The Green Police: This is supposed to be funny?
February 9th, 2010
|
| Share |
The following commercial ran during the Superbowl:
Funny? Well I’m not laughing. Sure, it’s over the top and has some catchy music (Well, it was a lot better when it was “Dream Police”). However, the fact of the matter is that this ad portrays the idea of using draconian measures to force people to do what is considered “green.” It seems that the message is that everyone should support and welcome this great new police force.
Not surprisingly, it also has the standard hypocrisy and self-appointed pompous message. How dare you pick plastic bags or throw away an orange peel? The fact of the matter is that the earth is not going to be saved or destroyed by how we dispose of fruit rinds. It also seems to be lost on them that the very notion of enforcing bans on throwing away fruit with a helicopter is a bit hypocritical. Granted, groups like Greenpeace do blockade oil tankers with a ship that is powered on marine diesel.
While the images are over the top, the concept that this is even a positive thing is sickening. It’s about as funny as a Holocaust joke to imply that happy-faced gestapo riding on big Segways and arresting people for throwing away batteries is anything but reprehensible. It’s a little ironic how the same themes that are seen in real eco-fascism groups are seen here.
So here we see the real police being stopped by the “Green Police.” Lets consider what the conflict here. The police work for the government and are appointed through a process that has been approved by the legislature. Police officers must go through training and tests and have pretty strict rules that they need to abide by.
While individual officers do have some power to make decisions in the field, they are never the end of the line when it comes to accountability. There are some pretty hard limits to what a police officer can do. Police are accountable to the courts, to the legislature and to the citizens they serve. Their actions, if believed to be improper, can be reported to internal affairs, to the police commissioner’s office, to the mayor’s office, the local, state or even national legislature, the courts, the attorney general’s office or the governor’s office. In the United States, most police are local or state and elected officials, such as the governor and attorney general of the state are directly responsible for law enforcement. Ultimately, in any fair and just democracy, the people, by their votes, control the police.
Yet the “Green Police” seem to have a different idea of what it means to be an authority or enforcer. They’re not part of a duly elected government, nor are they created by a public law or order that could be contested or repealed by electing new officials. They simply declare that they’re in charge because they said so. They derive their authority from nothing other than their own claim that the earth needs protecting and they are the ones who will protect it.
Now take the image to the right. This apparent dump site was “closed” by “The Water Patrol” which apparently is some invented entity by Greenpeace. Assuming this is an illegal dump site (which is highly suspect given the history of dishonest statements by the group) it would be entirely proper for it to be closed by means of an injunction or court order – one which would have to be based on real law and could be contested through legitimate channels. It could also be closed by a regulatory agency, something like the Environmental Protection Agency – an agency which would also be accountable to the law, subject to appeal, and whose very existence is ultimately decided by elected representatives.
Declaring yourself in charge does not make it so. This “patrol” is nothing more than some idiots who decided to get a banner printed up that says they’re the water patrol. Of course, Greenpeace has every right to protest policy, to demand that authorities step in and do something and if they don’t, they can appeal to the people to force political change. They can’t, however, just appoint themselves with jurisdiction. The only place this works is in territory controlled by warlords.
You also can’t expect to just walk into a secure facility by wearing a jumpsuit that says “weapons inspector.” Despite the jumpsuit, you’re still just a private citizen with no right to order anyone to do anything they have not agreed to. Apparently these groups don’t have a very good idea as to what a “weapons inspector” really is. There are circumstances where international inspectors from groups like the IAEA are permitted to visit and review facilities to determine the weapons production capabilities and whether they are being operated to produce weapons, but this is only because the state has agreed to this as part of a treaty or international agreement.
Question: Would members of an otherwise civilized and developed society ever stand allow their fear and ignorance to blind them to the loss of civil rights? Even to seeing their neighbors dragged away by authorities because they were portrayed as a threat? Would they even offer their support and approval to such measures?
Answer: Absolutely
And that’s why this is a little scary. If the public is convinced that the sky is crawling they’ll walk right into the loss of their rights as happily as lambs to the slaughter. In the end, it’s really not the typical tyrants or unpopular and hated politicians who are the ones to be afraid of. Someone like George W. Bush, who garnered a lot of opposition and made people go to the streets in protest has a lot less power than one might think. Truly dangerous tyrant comes when the people stop being so cynical of policy and start to think that a regime should be trusted to do the right thing. The real danger comes with a bubbly colorful font, a friendly and whimsical logo and slogan, an approachable slogan and is wrapped in a smile.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Enviornment, Politics, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
February 9th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Greenpeace is not just a self serving, self promoting, fund raising, brainwashing eco-cult, they are not just luddites with poor personal hygiene; they are a terrorist group. While Al Qaida may have been responsible for the deaths of thousands, groups like Greenpeace are directly responsible for the deaths of at least 60 million (DDT ban). With the lies they spread, it will only get worse.
Greenpeace recruits scofflaws with no regard for the consequences of their stupidity. Look at smug look on the young woman protesting at Aldermaston pretending to be a weapons inspector, she’s ‘Doing Something’ oblivious to the fact that because the U.K. was not prepared for war 70 years ago, her grandparents were left cowering in bomb shelters while their cities were being set on fire from above. This is the state she would like her country to be in again, apparently.
And that sums this whole movement up in a nutshell: they do not see the lessons of the past, and have no real regard for the future.
Quote Comment
February 9th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
The more I think about the raw statism and the assumed moral authority in these ads the sicker I get. What makes the “green” philosophy any better than liberty? Are we to believe that anything we can do can “save” the planet. Save it from what? Human beings existing? The fact of the matter is that up to now human impact even on the largest scale, like the Bingham canyon mine(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingham_Canyon_Mine) are pretty tiny on a geological level. After all there are volcanoes that have built up entire mountains in a matter of weeks. And I shudder to think of the effect when the Yellowstone caldera kicks off again. To say nothing of a dinosaur killer asteroid. On that scale everything humans have done for good or ill sorts shrinks away.
Quote Comment
February 9th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
J Carlton said:
Yes but they’re alright, because they’re natural don’t you see.
Quote Comment
February 9th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
J Carlton said:
Well for one thing, they like to impose a kind of made up morality on it and also to take what is really a trivial thing and make it bigger. There are certain things that you can do and should do that are helpful to the enviornment and energy usage. I mean, throwing away aluminum wastes energy. It’s better not to, but is it so severe that we should come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who puts a scrap of foil in the trash? I’d say no.
I mean I’ve said before that I’m not opposed to enviornmental regulations. I’d get pretty pissed off if I saw someone dumping a 55 gallon drum of dirty motor oil into a storm sewer, but it’s something that really you need to keep in perspective and not take too far. That’s what makes this so difficult to deal with. I’m not about to say that I’m the 180 polar opposite of these groups on all issues. I mean, there is a need for some regulation and some things should be avoided, but it really has lost all logical perspective.
As far as freedom goes: it is generally accepted that there are times when normal freedoms and consumerism needs to be suspended due to emergency or critical situations. This would include things like what happened during World War II, when there was rationing of strategically important products and also the use of “blackout drills” where they would force everyone to turn off their lights and if any were on, the local enforcement officer would be banging at your door. The fear in the US was cities could be bombed from flying boats and the lights would produce a perfect grid for navigation and bombing the most important sites.
Not that this situation was unique. After natural disasters, there are sometimes curfews to try to cut down on looting while electricity and civil services are restored. During emergencies there have been blanket restrictions on the amount of of gasoline and deisel that could be sold to private citizens, to make sure nobody was hording it when it was needed for emergency vehicles in the area.
These kind of things are generally for a short period of time and under extreme circumstances. I believe that many want to convince the world that we are in such a dire situation that we have no choice but to impose these measures. The only problem is that it’s open-ended.
Quote Comment
February 9th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
That’s absolutely sickening. The first one has such tones of class warfare. It reminds me WAY too much of some of the stuff that the Nazi party was into. I’m not even being satirical. You look at how they have rich white guys in big houses and hot tubs. That is the classic group to attack now, because people are sore and blame CEO’s and such. At one time, it was said that the Jew bankers and lawyers were sitting in their comfy homes squandering the wealth of everyone else. People cheered when they were dragged from their homes.
Chilling really. This idea that it’s “them” the bad people. The un-enviornmental minded. Let’s all feel good about hunting them down and dragging them from their homes because they are the problem. You’re either with us or you need to be taught a lesson!
It’s ironic and fitting if you look up “Green Police” in wikipedia. I did to see if it had some info on the ad campaign. That’s not what I found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Police
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 3:11 am
This is supposed to “feel good” Scary.
Reminds me of how the revolutionaries under Lenin dragged out those who were either wealthy or believed to be in opposition to their cause. Similar kind of class warfare theme. During bad economic times or times of problems people seem to think they’re doing right when they brand certain individuals as the enemy and systematically destroy lives. Over time, the definition becomes more and more broad and before long, what was an optimistic battle to take back society from the “bad people” becomes a blood bath. Also reminds me of the French Revolution.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 4:19 am
I also think it’s a little hypocritical that these fictional “Green Police” are riding around on little electric carts and segways when it’d be much more environmentally friendly (and just as quick) to use bicycles?
But it’s just a stupid ad. Don’t worry about it unless people start taking it seriously.
I just took a look at the segway website, which makes a big deal about it being an environmentally friendly form of transport — but they only make it look environmentally friendly by comparing it with a car. It would be more realistic to compare the segway to a bicycle… but if they did that they couldn’t pretend that it was environmentally friendly.
BTW; I don’t want to nitpick (although I will anyway), but shouldn’t it be…
“dispose of fruit rinds” instead of “dispose of fruit rhymes”
“This apparent dump site” instead of “This apparent dumb site”
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 4:50 am
My point of view is the earth will do OK whatever, but that occidental lifestyle is very unlikely to be sustainable without some moderation.
I also recognise that unregulated dumping of wastes is likely to cause more harm to the entire comunity than the financial gain for the commiters, and it is legitimate for the community to oppose those kind of abuses.
But I also believe that how you fight as as much important as why you fight, and in this makes greenpeace the bad guys pretty much reguardless on who their opponent of the day is.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 8:46 am
I think we’re taking this way to seriously. This is an ad parodying Greenpeace. (I mean, come one, is that a pollution-sniffing ANTEATER?) The message is that the automotive product advertised is so environmentally friendly that not even the over-the-top “Green Police” can find fault with it. My only criticism of the ad is that the product only gets about 5 seconds of screen time and they say the name too fast, so I’m not sure everyone will understand what the ad is supposed to be about.
If anything we should applaud Audi for marketing an ultra-low-emissions vehicle capable of running on biofuels, especially in a country traditionally hostile to diesel cars. I don’t recall anyone on this blog complaining when VW advertised their TDI diesel cars last year.
Also, I dislike Greenpeace as much as anyone, but I think comparing them to Japanese internment and Nazi facism might be taking it a bit too far. Greenpeace does frequently lobby for onerous and misguided environmental regulation, they are rather self-righteous, and they do sometimes operate outside the law. But I don’t recall them ever violating my basic civil liberties.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Benjamin Kay said:
If I remember the VW ads correctly they used the mythbusters rather than the “green police.”
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Brian-M said:
No, I’m not worried about this ad in that respect. It is a stupid ad for a product. That said, I do think the subject matter is offensive.
What gets me is looking at this as a reflection on our culture. Have we really reached the point of this kind of tyranny being something people see as “positive”? The message from this commercial seems to be “Gee wouldn’t it be cool if there were police that could get everyone who was bad to the enviornment”
Yes, the idea is over the top to the point of being silly, but is this concept something that people have gotten to the point of thinking would be a good thing?
Brian-M said:
Yep, I think it’s the autocorrect getting me again.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I see it as the typical environmentalist movement capitalizing on a western guilt complex. We have this great car company that is trying to make an advertisement and assessing what this green movement is about. Not surprisingly they see that people are being made to feel guilty about their energy expenditures and are capitalizing on that emotion. I for one am not a fan of such imposed guilt and rebel against it naturally when it has no foundation. To me, Greenpeace is a religion and has some odd similarities with Catholic-esque imposed guilt.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I hate the ad too, but I am amazed by your inability to recognize its deeper implications.
The Green Police concept is a parody of environmental conscious regulations. By carrying this concept to a ridiculous comic book caricature, they are creating a straw man for their real argument, that such regulations can and should be ignored by the happy-go-lucky people that their product appeals to. In other words, you are a “better” person according to the advertisers if you find the Green Police silly, ridiculous or even scary, as most viewers would. Therefore you can go right along doing what you’re doing and feel better about yourself by being contemptuous of environmentalists.
But environmental awareness and laws encouraging energy conservation exist on a spectrum from purely voluntary to mandatory and not solely in the extreme Gestapo form shown in the advertisement.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Conservation in the name of “saving Earth” is so saturated that this commercial is a success (except that the car being sold wasn’t electric!). I believe GW “could” be a problem and know that peak or post oil WILL be (and that most others think on the same lines), thus the reason for such widespread enviro awareness.
I’m glad for the commercial because it brought the idea of green terrorism to the superbowl audience! Many, especially, sports fans don’t care at all about energy much less laws (supposedly) based on such. This will tell ‘em that it “could be” possible. It obviously pointed to the EXTREEME TRIVIALISMS of such STUPID greenyisms. I’m sure most would have taken a note of that!
It also made me want to point out that we need either 10,000 square miles of solar thermal or fission based on the MSR concept, or both. The solar option would create more jobs, (so one can afford to protest enviro crap), but the nuclear would be easier to install since it’s about a billion times more energy dense.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Lighten up guys, it’s a car ad. The message Audi want you to take away is that if you don’t like excessive green regulations interfering with your life, and want to be environmentally responsible without giving up modern luxuries, buy an A3. I would have thought that this kind of argument would be supported here – and you could use essentially the same line to make a pro-nuke case. Fed up with people trying to make you feel guilty about turning up the air con? Build nukes.
Quote Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Benjamin Kay said:
Agreed, people here are taking the add too seriously, but I think it is a very positive message, the idea of green police. In the commercial, it was brought to the point of parody and absurdity, of course, but many of the regulations they are enforcing are good ideas. For example, with the plastic bag, it would be a good idea to ban the free use of them. China is very laudable for the action they’ve taken in doing just that (making such plastic bag use illegal):
If China Can Ban Plastic Bags, Why Can’t We?
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2008/01/if-china-can-ban-plastic-bags-why-cant-we
We could learn a thing or two from them.
Quote Comment
February 11th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Luke said:
Eh, maybe, but that’s not the message I got. I found the whole thing offensive.
Bruce said:
A token step. Thought there are three billion plastic bags used daily, it’s really only a tiny percentage of waste. Paper bags are also considerably more expensive per unit and plastic bags can be recycled – in addition to the fact that they are useful for things after youbuy stuff in them.
China hasn’t really banned plastic bags anyway. They just restricted stores offering them for free with most purchases.
In early high school I used to work in a supermarket. (yeah I know.) Anyway, plastic bags are superior to paper in many ways in addition to being cheaper and thus improving overall economy. If you put something heavy and cold in a paper bag on a humid day, you’re asking for trouble. Put a container of ice cream in, for example – by the time it has been in the cart for a while, it’s soaking wet with condensation and melted frost and I saw many messes where wet juice bottles or ice cream fell through the bottom of a wet paper bag.
Then there’s the sanitary issue. A lot of people put all their stuff in one bag when they buy a bunch of small things. We were told to use plastic bags to seperate potentially hazardous food combination – for example, if a person bought a pound of hamburger meat or a steak and some fresh produce at the same time, put the meat in a plastic bag and tie it closed to stop it from leaking on the produce.
There are stores near me that don’t offer you a bag unless you ask and instead try to sell you reusable bags at ten bucks each. Such a ridiculous ploy
Quote Comment
February 11th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Wow, ten bucks? Are you kidding?
Over here (Australia) the re-usable bags sold in stores are only $1 each. And more importantly, they’re nothing like plastic bags, they’re real bags. (more info) But a most people still use plastic.
The whole paper/plastic question seems a little strange to me, because over here the only store that offers paper bags is the liquor store. Food stores over here don’t stock paper bags at all.
I’ve noticed that some department stores have started to stock biodegradable plastic bags, the kind that look, feel (and taste) a little like that white membrane you get on the inside of eggshells (only thicker and stronger).
Quote Comment
February 12th, 2010 at 12:54 am
Plastic bags are, NILL! NOTH’N! only a pitance compared to the rate of oil we are SUCKING. If China wants to make it hard to get plastic, well I guess that means they are still COMmUNIST! We are the ones making China be the world worst polluter, though, and we are the ones who can’t seem to use 1960’s technology AND BUILD 10,000 SQ MI of SOLAR FIELDS (or fission of thorium, closed cycle, preferably in a safe molten salt reactor, yep, still ’60’s tech!). The OIL is running out and when it does, global warming will become more real.
Don’t kill a watt, MEGA (clean) WATT ! and just say NO! to limitation
Quote Comment
February 12th, 2010 at 1:03 am
Besides, wouldn’t paper bags be “more enviro bad”? We need what’s left of the trees `~’
Quote Comment
February 12th, 2010 at 2:41 am
Brian-M said:
Ten bucks might be a little much – I may have overestimated. It’s something like five bucks. Yeah, they’re real bags that are reusable and reasonably durable. However they are more expensive than they should be. Actually they look almost identical to the “green bag”
They’re at lest a few bucks. Probably $4.50 in profit at least.
Quote Comment
February 13th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Ted said:
Luke said:
So the idea is that by driving an Audi A3 you can avoid having the Green Police bother you and keep doing what you’re doing? I find this disturbing, given what the Audi driver does. The “Green Police” wave him through and so he drives through. Does he stop to protest his fellow citizens being stopped? Does he try to mow down the green police and save his fellow man from the inhumanity of the authorities? Does he protest at all? Give aid to those who the Green Police have stopped?
No, he keeps on going. He does nothing. He acts like it’s okay because he is not being stopped.
First they came for the SUV drivers, but I don’t drive an SUV, so I did not stop them.
Then they came for the sports car drivers, but I don’t drive a sports car, so I did not stop them.
Then they came for the gasoline car drivers, but I drive a deisel and so I did nothing.
Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to do anything about it.
I find the whole thing chilling. When and if the Green Police come, they won’t take everyone at once. They’ll chip away at our liberties and take our neighbors one by one, hoping we don’t notice until it’s too late.
Basically they’re trying to make a joke out of an enviornmental Kristallnacht.
Quote Comment
February 24th, 2010 at 7:26 am
Let’s take a step back and look at the presented material again because I think two things are getting mixed up here. One is the ‘green police’ add which brings across a very broken message of eco-totalitarism (from which you, but only you, can be saved by driving an Audi). The other is Greenpeace, an activist group that occassionally performs what amounts to industrial sabotage.
My point is that Greenpeace’s methods are outside the law, but their goal is probably not to become the ‘green police’, it is awareness. While you will basically never share the conviction of radicals or aprove of their methods, they serve a purpose in the discurse: they raise awareness. They show that he issue they are protesting is important enough that someone is willing to go to jail (or even die) for it, so it needs to be discussed in the general public.
Satan_Klaus
Quote Comment
February 24th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Satan_Klaus said:
well, when using Greenpeace as an example, I’m doing so because they’re just the most well known for their aggressive tactics.
However, what I really mean by “Greenpeace” is “Greenpeace and groups of a similar mentality”
These groups being:
Greenpeace
Sea Shepherd
Friends of the Earth
Earth First
The Earth Liberation Front
The Green Party of the US
The Green Parties of Europe
The Green Party of Canada
The Sierra club (unfortunately has joined in recent years)
The Natural Resources Defense Fund
Yes, I do think that the “Green Police” although somewhat satirical is pretty much what these groups would like to eventually see. They do have a political side and lobby the governments of the world very strongly, generally seeing themselves as the ones who should be making and enforcing policy. The Green Party especially.
Yes, they are sometimes willing to die or go to jail, just as those involved in the Munich Beer Haul Putch were.
Quote Comment
February 24th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Well they didn’t putch. They came to power legally in Germany, just like Hitler did a few years after his failed coup. But comparing anyone to Hitler has rarely made for a good argument, now has it? It’s just so easy and compelling…though it kinda reeks of the the kind of intellectual lazyness that one usually expects from the other side.
Laws need to be enforced, or else the concept of laws becomes meaningless. Enforcing environmental laws is no less serious or important business than enforcing laws on traffic. It cuts into your personal freedom for the safety and benefit of society. What keeps people from dumping waste in the river (or in your driveway)? That’s right, environmental laws. Green laws. Not all of them are bad. Some of them are even essential to our health. In effect, the police is already a ‘green police’, the green party just made them a tiny bit greener. (And, ironically, blue to conform to international standard)
When fighting a strongly ideological enemy, one has to be careful, lest one become like him. Please stick to reason, it suits you so much better than ideology.
Quote Comment
February 26th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Again, I must ask…
Why do people make a big deal about “plastic”? Paper is “worst”!
Did you know that laws may be enacted to ban the incandescent? That would be great IF people didn’t want to rebel (afterall, 4 times the lighting sector could be “saved” this way meaning less new coal plants).
But, there are better solutions… Just ban the new coal plants anyways… and focus on noth’n but clean (and very cheap) energy and its storage. We have had the tech since the 60’s! The little extra costs of the electric bill is way worth not having to conform to silly laws (that still allow for limited energy resources). Eventually, there will be unlimited clean energy (if everyone demands it). There will be no need to “ban” the lightbulb as it won’t matter in the least! The other way, with laws and silly enviro limitations like “plastic is bad”, there will be NO energy except for remaining FF and (resource wars). What, shall we conserve till the last drop?
We need to make laws against cheap insulation in modular homes. We need to make laws that require the cheapest “bestest” sources of clean energy, for example. Not against issues that make people think “hittler”…
The ad was funny and good, I’m just taking the root of all this a bit extreeme because energy is “all that” and then some.
Quote Comment