Tree huggers, shark huggers and other deep green howler monkeys

When Bolta posted a request on his blog for some footage of deep green howler monkeys indulging in their stupid Gaia worship I immediately thought of a segment from one of Robert Hughes's docos. It showed a bunch of tragic tree huggers sooking up over some sequoias. I was gonna do a quick search for it but I didn't have time.

Interestingly someone else had been thinking along the same lines because when I looked at his blog today I saw that he'd actually included this very footage. It's one of the most vivid illustrations of deep green craziness you could find.

Now I know that in political combat members of both sides often call their opponents nuts. And this is usually unfair. But I don't think it is in this case. Watch that footage (embedded below) and tell me that these people aren't howling at the moon insane.

And I think their mental illness is even sadder than most other forms. These people didn't get this way as a result of some congenital defect, or because of long term psychological abuse or sudden trauma. It's solely the result of indoctrination. It's the kind of collective insanity that grips people in North Korea and other commie shit-holes.

Sure, this tribe of tree huggers wasn't led by people as powerful or ruthless as Kim Il Sung and their ilk. But the sickness is still similar. These poor bastards are totally alienated from their fellow humans. They live in a bubble of infantile misanthropy and see civilization itself as something inherently evil.

Now, on the level that you see in the clip it's pathetic and ultimately harmless. They may want to take over the world and give it back to the plants. But it's clear their grand plans are never gonna amount to a hill of, er, lentils. But just imagine if they did succeed in seizing the commanding heights in government. What would they do?

And here's a local, contemporary example of the same phenomenon: A prominent player in the West Oz shark wars is a child-brained shark hugger called Jeff Hansen. I saw him at the Cottesloe shark demo not so long ago. And he keeps popping up in print and on the wireless. This malignant misanthrope from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society keeps repeating variations on the line that "an ocean without sharks is a world without people". He believes that killing sharks is a crime against nature. And that any crime against nature is a "direct crime against humanity". Honest, he actually uses those words. Watch this vid and you'll see for yourself! (It occurs just after 2 min mark.)

Talk about widening the bloody goalposts! Most of us would say that an event like the Holocaust constitutes a crime against humanity. He thinks a dead fish does.

Needless to say, he doesn't actually give a tinker's about the human race (well, at least not those members of it who don't subscribe to his creepy views). But he knows that most people do. So he's turning everything upside down, arguing that those who are for the so-called shark cull are the real misanthropes.

It's subversive as all get out. You gotta hand it to him for tactical nous if nothing else ...

Now think to yourself, what would this guy and his fellow band o' pinko pirates do if they had real power. The possibilities are truly disturbing.

I just hope these Carcharadon carers take a leaf out of the Seppo tree huggers' book and get amongst the beings they are so bravely trying to save and apologize to them up close and, er, political. That would make a helluva memorable YouTube clip, eh! It'd be even funnier than this one.