Angry Man Threatens Students at University of Toronto Scarborough
January 24, 2015
Dear University of Toronto and University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation:
This is in response to the recent assault on student activism and student spaces at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus:
On Thursday November 6, a 34 year-old man with no affiliation to the University of Toronto furiously entered the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union office after hours. He stole a poster that read WARNING: THIS UNIVERSITY PROFITS OFF ISRAELI APARTHEID AND OCCUPATION. All attempts to calm him down failed. After stealing the poster he drove off, recording the incident with his phone. Campus police filed a report and said to notify them if the man returns. After a couple of weeks we put up another sign. The man came back. He forced his way into the student union. We tried to calm him down and initiate dialogue. The man replied with, “I’ll rip your fucking throat out” and “I have twelve guys on standby ready”—implying that he or other people will be back. He shouted that he use to be a part of the “israeli” military and regularly killed “terrorists”. Campus police came to the scene and issued the man a Notice of Trespass for the UTSC campus.
In fury, we wondered how a man with no affiliation to the University of Toronto invaded student spaces, threatened students, stole private property, and walked away with just a Notice of Trespass. Why hasn’t the University been held accountable for investing in companies such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, both of which supply F-16 bomber jets and Hellfire missiles to “israel”? Why do our tuition dollars continue to fund “israel’s” colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine? The University—rather than addressing their complicity—responded with increased policing of student union spaces and activism. We are not looking for increased policing of activist activities, we want to cut ties with international law violations without facing death threats. If the University of Toronto did not invest in these companies we would not be threatened repeatedly on University grounds.
We demand that the University of Toronto, University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation:
– Immediately divest from companies complicit in international law violations, including all companies profiting off “israel’s” colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land.
– Apologize and take accountability for the violence and death threats we’ve incurred as a result of raising awareness of UTAM’s investments.
– Ensure safer spaces for student organizers not through increased policing and surveillance but rather by validating our voices and addressing our concerns.
U of T Divest – Scarborough
Dash Cam Video Shows Seattle Cop Falsified Charge Against Elderly Man Walking Down Street
By Carlos Miller | PINAC | January 28, 2015
Seattle police officer Cynthia Whitlatch was cruising down the street in her patrol car when she came across an elderly man standing on the corner using a golf club as a cane, prompting her to stop her car and order him to place the club down, claiming it could be a weapon.
William Wingate, a retired bus driver and Air Force veteran who was 69 at the time, said he’s been using that golf club as a cane for 20 years and refused to set it down.
So Whitlatch escalated the lying.
“You just swang that golf club at me …. It was on audio and videotape, put it down,” she said.
The incident took place last July, but Whitlach’s dash cam video was just released after a public records request by The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative weekly.
The video, posted below, shows Wingate remained professional but defiant, insisting she call another officer.
But when she did, the second officer took her side, arresting him on harassment and obstruction charges when it was clear from the video she was the only one harassing and obstructing his freedom to move freely in the city.
After spending a night in jail, King County prosecutors switched the charge against him to unlawful use of a weapon, obviously not bothering to watch the video.
Wingate, represented by a public defender who also didn’t watch the video, was told to sign an agreement stating the case would be dropped in two years if he complied with certain stipulations.
Fortunately, a former politician learned of the case and got involved, and eventually persuaded the judge to dismiss the case. But police never admitted wrongdoing, even after watching the video.
And Whitlach is still on the force, a protected liar who should be behind bars.
Because Wingate is black and Whitlach is white, she was accused of racial profiling, but police balk at that notion, insisting she would have falsified records to arrest him even if he had been white.
According to The Stranger :
In the police report filed by Officer Coles about the incident, Whitlach said “she observed him look at her and aggressively swing his golf club in the direction of her patrol car.”
“Because Wingate was still in possession of the golf club,” Coles wrote in the report, “and she was fearful of being assaulted by him, she said that she kept her distance from him upon exiting her patrol car.”
“It’s like, c’mon lady. You were lying,” Mason told me. “She wasn’t afraid of him at all.”
But the police commanders, including Metz and Davis, didn’t see it that way. Mason said they “tried to convince me nothing was wrong.”
Metz, in particular, “kept trying to convince us nothing was wrong here. He defended the officer.”
Nothing came out of that meeting, Mason said. But weeks later, she received a call from Deputy Chief Carmen Best, who, like Wingate, is black.
“The solution we came up with,” she said, “was actually good on the part of the [police] chief”—who’d assigned Best to look into the case. “It became African American and white women coming together to work on a solution.”
Weeks later, city prosecutors, after conferring with Best, recommended dismissing both the case against him and the two-year stipulation.
“They know that had this been a white man,” said Mason, “we wouldn’t be here.”
But, in fact, it appears they don’t know that. The Seattle Police Department insists racial bias played no role in the incident.
“If this person had been white,” said SPD spokesman Sean Whitcomb, speaking by phone on Tuesday, “I would imagine it would have been the same outcome. We don’t believe this was a biased policing incident. We don’t believe the officer acted out of malice or targeted this man because of his race.”
Whitlatch enjoys playing the victim having been one of 126 Seattle police officers last year who sued the Department of Justice, claiming the agency was infringing on their Constitutional rights by requiring them to be less violent towards citizens.
Her conversation with Wingate begins at the 1:40 mark.
UPDATE: The Stranger posted another story today, revealing some comments apparently made by Whitlach on Facebook regarding her disdain for black people who blame white people for their problems.
Seattle faces $500k suit for pepper-spraying school teacher
RT | January 29, 2015
A Seattle, Washington high school history teacher who was pepper-sprayed by police moments after speaking at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally is suing the city for $500,000.
Attorneys for Jesse Hagopian filed the claim against Seattle on Wednesday, nine days after the incident unfolded during, ironically, an anti-police brutality protest held in tandem with similar rallies across the United States on the holiday named for the slain civil rights leader.
Hagopian, a history teacher at Garfield High School who is known throughout the region for his activism, had just finished speaking during the January 19 event and was on the phone with his mother when a female police officer began discharging her pepper spray, striking multiple people.
An eyewitness was filming only a few feet away from where that officer and others had formed a barricade along a city intersection as law enforcement tried to control the crowd. A separate video filmed from above suggests that an officer had been knocked off their bicycle down the street, prompting the police to try and clear the area.
The ground-level footage appears to show Hagopian on the phone, walking towards the sidewalk, when he is blasted across the face with a stream of pepper spray.
“Ah, f**k. They just sprayed,”a voice on the video is heard saying as the officer barks to the crowd while attempting to clear the intersection.
Hagopian later got online and explained what happened in his own words:
“I was marching for Martin Luther King day today – amazing march! At one point after the big main march, group of bike cops set up a line to keep us from marching. Some people walked through the line, but I didn’t. When my phone rang, I turned away from the cops and began walking away to answer the phone. A cop then ran up in my face and pepper sprayed me right in the face.”
The close-up video recording of the incident has since been acquired by James Bible, the former president of the Seattle chapter of the NAACP, who in turn posted it to YouTube on Wednesday in concert with the announcement concerning the court filing. Bible is also serving as Hagopian’s attorney.
According to the Seattle Times, the suit alleges that Hagopian “instantly felt a burning sensation in his eyes and had some difficulty breathing.” The teacher later posted a photograph online showing him trying to tame the effects of the spray by dousing his face with milk.
“The main thing I’m upset about is that [I was on] the sidewalk when I was pepper sprayed so there’s really no reason at all they can use to justify what they did,” Hagopian told The Skanner News. … Full article
New Greek govt furious over EU ‘unequivocal’ anti-Russia statement
RT | January 28, 2015
The new Greek government has spoken out against the EU partners over the statement that lays the blame for Saturday’s fatal attack on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Russia. Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria voiced similar objections earlier.
The government, headed by Prime Minister Alexis Tripras, said in a press release on Tuesday that “the aforementioned statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states, and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece.”
“In this context, it is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement,” Tsipras added.
He voiced his “discontent” in a phone call to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini.
The EU statement was published on Tuesday morning, saying that all 28 EU leaders had agreed that Russia bears “responsibility” for a rocket attack on the city of Mariupol that left 30 people dead on Saturday.
Brussels objected that the Greek government had been informed about the statement on Russia and Ukraine, but no one had contradicted it until Tuesday.
European Council President Donald Tusk initiated the EU statement, and claimed he had called Tsipras and the “sherpas” – top officials taking care of EU issues in each leader’s office.
One EU diplomat reportedly said that Greece had attempted to remove the line blaming Russia for the Mariupol killing. Also, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia tried, and failed, to “water down” the communiqué, the EU Observer website stated.
It’s the first time that such a situation – a retroactive abjuration of an EU line – has happened, EU Council official stressed.
Foreign affairs analyst Serja Trifkovich told RT that other countries might follow suit and oppose Brussels’ policies on the Ukrainian crisis.
“It’s very difficult in the EU to break the ranks. Now that Greece has made a move, I confidently expect that the Hungarians in particular, but perhaps also Slovakia and Cyprus, will [find] the courage to say no to the dictate from Brussels.”
The EU statement on Russia and Ukraine also urged for more sanctions, for considering “any appropriate action” against Moscow.
One of the measures being mulled is to block Russia from the global interbank SWIFT payment system.
Economist Max Fraad Wolff told RT that this would be a drastic measure.
“Let’s be fair and honest here: if you’re cut off from SWIFT, your ability to have any kind of normal business flow with the global commerce community is hampered.”
However, what he envisages is that “cooler heads will prevail” and that “we won’t see Russia cut off from the SWIFT system,” as it is “in very few parties’ long-term interests.”
Sayed Hasan Nasrallah denounces the repression in Bahrain
Hasan Nasrallah – January 9, 2015
Regarding this point, I want to say to our people especially in the border villages and to the Lebanese people that in confronting this danger the Lebanese are not incapable or weak and they don’t need anybody’s help. With our strength, army, people and resistance, just like we defeated the Israelis we will defeat the takfiris and anyone who thinks about harming the Lebanese and their dignity.
Let us be at peace knowing despite the snow and martyrs and burdens nothing of this can change anything regarding the will and determination of all of us especially the Freedom Fighters. When it comes to defending the people and its security and they did this and are ready to continue assuming this position till the end.
I call on everyone not to take part in this intimidation campaign and not to try to intimidate people: nobody can guarantee that no operation will take place here or there. This can happen in any country, whether France, Britain or Europe, all these countries are now in a state of emergency.
But regarding the risk of a large scale military operation – people haven’t been killed and this country is full of men and strong women there is no problem in this regard. God willing in confronting one of the biggest and strongest army in the world we were able to persevere and achieve victory so what can we say regarding these terrorists?
The final words I want to say – I do not want to take up to much of your time – of course, the issue of the region are extensive and important… The developments in Palestine, very dangerous developments in Palestine regarding the Palestinian people and al Quds and al Aqsa mosque, or the Gaza strip or the prisoners or the surrounding areas, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain and other situations in these regions and the world. I don’t have time to discuss the regional situations but I will have an interview in the next few days where I will speak more extensively. Whoever would like to listen will listen….
In the remaining minutes, I find myself obliged to focus on the issue of Bahrain.
In the past few days the Bahraini authority arrested the secretary general of al Wifaq, Sheikh Ali Salman, may God preserve him. This was dangerous and the continuation of his arrest is also dangerous. In terms of its significance with regards to what can be said in condemnation we can’t say enough. But there is something we should focus on is that the Bahraini authorities have reached a dead end despite their efforts the past years.
The people of Bahrain who are demanding their legitimate rights and these rights cannot be debated. One of the most basic rights when everybody talks about democracy is that they have an elected parliament, and that the parliament that puts laws is elected. Having a parliament from which the government can appoint members to participate in drafting the laws of the political process is not enough.
What are these people demanding? They are saying we want an elected parliament which enjoys complete autonomy.
Number two, these people from day one have chosen peace in their movement, a peace movement. This distinguishes today, someone was speaking about Bahrain, but what about here or there. We’re talking about a country, in this country, its people from day one said, these are our natural logical rights, not just this, but of others, but this is one of the most important right.
And they chose a peaceful manner, they opened fire on them, but they didn’t return fire, they were killed on the street, but they didn’t respond by killing. It’s just not that they didn’t use weapons, or explosives or they didn’t bring in fighters or groups from the outside, even a knife , they didn’t use a knife.
And they insist on the peaceful nature of this movement, and this is what further cornered the Bahraini authorities. The leadership of the opposition, the clerical leadership and the political leadership all agree on the peaceful nature of the movement.
First and foremost Ayatollah Sheikh Issa Qassem May God preserve him and first and foremost, Al-Wefaq Association led by Sheikh Ali Salman may God preserve him.
We the Lebanese know that peaceful movements, abiding by the peaceful nature is very difficult, when someone is struck or when fire is opened he takes up arms and begins to open fire. If he has arms and if he doesn’t have arms, he goes and buys arms and begins to think day or night about those weapons.
But these people, their houses are attacked, their families are attacked, their clerics are in prison, their religious symbols are in prison, women, you know what happens in prison.
They were killed on the streets, but they didn’t resort to any form of violence, they continued to insist on protests and speeches and the peaceful means. There are maybe certain means which can be described as non-peaceful and violent but they didn’t resort to those means.
The Bahraini authorities always spoke about dialogue only as a way of talking not within a serious dialogue. But this opposition has always been ready for dialogue, the nature of its movement, the nature of its peaceful goals, in agreement with it reaching dialogue.
But the authority always ran away from dialogue and the result of dialogue.
The Bahraini authorities in the last two years, what did they hope for, they hoped that in the end people would get tired. They protested first day, second day, first month, first year, second year, third year…
We in Lebanon, we get tired from protests in two or three months. It’s enough, these protests don’t lead us anywhere, but we have people who have been protesting for years and for four years they have been striking.
And for four years they have been carrying out peaceful movements, this is a distinguished movement in this world. In all different places the movement derailed and became violent very quickly, in this place the movement did not become violent.
Not because there are no men in Bahrain, there are men in Bahrain, the people of Bahrain are known for their courage and for their enthusiasm. This is their history.
Not because no one can use weapons in Bahrain – here let me say so because Al-Khalifa family can’t put me in prison – not because no one can use weapons in Bahrain. Not because nobody can send arms to Bahrain or because there is no one can send fighters to Bahrain. Bahrain is just like any other country in the world, any country whatever be the measures weapons can be sent, fighters can be sent, anyone can sabotage it.
Small groups can sabotage a country. The main issue is that the will of the clerics and the political leadership and the people of Bahrain they are insisting on the peaceful dialogue.
They hoped that they would get tired, that hey would just lose their interest, but they didn’t, even though the world and the international community abandoned them. Those who supported the Arab Spring, when they get to Bahrain, they stopped, they outrageously described the situation as sectarian, however it’s not sectarian,
I don’t have the time to speak about the issue of Bahrain and what the people are subject to, I didn’t want to use this term but I will just this one time.
They have a project similar to the Zionist project, they have settlement activity in Bahrain, they have naturalization, whereby people come from all over the world. They are given citizenship, they are given jobs, they are given high salaries, security, respect, dignity. At the same time the original sons and citizens, the Bahrainis, whose fathers and grandfathers have been in that country, they are not given their basic rights. When they make political demands, their nationalities are taken away from them or they are imprisoned and efforts are being made day and night to change the identity of the Bahraini people.
There will come a day where the people of Bahrain are not of the original Bahraini people, it will be another nationality. Just as what the Zionists are doing in Palestine, whereby they want the day to come where the real inhabitants of Palestine will be the Jews all over the world. Isn’t this injustice?
These people are still committed to dialogue despite all of the betrayal so the Bahraini authorities found that the people didn’t get tired, they didn’t give up.
In the end the people will call on the leaders, on the clerics, we protested on the first, second, third and fourth year, okay, where have we reached? In the end, the political leaders say okay, but despite that the political leadership and the clerics insist on continuing on this path.
I take responsibility for what I say, I want my colleagues in Bahrain to listen, this is my opinion and stance on the issue. The Bahraini leadership have hoped that the Bahraini youth would be pushed towards carrying out violence, by their oppressive acts. Its in the interest of the Bahraini leadership for people to resort to violence because when the opposition is accused of carrying out acts of violence, then the leadership will come and speak about national security and will strike the opposition and its leadership and crush it, and therefore put an end to this opposition. The Bahraini leadership from the past four years tried to push the opposition in Bahrain towards an armed confrontation and it failed and once again.
Again I repeat one of the most important reasons behind the peaceful nature of this movement is its culture and leadership. Even if we have a leadership, the people have a different approach, the people have a different culture, a culture of quickly going to wars and fighting.
What can the leadership do in this case, bring about miracles, but the culture and leadership of this people allowed their peaceful nature to continue. How do we understand the arrest of Sheikh Ali Salman ? It happened because he is one of the religious symbols of the peaceful movement which insists on the peaceful nature of the movement.
And we might witness, and this something which everyone must pay attention to, all of the leaders who went to and insist on peaceful movement are being taken to prison.
In order to strike the peaceful movement and to crack the movement in general, what was the accusation made against Sheikh Ali Salman ? It was inciting for the committing acts of violence. Now if someone wants to make an accusation, make an accusation which is appropriate, which could be true. All Bahrainis know Sheikh Ali Salman. He is peaceful, peaceful till one loses their breath, even one accompanies with his peaceful movement, you’re too peaceful.This Sheikh, what is he accused of is that he incites people to resort to violence. Why? For the sake of toppling the regime.
Although you know the opposition, there is a debate, some people support toppling the regime, the Al Khalifa family and some in the opposition hold the stance of reform. An elected parliament, a government which is elected, as we hear from the opposition. Sheikh Ali belongs to the second group.
He didn’t speak about toppling the regime, nor did he incite to commit violence, this is an allegation which is a lie.
What the government of Bahrain will discover to what it is doing is an act of stupidity. It will not be able to put an end to this movement neither by arresting and imprisoning the former clerics and leaders nor by arresting or imprisoning Sheikh Ali Salman.
If they are able to arrest all of the Bahraini people, it’ll put a stop to the movements in the street, but they won’t be able to stop the movement in the prisons. People insist on continuing with movements behind bars and they also insist on the peaceful nature of the movement.
And I today express my solidarity and our support and from day one we stood in support of this peaceful popular movement and its logical goals and its civil manner.
We call for solidarity and explaining the significance, the meaning we call for pressures to be exerted on this tyrannical and oppressive government, in order for it to give them their rights, to the people to release all of the prisoners, first and foremost Sheikh Ali Salman.
On the other hand I stress and I support and we all support the call made by Sheikh Ali Salman from prison to insist on the peaceful nature of the movement. We must bear in mind that the Bahraini leadership wants by this arrest, by the former arrests, it wants to drag the Bahraini people to violence and armed confrontation.
This doesn’t serve the interests of Bahrain nor the people of Bahrain. Look at the countries of the region, look at all of them. When they resorted to arms in those countries, what was the result? What could be the result in any country?
Anyway I wanted to talk about this issue on this occasion and we pray to God that next year our nation is able to come out and pass these tests successfully and manages to confront these challenges by achieving true victory. We hope that the Nation will be able to overcome these difficult phases by unity, vigilance, and wisdom, by taking responsibility and also by overthrowing all of these plans and conspiracies from within the nation and from outside, which could have pushed the nation into abyss.
God bless you all, happy anniversary and peace, blessings and mercy be upon you all.
Translation : Electronic Resistance
Edition : http://sayed7asan.blogspot.fr
Protests Mark Australia’s Invasion Day
Invasion Day, Melbourne | Photo: Tim Dunn
teleSUR | January 26, 2015
In Melbourne, Australia on Sunday, around 800 people marched to mark Invasion day. Other protests, actions, and cultural events were also held around the country, while national and local governments organized formal celebrations of “Australia Day.”
On January 26, 1788, the first British fleet arrived on Australian coasts, marking the beginning of the invasion of that land, and the deliberate policies of genocide, slavery, child stealing, land stealing, and discrimination against the Indigenous peoples, as well as over 500 unpunished deaths in custody.
The Melbourne Invasion Day march this year marched to the official Australia Day march and pushed aside the barricades and occupied the space. Attendees reported that those at the official march “didn’t seam to know what to do.” Some members of the Invasion Day march chatted to those in the official march and explained the history behind the date. Some activists, according to GreenLeft Weekly, reported that there was some sympathy from those in the official march, who joined the Invasion Day march instead.
“No pride in genocide,” was one of the chants of the Invasion Day march.
“Today was the best Invasion Day protest I have ever been to. There was a real feeling of Aboriginal pride and resistance,” stated march participant and Socialist Alliance councilor, Sue Bolton.
Organizers of the Invasion Day march stated that the day “is a day of mourning for us Indigenous people, but its also a day to make our voices heard, to take a stand … to demonstrate our resistance to colonization and genocide. We have never ceded our sovereignty, and remain committed to the cause of decolonization.”
According to the ABC, in Sydney 10,000 people participated in the Yabun Festival, held to celebrate 40,000 years of Indigenous culture. In inner city Sydney, around 1,000 people marched for Indigenous land rights.
Australian private and mainstream media coverage has been biased against the Invasion Day marches. The Age headlined, “Aboriginal rights protest disrupts Australia Day Parade in Melbourne” while the Herald Sun said the marches had “interrupted” and “mar(ed)” events, but did not use the same language for official Australia Day events. Other media ignored the Indigenous rights marches.
Reflections on MH17
RT Documentary | January 16, 2015
The tragedy of MH17 in which 298 people lost their lives, made the conflict in Ukraine real for many other countries. While the international community awaits the outcome of the crash investigation, speculation in the media continues to fuel the blame game. RTD travels far and wide to interview international experts on what has hindered the investigation, what procedures were needed to collect vital evidence and what might have brought down the ill-fated Boeing 777.
~
OCSE monitor mentions bullet holes in MH17
Original source http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/malaysia… – OCSE monitor Michael Bociurkiw mentions bullet holes in #MH17, not able to find any missile so far.
Extremists incorporated
The terror act waged on the city of Paris again demonstrates how the West’s so-called war on terror works – or doesn’t work. The extremists on both sides of this divide claim Paris a victory. For the innocent, it is another senseless and painful tragedy.
CrossTalking with Gearoid Ó Colmáin and Hafsa Kara Mustapha.
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Book Review
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
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