Thursday, November 22, 2007

A truly sanctimonious, crazed celebrity activist

Like probably many others, I despise celebrity activists. Not only are they condescending and insulting to the intelligence, they are also generally "rebels without a clue", as well as incredibly sanctimonious and hypocritical. Such is the case with Heather Mills, vegan activist and estranged wife of AR zealot and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. Earlier this week, Mills stormed out of a radio interview, drove to London's Hyde Park in a Mercedes SUV, then launched into a bizarre diatribe about the alleged ecological dangers of livestock, in which she actually asked "why don't we drink rat's milk?". Apparently, Mills didn't bother to think about how one would actually milk a small animal like a rat, nor the fact that an animal that size would produce such a minute amount of it that it would be useless. Additionally, for some reason, Mills let the gas-guzzling SUV continue to idle while she was giving her self-serving little screed.
Here we have a pompous, narcissistic, pampered celebrity pontificating to others about how they are supposedly destroying the planet with their eating habits, after showing up in a fuel-inefficient vehicle that she lets idle while giving her sermon! The hypocrisy of that is so incredulous, that one is really at a loss for words. It's right up there with that elitist Al Gore telling us serfs that it is us driving our cars to work that is the problem, while he continues to trot the globe in a kerosene-guzzling private jet, and owns a home that uses more electricity in a month than most of us use in a year.
I have long wondered what is going on with environmental and AR crusaders, from the common everyday ones to the celebrities and elitists, in regards to their own hypocrisies. Is there something psychologically that blinds them to it, so they are not able to see it, even though it is apparent to everyone else? Perhaps that is the case with some. More often, though, it seems that many simply try to rationalize their own hypocrisy, as can be clearly seen if one reads various pro-AR blogs, as well as some of the comments from ARAs that have been left here at this blog. In my experience, ARAs and green crusaders tend to be privileged and well off in comparison to the rest of the world. They enjoy the luxuries that their life affords, but at the same time they seem to have a psychological need to feel morally superior to others. Thus they rationalize their own actions in an attempt to maintain their facade of moral piety. I can't help but wonder if a shrink would have a field day with Ms. Mills and her ilk.

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