The World Economic Forum is Over

Well, the World Economic Forum for 2024 ended yesterday. Did you notice? It seemed to me to go out with a whimper instead of a bang this year.

In related news, John Kerry is leaving his post as the USA's Climate Envoy. This last trip to Davos may have been his final chance to tell other people how to save the planet. Never mind. He will be helping to re-elect Biden, who will tell everybody what to do. Kerry's a firecracker when it comes to campaign strategy. Heh.

Here's a great quote, from last year's conference at Davos. You may remember it:

When you start to think about it, it’s pretty extraordinary that we — select group of human beings because of whatever touched us at some point in our lives — are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet. I mean, it’s so almost extraterrestrial to think about 'saving the planet'.

John F. Kerry

Extraordinarily weird, actually.

Last year, Walter Kirn observed:

What strikes me most about the WEF is how little disagreement there is. The largest matters on earth are at stake (supposedly) yet the conferees don't argue. They don't debate. All points seem smugly settled. It's an ego orgy, a great self-satisfied mutual grope.

Walter Kirn

This year, Kirn wrote:

These WEF clips are almost poignant, the jet-set salonists in them are so out of touch, so trapped in a failing, dated mutual admiration society. Their creaky vision of a sci-fi superstate dates to the 1970s, perhaps the 50s; it's the wizardly futurism of yore. The gleam is gone.

Kirn got some responses:

The technocrats never left, but they've gotten a lot less empirical and a lot more condescending than they used to be.

Used to be: look at where we're going together!

Today it's: look at the nice cage we're building for you!

And:

I don't think it's technocracy. It's some weird form of Star Wars inspired totalitarianism based on influence.

Anyway, Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi have been following the Davos scene for years. They did some commentary in their last podcast.

Tomorrow on America This Week, @mtaibbi and I conclude that the Davos confab is a technocratic "re-enchantment campaign" intended to resurrect interest in modes of governance etc that the 20th century exposed as total nightmares

The first 30 minutes or so of the podcast are here. Their low-key, quirky but precise observations on Davos start just before the 8 minute mark. Chock-full of interesting imagery in an unexpected format. Some of the points I picked up:

• "Starbase Davos" doesn't need to make sense.

• It's normalizing the spectacle of proclamation-style government

• When Matt Taibbi was living in Russia, in 1995 or 1996, a gathering was held in a hotel room in Davos to arrange much of the future of Russia's relationship with the West. Russian people learned to distrust Davos before Americans did.

• Ukraine is now responding to a "call of history". Davos did such a great job with Russia . . .

• It's a trade show for quasi-totalitarian government. They can't make you excited, but they can make you afraid. They may exaggerate to keep you talking about how you are afraid of them.

• They never talk about how they're gonna do it.
  

"Trust" was this year's theme at Davos. Censorship is the key to trust.

The woman to whom Kirn and Taibbi make reference in the podcast as an advocate of censorship is Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, 13th president of the European Commission since 2019.

NEW - Ursula von der Leyen wants to "drive global collaboration" to tackle "misinformation and disinformation" and "polarization." pic.twitter.com/ITkGFw5Id6

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 16, 2024

Scott Adams is, ummm, concerned and feisty:

I propose a new standard for "misinformation and disinformation."

How about we agree that anyone not willing to debate the other side in public -- or at least describe the other side of the debate fairly -- is assumed to be lying.

For example, wouldn't you like to see the counterpoint to this monster's point of view?

Speakers criticizing the WEF directly from the podium!

Greta Thunberg has always had permission to scold the attendees at the Davos convention, but there was something different this year - - critiques of the conference leadership from the right!

What made things different this year?

You have probably seen this already, but since it's the weekend now, maybe you have time to pay attention to it. What a departure from past years!

Milei's 2024 Davos talk, directly translated to English by AI (by heygen), in his own accent. Better than the dubbed version imo. pic.twitter.com/8OAGELuqxl

— Aaron Slodov (@aphysicist) January 18, 2024

Why did they allow him to speak?

They also invite the President of the Heritage Foundation to describe for them what they might expect if a Republican were elected as the next president. He went off script and slammed them, too:

In an op-ed penned ahead of the conference, Roberts wrote that he accepted the invitation to deliver the global elites a message. "Davos must accept the moral virtues, practical benefits, and natural rights of nations, families, and individuals to govern themselves," Roberts wrote, or "'We, the People'" will "take matters into our own hands." . .

Roberts certainly delivered that message. . .

The agenda that every single member of the administration needs to have is to compile a list of everything that's ever been proposed at the World Economic Forum, and object to all of them wholesale

In a statement following the event, Roberts expressed that he had little faith the WEF is capable of reform or adopting a "noblesse oblige" view of the world. Ultimately, Roberts wrote in his op-ed, "the everyday citizens, workers, and families who shoulder the burdens of Davos-style global elitism," will have to work themselves to "reclaim their individual rights and national sovereignty."

Other Commentary

Elon Musk posted, "Grok roasts Klaus Schwab at WEF"

In yesterday's Morning Report, J.J. Sefton highlighted an interesting piece by Richard Fernandez, The Year the Future Disappeared:

People naturally reflect on the state of the world whenever an old year gives way to a new. Will 2024 resemble the familiar past or are we hurtling into the unknown? Some men of stature, like Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum (WEF), whose annual meeting of global Bond villains is currently underway in Davos, Switzerland, fear that order is dissolving into chaos. The heretics are destroying his established church of order and he fears that an inordinate desire for freedom might bring the house.

You have this anti-system movement. What we are seeing is a revolution against the system. So fixing the present system is not enough. Now, of course there is an anti-system which is called libertarianism, which means to tear down everything which creates some kind of influence of government into private lives. It's dismantling the system.

Are we entering a second cold war, or something else? How much of this did Klaus Schwab foresee?

Quotes

There has never been a shortage of people eager to draw up blueprints for running other people's lives.

-Thomas Sowell

Of all contemptible and vile people, few are as grotesque as the @wef and @Davos crowd. Smug vacuous elitists parasitized by dreadful ideologies whilst pretending to be the saviours of humanity. The absolute worst people. One honest farmer is worth more than that entire lot.

Gad Saad

Weekend

Poetry

Richard Burton’s greatest performance was not in Becket or The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, his best was when he sat down and recited Shakespeare in the middle of an interview.

This is a tribute to the Bard and to English and to Anglo-Civilization. pic.twitter.com/20pujeo1UG

— Shelby Foote Appreciator⚓️ (@NoJesuitTricks) January 19, 2024

Music

Kid playing a guitar

It was at that point they began to regret asking you if you thought you could do any better… pic.twitter.com/1j1qTB0zGD

— Shaughn_A (@Shaughn_A2) January 14, 2024

A World of Our Own without the WEF

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, January 13, Pick Your Utopia

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:14 AM

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