Who someone is is at least as important as what they say.
Sometimes a quote requires a bit more from me than a meme.
I recently ran across this, from British environmentalist
and activist George Monbiot:
“The problem with gross domestic
product is the gross bit. There are no deductions involved: all economic
activity is accounted as if it were of positive value. Social harm is added to,
not subtracted from, social good. A train crash which generates £1bn worth of
track repairs, medical bills and funeral costs is deemed by this measure as
beneficial as an uninterrupted service which generates £1bn in ticket sales.”
I like (and agree) with this quote. Frankly, that quote says something important and worth repeating (in my not-very-humble opinion). But the reason it’s not
appearing in a meme on my Facebook timeline is that in researching the source (of whom I admit that I
had not previously heard), I turned up a couple of things I also thought worthy
of note. Basically (and I do realize that I am over-using parenthesis), I found out that he’s a bit of a slime-ball.
In the interest of fairness, it must be noted that George
Monbiot was involved in an effort to defame Alistair McAlpine, Lord McAlpine of
West Green, a prominent conservative and former advisor to Margaret Thatcher,
with false allegations of child abuse. These false allegations resulted in
court decisions against both the BBC and ITV with the cash awarded being
donated to charity by Lord McAlpine, who also dropped his suit against Monbiot
in exchange for Monbiot donating his time to three charities. Monbiot described
this action by Lord McAlpine as “unprecedented.”
It should also be noted that Monbiot put his hypocrisy on
tour when he bought a used diesel Renault and toured the US and Canada in it,
campaigning on climate change.
While I agree with a lot of what Monbiot has said, and I
support many of the same causes as he does, his blatant sleaziness and unrepentant
douchebaggery makes him a less-than-desirable spokesman. And while I oppose
much of what Baron McAlpine supports, it must be said that in most other
regards he comes off much better than Monbiot.
I feel that it’s important for me to say that, to vocally
repudiate much of what Monbiot is aside from the causes he represents, just as
I feel it to be important that the Republicans and Conservatives speak against
the more off-the-wall elements of their own movement. Frankly, I don’t hear enough of this sort of thing from either side.
Edited for spelling on 3/22/14, because I could no longer stand the errant "T" that changed hear to heart.
Edited for spelling on 3/22/14, because I could no longer stand the errant "T" that changed hear to heart.
The Blues Viking
The thoughts expressed here are mine and if you don’t like
them you can get your own damn blog.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment