A response to Terry Hutchinson

On resorting to labels and slurs in the absense of evidence

Most days it takes me hours before I am able to summons up the energy to post anything on this blog, MY blog - I am not a newspaper -  but sometimes I see comments that make me so angry I have to respond immediately.

“Its ironic you chose to post this. Your complete lack of a cognitive filter has resulted in many absolutely crazy fake news or conspiracy fantasies getting visibility here. You really should make more of an effort to validate the stuff you post. Much of it is clearly garbage.”


The ‘this’ that he refers to is this which for emphasis I will repost.

It is a piece of well-considered and -researched journalism whether you agree or not.

The words above could only have been written by a white, American male who I would wager is a Democrat who somehow preposterously identifies himself as “Left’.

Why are a certain class of American males such insufferable busy-bodies?

It’s almost as if they ruled the world!

It takes me back to when we I were on holiday in Hokitika visiting Pams’s mother. We were given temporary charge of the neighbour’s rather uncouth dog who had free run of the town. Darkie decided to crap outside the TAB betting agency. Nobody paid much attention until some white, American male approached and as a foreigner demanded that we clean up.

This is an attitude that is far from universal but which I have observed on many occasions – full of a sense of entitlement – that thinks that they can come to another country and tell us how to behave.

The voice of Empire and I doubt many Americans can see it in themselves.

These people, almost always “fake Left” (now THAT is a real expression as opposed to ‘fake news’ identify anything they disagree with as ‘fake news’ (even if it is demonstrably true) or ‘conspiracy theory’ (no matter how much evidence there is to support it)

Terry Hutchinson was incomplete in his slur. He omitted to add the epithets ‘right wing’ or ‘nazi’ or 'white supremicist’. 

The one way that I know that I am on to something on these subjects is that people on the Left (I mean the REAL Left) use slightly different language to describe the same thing as folks from the Right.

What is Right anyway? 

I have been around for 60 years, mostly as a leftist and for me being "right-wing" means support for interventionist wars, unbridled individualism and denial of the concept of Society or the Greater Good, uncritical support for rapacious corporations while being "Left" implies opposition to war and empire and support for social control of our resources and the means of production (however old-fashioned when less and less is actually being produced) in the interests of the Greater Good.

The former is not just a definition of the Republican Party or even of Donald Trump (although he fits the bill brilliantly) but also of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism both. 

The Democrat Party falls into the rubric of ‘right-wing’ perfectly and there is NOTHING,absolutely NOTHING even vaguely “Left” about the Democrats unless you want to redefine it all to embrace their disgustingly hypocritical identity politics.

****

Finally I want to address this article which comes from the other side of the Atlantic – from the Guardian which is as emblematic of a Fall of Grace of anything I can think of in journalism.

Stop blaming ‘both sides’ for America’s climate failures

The article asks us to stop putting the blame “on both sides”and blame Trump instead.

I for one do not suffer from amnesia and remember perfectly as if it were yesterday how Obama scuppered any attempt at reaching agreement at COP15 in Copenhagen while uttering beautiful but empty platitudes while signing off on another oil pipeline or ten. Or Killary Clinton who dropped all mention of ‘climate change” once she had stolen the Primary from Bernie Sanders.

These are liars and hypocrites and I would like to echo my intellectual hero, Edward Goldsmith talking about George W.Bush and apply it to Trump by saying “at least you know what you’ve got”.

Then, the much bigger sin in saying:

“The fault lies entirely with the GOP. Focus on fixing it, not laying blame where it doesn’t belong”

Anyone who is informed and vaguely honest will acknowledge that this is not ‘fixable’

What we have is not a 'crisis' - the Chinese characters contain 'opportunity' as well as 'danger' - but a predicament which the Cambridge defines as "an unpleasant situation that is difficult to get out of" - an everyday definition that does not reflect the full meaning.

There is NO 'opportunity' in climate change or even 'danger' since we are well into the process of climate disruption fuelled by global warming.

It is indeed a predicament.

When I refer to climate change deniers I am not referring to the likes of Exxon Mobil who know more about the truth of the situation than even you or I but choose to perpetuate a Big Lie to continue to extract money until the very last minute.

There is a struggle going on between advocates of the ‘old economy’ (oil) and the ‘new economy’ (‘renewables’) - itself a lie because it is all based on oil or inputs that produce greenhouse gases.

But it is totally about maintaining the industrial economy, which is nothing less than a ponzi scheme these days.

So we have to make truth subservient to ideology.

Nothing is true unless it comes with the fiction of ‘fixing’ our predicament which largely comes down to “you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet”

Truth doesn’t matter.

Evidence doesn’t matter.

So, rather than provide any evidence at all you resort to ad-hominems, and labels like ‘right wing’, ‘fake news” and “conspiracy theory”.

Out the window with intellectual argument, even good old-fashioned polemics.

Out the window with evidence and getting your facts right before making an assumption.


I will just finish off by saying this is MY blog. I am not a newspaper and am not beholden to any ‘standards’ imposed on me by others but only to my own conscience.

****

If you don’t like what I present, Terry Hutchinson, do me a favour and bugger off to somewhere else that mirrors your own prejudices. 

Why don't you research something and turn it into an article instead of pissing on someone else's parade?