This evening I have downloaded to my inbox a call for papers for a special issue of Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture.

Now don’t get me wrong. As a professional science communicator who is deeply concerned about the tenor of the public debate surrounding global warming and the environment in general, I see a clear need for academic discussion (’discourse’, even) about the issues involved.

I’m just not so sure about the following:

“Over the last couple of decades, climate change has in fact acquired a quasi-paradigmatic character, often standing for a diverse range of problems in the relation between humans and nature.”

I think I see what they are getting at, but a warning bell has sounded with the editors’ use of the term “quasi-paradigmatic”. It either is or is not “paradigmatic”, so what’s with the “quasi-”?

“At the core of climate change are political, social and ethical choices with implications for the future of all peoples and all other species in the planet. The paths ahead, the available options and the decisions on the issue have been subjected to multiple discursive constructions and contestations by a number of social actors.”

Actually, I was under the impression that at the core of climate change are human-induced variations in atmospheric chemistry. But of course I could be entirely wrong.

Would someone please tell me what is a “social actor”? How is this different from, say, a method actor or a has-been politician with a movie to sell and lectures to deliver?

“What can rhetorical analysis contribute to further our understanding of political and civic communication on climate change?”

If by “rhetorical” the journal editors are refering to the bollocks spouted by certain London media dahlings, including a strange, contrarian cult of middle class Trotskyists turned faux-Libertarians, then I’m with them all the way. But once again, maybe I’ve misunderstood what this is all about.

You have heard the ‘argument’ countless times - ‘the only way to defeat [neo-]nazis is to let them say their piece and then confront their lies in a nice cosy debate’. The success of this time-honoured technique is well documented:

Kindly Mr Himmler, President of the Landshut Debating Society

Not that the Vancouver Public Library appears concerned about confronting anything:

The role of the public library, however, is to provide a forum for … a wide range of views, including those that may be considered unconventional, unpopular or unacceptable.

Hey, they should cut out the middle man and burn their own books. The Gadgie has a different idea about the function of libraries:

I have a more unfashionable view of public libraries. I think they are there to lend books. If there is a subtext, their role would also be to promote the enjoyment of reading, learning and critical thought. I cannot see their mission to be the propagation of lies.

[…]

I do not want to live in a society that bans books, imprisons journalists, persecutes writers and closes down newspapers. In that sense I am a free speech militant. However, we should notice something here. The writers trying to weasel their way to acceptability tell lies and seek to suppress truth. They are the book burners and the censors in the making, using ‘intellectual freedom’ as a cover. To support free speech is not a neutral act, it is to be a partisan for truth. Above all, it is to be a partisan for humanist values.

Partisans do not meekly surrender to lies. Partisans do not wallow in the fake neutrality of ‘balance’. That is cowardice. Partisans contest, challenge and ridicule. They may not ban it, but they treat nonsense with contempt. They refuse to legitimate the vile filth of murderous prejudice, rooted in lies and dripping with irrational hatred. And they most certainly do not allow public institutions to host rabid nonsense in the name of ‘free speech’.

Comrade Glavin lets fly here.

Nowadays, perhaps especially among the urban intellectual caste, you cannot raise your voice against even the most foul antisemite, if that same antisemite uses words such as “Israel” or “Zionist” in the same breath as his other veiled utterances of Jew-hatred. You will be told that you are equating legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. You will be told, ‘This is part of a legitimate debate.’ But if you say, no it isn’t, you will be told, ‘This is just how the Jews suppress free speech to silence criticism of Israel.’ If you say, ‘That sounds like one of those old antisemitic canards; show me some evidence that it is true,’ you will be called a Zionist, which is one of the worst things you can call someone these days. If you talk back, you will hear someone calling you a Zionazi. You will soon hear people telling you to shut up.

Tessa Jowell has said that calls for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics are ‘counter-productive’ and ‘have no purpose’ … could it be? Of course, she’s right, ‘no purpose’ apart from focusing attention on the Chinese régime’s brutal suppression of all independent political organisation, independent trade unions and anything else the régime considers dissent–journalists who talk to the wrong people, websites it doesn’t like, etc–as well as the régime’s treatment of ethnic minorities, occupation of Tibet, and arming the ongoing genocide in Darfur. No purpose at all.

Yes - I know it’s old but…

The main reason I link to this piece is I don’t think it has the prominence it should have on the webnet.

In other words Spiked Online are a bunch of fash cunts.

I urge all other bloggers to link to it now. Let’s make these cunts out to be the obvious cunts they are.

Brendan O’Neill is a Guardian writer - and a fucking cunt (that’s just for good measure).

This is how it’s done…

Unity = Peace. Working class people have sense. Antisemitic tosspots and right wing racists are fucking dangerous fantasists.

Nullify the negativists by whatever means necessary.

The end.