We’ve given Breitbart columnist James “interpreter of interpretations” Delingpole plenty of grief over the years, for his lazy lies, fake news, defense of white nationalists and literally unbelievable stupidity, as well as his attacks on women and children and Muslims and scientists and public servants.
But now it appears he’s taken a turn for the softer. He’s written a pair of columns about his experience at the recent Glastonbury Festival that are approaching, if not embracing, a basic level of human decency.
The lighter of the two pieces is in the Spectator, where Delingpole mostly keeps the commentary focused on the music (apparently Miley Cyrus was much better than Kylie Minogue?) and is downright reasonable. Upon reading it, you can almost see the writer Delingpole would be if he had a solid editor to keep his pretentiousness in check, and a heart and soul uncorrupted by his very white, very male brand of hate.
Over at Breitbart, though, Delingpole lets his true colors fly with a column on what he learned on his “undercover mission among the greenies at Glastonbury.” But even here he’s more conciliatory than usual (perhaps still under the second-hand influence of one of the various recreational chemicals that float around music festivals).
Back in 2015, Delingpole wrote that he believed environmentalists “love oil disasters” for their propaganda purposes. But apparently, when cavorting with the festie-folk, Delingpole discovered that “most of the people who believe passionately in climate change, even the really radical ones who support Extinction Rebellion, are mostly just as nice and normal and reasonable and decent and intelligent as you or me.”
He learned that “the green enemy” is in fact “not hateful or evil, just woefully ill-informed,” and perhaps most surprising to him, “they actually believe this nonsense!”
Apparently, Delingpole really believed his own propaganda--that environmentalism is just a cover for communism--and was amazed to find that his sworn enemies “believe it because they know no better.”
Of course, Delingpole then goes on to decry how “when you live in a bubble” where you never “get exposed to articles or books questioning the alarmist narrative,” that “this is how you think” and that “the media bear a terrible responsibility for this.”
See, according to Delingpole, the lack of skeptical viewpoints like his in the media (reminder: he used his platform to write not one but two columns about his festival fun) “means that green propagandists get a free pass” to brainwash the public.
And in his conclusion, he offers what he learned, which he considers “at once cheering and depressing.” The good news is that environmentalists aren’t all evil, raving lunatics (though he pretends they are when he uses them for his straw man arguments to bilk gullible morons into buying his books). The bad news, from his perspective, is that “our message is simply not reaching them” and that “any half way competent PR company ought to win the battle for hearts and minds in a nanosecond.”
Huh. Hope no one tells GWPF, Heartland, CEI, CFACT, DCI, ACSH or any of the other “charity” organizations funded to do PR for the fossil fuel industry that Delingpole considers them to be less than half way competent!
So for those strugging to find something or someone to be proud of this Fourth of July, as you reflect on what it means to be an American at a time when we’re running concentration camps and our president was credibly accused of rape, again, and it barely registered in the news cycle, you can at least take comfort in knowing James Delingpole is British.
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