Alexander Cockburn is certainly on a mission, albeit one that is shocking the folks at The Nation are tolerating.
After all, in his current article posted at both The Nation and Counterpunch, Cockburn indirectly castigated his own readers as he accused the left of having “been swept along, entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent, naïvely conceiving of global warming as a crisis that will force radical social changes on capitalism by the weight of the global emergency.”
Powerful stuff to publish in one of the most liberal magazines in the country, wouldn’t you agree?
Strap your seatbelts tightly, for Cockburn was hunting alarmists, and came loaded for bear (emphasis added throughout):
We should never be more vigilant than at the moment a new dogma is being installed. The claque endorsing what is now dignified as "the mainstream theory" of global warming stretches all the way from radical greens through Al Gore to George W. Bush, who signed on at the end of May. The left has been swept along, entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent, naïvely conceiving of global warming as a crisis that will force radical social changes on capitalism by the weight of the global emergency. Amid the collapse of genuinely radical politics, they have seen it as the alarm clock prompting a new Great New Spiritual Awakening.
[…]
The marquee slogan in the new cold war on global warming is that the scientific consensus is virtually unanimous. This is utterly false. The overwhelming majority of climate computer modelers, the beneficiaries of the $2 billion-a-year global warming grant industry, certainly believe in it but not necessarily most real climate scientists-people qualified in atmospheric physics, climatology and meteorology.
Can you imagine any of the folks at The Nation supporting such statements, in particular its editor Katrina vanden Heuvel?
Makes one wonder why they’re publishing this stuff, doesn’t it?
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
You might want to offer him a
June 10, 2007 - 22:09 ET by liberal_bug_zapperYou might want to offer him a job here after the complaints start pouring into the Nation and he gets fired. I wonder just how long it will take for him to either apologize or get roasted by the leftwing blogosphere?
Or, can they read the tea leaves and do they see the wave of hysteria dying down and an eventual backlash in the wings and some in their ranks want to be on the correct side of this when the other shoe drops?
We'll have to wait and see eh Noel?
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"It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare." ~ Edmund Burke
It's not global warming that
June 10, 2007 - 23:03 ET by jonathanandersonIt's not global warming that we should fear ... it's global HUMIDITY ... and GLOBAL RAIN.
Yesss the planet is having a
June 11, 2007 - 01:22 ET by upcountrywaterYesss the planet is having a FEVER, hot spells cold shakes, now the SWEATS! LMAO .
now a tax for the rain.
1300 IRANIAN GAS CENTRIFUGES OPERATING 24-7, opps it's now 8,000.. umm how many pounds of uranimun per hour is that? All this for a power plant that will NEVER go online.
Isn't a fever both a symptom
June 11, 2007 - 13:46 ET by mulerider24Isn't a fever both a symptom and a cure?
...and a song! In the mor
June 11, 2007 - 13:52 ET by Jack Bauer...and a song! In the morning and all thru the night.
Wow, I teed that one up nice
June 11, 2007 - 13:55 ET by mulerider24Wow, I teed that one up nice and high. I should get a tax write-off for my charitable setup.
Climate changing for first time
June 10, 2007 - 23:13 ET by Parker1227Just read an article from The Independent (linked on Drudge), The Wrath of 2007: America’s great drought.
An environmental scientist (from a NY Times article) is quoted as saying, “The data is telling us that we are in the middle of one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States.”
But the article also compares the current situation to the dust bowl of the 1930’s (it could be worse now, of course) and refers to archeological findings circa 1600, uncovered recently by a shrinking lake in Florida.
So North Americans have obviously experienced climate change in the past. If we could just figure out a way to blame those past climate changes on George Bush and SUVs.
Save Us O' Elitists
June 11, 2007 - 02:16 ET by CrossWiseRanger“ . . . that will force radical social changes on capitalism . . .”
The truth leaked out. They are concerned about GW only indirectly, if at all. The real goal is to replace capitalism with their economic system – socialism.
“ . . . prompting a new Great New Spiritual Awakening.”
Socialists are trying to create another idol for the masses to bow down to. Only the socialist high priests can save us, while they reap the offering from the ignorant.
Bet God is LOL, I know I am.
-- The problem is not that we are ignorant; rather, it is that so much of what we know is not true. --
And AGW advocates call for ye
June 11, 2007 - 04:14 ET by dahliatraversAnd AGW advocates call for yet another dubious mission, though this one directed at our friends to the north.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=06afb7a1-4e77-4044-a44d-ca50a95b5657&k=0
Hell, Noel, they published
June 11, 2007 - 05:32 ET by sarcasmoHell, Noel, they published this (but nobody likes to pay attention to bipartisan scandals, I guess, no matter how slanted the headline!). The Nation's got Reason-Magazine style guts for its size these days, and I don't agree with 'em much, so that's a high compliment comin' from the likes of me.
JMR
GW sollution
June 11, 2007 - 07:01 ET by PolazerusAGW is on its way out. As Bush gradually buys into it for political reasons, the MSM will tout him as a fool and the problem will slowly go away.
Hmmmmmmmmmm........kinda make
June 11, 2007 - 07:21 ET by Scout FinchHmmmmmmmmmm........kinda makes you wonder if that's why Bush has belatedly bought into GW, knowing, as you say, "the MSM will tout him as a fool and the problem will slowly go away". I'll bet Rove was behind this master plan! Maybe the DUmmies will concur.
Communism has utterly failed.
June 11, 2007 - 08:04 ET by PeskyDaneCommunism has utterly failed. Europe is taking a second look at socialism. The Global Warming crock can only sustain itself for so long. You have to wonder, what the libtards will try next to get us to reject capitalism and hand ourselves over to a Platonic Oligarcy "for our own good."
As certain "irreversible" benchmarks pass, people who previously bought into GW with the best of intentions are going to start scratching their heads. You can only ratchet forward the end of the world so many times before everyone starts ignoring you. Sort of like the Watchtower Society constantly moving up the date for Jesus' return. (Not offend JWs, but it is a good analogy).
Ah, yes, more signs that the
June 11, 2007 - 10:06 ET by dscottAh, yes, more signs that the bottom is dropping out on AGW. First the trickle then comes the flood, then some other global catastrophy will be trotted out to replace it. As Orwell wrote: Whom are we fighting, Eastasia or Eurasia? In the end, does it matter?
On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns -- after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces -- at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.
There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy.
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” – Marcus Aurelius
Ah, yes, now the anti-science
June 11, 2007 - 13:30 ET byAh, yes, now the anti-science crowd on the left is joining the anti-science crowd on the right.
Notice Cockburn stays away from facts and evidence. Conspiracy theories don't need evidence, by God.
LOL, absolutely hilarious TW,
June 11, 2007 - 14:21 ET by dscottLOL, absolutely hilarious TW, in fact that's is by far the funniest and most apropos point you have made here at NB. No conspiracy theory needs evidence or real facts just a line of argument supported by assertions. LOL, sides hurt, so funny...
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” – Marcus Aurelius
Cockburn has been so wrong on
June 11, 2007 - 14:40 ET by daveinbocaCockburn has been so wrong on every issue since Vietnam that I suspect a hidden agenda. Or the Nation, like the proverbial broken clock, inadvertantly can't be 100% wrong all the time. Ironic that a scat-sheet like The Nation, which indoctinates its Dogma every issue, has a complaint about "dogma" from one of its own!