Leading The Way
Climate change activists chained themselves to the wrong building in the City of London after failing to realise the fossil fuel company they wanted to disrupt had moved address last year.
And yes, there is a punchline:
The group of 200 protesters instead brought chaos to the entrance of a building which houses the offices of a leading renewable energy company.
The protestors’ chanted demands include “No borders, no nations, no gas power stations.”
Update, via the comments:
Readers are invited to marvel at the patchwork of seemingly incompatible concerns, and to ponder how, if at all, any of the protestors’ professed objectives could actually be met without nations, with borders, to implement them. Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity or common bond could function at all for any length of time, let alone in ways that they, or we, might find congenial?
Via Tim. Previously. Also, open thread.
Was it the curse of the “non-hierarchical organisation”?
Was it the curse of the “non-hierarchical organisation”?
Well, given there were 200 of them, you’d think someone might have checked. Still, we mustn’t question our new messiahs.
I’m not making the borders and nations connection except that it rhymes.
A worker at the company told the Evening Standard: “They’re protesting against Drax, but they don’t live here anymore. I understand [the protester’s aims] but it helps if they check the facts.
Once can’t help but think, if they were actually bothered about the facts, then they wouldn’t be eco-loons to begin with
I’m not making the borders and nations connection except that it rhymes.
It looks like the usual incoherent patchwork of leftist posturing. For instance, I’m not quite sure how any of their supposed ecological objectives could be met without nations, with borders, to implement them. Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity could function at all for any length of time, let alone be motivated in ways they might find agreeable?
If there were no power stations I don’t think anyone would be tempted to enter the nation by crossing the border!
No borders, no nations, no gas power stations.
Yay! Let’s all live in caves and eat dung as Gaia intended!
One can only hope that the narcissistic clowns obstructing traffic and chaining themselves to things, and boasting “We will shut you down,” were escorted to detention cells that were suitably dark and unheated.
Avast there! No guacamole for THOSE scurvy dogs!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-food-writer
Avast there! No guacamole for THOSE scurvy dogs!
I’m not sure glamour is the word that comes to mind.
Also leading the way, APSA Announces the New Editorial Team for the American Political Science Review
Meet the diversity !
Related:
https://pagesix.com/2019/07/30/a-listers-flock-to-google-summit-in-private-jets-mega-yachts-to-talk-climate-change/
We must save the planet, people!
Meet the diversity!
Let’s see, ten white women who could pass for one’s leftie aunt, a Brahmin, and an old-money “Black Royalty” case, by the appearance of it.
I can just feel the oppression.
Welcome to London.
Welcome to London.
Of course people need to be told these things because how else would they possibly know? AIUI, I think you may need additional signs to discourage stabbings and cutting people’s heads off. Just a suggestion.
I can just feel the oppression.
Sorry, forgot the link.
The one who appears from the tiny photo may be of the sub-Continent is apparently African-American (or African/Caribbean/American), the top row second from left one with the glasses has the Hispanic name. They didn’t go in order with the names because that would have been cis-hetero patriarchial and oppressive ordering style of dead yte males that might have led one to infer that one had higher rank or status than another or something, I imagine. Putting them in alphabetical order would have been right out.
Regardless, 12 wxmyn mainly wypipo political “scientists”, I’d bet the ranch the diversity of thought is nigh palpable.
Sorry, forgot the link.
You’ll notice I was much too polite to draw attention to your appalling, shame-inducing error.
Meet the diversity!
It reminded me of the Guardian’s 10 trainee journalists who were allegedly “an eclectic mix of voices,” yet sounded eerily similar, both in terms of their backgrounds and their vanities, and all of whom managed to be exactly what you’d expect, only slightly more so.
“No borders, no nations, no gas power stations.”
The Los Angeles City Council voted to extend its ban on people living in their vehicles in certain parts of the city (the ban had been city-wide for decades until a federal court struck that down in 2014) … of course, there were agitators there to shout “shame on you!”.
There was one angry female that summed up their side of the argument by shouting “If you want us off the streets, make housing free!”
If you want us off the streets, make housing free!
Of course no responsible person would say in reply, “If you want to get off the streets, get a job!” Because saying something like that, suggesting that perhaps people need to be responsible for themselves, to take care of themselves, would be irresponsible.
It reminded me of the Guardian’s 10 trainee journalists…and their vanities…
Why?
Because.
They didn’t order the names or photos alphabetically because they are all interchangeably, equally woke. Photographic diversity is supreme.
Theodore Dalrymple, here.
“No borders, no nations …”
I hope there weren’t any Scottish Greenists there. They advocate an international border at Gretna and are propping up the minority nationalist administration in Edinburgh, and I’m sure they wouldn’t take kindly to accusations of rank hypocrisy.
“a feeling that the systems we have in place don’t allow my views, or the views of a lot of young(ish) people, to be properly listened to.”
Thirty years ago, this argument might have carried some weight. (And let’s be honest: it’s exactly the same complaint youthful “activists” have been making since time immemorial.) But in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram? It’s becoming difficult to avoid earnest spotty herberts pontificating on things they’ve no experience of and don’t understand. Christ, we’ve just had the heads of major governments genuflecting at the feet of a mentally-disturbed 16-year-old as if she were some kind of Old Testament prophet.
The problem these days is too much listening to dumb kids, not too little. Now get off my lawn.
I’m not making the borders and nations connection except that it rhymes.
They want a single, global government: socialist, totalitarian, and ever-increasing in power.
…genuflecting at the feet of a mentally-disturbed 16-year-old as if she were some kind of Old Testament prophet.
Not unlike our own US&A leftists and the Harvard bound scholar who couldn’t get into Florida state schools, and speaking of open borders, I don’t think he is quite making the point intended…
Hmmm…
…and stay off.
How did David Hogg get into Harvard – the boy is thick as mince.
came here… stole…killed
We shouldn’t be so quick to condemn stealing and killing as illegal, let me tell you.
…wait.
Even setting aside the lie that borders were open then and open now, pace Hank Hill “The boy ain’t right”.
…the boy is thick as mince.
Yes, as sharp as a velvet bag of styrofoam peanuts, but his politics are both correct and reliable, and that is more important than being able to read, write, or reason like some average Harvard dweeb with a 1520 SAT and straight As.
How did David Hogg get into Harvard
Virtue-signally and celebrity-bragging.
You don’t think the Malia Obama got there on her SATS & grades? Or Chelsea Clinton at Stanford?
Good lord ! According to the Guardian you hosers up there in Qumbec and Montraal have evidently lost all control of fracking or global climate hysteria and completely flooded North and South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming !
The Great Lakes are now only the Meh Lakes.
It is in The Guardian, it must be true.
Qumbec and Montraal
Spelling is hard. Also cartography.
Computer proofreading strikes again…
“Montraal”
Watch out for the Ravenous Monbugblatter Beast.
Old and busted: God’s wrath.
According to the Guardian
https://twitter.com/thedailymash/status/432847525414858753?lang=en
If Chelsea inherited half her dad’s brains she’d have cruised in. He was a Rhodes Scholar.
And Obama went to Harvard and was President of the Law Review. I don’t like him either, but it’s undeniable he has some smarts.
Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity or common bond could function at all for any length of time, let alone in ways that they, and we, might find congenial?
They joined a cult and put bike locks round their necks.
They joined a cult and put bike locks round their necks.
Well, yes. There is that.
Still, you have to wonder what it is they imagine holds a society together – culturally, socially, economically. If you disdain even the idea of a shared national identity, and dissolve geographical boundaries, such that anyone from anywhere can enter at will – in any numbers, indefinitely – and then immediately exploit the local infrastructure and support systems, how long will those systems survive? Why would anyone contribute to a supposedly mutual arrangement if there’s no mutuality or reciprocity, no common values, just exploitation by an avalanche of strangers from halfway across the planet? What happens to trust, even basic civility?
They talk about “fuel poverty,” but strive to make energy scarcer and more expensive; they blather about “social justice” and caring for the “vulnerable,” and about opposing the “unsustainable,” but in almost every conceivably way, their ambitions are a blueprint for dystopia, conflict and rapid collapse.
It’s so inverted and perverse, it’s almost funny.
He was a Rhodes Scholar.
A mystery in of itself lacking, as he did, the usual qualifications of the typical US Rhodes Scholar, not that he actually finished his degree at Oxford.
I don’t like him either, but it’s undeniable he has some smarts.
Except Harvard did away with selecting Law Review Editors based on grades shortly before his stint there and for which review he wrote nothing, so any evidence of his “smarts” is apparently as sealed as his grades somewhere in the 57 states.
However, back to the climate, I haven’t been following events in the recent European slightly warm wave you have been having but good news everyone, according to the Guardian of 2004 relief is just around the corner !
Just get your dog sleds and mukluks out. Speaking of frozen people, I was wondering if the Qumbecians are going to be sore about being reduced from a province to a city.
you have to wonder what it is they imagine holds a society together – culturally, socially, economically. If you disdain even the idea of a shared national identity, and dissolve geographical boundaries, such that anyone from anywhere can enter at will – in any numbers, indefinitely – and then immediately exploit the local infrastructure and support systems, how long will those systems survive?
I don’t know about the rest of your people but when I want answers to questions like that I consult a lifelong thinker and philosopher – with a notable perspective on history, culture, and humanity – like Conan O’Brien. Comedians are special and because of it, importantly opine on how laughably irrational ordinary people like you are. Just saying.
Obama went to Harvard and was President of the Law Review. I don’t like him either, but it’s undeniable he has some smarts.
Smart enough to gaslight so many simple dupes, too.
the usual qualifications of the typical US Rhodes Scholar
I had no idea. I had always assumed that Kris Kristofferson was just another talented musician. Thank you for linking to that. It’s always good to see another side to a person.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7309805/Backlash-barefoot-Prince-Harry-hypocrite-celebrities.html
Surely the Mail lifted this from some satirical magazine?
Every detail is perfect.
A barefoot prince
Homage to Nelson Mandela.
Bono
Barack Obama expected, but not yet seen.
Private jets.
I suppose they couldn’t have made do with a 3 star hotel in Glasgow in January.
Surely the Mail lifted this from some satirical magazine?
But if you think of it in terms of ostentatiously signalling caste status, of would-be overlords mouthing pieties from which they themselves clearly expect to be exempt, then it makes a kind of sense.
Do they imagine that some borderless, undifferentiated and continually shifting mass of human beings with no common identity or common bond could function at all for any length of time, let alone in ways that they, or we, might find congenial?
The John Lennon song. It has replaced the Bible as the goto Book of Common Wisdom for western civilization. Imagine the damage that song could have done if they had bothered to engineer it properly.
Still, you have to wonder what it is they imagine holds a society together – culturally, socially, economically. If you disdain even the idea of a shared national identity, and dissolve geographical boundaries, such that anyone from anywhere can enter at will – in any numbers, indefinitely – and then immediately exploit the local infrastructure and support systems, how long will those systems survive?
They don’t imagine (except per the JL song I reference above), because…
They joined a cult
A cargo cult. Stuff just is. It magically shows up. My belief is that once a society becomes wealthy enough to form a critical mass of people who simply have had things given to them, either by richy-rich mommy and daddy or Uncle Sugar, unless the reins of that society are pulled severely, it is doomed. And no society in the history of man has acquired the degree of wealth, a wealth growth that has accelerated over such a short period of time, as this one has. It’s the meme of Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times. In human historical terms we are well into some dangerously uncharted waters.
no society in the history of man has acquired the degree of wealth, a wealth growth that has accelerated over such a short period of time, as this one has.
The associated myth being that it earned it. It didn’t. It printed and leveraged it and today it faces a negative sum that’s as unpayable as it is incalculable. And, ironically, as denied as it is ignored. So it kicks the can.
In many terms we are well into some dangerously uncharted waters.
The associated myth being that it earned it. It didn’t.
I get your point in general but as specifically stated here, strongly disagree. I’m talking about wealth here, not money nor prestige. The wealth most definitely was earned by the aggregate civilization, otherwise it would not exist to be stolen. The wealth is right here in our discussion. It is in the tremendous advances made in medicine, technology, science, agriculture, and even dare I say in airy-fairy intangibles such social cohesion, as much as that is beginning to slide, and even in things that show up on corporate balance sheets as “good will”, as much as I may have trepidation about the usage of that language. It printed and leveraged , most definitely. But it does exist. The print/leverage only concerns who can claim ownership of it. Though again somewhat to your point, the relative value attached to some of it is iffy. But that itself is quite marginal relative to the entirety and depends on unknown future demands relative to current (by all practical meanings static) supply.
In many terms we are well into some dangerously uncharted waters.
At this point I’m assuming we’ll see Cormac MacCarthy’s The Road levels of societal collapse in my lifetime.
Obama went to Harvard and was President of the Law Review.
Who during his tenure of the Law Review, was rarely seen and produced no writing of his own.
But geez, how nice for everyone else to carry him so he the Law Review could claim “See? We aren’t racist!”