Miranda Devine, Greenies, Burn Baby Burn, Lamp Posts and Trading Off

Why is it that whenever I read Miranda Devine, my thoughts always turn to that wicked Harry Enfield and his sketch about women knowing their limits. It's so deeply, profoundly clever and perverse I'm afraid my founding feminist card will be stripped from me by the sisterhood. Enfield has it both ways (spoiler), by sending up old male attitudes, while maintaining them by sending up a woman who dares to favor breaking free of the gold standard before she settles down to speak of kittens. 

And yes feminism is entirely to blame for the way Miranda the Devine now stalks the earth and the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald.

Poor old Greg Barnes got his knickers in a knot at Crikey (no link because of their Chinese firewall) when he asked did Miranda the Devine incite violence (and therefore commit a criminal offence).

Her offending quote?

If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.

I'm afraid Barnes over-estimates the attention anyone pays to the Devine. And anyway when she gets over-excited and starts talking about "the greenies the", it's just a really unfortunate coincidence that in German that means "die greenies die". (Apologies to Sideshow Bob).

When the Devine gets on to the greenies, it's a bit like listening to Adolf Hitler go on about the evils of pornography (I know, I know, Godwin's Law, I've put ten cents in the useless metaphors and idle swear words jar. My excuse is that the Devine uses the word holocaust to describe the bushfires in Victoria and holocausts to describe bushfires in general. Her real crime, it would seem Mr. Barnes, is terminological trading off).

Anyhoo, her entire column This burning issue of life and death, is seemingly an anti greenie, pro burn baby burn tirade. Hang 'em high, hang 'em hard, hang 'em from the hanging tree. Vigilante action now. Don't look for middle ground or sense when hysteria will do.

But wait, it seems that the Devine is in fact a devout greenie and climate change believer:

Victoria's bushfires have spewed millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - more than a third of Australia's entire output for a year ...

Point being Miranda? Surely you know global warming is a myth, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is entirely irrelevant to anything. I'm thinking of asking the stewards to take a swab - either you're a ring in, with a hidden greenie agenda, or you're a ratbag, who'd throw anything, including the kitchen sink, into an argument. 

Tim Blair's got the right idea. Just burn baby burn, kill all the trees. And if burning off spews out more carbon dioxide than they produce during the burning season in south east Asia, or ten times as much as the Victorian bushfires, what the heck. The good lord gave us dominion over this planet and we can fuck it over how we like, any time we like. And that way we in the inner west get a new Bondi beach somewhere near Marrickville Metro. You listening to me ma'am?

I know the men were wrong to endorse the gold standard - though come to think of it don't you agree it was all FDR's fault, that gold standard thingy - but perhaps all the same now is the time for you to talk of kittens ...