Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
It's like those anti-capitalist protesters who buy coffee at Starbucks eh? They haven't thought through even the rudiments of the problem, right?
Or maybe you haven't.
Extinction Rebellion
- Thread starter Jeremiah18.17
- Start date
Or maybe you haven't.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
I'm glad there's more happening on this front and have been trying to be constructively critical for the most part. An interesting critique I saw from James Butler on fb the other week is that Roger Hallam and co are confused about what it is that makes social movements successful, particularly cause and effect in terms of arrests. Large scale arrests are a side-effect of successful social movements that begin to threaten state/capital interests. It isn't the arrests themselves that are the point, though they can become a catalyst to establishing the lines of the conflict. I think the thing is that, sure people might sympathise with what they consider to be unjust arrests, but you have to win the wider argument about what is an appropriate way to respond to the problem you are trying to solve. You don't even have to persuade everyone, only a vocal minority that has a bit of leverage on government for whatever reason (not saying that's a good way to do it, but it can work). But XR has not really done that. They haven't helped create a new 'consensus' about how to respond to climate change, and their tactics don't seem designed to do that, they've just decided that getting arrested will be disruptive enough to force the conversations they want to have. It feels like they want to be the leading edge of something, but there's not enough weight behind it.
It’s kind of harder to avoid capitalism than it is going to Barbados instead of, say, Brighton.
Of course the issues are structural. Most eco activists I’ve encountered espouse individualist actions as at least part of the solution though.
Most people consider individual action to part of the solution to any problem.
I said individualist, not individual.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Some do, some don't. Some may have noticed that a consumer boycott of fossil fuels significant enough to have any effect would bring the price of fossil fuels down, meaning that others could buy up more of it. The chances it would result in less fossil fuel being pulled from the ground is more or less zero.
The state promotes those kinds of actions (reduce your carbon footprint, make ethical consumerist choices etc) presumably as it’s less effective. Perhaps it isn’t as bad as I think as you don’t get to see the reverse: those who don’t use it to virtue signal.
Patteran
A nowadays excuse
It's odd, innit? Protest & change viewed as mathematics or algorithms & fed into a Google Rebellion Translate machine - a civil disobedience program written by AI that may be very clever but has never actually met any humans.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
This stuff is clearly influenced by fill the jails campaigns of the iww in the early 10s and 20s of the last century (or prob more likely the re-use of the official US civil rights movement). They were local or regional issues that flying squads could act on. This stuff just doesn't work on that level. They were tractable issues that could be dealt with through the use of the tactic. This isn't. So the sort of history that's being built for this future seems a little wobbly to me.
edit: of course these campaigns relied on not being charged because of the volume of arrests.
edit: of course these campaigns relied on not being charged because of the volume of arrests.
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sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Consciously trying to follow civil rights movement. See
In fact more like CND. It warned of nuclear apocalypse or exterminism. They warn of species extinction. Similar willing waiting for arrests.
Cheesepig3
Cheese. Cheese. Cats.
So the thread about climate change has managed about 26 posts this year. That is just over 2 a month.
Climate Change
The thread largely criticising a group protesting about climate change has managed about 330 posts in a month.
So very Urban 75,
And now for something completely different.
The UKs CO2 emissions have already dropped to levels last seen in the 1890s
Britain's CO2 Emissions Have Fallen to Levels Last Seen in 1890
The UK is on the road to the phase out of coal (the Radcliff, Drax and Kingsnorth Climate Camps were anti coal generation)
Lazards review of the levalized costs of electricity generating showed that renewables are becoming cost competitive with thermal fossil fuel plants (and exceeding them) [for the US but the global trend in similar]
These protests are pushing at a door that is already opening. People want clean air for their cities, cheap energy for their homes and a stable climate for their children. Low carbon energy sources, public transport over cars and improving housing insulation are all easy policy wins to achieve the former. Extinction Rebellion are off their arses and doing something. That makes them alright in my book. What they are doing is one tiny part of a huge global effort to attack an enormous problem from multiple angles.
4th warmest year ever measured and a mild el Nino brewing.
If sitting your arse in a road helps in the tiniest bit to bring the inevitable switch to a low carbon economy quicker, fair fucks to them.
Yeah, some of us actually work in renewables rather than bleat about which bin the yoghurt pot goes in.
Not sure anything thinks they know better - surely it’s obvious even to a layman that getting arrested as a tactic might be counterproductive with such a small pool of activists.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Aparrently XR's 'legal team' have been seeking advice on such thorny questions as whether there's any law that makes a conversation in a public street protected private communication.
They've also been telling people to represent themselves.
These people are making me wish I'd invested heavily in facepalms a few months back.
They've also been telling people to represent themselves.
These people are making me wish I'd invested heavily in facepalms a few months back.
Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
I volunteered to support arrested ppl last Saturday. Bindmans was representing people
I agree though that the campaign tactics are patchy at present
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Down from last time then
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Last week they said they were appealing to the queen because politicians had failed. Now they are handing in petitions to the politicians
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
To be fair it wasn’t an XR thing, it was just a climate change march that they were at. Way too many speeches though.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Don't worry, it wasn't "we" who killed all the animals, it was me. Alone.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I'm a member of the Greens, but my personal opinion of ER is much like my opinion of the Green Party in general: Too bourgeois, too attuned to white middle-class urban concerns, too accommodationist. It's all about doing stuff within the bounds of the system. Reformism doesn't work, even when backed up by constant low-level NVDA. Sometimes the genie has to escape the bottle, so the system gets shaken up. Pissing off a few thousand drivers once a week, will never achieve anything but polishing a few egos.
ska invita
back on the other side
From their FAQs
FAQs | Extinction Rebellion
Q: ‘Your demands are vague, slightly confusing and perhaps even contradictory. Why do you think you can achieve them?’
n XR: This is probably because we have to write things down in short ‘soundbites’ that are communicable as headlines. There is much more detail underneath them. We are using cutting edge techniques to build a resilient mass movement. We know the task ahead is daunting and therefore that the likelihood of success may seem slim, but we are willing to do all we can to try and achieve this. Ultimately though, we are doing this because it is the right thing to do, in part we remain unattached to outcomes, meaning that although we hope we can save something of life on earth we try to stay motivated by action being the right thing to do (virtue ethics) rather than taking action because we think it will work (utilitarian ethics). However, the more of us that act on this basis in the face of the galloping global assault on our children’s futures, the more likely we hit the tipping point where the impossible becomes inevitable.
Consciously impractical
FAQs | Extinction Rebellion
Q: ‘Your demands are vague, slightly confusing and perhaps even contradictory. Why do you think you can achieve them?’
n XR: This is probably because we have to write things down in short ‘soundbites’ that are communicable as headlines. There is much more detail underneath them. We are using cutting edge techniques to build a resilient mass movement. We know the task ahead is daunting and therefore that the likelihood of success may seem slim, but we are willing to do all we can to try and achieve this. Ultimately though, we are doing this because it is the right thing to do, in part we remain unattached to outcomes, meaning that although we hope we can save something of life on earth we try to stay motivated by action being the right thing to do (virtue ethics) rather than taking action because we think it will work (utilitarian ethics). However, the more of us that act on this basis in the face of the galloping global assault on our children’s futures, the more likely we hit the tipping point where the impossible becomes inevitable.
Consciously impractical
BristolEcho
Well-Known Member
They were out BBC Bristol today too. I gave a ding of my bell for them and they didn't even respond. Fuck them.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
He was put today with a small brexit lot on whitehall
