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It might come as a surprise to some, but Greta Thunberg isn’t the first teenager whose innocence has been tapped to wrap the Left’s agenda in persuasive emotionalism. Few these days recall Samantha Smith, the Maine 10-year-old who wrote in 1983 to USSR supremo Yuri Andropov to plead for world peace and nuke-free happiness. This happened when the Left was telling all and sundry that Ronald Reagan was intent on pushing the button and plunging the world into nuclear winter. Invited to visit Moscow, she was feted with fawning TV interviews, radio broadcasts, newspaper coverage and a trip to the Young Pioneers in Crimea, the best children’s resort in what was then the USSR.
The photogenic youngster was further hailed by international audiences, the meme being that the Soviets should resist responding in kind to the warmonger in the White House. She certainly proved useful to the Kremlin’s masters, this eager innocent advancing the notion, contrary to reality, of the USSR’s pacific nature. All this took place while Soviet troops were despoiling Afghanistan with their customary brutality.
The parallels between Samantha (pictured at right) and Greta are many. Both spoke about the fear and anxiety experienced by young people in the face of looming doom. Both were bathed in the sort of extraordinary, unqualified publicity that amounted to something close to beatification. Both found their fame granted unprecedented access to the rich and powerful. Both insisted that politicians were knowingly sowing the seeds of catastrophe. Both were cute and photogenic, endearing in their vulnerability and eagerness. Both sought to provoke deep-seated feelings of guilt in adults. And both were cynically manipulated by people hostile to the West’s liberal-democratic societies and their fellow travellers.
However, there are differences as well. Samantha was all sweetness and light. Speaking about the possibility of a nuclear war, she stressed a shared humanity rather than differences between potential combatants.
Greta is a bit different. She is angry, a 16-year-old in a near-constant state of how-dare-you fury, hurling accusatory words at adults, especially the politicians her handlers wish to intimidate and shame, and ranting about the unspecified consequences her generation will inflict if the grownups fail to mend their ways. In a voice quivering with emotion, Greta accuses the world’s politicians of the high crime of “stealing” her childhood. She even brandishes accusations of climate-change genocide, not to what should be her audience’s raised eyebrows but to the rapturous applause of those who must surely recognise the dark fantasies of a mentally troubled young girl.
Greta is doing what adolescents so often do, splashing self-righteous anger on her elders, utterly convinced of her infallibility. She has offered no proof of the calamities she lists — the coming mass extinctions, the drowning islands, and all the other sweaty horrors of global warming. Other than touting something akin to Nuremberg trials for climate criminals she offers only that capitalism, growth and prosperity are wicked in and of themselves.
Perhaps oddly, in the light of the above, I must admit to a certain respect for her bravery. It cannot be easy for someone on the autism spectrum, a girl who has suffered anorexia and extended periods of mutism, to wear the prominence her manipulators and parents have crafted for her. What I cannot countenance is the response she drew from the recent UN gathering in New York. That audience of political operators, Third World shakedown artists and corruptocrats’ brothers-in-law, reacted as though they were witnessing the Second Coming. My jaw dropped at their near-religious worship of Scoldilocks, their pig-tailed moppet prophet.
Well that was what the cameras captured; alas video technology has not yet evolved to capture the hand-picked dignitaries’ shrewd recognition of the good she was doing the cause of their pockets and careers. Perhaps some genuinely believe in Greta’s crusade for reasons other than the real goal of the climate warriors — the redistribution of the world’s wealth and their own comfy sinecures as the globe-trotting priest of catastrophism. Call me cynical but the true believers’ that day in Turtle Bay could not have been many.
What comes to my mind as I type are two considerations, and both make me cringe.
The first is the manipulated nature of Greta’s rise to prominence and fame. Just like Samantha Smith before her, she is being used by unscrupulous adults for their own ends. It is unconscionable to place a fragile child under such stress, to haunt her anxious head with the eco-horrors they have implanted. The climate-change sermonisers see hysteria as another path to global wealth re-distribution, and if a young girl is tormented and exploited in the process, well that is of no account in the grand scheme of their goals. The latest UN estimate requires the West to subsidize developing countries to the tune of $US2.3 trillion a year in order, ostensibly, to compensate them for not using the fossil fuels for their development. The twin aims of undermining the energy and financial security of the Western world are self-evident. The green movement, led by the radical Left, is trying to bankrupt the hated capitalists, in part by terrorising the young and gullible with expectations of early death and planetary demise. This anxiety has developed to the degree that there is a talk of not wanting to bring children into this devastated world. Nice one, comrades.
The second consideration is the potential harm to Greta’s health. She is being used to the detriment of her wellbeing amid the stresses of fame and worldwide publicity. How her parents could allow this — nay, encourage it — says much more of them than it does of global warming.
Ignorant as she is (and has been kept) of the planet’s previous climatic fluctuations, there is a genuine tragedy of which Greta should be aware.
A year or two after her anti-nuke letter to Moscow and still riding hight on international acclaim, Samantha Smith was flying home to Maine after yet another media appearance. The chartered plane came in too low, too fast, too soon and all aboard were killed. No sooner had the news broken than the Soviets were intimating she had been done in on purpose, assassinated by Washington’s covert agents.
Poor Greta. Should the pressure ever get too much for her, should her mental problems flare up, should she be left emotionally empty but for toxic pessimism when her 15 minutes in the spotlight are over, she can expect only to be further to be used in her adversity. The media won’t fault of her promoters and parents for making her a pawn and anxiety-riddled victim of depression.
No, none of that. She will be cast instead as the victim of heedless deniers who rejected her adolescent wisdom. You’ll learn all about it from the same media organs currently putting her in such emotional jeopardy.
Michael Galak came to Australia with his family from the Soviet Union
If the Friday marches were held on Saturday or during the school holidays we would soon know how effective Greta has been. Protesters would be few and the green teachers absent. At least one half of the population know that the AGW/CC science is fraudulent and that number increases each time a survey is taken. Add to that people suffering energy poverty and noticing that the doomsday predictions always fail to materialise and shortly an unmistakable majority, one unable to be ignored by the willfully blind politicians, will demand the rubbish be stopped. I think the left and the climate promoters realise the end is coming and that is causing their demented and irrational behaviour. It is their last throw of the dice. Maybe that is also the reason behind the feverish attacks on Donald Trump the leader of the non-believers.
“… alas video technology has not yet evolved to capture the hand-picked dignitaries’ shrewd recognition of the good she was doing the cause of their pockets and careers.”
More to the point, at 16 Greta doesn’t yet have the faculties and life experience necessary to understand their motives.
Well, at least Greta won’t be killed in a plane crash.
Good point, Laurie. And i so hope you are right about the rubbish being stopped.
Soon, please…. my sanity is suffering.
> ” … the hand-picked dignitaries’ shrewd recognition of the good she was doing the cause of their pockets and careers”
This is a major point. Most people simply refuse to accept that they are being constantly lied to to so cynically.
“Why would they lie ?” Some believe the propaganda, some are too scared to resist (the Peter Ridd example shows why), a large proportion just like fame and fortune, and the most cynical are addicted to powerlust.
Perhaps up to 90% of the population just cannot believe this.
As though this issue could not become even more bizarre, the Church of Sweden has proclaimed Grete Thunberg the “Successor to Jesus Christ”.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/29/greta-thunberg-proclaimed-successor-of-christ-by-church-of-sweden/
I fear that Greta will self harm and take many other distressed with her. In 1212 there were 2 Children’s Crusades with a mission to convert Muslims to Christianity via prayer. Those that did not turn back at Marseilles were captured and sold into slavery. Both Crusades were led by well intentioned Holy Fools.
Michael,
I began watching her speech, but found it so cringe-worthy and faked I had to stop watching when the UN numpties (aka the “Masters of the ‘Big Brother’ World” began to clap and cheer). What struck me was her emotion during her reading of the speech. It struck me that she is either in the middle of an emotional breakdown and is like this all the time (crying every day, near suicidal, unable to function) she turns on the tears for the audience and the cameras (aka – she is acting). Either way, she is not real, just another Kid Kon climate deceiver. Well, if the following link is correct, then it is the latter:
https://dcdirtylaundry.com/boom-greta-thunberg-exposed-as-an-actress/
Before panicking about the harm done to the girl, bear in mind that she is a 2nd generation actress, and is merely going into the family business.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10361418/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
This is no more child abuse than a youth working in the family restaurant is. Of course, the belief that she is being mistreated is based on the delightfully naive belief that she is something other than a paid hack.
For me it is grimly ironic and an arguably sorry commentary on western self-indulgence that Greta Thunberg of Sweden is “wagging” school to promote the secular religion of climate change when a truly courageous young woman from Pakistan, shot in the head by religious fanatics who deny girls the right to an education, has not only survived but continues to fight for that right at continuing risk to her personal safety. I refer, of course, to Malala Yousafzai who, to the best of my knowledge, refrains from tantrum-throwing and the like to make her point. There are no prizes for guessing which of these two young people has won my admiration, respect and attention.
I remember the sign “Please Ask Me Whilst I Still Know Everything” referring specifically to “precocious” teenagers like that.
She is certainly being exploited, most likely by her parents. I know of children who were thrust forward by their parents for similar campaigns (anti-nuclear in that case). But she’s a willing participant. And she thinks she knows all the answers. At least she sailed across the Atlantic, rather than jet in on a private 737 like Google’s founder has done (doubtless he “bought offsets”), or Jetset around the world like “heroes” such as David Suzuki, Al Gore and Tim Flannery. But I wonder how “sustainable” she really is. My experience of late teen/very early 20 year olds going on about this is that they keep talking about it, demanding action etc, but don’t even turn the lights off when they leave a room! They’d also insist on driving, taking a taxi or bus rather than walk for 10 minutes. They may “act local” but not “personal”.
Who are you going to believe? Highly qualified hydrographers, trained engineers and statisticians and their factual data, or the uneducated, emotional fakery of an adolescent muppet now known as St Greta the Grim?
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/ig0igd191x5k/?view=att&th=16d8b3711fba8f0f&attid=0.1.1&disp=vah&safe=1&zw
According to the tide gauges at Fort Denison in Sydney harbour seal levels have falling slightly in the past century, not risen.
If anyone has a block of land on the foreshore they fear will be flooded, I’ll take it off your hands – and there is no need to pay me …
In the West child labour is not permitted for good reason and universal education is seen as essential until age 18 because children have to acquire knowledge. The use of child soldiers in 3rd world countries is strongly condemned and yet some devious people applaud a 16 year old child who wants to lead grown ups.
Whitelaughter is right we have been fooled by Tintin. What’s Tintin got to do with it? Well she is a leading light in the doomsday cult of climate change. Her full name is Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg. Now you’ve got it why would she have such a long name and what sort of parents would name her that? Well her mother Malena Ernman an actress now that’s a surprise. Her father Svante Thunberg is also an actor, I wonder if Tintin has ever had any acting instruction? Her grandfather Olof Thunberg is an actor and director. Tintin’s recent performance I thought was the product of a very disturbed child who truly felt what she said I think now I’m very suspicious. Tintin even has an entry in IMDb https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10361418/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
Would I be wrong in believing she is a well trained activist who more than likely does not believe what she says no matter how well she says it.