When Leftist Worlds Collide

 

In a rapidly declining Western civilization gone mad with progressive ideology, one of the few pleasures available for people with traditional values is watching one fringe element of the left trash another fringe element of the left.  It doesn’t necessarily do much to slow down the civilizational destruction, but it provides sporadic moments of intense pleasure.

One case in point: Leonardo DiCaprio.  Did you know that the world-famous actor and climate activist is guilty of promoting white supremacy?  Neither did most people, but after all, he is white, rich and powerful, so it just stands to reason, right?

Actually, no, it doesn’t.  In fact, he is probably the furthest thing from it.  But in today’s leftism-marinated world of hypersensitivity based on race, ethnicity and any other identity any aggrieved group cares to come up with, anybody, no matter how left-leaning and well-intentioned they might be, can be accused.  So now it’s DiCaprio’s turn.

It’s all because of his new climate hysteria documentary, Ice On Water.  According to the far-left Rowan Institute, “the film . . . demonstrates that white supremacy and western colonialism continues to dominate the mainstream environmental movement’s narratives and framing of climate solutions.”

Huh!

The Rowan Institute explained that the problem is “climate solutions that repeat patterns of erasure of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC).”

Again . . .  Huh!

You would think that since DiCaprio is using his fame and wealth to try and stop catastrophic climate change – which would benefit everyone on earth, including BIPOC – he would walk on water in the eyes of other climate-obsessed leftists.  But rather than being viewed as a savior, he has been accused of having . . . wait for it . . . “white savior complex!”  Yes, seriously, “white savior complex!”  Apparently, that is an actual thing.

Sorry, Leo, but you and your climate cred just got blown out of the rising water by – guess what? – your whiteness!  But wait a minute.  What, exactly, is “white savior complex?”  Well, here, let the esteemed Rowan Institute explain:

“The white savior complex is a social artifact of colonial history, it assumes the global south’s inferiority and their consent for white saviorhood, which is both harmful and intellectually bankrupt.”

Yes, yes, yes, of course.  It’s all becoming clear now.  So, do you get it, Leo?  See, what you apparently didn’t understand was that your lowly position (white man) in the identity politics hierarchy delegitimizes any and all of your noble efforts to save the world and exposes your “white savior complex.”  Turns out you’re just another patriarchal, colonialist, white supremacist whose mindset, obviously tainted by unconscious bias, is destructive to all the various and sundry peoples of color, indigenous peoples and otherwise marginalized peoples the world over.

And besides that (again, according to the progressive geniuses at the Rowan Institute), DiCaprio’s film “does not highlight the leadership or scholarship of a single Black, Indigenous, or other women of color despite the fact that such women of color are leading the global frontlines of climate justice movements.”

Whew!  Where do these insufferable scolds come up with this bombastic twaddle?  “Women of color are leading the global frontlines of climate justice movements?”  But we daren’t ask the location of these “frontlines of climate justice” because we would only get a grating earful about marginalized BIPOC who are relentlessly oppressed by capitalism, colonialism, racism, and misogyny.

Poor Leo.  Who knew that trying to save the world from climate injustice would get so sullied up and insanely complicated by identity politics?  Apparently, nothing, not even the fate of the planet itself, trumps the gratuitous wallowing in victimhood that is the hallmark of identity politics.

And there are plenty more such flies in the climate hysteria soup.  Here’s just a sampling of headlines and stories where race is stupidly injected into the great climate emergency:

“White People” blamed for causing Cyclone Idai in Africa

Climate Activists: “White America” condemned to Hell?! – Warmist Bill McKibben laments . . . “White America has fallen short” by voting for “climate deniers”

“Can Sunday’s People’s Climate March expand the movement beyond wonky white men?”

Climate activist: “Non-white, non-men climate experts sought for TV & radio”

And maybe the best one of all:

Longtime climate activist David Roberts unleashes on fellow activists: “I am sick to [expletive] death of hearing white men drone on about climate, myself included”

Well then, shut the [expletive] up!

Sorry.  That just slipped out.  But do you hear this self-loathing white leftist, David Roberts?  The ideology that drives him has turned him into the intellectual equivalent of a white zombie, doomed to stagger about the land snarling and spewing brain-dead climo-claptrap while rhetorically ripping to shreds those whom he despises, including himself.

This is what can happen when large masses of people have nothing transcendent to believe in, like Judeo-Christian religion, for example.  This is what can happen when all the foundational elements that once made a civilization great are undermined and even vilified, which is what the left does, nonstop.  We end up with a society full of angry, lost souls who will all too often glom on to various utopian leftist causes (all of which seek to remake the world and none of which can ever work) in a desperate attempt to try and imbue their empty lives with meaning.

The real emergency for humanity is not the freaking climate.  It is the zombie plague of leftism that makes otherwise rational people think the climate is an emergency, along with endless other nonsense.  That plague is currently gobbling up Western civilization like there’s no tomorrow (which there may not be).  Virtually all of our institutions have been infected by this plague: schools (kindergarten through grad school); news media, which instead of presenting objective facts, blatantly pushes the leftist agenda of social justice; tech companies and social media which work to quash conservative dissent; the entertainment industrial complex; the labyrinthine bureaucracies; political parties (yes, even the Republican Party, though to a lesser extent); the courts, which force on the country so much of what the left can’t get through legislation; and even most large corporations.

It is difficult to imagine what could turn it all around at this point, so insidious, widespread, and tenacious is this plague.  One thing’s for certain.  If and when nonwestern powers (e.g., China, Islam, Russia) step in to pick up the pieces of our ruined civilization, the last thing anybody is going to be worried about is climate change.  In the meantime, get what enjoyment you can from the spectacle of left-on-left squabbles, particularly those caused by the boundless and insatiable grievances of identity politics groups.

Oh, and an unsolicited word of advice to DiCaprio:  The next time you want to make a do-good documentary, hire some identity politics consultants first who might be able to prevent the project from descending into a grotesque ego trip based on your “white savior complex.”

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There are 18 comments.

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  1. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    You can go back over two centuries to the French Revolution, and the left has always been a zero-sum game about power, which eventually comes down to eating its own. And in the age of social media and an unlimited number of ways to get your message out to others, you have more and more people seeking power for themselves while really not caring who they take that power from.

    In the old pre-Internet and social media days, you’d have media gatekeepers who would be the arbiters of both who could and couldn’t do take-downs, and who the victims would be, so the left-on-left battles would be downplayed. That doesn’t work anymore — the folks at the Rowan Institute see di Caprio as a high-profile person with power, and they want some of it, by forcing him to grovel to them over his white male privilege. Doesn’t matter that he’s got two decades of being faithful to the progressive cause on his resume; the Rowan people know they’ll have more clout among the same group of people if they can run a digital show trial and get Leonardo to confess his thought crimes.

    • #1
  2. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    “Doesn’t matter that he’s got two decades of being faithful to the progressive cause on his resume; the Rowan people know they’ll have more clout among the same group of people if they can run a digital show trial and get Leonardo to confess his thought crimes.”

    Damn Right. Doesn’t anyone know that clout and power is all that matters in the end? Sacrifices must be made for the sake of the Revolution and so  if a few once thought to be well meaning White Celebrities’s thought crimes  need to be exposed, thoroughly vilified and sacrificed to achieve  true Social Justice and the good of the Revolution to come – so be it. 

    Viva La Revolucion!  Where is Che when we need him?

    • #2
  3. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    This post breaks the Ricochet mechanism that places only the first two paragraphs on the “Feed” page. The external editing program used by the author has placed every paragraph within <div>paragraph-text</div> tags. Conventionally, paragraphs should lie within <p>paragraph-text</p> tags. That’s what the site’s built-in editor uses, and what the site expects.

    Please use a different program when posting so you don’t fill the front page. Paste your text, not your HTML, into the built-in post editor and it’ll work correctly.

    [I am not an editor, just a cranky reader.]

    • #3
  4. Greg Strange Member
    Greg Strange
    @GregStrange

    Barfly (View Comment):

    This post breaks the Ricochet mechanism that places only the first two paragraphs on the “Feed” page. The external editing program used by the author has placed every paragraph within <div>paragraph-text</div> tags. Conventionally, paragraphs should lie within <p>paragraph-text</p> tags. That’s what the site’s built-in editor uses, and what the site expects.

    Please use a different program when posting so you don’t fill the front page. Paste your text, not your HTML, into the built-in post editor and it’ll work correctly.

    [I am not an editor, just a cranky reader.]

    Not sure what I did wrong, but it looks like it’s fixed now.

    • #4
  5. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    Greg Strange (View Comment):

    Barfly (View Comment):

    This post breaks the Ricochet mechanism that places only the first two paragraphs on the “Feed” page. The external editing program used by the author has placed every paragraph within <div>paragraph-text</div> tags. Conventionally, paragraphs should lie within <p>paragraph-text</p> tags. That’s what the site’s built-in editor uses, and what the site expects.

    Please use a different program when posting so you don’t fill the front page. Paste your text, not your HTML, into the built-in post editor and it’ll work correctly.

    [I am not an editor, just a cranky reader.]

    Not sure what I did wrong, but it looks like it’s fixed now.

    Fixed it is. In source view I can see the paragraphs are now delimited by <p></p> tags.

    The mods are watching over us.

    • #5
  6. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    In a bizarre twist I sorta go with the  complaints of some “minority” peoples that white liberals do exhibit a white supremacist savior complex. The white liberal does many things that say, “You minority person are incapable of solving the problems that afflict you, so I, superior white person, will come in and tell you what to do. You don’t need in your quaint villages that I like to visit for vacation and photo ops the same reliable electricity and air conditioning that I assume will always be present in my home. You don’t need to have reliable transportation to conduct commerce with others since I will come and deposit some money on your village when it suits my schedule.” 

    • #6
  7. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    In a bizarre twist I sorta go with the complaints of some “minority” peoples that white liberals do exhibit a white supremacist savior complex. The white liberal does many things that say, “You minority person are incapable of solving the problems that afflict you, so I, superior white person, will come in and tell you what to do. You don’t need in your quaint villages that I like to visit for vacation and photo ops the same reliable electricity and air conditioning that I assume will always be present in my home. You don’t need to have reliable transportation to conduct commerce with others since I will come and deposit some money on your village when it suits my schedule.”

    Yes. And more:

    Nigerian Pro-life Leader Speaks Out Against Melinda Gates’ Push for Contraception in Africa

    “I’m sure Melinda Gates means well,” Ekeocha began, “but you see the problem is there is an arrogance and something in what I see as questions not being asked in all the talk about contraception and helping women space their children is what exactly, speaking of Africa for example, what exactly do women want?”

     
    “In most of the African countries you get to find and research continues to show all the time that African women you know in a lot of the countries desire or desired number of children is actually quite high when cultures where people for example value children or value big families what are you saying to the women if you continue to push their governments towards the so-called family planning projects?”

    […]

    Mairo Mandara, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Country Representative for Nigeria, said at a World Population Day (WPD) event that “Family Planning should be declared a National Emergency,” adding, “it is not about stopping people from giving birth, but seeking to control the process. The WPD is meant to draw attention to population explosion in the coming years. In Nigeria, the WPD 2017 provides opportunity to discuss ways of checking possible population explosion.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron drew criticism last week for saying that Africa has a “civilizational” problem and women are having “seven or eight children.”

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Minister of International Development, Marie-Claude Bibeau, recently defended Canada’s increase in funds toward abortion and contraception overseas by calling abortion and contraception a “tool to end poverty.”

    • #7
  8. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    I like this—from the Rowan piece cited: “Instances of white people laying claim to land, people and resources are not new – a fact an Ugandan man in London recalled when he ‘discovered’ the city’s Thames river and named it Gulu, like the colonialists of yore had done to more than half the world.”

    Ummmmnnnn….the reason that river is called the “Tems” is because French people invaded and colonized England for a while…

     

    • #8
  9. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    I like this—from the Rowan piece cited: “Instances of white people laying claim to land, people and resources are not new – a fact an Ugandan man in London recalled when he ‘discovered’ the city’s Thames river and named it Gulu, like the colonialists of yore had done to more than half the world.”

    Ummmmnnnn….the reason that river is called the “Tems” is because French people invaded and colonized England for a while…

     

    Yay!! GrannyDude’s back from her Ricochet sabbatical.

    • #9
  10. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    I like this—from the Rowan piece cited: “Instances of white people laying claim to land, people and resources are not new – a fact an Ugandan man in London recalled when he ‘discovered’ the city’s Thames river and named it Gulu, like the colonialists of yore had done to more than half the world.”

    Ummmmnnnn….the reason that river is called the “Tems” is because French people invaded and colonized England for a while…

     

    Yay!! GrannyDude’s back from her Ricochet sabbatical.

    Shhhh! I’m not really. My resistance is just really low this morning…I miss y’all!!

    • #10
  11. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    New stealth avatar…

    • #11
  12. Greg Strange Member
    Greg Strange
    @GregStrange

    Just saw an article on Yahoo which perfectly illustrates the essence of my article “When Leftist Worlds Collide.”  Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, an exalted member of the LGBTQ+(etc., etc.) identity group is being lambasted by the African-American identity group over a white-on-black police shooting in South Bend.  Apparently, Buttigieg’s gayness doesn’t cancel out his possible racism.

    • #12
  13. Paul Erickson Inactive
    Paul Erickson
    @PaulErickson

    Greg Strange: One case in point: Leonardo DiCaprio. Did you know that the world-famous actor and climate activist is guilty of promoting white supremacy?

    Guilty, indeed!  I am told there is video footage of Leo shouting, arms outstretched, “I’m the king of the world!!!!”

    • #13
  14. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    The inimitable Victor Davis Hanson has a good piece on this topic here.

     

    • #14
  15. Rightfromthestart Coolidge
    Rightfromthestart
    @Rightfromthestart

    Man, I love some of the formulations in this article :

    BIPOC , insufferable scolds, bombastic twaddle , gratuitous wallowing , Climo-claptrap.

    I’m convinced a political candidate who called them out in this way would be carried out on shoulders after a lengthy standing ovation.

    • #15
  16. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    So, if white people paid reparations, it would just be another example of the “white savior complex.”

    • #16
  17. Theodoric of Freiberg Inactive
    Theodoric of Freiberg
    @TheodoricofFreiberg

    Greg Strange: Oh, and an unsolicited word of advice to DiCaprio: The next time you want to make a do-good documentary, hire some identity politics consultants first who might be able to prevent the project from descending into a grotesque ego trip based on your “white savior complex.”

    That’s impossible. There is always something to give offense.

    • #17
  18. Misthiocracy secretly Member
    Misthiocracy secretly
    @Misthiocracy

    In Road To Wigan Pier, Orwell described how (moneyed) British leftists simply couldn’t understand why the proletariat refused to get on-side.  Today’s “self-loathing white environmentalists” lamenting that people of color don’t care about saving the planet as much as they do are much the same phenomenon, thereby illustrating that there will always be a class of social crusaders who don’t really like the sort of people they claim to be working oh-so hard to save.

    • #18
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