In the span of just a few months, Naomi Seibt has gone from making a surprise appearance at a Heartland conference, to denying being a pawn of Heartland, to being on their payroll and speaking at CPAC (the ComicCon of conservative punditry), to being a guest on Fox News.
Apparently in their haste to find an Anti-Greta, Heartland either failed to actually listen to what she’s said, or didn’t care that she’s anti-Semitic. The Guardian, reporting on some of her past comments, found that in the wake of a deadly attack on a synagogue, Seibt repeated “age-old tropes of Jewish power and white grievance: the idea that Jews are a privileged class and that white people are oppressed by them,” according to Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Seibt has also called Stefan Molyneux an “inspiration.” For those unfamiliar with the YouTuber Molyneux, the Guardian relays the SPLC’s description of him as an “alleged cult leader who amplifies scientific racism, eugenics and white supremacism.”
While Seibt’s mother, Karoline, pushed back on the allegations, it’s important to note Seibt got her start in the far-right politics of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, and Karoline Seibt herself is a supporter of AfD. In fact, she’s the lawyer for AfD’s Richard Mol, who was apparently banned from Facebook for criticizing a story on Islamic refugees in Germany, and whose anti-refugee politics are what started Naomi Seibt down this road. So Karoline Seibt is… not exactly an unbiased source when it comes to the politics of white supremacy.
A German blog post describes Naomi Seibt’s message being one of "foreign cultures not being allowed to mix," and quotes her saying about feminism that "if a woman today cannot achieve what she would like to achieve, she is simply not good enough or just has to work harder."
Was Heartland aware that Naomi feels this way about Jews, immigrants, Muslims and women when they hired her to be their new Anti-Greta? Either they didn’t do any cursory due diligence into Seibt before hiring her, or worse, they did, and found these things acceptable. Neither should inspire confidence in whoever’s giving Heartland the money that they’re paying Naomi with.
This is yet another unfortunate example of deniers making common cause with bigots, and sadly not even the only one from last week. Former Trump advisor Will Happer, who famously compared climate science to the “demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,” told audiences at CPAC that Trump wanted to be the host of a televised Red Team attack on climate science, but his campaign managers wouldn’t let him. Why? Out of fear it would alienate key voters, for whom Happer had a message: “Let me say a little about Republican women and housewives: They’ve been brainwashed.”
And if that’s not a clear enough example of how petro-masculinity is easily triggered by women thinking for themselves, don’t worry, it gets much, much worse. Remember when a denial blogger freaked out over the subliminal suggestion that deniers are pedophiles?
Well, they’re not going to be happy about the fact that apparently someone decided it would be a good idea to create stickers for an Albertan oil company, featuring the company’s name, X-Site Energy Services, below a cartoon image portraying Greta Thunberg being sexually assaulted. According to the person who alerted the media, the sticker was being handed out at job sites as promotional material to wear on hard hats and such.
X-Site official Doug Sparrow was reportedly unphased by the sticker, telling reporters that Thunberg is “not a child, she’s 17.” That said, he denied anyone employed by the company was responsible for making the sticker. We all know how common it is for random unaffiliated people to print out stickers with a company’s name on them and distribute them to workers.
Fortunately, the real Greta is doing just fine. While all this was happening last week, she was leading a protest of 15 to 30,000 people in Bristol, after meeting with someone earlier in the week who knows a thing or two about overcoming evil and winning Nobel Peace Prizes: Malala Yousafzai.
Malala, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for protesting for girls to be able to attend school, captioned the photo of the two of them by saying “She’s the only friend I’d skip school for.”
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