Andrew Bolt of Melbourne's Herald Sun published a mind-blowing scoop on his blog on February 6: there are socialists in the movement against climate change.
The piece, "The Governor becomes a far-left activist", was a fearless expose targeting Victorian governor David de Kretser. It said de Krester was abandoning his non-partisan official role and "playing his politics overtly in a 'civil campaign' with activists from the radical green Left".
De Kretser was advertised as a speaker at the "T10" Transition Decade campaign launch held on February 14 at Melbourne Town Hall. The event was sponsored by (among others) Friends of the Earth (FoE — "an anti-corporate activist group of the far Left") and the Climate Emergency Network (CEN), whose members, Bolt wrote, "include Marxist and revolutionary Left parties".
The governor, Bolt reminds us, is supposed to be the British Crown's representative in the Commonwealth of Australia. How dare he take a stand on this issue!
But hang on — Prince Charles said in March 2009: "If we do nothing, the consequences for every person on this earth will be severe and unprecedented — with vast numbers of environmental refugees, social instability and decimated economies: far worse than anything which we are seeing today."
He said he believed in action not words. "We must think and act across boundaries of nation, sector, language and culture, and to do so now and with resolve."
Clearly the crown is mounting another coup d'etat like in 1975, right? We await more intrepid reporting from Bolt on the issue.
Bolt concentrated his fire on the governor and the swipe at the left in FoE and CEN was really just ammunition. The age-old weapon of "red-baiting" was at play — and I thought McCarthyism was something in the history books.
"Red-baiting" seeks to tarnish groups or individuals because of real or imagined connections to the far left. It relies on and reinforces the Cold War mentality that the Reds are lurking out there with sinister agendas. It is only a problem if people actually believe in a Red Menace, and one wonders who Bolt sought to convince beyond his loyal fans.
Amusingly, although two of the "Marxist and revolutionary Left parties" named by Bolt (Socialist Alliance and Solidarity) have prominently supported CEN, neither was formally a member organisation.
To be fair, Bolt couldn't be entirely blamed for getting it wrong as the CEN website did list them as members. But so what? Is it a surprise that socialists are opposed to climate change? Is it a disgrace that the climate movement is not so prejudiced as to exclude people on the basis of their political opinion?
Bolt is hard to take seriously. His conspiracy theories clearly aren't limited to Machiavellian Marxist machinations. He wrote in the September 2003 Herald Sun: "There's something a little fishy about Finding Nemo and I don't mean the clownfish hero with the gammy fin. I'm talking instead about the too-easy, no-pain, nature-worshipping New Age-ism being pushed by this hit animation."