|
|
|
Jewish World Review Oct. 8, 2010 / 30 Tishrei, 5771 Green Fervor, Red Blood By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
By now you may have heard that the man behind such heartwarming chick flicks as " Leading environmental organizations in The video begins in a classroom, where a mild-mannered teacher tells her middle-school students about the 10:10 effort. She then asks the class if they'd like to sign up. Most do, but two kids abstain. The teacher tells them, "That's absolutely fine, your own choice." Then, she reaches for a device on her desk with a red button on it. She pushes the button, and the kids who refused to sign up for the green crusade are blown up, their blood and viscera spraying across the classroom, staining the school uniforms of their conformist and compliant classmates. The same "joke" plays out several more times in different settings (an office, soccer practice, etc.). Each time someone resists the idea of getting with the program, the response is swift, bloody execution. The video's defenders argue it's all a big joke, lighten up. For the layman, the obvious response is, "That's not true." Blowing up kids isn't funny. But that misses the point. This isn't a joke for the benefit of you and me. No, this is a knee-slapper for those already committed to the cause. The subtext is, "Wouldn't it be awesome if we could just get rid of these tiresome, inconvenient people?" That's why they're blown up without anyone trying to change their minds. That's the joke: "Enough with these idiots already." How else to explain the fact that this thing went through the entire pre-production and filming process, was undoubtedly screened by any number of people, most likely including sponsors and PR people, and none of them said, "Are you nuts? We can't go public with this." That's the outrage here: not that they thought normal people would find it funny, but that the producers and sponsors clearly did think it was funny. It's like one of those ugly inside jokes high school cliques share that instantly become horrendous when outsiders find out about them. In their arrogance and insularity, they didn't realize that their inside joke wasn't appropriate for mixed company. Imagine Curtis' horror when he discovered no one was laughing outside the green bunker. That's also what makes this so disturbing. Environmentalism has always had a fascism problem (which is different than saying all environmentalists are fascists). A couple years ago, a British power company joined the green bandwagon by launching a "Climate Cops" program that encouraged children to keep dossiers on their parents and neighbors, recording their "climate crimes." Frustrated with the perceived environmental threat of economic freedom and the inconvenience of political freedom, many environmentalists yearn for shortcuts. Some environmentalists have almost as little regard for human life as the fictional teacher in the 10:10 video. When In fairness, a host of leading environmentalists have condemned this snuff film as an idiotic disaster. I'm fine with taking most of them at their word, but I suspect that at least some object to the film because it was bad PR, not because they actually found it offensive. Meanwhile, you can be sure that the green left will only grow more frustrated with the ignorant masses, and that more such "jokes" will be forthcoming. Let's just hope Shakespeare was wrong when he said, "Jesters do oft prove prophets."
© 2006 TMS |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
