Sunday
Feb012015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Rose on green thuggery
Feb 1, 2015 Greens David Rose has a long piece in the Mail on Sunday looking at the increasing prominence of thuggery among environmentalists.
Climate of Hate: His children are urged to kill him, he's compared to Adolf Hitler and labelled a 'denier' – even though he's Jewish. Disturbing article reveals what happens if you dare to doubt the Green prophets of doom.
You get a sense that the powers that be in the Guardian are giving this behaviour a nod and a wink.
Reader Comments (100)
The Greens and Lefties who call themselves environmentalists are full of hatred and shout down and abuse those with whom they disagree. Reasoned argument is beyond them. They hate true democracy and they hate capitalism and all the benefits it has brought to humanity.
More4 repeated the documentary "Spying on Hitler's Army: The Secret Recordings" last night.
It was clear from the evidence that many German officers knew and even contributed to the attrocities espite their deniel. The programme asked a simple question what makes seemingly reasonable people, behave in such a barbaric manner? The answer seemed to lie in that people will do any foul deed if they are saving the world (or their kind) - "The end justifies the means"!
The barbarity of zealory!
I think the Guardian's implacable hatred of "deniers" can be taken as read. Otherwise they would not employ such people as Nuccitelli and, of course, the startling "journalist" Suzanne Goldenberg. The comments arena of the Environmental Section is becoming more and more an echo chamber. Anyone expressing mild opposition to catastrophic AGW is vilified and anyone expressing a stronger opinion , such as myself, (ahem!) is eventually banned. On the subject of "climate change" and "carbon" (their usual expression for CO2) they long ago ceased to perform the proper function of a newspaper.
Shame really. They still do a good crossword, though.
I cannot imagine anyone here is surprised to read what David Rose has to say on the subject of personal vilification and threats. I am surprised, given my own experience, he has not had more of it.
Rose's experience is a sure-fire sign environmental extremists are losing the global warming argument. If they weren't they'd just stick to debating the facts which would be enough to carry the day. They don't debate the points because they can't win that argument because the evidence is not on their side.
Unfortunately they're currently winning the policy argument due to what might be called policy overhang, eg once the commitment to wind farms has been made it's locked in for decades, regardless of evidence that reveals AGW to be a basket of goats bollocks.
It is because they care so very very very much.
The Guardian is one outfit who punch above their weight in PR terms given the the unnatural symbiosis with the BBC - another major news organ that routinely spins for the Green blob is:
The Press Association - who don't get anywhere near the criticism they deserve for the thousands of reprints of their twisted, overworked and occasionally shockingly partisan pieces (note: not spun) on environmental "issues" which have the greatest "page reach" in UK print media.
It's probably little consolation to David Rose that the attention he's getting is a reflection of his effectiveness in reporting things in Blobland - what a weird world we live in when a man can be enthusiastically arrested and prosecuted for tweeting to his pals that he'd like to blow up a miserably run provincial airport. One might reasonably suspect that those "powers that be" are content to allow these eco nutter antics as they are perceived as useful in defending their own deranged actions / agendas?
Rose's experience is a sure-fire sign environmental extremists are losing the global warming argument
I'm not convinced by this commonly written phrase. I think it is more likely that the movement has sucked in more and more "naturelly" zealous people. Many of them appear to be youngsters. It is one reason that I don't see the movement fading away quickly at least before the ring leaders and governments have sucked all the money they can from the scam.
Useful idiots is the most appropriate phrase. The Grauniad and BBC are one and the same oraganisim. Without the BBC (and autotrader of course) the Grauniad would be long dead.
The eco-fascists are like a swarm of wasps emerging from the nest when you poke it with a stick. It's because their elite realises their hold on Establishment Opinion is waning as it realises IPCC 'science' is easily disproved; near zero mean temperature difference between surface and atmosphere means no surface IR warming; Houghton showed why in 1977!
The Met Office had a much better press release this year - hottest year wise, but the still use the ranking graph, which loses context (imho)
ie hottest year, hottest decade, does not counter the pause/slowdown, both can be true at the same time,
so I rearranged it by time
http://unsettledclimate.org/?attachment_id=899
The fact is that "climate change" (as has been presented) amounts to politics and little much. It is therefore unsurprising that it is devolving into a slap fest. Not that there was ever opportunity for anything better than the gulag for the "deniers".
Besides which, the alarmist have lost and they know it. The climate is not behaving as prophesied. The smart "greens" have cashed in already and are jetting around the world to conferences in exotic places while DiCaprio or Gore entertains them on their huge yachts. What's left on the trenches is the drags, people intellectually unable to do more than kick and scream.
Quardianistas are in the sweet spot: they can stick to their bolshevik network as the Russians want them to promote windmills and "be against" fracking..
Is a good hedge to their corrupt allegiance to oil money (remarkable all the frequent milers to Dubai, the oil sheik sponsored educational and artsy events etc)
Are they are a corrupt lot -do bears defecate in the woods-, they are Qu'ardianistas after all.
Is this really surprising? Under any name or phrase, they are all cut from the same cloth. The Greens are with the set of political movements that are described here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100260720/whenever-you-mention-fascisms-socialist-roots-left-wingers-become-incandescent-why/
With true Totalitarians in their group how is it anyone should be surprised to discover violence, hatred, enemies and the like are simply useful tools? And most don't realize the revolution has been won by them and it's now just a matter of determine the rate. After all, Darwin's "descent of man" was aptly labeled since humans are descending back into the savagery of the Left's countless revolutions.
I don't fully understand why people like Rose describe themselves as luke-warmists. OK, they are not scientists and cannot fully understand the physical processes determining how the climate behaves, but they can see that data has been fiddled and hidden and that climate models are useless and do not reflect reality. Even though evidence shows that temperature drives CO2, they are still prepared to believe in the greenhouse effect. But if climate scientists lie, exaggerate and hide data, why would you believe them on anything else they claim?
You only have to study the Trenberth's flat Earth energy budget diagram to see that there is a giant fraud going on with regard to the greenhouse effect and that statements like "CO2 traps energy" are just nonsense.
"If they weren't they'd just stick to debating the facts...
Say what? Neither 'fact' nor 'debate' exist in any form within the 'progressive' lexicon. Any suggestion of otherwise is a naivete.
Phillip Bratby
I wonder the same thing, particularly after reading the article. Perhaps because CO2 driving climate is an old theory revived and not many people argue against it. The fact that modern unadulterated data pretty much disproves any causal link between CO2 and temperature seems to get lost in the noise. Possibly the best way to move Lukewarmers into the non-believer camp is to keep on plugging the data adjustment/tampering/smearing issues. I think it is one issue which most people can match with their own experience and ask the obvious questions does what they're claiming match my experience and why is it necessary?
Phillip Bratby, I'm with you. While in theory I'm a lukewarmer, I vote sceptic because the whole bandwagon is a dirty mess. I suspect that Rose is trying to give light to the idea that climate change is not black and white.
Andrew, this green thuggery also means the Greens are happy to destroy a natural environment in order to create their own vision of "natural".
In our local nature reserve (unfortunately recently taken into council ownership), the trees have been growing happily alongside the moss for at least 100 years. There's a natural balance: the wetter areas where the trees grow less well are grazed by the deer and the better areas become wooded. And as we all know - climate changes, so there's a regular advance and retreat of this boundary area so the trees tend to become less mature the further into the moss.
Then a few years ago, they built a "boardwalk". The increased walkers scared away the deer from around the boardwalk and I agree that the birch in that area needed to be cut down because the deer were no longer keeping it in check.
However ... along comes the council employed "environmentalist" who now catagorising the nature reserve as a "moss" decides that they are going to go on a rampage of cutting down trees. So, not only have the trees that grew up as a result of the council installed boardwalk gone, but they've cut out all the natural cover around the moss so there is now no where for the deer to hide and being exposed to the view of dogs throughout the reserve, the deer are not going to stay (one was killed by a dog not long ago) so they will no doubt will go elsewhere ... causing the whole area to start growing as the birch which the idiot environmentalists tried to get rid of.
.... so now, those who cut down the trees have got themselves an almost full time job cutting down the trees which used to be killed by the deer who used to keep the area open ... because nature had a natural balance between open areas and areas where deer hide.
The moral: nature works quite well dispite humans ... that is until some eco-nazi comes along and dictates what they think is and isn't "natural".
Lenzie Moss Chainsaw Massacre
David Rose's excellent article will cause the greenie fascists to spit blood. No doubt there will more vile threats and misinformation from these fanatics: the Guardian will lap it up, and the politicians will turn a blind eye. And so it goes on. The most worrying factor is the way environmental subjects are taught in our schools. No British government would allow political extremism of any colour to be taught in state schools, yet the fanatical views of the green blob are accepted as normal. And sceptics are treated as loonies. Also, the politicisation of science is one of the most disgraceful aspects of the late twentieth, and early twenty first centuries. Even Democracy will suffer, because of it: as Obama's state of the nation addresses show. First the mythical 2 degree target, which was utterly unsupported and now the 2014 hottest year, another pseudo scientific confidence trick.
The Guardian will support anything that can bring in massive global warming advertising revenue from companies like Shell and HSBC. The whole thing has massively stepped down in the last few years, obviously.
Could the Grauniad use some of its private trust fund money, to restart colonies in Greenland?
With their belief in global warming, this undervalued property, should rise in value. With no trees to cut down, all their energy requirements would have to be met by renewables, and with daylight for upto 20 hours a day, this should be a doddle.
The success of the colony would be guaranteed, with control of the media.
As more Green Luvvies emigrate to Greenland, the remainder will notice the earth becoming a better, and safer place to live.
tomo
'The Guardian is one outfit who punch above their weight in PR terms given the the unnatural symbiosis with the BBC -'
True they are two cheeks of the same bottom. However this another reason that it comes a very large slice of irony. The Guardian is very much a paper of the 'establishment' far more likley to be found on the hand crafted coffee tables of the chatter classes of NW1 than in the window of the far larger number of 'white van man' Its 'power' relates to the manner this chatter class dominate various areas ,such has the media and politics , thanks to the very type of privilege the paper itself claims to be against, than it does to how well they represent the people of the UK.
On a side note there far more Oxbridge educated journalist working at the Guardian then The Times and the Telegraphy, out of these they virtual all PPE's no matter what area then cover. Meanwhile 'the list' , probable the most deleted item on CIF ever , shows how many of them enjoyed private education before their Oxbridge one. And
take away the 'green tint ' and you see the advertises in the Guardian are the same has those in high end life styles magazines , so even their marketing department knows who their typical reader is . And it is not 'the common man ' they claim to care so much about .
John Ray has posted this on Greenie Watch:
JR's words make a lot of sense to me. I think such insights are part of the jigsaw we need to assemble to help understand not just the thuggery, but also the remarkable political and emotional success of the climate scaremongering in some quarters, not least the BBC/Guardian.
Three heartfelt cheers then for David Rose, a voice of reason and reasonableness. May he go from strength to strength.
KnR: "take away the 'green tint ' and you see the advertises in the Guardian are the same has those in high end life styles magazines , so even their marketing department knows who their typical reader is ."
Unfortunately, your typical green is AB class, with a huge salary and usually in a public sector job. They are more likely to fly than other voters, have a much bigger "carbon bumprint" (since they are usually office based).
John Shade: (re David's comments comparing Nazism to greens) "Three heartfelt cheers for David Rose. May he go from strength to strength."
Could agree more. As a kid I often wondered how ordinary people in Germany could have just let someone like Hitler take over the country. Now having seen how people just accept the lies and deceit from environmentalists and let them get away with wholesale destruction of the environment through bird-mincers and in our local reserve - by chopping down a wood that's been there 100 years to "save it", I can see the same mentality as we had in Germany and during the Stalinist "five year plans".
Total dogma ... which even apparently sane people go along with ... and if anyone dares to question the methodology and lies of the fascists ... merciless persecution.
We are just fortunate, that despite the lies and continued "upjusting" of surface temperature, that someone put up an independent satellite which showed up their lies.
But what if this decade had been another period of natural warming? Would we be tapping on the drainpipes of adjoining prison cells awaiting transportation to some desolate work camp to "save the environment"?
I was banned from Komment macht Frei once, after posting ONE word with a new account.
I thought that was an accomplishment of some sorts :)
It wasnt ni66er or anything of the sort, just a word that did not fit in their "noble" tirades ; it was around a wimmin "issue" tho if I remember well , which is to them (follow the money or where their main non bbc readers are) like salt on a slug when you "criticize" their narratives.
I mean where are we when we start to ban words in the dictionary??
John Shade. Thanks. I'll follow that up.
This is my website
Lessons from anti progress ideology (aka ecofascism) http://alturl.com/xxmqe
In 1932, the Nazis were indeed extreme environmental socialists.In 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor on the advice of big business and everything changed. That is why there are endless discussions about who the Nazis were. They CHANGED.
My new website (Beta). Us - Nazi collaboration.
http://alturl.com/on4x7
Here's a taster
IBM 'dealt directly with Holocaust organisers'
Author says US firm had control of Polish subsidiary
The paperback provides the first evidence that the company's dealings with the Nazis were controlled from its New York headquarters throughout the second world war. Mr Black quotes Leon Krzemieniecki, the last surviving per son involved in the Polish administration of the rail transportation to Auschwitz and Treblinka, as saying that he "knew they were not German machines... The labels were in English...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.highereducation
David Rose's views are somewhat moderate on global warming. Along with the Booker item in the Telegaph last weekend referring to Paul Homewood's blog, there is inceasingly detailed and specific evidence accumulating at other blogs particularly Steve Goddard's. See this one today on worldwide fakery by NASA NOAA/GISS which also incolve the UK Met Office:- https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/a-global-epidemic-of-data-tampering-at-the-us-government/
Sceptic blogs in general and Goddard in particular are doing an eye-wateringly brilliant job of taking down the Green Blob. They must despise him. One day his efforts will be revered.
I think David Rose and GWPF take a Lukewarm line because they at least do get some airing on the MSM. Where as The likes of Bob Carter, Richard Lindzen and Judith Curry do not get a chance to express their views although they could hardly be called extreme.
This vile attack on David Rose demonstrates to me how much they are loosing the argument and becoming more desperate as a result. Really the watch dog should step in and stop this disgusting apology for journalism.
Those blink comparison graphs of Steven Goddard are very good because he has got the scales exactly lined up.
For those who don't like Socialists and don't like Nazis and so assume the two are the same, may I point to the words of the witness Pastor Martin Niemoller:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
The Nazis were the enemy of the Communists, Socialists, Trades Unionists - The Left.
Re: GC
> Could the Grauniad use some of its private trust fund money,
The Grauniad is now owned by a private company that pays dividends on its shares. The Scott Trust that used to own it now depends upon handouts from the Grauniad's owners for its income.
The Mail site does not work properly on my phone.
The bit I can see at the top of the article is a bit me-centric.
Does he go on to mention the recent Ridley and Soon incidents?
These really do need more publicity I think.
I have given Greg Laden the January climate hypocrite of the month award for calling for Soon's firing while on the very same day bemoaning harrassing attacks on individual scientists.
Re: MCoutney,
Very good except the original version from 1946 only mentions communists, the incurably ill, Jews and or Jehovah's Witnesses. It was only in 1955 that Socialists were added by a German Professor.
TerryS, there are many versions of the poem that he wrote. I chose the most famous version that is accepted as the Holocaust Memorial.
According to a well-sourced (in German) Wikipedia post the classic version included Trades unionists and Social Democrats. So the witness still speaks.
Besides the idea that the Nazis didn't ban the trades unions and the parties of the left is somewhat baffling.
They didn't ban or nationalise the industries or church property. But they did suppress the functions of the left.
We lefties have to acknowledge the wickedness of Stalin and Mao. We do.
It's time for the right to get some historical perspective too.
MCourtney
They were socialists, then this happened.
Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany , when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders. Leading figures of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were murdered
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
Hitler was appointed Chancellor (because he couldn't form a government)
Appointment as chancellor
The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to Hindenburg. The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties", which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people".
Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after two further parliamentary elections—in July and November 1932—had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler headed a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and Hugenberg's party, the German National People's Party (DNVP). On 30 January 1933, the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg's office
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#Appointment_as_chancellor
MCourtney
The reason the Nazis, the Communists, and the (so-called) Socialists — rangiing from the Socialist Workers Party through assorted pseudo-Maoists right up to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge — are/were at each others' throats quite so viciously is that they were/are fighting over the same piece of ground.
The methods are the same; the underlying philosophy is the same with minor regional and cultural variations; the language is the same. And where they have succeeded in gaining any power the end result has been the the same — death, destruction, dehumanisation on a massive scale, internal or external war, disease, poverty, you name it.
The Trots and their allies have made a good job of convincing the non-thinking mainstream that they are in some way different from the National Socialists. They're not. Give them power and you will see exactly the same outcome.
Concentration camps (call them whatever you prefer: Labour Camps or Gulag), a privileged self-perpetuating elite with its own security apparat (call it the Gestapo or the Stasi whichever you prefer) a downtrodden, starving, and always suspect populace, frontier guards armed to the teeth and looking always inwards.
The difference is not between what you choose to call Left (ie "good") and Right (ie "bad") but between genuine government for the people (and preferably but not necessarily by the people; not all dictatorships or oligarchies are evil) and government for an entrenched few.
There is no need for you to "acknowledge the wickedness of Stalin and Mao" because they are nothing to do with you or your beliefs (I hope!!). Stop looking at power politics through the hypnotic prism which the likes of the SWP have created especially to lure people like you into this barren train of thought.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler — genocidal maniacs every one and philosophically and politically virtually inseparable.
There is something about the holocaust that is so systematically, diabolically evil, that only genocidal savages could have carried out .
Background: In early 1941, drawn by the promise of free slave labor the German petro-chemical giant IG Farben, sister company to America’s DuPont, built an industrial complex at a site three miles from what would become Auschwitz I, the extermination center. While IBM keypunch machines sorted through the cards of the approximate 10,000 daily arrivals those designated suitable were assigned to work details at IG Farben where they were intended to die of their labor, while the remainder of the arrivals would be assigned a more immediate death.
http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/The-Jewish-Problem---From-anti-Judaism-to-anti-Semitism/Foundations-of-Holocaust-Roosevelts-decision-to-not-bomb-Auschwitz-364838
Re: MCourtney
Apart from nationalising steel, mining, railways aircraft manufacturing etc.
Their "25 point plan" included:
7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens.
10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.
11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
13. We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
20. The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbürgerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.
21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
Look socialist to me.
I know they didn't follow through with many of their election promises, but then again what government ever does.
TerryS
That was the Nazi manifesto for an election they didn't win. Hitler was appointed Chancellor by big business. he sold out for power.
MCourtney
If you do a Venn diagram you'll find there was more commonality between Communists, Socialists and National Socialists than say between the Liberals and Conservatives. One area where they may have differed was that in today's parlance the Nazis were more green and anti-industrialization while Communists were originally quite pro-industrialization so long as they controlled production (and its means). That is, they were for industrialization but not the companies that were doing it. Greens in general, seem to be anti-production and anti-industrialization, but regardless they are very comfortable with the notion of the state controlling production and its means.
Re: esmiff
Hitler was appointed Chancellor by the President (Hindenburg). After his death a referendum was held to merge the posts of Chancellor and President and the people of Germany voted 88% in favour making Hitler the Fuhrer and putting the National Socialists in power.
The 25 point plan was more than a manifesto, it was the National Socialist Party's core principles drawn up when it was first formed from the Germans Workers Party.
@John Shade
Thanks for the comment and link.
Greens are not left-wing or socialist, whatever they like to think of themselves. They are a bunch of affluent, middle-class fascists. You have to be at least relatively wealthy to afford their green energy/organic/veggie/vegan lifestyle.
And, of course, they don't want to share their chosen lifestyle with either the hoi polloi, or those further up the food chain. They want to get rid of both, plus those could afford it but refuse to sign up to their religion.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler — genocidal maniacs every one and philosophically and politically virtually inseparable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Agree, Mike Jackson. These endless arguments about whether they are left or right wing are pointless. They are totalitarians all - and that's what matters.
They are neither left-wing in the sense of regarding the interests of the poor and oppressed as paramount, or right-wing in the sense of supporting individual freedom and responsibility.
That is why Orwell's writing about this was spot-on - it is method, not content, that matters in a totalitarian regime.
Re David Rose, thank goodness that he has the courage and tenacity not to be intimidated by these thugs and bullies. A lot of people, who are not necessarily bad or weak, might just decide that the game's not worth the candle. Good on him for hanging in and naming and shaming the culprits.
The Grauniad has gone from being an uncritical propaganda sheet to being actively a venue for people who want their opponents' heads cut off or for their children to murder them. Just disgraceful.
Do the UK government and the BBC still patronise it for their job ads? Do they really want to hire people who choose to read this appalling muck?
Feb 1, 2015 at 7:01 PM TerryS,
To be fair to Hindenburg, his hand was forced and he privately thought Hitler, a street thug and unworthy of any sort of minor still less a major political post.
TerryS
I wasn't disagreeing with you. Quite the reverse, I was fascinated to see the manifesto. It's what I would have expected. However, much of it disappeared when they did the deal with major corporations, many of whom were American. That to a large extent was the subject matter of the book Catch 22 . Trading with the enemy.
Arming the enemy: US industry, Hitler and the Holocaust
But strictly speaking that was not the same thing as active participation in the Holocaust, although the collaboration between DuPont and I.G. Farben, the German manufacturer of the poison gas, Zyklon-B deserves more study. Where American industry did participate actively in the murder of Jews was in their use of slave labor. Several representing a much longer list are: Kodak; GM, GE, Standard Oil and Ford.
IBM may or not have profited directly by use of slave labor but that company’s assistance to the SS in locating and placing appropriate slave talent where needed may well constitute active collaboration. And of course it was IBM that made it possible for the Third Reich to identify “Jews” back to a single grandparent; then locate, schedule transport, etc., Jews to their fate. How many Jews would have died if their murderers would have had to rely on word of mouth to identify them?
http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/The-Jewish-Problem---From-anti-Judaism-to-anti-Semitism/Arming-the-enemy-US-industry-Hitler-and-the-Holocaust-366097
Johanna,
In answer to the above question, YES.
However it seems to be on the outside as it were, it is difficult to explain to people who do not live here how bad is, the political situation. Further and how the administration - the public sector [especially so in senior management but the cascade effect is pervasive] are so conceited, self serving and oblivious to the concerns of the citizens they purport to 'serve'. As they go, they lie and cheat, defraud and swindle as if it is a requirement of the job [I think it is] - of course the Guardian is their newspaper of choice, Communist dystopia, its byline and leader.
Purblind, unquestioning Green advocacy proves you are one of the gals/boys and 'on message', and as far as killing people, it's only one step away.
Aye well said Phillip [Bratby].
"Capitalism" [wot is dat?]................ well if we had free markets and open competition but here in the bosom of the EU where Statism, all sclerotic red tape blocked arteries and the oligarchs of corporatism preclude the advance of free market laissez faire economics in the UK - "Capitalism" is but a pipe dream.