The Death of an Artist; Environmentalist C.R.T.; and the Defenestration of Liz Truss
The Death of an Artist; Environmentalist C.R.T.; and the Defenestration of Liz Truss
Enemies of the People: Xi Jinping
This week our editor, Michael Walsh, published an excerpt from his own essay in our book, Against the Great Reset: Eighteen Theses Contra the New World Order:
'What an Artist Dies in Me!'
This week, The Pipeline has published the first of what we plan as a series of timely but well-considered "Againsts" concerning various aspects of the current crisis: Against the Great Reset, published by Bombardier Books in cooperation with Simon and Schuster. Edited by myself, the roster of writers includes Michael Anton, Salvatore Babones, Conrad Black, Jeremy Black, Angelo Codevilla, Janice Fiamengo, Richard Fernandez, David P. Goldman, Victor Davis Hanson, Martin Hutchinson, Roger Kimball, Alberto Mingardi, Douglas Murray, James Poulos, Harry Stein, and John Tierney. What follows here is a brief excerpt from my essay, the final one of the book, "What an Artist Dies in Me!"
Tom Finnerty wrote about the defenestration of Liz Truss, and wondered what she could have done to come out a success.
As Truss Falls, Does BoJo Loom?
Here are the basics: Newly minted prime minister Liz Truss has resigned after just 44 days on the job, the shortest ever term for a prime minister. She came into office hard on the heels of Boris Johnson, who resigned after he was caught lying about violating his own government's Covid restrictions on several occasions.
Determined not to be merely a caretaker P.M., Truss immediately initiated a bold -- some would say "foolhardy" -- plan to transform the British economy by slashing taxes across the board, with the biggest cuts for businesses and the wealthy, while also increasing spending. Much of that spending would go towards an energy "price freeze," which would cap the amount that Brits would pay for heat and electricity going into what is looking to be a brutal winter for heating and electricity rates. The bill for such a plan was projected to run into the hundreds of billions of pounds, but her hope was that it would it would keep the heat off her government while her Thatcher-on-steroids tax plan supercharged the economy and brought about elephantine growth.
Now here's what actually happened. The markets were disturbed by these sudden movements, and by the massive amount of new debt the government would have to take on to make this all work, especially at a time of significant and rising interest rates. Sterling tanked and bond markets went crazy.
Truss vowed that she would not change course. Then she started changing course, with new back-tracking announcements becoming an almost daily occurrence. She sacked Kwasi Kwarteng, her right-hand man and Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a desperate attempt to hang onto power, and appointed the establishmentarian, globalist, anti-Brexiter Jeremy Hunt to take his place. Hunt promptly got to work dismantling the rest of Truss's program….
What is so strange about all of this is that it is easy to imagine a counterfactual scenario where Truss turned out a success. She ran for leadership as a continuity candidate: Boris, but without the erraticism, dishonesty, and drama. That was a pretty attractive proposition! Had she actually governed that way, pushing back on some of the negatives of the Johnson government while generally trying to steady the tiller, she might have had a long and illustrious career.
Kicking Boris' environmentalism to the curb would have been a good start -- Britain has a lot of natural gas, but environmentalists have been lying to the people about natural resource extraction for years…. Boris famously leaned into this misinformation, including in his farewell speech as prime minister. A successful Truss could have checked it, while noting the absolute necessity of developing domestic energy sources in light of growing scarcity. Doing so wouldn't have required abandoning all Boris' plans. It could even have reinforced some of them. There's an obvious match between his "leveling-up" project, meant to improve those forgotten, working class regions of England's north (where he scored a stunning success in the last election), and the jobs which an expanded resource sector could provide.
David Cavena contributed a piece exploring the ongoing tripartite attack on western civilization.
America 2022: Threat Level, Critical
When threats reach a scale that cannot readily be processed, lethargy sets in. People begin to reject investigating calamities so big they cannot understand them, problems so large and so broad that even admitting their existence collapses the senses, and with them any idea, plan, or nascent strategy of dealing with the threat. It is far easier to just accept whatever it is the "experts" are saying and go along with the crowd.
People give up and accept whatever they are told by those holding the threat over their heads. They pretend it will all be over soon, and jump on the collectivist virtue bandwagon, the bandwagon that crushed 100,000,000 human beings last century. Because these issues are so big, and our reliance on experts so complete, we wind up in messes like the ones in which we find ourselves today. When individual status is based on getting along, critical thinking vanishes and society goes along, regardless of the consequences.
We have at least three of these threats hanging over our heads across the West today as the Baby Boomer “Summer of Love” Marcusian cohort of 1967 ages off history’s stage. Having as their life’s goal the destruction of America, the evil half of the Boomers will not go gently into that good night. Their aging explains the acceleration of the attacks on our freedom and our families of the past several years, and why these attacks on what we and millennia of our common forebears see as fundamental rights will continue to accelerate.
The three principal threats we face now are: the hoax of "climate change"; the manmade bioweapon of Covid-19 and its accompanying, perhaps even more lethal "vaccine"; and virulent, Democrat racism being used to attack both private and public sectors of society, our education, and the military. All are existential threats to freedoms and liberties that only exist in the West, and against which these threats have been created to extinguish.
These made-up crises have one goal, a goal that is a threat so big most seem unable or unwilling to process it: the destruction of the Western middle class: our liberty, freedom, prosperity and the futures of our children, Covid was a bad flu to older people and a minor flu to younger, there is no “anthro” in "climate change," and America is the least-racist society in history. Marxism is the goal of Western elites; they have neither time nor interest in those of us making the world go. We are today's Kulaks. Our mere presence is anathema to them, mucking-up their plans and authoritarian demands.
Lisa Schiffren wrote about the ongoing convergence of environmentalism and Critical Race Theory in American governance.
'Environmental Justice' or Crude Power Politics?
On September 28, a category 4 hurricane struck Florida, destroying many communities on the Southwest coast, knocking out power for millions of people, and causing devastation. Estimates are that it will cost more than $50 billion to clean up and rebuild.
Speaking in the immediate aftermath of the storm, vice president Kamala Harris intimated that, in the distribution of aid, poor people and ethnic minorities would be prioritized, because it is the “lowest income communities, and communities of color that are (most) impacted by these issues.” With the hurricane raging, there was shock, and significant pushback against this blatantly racialist statement, since it is (still) widely understood that weather does not discriminate, and colorblind need should be the only criterion for aid.
Both Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) immediately announced that no racial standard would apply. But for all the criticism, and assurances that the aid will be distributed by need, Harris and the Biden administration will have the last laugh. As it happens, on September 24, Michael Regan, the (first black) head of the Environmental Protection Agency had announced the creation of a new national office of environmental justice in his agency. (There are smaller offices of environmental justice larded throughout several other agencies, and there has been a small office for this at the EPA for decades.)
This new office will be funded with billions of dollars allocated in the deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act. These billions will be available to groups that cater to minorities and low-income communities. The office will effectively be funding both left wing "climate change" activists and black activist groups informed by "Critical Race Theory."
And Peter Smith wrote about the ongoing denial of reality which characterizes the Left’s attempts to build the green utopia of their dreams.
The Greens' Cloud Cuckoo Land
And so into their fantasy world they go. Demolishing reliable coal-power stations and subsidizing intermittent sources of power. Bad enough that Western governments have swallowed the line that climate Armageddon is on the horizon. Worse, much worse, is what they’re doing about it. They seem unable to distinguish between dreams and reality. Two recent developments in Australia add to the overwhelming evidence that Western governments are living their deluisions. Of course, there are many more than two such developments. I’ve just picked two of them at random. The first concerns the Liddell coal power station in the Hunter region in the state of New South Wales (NSW).
Liddell is being closed down prematurely in April next year. Incidentally, Eraring, the largest power station in Australia (at 2.3GW), also in NSW, will close prematurely in 2025. The Australian Energy Market Operator expects more early closures. On cue, it’s been announced that the closure of Loy Yang, supplying 30 percent of the state of Victoria’s power, will be brought forward ten years to 2035. No odds are being offered on bets it will close earlier than that. It’s all part of the continuing shutdown of coal power stations in Australia. Meanwhile, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, et al, are still building them, and using heaps of Australian coal to power them. What to do? Weep.
Back to Liddell. It is to be replaced—for no good reason—by intermittent wind and solar. Intermittency; there’s the rub. Firming required. And, for the continuing avoidance of any doubt, to the extent of 100 percent. Envisaged to fill part of the gap is Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro. It’s way behind schedule, way above budget, and not nearly as effective as claimed.
Then, risibly, there are batteries. To illustrate, it’s claimed that the largest battery in Australia, the 450MWh Big Battery in Victoria, can power over one million dwellings for half an hour. There are 2.5 million dwellings in Victoria and, of course, commerce and industry besides. Powering the whole state would leave the Big Battery flat after about 5 minutes. And then, from somewhere, it has to be charged up again. Enough said.
Thanks for reading, and keep a look out for upcoming pieces by Peter Smith, Steven Hayward, and Clarice Feldman. And, once again, don’t forget to order our book, Against the Great Reset: Eighteen Theses Contra the New World Order. You won’t regret it! All this and more this week at The Pipeline!