Introduction

Anyone reading this is likely to know that George Monbiot is an internationally famous environmental, anti globalisation and anti capitalist  campaigner. He is also a  journalist and author.  His Guardian articles show a consistent anti free market stance with a strong bias toward  returning the planet  to a  more natural, primitive state.

The argument put forward here is that , rather than being a Guardian style progressive, Monbiot is actually  an elitist, ruling class, ultra conservative pushing a deeply regressive agenda. Very much like the elite Club of Rome  which published  "Limits to Growth".


Monbiot launched a  sustained attack on economic growth in this article. There are 70 references to growth, almost all negative.

In this age of diamond saucepans, only a recession makes sense

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/09/comment.economy


Bring on the Recession -  how else will the destructive effects of growth be stopped?
http://www.monbiot.com/2007/10/09/bring-on-the-recession/



The recession Monbiot wanted happened and as any honest commentator would have forecast, it had a devastating effect on the poor and massively increased inequality. Monbiot isn't just  oppposed to growth, he has a fundamental issue with progress itself as we shall see later.


 Monbiot's mentor at Oxford ,Sir Crispin Tickell is an extreme right wing eugenecist,  was Margaret Thatcher's ambassador to the UN,  her global warming adviser and  member of the famous eugenics Huxley family .


Sir Crispin Tickell

Sir Crispin was President of the Royal Geographical Society from 1990 to 1993 and Warden of Green College, Oxford between 1990 and 1997, where he appointed George Monbiot and Norman Myers as Visiting Fellows.

 He is also a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, and told Radio 4's Today programme that the ideal population for Britain could be around 20 million.  As a member of Lord Rogers' Urban Task Force, Tickell counselled against spreading cities saying that we need denser living, that young adults should not expect to leave home straight away, and that older relatives could live in 'granny flats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin_Tickell


Even Tickell thinks Monbiot is radical !

"George clearly represents the more radical wing," says Sir Crispin Tickell, Warden of Green College and a prominent establishment environmentalist. "But he's a very articulate person... George and I go on expeditions looking for fossils together."

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/occupying-the-moral-high-ground-1346850.html



 Here is an excellent article from the British Guardian newspaper on the role of the ruling classes in the Green movement.


Blue-blooded and green - It's no coincidence that many leading greens are privileged: the upper classes have long harboured a fear and loathing of modern society...

"So, the handbook tells us that we should live in small houses rather than McMansions; we should switch off our central heating and wear jumpers to keep ourselves warm; and we should avoid travelling by plane or car and ride a bike instead"

Who wrote this call for individual austerity? None other than David de Rothschild, a member of the mind-blowingly wealthy Rothschild banking family and heir to a rather spectacular fortune.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/01/bluebloodedandgreen



Like Monbiot himself, these  people are also descended from aristocracy.


Honorary Members of the Club of Rome

H.M. Doña Sophia – Queen of Spain,
H.M. Juan Carlos I – King of Spain, H.M.
Queen Beatrix – Queen of the Netherlands.
H.R.H. Prince Philippe – Crown Prince of Belgium

http://www.clubofrome.org/?cat=52&paged=4


More Monbiot quotes


People don't riot for austerity; they riot because they want more, not less. We have to riot for less
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3675760.stm


It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves

George Monbiot, Heat, London, Allen Lane, 2006, p. 215


There is no suggestion that George Monbiot supports or has ever supported the policies of  any right wing political party, present or past.  Merely that he shares a similar underlying  back to nature, anti progress, ultra conservative philosophy.  Godwins Law is not being flouted here.


There is no hidden or implied support  for those who Monbiot  most directs his bile,  free market extremists such as the  the Heritage Foundation,  Koch Brothers, Fox  or the capitalist right in general. Including the  GWPF.

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Copyright Eric McCay 2013/2014