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Sunday 23 February 2014

Delingpole Nazi Hypocrisy

When the Breitbart money arrived in London – rumoured to have been secured from at least two venture capitalists by Andrew Breitbart before he died – it should have been obvious to anyone looking to get involved with this new venture that payment was not going to be merely a conflation of gift and status symbol: the new paymasters would require results.
Not even slightly fair and balanced

That meant “leveraging” the talents on offer to bring in plenty of readers. Sadly, those talents extended only to James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole and a few also-rans. So this meant Del Boy had to churn out copy on a daily basis, whether he had media appearances to make, books to write, or domestic stuff to fulfil. It was what Stanley Unwin would have called “nosey grindstone”.

And so we arrive at Del’s rant at an organisation called the Soil Association. Who they? Well, they call themselvesthe UK's leading membership charity campaigning for healthy, humane and sustainable food, farming and land use”, and that what they call “the best food” is “organically grown, minimally processed, fairly traded, fresh and seasonal”. Keep an eye on that word “organic”.

If it’s “organic”, then genetically modified produce is going to be out. You can’t call something “organic” if it’s been modified other than by conventional methods. So no-one should be surprised to see the Soil Association tellWe campaign against the use of genetically modified (GM) ingredients in human and animal food, and against the commercial planting of GM crops in the UK”.

Ready now for the Delingpole spin? Here it comes: under the title “Ein Volk, Ein Führer, Ein Rice!”, Del asks the kind of rhetorical question so beloved of his pals at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse): “What kind of nutcase would you have to be to oppose a miracle product which could save the lives of two million children every year and the eyesight of another half a million a year?

The supposed “miracle product” is called Golden Rice, and it’s genetically modified. It is claimed that it cures Vitamin A deficiency. But it is also not ready for commercial production yet. No matter: Del and the Breitbots are on the case, and have found that one of the Soil Association’s founders may have had far-right views on a number of subjects. This is therefore held to taint the whole organisation.

So an organisation whose founders had far-right sympathies are a no-no. It follows that Delingpole would never go near such bodies. So perhaps he can explain why he has written so extensively for the Daily Mail and its sister Sunday title, when the bloke who owned the paper in the 1930s was such an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis, and ran openly anti-semitic copy in the paper.

After all, we’re talking high principles here, eh Del? What a stinking hypocrite.

5 comments:

rob said...

Perhaps a striking example of when it gets out of control?

James Delingpole: In defence of cocaine (from The Spectator)
"If you can handle your drink, why should your self-control desert you with other drugs?"
or perhaps the Verve were right, the drugs don't work (anymore).

Nb. No scientific thought was hurt in this coment.

SimonB said...

The Ecos are completely, disgracefully wrong on Golden Rice though. Lives and eyes would have already been saved if it wasn't for their blanket anti-GM stance.

Gonzoland said...

I'm enjoying some Soil Association, FairTrade chocolate with a glass of apple schnapps and I have no urge to do any goose-stepping.
If Deludepole wants GM rice and Monsanto milk, he's welcome to them although he'd be better off eating organic carrots if he needs Vit A.

Andrew King said...

Oh dear. I'm afraid our esteemed interpreter of interpretations and intellectual rape victim seems to have picked up some of his information from my blog, to which his article has linked. Which is a tad embarrassing since I'm not exactly his greatest fan (my posts tagged "James Delingpole" tend to fall some way short of being complimentary).

I've never entered the GM part of this debate (for the record, I'm a GM agnostic - I can see that GM techniques have some potential for good, but I'm also concerned about issues like GM corporations trying to patent things that exist in nature, or using terminator genes to extract rents from poor farmers, who used to be able to save the seed they'd grown, not to mention the unintended impact modified genes may have on ecosystem when they escape into wild species).

I did, however, stumble on some readily-available information on the origins of the Soil Association and the pro-Fascist/Nazi views espoused by Jorian Jenks and some of the figures from the associations' antecedent organizations. I've made no assertion that anyone in the Soil Association today, or in kindred organizations, subscribes to their views ('I've no reason to suppose that many of today's eco warriors know, or approve, of Gardiner, Wallop and Jenks' disturbing political views'), but it does seem that, not just one person, but several of the association's founding fathers, were a rather rum lot and I'd be a lot happier if the Soil Association 'fessed up to the skeletons in its cupboard, and publically disavowed its founding fathers' politics, rather than trying to pretend it never happened.

I do specifically accuse one modern ecological group of being Fascist, but that is a fringe group of loonies calling itself "Woden's Folk", who bang on about 'the Germanic Folk' and 'indigenous people' and use a modified swastika for their logo, so I reckon they're fair game.

As far as I know, the information in my post is accurate (I've cited why I think it is in a reply to a commentator who took umbrage with what I'd written about the views of Richard Walter Darré ), and nobody has yet been in touch to point out any specific error (the umbrage-taker was, I think, wrong).

I 'm generally sympathetic to the ecological movement, as I believe that we're in the midst of a period of anthropogenic mass extinction - I was just surprised to find that the founders of a movement which I'd always thought of as a product of well-meaning liberalism seems to have had dodgy origins, which do the ecological movement no favours at all (giving the likes of James Delingpole all the ammunition they need). As I wrote in my reply to the hostile commentator, the ecological damage humans are doing to our - and every other species' - environment 'is one very good reason why we need an ecological movement people can take seriously, as opposed to one tainted by association with cranks, mystical feudalists and Fascist fellow-travelers.'

Anonymous said...

You clearly do not understand the difference between "fascism" which is an historical phenomenon associated with 1920s and 1930s Italy and National Socialism, esoteric and exoteric which is a Germanic Weltanschauung or you would not have made such a basic error.
Furthermore any people is entitled to worship their ancestral Gods. I very much doubt that you would level the same insults at an indigenous African tribe or the Jews, another racial religion if ever there was one! However please feel free to continue to post your crap!