“I hang-dry laundry. I am a vegan. I eat one locally sourced meal a week. I own second-hand clothing. I dry my hands naturally using only time. “
Al Gore, former US vice-president. (The Sunday Times 27.07.08)
And you know what scares me most of all? A square, ungainly American with pomaded hair and features suggesting overproduction of growth in the pituitary glands. A sermonising jackass in post-evolutionary America who has inherited a
pious religiosity sunk in self-righteousness and made it a model of sanctity. An unpleasant looking character with a phoney personality. The very prototype of H.G. Well’s Little Man.
Excuse me, while I throw up!
He may talk a good fight. As far as self-promotion, peace-prizes and global warming is
concerned, there is no beating him. Relying, by his own testimony, on the sweet
Lord Jesus who has been so kind to him in the past, he ignores all rational
assessments of the situation, taking refuge instead in the notion that the world
can be saved through sanctimoniousness, individual responsibility, and blaming
all the difficulties in the world on its globalising recklessness.
Thus was a fable launched that persists to this day.
In an interview with American reporters, Gore once stated very clearly
that whenever a difficult situation arose before him, that he would always ask
himself the same question: “What would Jesus have done...?“
Where do these jackasses come from?
The deeper the crisis into which the Earth has been plunged, the more
its inhabitants take refuge in irrational excesses of belief in a dreamy,
sustainable planet with translucent skies over poetic blue oceans. What’s more,
pressure from celebrities and non-governmental lobby-groups, has inevitably
trivialised the solution, reducing it to a question of wind and water power as
the main energy source of a post-mediaeval industry, when the real solution is
to stop talking about individual responsibility or “one locally sourced meal a
weak”, and focus on a globally synchronised population policy and the concept of nuclear fusion as one of the most dynamic catalysts in a highly indeterminate stage of human development.
How did H. G. Wells put it? “Don’t inflict visions upon us, spare our little ways of life from the
fearful shaft of understanding. But...give us cheap lighting, and cure us of
certain disagreeable things, cure us of cancer, cure us of consumption, cure our
colds and relieve us after repletion...Then the little pigmy world would be
safe. They would go on - safe forever, living their little pigmy lives, doing
pigmy kindnesses and pigmy cruelties to the other, they might even perhaps
attain a sort of pigmy millennium... sit down in a world-wide city ...
worshipping one another till the world begins to freeze...” (The Food of the
Gods)
And may the sweet Lord Jesus shove a “locally sourced”
carrot up your ass for ever more...
Dreamy
20 comments:
Brilliant.
At the very least the Gore's of the world could entertain us with old fashioned tent revivals... hot august nights and all.
Is he the one who is a scientologist? One of them is ... right? It might be the other one who is stupider and in movies.
"And may the sweet Lord Jesus shove a “locally sourced”
carrot up your ass for ever more..."
Selena , I am surprised at your selection of a carrot. I would suggest sticking a sack of spuds up these so called "believers" backsides for the benefit of mankind.
When are you coming back to visit my blog?..I miss you.
Helen - seconded
What's even more worrying than AG himself is the fact that many people I know who I've always thought had a reasonable handle on reality believe him!
I listened to an American friend rant down the line from America the other day (on my dime) about how George Bush and Tony Blair had "single handedly " - I laughed out loud at this point - saved the word!
p.s. In my world we refer to AG and those of his ilk as 'the politics of celebrity'. It's that really worrying syndrome where celebrities are asked their opinion on just about everything as though they might no any better than the rest of us...
Mutleydog,
Are you referring to Tom Cruise, though you might also mean John Travolta..or no doubt someone else too? Scientology. there's a lot of it about...in Celebritydom in any case.
'that the world
can be saved through sanctimoniousness, individual responsibility, and blaming
all the difficulties in the world on its globalising recklessness.'
Yeah, though I wouldn't want to hear words said too much against individual responsibility as such -since its absence in popular consciousness explains much that is wrong with life (in general, not only re the environment); though I grant that it won't 'save the world' on its own...and the sanctimoniousness not at all. As for globalisation, well, its somewhat inevitable and unstoppable, but countervailing centrifugal trajectories towards localism will always help...and are not, or shouldn’t be, incompatible with globalisation anyway.
"The deeper the crisis into which the Earth has been plunged, the more
its inhabitants take refuge in irrational excesses of belief in a dreamy,
sustainable planet with translucent skies over poetic blue oceans."
Magnificent! Your best sentence to date, I think (in my eyes anyway). Cool that you slipped your name into it too.
'globally synchronised population policy and the concept of nuclear fusion as one of the most dynamic catalysts in a highly indeterminate stage of human development.'
More details? The nuclear fusion thing I get, but the population policy? Do you consider differences in the demographic tendencies in Europe and the developing world to be significant?
Are you implying we are not doing all that we could be to crack nuclear fusion?
Celebrities..what can be said? They are famous for talents that have little to do with those good causes on which they wax lyrical. And yet they have two things going for them regarding their potentiality to do good. First, they are not necessarily as sceloroticised by the system as experts and politicians are, and so might have more flexibility, and manoeverability. They are also those whom vast numbers of people watch and seek to imitate. They are the possessors (no doubt in many cases undeserving)of that charismatic 'right to rule' that in former ages attached to Kings and Tribal leaders - and is now so vividly absent from our politicians (except Boris?:)). But their problem remains, of course, their grossly irresponsible attachment to vanity and superficiality and bubblegum pretentiousness. An ally of the sanctimoniousness of which you speak.
As I see it they should be more aware of the responsibilities that having spotlights shone on them gives them, whether they like that or not.
But I also agree with Richard that a lot of the time they know very little of much especial significance..and yet their opinion is sought, and sometimes loudly declared. In these cases they should follow Wittgenstein's suggestion and shut up..and re-attend to those talents for which they are famous.
...ahh, may the sweet Lord be blessed, Helen. You are, to my recollection, only the second female visitor to comment on my blog...ever
...so much appreciated!
...as though they might no any better than the rest of us"
...totally infuriating - its like deferring to your dentist for an opinion on Bernard Shaw!
sheesh!
"...I miss you.
...been spending too much time at Mutley's lately (gosh, he's filthy)!
I'm sure you're correct, Dreamy. But nothing's going to happen until the world runs up against the buffers.. and even then, the consequences will be so different in different parts of it that 'buffers' won't even have a globally accepted definition.
Africa's population has tripled in 50 years and is predicted to triple again in the next 50 - and we're busily trying to alleviate the self-limiting effects of poor health, low life-expectancy and famine there.
Asia's population is set to expand by only slightly less... plus its enormous new demands on resources from increasing economic demands.
Europe's and the USA's is set to decline (subject to the effect of immigration, I guess).
I know I've said this before on your blog... but I can't see people in the West voluntarily giving up their current standard of living - which the total dislocation and abandonment of the accepted normal standards would be seen as, if the true effects of Al Gore's wish-list was spelled out to people in real terms rather than as airy ideals.
“...but I can't see people in the West voluntarily giving up their current standard of living -”
No need for that, ASU, on the contrary - I envision a world where we can all drive 4x4s and the living is easy (in a manner of speaking, of course). Bringing down the world population to one half of what it is now, would easily do the trick. And nobody even gets killed. It would also, of course, entail the next hundred-and-fifty years of a universally applied, responsible, global population policy but....(see your own words!)
What’s happening now, is madness:
According to UN projections on Europe, in order to maintain the current ratio of tax-payer to pensioners, it would need at least 700m new immigrants by 2050. In our economic situation, then, we can and must import the 700 million immigrants - which is seven times the predicted total population of Turkey - but environmentally, few would disagree, we cannot possibly accommodate them. If Britain is the fourth leading economy on Earth it is also the most densely populated country in Europe. While China is building new power stations faster than ever - and they are all coal - Britons lead ever more virtual lives. Cultures are complex, and the causes of dejection are hard to prove. But while the Japanese are pretty acquiescent about population density, the European more generally requires space, mental, emotional and physical, in which to prosper.
And the absence and lack thereof is plain to see in our over-crowded cities...
"..easily do the trick" In theory.
How? Who's going to bump off the surplus.. or is it just a question of forced sterilisation after the firstborn until we get there? Do you think there will be any agreement that particular countries (Botswana, say.. or Finland.. or shall we depopulate countries with high densities, like Indonesia, altogether?) have reached their quota? How about the effect of increasing lifespans in the 3rd world? Although, fortunately, our own younger generation is eating and boozing itself to an early death, the same might not happen so voluntarily elsewhere.
I think you're on a vain hope, Dreamy. It's a non-starter.
"...you're on a vain hope, Dreamy."
I agree entirely.
Nor is forced sterilization part of my programme. But taxing "surplus" families would be a start - a sort of carbon-trade on children...
Political schizophrenia towards global warming is never more apparent than in the tendency of national governments to offer bigger tax incentives for larger families, while at the same time paying lip service to UN inducements for reducing the world’s populations. When all is said and done, though (in the context here considered), family tax incentives are the origin of the problem, not the basis for a solution. For whatever the truth of global warming, this isn’t about taxes on cars and aviation, it’s about the fundamentally synonymous roles of economic growth and demographic escalation.
D.
“Are you implying we are not doing all that we could be to crack nuclear fusion?
It took tens of thousands of men less than a decade, Jonathan, to complete the Manhattan Project. Hitler being the driving force that eventually led to nuclear fission. What will it take to develop nuclear fusion...? For I make bold to prophesy that this will be the only option left to the West after it has lost the jihadic war...
D.
I wouldn't want to hear words said too much against individual responsibility as such -
Nor did Karl Marx, Jonathan.
And yet, Adam Smith grasped social behaviour such as it was, Marx understood the world such as it was supposed to be. And in the end it all adds up to one thing: that pious hope is to human evolution what theology is to religion - the prerogative of fools and saints!
So sad, and here I thought I was your first.
Women are always intimidated and 'put in their place' by truly intelligent women. Too bad a loud voice and authoritative demand is so often mistaken for intelligence.
Publicly subsidized procreation is indeed counter-productive, but what to do about a society that calls the artificial stimulation of the parasympathetic system life?
a sort of carbon-trade on children...
Well my kid was a spare that nobody else wanted, so I guess that gives me credit to do pretty much as I like with the rest of my life! And just the one. When I'm gone, I'm gone
Lordy!!
what is a "parasympathetic system" ?- I have looked it up on "Ask Jeeves" and even that excellent Butler does not know...
"But taxing "surplus" families would be a start - a sort of carbon-trade on children..."
You mean taxing surplus families outside of Europe? Not sure you are going to find that many amidst the indigenous populations of Europe are you...except amongst Muslims and immigrants me thinks, who like to breed in the traditional manner...not having discovered yet the 'joys' of not having children.
Do you think the demographic issue would be such a problem if there was an alteration in some rather bsic socio-economic-political arrangements on Planet Earth, combnined with a rennaiscance of a certain selfless order of consciousness beyond materialism?
I wasn't implying we were doing all we could do re Nuclear fusion, i was just asking. I wonder if research is being held up at all by certain curious, regrettable people who find a) that they rather enjoy people buying their oil and b) that they dont give a toss about either their own descendants or other people's.
'For I make bold to prophesy that this will be the only option left to the West after it has lost the jihadic war...'
a) why do you presume we are going to lose the 'jihadic war' (I dont deny serious nuttery is afoot)
b) or that the west would still be the west if we do.
"that pious hope is to human evolution what theology is to religion - the prerogative of fools and saints!"
Good line, have i heard it somewhere before? is it yours or someone else's.
So theology is ok if you are a saint then..?
Yes, things do look bleak I grant. Personally if it wasn't for my interest in matters upstairs I'd have no hope at all. There sure is an awful lot of false, glossy, stuporific, somnambulant and inane and escapist optimism floating around these days.I wonder why?
But you know, sometimes the way forward is the way back, the way upwards is the way down, etc, (T.S.Eliot) especially when a culture recognises an erroneous trajectory that it has been on and and tries to reorientate.
Marx may have believed in individual responsibility but trying telling that to an Eastern European worker under Stalin. Often it is the application that matters, not the original meaning. What is done with Nietzsche and Darwin in their names needs to be considered, not what they themselves wrote or themselves believed.
"Good line, have i heard it somewhere before? is it yours or someone else's."
...I should hope it's mine - it appeared under my copyright in 1996! (A paper on Marx)
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