Jane and I think alike

The differences between Jane Fonda and me are obvious. She is a woman, I’m a man (as I’m not ashamed to admit, although Jane probably thinks I should be). She is rich and famous, I’m neither. She is ‘liberal’, I’m not.

The differences are so vast that they overshadow the similarities. Yet similarities do exist, and I’m particularly grateful to Jane for going out of her way to support one of my cherished arguments.

I’ve said a thousand times if I’ve said it once that most of our ‘influencers’ are professional malcontents who hate the West and everything it stands for. Whatever it is, they hate it and will protest against it.

What ‘it’ is doesn’t matter. The underlying principle is “give us a cause and we’ll find a mob” – the same mob in most cases. They all converge on what they hate.

That’s why if a chap says, for example, that ‘our planet’ has 10 years left to live, I don’t have to ask him what he thinks about racism, misogyny, socialism, homomarriage or ‘hate crime’. I already know.

Following Aristotle’s epistemology, I first acquired that knowledge empirically, by perceiving the phenomenon through the senses, mainly those of hearing and sight. I then post-rationalised the findings into the concept I described above, somewhat schematically.

Still, given as I am to self-doubt, I have to wonder if I may be wrong. Am I oversimplifying a complex issue? Not at all, says Jane. She then dispels my doubts by proving me right.

In a recent interview Jane made my point more cogently than I ever could: “Well, you know, you can take anything – sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, whatever, the war. And if you really get into it, and study it and learn about it and the history of it, everything’s connected. There’d be no climate crisis if it wasn’t for racism.”

Everything is indeed connected, and I’m glad Jane confirmed it. Verily I say unto you, she is a walking one-woman mob, which narrows and therefore streamlines the field of study.

In this case, I am especially interested in the link between climate crisis and racism. I realise all such things come together within Jane’s mind, but is there any objective connection?

Yes there is, and I’m embarrassed at not having spotted it. You see, the modern hydrocarbon-based economy has been created mainly by white men.

Since hydrocarbons have put ‘our planet’ on death row, white men are to blame. That’s why Jane thinks they should all be arrested, which I fear may create a logistical problem. After all, there are about 600 million white men in the world, and I’m not sure there exist enough holding cells for them all.

“It is a tragedy that we have to absolutely stop. We have to arrest and jail those men – they’re all men,” says Jane. Then again, she may mean only those directly involved in that criminal activity, which would reduce the number to a more manageable couple of million.

White men are guilty not only of irresponsibility but also of racist perfidy. For they are killing ‘our planet’ not en masse, but selectively, by conspiring to poison specifically the areas inhabited by off-white persons. But I shouldn’t be making Jane’s points for her. She can do so herself, and can she ever:

“This is serious. We’ve got about seven, eight years to cut ourselves in half of what we use of fossil fuels, and unfortunately, the people that have the least responsibility for it are hit the hardest. Global South, people on islands, poor people of colour,” says Jane.

Ergo, “It’s good for us all to realise, there would be no climate crisis if there was no racism. There would be no climate crisis if there was no patriarchy.”

Now, Norway is the biggest oil producer in Europe, this side of Russia. I’m not as widely travelled as Jane, which is why I didn’t realise Norwegians were “poor people of colour”. Now I stand corrected, and perhaps it’s time for me to go shakin’ and bakin’ with them Norse brothers, you feel me?

Actually, if (when?) Labour get elected next year, them Norse bloods will get even richer murdering ‘our planet’. Kier Starmer has committed his party to banning licences for oil and gas production in the North Sea. That will give Norway a monopoly on being poisoned, cos they is all “poor people of colour”.

Hanoi Jane is a woman – sorry, person – after my own heart. That’s why I think I’m entitled to point out a slight inconsistency in her view of the problem.

White racist men have segregated “poor people of colour”, fair enough. But even those perfidious criminals can’t segregate the atmosphere. We all breathe the same air, and if ‘our planet’ only has “seven, eight years” left to live, it doesn’t really matter where the weapons of planetary destruction are sited.

So the dastardly plot hatched by white men is going to backfire. When ‘our planet’ turns into a great ball of fire, we’ll all perish together – poor people of colour, rich albinos of no colour, even North Vietnamese.

I do hope Jane sticks around long enough to see that catastrophe and say “I told you so”. Let’s see, she is 85, so seven or eight years from now she’ll be 92-93. Touch and go, I’d say, but doable. Still, on the balance of probability, I dare say ‘our planet’ will outlive Jane.

Although, of course, her insights are immortal.