December 16, 2003

BAN THE PLANE

George Monbiot sees things that normal people just can’t see. And he writes things that normal people just can’t be bothered reading, like his latest column, which identifies flight as the Great Evil of our time:

At Kitty Hawk, George Bush will deliver a eulogy to aviation, while a number of men with more money than sense will seek to recreate the Wrights' first flight. Well, they can keep their anniversary. Tomorrow should be a day of international mourning. December 17 2003 is the centenary of the world's most effective killing machine.

Just look at the sinister apparatus. Pity the victims fed through that double-bladed mincing device. The number on its side? Confirmed kills.

Note that the machine must be tied down to keep its evil in check.

Commercial flights, like military flights, are an instrument of domination. As tourists, we engage with the people of other nations on our own terms. The world's administrators can flit from place to place enforcing their mandate. The corporate jet-set shrinks the earth to fit its needs. Those with access to the aeroplane control the world.

We’re ruled by pilots?

The men who attacked New York and Washington on September 11 2001 drove one symbol of power into another ... Those hijackers had turned the civilian product of a military technology back into a military technology, but even when used for strictly commercial purposes, the airliner remains a weapon of mass destruction.

Which is why US troops are based at Baghdad Airport. Suddenly, it all becomes clear ...

Flying is our most effective means of wrecking the planet: every passenger on a return journey from Britain to Florida produces more carbon dioxide than the average motorist does in a year. Every time we fly, we help to kill someone.

Britain to Florida takes, oh, about nine hours or so. Britain to Australia is much longer; it’s a voyage of mass death. Why wouldn’t George cite the longer flight?

Possibly because, only a few months ago, Monbiot himself participated in an act of homicide by openly flying to Australia. The question remains: should Monbiot be tried in England, or at The Hague?

UPDATE. Warren Smith continues the debunking of Flyboy George.

Posted by Tim Blair at December 16, 2003 03:52 PM
Comments

Pictures! Yay!

I say let the stewardesses at him. (I hear the ones who work for Qantas are particularly deadly.)

Posted by: Andrea Harris at December 16, 2003 at 03:58 PM

Why didn't he mention THE turkey in his article? I mean it can fly and it can be classified as being a weapon of war since it has featured prominently in Bush's war on terror? Missed his chance.

Posted by: Rob at December 16, 2003 at 04:10 PM

It gets worse! These "aeroplanes" run on OIL!

Posted by: scott h. at December 16, 2003 at 04:10 PM

Andrea: believe me, asking them for a glass of water will get you daggers...

Posted by: Art Vandelay at December 16, 2003 at 04:11 PM

And the turkey was at Baghdad Airport, where Bush had arrived in a jet. Draw your own conclusions, people ...

Posted by: tim at December 16, 2003 at 04:11 PM

"Commercial flights, like military flights, are an instrument of domination. As tourists, we engage with the people of other nations on our own terms."

Ummm yeah. Horrible, horrible cross-cultural contact! Oh terrible multiculturalism! Where's the comfortable provincialism? Oh, to long for the days when people thought the people living 'tother side of the horizon were alien and strange, maybe not even really fully human like "we" are, possibly food items as well, but that's neither here nor there.


"Those with access to the aeroplane control the world."

Judging by recent ticket prices, including my semi-recent cross country trip, this limits semi-regular air travel to anyone making just slightly more than minimum wage. Damn elitist pigs!

Posted by: Robin Goodfellow at December 16, 2003 at 04:12 PM

Boring article. Cranky thoughts require cranky prose like “the garage proletariat will savage & dice the earth” or whatever whoever said. Article’s a plastic turkey.

Posted by: ForNow at December 16, 2003 at 04:16 PM

What impressive post-modernist de-constructualisation of flying. The man is a humble genius, can't you all see?

Posted by: Skinny Hippo at December 16, 2003 at 04:23 PM

"George Monbiot sees things that normal people just can’t see. And he writes things that normal people just can’t be bothered reading".

Well, yes. And you read it.

Are you guys all in some sort of Abnormal People Society?

Posted by: Ne at December 16, 2003 at 04:24 PM

The worst thing about aviation is frequent flyer schemes.

Posted by: ilibcc at December 16, 2003 at 04:30 PM

"Posted by: Ne at December 16, 2003 at 04:24 PM"

He is one of the knights who say NE!

NE! NE! NE!

Posted by: goldsmith at December 16, 2003 at 04:31 PM

It is possible that Mr. Monbiot might one day suffer some sort of horrible organ failure, and require a transplant. Imagine the relief on his face when he is told that the replacement organ is being couriered via rickshaw from Milan.

No planes involved, lad! Hang in there.

Posted by: Lileks at December 16, 2003 at 04:42 PM

So it's neither fight NOR flight, then?

Posted by: Angus Jung at December 16, 2003 at 05:17 PM

It's great to read comments like these. It makes my day. It's not everyday you see a political philosohpy totally imploding: And the hard left is sure imploding. Prettty soon we will be talking about the final death throes of the Democrats in the US. Oh, I just can't wait.
One thing I agree with in the piece. Flying Qantas sure is the equivalent of death.

Posted by: jc at December 16, 2003 at 06:10 PM

I wonder if he could possibly believe this monumental pile of self-interring bullshit. Isn't he just basing his column on the mantra, "Whatever it is, if it's anything to do with America, I'm against it."

Posted by: Dave F at December 16, 2003 at 06:44 PM

Who subjugated South America and destroyed the Inca? A plane! Oh no wait, that was Spain. False alarm sorry.

Posted by: Amos at December 16, 2003 at 06:54 PM

I demand a shrubbery!

Posted by: samkit at December 16, 2003 at 07:52 PM

Well, yes. And you read it.

The thought came to my mind as well.

Posted by: Andjam at December 16, 2003 at 08:06 PM

The plane in Spain falls mainly in the rain.

Oh that was bad. I know I'm going to hell.

And "Ne," poor saddo. I'll bet he drops his voice to a whisper whenever "unpleasant" subjects have to be introduced into the conversation.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at December 16, 2003 at 09:43 PM

Amazing the sort of magical thinking -- fetishism -- practiced by some supposedly rational, enlightened people.

A recent history of military technology in the Third Reich stated that modern American missiles and space vehicles were forever "tainted" by the use of slave labor to fabricate German V-2 rockets.

But sometimes a rocket motor is just a rocket motor.

Posted by: F451 at December 16, 2003 at 10:41 PM

Why didn't he mention THE turkey in his article? I mean it can fly...

Rob! Don't you remember these immortal words?:

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

Posted by: Angie Schultz at December 16, 2003 at 10:54 PM

Before airplanes it was ships.

Ever since about 1900 or so they were run on oil. I blame Churchill.

Before then they ran on coal. I blame Watt and Fulton.

Before that it was sails. Which means it must have been the hemp.

It all comes down to inventors and politicians.

Posted by: M. Simon at December 16, 2003 at 10:59 PM

I blame all of the world's ills on that alien monolith that appeared and taught early man how to whack things with a bone.

Posted by: Randal Robinson at December 16, 2003 at 11:40 PM

Egads. Sometimes planes deliver emergency aid and medicine that is taken by caravan or steamer ship would take a hundred times longer. Whoaa noooo.

Why doesn't he just blame it all on electricity, which powers the machines of death or the wheel. Yeah, the wheel - the most sinister invention of all. No, fire. Or oxygen. Wait - it was the big bang, for without it life and all its evils would never have emerged.

Posted by: peter at December 17, 2003 at 12:29 AM

Egads. Sometimes planes deliver emergency aid and medicine that is taken by caravan or steamer ship would take a hundred times longer. Whoaa noooo.

Why doesn't he just blame it all on electricity, which powers the machines of death or the wheel. Yeah, the wheel - the most sinister invention of all. No, fire. Or oxygen. Wait - it was the big bang, for without it life and all its evils would never have emerged.

Posted by: peter at December 17, 2003 at 12:30 AM

Apparently Mr. Monbiot has read H. G. Wells's "Things to Come" once too often.

Posted by: Dave Schuler at December 17, 2003 at 12:30 AM

Monbiot is a luddite. I would have thought that they where as extinct as Victorian corsets and using leeches to make people healthy, but no! He wants us living in the 19th century. But then they had steam engines, so maybe he'd prefer the 18th.

In fact, that would fit him just fine- the 18th century was the last time the poor dumb proleteriat was kept in check and university academics where held up to be demi-gods. He would have loved that era.

Posted by: Wilbur at December 17, 2003 at 12:50 AM

When I first saw the editorial in the Guardian, I said, "Please, God, let this be a parody." I hoped that opinions this idiotic would only appear in staterun newspapers of squalid dictatorships.

At least he didn't blame the plane on the Jooos!

Posted by: Frank J. at December 17, 2003 at 12:52 AM

Oh my god, I should have read the full article before commenting.

He's repeated the old nonsense that New Zealander Richard Pearse beat the Wright brothers.

This has been proven wrong more time than aviation enthusiasts like me can recall. Pearse's machine can't even fly in a bloody windtunnel. Pearse HIMSELF said that it didn't work.

Monbiot is nuts.

Posted by: Wilbur at December 17, 2003 at 12:58 AM

"Those hijackers had turned the civilian product of a military technology back into a military technology" - George Monbiot.

And I thought the 'flying machine' was invented by two brothers who owned a bicycle shop in the heartland of America, who wanted to push back the boundaries of technology and human endeavour - manned flight. An idea that goes back to the time of the scientist, inventor and artist, Leonardo Da Vinci.

George Monbiot... what an utter twat that man is.

Orville and Wilbur Wright deserve a better centennial write-up than this crypto-Marxist Guardian assclown can offer.

The guy's a c*nt.

Posted by: Samsung; 100% British Beef at December 17, 2003 at 01:02 AM

Maybe we could suggest that Moonbat go to some far away place and live in a cave. Then he would not have to deal with all the nasty modern inventions.

Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge at December 17, 2003 at 01:06 AM

What an idiot - he said Bush was delivering a "eulogy", which I believe is a speech given at funerals. To my knowledge, powered flight isn't dead.

Forget the facts - he doesn't even understand the words he uses.

Posted by: R. C. Dean at December 17, 2003 at 01:09 AM

There may be something to it. There's a sort of Jungian explanation at http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote05.html about the Indians (as in cowboys and indians; indigenous peoples as contrasted to cowbogenous peoples)

...And what was the condition of
life? Loving, peaceful, harmonious? Hardly:
the early peoples of the New World lived in
a state of constant warfare. Generations of
hatred, tribal hatreds, constant battles. The
warlike tribes of this continent are famous:
the Comanche, Sioux, Apache, Mohawk,
Aztecs, Toltec, Incas. Some of them
practiced infanticide, and human sacrifice.
And those tribes that were not fiercely
warlike were exterminated...

Piper named aircraft after all of these tribes. Coincidence? I think not.

Posted by: Ron Hardin at December 17, 2003 at 01:11 AM

yeah, and those airline in-flight magazines really suck!

and .. and.. there's not enough peanuts in the little packs they give you and....

MOMMMMYYYY !! make the bad planes go away !!

sincerely,
George

Posted by: Jon Brennan at December 17, 2003 at 01:14 AM

Did this jackass assume an empty plane? Because every estimate I can find puts per passenger carbon dioxide released at about half a pound per mile. On a 4400 mile flight, that's 2200 pounds of CO2.

Around my neck of the woods, the typical motorist drives about 15,000 miles per year at maybe 20 MPG. Given that one gallon of gas equates to 20 pounds of CO2 released, Monbiot seems to be off by a factor of 7.5.

And imagine how much gas you would use if you drove from Britain to Florida. In fact, I think Monbiot should try it.

Posted by: Pete Harrigan at December 17, 2003 at 01:35 AM

Lest we forget, what about the movie choices currently foisted upon us by these instruments of death? No bad language, no nudity, no excessive violence -- WTF? The bastards even tried to force "Beautiful" starring Minnie Driver on me, for chrissakes. Talk about a weapon of mass destruction...

Posted by: Jerry at December 17, 2003 at 01:50 AM

I've just blogged Monbiot's big error in his very first paragraph..... it's a complex story!

http://www.wilbursblog.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_wilbursblog_archive.html#107158985384785212

Monbiot, you can have our aeroplanes when you prise them from our cold, dead fingers....

Posted by: Wilbur at December 17, 2003 at 02:02 AM

Re Lileks: it's too late - the poor man's already suffered terrible organ failure. Since brain transplants are a bit beyond us at the moment, sadly, dippy George's cerebral cortex will have to remain in its atrophied state pro tem. Injections of monkey glands have met with limited success thus far.

Frank J: 'I hoped that opinions this idiotic would only appear in staterun newspapers of squalid dictatorships.' This was the Guardian after all - the house paper of the Blair junta. And we all know that Blair lied and Moonbats cried. Or something like that.

And as for the aircraft being ' the world's most effective killing machine,' that's a crock, too. I nominate something like the Trident II D-5 SLBM. But that's just me.

Posted by: David Gillies at December 17, 2003 at 02:13 AM

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the quotation or the sentiment, but it appears to at least throw doubt on Monbiot's version of what motivated the Wrights:

"When my brother and I built and flew the first man-carrying flying machine, we thought that we were introducing into the world an invention that would make further wars practically impossible. Governments would realize the impossibility of winning by surprise attacks, and no country would enter into war with another when it knew it would have to simply wear out the enemy." -- Orville Wright


[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web11/segment1b.html]

Posted by: F451 at December 17, 2003 at 02:33 AM

If we outlaw Cessnas, only outlaws will have Cessnas.

Posted by: Steve in Houston at December 17, 2003 at 02:40 AM

"If we outlaw Cessnas, only outlaws will have Cessnas."

German pilot Matthias Rust has never gotten full credit for his part in toppling the Evil Empire.

But honestly, how could we take the Soviet Union seriously when its airspace could be penetrated by a teenager in a rented Cessna? How could we take "The Reds" to be a serious threat when a Cessna lands in Red Square? At any time, it appeared, if any single individual in the West had felt truly threatened ... A Timothy McVeigh type of fanatic could have loaded a similar Cessna with ANFO, similarly penetrated the air defense net, and crashed the sucker into the Kremlin. It didn't take "Star Wars", or SS-20's, or 100,000 professional solidiers from nine nations.

One kid in a small plane could, obviously, have changed history. But history hasn't noticed.

Posted by: Pouncer at December 17, 2003 at 02:52 AM

"Maybe we could suggest that Moonbat go to some far away place and live in a cave."

Andrew, I believe there's a small hole just south of Tikrit, currently available for rent.

Posted by: CGeib at December 17, 2003 at 03:15 AM

He's repeated the old nonsense that New Zealander Richard Pearse beat the Wright brothers.

This has been proven wrong more time than aviation enthusiasts like me can recall. Pearse's machine can't even fly in a bloody windtunnel. Pearse HIMSELF said that it didn't work.

If the idea were all that's required, then Leonardo daVinci has them all beat.

And anyway, I don't have any difficulty with the idea of airliners being evil. Those tiny, cramped seats, no legroom, tray table a laptop can't fit on, food that makes a Turkish prison look appealing, bathrooms that are impossible to turn around in, much less take off your pants, random security frisking, nothing more dangerous than a spoon allowed on board, long waits.

Plus you have to pay for it, and through the nose at that.

Bah. Pure evil, I say.

Posted by: Anne Haight at December 17, 2003 at 04:06 AM

You're only laughing at the Moanbot because you've been bought off by the vast Wright/wings conspiracy.

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at December 17, 2003 at 04:10 AM

That isn't even a real plane, it's PLASTIC!!1!

Posted by: dc at December 17, 2003 at 04:38 AM

Just as Alexander the Great worshipped his horse, George Bush, the new conqueror of Persia, will tomorrow worship the aeroplane.

So in Monbiot's world, the US has invaded Iran?

Posted by: Sean O'Hara at December 17, 2003 at 04:41 AM

Hey,

I don't know what you neo-con oppressors are talking about but that Cessna 152 is a DEATH MACHINE!

(Assuming you don't check the brackets holding on the tail as per the AD from October).

Can we fly somebody over to England and have Moonbat Pimp Slapped? I mean, really. This guy makes Dvorack look rational.

-E2

Posted by: Eric Ericson at December 17, 2003 at 04:50 AM

What is it with these lefties dissing the Wrights? Last week the NYT ran a disinformation article saying the Wrights were frauds and one Santos-Dumont of Brazil was the real hero of manned flight. Being the mate of an ex-Pat Brit aero-space guy, I get to partake in the glass raising to Orville and Wilbur on the 17th with those classmates from the RAE in Farnborough who ended up in Canada. They are all pretty miffed at the mean-spirited sourness emanating from the MonBiots and their ilk on this great anniversary.

Posted by: Millie Woods at December 17, 2003 at 05:13 AM

Is it just me or is his name deadfully close to bein "Moonbat"?

Posted by: Hucklebuck at December 17, 2003 at 05:20 AM

That dreadful aerialist lackey Peter Briffa says of the same article that "...Well it's all very well for the Moonbat. He just has to spread his wings and take to the skies. But not all of us ordinary mortals have sonar. How the hell are we supposed to get around? Rickshaws?"

Posted by: Natalie Solent at December 17, 2003 at 05:20 AM

Pouncer, if I recall correctly, the famous flight into Moscow via Cessna was done the day after Soviet Armed Forces Day -- the one day of the year the pilot could count on the ground observers being unconscious or so hung over they may as well have been. Can't source it, unfortunately.

Posted by: John Nowak at December 17, 2003 at 05:41 AM

"We're ruled by pilots?"

Yes. Just ask one. Once you get past that shy smile and humble exterior, they'll admit it. Also, Bush and Rumsfeld are former USAF and USN rated pilots.

Posted by: Billy Hank at December 17, 2003 at 05:44 AM

Goddamn, Blair. Thank you for this one. Had me loudly guffawing in my office.

Posted by: sligobob at December 17, 2003 at 06:02 AM

I really really should refrain from reading stuff like this at work. People are starting to look at me funny when I have to choke back laughter when I'm supposed to be dilligently manning the phones.

Posted by: Ryan at December 17, 2003 at 07:55 AM

The 747-400 has a maximum fuel capacity of 21,000 liters, can fly 13,000 kilometers, and carry 420 passengers. A UK/Florida run will consume just over half that -- or approximately 28 liters of fuel per passenger (7.4 gallons). This would produce 156 lbs of CO2, making Monbiot off by an order of 100.

Posted by: Alex at December 17, 2003 at 11:12 AM

The 747-400 has a maximum fuel capacity of 21,000 liters, can fly 13,000 kilometers, and carry 420 passengers. A UK/Florida run will consume just over half that -- or approximately 28 liters of fuel per passenger (7.4 gallons). This would produce 156 lbs of CO2, making Monbiot off by an order of 100.

Posted by: Alex at December 17, 2003 at 11:12 AM

The 747-400 has a maximum fuel capacity of 21,000 liters, can fly 13,000 kilometers, and carry 420 passengers. A UK/Florida run will consume just over half that -- or approximately 28 liters of fuel per passenger (7.4 gallons). This would produce 156 lbs of CO2, making Monbiot off by an order of 100.

Posted by: Alex at December 17, 2003 at 11:12 AM

This page lists passenger-miles-per-gallon at 38, vs 32 for a car.

Posted by: Alex at December 17, 2003 at 11:26 AM

Monbiot forgot to mention how the airplane makes flightless birds like the tasty penguin feel humiliated.

Posted by: San Franciscan at December 17, 2003 at 11:36 AM

Damn those evil Wright brothers! They were obviously in on the VRWC(tm). Heh.

Posted by: Al Superczynski at December 17, 2003 at 01:16 PM

"...'the garage proletariat will savage & dice the earth'..."

I'm workin' on it.

Posted by: Billy Beck at December 17, 2003 at 03:12 PM

Millie Woods:
Yes, Santos Dumont was right there...five years after the Wrights. The leftists will do ANYTHING to make the USA look bad and will try to hide ANYTHING that might make her look good. Nice people, right?

Posted by: Miguel at December 17, 2003 at 03:13 PM

Monbiot's flied! People died!

Posted by: Wilbur at December 17, 2003 at 04:36 PM

"He's repeated the old nonsense that New Zealander Richard Pearse beat the Wright brothers."

Interesting that on tonight's PM they decided to drag out the corpse of Richard Pearse once more and strap him into his rickety contraption ...

Posted by: mook at December 17, 2003 at 10:21 PM

the Moonbat is right this time, isn't he? The airplane, along with the automobile, broadcast media, and associated forms of engineered technology, ARE weapons of mass destruction, overthrowing the order of Western society, as it existed up to the nineteenth century. At the end of 1999, Rolling Stone magazine asked several luminaries, including the "new journalist" and novelist Tom Wolfe, what was the most important invention of the twentieth century. Wolfe's reply: "The German engineer Gottlieb Daimler's invention in 1885 of the first small, high-speed internal-combustion engine. Daimler's engine made possible the car, the truck, the airplane — the tank, the ballistic missile and the rocket. Without Daimler's engine, there would have been no world wars, no atomic bombings, no threat of worldwide nuclear destruction, no space exploration, nor, for that matter, any Vietnam War. Such were the minor byproducts of the man's genius. The serious business has been the explosion of families, communities, entire populations. Just about everyone who wants to now ups and leaves, gets in the car, the truck, the bus, the airplane and says goodbye to home, hometown, hometown restrictions and that old-time religion. More than all the ideologues, philosophers and cynics combined, it has been Daimler's engine that has led to people discarding religion so casually and blithely you can't even give them any such somber, knit-brow name as `atheists.' Thanks to Gottlieb Daimler ... you're outta there! Nobody can any longer look over your shoulder. After all, which did more to get the sexual carnival rolling, the pill or the drive-straight-to-the-room motel?"

Wolfe focusses here on the automobile, obviously enough, but the internal combustion engine was essential, too, to airplane travel. And, I think, more than any other technology, it is the airplane which is responsible for the creation of "globalization." Jet aircraft are manned and guided missiles which, when not dropping killer explosives from high in the air, land in each country from all others in order to disgorge the neutron weaponry of cheap travel. It is in the service of jet travel that few places have not made themselves congenial to international tourism, the largest single industry in the world. The military-industrial complex, such as it is, grew from the needs of aeronautics (and its extension, astronautics). In the old Soviet Union, it was called the "metal-eaters alliance," because the manufacture airplanes and rockets siphoned so much precious metal from the civilian sector (the U.S. position is that the Russians were defeated in the Cold War by their inability to keep up a superpower military).


Joseph D'Cruz, a respected analyst of the airline industry at the University of Toronto, once noted that of the balance sheets of all the airlines in the history of the world were added up, there were be a collective loss on operations. What this means is that, without government subsidy (both of civilian and military aviation), airline technology would never have developed to its current state. If aviation technology were left to the market (in even more basic terms) it would hardly be an industry at all, in the present day. There might be a few flights out of New York, London and Paris, but it is doubtful all the smaller centres with "international" airports would have them at all, if it were not for government subsidy of the airline industry.

The airplane simply isn't an economical technology...

Posted by: Roundhead at December 18, 2003 at 12:53 PM


Roundhead:
"Without Daimler's engine, there would have been no world wars, no atomic bombings, no threat of worldwide nuclear destruction, no space exploration, nor, for that matter, any Vietnam War.."

If Daimler hadn't existed, another person would have come up with an internal combustion engine; it was and is an inevitable drive of men and women to discover, to invent, and to create new technologies and devices. It is useless to blame Daimler.

Don't we all use the electric lightbulb? Maybe we should blame that idiot who first learned how to make fire from a spark; after all, he was a precursor of Edison, and to power lightbulbs we use nuclear energy, whose waste pollutes our planet, etc, etc.

Maybe it would be more useful for us to reflect upon how to clean up the airplane/jet engines?
maybe industry should be encouraged more to produce cleaner engines and fuel ---this is an old battle, but it is true that we rarely hear of how much those machines in the sky - used for whatever reason, good or bad- do contribute to global warming and pollution.

It's a shame that Monbiot had to go into his dime-store analysis just to bring up one good point -

Let's make a clean-air-machine!
(as well as a cleaner "land" machine....)

Posted by: Alice at December 18, 2003 at 06:46 PM