facism).
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/903-the-london-climate-protests-raising-the-alarm.html
Well, maybe…
But then, paraphrasing Parenti, you can always say what you like as long as they, (that is the Davos and UN meeting organizers and the countless NGO’s who are sponsored by corporations like Shell, Ikea, Microsoft), like what you say
So even if Thunberg is genuine, she still is exploited by green capitalism for the sole reason that you cannot attack a youthful person, who (how convenient) thinks that the earth can be saved by green capitalism.
Perhaps I would think different about this youth movement of which Thunberg is the icon, if they would speak of saving the climate by
advocating a stop on
– commuting to bullshit jobs (but keep the wages)
– buying stuff one really does not need (but fund second hand purchases)
– war
– poverty (so that people do not need to have a large family in order to pay for their expenses when they get older)
But that is not saving capitalism, so there you go…
I think they are just too young to understand how to fix what they know and sense to be broken. Adults don’t understand how the system works so why would they? The conversation around green capitalism not being the answer is an important one to keep having at this time.
The desire to believe we can buy and profiteer our way out of this one runs deep.
Having said that, and while noting the problems of the movement, it also swelled me up to see all of those people take to the streets. Solidarity is an important thing for kids to grok who don’t even understand that their village squares and communities were sold out from under their feet before they were born. That we need to keep banging on about the underpinnings of our financial system being entirely incompatible with the future they want is very important. It’s just hard terrain because (a) it’s so bloody boring and (b) it’s so abstract and convoluted that even those on the inside can’t see gfcs coming and (c) it’s enormously complicated and impossible to explain inside a 5-second attention span.
But we must keep trying.
Progressives have seen what the Media Lens lads are all about but most of them blithely quote their assorted articles, thereby endorsing those fakers. Nothing makes me more crazy than when people learn facts and are then too lazy and/or uncaring to allow those facts to alter their behavior. What is learning for?
I only bother with visiting the CounterPunch site in order to follow John Steppling’s work and his piece today dovetails nicely with this current one in support of Cory Morningstar’s very important insightful work:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/20/american-psychopathy/
The State and corporate media lie to us unremittingly about literally everything of import – war, peace, wealth, poverty, violence, racism, torture, surveillance, human rights, and propaganda – but we should “believe them” when they speak to us of their neoliberal neocolonial savage-capitalist – “climate solutions” – arrived at with zero input from we the populace of the planet – lest we all be labelled “child abusers?” Amazing! But oh so very predictable.
It really is sad what has happened to CounterPunch over the past few years. It was once my favorite website.
Seamus – I quite agree. To add insult to injury we get the odious Louis Proyect visiting here at Off-G – doing his typical shilling for empire while posing as of all things a progressive – and functioning as the “moderator” for “the Marxism mailing list” at CounterPuff. Amazing!
Having reduced Counterpunch into a projection of his worldview, and finding it barren as a result, Louis Proyect sets out to do the same to other alternative news media sites, in the service and emulation of his masters with false arguments, accusations and slander.
If the editors (most whom I support) allow that, then it’ll happen. Otherwise, it seems that there’s enough sensible regulars here to make Louis uncomfortable about spouting and not too attractive to the uninitiated.
Could be worse. Could be Alexander Reid-Ross!
”What happened when we were sold “hope”, “change” and “forward”, and received colonial wars, big bank bailout, global surveillance and loss of legal protections during the Obama presidency? We got Donald Trump.”
Exactly.
What happened when we were sold a ‘third way’ and ‘education, education, education – we got Blair. In France they got Hollande, in Greece they got Tsripas, in Ukraine they got Poroshenko.
Anyone still believe in a centre-left worthy of name? When the crisis came it went missing as Wolfgang Streeck pointed out.
An excellent defence of a superb investigative journalist and a vitally important series that should be read with an open mind.
We are lucky to have a small number of exceptional journalists of integrity able to point out that in fact, the Emperor’s clothes do not exist and he is actually stark bollock naked. Eva Bartlett, Lizzie Phelan, Abby Martin, Vanessa Beeley, John Pilger, Patrick Henningsen, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, all worth their weight in gold. They are like Mother Teresa standing outside the whorehouse of the MSM.
LOL – but not Kit Knightly, Catte Black or Vaska Tumir? The journalists who actually published this?
I don’t trust Snowden by the way, and he ain’t a journalist.
Don’t trust Teresa either. She never did anything for the poor, inkras it was some PR stunt, was well on terms with the happy elites, and had the perfect ‘looks’ for someone being a saint, while grossing thousands of dollars that weren’t really spent on the sick. She also had her statistics wrong, always biased towards helping far more people than she and her Organization actually did.
Her advise to those who ruled the world, while impoverishing the rest: ‘that they should smile more.’
See also http://www.commondreams.org/views/2007/10/22/mother-teresa-john-paul-ii-and-fast-track-saints.
In Mother Teresa’s case, she was waiting to be allowed inside.
I can’t supply the necessary links as I’m tapping on my smartphone but it should be common knowledge now that Mother Teresa defended a San Francisco Catholic priest after his arrest for paedophilia crimes in the 1990s and that she also wrote to Los Angeles judge Lance Ito (of later OJ Simpson criminal trial notoriety) begging leniency for a con-man who had stolen hundreds of thousands if not millions of money from small investors in a scam.