Greta Thunberg in Germany
No amount of embarrassing details will make climate doomsday cultists rethink their own assumptions and premises
I’m a wee bit swamped work-wise, hence my relative silence, which will continue until early February: apologies to my readers are in order.
In the meantime, here’s something you’ve probably see already:
Yep, Saint Grete herself (?), being apparently ‘manhandled’ by German police. Here’s what Daniel Weinmann wrote about this on German alternative outlet Reitschuster on 21 Jan. 2023:
The attempt to portray Greta Thunberg as a martyr of the climate movement failed thoroughly. Wherever Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg appears, media hype is guaranteed. Without the 20-year-old, Lützerath, Germany [a hot-button topic for the climate doomsday cultists as of late] would probably have become only a small chapter in the gospel of climate activists. It was all the more important for her movement that she too mingled with the demonstrators who continued their protest against the mining of brown coal and the demolition of the hamlet in the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Erkelenz on Tuesday after the eviction.
‘The police violence is outrageous’, the climate icon had earlier condemned the authorities’ actions in Lützerath. Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach artfully rejected the accusation: ‘It is incomprehensible to me how she arrives at her astonishing assessment’, the Green public servant told Der Spiegel.
‘And then, to be honest, I was astonished by the statements of one Greta Thunberg’, the Green cried at the same time in Stern. She had made no attempt to get across a differentiated picture of the situation on the ground and had not sought a conversation with the police, Weinspach said. On the first day of the police action, she herself had not been there. Meanwhile, the media carried pictures of how police officers in full protective gear first led Thunberg away from the edge of the quarry near Lützerath and then carried her away. Little Greta was to be stylised as a great heroine.
‘We would never go that low to posing for such footage’
A compromising video shows how two police officers literally handle the Swede with kid gloves while she is being photographed by journalists. The mood among all those present seems cheerful and relaxed, at the beginning of the clip Thunberg chats and laughs. Smiling, she also answers an acoustically incomprehensible question. The front woman of the climate movement in harmony with the previously scolded police, the eternal enemy of the protesters? With the police who, according to a paramedic from the ranks of the climate activists, ‘systematically hit heads’? Revolution looks different.
Aachen’s Green police chief Weinspach, whose authority was responsible for the operation in Lützerath, tried to save what could no longer be saved, both helplessly and without ideas: ‘We would never go that low to posing for such footage, we are not the extras for the staging of a Ms. Thunberg’, he postulated in the Welt, in order to immediately reject any responsibility: ‘Whether she deliberately brought about the situation, one would have to ask her.’
This is followed by a platitude with which the Green civil servant obviously wants to distract from his failure: ‘I am grateful that my colleagues acted so professionally during the police measures on the ground.’ Then—in keeping with the style—he praised himself and his men: ‘It was a professional and very well prepared operation. The operational strategy and tactics worked. We succeeded in cutting off the place in a very short time and thus prevented the influx of further people.’
‘Photo Shooting for a Doomsday Cult?’
The fact that there was isolated criticism during the operation, that media access had been limited, and that there was now discussion about staged pictures shows, according to Weinspach, how difficult it is to do justice to everyone. ‘I have always said that it is a concern of mine that we as police enable reporting and ensure the protection of those working in the media in critical situations. Both were in place at this point and that’s why the journalists were able to do their job.’
The question is why the police officers allowed themselves to be instrumentalised so blatantly. Were they forced by their green boss to put a good face on the embarrassing game? ‘How ridiculous. And our police go along with that? Photo shoots for the end-time sect? Embarrassment is an understatement’, is how one Twitter user aptly sums up the undignified farce.
Can one imagine this harmonious unity between police actions and Corona critics? Their icon Michael Ballweg certainly didn’t put up a good front when he was arrested—and no one had the idea of presenting him as a pillar saint of his movement.
Bottom Lines
There’s a bunch of things that non-German readers don’t know, including the Lützerath farce. ‘Even’ the Ministry of Truth™ gets this one right: Lützerath’s 900 or so inhabitants were supposed to be re-settled to make place for open-surface lignite mining. Setting aside what this means, the reason Saint Greta went there is a long-running occupation by squatting of the premises owned by energy conglomerate RWE to prevent mining. The occupation began in 2020—and, as a thought experiment—just imagine how long, say, the US government would look on in comparable circumstances.
Remember Keystone XL, anyone? He, Greta, why don’t you consider protesting in the US for a change? You wouldn’t be afraid to voice your concerns there (as opposed to, say, the UN Headquarters…). Put your actions where your mouth is, or shut up.
Michael Ballweg, one of Germany’s most vocal anti-mandate protest leader, was arrested in 2022 on suspicion of charges of money laundering. To this day, no charges have been filed (background in German here [Nov. 2022]). Yet, as requested by State Prosecutors without providing anything in terms of argumentation or evidence, Mr. Ballweg remains in custody (see here, also in German [4 Jan. 2023]).
What is left of the rule of law will probably soon revert to its pre-modern version, albeit in a farcical version. While this may or may not increase the value of my own professional expertise, the tragic meaning of this—as opposed to most heterodox economists who call this phenomenon ‘neo-feudalism’—seems like this:
Our Pseudo-Feudal Future
I call it a possible pseudo-feudalism, because in ‘feudalism 1.0’, both lord and subject had the same principal framework of reference, Christianity. Whatever its merits and location-specific manifestations, it’s a far stretch, indeed, to presume that today’s emergent pseudo-feudal arrangements are like this: to big is the gap between the material worlds of ‘lords’ and ‘subjects’ today, and, what is more, the chasm between the lords’ world-view and that of the subjects is, in fact, insurmountable.
To cite but one example, and there is no way to put this nicely, I’ve read through enough petitions by impoverished and hungry Bohemian peasants addressed to the landlord to know one thing: 300 years ago, a destitute and starving peasant could appeal to the lord’s ‘Christian conscience’ or ‘innate clemency’.
Good luck trying that invocation while addressing the Branch Davosians.
The future looks bleak, if you let others decide it for you.
Come with me; grab a tool—and let’s do some work.
I saw her "interviewed" on the streets of Davis by Rebel News and was struck by her insouciance - an insouciance held by the vast majority of humanity about climate change which she castigates us for.
I like the ending!
I also like the poor little Swedish girl trying to make sense of the economy with little skills she does what she can..
How about the Twelve Articles?