The world must be getting so much worse!
Activists protest everywhere.
Listening to them, I’d think hate, homophobia, racism, and environmental threats are at record highs.
But it’s not true.
Despite our ugly election politics, for most people, life is better than ever.
Our air and water are cleaner. People live longer and healthier lives. There’s less racism and homophobia.
But if they admit that, activists would be out of a job.
In my new video, John Tierney, a journalist who’s covered protests for years, says, “For activists, success is a threat. It is going to put you out of business.”
I push back. “They’re not a business. They’re not making money doing this.”
“Yes, they are!” Tierney says.
He’s right. Environmental groups probably make the most. The head of the World Wildlife Fund pays himself $1.2 million a year.
Somehow, that will reduce climate change?
“Climate change is the perfect crisis,” Tierney says, “You can attribute anything to it, and it’s always in the future.”
The fund says climate change increased the number of “major hurricanes.”
“There’s been no long-term growth in the intensity or the number of hurricanes,” Tierney points out, “but every time one comes, it’s a great photo op for the crisis industry to use to say, ‘This is climate change!’”
When it comes to deceitful self-dealing, Tierney says, “The ultimate example is the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
When the SPLC opened, it promised legal help to those harmed by racism. After its lawsuits bankrupted chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, the SPLC changed its “Klanwatch” to “Hatewatch,” Tierney points out, “fabricating the idea that there’s a rising tide of hate in this country. … It scares people, and they get money.”
“They think they’re making the world a better place,” I suggest.
“But they’re not!” he says. “They’re viciously attacking and smearing.”
Smearing groups like “Moms for Liberty” and “Moms for America.”
“Scaremongering and giving people the idea that there’s all this hatred and racism,” Tierney continues, “when all the evidence shows just the reverse.”
The SPLC’s founder said he’d stop fundraising once they raised $55 million. Now they have $600 million, and they ask people for more money.
Another branch of the crisis industry, the Human Rights Campaign, claims that American gays are under attack. They issued a “national state of emergency” for LGBTQ+ people.
But “last year, public support for gay rights reached an all-time high,” Tierney says. “Gays can marry in every state. There’s no stigma against homosexuality. Gay characters used to be taboo on television; now they’re practically obligatory. An anti-gay slur is this career suicide. But these activists need to declare some kind of emergency.”
Racial justice activists claim America is still a racist country.
“How did this fundamentally racist country elect Barack Obama and reelect him?” asks Tierney. “There’s even been a decline in the search for racist jokes on the internet. People are more committed than ever to treating everyone the same.”
I bring up George Floyd’s killing.
“But that was a very rare event,” Tierney says. “Studies do not show any racial bias in police shootings. Taking one death and turning that into a ‘national reckoning with race’ was incredibly lucrative for activists.”
They raised more than $10 billion after Floyd was killed. Back Lives Matter’s leaders spent $12 million of it on luxury properties.
And their anti-police protests probably killed people. Violent crime increased sharply.
Activists’ self-promotion often kills.
“One of the great public health advances [of] this century has been vaping,” Tierney points out. “Once vaping devices were introduced, smoking rates plummeted to historic lows.”
Lots of lives are saved because vaping is much safer than smoking.
“But this was a huge threat to anti-smoking activists,” Tierney says. “If people were quitting on their own, what happens to us? So, they started scaring people about vaping.”
“They’ve succeeded in persuading most people that vaping is as dangerous as smoking,” he adds. “That is a horrible thing to do to the public. But it’s been very good for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. It’s great for their careers. It’s terrible for public health.”
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