Countering the woke juggernaut that is bringing down free markets and the meritocracy worldwide
 The governing classes of the western world are in the thrall of a mentality that is bent on doing harm to traditional values and their institutions - shipping included.
It is an anti-white male movement that seeks to tear the patriarchy down and build anew. By now East Asian males have secured "white status" too, and non-Muslim south Asians are on the cusp of joining the white male oppressor class as well. So as long as "Queers for Palestine" want to destroy Western Civ, then the Imams and Mullahs are cool with homosexuality - at least for now.
But under the spell of this dominating secular theology and its core themes, environmentalism and gender equality, the world has been driven to accept beliefs in which it does not believe.
True believers in the tenets of the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) are those in the Deep State, backed by the media, academic and bureaucratic establishment.
At full build-out, these alien concepts, conceived and enacted by unelected officials, in an increasingly feminized world, will destroy free market capitalism and the legitimacy of the meritocracy.
Already, they have made crippling progress in destroying areas of male competence. For example, accepting women in combat roles was not the army's idea, but imposed by people who are against military competence. Nor was the recruitment of females as ship's crew, the idea of shipowners. Nor could one imagine the energy sector wanting to make war on fossil fuel as the bureaucratic establishment demands.
Much of the reasoning, if one can call it such, is based on unexamined assumptions and projections of current trends into the future. While the projections are examined and much discussed, results are largely ignored if they produce unintended consequences, which they usually do.
What is immediately required are non-government industry-wide conferences - that includes air freight - to hold panel discussion debates to air the pros and cons of each issue. Is gender equity real? How real is the "climate emergency". What real dangers do fossil fuels actually pose.
There is real concern about regulatory reach, for instance, that confines fuel use - both aviation and marine - to very narrow choices of biofuel which are both scarce and costly.
What must be examined are the costs and benefits of these evermore stricter regulatory regimes. No longer must we recoil in horror at some statistic on respiratory illness deaths. There was a lot of officially encouraged - if not enforced - panic during the Covid scare. When reporting an extraordinarily high level of Covid deaths, few officials thought to mention that the vast majority of people who were dying, were elderly, and as such, were members of War Baby and Baby Boom generations of the 1940s, who were supposed die about this time anyway. Those who were born in great numbers in a particular period would be expected to die in great numbers 70 years later.
So hard questions should be asked. How much expense should be allotted to prevent such "timely" deaths from occurring must be unemotionally considered Should shipping be shut down, or be drastically reduced to accommodate such sensitivities.
Qui bono? Who benefits? In the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, of "Yes Minister" fame, the "first duty of every civil servant is to gather as many areas of responsibility under him and to protect them from encroachment." Thus, for every regulation enacted, new inspectors must be hired to see rules are enforced. This translates into more revenue through fines and taxes and more person-years under the command of an already bloated civil service.
But to firm up suspicion of needless regulation, one must have proof of its wasteful nature. That necessitates weighing the pros and cons of official beliefs, from gender and racial equality to the actual dangers posed by climate change.
Social planners do not have the welfare of liberty at heart. Nor do they much care if what they are saying is true or false. And through creative regulation, bureaucrats seek to control life by creating a one-way world that destroys the free market by simply criminalizing affordable options.
As this is an enormous cost factor, each shipping conference or convention should devote a panel discussion in which respected scientific minds are brought to bear in assigning the proper weight to things like gender and racial equality and whether global warming is the great threat it is cracked up to be.
As shipping and commercial aviation have the most to lose at the hands of the progressive environmentalists, and their media, academic, bureaucratic allies, it is up to this sector to carry the ball.
There is much talk of Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" as worthy analogies of the present day, though one might prefer "The Shape of Things Come" by HG Wells published in 1933.
The Wells' tale depicts a world recovering from world war and economic chaos, with the west divided into medieval baronies, analogous to what followed the fall of Rome.
Wells has this devastated world rescued by these high-tech "Airmen" from a superior culture. With a dash of postmodern leftist hyperbole, one can imagine the state of affairs described above as a version of our present day world, at least the one envisioned by the Elders of Davos who have mapped out for us in their 10-minute cities" the grand plan of the World Economic Forum.
One can see from the WEF plans, with a limited number of flights one would be allowed and the three articles of clothing one can possess, not to mention an end of meat consumption that does not bode well for the shipping sector. Yet we will all own nothing and be happy, according to these grand prognosticators.
What is plain to see from these dystopian tales from the 1930s and '40s unfolding in real time today is uncannily like what the Deep State has in mind.
Its strength relies on two factors. The main engine is environmentalism and the key supporter of that is feminism, as its fortunes - jobs for the girls - and dependent on the growth of the eco scare.
But as the Deep State matures into advanced middle age, it is slow to appreciate its growing vulnerabilities and that it has lost much of it untouchable sacred cow status. And after the Covid debacle, few are willing to placed their faith in the wisdom of the bureaucracy.
To counter the Deep State juggernaut as it advances inexorably on a broad front overwhelming all it encounters, one tends to favour a narrow front, subjecting Deep State assumptions to rigorous scientific cost/benefit scrutiny. This would force woke forces to defend their beliefs to the satisfaction to those who must live with them. Thus, the pros and cons can be thoroughly aired, and the outcomes of these proceedings widely publicized. |
