The right wing authoritarians recently looked around and noticed that they have a girl gap. While the reality-based community has Greta Thunberg, they had nothing — so they cast about desperately, found Naomi Seibt, and the Heartland Institute elevated her to be their Anti-Greta spokesperson. Only they tried a little too hard, and got someone who is the antithesis of Greta in all things.
Where Greta’s consistent message is, “Listen to the scientists”, the Anti-Greta says the scientists are all wrong.
Where Greta is painfully, passionately honest, the Anti-Greta is a carefully groomed liar. Here’s a perfect example of an obvious lie.
The teenager, from Münster in western Germany, claims she is “without an agenda, without an ideology”. But she was pushed into the limelight by leading figures on the German far right and her mother, a lawyer, has represented politicians from the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party in court.
Seibt had her first essay published by the “anti-Islamisation” blog Philosophia Perennis and was championed by Martin Sellner, leader of the Austrian Identitarian Movement, who has been denied entry to the UK and US because of his political activism.
Anybody who claims to be without an agenda or an ideology is lying. That she also supports right-wing bigotry is more evidence that she lies.
Also, the Heartland Institute is paying her, and they are an evil and ethically bankrupt institution. Good grief, they lobby for the tobacco industry and fracking, as well as against climate change. The Anti-Greta is their puppet.
I think I’d rather be on the side of the genuinely good, like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai. That’s my agenda, my ideology, and I’m proud to say it.
Remember with Republicans (and the far-right in general) “every accusation is a confession.”
When Greta Thunberg was touring, one of the common refrains was “Those aren’t her thoughts, she’s being pushed into it by her parents.”
They said they were going groom some child to try to counter Greta – I’m just surprised that it took them this long.
I’ve long found it fascinating how many of the far right mouthpieces will go on and on, at great length and high volume about how all professionals, especially physicians and scientists are wrong, they are right and when ill or injured, embrace those experts in order to preserve their useless lives.
Seriously, if one wishes to avoid being a hypocrite, one should reject the physician and science and when needed, perform brain surgery on themselves.
… and washingtonpost.com was signal-boosting her like mad yesterday… “Let the world burn, we need clickbait!”
To quote George Orwell’s essay “Why I Write” (come on, read it, it’s less than 3,000 words), “[N]o book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” And trusting a kid or young adult to have “no agenda” when that kid or young adult has a lawyer for a parent is… um… dumb. (My own kids are good examples, which they’ll freely admit to.)
And when it doesn’t reach “book length” but is instead written for publication in a forum with an explicit agenda —
The Right has always had a problem with creativity and originality when it comes to spreading their message. They can only copy, and badly at that. “Oh! You’ve got a teenage European girl running around claiming that global warming is real? Well, we’ve got our own German teenager who says Greta is wrong!”
That, and they treat everything, including the determination of what is or isn’t reality, like some sort of competition. “We’ll just have Greta and Naomi duke it out in the Marketplace of Ideas and let the everyday Joe decide who’s right.” Nope, sorry, as wiser heads than mine have pointed out numerous times, that’s NOT how science works.
@5 But that’s cryptofascist! You have to let people make up their own minds and stuff because you can’t, like, tell people what to think, man! /s
Seriously, I’ve had discussions on Patheos with liberals that went exactly like that. No one on the left that I’ve spoken to has the huevos to take a firm stand on any issue because that makes them “The Man” and heaven forbid that happen.
Maybe we should start a pool over how long it’ll be before she flips and says she was ignorant or was just doing it for the money. I can understand someone just being a venal spokesmodel – that’s just capitalism.
If she’s sincere she’ll have to work hard to protect her ignorance.
Without an ideology, why does she think anyone needs to hear her thoughts on climate science? Because she likes attention and has use for money?
It’s all about asserting that only your opponents have “ideology”, while insinuating that “ideology” means reality-denying fanaticism.
@Marcus, #7:
The moment she pays off the mortgage on her first home?
Re: Crip Dyke (#9):
I’ll go with the moment the cash flow dries up and integrity becomes a job requirement. Luckily, for a successful right-wing spokesperson that may never happen.
I would so like to say that I’m in love with Greta Thunberg, but I’d need to be almost 60 years younger to avoid disgusting myself. I guess I can say that I admire Ms. Thunberg…right?
Here is a bit about Heartland. Anyone associated with them immediately discredits themself.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/02/20/heartland-institute-climate-denial-germany-naomi-seibt-correctiv
a young fascist mouthpiece using youtube as a platform? how unusual.
The “anti-Greta”, from the un-Greta-ful.
@#3, mikey:
The [i]Washington Post[/i]? You mean the newspaper which is owned by a holding company wholly owned by Jeff Bezos, a right-wing billionaire whose business has a massive carbon footprint, and which has notably tailored its editorial content to support Bezos’ opinions? [b]That[/b] [i]Washington Post[/i]? Goodness, what a complete surprise. I cannot imagine that such a thing would be possible.
Certain – proven – right wing liars who deny human causation in global warming, such as the young earth creationist bigot ‘Cowboy’ Bob Sorensen (and his Facebook sidekick Curtis Long) have been falsely claiming for months that ‘leftist’ adults are using or exploiting Greta Thunberg as their ‘tool’. Who first came to prominence after starting a SOLO protest outside the Swedish Parliament. Sorensen does not like the lengthy page of which this posting is a part:
http://forums.bcseweb.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3153&p=52684&hilit=thunberg#p52684