Thursday, July 7, 2016

Jo Nova and Eric Worrall, racism, conspiracy theories and climate science denial

There is a lot of overlap between racism and right wing extremism. It seems to me to both are based on the at times deadly combination of extreme fear, ignorance and bigotry. Yesterday Eric Worrall was lauding the election of a person who has been inciting violence for a long time. Today it's Jo Nova. The people who are bigoted climate science deniers are Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts. The party of bigots is called One Nation, which is the opposite of what they are trying to achieve. What they stand for is a nation divided.

Pauline Hanson was voted in by people who probably claim to be Christians, but lack any virtues of love and tolerance, and who are scared to their back teeth of anyone of a different race or religion to them. Pauline wants to install video cameras to perve on people in Mosques and Islamic schools. She hasn't said the same about other churches and other schools. She's also an anti-vaxxer and stands up for men who want to get out of paying child support. Malcolm Roberts is an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. Graham Readfearn reported Australian journalist Ben Cubby writing about Malcolm Roberts:
In considering your request that I identify errors in the report you sent to me – CSIROh! Climate of Deception? Or First Step to Freedom? – I find myself confronting an unusual problem: how does one critically analyse a pile of horse shit?

Eric Worrall wrote about Pauline yesterday at WUWT (archived here). He seems to be against political correctness when it comes to bigoted hate speech, writing:
So who is Pauline Hanson? Hanson exploded onto the political scene in 1996, when she won the seat of Oxley in Brisbane on a tsunami of populist right wing revulsion at the unwavering political correctness of mainstream political parties. She is one of Australia’s most colourful and well known political characters. She has been repeatedly accused of racism because of her strong views about Islam and uncontrolled immigration. She was convicted of electoral fraud in 2002, but the conviction was overturned in 2003 on appeal.

There is no "uncontrolled immigration" in Australia. Quite the reverse. We send asylum seekers to concentration camps in remote islands, and the Australian government has made it a crime to report atrocities that occur in these camps. My country does not have an unblemished record when it comes to human rights - not now and not in the past.



Jo Nova and her partner David Evans are climate science deniers whose conspiracy theories have their roots  in anti-semitic New World Order conspiracy theories. They promote the wacky notions of Malcolm Roberts, a hard-core conspiracy nutter. Today Jo is wishing Malcolm Roberts "good luck". A few days ago she was pushing for a member of the Fred Nile party to be elected. Fred Nile was another right wing extremist bigot in Australia, who first rose to prominence for his intolerance and homophobia. He has expanded to islamophobia and phobia in general. Like Jo Nova, David Evans and Eric Worrall, he must live a tortured existence in multi-cultural Australia.


Australians favour Greens much more than One Nation


Jo reported that One Nation outpolled the Greens. That's only in Queensland and only in the Senate. In Jo's home state of Western Australia, the Greens in the Senate got almost three times the votes of One Nation. In the Senate (the upper house, or house of review) the Greens have polled higher in every state except Queensland, looking at the AEC quota tally so far. The table below shows how the populist and bigoted right wing group One Nation has so far fared around the country, compared to the Greens. The chart is using data from the website of the Australian Electoral Commission and shows first preferences by state for the Senate (the upper house) as at now.

Figure 1 | Senate vote Australian Federal Election 2016 - for Greens and One Nation. Data source: Australian Electoral Commission

Below are the numbers:



The percentages are below. Nationwide, Greens got more than twice the percentage of One Nation, which only got 4% of the national vote.



That's just the Senate of course. In the House of Representatives, the lower house, where it arguably matters more, the Greens scored 1,120,300 first preference votes, almost eight times more than One Nation that only managed 145,719.


Are all climate conspiracy theorists overtly racist?


If you're wondering about the extent to which climate science deniers as a whole are extremist right wing bigots, well evidence shows deniers are predominately extreme right wingers, and there are a lot of bigoted people among their ranks. As you've seen, Jo Nova supports Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts and Fred Nile's party. Anthony Watts promotes Tim Ball and his New World Order conspiracy theories - a lot. However a few deniers at WUWT have tried to distance themselves from Pauline Hanson. At Jo's place the commenters aren't concerned about racism, and Jo's fans are at the utter nutter end of science denial.


From the WUWT comments


M Seward is the first to comment and tries for distance:
July 4, 2016 at 6:05 pm
I hate to disappoint but don’t get too enthusiastic. Hanson may be a skeptic or even a ‘denier’ but she is also a complete and utter moron i.m.o., a hick, a hillbilly, a nutjob, a nuff nuff, and will do the skeptic cause little good unless she shuts her ( infamous in Oz) mouth. She is a great cfree ontent provider for the airhead msm but that’s the end of her strong suit. Her long game is the next press conference or interview or getting on her hind legs and raving to the parliament.
That said, she does give the PC red brigades plenty of reflux so its an ill wind that blows no good.

Gary Pearse thinks Pauline is one of the "real" people, as opposed to the other 96% of Australians who he presumably thinks are not real people and have only designer brains:
July 5, 2016 at 8:57 am
You aren’t capable of seeing this as good news and I feel sorry for you. Don’t you get it? How did Brexit happen, why is Donald Trump so popular? The REAL people voted for it!! Your marxbrothers’s education (of which you are unwitting) has lobotomized you to think “progressive”. The marksy folks aren’t in fact progressive at all. They always give their slogans an oxymoron flavor. Ever ask your self why the “Democratic” Republic of the Congo called itself that. Canada’s socialist party calls itself the New “Democratic” Party, the pre wall fall East German government called themselves the Deutchisch “Demokratisch” Republik. It’s because even they can see that they ain’t what they say they are. You designer brain types are like the Nile crocodile who, not knowing that the pesky biologists are trying to save them, are trying to bite their A55es off. Suspend belief and think for yourselves – the program can be reversed. 

TG says he or she is happy to buy a nut:
July 5, 2016 at 1:21 am
Graham. If she’s a nut job with that list policy’s, I’ll buy nut’s in 100Ib bags. She’s common sense on steroids, M Seward you seem to have brought a MSM narrative that is akin to character assassination, because she’s not left of Karl Marx and the socialist gang over at ABC.

Andrew Richards is probably scared of the Lizard Men (alien aggressives). Will he be going to hear David Icke who is touring Australia?
July 4, 2016 at 11:36 pm
There is nothing wrong with Hanson. She, like many people in Australia, the UK and the US are sick and tired of mainstream liberals with their insidious political correctness, support for mass migration of alien aggressive cultures and unwavering belief of anything they are told by the MSM on the telly and in the newspapers. That she can see the man made climate change scam for what it is – goes to her great credit.

Anthony Mills thinks Eric Worrall's article is a step too far even for an extreme right wing blog like WUWT:
July 4, 2016 at 6:07 pm
I understand this is a fairly extreme right wing blog, and therefore many of the things written I will find distasteful. However, speaking approvingly of Pauline Hanson, whose sole appeal is racist (anti Asian, anti Muslim) is, I think, a step too far. If you want to push your agenda, associating with this individual is not going to help. 

AndyL must not be too familiar with WUWT. Anthony Watts often posts political articles:
July 5, 2016 at 12:55 am
Most posts on here are written by people who do not bring their politics into their posts. Eric Worrall is an unfortunate exception. 

PA thinks the problem with Australia is that everyone must vote:
July 5, 2016 at 12:36 am
The one million Green vote indicates the primary problem with mandatory voting. The uniformed real idiots who wouldn’t other vote are forced to vote for someone. Bad judgment and willful ignorance explain the almost significant Green vote.

References and further reading


Climate change, the New World Order and spam-weary journalists - Graham Readfearn on Malcolm Roberts, including Ben Cubby's reaction to Malcolm Roberts' conspiratorial manifesto.

Spot the difference between climate policies of Pauline Hanson and denialist group the Galileo Movement? - Graham Readfearn on the Galileo Movement and One Nation

9 comments:

  1. Well it is heartening that some of the WUWT climate change deniers see Pauline Hanson as she really is.

    Sigh, so here we are. The bad Brexit referendum, a botched Australian election and Donald Trump have undone the decline of the climate change denialists, at least for a while.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It makes sense that right wing extremists would like to delay solving climate change as much as possible. The liberals told them that poor people in the third world will suffer most. They love that, they are willing to suffer themselves for that, if only the others suffer more.

    Do dissenters like climate change?

    If you want to convince them you should tell them that more risks in the third world will mean higher birth rates and more immigrants. That climate change will destroy capital goods and disrupt our highly optimized just-in-time economies. That our power will thus decrease relative to flexible capital-extensive countries.

    What I do not get is why conservatives play along with the right-wing extremists. The conservatives should have learned from history by now that right wing extremism only brings suffering (for example, WWII and Brexit) and that these extremists are revolutionaries, not conservatives.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "What I do not get is why conservatives play along with the right-wing extremists."

      My guess is the conservatives want the extremists for the numbers, and for the muscle. It is a power-base thing. In my opinion you can count on the extremists to do the dirty work for you as they are disposable - just like what is happening post-Brexit.

      Delete
    2. In my opinion you can count on the extremists to do the dirty work for you as they are disposable - just like what is happening post-Brexit.

      I notice that Tory leadership candidate Andrea Leadsome avoids voting on same sex marriage. Every time.

      Delete
    3. Harry got it right. Power and possessions. Conservatives will often go with fascists and might actually help put racism in society, because this deflects the public's attention from them. The role of ('the') convervatives is a decider in any country that reverts to fascism.

      We'll be seeing a lot of that right now. For some reason all western democracies seem to clamour for their suicide.

      Delete
  3. The WA Senate candidate for One Nation may have trouble getting to Canberra even if he does get a quota:

    http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-06/election-2016-one-nation-wa-candidate-rodney-culleton-charges/7574102

    Fortunately the other candidates on the ticket are family - wife and brother-in-law, I think. One Nation must be so popular in the West when they have such high-quality candidates. It looks like the party meetings are held during family get-togethers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is pretty poor that once again a person, who has projected ill feelings towards others in society is taken seriously and gets elected.
    No doubt the next parliament will be colorful and one can only hope this episode is not repeated in the following one.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "No doubt the next parliament will be colorful..."

    Being curious I just searched on Pauline Hanson and wished I had not. Further curiosity led me to click on a picture of Pauline Pantsdown (that could be fun later) whereby a 'rogues' gallery of portraits appeared and that gang are certainly colourful.

    Bob Katter looks dangerous, Barnaby Joyce would appear to be miserable and if Angry Anderson enters politics he would certainly provide some colour.

    In the US there is a section of staunchly Christian society that is pro-life and pro-NRA (I guess with more guns you need more live targets) being absolutely protective of their Second Amendment rights, an amendment implemented when the firearms were flintlocks and not the rapid high energy round firing weapons of mass destruction they now are. On social media I am constantly bombarded by posts (from somebody I once took as a sensible correspondent on things aviation and photographic) encapsulating propaganda from 'Allen West Republic' which I will not link to directly, being too crazy for that. They are currently gunning for Hillary Clinton as they promote Donald Trump.

    History has seen this sort of thing before.

    ReplyDelete
  6. In Greater Brisbane, One Notion polled pretty poorly (a few percent). On the other hand, in rural and small-city Queensland, they were commonly over 15%. More votes have been counted since Sou's table above, giving them around 150,000 votes from that region.

    Fun fact - in the 2011 census, there were a total of 9,000 Muslims in that region. And 16 times as many bigots. What was the question again...?

    ReplyDelete

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