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Wednesday 15 December 2010

Now I see the light.

If you read my last post, Good Grief, and if you delve further into the site it came from you will find this section titled Propaganda. Below are the sub plots.

Atrocity accusations 

 Hyperbolic inflations 

 Demonization and dehumanization 

 Polarization 

 Divine sanction 

 Meta-propaganda

It would seem that ASH and the AGW groups have been  following these tenets to the letter.

I’ll give you the text of the first section. After that you’re on your own. Follow the links if you can be arsed to.

Atrocity accusations

Accuse the other side of committing acts of gross indecency and atrocities that will shock and show the enemy to be sub-human. (Ed. Accuse them of slaughtering thousands of bartenders through SHS. Or the Polar bears are dying in their trillions)When values are broken badly, then this legitimises extreme punishment and revenge.

Examples
  • Bombing a religious building or hospital.
  • Killing innocent victims, especially children.

It’s always for the sake of the Cheeeeeldren isn’t it.

Good grief

I was just trawling through my councils web site when I found this little gem.

9.1.1 At the outset of this topic review, Mr Peter Moore, KCC’s Environment Strategy Manager, suggested to the Select Committee that the degree of acceptance of  climate change could be likened to the stages of ‘the grief cycle’.

9.1.2 This cycle details the stages of emotional response that an individual goes through over time in reaction to bad news175. This cycle begins with paralysis, progressing through denial and anger and ultimately to acceptance and the desire to move forward constructively.

9.1.3 Members of the Select Committee each began the inquiry at different stages on this cycle but ended it with clear and unanimous acceptance that climate change
above and beyond that which can be explained by natural variation is happening and accelerating and that human activity is, at least in part, responsible. This is matched by a desire to ensure that KCC and Kent as a whole move rapidly towards a constructive, appropriate and adequate response to the many challenges which climate change represents. All Members of the Select Committee hope that the considered recommendations in this report will drive KCC and Kent to achieve this.

Now my reader might wonder why I’m writing about this. You’ll see in the above text the number 175. This a link to an external web site of which I’ll give you a little excerpt.

The Kübler-Ross grief cycle

Background

For many years, people with terminal illnesses were an embarrassment for doctors. Someone who could not be cured was evidence of the doctors' fallibility, and as a result the doctors regularly shunned the dying with the excuse that there was nothing more that could be done (and that there was plenty of other demand on the doctors' time).

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross was a doctor in Switzerland who railed against this unkindness and spent a lot of time with dying people, both comforting and studying them. She wrote a book, called 'On Death and Dying' which included a cycle of emotional states that is often referred to (but not exclusively called) the Grief Cycle.

In the ensuing years, it was noticed that this emotional cycle was not exclusive just to the terminally ill, but also other people who were affected by bad news, such as losing their jobs or otherwise being negatively affected by change. The important factor is not that the change is good or bad, but that they perceive it as a significantly negative event.

Strange to use a paper on grieving as your rational for tackling Climate change. I’d like to give em grief over the amount of MY tax their wasting on this tomfoolery.

Pragmatism?

The things you overhear.

It happened in an Underground station in London .
There were protesters on the concourse handing out pamphlets on the evils of Britain .
I politely declined to take one.
An elderly woman behind me was getting off the escalator and a young (20-ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely> declined.
The young protester put her hand on the woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, 'Madam, don't you care about the children of Iraq ?'
The elderly woman looked up at her and said, 'My dear, my father died in France during World War II, I lost my husband in Korea and my grandson in Afghanistan . All three died so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth our country. If you touch me again, I'll stick this umbrella up your arse and open it.'

That would be my mother’s sentiments if she was still alive.