Why the 10:10 Video Is a Distraction
The 10:10 environmental campaign recently released (then quickly pulled) a viro snuff film. In the video, teachers press a red button to explode schoolchildren reluctant to accept the green dogma of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) and other environmentalist fairy tales.
There’s no question that the film is revolting and its producers are vicious, no matter how much they try to claim it was intended as humor. Still, the pundits up in arms over it are making a tactical error.
It’s true that hard-core viros hate humans. That’s been obvious for decades, long before David Graber expressed his now-infamous wish that “until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”
It’s also true that environmentalism — or, as I term it (in order to distinguish the underlying philosophy from the political movement), viro-paganism — inevitably leads to that position.
But it’s nevertheless equally true that the vast majority of environmental-movement friendly writers do not fall into that extreme category. And therein lies the danger of focusing on their more consistent brethren.
It’s just too easy for so-called moderates to point to their own words — including words condemning the 10:10 video — that say: “See, we’re not like them! That’s not what we want. We just want clean air and water and to preserve some wilderness for future generations to enjoy.”
That type is actually much more dangerous than the open, way-out-there “deep ecology” types.
Figures like Al Gore soon expose themselves and implode. So it is, too, with the Bill McKibben types (even though he has condemned the video). McKibben quoted approvingly a well-known view of turn-of-the-century “conservationist” John Muir, who opined: “Honorable representatives of the great saurians of older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of a dainty.”
Their views are so obviously dedicated to human destruction, whether through enslavement by regulation or open warfare à la the Earth Firsters, that decent people dismiss them outright.
Not so with the more “respectable” sort associated with, say, the Ford Foundation, the Sierra Club, and others who actually share the same long-term goals. Their masks are firmly in place, welded on so tightly that sometimes even they aren’t fully aware of how vicious those goals are.
The more serious danger always comes from those who successfully take on an aura of mainstream, middle-of-the-road attitudes.
Obama was able to get elected because he appeared reasonable and moderate. In the same way, free speech foe Cass Sunstein is regarded as a leading light in the academic legal community. EPA head Lisa Jackson is thought by many to be a moderate, going so far as to shed crocodile tears over having to impose CO2 caps pursuant to a 2007 Supreme Court decision.
These 24 seconds say it all:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100056810/splattergate-oh-well-we-live-and-learn/
This is what “the moderates/middle” enable.
We could be the cleanest country on the planet, but it means nothing, nothing, if the rest of the world (especially, China, Russia, and India) do nothing about it. We can do everything we can to keep our own waters, forests, rivers, and air clean, but the rest of the world could care less. But this is never taught in school. All schools teach is that America is an ecological nightmare and everything would be just fine if only America cleaned up its act. What a lie. And this is what kids believe today and it’s simply not true.
Is the 10:10 film terrible? Yes, it is. But, sometimes, when people are sleepwalking off a cliff, you need to shake them awake to save them. The environmentalists in this country will not be happy unless they destroy our economy. Something needs to be done to shake them, and the rest of the nation, awake.
We are one of the cleanest countries on the planet. Only wealthy countries can afford to be this clean!
If you want to see REAL destruction of the environment, you should hop in your time machine and visit the Soviet Union.
Back in the 60s, long after Stalin was dead, a young man named Viktor Suvorov (this is a pen name that this Russian chose for a series of books that were negative towards the Soviet Union) was living on a collective farm. A call came from an official of the Soviet petrochemical industry advising the collective farm that the year’s supply of liquid fertilizer had just been produced – the entire Soviet petrochemical industry had been devoted to fertilizer production for a day or two at the direction of the central planning organization for the economy – and that they needed to come collect that fertilizer IMMEDIATELY. Suvorov was delegated to take the collective farm’s tanker truck to the petrochemical factory and bring back the fertilizer. He was given 24 hours to do the job.
As he set out, Suvorov was scratching his head at the orders he had been given. You see, the petrochemical factory was several hours drive away and the tanker he had could only hold about 1% of the total amount of liquid fertilizer that the factory had made for the collective farm. That would require him to make 100 trips to get all of the fertilizer and, try as he might, he couldn’t figure out how he was going to make 100 multi-hour round trips in just 24 hours. But questioning orders was not an option in the Soviet Union so he decided to play the whole affair by ear. He arrived at the petrochemical factory and immediately discovered a long line of other tankers from other collective farms all lined up for their share of the liquid fertilizer. He waited his turn, let them fill his tanker, and then reasoned that all of the other tankers must have the same dilemna that he had. So he decided to follow the tankers and see how THEY solved the dilemna. He followed the other tankers a couple of miles to the nearest river and watched as each tanker in turn backed up to the edge of the river, then opened the tap that let all of that fertilizer drain into the river. He did the same then followed the tankers back to the factory to get their next loads. All day long, the tankers filled up on fertilizer, drove to the river, and immediately drained the fertilizer into the river. Finally, at the end of the day, the tankers finally drove back to their respective homes bringing only the very last load of the day with them.
When he got back to his collective farm, Suvorov asked the director of the farm where to put the liquid fertilizer and was advised that no one wanted it, no one at all. He ended up putting the entire tanker load on his own private plot. (Soviet citizens living on collective farms were allowed to have small private plots of a few acres and grow what they liked on them.) This, of course, was far too much fertilizer and it ended up killing everything in his plot. He said he would have starved to death that winter except for the fact that it was time for him to report for his compulsory stint in the Army.
And that’s how Soviet Communists “cherished” the environment: by vastly overproducing something and then dumping the vast majority of it in the river, which surely didn’t help the ecology of the river or the living things, including humans, that used that river for drinking water or whatever.
You are absolutely correct. The great causes, such as Global Warming, are simply agendas by which control of the productive population, and ultimately enrichment from them by the governing elite, can be achieved.
You refer to the New Deal, and the way in which this was used to obtain control of the financial system of the United States.
Garet Garrett in his excellent essay, The Revolution Was (mises.org/daily/2726), details this and the cynical manner it was used to obtain this control. As he said and you have pointed out, what the New Deal achieved made no sense in terms of trying to improve an economic situation. It did not do it in the 1930s and it does not do it now, so what are those clever people who implement these policies playing at? Surely they can see the ongoing folly of trying to push the horse backwards with the cart?
It is evident they are not trying to achieve what they say they are trying to achieve but are, indeed, pursuing another, entirely different agenda, upon which their intelligence is fixed.
Garrett:
“There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.
There are those who have never ceased to say very earnestly, “Something is going to happen to the American form of government if we don’t watch out.” These were the innocent disarmers. Their trust was in words. They had forgotten their Aristotle. More than 2,000 years ago he wrote of what can happen within the form, when “one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about revolution in the state.”
Worse outwitted were those who kept trying to make sense of the New Deal from the point of view of all that was implicit in the American scheme, charging it therefore with contradiction, fallacy, economic ignorance, and general incompetence to govern.
But it could not be so embarrassed, and all that line was wasted, because, in the first place, it never intended to make that kind of sense, and secondly, it took off from nothing that was implicit in the American scheme.”
And on the devaluation of the dollar. The US Government seized all the gold and issued paper money for it. Then:
“Each morning thereafter the Treasury announced the price the government would pay for gold in paper dollars, one day 30 paper dollars for one ounce of gold, the next day 32 dollars, two days later 34 dollars, and so on; and not only the newly mined gold in this country but anybody’s gold anywhere in the world. Thus day by day the president and the Secretary of the Treasury determined the value of gold priced in American paper dollars, or the value of American paper dollars priced in gold, which was the same thing; and how they did it or by what rule, if any, nobody ever knew.
The spectacle of a great, solvent government paying a fictitious price for gold it did not want and did not need and doing it on purpose to debase the value of its own paper currency was one to astonish the world. What did it mean? Regarded as monetary policy it made no meaning whatever. But again, if you will regard it from the point of view of revolutionary technique, it has meaning enough.
The reason for giving so much attention to it is that it was the New Deal’s most brilliant feat; and certainly not the least remarkable fact about it was the skill with which criticism was played into making its fight on false and baited ground. Each step as it occurred was defended, and therefore attacked, on ground of monetary policy, whereas the ultimate meaning was not there at all.”
Although I understand the point of the article, and I have a tendency to want to agree with it, I believe ignoring the actions of the “honest fringe elements” results in an even greater danger. As with many other organizations, beliefs, and movements the majority of the members are usually unaware of the true goals and extreme actions of the organization, much like the majority of Germans were ignorant or could pretend ignorance of the brutal actions of the German government being carried out in the concentration camps during WWII. By reacting to the blatant message of the 10:10 video and by preventing it from disappearing from the public eye we are making the truly moderate members aware of the extreme views they unknowingly support while also making it impossible for any to claim innocent ignorance. Additionally, if we don’t express our outrage and instead allow the “it was meant to be humorous” justification to stand we provide cover for the true believers and allow the moderates and even the non-believers to become desensitized.
I know many “moderate” environmentalists, and most of them strike me as sincerely interested in goals that are reasonable — clean air, the ability to enjoy the outdoors, etc. However, when they advocate for regulatory “solutions” to their goals, two bad things happen:
1) They actually make things worse, for the precise reasons Perren points out. The goals they want can only be achieved by a capitalist system that enforces property rights in a free market (including rights to take court action against objectively-proven polluters).
2) They enable the hard-core (i.e., the more consistent) environmentalists who *are* pursuing an explicitly anti-man agenda. The “moderates” are the equivalent of the “useful idiots” for the Communists during the Cold War. None of the “useful idiots” wanted gulags and tyranny. Nor do the moderate environmentalists want the extinction of humanity. But when they enable and/or provide political cover for the more explicit bad guys, they endanger all of us in the process.
i hope i’m mis-understanding,this writers claims that those like cass susteen,are considered moderates,on the environment;this poor excuse for a human being,has been one of the main architects,of these,anti-capitalist eco-terrorist,regimes,and other socialist,nationalist/globalist organizations,and their extremist,ponzi-schemes;such as global warming.those like sierra club,are mostly incompetant humanist,pathological social paths;who search out groups that are haters of humanity,or human life.but more discusting they can only find happiness,through the suffering of others.you could go to a sierra club event,and a day later the same people,or types of people will be at an planned deadbeat parenthood,protest,natl. organization,of predatorial,perverse,and deadbeat,women;pink,or every democrat party fundraising,political event;its not just human life,they despise free will,individual,and religious independence,and freedom,as well.did you really think,they are anti-war because of the lives lost;what a fraud. its because of the,free will,individual,and religious,rights,independence,and ,liberties,that might have the opportunity to flourish;these people see those like adolph hitler,mao-se tung,and saddam hussein,as great leaders of whom,they aspire to be someday;someone who steals the fruits of the labors of others to redistribute to all who will love them,worship them,be loyal to them,and lie to them telling them everything to make them feel superior,and justify their paranoia,because that is, they believe, the only way to cover-up,and over come,their greatest weakness,an infeority complex;what i call i don’t,or i can’t get enough attention,deficit syndrome;yes, the very same people that are brainwashing,this self-serving sickness into the hearts,and minds of our children.instead of facing the truth,as to whats happened to our children,and why? politically correct marxist communist,liberation theology collectivism,globalizationist educated;psychologist,psychiatrist,pharmaceuticalpimps;(pharma;meaning,sorcery.)drugging them up,and dumbing them down;while,education,unions,trial lawyer,entertainment culture,media,and government,lobbyist,pimps,prostitutes,traffickers,and pedophiles;continue to have their way with our children.i know i went the long way around the original topic;”environmentalism”my point though all are tied together with the other;anti-life,anti-independence,anti-individual,and religious freedom,anti-liberty,anti-free will,anti-free enterprise capitalism,and especially,anti-christ;don’t be manipulated by one cause vs the other;it is progressive liberalism,and socialism,that needs to be,dealt with;then all other problems will respond like the domino effect,begin to collapse;all of these liberal causes are just a smoke screen/sight of hand,diversion,to weaken the american dream;as i said earlier liberals only care about themselves,and the misery,and sufferings of humanity;provides the only sanctuary,and happiness,to justify their own shame,and guilt of who they are;to force others to agree,or believe,as they do or they don’t have the right to exist,or any that are inconvinient,or an obstacle to their paronoid,insecure beliefs;begin to understand this fact,remove the cancer,which is satanism;and life,liberty,and the american dream,can prosper,once again;to tolerate the continuation of this sic-ophant religious belief,is to tolerate all evil to continue to flourish,in the world;as progressive liberalism worships all religious beliefs,and their leaders,and false prophets,that seek to destroy,human life,free will,independence,individual,and religious,freedom;challenge me,if you dis-agree;but truly seek the truth,and you will find what i say here is true;why we have refused to deal with this problem up til now ,is because;it is our own rebellious natures,against god,and will of god;within;ourselves,our loved one’s, our friends,and our weaknesses to be liked,accepted,loved,and tolerant of the rebellious natures of others;no;we don’t need an exorcism,but we need to truly examine why we are so obsessed with the lives,of everybody else,and feel the need to force others to think,believe,and act as we do;”collectivism”destroys free will,individual,and independent thought,and ambition;stay clear of others beliefs,unless their beliefs,seek to transform,dis-assemble,or destroy your own;it is those that demand their beliefs,lives,liberties,rights,property,resources,are to be exalted above others,that is the problem,and is satanism/progressive liberalism/political correctness/shari’a law compliant islam;liberation theology;as lucifer’s war with god;is to exalt his will above god,humanity,free will,life,and libertysame as progressive liberalism;this goes for all religious beliefs;myself a bible believing conservative christian,have no aspirations,or ambitions to force others to believe as i do;only the right to believe,practice,pray and speak to anyone,of legal/parental consent,that wants to learn,understand,practice,and believe the same,as i do;and god’s will in the end,will seperate the wheat from the chaf;but the laws set forth by our founders,natures law,and natures god;is the only laws that will continue the american dream;when law is manipulated,or bought off to exalt lawlessness in any form;you are helping to destroy the american dream;jimmy joe;”the liarfryer”
Your space bar: it’s the biggest button on your keyboard. How do you keep missing it?
Oh, Jimmyjoe – you sure can persuade people, don’t you?
This video is just wishful thinking from the people who brought you the Holocaust, the 1932-1933 Ukrainian Famine, the Great Leap Forward, and the Killing Fields.
The essential underlying enviro notion, it is hardly an idea, is antagonism towards other humans, and probably themselves. And antagonism may not cover it.
Naturally many enviros criticized this movie, the producers let the cat out of the bag, they showed themselves for what they are and were confidant a leftist media culture would approve and/or tolerate this filth. That in itself is indicative. You could say they jumped the gun and gave the game away, and “respectable” enviros had to jump for cover.
I’m sure there are a few innocents who swallow the line with good intentions, but they’re not in the drivers seat.
Sorry Jeff, but I can’t help seeing the Project 10 “No Pressure” video as a canary in the coalmine.
It is a clear picture of what’s bubbling behind the conscious environmental mindset. Like last year’s grotesque rain of gory polar bears slamming into the pavement, it shows the depth of violent self-righteousness which undergirds the whole movement. Where do you suppose the nutjob who attacked the Discovery Channel got his ideas?
Another second-string PJM article going on about how some conservative response to the world isn’t properly tweaked to the “real concern” the author cares about.
I’m really tired of this angle.
Mr. Perren: How about making your point without enclosing it in a lecture that seems to say conservatives aren’t smart enough to think as strategically as you do?
Conservatives haven’t expended a vast amount of energy on the 10:10 film, though they were certainly right to sit up a feel a flash of outrage.
10:10 is the environmentalist middle.
nor are they unmoored. They’re Moore’d
What Perren misses is that the 10:10 film makes handy ammunition against the environmental middle that will last for years to come.
And snork’s 9:38am comment is correct. The 10:10 video didn’t come from Earth First! or any other environmental fringe group. It came from a professional film group led by a beloved British writer-director and a Hollywood TV star, sponsored by Sony, for mainstream television.
Is Sierra Club really “moderate” in its effects on the world? Didn’t their legal actions lead to a chain of events which resulted in the deaths of millions from the banning of DDT?
The Sierra Club is not moderate. They are an adjunct of the Democratic Party. About two years ago there was a lecture about global warming being held at a local library. One of the speakers was a funny looking man with a funny accent. After he gave his speech, and the affair was over, I overheard him talking to a pair greenie groupies, telling them how we must do everything in our power to get rid of Bush, capitalism, and how to silence people who reject the AGW theory.
I have updated my article to include more videos:
http://tinyurl.com/Eco-or-Die-Updates
We are human beings, this is OUR PLANET, and we shall use it as we see fit.
It is our manifest destiny.
The other thing the 10:10 video shows is how the Left sees its opponents as less than human, and cheap fodder for extermination.
Like that character from the “Matrix” movies that described the human race as ‘a virus’, so too does the Left see its opponents.
You are absolutely correct in that tactically the enemy needs to be engaged on every front where he deploys himself where he is inflicting or would seek to inflict casualties. In this case the promotion of contempt for human life.
But strategically one must see the full truth of the situation if one is going to defeat him in his actual plans and goals that intend you harm.
This video is monstrous and indicates the whole mindset of people that can casually explode other people with whom they disagree, and needs to be exposed as indicative of the way they feel and think. Assuming there is some sanity and decency left in the world, and that people can still see, the film is truly an “own goal” for them. Agreed. May it be seen for what it is by as many people as possible.
But, of course, the intentions of those promoting the green agenda at its most powerful and world-altering levels are not concerned with the well being of the planet but are to do with amassing wealth and power. Saving the planet is only secondary, if it is an issue at all. And in fact any environmental disasters or problems are welcomed as being apparent justification of their agendas.
A very interesting overview of the cynicism of carbon trading from last year is available at: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/money-for-old-carbon.html
These powerful lobbies are the ones that appear to be mainstream, moderate and responsible.
Having seen this video I am now beginning to see why Osama Bin Laden is joining the AGW crowd.
Environmentalism is a religion and in no way is it a science and the idea of bringing these nincompoops into an exchange of ideas is ludicrous. Ask any of them what year was the best for harmony on our planet? The answers will range from a disdaining glance to the outrage of claiming to know what life and our planet were like before the dawn of mankind. They have no answer and therefore no basis for their beliefs that can be used as a long term goal. They know nothing more about our environment than the unholy man in the moon. They do have an unwavering faith in the canards of Environmentalism and, because of that, they are as dangerous as the believers in the Islamic caliphate. Moderate Muslims act peaceful but somehow can’t muster the will to denounce the radicals of their ilk. The author is therefore correct. The softer face of the so-called mainstream environmental groups represent our real danger. Please note that I cannot any more prove that environmentalism is a religion than you can. So this is just my opinion, my analysis being that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is usually a duck.
There are real and dangerous environmental issues such as water supply that are important because they affect human beings and not some fuzzy notion of “nature”. That said, there seems to be an unspoken belief amongst many environmentalists that humanity is the problem and not the cause to be defended.
As for that video, anti-technology and anti-human advocates can start with removing themselves from the net. The video was disgusting, unfunny and relaxed about the idea of removing ideological opposition. Bin Laden would have been proud.
http://rulehibernia.com/2010/10/bin-laden%E2%80%99s-influence-already-showing-in-climate-change-propaganda/
I’m glad others understand the very real problem “moderates” pose, and do not just dismiss them as the good guys who are COMPLETELY different from the evil bad guys over there. The bad guys are in truth just the logical extreme of the philosophy fully espoused by the good guys, and should be acknowledged as such.
That said, one of the reasons videos like this are important are because they sometimes convince the moderates to stop evading that knowledge and behave accordingly.