20A014 The Screeching Swede by Jim Davies, 4/7/2020     

Strictly, Time's 2019 Person of the Year Greta Thunberg doesn't screech, she speaks calmly in good English. But the content of what she says, for example the oft-quoted "How dare you?" accusation that AGW (Alleged Global Warming) has been allowed to ruin the world for her and her fellow 16-year-olds, would be fairly judged as an arrogant, alarmist screech from anyone. That she was not just allowed but actually invited to speak thus to the UN reveals only how fully the fiction of AGW has penetrated the governing class and how skilfully she has been manipulated as a puppet.

She was schooled privately but under the control of a government-approved curriculum, and not yet a graduate since she is both too young and too distracted by her worldwide mission to compel everyone to change their lifestyles. At age 8, she was shown a movie about AGW in class. Right, that young; in Stockholm, they are pushing that agenda down the throats of kids compelled to attend the indoctrination. Maybe they do so here too; check your school district. But the younger they start, the greater their chance of twisting the mind; as Aristotle knew, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” Such is child abuse. Such is indoctrination, in contrast to education.

What was unusual about this girl is that she let her mind fester on the propaganda, due to what was diagnosed as Asperger's Syndrome and as OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By age 11, she had retreated into herself and had stopped eating properly. Her parents found out that she was obsessing on what she'd been taught at school about AGW, and to try to bring her back to normality her mother, an opera singer, agreed no longer to fly; that meant an end to her international career. Two lessons could be drawn: (a) the daughter had ruined her mother's life ambition, and (b) Greta realized she could change how grown-ups live. Unfortunately (b) prevailed, in her megalomania.

She then took the brave step of playing truant - but not, alas, to protest the school monopoly or in favor of capitalism; she sat all day outside Parliament with a placard saying "Skolstrejk för klimaten", which isn't hard to translate. On the first day of that, the only taker was Ingmar Rentzhog. He happened to be a PR expert and an AGW fanatic. He linked up with his fellow-activist Bo Thorén; the rest is history. I must admit, their PR strategy was brilliant. Josef Göbbels would have been proud.

The hypocrisy of it all is sick; in order to publicize the allegedly high "carbon footprint" of air travel, she crossed the Atlantic in a $4 million sailboat, lucky girl, but the 6-person crew of that had to fly back, then again return to pick her up to sail back to Europe. One lightweight passenger avoided burdening an airplane, at the cost of six normal-weight passengers. Such is AGW arithmetic. How very different from Laura Dekker.

Sweden is a beautiful country, with a small and talented population having a strong work ethic. Despite its prevalent socialism, it has prospered since 1900; mainly by sensibly avoiding two world wars by which it was surrounded, but also by producing large amounts of high quality steel, copper and wood and by very creative designs for buildings, furniture and cars especially in the third quarter of the 20th Century. Among outstanding Swedes have been the boxer Ingemar Johansson, who KO'd Floyd Patersson, tennis superstar Björn Borg, the delightful sopranos Elisabeth Söderström and Kerstin Meyer, and my all-time favorite pop group ABBA. But I'd not place Greta Thunberg among them; she is a highly strung teen who has been cruelly used by a bunch of unscrupulous archists. In one of his best pronouncements, President Trump said it well: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" In one well-crafted announcement he denied the whole of her message and promised her a bright future - on which he's trying, in his way, to work. I hope she gets one. If we do our work properly, she will.

I've launched a supplement called Jim's Wuhan Bug Blog, here which offers a frequent commentary on the progress of the Corona virus outbreak. It will be heterodox and, hopefully, informative and stimulating.