Category: Dishonourable Mentions

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Creative (Climate) Communications — Effectively Marketing Psuedo-Science

No joke. There actually is a book out on how to “effectively communicate” on climate change. Loads of logical fallacies and emotional manipulation.

1. Important Links


(Other articles on climate change scam)
https://canucklaw.ca/the-climate-change-scam-part-1/

CLICK HERE, for the article in the ironically named “Scientific American” journal, authored by Max Boykoff, to promote his book.

CLICK HERE, for link to book sale.

2. Site Promoting Book

Conversations about climate change at the science-policy interface and in our lives have been stuck for some time. This handbook integrates lessons from the social sciences and humanities to more effectively make connections through issues, people, and things that everyday citizens care about. Readers will come away with an enhanced understanding that there is no ‘silver bullet’ to communications about climate change; instead, a ‘silver buckshot’ approach is needed, where strategies effectively reach different audiences in different contexts. This tactic can then significantly improve efforts that seek meaningful, substantive, and sustained responses to contemporary climate challenges. It can also help to effectively recapture a common or middle ground on climate change in the public arena. Readers will come away with ideas on how to harness creativity to better understand what kinds of communications work where, when, why, and under what conditions in the twenty-first century.

Includes strategies that help people have productive conversations about climate change that involve listening and adapting rather than just trying to win an argument
-Bridges sectors and audiences, bringing together important material for undergraduate and graduate courses
-Shows the importance of being creative in communications about climate change in the twenty-first century – many businesses, institutions, and collectives can benefit from this, not just students and academics

Reading through this, you will notice that the topic of additional reading and research never comes up. There is no push to understand other perspectives or review scientific findings.

Instead, the focus is on using sociological and psychological techniques to convert normies to your position, without actually providing evidence. This is all about language and emotional manipulation.

Ironically, there is science involved here. But instead of science relating to researching “climate change”, the research focuses on how to change people’s minds. Seems that the priorities are all backwards.

Item #1: Strategies that help people have productive conversations. Presumably this is ways to insert climate change topics into otherwise normal talks.

Item #2: Cram more of the propaganda into university classes.

Item #3: Be innovative about #1 and #2.

3. The Scientific American Article

From synthesizing this work, I distill these lessons into some important “rules of the road.”
-Be authentic.
-Be aware.
-Be accurate.
-Be imaginative.
-Be bold.
From there, additional features on the road map help to navigate toward resonant and effective communications.
-Find common ground on climate change.
–Emphasize how climate change affects us here and now, in our everyday lives.
-strong>Focus on benefits of climate change engagement.
–Creatively empower people to take meaningful and purposeful action.
–“Smarten up” communications about climate change to match the demands of a 21st-century communications environment.

The first items on this list would only make sense if truth was actually a goal. Be aware and be accurate are good principles.

However, climate change advocates tend to be extremely dismissive of different ideas, opinions, facts and research. A commitment to being accurate would undermine the sense of superiority that many possess.

Find common ground and emphasizing the effects are attempts to emotionally manipulate people by inserting the topic in places where it really doesn’t belong. Indeed, the goal seems to be to make “everything” about climate change. Make it an omnipresent issue.

Lately, climate change has imposed itself on the public sphere. Through extreme events linked to changes in the climate, new scientific reports and studies, and rejuvenated youth movements (along with many other political, economic, scientific, ecological, meteorological and cultural events and issues) climate change has been increasingly difficult to ignore.
.
But you wouldn’t really have picked up on that in the first round of the U.S. Democratic party primary debates that took place in Miami, Florida. As 20 candidates made their case to the American people, it was striking how minimally and shallowly they discussed climate change.

To be fair, in a debate (10 people each over 2 days), there isn’t much chance to give long answers.

However, the author, Max Boykoff, makes the point — and will repeatedly make this point — that everything is connected to climate change. He takes the Anita Sarkessian approach, though not with gender.

Sadly, this illustrates a contradiction we have been living with for some time. That is this: amid extensive research into the causes and consequences of climate change, climate communications—and thus, conversations about climate change in our lives—have remained stuck.

There are many reasons. Among them:
-Climate change is still regularly treated as a single issue. This was clearly on display in the debates, and even during the paltry time devoted to surface-level discussions of climate change.
-There has continued to be inadequate funding provided to support sustained and coordinated social science and humanities research into what constitutes more effective climate communications.
-We have all been short on creativity, and we generally have stuck to ineffective climate communications approaches (e.g. merely scientific ways of knowing) as we muddle along.

Interesting take on the problem. Max Boykoff goes on about how the science is sound, but that we just aren’t making any headway in communicating the solutions.

Yes, climate change is still treated as a single issue (that part is true). The author’s goal is to make it an issue of everything. Again, the Anita Sarkeesian technique.

All the money that we pay in various carbon tax schemes apparently aren’t needed for climate change research. Rather, they are needed to SHARE THE RESULTS of the climate change research.

Boykoff seems to believe that it is the “strictly scientific” approach to sharing research that keeps people from seeing what is before their eyes. Seems condescending.

<

p style=”padding:2px 6px 4px 6px; color: #555555; background-color: #eeeeee; border: #dddddd 2px solid”>Yet climate change is a collective action problem that intersects with just about every other area of life. It traverses critical issues such as public health, jobs, education, inequality, poverty, violence, trade, infrastructure, energy, foreign policy and geopolitics. While everyday people clearly have the capacity to care, they reasonably often focus on immediate concerns, such as issues of job security, local school quality, crime and the economy. In recent years, however, it has become more and more clear that these issues are interlinked with climate change.

So, in making these connections, we can more effectively get to the heart of how we live, work, play, find happiness and relax in modern life, shaping our everyday lives, lifestyles, relationships and livelihoods.

Apparently we are too naïve to see the forest for the trees. Ordinary people have lives to live. We don’t spend every waking moment trying to connect aspects of our lives with climate change.

Again the author assumes, with no evidence, that every major aspect of your life is connected to climate change. It must all be pointed out.

Of course, Boykoff will never get into the conflict-if-interest that plagues climate change research. Most of it is funded with a certain outcome expected. Remember, if you aren’t concluding that climate change is a threat to humanity, then you likely won’t be funded anymore. Why keep financing climate research if it isn’t an emergency?

There has been an urgent need to improve communications about climate change at the intersections of science, policy and society. With that in mind, I wrote Creative (Climate) Communications. It is essentially a handbook that bridges sectors and audiences to meet people where they are on this critical 21st-century challenge. In the book I integrate research from the social sciences and humanities that has provided insights into better understanding what communications work, where, when, why and under what conditions.

I also examine how to harness creativity for more effective engagement. I integrate these lessons by assembling what I call features on a “road map” along with “rules of the road.” The guide is then meant to help as researchers and practitioners proceed with both ambition and caution into struggles to effectively address the many issues associated with climate change.

Although Boykoff doesn’t come right out an say it, book is about marketing techniques. What tactics are most persuasive and under what circumstances? People can’t straight up accept “facts and truth”, it needs to be pointed out again and again.

In short, most people are too stupid to see the big picture. Boykoff implies it, but doesn’t not actually state it.

Through this guidance, I seek to help maximize effectiveness and opportunities and minimize mistakes and dead ends in a resource-, energy- and time-constrained environment. In putting this together, I also emphasize that successful and creative climate communications strategies must be tailored to perceived and intended audiences and can be most effective when pursued through relations of trust. And I underscore that context is critical; cultural, political, social, environmental, economic, ideological and psychological conditions matter.

Move away from hard data and facts. Use “soft techniques” to sell it. To once more point out the obvious, everything is connected to climate change.

I also argue that an expanded approach involves processes of listening and adapting rather than winning and argument or talking people into something. Authentically considering other points of view fosters meaningful exchanges and enhances possibilities for finding common ground. Facts established through scientific ways of knowing about climate change are important, but they are not enough. We therefore need to enlarge considerations of how knowledge influences actions, through experiential, emotional, visceral, tactile, tangible, affective and aesthetic ways of learning and knowing about climate change.

Facts aren’t enough. Tell people again and again, that climate change impacts everything. Look for more subtle ways to get your message across.

4. Reflection On This Article


To address the elephant in the room: it is darkly amusing to post in “Scientific American” about scientific methods to convince people to accept pseudo-science about climate change.

Boykoff mentions several times about considering other peoples’ perspectives. But this is hypocritical considering the amount of times “skeptics” or “deniers” are ridiculed or scorned for trying to find out the truth.

Boykoff also neglects any mention or idea that any of the “climate change” findings might be exaggerated or flat out wrong.

It seems the climate-change industry has given up on science, and instead focuses its efforts on trying to market their agenda.

Might be worth buying the book just to do a thorough debunking of it. Understand your enemy after all.

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Kirsten Jenkins: Humanizing Sociotechnical Transitions Through Energy Justice

1. Go Check Out Uppity Peasants Site


This is a fairly new site, however, it has some interesting content on it. Well researched, it will give some alternative views on how we are really being controlled. It you haven’t been there, what are you waiting for?

2. About The Authors


CLICK HERE, for the profile of Kirsten Jenkins. Side note: no shocker she has cited Frank Geels.

CLICK HERE, for Benjamin Sovacool.

He is a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), due to be published in 2022, and an Advisor on Energy to the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation in Brussels, Belgium.

He has played a leadership role in winning and managing collaborative research grants worth more than $19.6 million, including those from the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program of Denmark, the Danish Council for Independent Research, and the European Commission. In the United Kingdom, he has served as a Principal Investigator on projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

CLICK HERE, for Darren McCauley.

3. The Paper Itself

Humanizing sociotechnical transitions through energy justice: An ethical framework for global transformative change
Kirsten Jenkins, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Darren McCauley

Not even kidding. That is the title of the paper.

ABSTRACT
Poverty, climate change and energy security demand awareness about the interlinkages between energy systems and social justice. Amidst these challenges, energy justice has emerged to conceptualize a world where all individuals, across all areas, have safe, affordable and sustainable energy that is, essentially, socially just. Simultaneously, new social and technological solutions to energy problems continually evolve, and interest in the concept of sociotechnical transitions has grown. However, an element often missing from such transitions frameworks is explicit engagement with energy justice frameworks. Despite the development of an embryonic set of literature around these themes, an obvious research gap has emerged: can energy justice and transitions frameworks be combined? This paper argues that they can. It does so through an exploration of the multi-level perspective on sociotechnical systems and an integration of energy justice at the model’s niche, regime and landscape level. It presents the argument that it is within the overarching process of sociotechnical change that issues of energy justice emerge. Here, inattention to social justice issues can cause injustices, whereas attention to them can provide a means to examine and potential resolve them

This article is the first time I have encountered the term “energy justice”. Rather than simply dealing with a problem in a scientific and factual way, the authors add some social-justice element to it. The abstract doesn’t really explain how this works. Hopefully the body will.

Thus, it calls for greater engagement with the three-tenet energy justice approach (distributional justice, procedural justice and justice as recognition) when planning for more sustainable transitions.

Energy justice apparently consists of:

  • Distributional justice
  • Procedural justice
  • Justice as recognition

Okay, but that doesn’t really explain what it is.

Amidst serious sustainability challenges, transitions frameworks have evolved to either conceptualize or facilitate decarbonised energy systems that provide both security of supply and universal access to energy; a process that it is widely acknowledged will require new ways of producing, living and working with energy (Bridge et al., 2013; Heffron and McCauley, 2018; IEA, 2008; Mernier, 2007). In aiming to implement sociotechnical solutions, governments are increasingly utilising the language of transitions, and the concept has begun to feature in the energy policies of countries including Denmark, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (UK)

Some points that should be addressed:

  • They are quite blunt (and proud it seems) that their language is filtering into government activity.
  • Provide universal supply of energy? Is this meant to be some sort of socialist or communist idea?
  • Has it sunk in that if you remove all Carbon forms of energy that it will reduce supply, and make your universal supply harder to obtain?
  • When you say a “new way of living”, does this mean reducing the standard of living in the West to ensure that everyone has access to the same amount of energy?

Yet despite ongoing debates about ethics or justice across many fields of literature (including extended discussions between antagonist camps that have gone on across the history of political philosophy), one social element missing from transitions frameworks is explicit, practice oriented engagement with the energy justice concept and related approaches to justice concerns. Eames and Hunt (2013) draw attention to the fact that considerations of equity and justice are underrepresented within the sociotechnical transitions literature and the wider energy transitions debate, despite the fact that the concept of sustainable development, the target of many transition plans, is inherently rooted in these core notions (Hopwood et al., 2005). Transitions literatures can also fail to give due consideration to issues of landscape, health and existing property values too (Jefferson, 2017).

More points to be looked at:

  • This seems a shameless attempt to turn what is supposed to be an environmental issue into a “social justice”, and hence blur the lines.
  • “Equity and justice” and terms that need to be rammed into discussions.
  • It appears that including “social justice” would be a way to better market their ideas. They don’t seem to make an actual connection though.
  • If a platform needs to latch on to overused buzzwords to sell itself, then it’s probably not a very good platform.

Failure to adequately engage with questions of justice throughout the transition process is dangerous. It may lead to aggravated poverty, entrenched gender bias and non-participation as outcomes or by-products of ‘blinkered’ decision-making. Indeed, without a focus on justice, transitions may fail to acknowledge the burdens of having too much energy, such as waste, over-consumption and pollution, or from not having enough, where some individuals lack access, are challenged by under-consumption and poverty, and may face health burdens and shortened lives as a consequence of restricted energy choices (Sovacool et al.,2016a). This paper therefore utilizes the energy justice concept as a way of engaging with these ethical dilemmas within pre-existing transitions frameworks.

More nonsense which requires a response:

  • There is an obsession with redefining terms to suit an agenda.
  • This is energy we are talking about, not poverty, gender bias, or non-participation. That’s right, they really played the “gender” card here.
  • Burden of having too much? Can I assume the solution is to force sharing? Or rather, to force “rich” nations to hand over energy supplies?
  • Engaging with these ethical dilemmas? You haven’t demonstrated any sort of cause and effect yet.

The origins of the energy justice literature is largely reported as coming from activist accounts of energy issues using the environmental justice frame – a precursor to the energy justice concept which shares overlapping philosophical groundings

That’s right. A bunch of activists made this up.

Specifically, as environmental justice is commonly defined as the distribution of environmental hazards and access to all natural resources; it includes equal protection from burdens, meaningful involvement in decisions, and fair treatment in access to benefits……….. This approach forms the basis of the energy justice approach and framework. However, mentions of its core notions also appear elsewhere, including in the guise of the “three A’s” of availability, accessibility and affordability

It reads like the sort of nonsense one would get in a gender studies class. Only thing is that “energy” is being substituted for here.

note in this regard, that even ‘a “low-carbon” transition has the potential to distribute its costs and benefits just as unequally [as historical fossil-based transitions] without governance mindful of distributional justice’ or, as an extension, without attention to the issues of justice as recognition and due process–energy justice tenets we explore below. We argue that the energy justice concept provides one way of filling this gap.

Here, we get into some straight up Communism. Is it true that costs and benefits don’t impact everyone equally? Yes. However, there is no practical way to do this. Either you would have to forcefully arrange differences in benefits and costs to “make things right”, or you would have to alter everyone’s standard of living so that they were equal.

Guess the road to Hell could use a re-paving.

Throughout, we present three main claims, each coinciding with a level in the MLP model; the niche, regime, and landscape:

(1) That the energy justice concept can expose exclusionary and/or inclusionary technological and social niches before they develop, leading to potentially new and socially just innovation;

(2) That in addition to using the MLP to describe regimes, the energy justice framework provides a way for these actors to normatively judge them, potentially destabilising existing regimes using moral criteria;

(3) That framing energy justice as a matter of priority at the landscape level could exert pressure on the regime below, leading to the widespread reappraisal of our energy choices, and integration of moral criteria.

(1) Sounds like a way to vilify or outcast technology that is scientifically sound, because it doesn’t meet their criteria.
(2) Appears to be a method of using peer pressure and social pressure as a way of destabilizing systems.
(3) Comes across as more overt propaganda.

This governance focus means that the socio-technical literature increasingly acknowledges the political dynamics related to the process through which innovations scale, diffuse or entrench. We focus here on the most prominent socio-technical transitions framework, the multi-level perspective (MLP). The MLP takes the form of a series of nested levels, the niche, regime, and landscape

Nothing scientific. Purely political manoeuvering.

Analysis through the energy justice lens reveals that although electric vehicles (EVs) do have laudable environmental (and social) attributes, they can be exclusionary in the sense that they can perpetuate already widening gaps between the wealthy and poor, as well as potentially raising new forms and geographies of injustice – distributional and justice as recognition concerns.

I thought the point was protecting the environment. But here, they talk about how electric cars will not impact everyone equally, even if they do have considerable environmental benefits. Again, is this an argument in favour of socialism or communism?

Equal opportunity v.s. equal outcome.

In addition to applications in niches, the energy justice framework can support the current role of the MLP to describe regimes by providing a means for policy actors to normatively judge them—exposing unjust practices and resultantly, increasing regime ‘humanisation’. We illustrate this first through the exploration of nuclear power and hydroelectric power production, regimes in which there is some consensus that technological development and lock-in raises issues of justice, or injustice. We identify that the metrics, frameworks, or checklists presented above – as well as the three-tenet framework of energy justice more generally – provide a means of normatively judging both planned and current energy and future sociotechnical regimes, leading to potential re-evaluation of our energy selection criteria. These approaches also recognise the need to politicise the actualisation of energy justice itself.

Finally some honesty. This is a political agenda.

And working to “humanize” a movement? What happened to simply relying on scientific consensus?

4. Conclusions From The Paper

Energy decisions are all too frequently made in a moral vacuum, culminating in a strong normative case for combining the literature on sociotechnical transitions with concepts arising from energy justice. Moreover, we illustrate that energy justice can play a role at each level of one of the more expansive sociotechnical transitions frameworks, the MLP. Within this latter contribution, (1) the energy justice concept could expose exclusionary niches, (2) provide a means for actors to normatively judge regimes, and (3) through the framing of energy justice at the landscape level foster the reappraisal of our energy choices and integration of moral principles. Across all stages of this argument, we present a case for not only mitigating environmental impacts of energy production via sociotechnical change, but doing so in an ethically defensible, socially just way.

To repeat, this is not about environmental protection. It is about blending a social justice causes and lingo into an unrelated topic.

Our caveats come as recognition of the intricacies of politics and political processes around energy transitions and energy justice. For as Meadowcroft (2009) highlights, long-term change is likely to be even messier and more contested than the transitions literature discusses. Indeed, there are likely to be political aspects that approaches such as the MLP are ill equipped to negotiate, and trade-offs that a tenet approach to energy justice cannot entirely resolve.

This may be the most honest thing they say. Politically, this is a very tough sell. They also admit that there “energy justice” approach will not answer the hard questions.

Nonetheless, they still cover those facts in academic jargon.

5. My Own Thoughts

The authors keep repeating that they are just “framing the issue”. In reality, they are publishing propaganda.

There is nothing scientific that the paper adds. There is no building on previous work, or fact checking of previous research. It is entirely about manipulating people to their cause by pretending it is a “social justice” issue. This is blatant activism, masquerading as science.

I also noticed a lot of overlap with the Frank W. Geels article. Do they merely cite each other, or do they just republish the same articles over and over again?

This environmental movement seems to have a lot of self-inflicted problems. For example, this obsession with “energy justice” and other non-issues actually stonewalls progress that they could have made.

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Frank Geels & Disruptive Innovation Framework

(From actual academic writing: Frank W. Geels)

(More academia: Sustainable Consumption Institute, Manchester University)

(Clayton Christiansen and “Disruptive Innovation” video)

(From the Uppity Peasants site)

1. Go Check Out Uppity Peasants Site


This is a fairly new site, however, it has some interesting content on it. Well researched, it will give some alternative views on how we are really being controlled.
Go check out “Uppity Peasants“.

2. Important Links


CLICK HERE, for the Sustainable Consumption Institute & Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, The University of Manchester, Denmark Road Building, M13 9PL, Manchester, United Kingdom.
CLICK HERE, for Clayton Christiansen and “Disruptive Innovation”.
CLICK HERE, for SCI Collective Action & Social Movements.
CLICK HERE, for SCI Social Inequality.
CLICK HERE, for Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainability.
CLICK HERE, for a Wiki explanation of disruptive innovation.
CLICK HERE, for removing the innovator’s dilemma.

CLICK HERE, for the Climate Change Scam Part I.
CLICK HERE, for Part II, the Paris Accord.
CLICK HERE, for Part III, Saskatchewan Appeals Court Reference.
CLICK HERE, for Part IV, Controlled Opposition to Carbon Tax.
CLICK HERE, for Part V, UN New Development Funding.

3. Quotes From The Geels Article

Disruption and low-carbon system transformation: Progress and new challenges in socio-technical transitions research and the Multi-Level Perspective

This will be elaborated on, but is about subverted the status quo, or “disruption”. Worth pointing out, that although these types of articles are published and marketed as “science”, they are anything but.

As this title would suggest, the article is extremely political. The concern is not about science itself, but how to “sell” the science. And the agenda here is searching for political methods of implementing the transition to a Carbon free

ABSTRACT
This paper firstly assesses the usefulness of Christensen’s disruptive innovation framework for low-carbon system change, identifying three conceptual limitations with regard to the unit of analysis (products rather than systems), limited multi-dimensionality, and a simplistic (‘point source’) conception of change. Secondly, it shows that the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) offers a more comprehensive framework on all three dimensions. Thirdly, it reviews progress in socio-technical transition research and the MLP on these three dimensions and identifies new challenges, including ‘whole system’ reconfiguration, multi-dimensional struggles, bi-directional niche-regime interactions, and an alignment conception of change. To address these challenges, transition research should further deepen and broaden its engagement with the social scienceseconomy.

The usefulness of Christiansen’s disruptive innovation framework? While used in a business sense, it appears to be a way for entrepreneurs to get into a market or business. However, in this context it is used as disrupting an environmental policy.

It is mildly (or downright) creepy that the author, Frank Geels, openly suggests that research should broaden its engagement with social sciences. In plain English, this means merging, where scientific research is viewed through a “social” lens.

Christiansen’s “Disruptive Innovation Framework” is explained in the above video. Also see “disruption in financial services“.

Christensen [4] made important contributions to the long-standing debate in innovation management about new entrants, incumbents and industry structures. He argued that disruptive innovations enable new entrants to ‘attack from below’ and overthrow incumbent firms. Christensen thus has a particular understanding of disruption, focused mainly on the competitive effects of innovations on existing firms and industry structures. His framework was not developed to address systemic effects or broader transformations, so my comments below are not about the intrinsic merits of the framework, but about their usefulness for low-carbon transitions.

Christensen’s disruptive innovation framework offers several useful insights for low-carbon transitions (although similar ideas can also be found elsewhere). First, it suggests that incumbent firms tend to focus their innovation efforts on sustaining technologies (which improve performance along established criteria), while new entrants tend to develop disruptive technologies (which offer different value propositions). Second, it proposes that disruptive technologies emerge in small peripheral niches, where early adopters are attracted by the technology’s new functionalities. Third, incumbent firms may initially overlook or under-estimate disruptive technologies (because of established beliefs) or are not interested in them, because the limited return on-investments associated with small markets do not fit with existing business models. Fourth, price/performance improvements may enable disruptive technologies to enter larger markets, out-compete existing technologies and overthrow incumbent firms

Worth pointing out right away, Geels has no interest in the “intrinsic merits” of the disruptive innovation framework that Christiansen talks about. Rather, he focuses on applying that technique to reducing/eliminating Carbon emissions from society.

Christiansen’s idea could be applied fairly practically to business, where new players want to establish themselves. However, Geels “weaponizes” this idea and wants to apply it with the climate-change agenda.

Geels also makes it obvious that overthrowing incumbents is a priority. Again, Christiansen’s writings were meant with the business approach, and trying to start your own, but Geels “repurposes” it.

While Christensen’s framework focuses on technical and business dimensions, the MLP also accommodates consumption, cultural, and socio-political dimensions. Although co-evolution has always been a core concept in the MLP, this is even more important for low-carbon transitions, which are goal-oriented or ‘purposive’ in the sense of addressing the problem of climate change. This makes them different from historical transitions which were largely ‘emergent’, with entrepreneurs exploiting the commercial opportunities offered by new technology

[27]. Because climate protection is a public good, private actors (e.g. firms, consumers) have limited incentives to address it owing to free rider problems and prisoner’s dilemmas. This means that public policy must play a central role in supporting the emergence and deployment of low-carbon innovations and changing the economic frame conditions (via taxes, subsidies, regulations, standards) that incentivize firms, consumers and other actors. However, substantial policy changes involve political struggles and public debate because: “[w]hatever can be done through the State will depend upon generating widespread political support from citizens within the context of democratic rights and freedoms” ([28]: 91).

Again, Geels hijacking a legitimate business concept, but using it for his enviro agenda.

How to implement this? Taxes, subsidies, regulations, standards for businesses and consumers. Use these to regulate and influence behaviour.

Geels rightly says that widespread political support will be needed. But he frames the climate change scam as a way to protect rights and freedoms. Nice bait-and-switch.

Conceptually, this means that we should analyse socio-technical transitions as multi-dimensional struggles between niche-innovations and existing regimes. These struggles include: economic competition between old and new technologies; business struggles between new entrants and incumbents; political struggles over adjustments in regulations, standards, subsidies and taxes; discursive struggles over problem framings and social acceptance; and struggles between new user practices and mainstream ones.

Despite Geels’ article being published in the Journal, “ENERGY RESEARCH AND SOCIAL SCIENCE”, this anything but scientific. If anything, it seems analogous to the “lawfare” that Islamic groups perpetuate on democratic societies.

While Geels promotes economic competition, this is anything but a fair competition. He also calls for:

  • Political struggles over regulations
  • New standards
  • Subsidies
  • Taxes
  • Discursive struggles over problem framings & social acceptance
  • Struggles between new and mainstream user practices

There is nothing scientific here. This is a call for using “political” manoeuvering for achieving social goals.

The importance of public engagement, social acceptance and political feasibility is often overlooked in technocratic government strategies and model-based scenarios, which focus on techno-economic dimensions to identify least-cost pathways [32]. In the UK, which is characterized by closed policy networks and top-down policy style, this neglect has led to many problems, which are undermining the low carbon transition.

• Onshore wind experienced local protests and permit problems, leading to negative public discourses and a political backlash, culminating in a post-2020 moratorium.

• Shale gas experienced public controversies after it was pushed through without sufficient consultation.

• Energy-saving measures in homes were scrapped in 2015, after the Green Deal flagship policy(introduced in2013) spectacularly failed, because it was overly complicated and poorly designed, leading to limited uptake.

• The 2006 zero-carbon homes target, which stipulated that all new homes should be carbon-neutral by 2016, was scrapped in 2015, because of resistance by major housebuilders and limited consumer interest.

• The smart meter roll-out is experiencing delays, because of controversies over standards, privacy concerns, and distribution of benefits (between energy companies and consumers).

While these points are in fact true, Geels suggests that problems could have been avoided if there was sufficient public consultation. This is wishful thinking.

These points raise many legitimate concerns with the eco-agenda. Yet Geels shrugs them off as the result of not engaging the public enough.

Christensen and other innovation management scholars typically adopt a ‘point source’ approach to disruption, in which innovators pioneer new technologies, conquer the world, and cause social change. Existing contexts are typically seen as ‘barriers’ to be overcome. This ‘bottom-up’ emphasis also permeates the Strategic Niche Management and Technological Innovation System literatures. While this kind of change pattern does sometimes occur, the MLP was specifically developed to also accommodate broader patterns, in which niche-innovations diffuse because they align with ongoing processes at landscape- or regime-levels [9].

The MLP thus draws on history and sociology of technology, where processual, contextual explanations are common. Mokyr [58], for instance, emphasizes that “The new invention has to be born into a socially sympathetic environment” (p. 292) and that “Macro-inventions are seeds sown by individual inventors in a social soil. (.) But the environment into which these seeds are sown is, of course, the main determinant of whether they will sprout” (p. 299). So, if radical innovations face mis-matches with economic, socio-cultural or political contexts, they may remain stuck in peripheral niches, hidden ‘below the surface’.

Since low-carbon transitions are problem-oriented, transition scholars should not only analyse innovation dynamics, but also ‘issue dynamics’ because increasing socio-political concerns about climate change can lead to changes in regime-level institutions and selection environments. Societal problems or ‘issues’ have their own dynamics in terms of problem definition and socio-political mobilization as conceptualized, for instance, in the issue lifecycle literature [59,50]. Low carbon transitions require stronger ‘solution’ and problem dynamics, and their successful alignment, which is not an easy process, as the examples below show.

These passages go into marketing strategies, and ways to “frame an argument”. Notice not once does Geels suggest doing more research, or checking the reliability of existing data. Instead, this is a push for emotional manipulation and shameless advertising.

Invention has to be born into a socially sympathetic environment. Science be damned.

There are also positive developments, however, that provide windows of opportunity. Coal is losing legitimacy in parts of the world, because it is increasingly framed as dirty, unhealthy and old-fashioned, and because oil and gas companies are distancing themselves from coal, leading to cracks in the previously ‘closed front’ of fossil fuel industries. The UK has committed to phasing out coal-fired power plants by 2025 and several other countries (Netherlands, France, Canada, Finland, Austria) also move in this direction, providing space for low-carbon alternatives, including renewables.

I would actually agree that coal being phased out would benefit society. However, Geels makes it a “marketing” issue rather than a scientific one. Coal is “increasingly framed” as dirty. Notice that the actual science, such as from this site, are very rarely described.

Following chemical reactions takes place in the combustion of coal with the release of heat:
C + O2 = CO2 + 8084 Kcal/ Kg of carbon (33940 KJ/Kg)
S + O2 = SO2 + 2224 Kcal/Kg of sulfur (9141 KJ/Kg)
2 H2 + O2 = 2 H2O + 28922 Kcal/Kg of hydrogen (142670 KJ/Kg)
2C + O2 = 2CO + 2430 Kcal/Kg of carbon (10120 KJ/Kg)

4. Geels’ Conclusions

The paper has also identified several research challenges, where the transitions community could fruitfully do more work. First, we should broaden our analytical attention from singular niche-innovations (which permeate the literature) to ‘whole system’ change. This may involve changes in conceptual imagery (from ‘point source’ disruption to gradual system reconfiguration) and broader research designs, which analyze multiple niche-innovations and their relations to ongoing dynamics in existing systems and regimes. That, in turn, may require more attention for change mechanisms like add-on, hybridisation, modular component substitution, knock-on effects, innovation cascades, multi regime interaction.

Second, we should better understand regime developments. Existing regimes can provide formidable barriers for low-carbon transitions. Incumbent actors can resist, delay or derail low-carbon transitions, but they can also accelerate them if they reorient their strategies and resources towards niche-innovations. The analysis of niche-to-regime dynamics (as in the niche empowerment literature) should thus be complemented with regime-to-niche dynamics, including incumbent resistance or reorientation. Additionally, we need more nuanced conceptualizations and assessments of degrees of lock-in, tensions, cracks, and destabilisation.

Third, we need greater acknowledgement that socio-technical systems are a special unit of analysis, which spans the social sciences and can be studied through different lenses and at different levels. The recent trend towards deepening our understanding of particular dimensions and societal groups is tremendously fruitful, because disciplinary theories offer more specific causal mechanisms. But, as a community, we should complement this with broad analyses of co-evolution, alignment, multi-dimensionality and ‘whole systems’.

This all sounds elegant, but read between the lines. It is about influencing public perception. Whenever academics, lawyers or politicians seem to make things confusing we need to ask: are they trying to obscure their goals?

5. More About Frank W. Geels

Selected publications of Geels
If you would like a broader cross section of Geels’ work, perhaps these publications will be of interest.

  • Geels, F.W., Berkhout, F. and Van Vuuren, D., 2016, Bridging analytical approaches for low-carbon transitions, Nature Climate Change, 6(6), 576-583
  • Geels, F.W., Kern, F., Fuchs, G., Hinderer, N., Kungl, G., Mylan, J., Neukirch, M., Wassermann, S., 2016, The enactment of socio-technical transition pathways: A reformulated typology and a comparative multi-level analysis of the German and UK low-carbon electricity transitions (19902014), Research Policy, 45(4), 896-913
  • Turnheim, B., Berkhout, F., Geels, F.W., Hof, A., McMeekin, A., Nykvist, B., Van Vuuren, D., 2015, Evaluating sustainability transitions pathways: Bridging analytical approaches to address governance challenges, Global Environmental Change, 35, 239–253
  • Penna, C.C.R. and Geels, F.W., 2015, ‘Climate change and the slow reorientation of the American car industry (1979-2011): An application and extension of the Dialectic Issue LifeCycle (DILC) model’, Research Policy, 44(5), 1029-1048
  • Geels, F.W., 2014, ‘Regime resistance against low-carbon energy transitions: Introducing politics and power in the multi-level perspective’, Theory, Culture & Society, 31(5), 21-40
  • Geels, F.W., 2013, ‘The impact of the financial-economic crisis on sustainability transitions: Financial investment, governance and public discourse’, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 6, 67-95
  • Geels, F.W., 2012, ‘A socio-technical analysis of low-carbon transitions: Introducing the multi-level perspective into transport studies’, Journal of Transport Geography, 24, 471-482
  • Geels, F.W., Kemp, R., Dudley, G. and Lyons, G. (eds.), 2012, Automobility in Transition? A Socio Technical Analysis of Sustainable Transport, New York: Routledge
  • Verbong, G.P.J. and Geels, F.W., 2010, ‘Exploring sustainability transitions in the electricity sector with socio-technical pathways’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 77(8), 12141221 Verbong, G.P.J. and Geels, F.W., 2007, ‘The ongoing energy transition: Lessons from a sociotechnical, multi-level analysis of the Dutch electricity system (1960-2004)’, Energy Policy, 35(2), 1025-1037
  • Geels, F.W., 2002, ‘Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: A multi-level perspective and a case-study’, Research Policy, 31(8/9), 1257-1274

Frank Geels publicly available CV
Education
• Ph.D., Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, Twente University of Technology (Jan. 1998- July 2002), Netherlands. Supervisors: Arie Rip and Johan Schot. Title PhD thesis: Understanding the Dynamics of Technological Transitions: A co-evolutionary and socio-technical analysis.
• Masters degree in Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society, Twente University of Technology (1991-1996)
• Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering, Twente University of Technology (1989-1991)

For what it’s worth, his formal education is pretty impressive. Where I lose respect is when he deviates from scientific argument in favour of political discourse. What could be very interesting work is corrupted be having an agenda.

His undergraduate degree is chemical engineering, which again, is very respectable. However, his Masters and PhD show a deviation from science and research.

While there are many other such authors, Frank W. Geels is a good case of what happens when political agendas and manoeuvering creep into science.

A morbidly fascinating topic. Check out some of his other publications.

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UN High Level Panel On Global Sustainability – Jordan Peterson Co-Authors

Jordan Peterson contributed to the U.N. Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Sustainable Development. This certainly raises a lot of questions.

1. Free Speech Hypocrisy

2. Important Links

(1) Peterson deplatforms Faith Goldy at free speech event
(2) Peterson’s free speech cognitive dissonance
(3) Peterson Threatens To Sue A Critic
(4) Peterson files frivolous lawsuit against Laurier University
(5) http://archive.ipu.org/splz-e/rio+20/rpt-panel.pdf
(6) Sustainable Development Agenda Unformatted Final Text
(7) https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/untaskteam_undf/HLP%20P2015%20Report.pdf
(8) HLP P2015 Report Sustainable Development Agenda
(9) https://www.un.org/sg/sites/www.un.org.sg/files/documents/management/PRpost2015.pdf
(10) High Level Panel Rpost 2015
(11) https://uscib.org/docs/GSPReportOverview_A4%20size.pdf
(12) Resilient People Resilient Planet GSP Report Overview
(13) https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/722600?ln=en#record-files-collapse-header
(14) High Level Panel On Sustainable Development Peterson Named
(15) https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/about/
(16) Peterson Confirms UN Involvement (See 1:09)
(17) Peterson Again Confirms UNSDA Involvement With Publication
(18) https://nationalpost.com/news/world/jordan-petersons-popular-12-rules-book-banned-by-new-zealand-booksellers-because-of-christchurch-mosque-massacre
(19) https://hlpf.un.org/

Note: At the risk of this looking like a hit-piece, the right in Canada should be very wary about embracing this “free speech” warrior as one of their own.

And what did this work ultimately contribute to?

3. UN Agenda 2030

Peterson’s Biography

Raised and toughened in the frigid wastelands of Northern Alberta, Dr. Peterson has flown a hammer-head roll in a carbon-fiber stuntplane, piloted a mahogany racing sailboat around Alcatraz Island, explored an Arizona meteorite crater with a group of astronauts, built a Native American Long-House on the upper floor of his Toronto home, and been inducted into a Pacific Kwakwaka’wakw family (see charlesjoseph.ca). He’s been a dishwasher, gas jockey, bartender, short-order cook, beekeeper, oil derrick bit re-tipper, plywood mill laborer and railway line worker. He’s taught mythology to physicians, lawyers, and businessmen; worked with Jim Balsillie, former CEO of Blackberry’s Research in Motion, on Resilient People, Resilient Planet, the report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability; helped his clinical clients manage the triumphs and catastrophes of life; served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms; penned the forward for the 50th anniversary edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago; lectured to more than 250,000 people across North America, Europe and Australia in one of the most-well attended book tours ever mounted; and, for The Founder Institute, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs, in 60 different countries.

So What’s In This Report?

Disclaimer: The members of the panel endorse the report and generally agree with its findings. The members think that the message of this report is very important. The recommendations and the vision represent the consensus the panel members reached, but not every view expressed in this report reflects the views of all individual panel members. panel members naturally have different perspectives on some issues. if each panel member had individually attempted to write this report, she or he might have used different terms to express similar points. The panel members look forward to the report stimulating wide public dialogue and strengthening the common endeavour to promote global sustainable development.

Let’s set this straight. The members, by and large, support the content of the report. Although there may be small discrepancies, on the whole they agree with the content.

The panel also wishes to thank the civil society organizations that shared their valuable ideas and views during a series of consultations coordinated by the United Nations Non-Governmental liaison service. The full list of contributors from civil society is available from www.un-ngls.org/gsp. furthermore, the panel interacted at various meetings with senior representatives of the following organizations: civicUs: World alliance for citizen participation, eTc Group, the Global campaign for climate action, the huairou commission, oxfam international, stakeholder forum, sustainUs and the World resources institute.

Interesting list of “organizations” that shared their views.

Priority Areas For action Include:


• delivering on the fundamentals of development: international commitments to eradicate poverty, promote human rights and human security and advance gender equality
• advancing education for sustainable development, including secondary and vocational education, and building of skills to help ensure that all of society can contribute to solutions that address today’s challenges and capitalize on opportunities
• creating employment opportunities, especially for women and youth, to drive green and sustainable growth
• enabling consumers to make sustainable choices and advance responsible behaviour individually and collectively
• Managing resources and enabling a twenty-first-century green revolution: agriculture, oceans and coastal systems, energy and technology, international cooperation
• building resilience through sound safety nets, disaster risk reduction and adaptation planning

1/ As with all UN causes, a virtue signal towards human rights and gender equality.

2/ Advancing education? Propaganda in the classrooms?

3/ Make work projects with age and gender quotas. Okay.

4/ Advance responsible behaviour? Will there be some sort of “social credit system”?

5/ Environmental systems to be managed globally

6/ Disaster reduction, as in climate change I assume

Policy Action Needed On

• incorporating social and environmental costs in regulating and pricing of goods and services, as well as addressing market failures
• creating an incentive road map that increasingly values long-term sustainable development in investment and financial transactions
• increasing finance for sustainable development, including public and private funding and partnerships to mobilize large volumes of new financing
• expanding how we measure progress in sustainable development by creating a sustainable development index or set of indicators

This is going to be a globalist money pit, with cash flooding from all over the world to achieve some vague goals. And regulating the costs of goods and services? How very Communistic of you.

(Page 50, Box 13): The Growing Use of Emissions Trading
“cap and trade” emissions trading systems allow environmental damage to be reflected in market prices. by capping emissions, they guarantee that the desired level of emission reduction is achieved; and by allowing trading, they give business the flexibility to find the cheapest solutions, while rewarding investment in low-carbon technologies and innovation.

This is the climate change scam on steroids. Carbon dioxide is not pollution, despite what the UN says. Under this scheme, “pollution” can be offset by buying credits, which of course does nothing to actually reduce emissions.

(Page 64): Institutionalised Governance
The present section examines aspects of governance and coherence for sustainable development at the national and global levels. it also pays special attention to holding all actors accountable for achieving sustainable development, and many of the recommendations put forward are designed to strengthen accountability at all decision making levels

This is taking the actual decision making ability away from the people who are elected by and accountable to their citizens.

(Page 30) Education
67. investing in education and training provides a direct channel to advancing the sustainable development agenda. it is widely recognized as a tremendously efficient means to promote individual empowerment and lift generations out of poverty, and it yields important development benefits for young people, particularly women.
.
68. primary education for all, in particular, is a precondition for sustainable development. despite real progress, we are still not on track to achieving Millennium development Goal 2 by ensuring that all children, boys and girls alike, achieve a full course of primary schooling by 2015. instead, 67 million children of primary school age remain out of school and are still not receiving a primary education. The gap is especially critical for girls, who as of 2008 still made up more than 53 per cent of the out-of-school population. basic education is essential to overcoming barriers to their future employment and political participation, as women presently constitute roughly two thirds of the 793 million adult illiterates worldwide.
.
69. The Millennium development Goal on universal primary education has not yet been met, owing in part to insufficient funds, although other barriers exist. international means to supplement funds and support local and national efforts could help to overcome challenges such as teacher shortages and lack of infrastructure. The World bank’s Global partnership for education provides one model to help countries develop and implement sound education strategies.
.
70. While primary education is the foundation of development, post-primary and secondary education and vocational training are as crucial in building a sustainable future. every added year of education in developing countries increases an individual’s income by 10 per cent or more on average. studies also show that women in developing countries who complete secondary school have on average one child fewer than women who complete only primary school, leading to more economic wealth within families and decreased intergenerational poverty. Moreover, post-primary education based on a curriculum designed to develop key competencies for a twenty-first-century economy — such as ecosystem management, science, technology and engineering — can encourage innovation and accelerate technology transfer, as well as provide skills vital for new green jobs. yet today it is estimated that fewer than a quarter of children complete secondary school.

I can’t be the only one thinking that this “global” education push will just lead to propaganda to be used against children. Rather than teaching the basics, kids will be indoctrinated about how to be good global citizens.

Also worth noting, wherever this education takes root, it leads to young children being exposed to highly sexual content.

4. (Page 54) Innovative Sources of Financing
158. other innovative sources of financing can be used at the global, regional or national level as a way of pricing externalities, as well as of generating revenue that can be used to finance other aspects of sustainability. The reform of tax systems to shift taxation away from employment and towards consumption and resource use can help incentivize greener, more resource-efficient growth. Tax deductions to incentivize sustainable behaviour can also be highly effective.
.
159. While the political acceptability of innovative sources of finance and new fiscal measures will vary by country, as past efforts have shown, recent years have seen particular attention paid to the potential for this kind of approach to be used at the global level. The panel discussed and agreed on the need to further explore new areas of innovative sources of finance. This could build on, for instance, the work of the high-level advisory Group of the secretary-General on climate change financing. in terms of sources, a number of categories were identified by the advisory Group (see box 16).
.
160. a number of important sectors of the global economy are currently untaxed, despite the externalities they generate; these include emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the international maritime and aviation sectors. a tax on the most important energy-related greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, would be another economically efficient means of addressing externalities.

recommendation 27
161. governments should establish price signals that value sustainability to guide the consumption and investment decisions of households, businesses and the public sector. in particular, governments could:
.
a. establish natural resource and externality pricing instruments, including carbon pricing, through mechanisms such as taxation, regulation or emissions trading systems, by 2020;
.
b. ensure that policy development reflects the positive benefits of the inclusion of women, youth and the poor through their full participation in and contribution to the economy, and also account for the economic, environmental and social costs;
.
c. reform national fiscal and credit systems to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices, as well as disincentives for unsustainable behaviour;
.
d. Develop and expand national and international schemes for payments for ecosystem services in such areas as water use, farming, fisheries and forestry systems;
.
e. Address price signals that distort the consumption and investment decisions of households, businesses and the public sector and undermine sustainability values. governments should move towards the transparent disclosure of all subsidies, and should identify and remove those subsidies which cause the greatest detriment to natural, environmental and social resources;
.
f. Phase out fossil fuel subsidies and reduce other perverse or trade-distorting subsidies by 2020. The reduction of subsidies must be accomplished in a manner that protects the poor and eases the transition for affected groups when the products or services concerned are essential.

4. Some Reflection

This is all about finding new ways to tax people, and regulate their behaviour. Absolutely leads to complete government control. Worst of all, it wouldn’t even be our government doing the regulating.

The review will stop here, but please read through the document in its entirety. Anyone who supports it is no friend of freedom, or of sovereignty.

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Review Of Mark Bray’s Book: Antifa, The Anti-Fascist Handbook


Yes, this came out in 2017, but still worth a read.

Check out this amazing review of Antifa by YouTuber Matt Christiansen.

This review will mostly focus on the opening part. This is for a few reasons.
First: The book is fairly long.
Second: It gets very repetitive.
Third: You can get a good understanding just from the introduction.

Despite a resurgence of white-supremacist and fascistic violence across Europe and the United States, most consider the dead and the living to be safe because they believe fascism to be safely dead — in their eyes, the fascist enemy lost definitively in 1945. But the dead were not so safe when Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi described spending time in Mussolini’s prison camps as a “vacation” in 2003 or the French Front National (National Front) politician Jean-Marie Le Pen called Nazi gas chambers a mere “detail” of history in 2015.”

Assuming these details are accurate, Mark Bray lists 2 European leaders making inappropriate remarks as evidence of fascistic violence rising.

This book takes seriously the transhistorical terror of fascism and the power of conjuring the dead when fighting back. It is an unabashedly partisan call to arms that aims to equip a new generation of anti-fascists with the history and theory necessary to defeat the resurgent Far Right. Based on sixty-one interviews with current and former anti-fascists from seventeen countries in North America and Europe, it expands our geographical and temporal outlook to contextualize opposition to Trump and the alt-right within a much wider and broader terrain of resistance. Antifa is the first transnational history of postwar anti-fascism in English and the most comprehensive in any language. It argues that militant anti-fascism is a reasonable, historically informed response to the fascist threat that persisted after 1945 and that has become especially menacing in recent years. You may not walk away from this book a convinced anti-fascist, but at least you will understand that anti-fascism is a legitimate political tradition growing out of a century of global struggle.

Okay, some points to take away from this.

(1) The book’s author admits it is very partisan, and is a call to arms. And as he will show, he means it quite literally.

(2) Opposition to Trump and the Alt-Right? Seems an admission that Trump himself is not Alt-Right.

(3) Militant fascism is appropriate.

As historian Robert Paxton argued, fascists “reject any universal value other than the success of chosen peoples in a Darwinian struggle for primacy.” Even the party platforms that fascists put forward between the world wars were usually twisted or jettisoned entirely when the exigencies of the pursuit of power made those interwar fascists uneasy bedfellows with traditional conservatives. “Left” fascist rhetoric about defending the working class against the capitalist elite was often among the first of their values to be discarded. Postwar (after World War II) fascists have experimented with an even more dizzying array of positions by freely pilfering from Maoism, anarchism, Trotskyism, and other left-wing ideologies and cloaking themselves in “respectable” electoral guises on the model of France’s Front National and other parties

Bray seems not to grasp the hypocrisy here. This so-called Anti-Fascist movement does exactly that: it promotes the success of “marginalised people” in a struggle for supremacy. He is also correct about the “Left’s” claim to defend the working class is the first to be discarded.

Some historians have used this literal, minimalist definition to describe as “anti-fascist” a wide variety of historical actors, including liberals, conservatives, and others, who combated fascist regimes prior to 1945. Yet, the reduction of the term to a mere negation obscures an understanding of anti-fascism as a method of politics, a locus of individual and group self-identification, and a transnational movement that adapted preexisting socialist, anarchist, and communist currents to a sudden need to react to the fascist menace. This political interpretation transcends the flattening dynamics of reducing anti-fascism to the simple negation of fascism by highlighting the strategic, cultural, and ideological foundation from which socialists of all stripes have fought back. Yet, even within the Left, debates have raged between many socialist and communist parties, antiracist NGOs, and others who have advocated a legalistic pursuit of antiracist or anti-fascist legislation and those who have defended a confrontational, direct-action strategy of disrupting fascist organizing. These two perspectives have not always been mutually exclusive, and some anti-fascists have turned to the latter option after the failure of the former, but in general this strategic debate has divided leftist interpretations of anti-fascism.

(1) The author sees liberals and conservatives as unable to stop fascists, though he admits they are opposed to it.

(2) An interesting admission: Apparently legal and non-violent means of stopping fascism are ineffective, hence the need to turn to violence.

At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase incorrectly ascribed to Voltaire that “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” After Auschwitz and Treblinka, anti-fascists committed themselves to fighting to the death the ability of organized Nazis to say anything.

Thus, anti-fascism is an illiberal politics of social revolutionism applied to fighting the Far Right, not only literal fascists. As we will see, anti-fascists have accomplished this goal in a wide variety of ways, from singing over fascist speeches, to occupying the sites of fascist meetings before they could set up, to sowing discord in their groups via infiltration, to breaking any veil of anonymity, to physically disrupting their newspaper sales, demonstrations, and other activities. Militant anti-fascists disagree with the pursuit of state bans against “extremist” politics because of their revolutionary, anti-state politics and because such bans are more often used against the Left than the Right.

A lot to unpack in these passages:

(1) Anti-fascism is illiberal.

(2) Anti-fascists reject free speech ideals.

(3) Anti-fascists don’t believe “Nazis” should have the right to speak at all in any organized way.

(4) Anti-fascism opposes the far right, not just fascism.

(5) Anti-fascists will drown out speakers they don’t like.

(6) Anti-fascists will infiltrate groups they don’t like.

(7) Anti-fascists will commit violence.

Bray makes an interesting comment about bans being used more often against the left than the right. Bray seems completely unaware that his words make such a ban seem popular.

So who does Mark Bray reject?
A/ Nazis, Fascists
B/ Far right individuals
C/ Conservatives
D/ Liberals, or at least liberal beliefs
Or, to be blunt, most of the political spectrum.

Despite the various shades of interpretation, antifa should not be understood as a single-issue movement. Instead, it is simply one of a number of manifestations of revolutionary socialist politics (broadly construed). Most of the anti-fascists I interviewed also spend a great deal of their time on other forms of politics (e.g., labor organizing, squatting, environmental activism, antiwar mobilization, or migrant solidarity work). In fact, the vast majority would rather devote their time to these productive activities than have to risk their safety and well-being to confront dangerous neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Antifa act out of collective self-defense.

(1) This seems like a bogus attempt to give Antifa some legitimacy. Saying it is more than a single issue movement distracts from the harm it does to free societies. Remember, this group openly rejects free speech and liberal ideology.

(2) Just because Antifa members have other things to do with their lives doesn’t whitewash the violence they commit against speakers they disagree with.

(3) Collective self defense? Who is the collective? Antifa has written off everyone who is Liberal and any further right. And attacking people whose viewpoints you don’t like is not “self-defense”.

Finally, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that anti-fascism has always been just one facet of a larger struggle against white supremacy and authoritarianism.

The lack of self awareness here. Mark Bray advocates for a violent, illiberal, ideology that rejects free speech …. but at the same time rejects authoritarianism.

For this reason, it is vital to understand anti-fascism as a solitary component of a larger legacy of resistance to white supremacy in all its forms. My focus on militant anti-fascism is in no way intended to minimize the importance of other forms of antiracist organizing that identify with anti-imperialism, black nationalism, or other traditions. Rather than imposing an anti-fascist framework on groups and movements that conceive of themselves differently, even if they are battling the same enemies using similar methods, I focus largely on groups that self-consciously situate themselves within the anti-fascist tradition.

-Anti-fascism is just part of the bigger picture?
-Your wording is confusing. Is BLACK NATIONALISM a good thing?
-You just focus on the violent groups? Okay.

Mark Bray’s Fall 2017 Book Tour
9/16 Philadelphia: Wooden Shoe Books (w/ George Ciccariello-Maher)
9/18 Durham, NC: Duke University
9/19 Chapel Hill, NC: Flyleaf Books
9/23 Atlanta: A Cappella Books
9/25 Richmond, VA: Babes of Carytown
9/26 Highland Park, NJ: Reformed Church of Highland Park
9/27 Brooklyn: Powerhouse Arena (w/ Kim Kelly)
9/28 Baltimore: Red Emma’s
9/29 DC: Politics and Prose
10/5 Ithaca, NY: Ithaca College
10/7 Rochester, NY: Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley
10/8 Pittsburgh: National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 84
10/9 Detroit: The International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit
10/10 Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
10/11 Flint, MI: University of Michigan at Flint
10/12 Chicago: (info tbd)
10/15 Minneapolis (info tbd)
10/16 Madison, WI: A Room of One’s Own
10/17 Detroit: Wayne State University
10/18 Toronto: Workers’ Action Center, 720 Spadina Ave., Suite 223
10/19 Ottawa: Dalhousie Community Center
10/26 Woodstock, VT: Yankee Bookshop
10/27 Montreal: CÉDA, 2515 rue Delisle
10/30 Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University (see below)

No one tried to shut him down. Weak fascists.

This guy is a lunatic, who supports violent, illiberal policies, and opposes free speech. Ironic that he relies on free speech to sell his book, and to promote his ideas.

That was just the introduction covered. But Bray repeatedly conflates speakers and ideas he doesn’t like with fascists. He also conflates right wingers with Nazis and fascists.

Could Antifa Logic Shut Down Antifa?
Serious thought: if you say that violence must be used to prevent violence from happening, could groups of people not pre-emptively attack you? This is the precedent you set.

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Communist Party of Canada: Complete Nonsense


(Recent article from the Communist Party of Canada)


(The Communist Party is an officially registed party)


(Women’s March Co-Chairs: Tamika Mallory; Bob Bland; Carmen Perez; Linda Sarsour)


(Anti-Semitism within the Women’s March Hierarchy)

CLICK HERE, for the January 20, 2019 article which will be reviewed. Note: This review will not be a direct debunking of Communism itself, that will come another day. Rather, just a rebuttal of a recently published article.

To any actual Commies reading this: if you are easily triggered, good. Perhaps this will knock some sense into you.

Also, in no way do I wish for the Commie party to be silenced. All parties have the right to be heard. That said, no parties are immune from having bad ideas challenged. Let’s begin:

“The third annual Women’s Marches across North America take place on January 19, and once again, millions will be in the streets. These marches are a powerful stand against gender inequality and misogyny, in direct response to the sharpening attacks against trade unions, women, Indigenous and racialized peoples, the LGBTQ2+ community and others targeted by Donald Trump’s regime and reaction in Canada. The Women’s marches are also an important day to unite against the divisive attempts by fundamentalists and transphobic bigots to derail the struggle for a truly inclusive women’s movement.”

First point: the marches themselves are divisive. It is a “women’s” march, and one of the founding principles was to unite women as a voting block? Gender based identity politics.

Second point: Anti-Semitism is rampant within the march itself (again the NYT article. Embracing publicly the Nation of Islam Founder, Louis Farrakhan, and point blank refusing to condemn his views led to a major rift, and eventual split.

Third point: While complaining about “racism”, sentiments within the march are very anti-white. Hypocritical, to say the least.

Fourth point: There is a very large anti-LGBTQ attitude within the founders. Again, backing people like Farrakhan directly undermines any claim of being “inclusive”.

The Communist Party of Canada promotes this march, without realising how much hate and intolerance are ingrained within it.

“In nearly every capitalist country, the corporate attack on women’s equality gains has become a central piece of the assault against the working class and its allies. Across the globe, with a few exceptions, progress to narrow the gender pay gap, expand reproductive rights, and overcome poverty has hit major roadblocks. This trend has been ignored by mainstream media and politicians, who tend to focus mainly on revelations of sexist comments and assaults by individual politicians or executives, rather than exposing the underlying patriarchal, sexist, homophobic and transphobic ideologies which drive the wider anti-women agenda.”

The identity politics were addressed above, but here, three more claims are made: 1/ Gender pay gap; 2/ Reproductive rights; 3/ Poverty. Okay, let’s address all three.

1/ The gender pay gap (aka “Wage Gap”) is due largely to personal lifestyle choices between men and women. Men, on average, tend to: (a) work more overtime; (b) work more physical jobs; (c) work more dangerous jobs; (d) take less time off for child care; and (e) not take arts/humanities in universities.

Question for all feminists If there truly was a “wage gap”, and you could get the same production from hiring only women, why don’t companies do it? Why act “against” their own financial self interests.

2/ Reproductive rights basically means abortion. The Commies want abortion on demand, funded by taxpayers.

If you want to kill your kids, pay for it yourself

Abortion supporters (the Pro-Deathers) champion that abortion is a woman’s right, but the rights of the child are never brought up (unless the Mother wants tax-payer funded child care). Once able to breathe, have a heart beat, and move muscles, it “is” a human life. But this line of thinking shows a disturbing attitude, that a child is “disposable” if inconvenient to the mother.

3/ Poverty. This is mostly caused by poor decisions, and is related to the above (1) and (2). Women who choose to get jobs that don’t pay well, or not work at all, tend to be worse off than women who succeed. Single women having children also adds to poverty (despite male taxpayers subsidising the kids). Being poor due to bad choices is unfortunate, but hardly worthy of a national rally.

“The Women’s March protests which began in 2017 can play a vital role in building stronger popular resistance. But a narrow focus on one-day annual protests is not enough. The tendency for top-down organizing and planning of these Marches also limits the scope of the emerging fight against the entire right-wing agenda of governments that protect the status quo and the corporate profits generated by women’s inequality.”

1 Day protesting isn’t enough? Okay.

Corporate profits are generated by women’s inequality? I thought they were generated by having expanding well-run companies. And what reason would men have for being anti-women? It would just hurt mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc …

Anyway, what prevents women from joining these corporations and trying to get in on the riches? Due to hiring quotas, it would actually be easier than for men.

So you hate right wingers altogether? Thanks for admitting it.

“Here in Canada, a crucial federal election is just months away. The defeat of the bitterly anti-equality Harper Conservatives in 2015 gave the so-called “feminist” Justin Trudeau an easy way to avoid real action on women’s equality issues. Despite Liberal rhetoric, the gender wage gap has barely budged, the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls has bogged down, and progress on an affordable national child care program is painfully slow. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are using anti-immigrant tactics to mount a political comeback, and the openly racist, misogynist and transphobic “People’s Party” plans to nominate candidates in every federal riding. This is a moment of extreme political danger.”

1/ Not defending Harper, but what did he do that was anti-equality?

2/ Trudeau got a pass on real action? I would actually agree with you (a first), but up to a point. Again, the wage gap is caused by personal choices, the MMIWG found that most Aboriginal women were murdered by men they knew (like all women), and national child care is just an entitlement program

3/ The Conservatives — I assume you mean Scheer’s CPC — are making a political comeback using anti-immigrant tactics? Could you provide an example?

4/ People’s Party is racist, misogynistic, and transphobic? A party that routinely calls out identity politics? Again, could you provide an example?

Lots of smearing going on here, but very little in the way of specifics.

“The fight for gender equality – in Canada, and internationally – is not a side issue. Building a more powerful resistance against capitalist patriarchy is crucial to the strategy of uniting and mobilizing millions of people for social justice, full equality, Indigenous rights, and much more. In this situation, an annual day of marches makes a strong statement, but it’s no substitute for a broad, inclusive and powerful pan-Canadian coalition of equality-seeking groups, with the labour movement’s 2.5 million women members playing a crucial role. The sooner such a coalition is brought together, actively intervening to demand full equality rights, the better.”

One clarification:
Do you seek equality of opportunity? or
Do you seek equality of outcome?

It makes a difference. Equal opportunity for women has been the law throughout Western nations since the 1960s. Women cannot be denied anything on the basis of sex. But what you probably seek is equality of outcome, which can only be achieved through force.

“The women’s movement can count on the Communist Party to fight for women’s and gender equality rights before, during and after the 2019 federal election. The Communist Party of Canada will campaign for “Full Gender Equality NOW!”, including the following demands:”

Again, what rights don’t women have? Free handouts isn’t a right, at least not yet.

“* Restore funding for women’s equality programs.
* Close the wage gap; legislate full pay and employment equity.
* Fully implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations, including justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
* Guarantee accessible and publicly funded abortion and reproductive rights services in every province and territory.
* Create a pan-Canadian childcare program – universal, public, quality, affordable childcare with Canada-wide standards and union wages for childcare workers.
* Protect women’s right to EI maternity coverage; expand parental benefits to 52 weeks.
* End all forms of violence against women and provide adequate funding for crisis centres and transition houses.
* Repeal Bill C-36 – stop criminalizing sex workers!
* No to Islamophobia! End the wars in the Middle East, zero tolerance for Islamophobic and gendered violence, and increase immigration and refugee quotas.
* Repeal the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement, which disproportionately penalizes women fleeing poverty and violence.”

1/ The wage gap is a result of personal choices. Only way to change that is by forcing any and all jobs to be paid the same amount, regardless of type of work, skill, or hours. Basically, communism

2/ How many inquiries do we need? Especially given the RCMP findings that most of these women are killed by men they know

3/ Guarantee free abortion on demand? No. Just no.

4/ Free national childcare? Sounds lovely, but unrealistic. Take responsibility for having children.

5/ Women do have EI maternity coverage — if they have worked at a job enough hours. 52 weeks, a full year, for fathers? Nice, but unrealistic, as people will just keep having kids and never work

6/ Violence against women is illegal. And how many houses exactly do women need? Would you support shelters for men?

7/ Decriminalising sex workers? Assuming you only mean “adult” sex workers? That I agree with in part. As distasteful as it is, there are more important things for police to focus on.

8/ A lot to address in this one
(a) No to Islamphobia? Islam is a political ideology.
(b) End wars in the Middle East? Agree on that one.
(c) Zero tolerance for Islamophobic and gendered violence? Okay, but one clarification: what happens with all the “gendered violence” perpetrated in the name of Islam? They really don’t respect women.
(d) Increase immigration? No, get Canadians to have more children.
(e) Increase refugees? No, can’t screen them, and are a burden on society.
Note: with both (d) and (e) mass migration waters down Canadian culture.

9/ The safe 3rd country agreement is meant to prevent “refugees” from coming to either Canada or the US on visitor or tourist status, then crossing the border and pretending to be fleeing violence. Basically what happens at places like Roxham Road.

That should about do it. Go on their website, and everything is devoted to “social justice”, grievance politics, identity politics, and entitlement programs.

By the way: where has communism or socialism ever successfully been implemented?