- JoNova - https://joannenova.com.au -

Key Tool for the Scare Campaign: Censorship. How bullying critics keep editors from straying.

A very curious thing happened on Saturday.

There’s a media war going on here in Australia. At stake is free speech — but the discussion about it is completely disguised and parades instead as a debate about “balance” in science reporting.

It’s reached the point where our national masthead felt the need to issue a whole feature article rebutting their critics (Climate debate is no place for hotheads) which includes quote after quote of The Australian’s pro man-made-global-warming editorials. But why under the Goddess of Free Press should any serious newspaper feel required to declare their belief in a particular scientific theory?

“The Australian ‘s editors are being attacked for questioning authority. They’re supposed to be journalists who investigate everything, not a PR agency who promotes an ideology. In reply the Australian could have been roasting the other media agencies…”

The Australian has been taking heat from the rest of the Australian media (notably Fairfax and ABC employees, and a couple of book writing academics). It’s not that The Australian has held back on publishing the illogical, unreasonable PR, and baseless posturing of vested-carbon-scare-interests, no sir. They are just as ready as anyone to publish the unscientific Lomborgs, Orsekes, and Hamilton’s.  The real issue at stake is censorship. The rest of the media thinks The Australian should do more of it. They disparage The Australian in scathing terms, not for what it won’t publish, but because it does not shield the dumb punters enough. The Australian commits the sin of giving some column space to people who don’t hold UN-approved-views.

Censorship is the single most important tool of those who want to scare the masses. (Money, of course, would trump that, but there is no shortage of whole government departments devoted to pumping the climate gravy, so while money is theoretically vital, in this case it’s guaranteed. Censorship, though, is an entirely different story: it could “disappear” in an instant, and once gone, it’s hard to get back.)

So the climate-establishment and their willing minions crave censorship — and why wouldn’t they, they’re practical people. They know that if skeptical writers were allowed to publicize their opinions along side the professors who keep spouting logical errors and baseless insults, then the grand facade of the carbon scare would be cremated by Christmas, captured in comedy by New Year, and forgotten by Australia Day.

You can hardly fault them. They have their priorities set exactly straight — the single biggest threat to their shaky supremacy is the danger that a few large media outlets would start to run photos of Anthony Watts Surface Stations project, or do a serious documentary with Steve McIntyre.

Figure it out, if 60 Minutes ran a story which gave exactly equal time to Michael Mann and Steven McIntyre, would the public become more, or less, convinced about the dangers on offer thanks to carbon? Precisely. If the Climate Establishment thought Michael Mann would win that debate, they would have organized it years ago. Likewise Gore and Monckton. If Al Gore rang the executive producers, offering to go head-to-head with a skeptic on camera, do you suppose they would turn him down?

The fragile facade only survives through bluster and repetition

There’s no conspiracy among editors, but there’s not much courage either. No one wants to be pilloried among their peers so the threat of being called a denier, or a “right wing extremist” is enough to keep most editors in line. Bullying works — at least in the short run. And this article by The Australian reveals how effective it is.

The campaign against The Australian get’s under the editors skin —  and Chris Mitchell and others are right to protest that they have been mislabeled. But by putting so much effort into claiming they really truly do believe in Climate Change — they’ve fallen into the Orwellian trap of stating the blindingly obvious, as well as playing on the enemies turf… it’s like saying “I’m not four headed monster”, or “I’m not an alcoholic”. (So you’re just a three headed, heavy drinker, with a problem on weekends right?)

Everyone believes the climate changes.

“those who ask the questions control the conversation”

The English language and rational thought is being destroyed by these kind of conversations. Do you believe 1+1 = 2? The inanity is the point. Is blue, blue? Why the heck is anyone asking? Because those who ask the questions control the conversation. That’s why the second point on page two of The Skeptics Handbook told skeptics to ask the questions. When alarmists reduce the conversation to “Do you believe in climate change” they control the dialogue, they are keeping it far away from scientific points, from the evidence, and close to their home turf — instead it’s the club handshake, the tribal headdress, the secret password.

Instead of saying the password, the Australian could be mocking the gatekeepers.

This is supposed to be about the science fergoodnesssake. Not about “believing”.

The Australian ‘s editors are supposed to be journalists who question everything, not a PR agency who promotes an ideology. In reply the Australian could have been roasting the other media agencies for not covering the photos of Anthony Watts surface stations project, and not exposing the missing ARGO results, and for not printing the worst of the climategate emails in full, in context, and with the job descriptions of the emailers for everyone to see. But then, The Australian, as good as it has been (in comparison), hasn’t  printed those things either. The field of blind parrots pecks the one-eyed.

Instead of saying the password, the Australian could be mocking the gatekeepers.

If The Australian wants to control the dialogue instead of responding to the cat calls, there are many simple, probing, unasked questions they could start with in the Corruption series here, with The Skeptics Handbook (and part II), or the Climate Money paper.

The claims against The Australian are not just baseless, they’re claims any half decent rag ought to be ashamed for even mentioning. Golly, The Australian not only prints baseless smear articles in favor of establishment opinions, they sometimes print rational dialogue in response. The crime! The saddest thing is that that places the lonesome Australian closer to the center, but far to the right of all the rubber-stamping PR machines who only put out the government approved propaganda.

Clive Hamilton — who breaks tenets of science, good manners, and any semblance of reason — spins up a preposterous claim that The Australian is “attacking science”, and strangely the national masthead almost seems to be hurt by it.

The charge against The Australian is summed up by Clive Hamilton, who has accused the newspaper under the leadership of Mitchell of “running a virulently anti-greenhouse line, allowing the news pages to become a parody of dispassionate journalism, verballing scientists and attacking science in pursuit of a larger ideological battle”.

Hamilton dutifully says science is all about evidence, not opinions, but he bows to the fake UN Gods of climate,  and doesn’t seem to notice the irony that the “evidence” he cites is just a consensus of climate scientists. Somehow it escapes him that a consensus is made of … opinions?  Hamilton rages about the “War on Science”, but doesn’t acknowledge that he’s the one who wages it.

But the baseless bullying apparently works. People like Flannery and Hamilton use it against everyone who dares speak against the reigning cult. The term “denier” is not scientific, not good English, and not even appropriate name-calling, but every news outlet repeats it, as if it were a term of taxonomy.

I applaud Chris Mitchell for fighting back, and not caving in to the bullies. I don’t think defamation threats are as good as getting even, but it’s much better than letting them get away with it.

Miranda Devine covers the ugly tweets that brought on the defamation suit from the Editor Chris Mitchell. She’s nailed it: the journalists have become activists. And they’re so far from being journalists, they’re actually proud of their partisan activism.

So if you are an outside observer here, not sure who to believe, what’s the dead give away clue?

One side of this debate wants a debate, and the other will do anything to avoid it.

Only one side wants to censor the other.

We skeptics are not afraid of anything the Big Scare Campaign Team can say, because we’ve got the evidence that they don’t (see my debate with Dr Glikson). We don’t ask that anyone censor the anti-science team. (Yes, let the Hamilton’s and Flannery’s speak, but please don’t use my tax dollars to support their stone age reasoning.)

——-

8 out of 10 based on 6 ratings