There has predictably been a plethora of hysterical reactions from the Far Right to the Greta Thunberg phenomenon but few as comically OTT as a piece by Sumantra Maitra in The Federalist. Maitra is a doctoral researcher (really?) and has contributed among other things to The Torygraph.
Lets dig right in:
If nothing else, the last few days should be enough to prove that Western civilization, a product of more than 1,500 years of Judeo-Christian values, is facing its most significant and sustained challenge in centuries from tribalistic paganism, a force that seeks not only to turn back time but essentially to destroy the entire current edifice.
Ah yes, that old chestnut: 1,500 of Xtian on Jewish persecution, culminating in the Holocaust but now we're all friends and 'Israel uber alles'...
That is why members of “Extinction Rebellion” do what they do. Extinction Rebellion is an apocalyptic cult that wants to radically end every thing around you, from your private cars to the burgers you eat and the plastic chairs in your yard. It is a cult that was formed after its founder took psychedelic drugs and prayed for “social change.” Members have blocked D.C. and London intersections, “twerking” the way people in a pre-civilized era would perform a fertility dance to pray to Gaia.
Here he leaves a glaring omission: the Guns, Sumantra, the Guns! Surely they'll come for your guns?
So, there you have it. Sexualized dances, psychedelic hallucinogens, worshiping nature, confessing sins in pagan animism, worshiping purified teen saints, and throwing them up on an altar, bereft of their childhood, to promote a greater cause.
Oo-Kayay, that one can go without comment, methinks.
The reality is, of course, completely different. Much less than destroying the planet, climate change isn’t even a settled science. Conservatives don’t disagree that climate is changing. That is a straw man. Conservatives, however, are opposed to hysteria, have skepticism about the rate of the climate change, and would like to see an actual cost-benefit analysis of the radical changes being demanded.
Re. "climate change isn’t even a settled science", only a non-scientific dork with an upcoming phD in (presumably) the humanities would make demands for 'settled science'. But science is never settled and always in flux. Quantum mechanics isn't 'settled'; it has its dissidents and fringe skeptics. How about the round (spherical) Earth? 'Settled'? With regard to the science of AGC, Sumantra can claim the science isn't 'settled' as long as there's one dissenter standing but that claim is meaningless and useless.
Re. being 'opposed to hysteria' some of them react to it with their own brand of hysteria, like Sumantra's, see e.g. here:
The modern left is a combination of two of the worst impulses in human history. First are the ultra-privileged bourgeoisie, which, having lost their old Judeo-Christian faith, are instinctively attracted to pre-civilized rituals, from overt sexuality to fewer familial ties. Consider Late Roman public orgies, and you get an idea. At the same time, human minds feel a gaping void that still needs to be filled by an alternate faith. It is in that intersection where this occultist, apocalyptic climate paganism comes from. It gives some privileged people a noble purpose.
And here he shows a bit of admiration for good old Uncle Stalin:
For all the Marxists’ faults, the old left at least wanted to conquer nature instead of turning subservient to it. Of course, that went to its own extremes, but one can imagine Joseph Stalin putting all twerking climate fanatics as mentally ill people in a forced labor camp to build railroads in Siberia.
Better to 'conquer nature' and rounding the climate change people up in forced labour camps, eh? (You have to wonder how he'd feel doing the same to climate change deniers?)
Perhaps this sort of 'run to the hills!' reaction to Greta Thunberg is a sign she's doing something right? Basically if it deeply riles mousebrains like Mr (soon Dr) Maitra, I can't object to it.
What's for sure is that Sumantra's 'they're coming to overthrow Western Civilisation' is actually a conspiracy theory, many orders of magnitude sillier than the Troofers'.
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