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Climate Camp 2008 - Will You Be Going?

Will you be visiting or supporting this year's Climate Camp?

  • Yes, climate change matters.

    Votes: 21 43.8%

  • No, because it doesn't

    Votes: 18 37.5%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 9 18.8%
  • Total voters
    48
steve0223 said:
yes it was a rant. Blaming the state of the planets ecology on overpopulation is a fundamental mistake and is a larger attack on the global working class than anything else. Overpopulation is a problem for sure, but to position this as one of the main causes of this crises really means that you then need to take responsibility for the 'solutions'. Do you have any idea how population demographics works? have a look at Iain Boals article 'Feast and Famine' on how overpopulation has historically been used against w/class
Click to expand...

Yes i have read this, and would agree in context but not as a whole, i feel part of the problem and why we are here is overpopulation and at long last a dialog on this of which i welcome and i will make every effort to be educated and read other points of view (i accept some of premise of the lie that is climate change) but i do not feel it is climate change just mother earth acting to the problems we as humans have created by our actions, that is working class middle class and so forth.

4thwrite Your claim that Climate Change is a lie, just seems odd. It puts you in the camp of the oil companies and their tame academics - its an ideological line used to justify the continuation of unregulated free markets and overproduction. I'll admit that the opposite argument - that climate change is real and happens because of human activity - can be used by those who want to greenwash their products and sell us different stuff (but keep selling). However its not an anti-working class message at all. For every middle class moralist who says its happening because the working classes can now afford Easyjet, there's many more recognising that the rich have always consumed more and still do so. That was definitely the case at last year's climate camp. The argument that Climate Change is real might well be taken up by all kinds of loons and liberals, but is essentially a left/radical argument - and in many guises merges into an anti-capitalist critique. The rich make their money out of capitalism as a mode of production - and are also priveliged as consumers.
Click to expand...

Green wash is a good means of explanation on the lie of climate change, all i feel that is going on here is just that, here in the uk work has become less of how they control the masses, lesure has become the social control and to ease the burden of the over consumption we are told if go green all will be well.

No i feel if we begin to grow our own, start to manufacture on a local basis what we need (as said) we start to precess of local democracy as in trade unions at work, as in collectives when we grow our own, we simply remove the power from government and become our dictatorship of the proletariat (karl mark) this for me is socialism in action. This can only lead to real social change, asking the big company's in the form of green wash is simply giving them power of of every day lives.

We need to take that back, and i feel that direct action against the workers of coal fired plants is not going to win over the working class just move them further from social change and into the far right, it has happened and is happening.
 
e19896 said:
Yes i have read this, and would agree in context but not as a whole, i feel part of the problem and why we are here is overpopulation and at long last a dialog on this of which i welcome and i will make every effort to be educated and read other points of view (i accept some of premise of the lie that is climate change) but i do not feel it is climate change just mother earth acting to the problems we as humans have created by our actions, that is working class middle class and so forth.



Green wash is a good means of explanation on the lie of climate change, all i feel that is going on here is just that, here in the uk work has become less of how they control the masses, lesure has become the social control and to ease the burden of the over consumption we are told if go green all will be well.

No i feel if we begin to grow our own, start to manufacture on a local basis what we need (as said) we start to precess of local democracy as in trade unions at work, as in collectives when we grow our own, we simply remove the power from government and become our dictatorship of the proletariat (karl mark) this for me is socialism in action. This can only lead to real social change, asking the big company's in the form of green wash is simply giving them power of of every day lives.

We need to take that back, and i feel that direct action against the workers of coal fired plants is not going to win over the working class just move them further from social change and into the far right, it has happened and is happening.
Click to expand...

it seems to me you are get a load of differeent stuff confused

1 yes greenwash is a big issue]
2 yes THEY use greenwas ( and smoking and all sorts) to attack the w/c
3 yes Climate Camp is middle class

but then you attack climate change which is odd as the human cause of climate chnage is now almost universally accepted .. the science is pretty irrefutable

i toattly agree ther is an issue of how environmental issues are played but the fact remains it is w/c people who are always screwed first .. climate change is a w/c issue

so is Climate camp reactionary as you suggest??? .. maybe maybe .. i am not sure .. at heathrow the local w/c people ( it is a generally w/c area and noisy and polluted ) supportted the camp ..

but more generally how then DOES a w/c movement get across fundamental ideas like this?? .. don't forget until this year the US govt was STILL denying CC!!! big business and the oil still want us to burn oil etc etc etc ..

yes the ideas will be recooperated .. but that does not make them wrong

while i totally agree with the way you argue we should be working locally, are you saying there is NO room for any propganda on top of that, (actually like the IWCA would argue i think )??
 
durruti02 said:
3 yes Climate Camp is middle class

i toattly agree ther is an issue of how environmental issues are played but the fact remains it is w/c people who are always screwed first .. climate change is a w/c issue

so is Climate camp reactionary as you suggest??? .. maybe maybe .. i am not sure .. at heathrow the local w/c people ( it is a generally w/c area and noisy and polluted ) supportted the camp ..

but more generally how then DOES a w/c movement get across fundamental ideas like this?? .. don't forget until this year the US govt was STILL denying CC!!! big business and the oil still want us to burn oil etc etc etc ..

yes the ideas will be recooperated .. but that does not make them wrong

while i totally agree with the way you argue we should be working locally, are you saying there is NO room for any propganda on top of that, (actually like the IWCA would argue i think )??
Click to expand...

Is 3 in terms of class composition (i doubt it is purely middle class) or in terms of political anlaysis you have made? Or something else?
 
The climate camp draws a mixture of people - from all backgrounds. There are definetly tensions based on those backgrounds and their are often hierarchies based on class within the organisation and politics of the event. However, conflict is what we like isn't it? We don't like to see things in suspended animation, we see things as a process that lead on to other processes . The point is not whether the camp is "middle class" but to what extent can it spark the imagination and define a context where real material struggle can take place. It can be the worst place in the world with all sorts of moronic Malthusians but thats not the point - the point is can it induce a circulation of ideas that can lead us to progressive action. Already this is happening with some elements of NUM interested in a debate(and their critique) at the climate camp - this is a key moment in this process, missing it will be a mistake - whatever the fucking class the organisers are from.
 
Raw SslaC said:
The climate camp draws a mixture of people - from all backgrounds. There are definetly tensions based on those backgrounds and their are often hierarchies based on class within the organisation and politics of the event. However, conflict is what we like isn't it? We don't like to see things in suspended animation, we see things as a process that lead on to other processes . The point is not whether the camp is "middle class" but to what extent can it spark the imagination and define a context where real material struggle can take place. It can be the worst place in the world with all sorts of moronic Malthusians but thats not the point - the point is can it induce a circulation of ideas that can lead us to progressive action. Already this is happening with some elements of NUM interested in a debate(and their critique) at the climate camp - this is a key moment in this process, missing it will be a mistake - whatever the fucking class the organisers are from.
Click to expand...

<nods vigorously>
 
I won't be going. Even though IMHO trying to slow down or reduce climate change is important. There's a total lack of miraculous recovery or free respite cover enabling me to take the time off.

And I doubt it's disabled accessible so wouldn't be able to take my caree with me.:rolleyes:
 
durruti02 said:
it seems to me you are get a load of differeent stuff confused

1 yes greenwash is a big issue]
2 yes THEY use greenwas ( and smoking and all sorts) to attack the w/c
3 yes Climate Camp is middle class

but then you attack climate change which is odd as the human cause of climate chnage is now almost universally accepted .. the science is pretty irrefutable

i toattly agree ther is an issue of how environmental issues are played but the fact remains it is w/c people who are always screwed first .. climate change is a w/c issue

so is Climate camp reactionary as you suggest??? .. maybe maybe .. i am not sure .. at heathrow the local w/c people ( it is a generally w/c area and noisy and polluted ) supportted the camp ..

but more generally how then DOES a w/c movement get across fundamental ideas like this?? .. don't forget until this year the US govt was STILL denying CC!!! big business and the oil still want us to burn oil etc etc etc ..

yes the ideas will be recooperated .. but that does not make them wrong

while i totally agree with the way you argue we should be working locally, are you saying there is NO room for any propganda on top of that, (actually like the IWCA would argue i think )??
Click to expand...

like the iwca, well i support them, is less to do with the fact these fools are middle class and ask yourself here you have to middle class and gulibal to believe the lie of climate change..

if we say the evidence is beyond doubt, then how did we get here? not the actions of the working class was it it?

of course we need to go more local, it not only ease the burden on mother earth but in the meantime creates local community's as when i was a kid.

look at the fucking mess we are in, i totally agree with the iwca and one reason we are active in getting underclassrising active again in South Yorkshires.
 
e19896 said:
like the iwca, well i support them, is less to do with the fact these fools are middle class and ask yourself here you have to middle class and gulibal to believe the lie of climate change..
Click to expand...

Calling something a lie does not make it so, no matter how many times you repeat it. What specific reasons do you have for disbelieving in climate change? Please address the actual facts, not what you think other people's motives might be.
 
e19896 said:
like the iwca, well i support them, is less to do with the fact these fools are middle class and ask yourself here you have to middle class and gulibal to believe the lie of climate change..

if we say the evidence is beyond doubt, then how did we get here? not the actions of the working class was it it?
of course we need to go more local, it not only ease the burden on mother earth but in the meantime creates local community's as when i was a kid.

look at the fucking mess we are in, i totally agree with the iwca and one reason we are active in getting underclassrising active again in South Yorkshires.
Click to expand...

But who is claiming that it is the actions of the working class (that have brought us to where we are)? :confused:
 
when i say class we not talking cultural stuff here like if someone wears a flat cap, or has a northern access. What one is talking about is the foundations of the current economic system - where profits come from, and how it is able to grow. basically the crossovers between red and green recognises that the same forces cause:

1 - That the average person is exploited in their everyday life by work, and that capitalist profits are the surplus value extracted from this work, these are the same forces that cause these profits to be accumulated and reinvested.

2- There is no sense to it, and it means that the system HAS to grow, endlessly, which is destroying our ecologies.

If this is the case then challenging both of these forces is cool. Anything else is divide and rule.
Global ecology and the common good:

We must find a way of putting people first in order to protect the environment. There are many ways of reducing the economic stakes in environmental destruction on the part of those who have little direct stake in the treadmill itself. But this means taking seriously issues of social and economic inequality as well as environmental destruction. Only by committing itself to what is now called "environmental justice" (combining environmental concerns and social justice) can the environmental movement avoid being cut off from those classes of individuals who are most resistant to the treadmill on social grounds. the alternative is to promote an environmental movement that is very successful in creating parks with Keep Out! signs, and yet which is complicit with the larger treadmill of production. By recognizing that it is not people (as individuals and in aggregate) that are enemies of the environment but the historically specific economic and social order in which we live, we can, I believe, find sufficient common ground for a true moral revolution to save the earth.

http://clogic.eserver.org/3-1&2/foster.html
Click to expand...
 
^ Have you now abandoned your claim that climate change is a "lie", or are you going to defend it?
 
Signal 11 said:
^ Have you now abandoned your claim that climate change is a "lie", or are you going to defend it?
Click to expand...

do you just take a swipe? or did you read my last post? no i will not change on this, ive had no real hard facts given to me, and when i put radio 4 on and sometimes read inbtween the lines of the captalist press i find an uter difront perspective.

Who are the people telling us this erm let me think The Middle class, now i come to this if the premise of the lie is true.

Then bring it on, i can not mourn the death of the innocent, but will celebrate the death of the guilty, i hold that the people fucking up this earth are the privileged class ie The Middle Class, i live on 80 pounds a week (yes a choice) therefor in my poverty i can not participate in the rape of this earth, i have to consider how and what i spend my weekly income on, as do many in the poverty trap as me (though to some extent it is my own choice) not that i desire to be down with the poor, that would patronising and condescending.

No i follow through my thoughts by action, and when my children ask what did i do to save the earth, i hope i can reply i helped Make The Middle Class History and there lies that was the problem.

Do not come to me, informing me of Climate Change and then say it is my actions or the lack of debate with those who inform us of this lie, ill put the question back where is the fucking evidence of climate change?
 
Raw SslaC said:
The point is not whether the camp is "middle class" but to what extent can it spark the imagination and define a context where real material struggle can take place.
Click to expand...

m/c have an origin and direction which is contray to the w/c. If the camp is m/c then surely it follows whatever solution they come up with will actually be counter-productive to the interests of our class. I mean I hear about the hassle some holiday goers had in the previous camp and it screams lifestylism/middle class bollocks. The idea that humanity as a whole is responisble for the mess the earth currently finds itself in is typical of the muddled thinking of m/c people.

As the saying goes theres but one soultion....
 
october_lost said:
m/c have an origin and direction which is contray to the w/c. If the camp is m/c then surely it follows whatever solution they come up with will actually be counter-productive to the interests of our class. I mean I hear about the hassle some holiday goers had in the previous camp and it screams lifestylism/middle class bollocks. The idea that humanity as a whole is responisble for the mess the earth currently finds itself in is typical of the muddled thinking of m/c people.

As the saying goes theres but one soultion....
Click to expand...

I would say it's not completely black and white as you put it. There is a big discussion going on about the possibility of the NUM staging a demonstration against the climate camp because it is attacking the coal industry.

I take your point though, but I would say that it is m/c people do not neccesary make m/c politics, the same of w/c people.
 
e19896 said:
Do not come to me, informing me of Climate Change and then say it is my actions or the lack of debate with those who inform us of this lie, ill put the question back where is the fucking evidence of climate change?
Click to expand...

i have a problem here .. i agree with you about the middle class .. but i think it unbelievable you appear to deny the theory of the human influence on climate change .. it really is pretty well 100% accepted among scientists nowadays .. this from the Royal society

http://royalsociety.org/landing.asp?id=1278
 
e19896 said:
.
Do not come to me, informing me of Climate Change and then say it is my actions or the lack of debate with those who inform us of this lie, ill put the question back where is the fucking evidence of climate change?
Click to expand...

FFS! Who is saying that it is down to the working class?? You are raging against a case that isn't being made.

Science demonstrates that climate change is real - and is caused by human activity.

In parallel, our politics should show that this about the nature of industrial society, specifically capitalism and the way it constantly seeks growith and expansion without regard for the human and ecological consequences. Capitalist and industrial societies have been and continue to be class socities - societies in which the middles classes own more, consume more and fly more. The case against climate change is implicitly - and should be explicitly* - both anti-capitalist and pro-working class.

* There's a real need to make this explicit and to engage with what is often flabby thinking in the green movement. That's why dismissing the whole thing as 'hippy wank' or whatever is so counter productive.
 
october_lost said:
m/c have an origin and direction which is contray to the w/c. If the camp is m/c then surely it follows whatever solution they come up with will actually be counter-productive to the interests of our class. I mean I hear about the hassle some holiday goers had in the previous camp and it screams lifestylism/middle class bollocks. The idea that humanity as a whole is responisble for the mess the earth currently finds itself in is typical of the muddled thinking of m/c people.

As the saying goes theres but one soultion....
Click to expand...

Well, perhaps, but its a bit deterministic to suggest you can read off the politics directly from the class make up. And to call it middle class needs pinning down a bit. My impressions from going last year were that it certainly wasn't the 'classical' middle class i.e. people in senior white collar, mamagerial jobs, the 'professions' etc. Probably were a fair number of public sector professionals, but the rest were young, students, 'professional activists/festival attenders/campers', people out of the labour force etc. Pretty much the same people you'd get at any anarcho-lite event (not exactly a recommendation, I'd agree :D). Not saying that's any better than if you had the classical bourgeoisie in attendance, but a better label would be 'lifestylist' than middle class (okay, I know the 2 overlap).

On the hassling holiday makers thing, yeah, I vaguely remeber Plane Stupid doing something like that - turning up in some departure hall and slowing down the check in with a lock on. :rolleyes: Yep, naff, embarrassing and counter productive - and any kind of green stuff is equally rubbish when it gets aimed at ordinary people doing their day to day stuff. However that really wasn't typical from the meetings and discussions in the camp itself. I was pleasantly surpised that a constant theme throughout the week was that the focus should be on capitalism per se, polluting firms, CEOs and the like - and not working class consumption.

Edit: just seen that you used the word lifestylist anyway, which makes half of my first paragraph redundant...:D :oops:
 
Bakunin said:
This year the camp will be at Kingsnorth coal/oil power station in Kent, just south of Ashford.
Click to expand...
It's not by Ashford. It's on the Hoo Peninsula.

Perhaps, I shouldn't have told you that.

Would have been funny if a couple of hundred skegs on benefits had turned up in the wrong part of Kent.
 
october_lost,

Are you saying that any solution for any problem that is suggested by someone who is middle-class will *automatically* be bad for the working class? If so, that is a remarkably generalised statement, surely?

Matt
 
4thwrite said:
FFS! Who is saying that it is down to the working class?? You are raging against a case that isn't being made.

Science demonstrates that climate change is real - and is caused by human activity.

In parallel, our politics should show that this about the nature of industrial society, specifically capitalism and the way it constantly seeks growith and expansion without regard for the human and ecological consequences. Capitalist and industrial societies have been and continue to be class socities - societies in which the middles classes own more, consume more and fly more. The case against climate change is implicitly - and should be explicitly* - both anti-capitalist and pro-working class.

* There's a real need to make this explicit and to engage with what is often flabby thinking in the green movement. That's why dismissing the whole thing as 'hippy wank' or whatever is so counter productive.
Click to expand...

i would agree, but nothing has been proven to myself on this and ill stand alone as the stormtroopers of government propaganda march on. At least we get some definition that the consumption of the working class plays a little part in the ongoing changing world.

Of course the Earth is going through some very serious and real change, but this is due to us as humans and as said how we are told growth is good? what if we had all we need? that all we need was just distributed right and fairly, if we did take our sony play stations would we too become a third world nation?
 
e19896 said:
nothing has been proven to myself
Click to expand...
Nothing needs to be proven to you (although I have done so). You have made the claim that climate change is a "lie", therefore you have the burden of proof. Support your claim or withdraw it.

e19896 said:
ill stand alone
Click to expand...
You are not standing alone. You are standing with the conspiraloons, randists and the like who deny climate change. No socialist of any kind is going to join you there.

e19896 said:
as the stormtroopers of government propaganda march on.
Click to expand...
This is not about "government propaganda". It is about science. If you have anything to dispute the science of climate change, provide it.
 
Signal 11 said:
Nothing needs to be proven to you. You have made the claim that climate change is a "lie", therefore you have the burden of proof. Support your claim or withdraw it.


You are not standing alone. You are standing with the conspiraloons, randists and the like who deny climate change. No socialist of any kind is going to join you there.
Click to expand...

And standing with the fossil fuel companies, by the looks of it.

Rather an odd stance in this day and age.
 
smokedout said:
someone seems to be trying to turn in into a free festival :eek:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/402623.html

Im inclined to think it would be a far better idea
Click to expand...


Completely fucking stupid idea as far as I'm concerned.

It's always been meant to be an activist camp for workshops, networking and, most important of all, some direct action.

It's a serious event for serious political activists, not some Brew Crew revival FFS!
 
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