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George Monbiot Profile picture
@GeorgeMonbiot
Oct 18 • 8 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
This story is one of the most disturbing I've ever covered. It's about how the views of a deeply weird ideological sect affected science, medicine and the media, with devastating impacts on patients. Please read and pass on. This horror has to stop. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
I see my own profession, the media, as being as culpable as any. How did we allow a bizarre sect, with a phenomenally cruel and brutal agenda, to set the prevailing view of this and other issues?
And it was right across the board: just about every major outlet in the UK.
Here's some background to this story, which is, frankly, even weirder than the contents of today's article. 21 years on, I still ask myself, wtf is going on? monbiot.com/2003/12/09/inv…
And here's what other members of this cult went on to do: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
They seemed to apply a highly effective formula: use Trotskyist entryist tactics to promote an extreme rightwing agenda. The UK Establishment (and the Hungarian government) turned out to be highly receptive to it. They got grand positions, honours and a massive media platform.
Starting in the late 1970s, they pioneered what later became the Tory culture wars. The human cost was immense - and continues to this day. But I see them as an anti-empathy cult. So they can hardly be expected to care.
The media are total suckers for a cult. See this thread for another astonishing example:
One more thing. The majority of ME/CFS sufferers are women. Inevitably, this means:
a. the illness receives less attention
b. sufferers are likely to be dismissed or ignored
c. doctors are more inclined to believe the causes are psychological
Misogyny still runs deep in medicine

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More from @GeorgeMonbiot

George Monbiot Profile picture
Oct 11
When you dig into the hidden detail of the government's carbon capture and storage programme, the sheer scale of fiscal and environmental irresponsibility is hard to comprehend. We could be on the hook for £50 billion, with zero benefit. My column. 🧵 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
It turns out that Labour has simply copy and pasted Tory policy, without any modifications. But the purpose of Tory policy was to provide huge, ongoing and open-ended contracts for the fossil fuel industry, not to cut emissions.
It will *raise* greenhouse gas emissions.
Astonishingly, state liability is uncapped. That £21.7 billion is just part of the price tag, and the government has no plan or idea how to limit the costs. They WILL escalate, and massively.
Read 6 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
Oct 7
1. Could we stop saying "natural gas"? It sounds almost wholesome, but it's one of the most potent drivers of climate breakdown. The term is
a. meaningless
b. fails to properly to distinguish it from other sources.
The obvious alternative is "fossil gas" or fossil methane".
🧵
2. Yes, I know the term was coined to provide a contrast with syn gas/town gas, but extracting gas from geological strata is neither more nor less “natural” than cooking it up. As Raymond Williams noted, “nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language”.
3. "Nature" and "natural" mean everything and nothing. They are generally attached to things we like, while those we don't are described as "unnatural", "artificial" or "synthetic". These are not innate qualities, but human constructs.
Read 6 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
Oct 4
This is absolute madness. Carbon capture and storage has failed time and again. Labour has slashed reliable green programmes, to pour vast sums of our money into a complete crock. The only possible explanation is lobbying by fossil fuel companies.🧵 theguardian.com/environment/20…
Here's the reality of carbon capture and storage, after 50 years of practice: a bonanza for oil companies, but useless as a mitigation measure. desmog.com/2023/09/25/fos…
. @Ed_Miliband, I thought you were better than this. Why have you put your name to this nonsense?
Read 6 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
Sep 30
1. A fortnight ago, I wrote about the scandal of our Internal Drainage Boards, which are supposed to stop flooding, but are unaccountable, self-serving, feudal bodies that do more harm than good. Now a disturbing email has landed in my inbox. 🧵theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
2. It was sent to the Internal Drainage Boards by Innes Thomson, head of the Association of Drainage Authorities, that supposedly oversees the IDBs. Here’s the text: Dear Clerks & CEOs, Some of you may have already seen an article published by the Guardian this morning, written by Mr George Monbiot, which is a full-on attack of IDBs and ADA. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/18/more-floods-britain-system-protect-us-scandal I would welcome your thoughts on how you feel we should best deal with this. Do we completely ignore which could annoy Monbiot the most ? Do we wait and see if it generates any wider media interest ? With best rgds, Innes Eur Ing J Innes Thomson BSc CEng FICE
3. I can understand why they don’t want to defend the indefensible, but it should be slightly concerning for those whose homes get flooded as a result of the IDBs’ inbuilt uselessness that his communications policy is guided by what could “annoy Monbiot the most”.
Read 5 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
Sep 27
It's worth reminding people who opposed the C19 lockdowns in the UK how much worse things would have been without them. The NHS was overwhelmed, people were dying at horrendous rates. Lockdown came too late but, even so, saved many lives. 🧵theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/s…
We could have done it another way, like Taiwan’s brilliant test, trace, quarantine, support system. Taiwan lost only 7 people to C19 in the first year of the pandemic, with no lockdowns. Just 7! But thanks to our useless government, none of the necessary measures were in place.
Had the first lockdown been introduced at the earliest possible opportunity, as many experts urged, not only could far more lives have been saved, but it could have been shorter and less damaging to our social and economic well-being.
Read 8 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
Sep 23
1. I’m sorry to return to this question, but I think it hints at everything that's wrong with our media and public conversations.
*When did you last hear a critique of capitalism on the BBC?*
A thread/
2. This is the system that dominates every aspect of our lives. Yet it seems to be off-limits at the BBC, and almost all other media. Seldom mentioned, never investigated, never criticised and never even properly explained. The same goes for our dominant ideology: neoliberalism.
3. I suspect that if you asked BBC journalists to define capitalism, most would mumble something along the lines of “buying and selling things”. This is how people often understand it. But that’s not capitalism, that’s commerce, which has been happening for thousands of years.
Read 15 tweets

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