Greta Thunberg is the face of a coming radical youth movement aimed at stopping global climate disaster. The attacks on her, and the attempts to undermine her, should be seen in that light. And hardly had she finished lambasting the UN delegates, than those attacks began.
Writing in the NY Times, Christopher Caldwell accused her of “simplification” and “sowing panic”. “Normally Ms. Thunberg would be unqualified to debate in a democratic forum,” he wrote, making frequent references to her young age (“precious, adolescent, diminutive and fresh-faced, unrealistic” were some of the adjectives he used.) “Kids her age have not seen much of life,” he wrote.
He then went on to claim that what she stands for will be used by the far right anti-immigration forces, which is ironic since the Guardian newspaper accused him of stoking “a culture of fear” (of Muslim people) in his recent book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. Regarding the looming climate disaster, Caldwell calls for “patience”. (As Thunberg pointed out at the UN, the science has been known for 30 years and nothing significant has been done. Should we be “patient” as we all find ourselves with a burning planet?)
The more blatant far right was more crude yet. Michael Knowles called her “a mentally ill Swedish child” on Fox, and Dinesh D’Souza compared her role to that of a Nazi figurehead child, and Laura Ingraham called Thunberg’s appearance at the UN “chilling”.
Such attacks will be like water off a duck’s back. Thunberg won’t be bothered.
More dangerous was the meeting she had with Barack Obama just a few days before her UN address. In that meeting, he said to her “You and me, we’re a team”, to which she can be heard to reply “yeah”.
In this regard, Trump is especially useful for Obama and his ilk. Take the case of the Paris climate accord, signed in December of 2015 – by Obama among others. Much has been made of Trump’s withdrawal from that accord. All it means is that he will stop the pretense that that accord represents! Oaklandsocialist analyzed that accord here. We explained that it was lauded by the Chinese government, which got 60% of its energy from burning coal, and by the Brazilian government which was allowing deforestation of the Amazon even back then. We explained that there was not a single reference to “military” in the accord. (A recent article in the Intercept reports that “The U.S. Department of Defense has a larger annual carbon footprint than most countries on earth. With a sprawling network of bases and logistics networks, the U.S. military is the single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world aside from whole nation-states themselves.”)
As we explained, all the nice-sounding goals of the Paris Accord were just that – goals. Not a single thing was mandated. “While the Republican wing is dominated by climate deniers who appeal to the most backwards thinking, the Democratic wing pretends to give something with one hand, while they take away even more with the other,” we wrote. (See full analysis here.)
Nor will the established environmental groups provide an alternative. As we documented in The Environmentalist Manifesto, they are too integrated into the corporate-controlled Democratic Party as well as too linked with big business to really be effective.
When Thunberg spoke at the UN, she roasted the delegates, who applauded her at every turn. This was their theatrics, a pretense that her justified attack did not apply to them. Ditto with Obama, his fist-bump and his claim that he was a “team” with her. That is the real danger for Thunberg and the coming movement she represents – that in contrast to the monsters like Trump the Obama’s can make themselves look good.
But we should not forget what she said – that the world has had 30 years in which the science of global warming was a proven fact yet the world “leaders” have done nothing. But it wasn’t the lunatics like Trump who were in charge for most of that time; it was the Obama’s of the world.
Specifically, the issue is likely to play out through a few questions, ranging from the very practical to the “theoretical”:
- First: Will the coming youth movement orient to the working class? Will it relate the issue of climate disaster to the economic issues that workers face or will it allow itself to move down the road of making the working class pay? We should remember what happened to Macron and how the Yellow Vest movement developed. In that case, Macron instituted a gas tax as a means of reducing gas consumption. Workers and more middle class people revolted because they couldn’t afford to pay more. The coming youth movement must be devoted to making the capitalists pay for the climate crisis. After all, it is the capitalists who have created this crisis […]
via Which way for Greta Thunberg? Which way for the coming movement?
The Most Revolutionary Act 
Greta Thunberg has had her say, a very loud say. Now she can “retire” back to a normal life or she can continue to push her cart, calling more attention to herself and her cause. She can wait to accept “serving” with the highest bidder as she stands on the auction block. The world is in thrall to predatory capitalism’s mandate and that mandate is consumerism. Man’s civilization has sold its soul to greed and is now forced to worship at capitalism’s altar – no choice in the matter unless one has the fortitude and means to “disappear” off the grid. My assessment of Thunberg’s “rise” to dominate popular awareness is: too much too fast.
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Wow, I think you put your finger on it Sha’Tara: too much too fast. These things are hard for me to articulate. All I could say was that it didn’t smell right.
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Reblogged this on © blogfactory and commented:
Will the coming youth movement orient to the working class? Will it relate the issue of climate disaster to the economic issues that workers face or will it allow itself to move down the road of making the working class pay? We should remember what happened to Macron and how the Yellow Vest movement developed.
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See: https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2019/09/greta-thunberg-and-big-biz-climate.html
I am increasingly suspicious, not so much of Greta Thunberg but of the vast corporate machine behind her. Add the TOTAL lack of politics and economics in ‘her’ arguments and I see the dead hand of corporate capitalism.
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“The dead hand of corporate capitalism” – I love it. Great link. Thanks.
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I found in ‘The Land Destroyer Report’ some articles that interested me very much. And I just published copies of some items in these articles:
As far as Greta Thunberg is concerned, I can only say that I feel as emotional as she does about the establishment’s inaction about climate change. Yesterday I did look through a number of YouTube videos that give great information about scientist’s view in regard to the crisis for humanity and the urgency to do something about climate change. I cannot, absolutely cannot understand, why the economy always has priority in our leaders’ thinking over issues to do with climate change. How dare our leaders tell young people ‘not to worry’!!
Here are some examples what scientists say about climate change. These facts, that are stated in these videos, all of us should know about:
https://auntielive.wordpress.com/page/1/
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It’s a very hard topic to parse Aunty. I am totally in support of the scientists who measure rising CO2 concentrations and global temperature rises and those who track melting glaciers and rising sea levels, especially those at the poles. I don’t support the pro-corporate scientists who promote unproven carbon capture technologies, hydrogen cells and geoengineering. The only way we’re going to prevent catastrophic climate change is to have people take back control of their communities and governments from corporations and banks and downsize their lifestyles to the point that they’re no longer depleting nonrenewable resources or exploiting third world countries and precarious workers.
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To voluntary downsizing their lifestyles is a very difficult thing to do for most people, isn’t it? Even with all the knowledge that becomes more and more available now, I find most people still are not prepared to downsize drastically or even a little bit, because everything is still available to us in the first world countries. Maybe more and more young people are getting ready now to reject our extreme consumerism. If this is so, well, this is a start. But society as a whole does not seem to be ready yet. And they are often bombarded with contrary messages by a lot of the main media.
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I’m not sure it is, Aunty. I’ve been part of the voluntary simplicity movement for over 50 years. My experience is that once people are exposed to voluntary simplicity they really like it, in part because it involves building community with other voluntary simplicity advocates – and more than anything else, people are starved for connection and community. The problem I see is because people mainly rely on popular media for role models (because community has totally broken down), they’re never exposed to any alternative other than mass consumption.
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The “popular” youth climate change movements are not yet the real thing, as history will soon tell. Earth people are a stubborn breed that will never turn against its oppressors, or status quo in any effectively large numbers until the system no longer allows them to “forage” for their immediate needs, that is, until it truly becomes personally oppressive and there is no longer any hope that political change will result in improvements. We’ve seen this time and again, how repressive regimes have sought to buy the leadership of rising revolutionary movements by handing out bits of power but without relinquishing the lion’s share. France, Tzarist Russia and Weimar republic Germany stand out as prime examples. Currently, the elitist forces are entrenching themselves in their status quo and still taking without giving anything. Therefore one can conclude that “revolutions” are coming but not as we are witnessing at the moment. These are but little coughs and headaches on the part of relatively small numbers. It’s cool to be pro-climate change but are these people, young and old, willing to die for their (or someone’s) vision of a clean earth? No, the time isn’t ripe for the blood to freely flow and according to history, no revolution takes place without blood in the torture cells and on the streets. Greta has come and said her piece. She stirred up thousands, maybe even more than a million, to go out on some street or to sit somewhere yelling and holding up protest signs. The tsunami hasn’t risen yet because it takes a severe underwater (underbelly shock to a top-heavy system) to create such a wave. That shock has yet to manifest.
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