Monbiot attacks anarchism over climate change again

The equivocation by which Monbiot has recently begun to push all real politics under the black name 'identity politics' and declare it almost dead (and worth finishing off) really fucks me off (and worries me a bit). If he didn't admit in that very article that he doesn't 'know how to deal with the problem of capitalism without resorting to totalitarianism', I'd accuse him of naivety. But really in failing to associate the green Apocalypse with every other excuse for a state of emergency, austerity, class warfare, he's just in step with the times - pure administration of a series of overwhelming crises (probably only on the surface, mind, not 'THE CRISIS') by a 'depoliticised' ruling class. As it is I'm just happy to have heard from friends who went to the climate camp that he enjoys waning influence. I hope that's true...

Anyway it's enough to make one sound like an RCP-er. Doesn't 2030 sound a bit far away?

monbiot's dismissal of anarchism and marxism in 'the age of consent' is hilariously dishonest - he dismisses anarchism on the basis of what some hippy at newbury told him about kenyan tribes and he dismisses marx on the basis of the communist manifesto (40 odd pages from an ouevre of thousands). but then what do you expect from a 'radical' bourgeois ideologue whose only criticism of bourgeois democracy is that it isn't global (despite frequently commenting on how national bourgeois democracy frequently fails to represent 'the people').

Its interesting that he feels the need to denounce anti-state politics though. His hilarious straw man arguments about anarchism aren't aimed at anarchists, but potentially interested parties who are concerned about green issues.

Wow, deep man. I've heard better analyses from a level politics students.

There's a facebook group called 'If only everyone was as sensible as Monbiot.'

true that, Django.

excellent projection from a man who simultaneously points out the incompatibility of economic growth and abating climate change, whilst seeing the state and businesses as part of the solution. how is expecting organisations whose very being is defined by ever-expanding growth to be agents of the opposite less utopian than demanding a break from such social relations?

ffs. monbiot gets his understanding of capitalism from michael rowbotham, a man whose populist anti-finance 'analysis' is ridiculously superficial (for him, everything can be solved by nationalising the money supply capacity currently held by banks). rowbotham himself borrows these ideas from ch douglas, a 30s anti-semite, and while he tries to distance himself from this at least douglas had an excuse for blaming everything on the je-, sorry bankers (incidentally rowbotham's dismissal of marx is even briefer than monbiot's, consisting of one line in 'the grip of death' saying douglas was a far superior intellect, and marx basically a simpleton). douglas' supposed 'innovation' was to notice that workers are paid less than the value of their products (!), but instead of looking at the relations of production to explain this surplus value, and being an anti-semite, he blamed the banks for swindling workers by monopolising the money supply.

consequently monbiot's whole analysis of the imperitive for economic growth under capitalism, and thus his liberal conclusion that the state is somehow an an agent against 'corporations' (rather than the collective capitalist vis individual ones), is built on sand.

plus (as i'm sure i don't need to point out here) his straw man of 'anarchism is the same as market fundamentalism' is flawed for all the same reasons, whilst ignoring the actual examples of anarchist societies in spain and the ukraine doing away with the market, socialising production etc. of course it does allow him the classic liberal 'reasonable middle-ground' posturing and an appeal to charicatures that anarchism means 'do what you like, murder at will.'

edit: fwiw i know about rowbotham/douglas et al because monbiot was one of the first people i read when getting politicised, but thankfully i met a couple of articulate anarchists/communists and very quickly rejected him after an initial flirtation. maybe this potentiality's why he's so keen to straw-man anarchist/communist ideas as in certain ways those attracted to his ideas of 'global democracy' aren't far from wanting workplace democracy too (and then... libertarian communism!)

ewa's kinda coming from the activisty end of anarchism and her jargon reflects that ('precariat' etc). but to be fair she does pose the question of class, even if she sees the climate camp a bit too much as a model for a future society for my liking. i think she'd do well to point out that profit and power, business and state are two sides of the same coin and anarchism/libertarian communism is about abolishing the coin (not niavely hoping one side will restrain the other a la monbiot), rather than just the simplistic anarchism of 'state = bad' which she's in danger of falling into.

All I have to say is good for Ewa and if George ever comes to town I'll be sure to go heckle him.

I love his ill informed dig at "identity politics" at the end.

I remember a £50 bet on the word "Precariat" appearing in the guardian - time to pay up? Though the article was written by a former member of the wombles.

I've never got the dislike of Monbiot from amongst the far left. He's not an anarchist, has never claimed to be, so what's the beef when he doesn't act like a good little anarchist? We don't go around being shocked, shocked, when other liberals, like Al Gore or Charles Kennedy or Paul Krugman or Bertrand Russell or John Maynard Keynes, say that they don't agree with anarchism. Why should we react any different to Monbiot? The man's got interesting points to make, but he's not one of us. Get over it.

His article title is correct: climate change is not Anarchism's football, any more than feminism or national liberation or anti racism or any other worthy cause is. Anarchism should be based on class struggle issues before all else. That's anarchism's football.

Climate change could be resolved well (and, crucially, fairly and democratically) by a future anarchist society. But capitalist societies could just as easily tackle the issue, albeit less fairly (with the costs likely to fall on the poor, both at home and even more in the third world).

And it won't be pretty if and when the capitalist states do start to tackle climate change. Think:
* Thousands of new nuclear power stations everywhere across the world, with greater risk of waste leakage, tens of more nuclear weapon states, and greater risk of terrorist nuclear or dirty weapon attacks, meaning increased first world militaries and tougher domestic law enforcement activity to combat that risk.
* Wars, possibly nuclear wars, being threatened or even waged against third world states which dare to burn carbon (which privilege will likely be the preserve only of the big first world corporations);
* Higher fuel and food bills for the poor in all countries;
* Economic slowdown, which is bad for the poor, but in many ways good for the rich.

Monbiot, or the mainstream green movement in general, might go along with that sort of stuff, because they see saving the planet from climate change as above all other causes. That's their right. But I won't be joining them on that road.

Monbiot's misunderstanding of anarchism later in his article may be wilful - he has been in enough debates with anarchists and semi-anarchists to know better than his simplistic 'anarchism = no government' straw man. But then we do set ourselves up for that by our choice of name.

spam again

For the sake of clarity:
The above was about a spam post that has since been taken off; it was not a comment about any of the previous posts that are still on this thread, even though it looks like it.

Smearing Chomsky now...

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/06/13/naming-the-genocide-deniers/

He only briefly mentions Chomsky there - it's more about Edward Herman. And it does seem pretty weird, to be honest… Anyone got any good related information?

Media lens take on it.

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1308045415.html

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1308230503.html

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1308237212.html

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1308274063.html

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1308092220.html

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1308071112.html

FWIW I went to the local reference library and read the parts of The Politics of Genocide that Monbiot refers to.

The impetus seems to be how the events (genocide/massacre) are presented within the Western media and politics. I'm not an expert enough to claim whether it's right or wrong, but it does seem to be well researched and meticulously footnoted.

This bloke from a Melbourne uni rates it: -

https://twitter.com/#!/IRanalyst/status/80467203614441472

And Jonathan Cook's response

there is this
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11052005.html
and this
http://www.counterpunch.org/chomsky11172005.html

which explain Chomsky's comments, and the shoddy Guardian journalism that first claimed he denied the Srebrenica massacre....

Chomsky's position on the Srebrenica massacre has been that it happened, and that it killed the amount of people stated in official records. He's stated this before, and the fact that he provided an introduction to Herman's idiotic new book doesn't constitute a revision of that position, as Monbiot feels that it might. The controversial part of Chomsky's analysis of the massacre was that it was not ethnically motivated. He has argued that it was an attempt to liquidate a KLA enclave by simply exterminating every man of fighting age. This is given credence by the fact that Serbian troops allowed children, women, the elderly and the infirm to leave the area.

On Monbiot, I'm worried that we're lowering ourselves to the Leninist tactic of abusing and slandering people who disagree with out politics. This is harms constructive debate, which we need, and suggests insecurity. He's as entitled to criticize anarchism as we are to criticize social democracy.

EDIT: How did this get here? Delete it pls.

The reason that Monbiot is 'abused' is because he doesn't back up his criticisms of Anarchism with facts. He just makes assertions based on the most worn out stereotypes about Anarchism and shows his utter lack of integrity by complaining when others don't provide facts.

He's a fool and doesn't want to engage in constructive debate with anyone who disagrees with him.