Climate Week Is Over, But The Warming Cranks Are Still Out There

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/26/climate-week-is-over-but-the-warming-cranks-are-still-out-there/

Doughnut Day makes more sense.

Another Climate Week has come and gone, with Earth no cooler than it was before. But there is plenty to celebrate. Opportunities for virtue signaling, graft, prostituting science, and burning down capitalism have never been so vast.

Launched in New York City in 2009, and now aligned with the execrable United Nations, Climate Week, according to organizers’ telling, is “​​an ambitious platform for our mission to drive climate action,” and “fast.” It’s such a wonderful moment, that a particularly dim fellow set himself on fire Friday at the Laver Cup tennis tournament in London to protest the use of private jets in the United Kingdom. The Sun reported that “​​it’s believed the yob” who was momentarily aflame “was a climate change protester.”

Virtue signaling is generally a “luxury belief” that holds no cost. In this case, it came with some pain, and probably some regret. But virtue signaling is an important activity in the fight against global warming, even if it means that self-flambeing is in order.

The man was eventually dragged off the court. But the cameras got a good look at him, and what was seen, says author Michael Shellenberger, “​​is the face of climate narcissism.”

‘Democracy’ by and for the Elites Tocqueville predicted that an ‘immense and tutelary power’ would replace genuine popular rule. By Emily B. Finley

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democracy-by-and-for-the-elites-biden-wilson-jefferson-democratist-popular-rule-threat-america-tocqueville-11664114737?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

President Biden’s Sept. 1 speech in Philadelphia on “unity” is a poignant example of the confusion surrounding the concept of democracy. Mr. Biden declared that MAGA Republicans threaten “the very foundations of our republic.” The phrase a “threat to American democracy” is so commonplace these days that it hardly carries any meaning—except that it encapsulates the reigning ideology of our time, an ideology so pervasive that it almost goes unnoticed. It is like the air we breathe.

I call it democratism. It is an imaginative and idealistic understanding of popular rule that disdains ordinary people and looks to a cadre of so-called experts to operate the levers of power. Under this ideology, “democracy” and “the people” are rhetorical cover for the will of the elites. Think of social media’s censorship of misinformation in the name of “supporting democracy” and “upholding free expression.” How is it that censorship passes as upholding free expression?

“War is peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength” from Orwell’s “1984” comes to mind, but there is a long tradition in the West of this paradoxical interpretation of democracy. Enlightenment-era thinking, and arguably even Plato, puts forth the thought that an ahistorical ideal of justice ought to act as the primary guide to politics. Jean-Jacques Rousseau applied this idea in “The Social Contract.” The general will, Rousseau says, is what the popular will ought to be, even if it isn’t expressed by actual living people. The general will conveniently requires the translation of a wise legislator for its instantiation.

Many of the most vocal champions of democracy, from Thomas Jefferson to our own day, have been advocates of this Rousseauean inversion, using the word “democracy” as justification for what would otherwise be naked authoritarianism.

Italy Elects Its First Female and Populist Leader in History – Giorgia Meloni By Jim Hoft

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/breaking-italy-elects-first-female-populist-leader-history/

The Italian Center Right Party won big in national elections on Sunday making Georgia Meloni the first female leader in the country’s history.

Thoughts on the Cultural Revolution in Our Midst. Part One Victor Davis Hanson

https://victorhanson.com/thoughts-on-the-cultural-revolution-in-our-midst-part-one/

We are in the middle of a grand effort to create an equality-of-result, race-based, radical Jacobin society. It is by design entirely antithetical to the Founders’ constitutional republic. And the revolutionary agenda is overseen by an exempt bicoastal oligarchy.

The enforced equality of result will, of course, be mandated by elites not subject to their own demands upon the citizenry: no charter schools for hoi polloi, prep schools for the Guardians; Teslas for the anointed, buses for the masses; walls never work, except to protect Martha’s Vineyard, Napa, and Malibu; high rises are green for you, fourth homes are necessary for them; take light rail and save the planet, fly private to ensure that others do not.

We see these disconnects most shamefully with the outrage from the Left about the bussing of illegal aliens (in small numbers no less) into their elite enclaves.

The Obamas and their Martha Vineyard socialites did not care whether 10,000 swarmed onto the sidewalks of a border Hispanic town, destroying social services, overwhelming their schools, and spiking crime. And they care even less when the Biden administration flew thousands under cover of night into red-state communities. But they do not want anyone loitering on the streets in their own downtowns.

Yet for the Leftist pundit, sending a poor immigrant into Martha’s Vineyard becomes the work of the “Holocaust.” What a sick parallel to compare the systematic murder of six million Jews to an illegal entrant getting a free jet ride to one of the safest, richest, and most picturesque beach towns in the world.

Yet none in the Vineyard, not one, will offer his now empty vacation mansion and expansive grounds to the dispossessed. Instead, for a few hours the blessed virtue signaled their concern—and then bussed out the “welcome” in less than a day.

How Civilizations Will Be Decided by Giulio Meotti

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18928/how-civilizations-will-be-decided

Fewer babies will be born in all of Europe than in Nigeria alone.

More than half the increase of the global population projected by 2050 will be concentrated in just eight countries, mostly in Africa, according to The Economist Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and Tanzania. Nigeria will have more inhabitants than Europe and the United States.

This crisis is not a projection, it is happening right now. By 2050, 60% of Italians will have no brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles or aunts. The Italian family, with the father who pours the wine and the mother who serves the pasta to a table of grandparents, grandchildren and grandchildren, will be gone, as extinct as dinosaurs.

Yemen, on the other hand, a failed country in the middle of a terrible civil war, will show a population increase that is double Italy’s.

“In 1887 there was only one Muslim registered in Melilla, he was originally from Casablanca and worked as a servant; today Muslims exceed 40 percent of the population and are approaching the majority”, reported the newspaper El Pais…. Ceuta and Melilla are what most of Europe’s cities will look like in 20-30 years. Melilla is now the first Spanish city that has surpassed a 50% Muslim population due to immigration, family reunification and a high birth rate.

The Western world has provided more wealth and convenience to more citizens than any other civilization in history. We are practically inundated with resources, but we are running out of people, the only truly indispensable resource.

“Islam to become Russia’s predominant religion by 2050?” — Pravda, July 21, 2008

By 2050, more than half the increase of the global population projected will be concentrated in just eight countries, mostly in Africa, according to The Economist: Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and Tanzania. Nigeria will have more inhabitants than Europe and the United States.

In addition, Islam will have overtaken Christianity as the first world religion. It never happened before in world history. The Islamic population of the European Union, depending on the migratory flows, could reach 75 million within a generation — like an entire Muslim Germany or, if one prefers, like Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Sweden combined. Does that sound better?

“They have not managed to change us. It is we who will change them. Look at the development of the population in Europe, where the number of Muslims increases like mosquitoes. Each Western woman in the E.U. produces, on average, 1.4 children. Each Muslim woman in these same countries produces 3.5 children. By 2050, 30% of the European population will be Muslim… Our way of thinking in Islam stands in opposition to the Western way of thinking. Today it is our way of thinking that comes in and shows itself stronger than theirs….” — “Mullah Krekar”, Norwegian imam, Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, March 13, 2006

The population of Birmingham will soon be half Muslim…. [The Birmingham Mail reveals that] the number of Muslim children in the city has surpassed the number of Christian children. “In addition to Birmingham, Islam is now the dominant religion among children in Leicester, Bradford, Luton, Slough and the London boroughs of Newham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets.” – Quote from business-live.co.uk, September 21, 2014

Do we fantasize that immigration at this rate will be able to integrate happily into host societies and that the migrants will become like us? Do we hope that before long, Europeans will return to having more children? What if we are wrong and these projections become reality? Are we resigned to the disappearance of our civilization?

“Great demographics, great power”, Nicholas Eberstadt, the American political economist summed up in Foreign Affairs. Crumbling demographics, crumbling powers …

Fewer babies will be born in all of Europe than in Nigeria alone.

Government Schools Are Teaching Hate, Causing Violence Children are helpless to defend themselves against the skilled manipulation of these professional propagandists, and parents cannot push back the tide. By S. T. Karnick and Eileen Griffin

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/24/government-schools-are-teaching-hate-causing-violence/

Government-run, union-controlled schools are increasingly teaching children to loathe their country and fellow citizens. This systematic indoctrination campaign stayed under the radar until forced at-home learning during the COVID-19 lockdowns exposed the curricula to parents throughout the country.

Children normally welcome with enthusiasm the friendship of any child willing to share a toy, a doll, or a game. They naturally build friendships through common interests and activities. In the current educational environment, however, teachers direct children to dwell on superficial differences instead of enjoying similar interests.

Government-run schools also teach children to hate their country and reject their own bodies, as well as the parents who brought them into the world.

Meanwhile, schools are neglecting essential subjects such as math, language and literacy skills, and science. Positive civic education, which recognizes America’s dedication to individual rights and blind justice despite our failings, is also absent. Such malfeasances leave children ill-prepared for gainful work as adults and thereby rob them of independence and the opportunity to better their lot.

The influence of teachers and the power of the education establishment can easily overwhelm parental authority, especially if the educators have that explicit aim, as is now increasingly the case. Generally, children are with their teachers six or more hours per day, and spend far less time with their parents during waking hours. Children are helpless to defend themselves against the skilled manipulation of these professional propagandists, and parents cannot push back the tide.

These divisions promoted by the education culture are sending America’s youth down a dark path toward destruction. Although much of the media bury these stories faster than the victims can be laid to rest, America is suffering a fast-increasing outbreak of senseless criminal violence.

Fair Trials Are Impossible for January 6 Defendants  Judges on the D.C. District Court have denied every change of venue motion, absurdly insisting residents of a city that voted 93 percent for Joe Biden in 2020 can be fair and impartial. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/24/fair-trials-are-impossible-for-january-6-defendants/

Odds are jurors in Douglas Austin Jensen’s trial took longer to fill out the verdict forms than they took to decide his fate.

After only a few hours of deliberations on Friday, 12 residents of the nation’s capital found Jensen guilty on seven counts related to his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Jensen, an alleged QAnon follower, infamously confronted Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman inside the building that afternoon; he potentially faces decades in prison for convictions on impeding law enforcement officers and obstruction of an official proceeding, a dubious nonviolent felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

NBC News reporter Ryan Reilly, who covers all things January 6, noted in a tweet that “An ongoing issue with these Jan. 6 jury trials is that you barely have time to write the story on closing arguments before the jury returns their guilty verdicts.” Reilly then swooned over the Department of Justice’s “flawless” track record before D.C. juries.

CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane predicted the jury would finish its work in one afternoon since January 6 juries have deliberated “swiftly so far.”

Jensen’s conviction adds to the Department of Justice’s undefeated streak for January 6 jury trials. Once upon a time, that would raise at least a sliver of skepticism from journalists and legal “experts” as to whether the constitutional rights, namely the right to face a jury of your peers, are being protected in an unquestionably political prosecution of dissidents of the regime. Instead, these verdicts are praised by the ruling class as proof that the “rule of law” and “justice” still prevail in this country—all evidence to the contrary, of course.

It is clear, after six months of jury trials for Capitol protesters, i.e., Donald Trump supporters, that no one charged in this sprawling criminal investigation can get a fair trial. 

Judges on the D.C. District Court have denied every change of venue motion, absurdly insisting residents of a city that voted 93 percent for Joe Biden in 2020 can be fair and impartial. Further, judges claim nonstop news coverage in addition to the televised performances of the January 6 select committee do not further taint a demonstrably tainted jury pool.

Sneaking anti-Semitism into school curricula By Pandra Selivanov

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/sneaking_antisemitism_into_school_curricula.html

Critical race theory has been gaining momentum since 1996 when Johnnie Cochran used it to free O.J. Simpson. The corrosive idea that American culture and institutions are systemically racist and oppressive has invaded universities and workplaces and even public schools. There was a brief respite when President Donald Trump stopped companies from holding training on “white privilege.” States began to ban critical race theory. Parents fought it in their local schools.

The proponents of critical race theory, however, are determined to indoctrinate America’s youth in their ideology. In California, critical race theory has been rechristened “ethnic studies” and has broadened its line of attack. In addition to white people, ethnic studies have added Jewish people and the Jewish homeland of Israel to the list of racist and oppressive entities. The anti-Israel and anti-Jewish curriculum includes strong support for Palestinians, including classroom decorations such as a Palestinian flag and a drive to honor “Palestinian mothers with children in Israeli jails.”

The most rudimentary research on “Palestine” uncovers the fact that there never was a country of Palestine. It was a designation Romans used for Judea. Then, after World War II, British Christians drew a map based on their perceptions of the Bible and set borders for the state of Palestine. Now, Islamists demand all Jews depart from the land that they consider a trust that Allah gave to the Muslim people.

Seeking a compromise, Israel has proposed two-state solutions to the Palestinians. The Palestinians have always rejected the very idea of sharing the land with the Jews, the people who have been in that land for over 5,000 years and whose Bible—the oldest religious text still in use and the basis for the Koran—identifies as the people to whom God decreed the land of Israel rightfully belongs.

Under California’s mandated ethnic studies, in addition to learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, schools will instruct children to pity Palestinians and hate Jews. The greatest irony of this misbegotten ideology is how it avoids the basic truth that, if Palestinians wanted peace with Israel, there would be peace, and if Israel really didn’t want to share the land with the Palestinians, they could have wiped out all the Palestinians long ago.

All It Takes Is One Hero By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/09/all_it_takes_is_one_hero.html

Autumn is here.  Brisk mornings have returned.  The midterms are fast approaching.  Electric change saturates the air.  

At a granular level, so much in America today is terribly wrong.  Inflation, crime, unprotected borders, censorship, political persecution, language codes, and other leftist lunacies grip the nation.  From a broader perspective, though, something is right: more and more people in the United States and throughout the West are finally waking up to the sinister machinations of our globalist power brokers and the many miseries they have wrought.  

For so many decades, totalitarianism has spread incrementally across formerly free Western nations, and most citizens were either asleep at the switch or too comfortable to be bothered.  What’s wrong with outlawing speech that’s “hateful”?  Who could be for hate?  What’s wrong with letting private bankers manipulate the value of national currencies?  They do so only to prevent runaway inflation from ruining the economy.  What’s wrong with legislatures spending more money than they have?  They can always print more banknotes, tax more incomes, leverage the properties of ever more distant generations far from being born.  What’s wrong with endless wars against amorphous concepts like “terror”?  Wars against nameless terror could never mutate into military campaigns against domestic civilians.  What’s wrong with disarming civilian populations while arming all-powerful central governments to the hilt?  In “democracies,” after all, “authoritarianism” is not allowed.  

Trust your leaders to do “what’s best,” to do “what’s right,” and everything will be okay.  Believe without hesitation or doubt what the government tells you, and disregard all opposing viewpoints as dangerous lies.  Reject religious traditions as archaic falsehoods instilling bigotry, and accept the State’s “Great Reset” and “Green New Deal” as certain scientific truths.  Support consensus opinion and reject dissent as “extreme.”  Remember that politically incorrect words and unsanctioned beliefs may be recognized as forms of “violence” requiring official response.  Believe the mainstream media.  Trust the scientific bureaucracy.  Report fellow citizens who think too freely.  And no matter what, obey the authorities…for your own good.  

The Golden Road to Samarkand by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18940/shanghai-cooperation-organisation

The Russian media, echoing President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the summit, say the SCO is designed to end “the unipolar world “by creating a “multipolar system”.

The Chinese media offer a different version. The SCO is meant to offer a new political system for the whole world as an alternative to the Western democratic model.

To the Islamic media in Tehran, celebrating the Islamic Republic’s admission to the club after 11 years of supplication, the SCO is an extension of the “Resistance Front” created to contain and defeat the American “Great Satan.”

The SCO’s identity as a club of queer fellows has been further emphasized by the admission of a host of new members all of whom have territorial disputes with each other.

Some Western commentators have dubbed the SCO “a new power bloc”. That may be jumping the gun a bit. SCO members are more dependent on trade with the European Union, the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia than with each other.

The Samarkand club represents some 40 percent of the world’s population and over 20 percent of the global GDP, not to mention four of the 9 nations with nuclear arsenals. Yet, it seems unlikely to become an anchor of stability in Eurasia; its members are more interested in petty schemes than grand ideas of peace and cooperation.

But what is it for? This is the question that the media in Russia, China, Iran and half a dozen countries were posing all last week in the wake of a summit in Samarkand that brought their leaders together as members or aspiring members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The Russian media, echoing President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the summit, say the SCO is designed to end “the unipolar world “by creating a “multipolar system”.