Comment is Stupid

Though I'm trying not to focus on the negative news about climate change, it's kind of hard to miss. We're doomed. Hopefully some of us will still be able to get by as the North Koreans manage to do. They are examples to us all. Hope you're ready for grass soup, if we're lucky enough to have grass. I'm confident we will. Unfortunately we might not have much else, especially since we are throwing away our precious heirloom seeds at an unprecedented rate.

And that's the problem. We know we're in trouble but we don't know how bad. How about an average global temperature increase of 4 degrees Celsius? That's bad. Read the linked article for details about how we have to go much further than we ever thought with cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

But what has started as another rant about climate change (how can you not when you're future dreams are over!), was meant to be about new media. Have you noticed now that every news story in any online publication gives the reader the ability to post comments? Have you also noticed that almost every single comment is repulsive? And in most cases the comments attack previous commentators instead of dealing with the issues rationally.

I'm tempted to go conspiracy and claim that the devil is enlisting unemployed Republicans, Conservatives and other crackpots around the world to post comments on whatever they feel. Seriously, all the comments generally seem to support traditionally right-wing perspectives. I thought liberals and environmentalists were the ones into technology?

In the recent travesty of justice that was the "trial" of JSR in the murder of Jane Creba, I read comments following a lame story suggesting the death penalty for this young man, a minor at the time of the murder. I'm all for mob justice but at least give the guy a fair trial before you hang him (does this remind you of Mississipi Burning). His lawyer rightly balked at the verdict given that the evidence showed that a gun in his posession was not the gun that killed her. How could he then be the murderer? An accomplice perhaps but second degree murder? Fuck that.

I should say that this trial demonstrates that in the absence of evidence and actual suspects, the legal system will target a person of colour for killing a sweet, little white girl. It might as well still be the 1950s in the South (minus the hanging, lest the commentators have their way). I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, and I do regret her death, a tragedy caused by a stupid group of thugs, but this is not a just result. But of course this young man is going to disappear into the prison system which means we'll likely hear from him again.

And lastly, back to climate change. George Monbiot again is masterful describing the insanity surrounding the end of civilization. The insanity we targets this time is rightly all those crazy commentators calling climate change a hoax and a tax grab and "proving" that sunspots are behind the whole thing.

Sure, burning all that coal and at the same time, cutting down trees, is completely normal. Where are these people coming from? Who is paying them to surf and comment as if they knew what they were talking about? Must be all the middle managers and bureaucrats who have nothing better to do as their empires collapse around them and their retirement funds go up in flames.

If you can stomach it read his article and better still the comments. I can barely read two before I shut off and seek the sanity of Democracy Now.