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Extinction Rebellion

mauvais said:
View attachment 251709

The joy of this is always the explaining isn't it? As we can see here, XR love a bit of inevitably disastrous collaboration with the police and state, so I reckon there's a strong chance that they got the cute lil boot owners semi-voluntarily nicked. A double win for publicity: locked up kids are photogenic, and noone had to drive out to John Lewis and buy forty pairs of tiny shoes.
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Right, and how many people ended up in Belmarsh for that ? Or even got nicked?
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
If so that's the same as every site protest thing, they attract all sorts of people, plenty from the vulnerable/margins. Not a failure of them, a failure of society though. Although I know it does raise some problems and issues for sure.
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Particularly in London. Somewhere to go . There's no way round it. I thought the 2019 XR rebellions handled the inevitable quite well, although Trafalgar square was getting that way by the end.
 
muscovyduck said:
I'm howling. Why did no one research red hand imagery and symbolism in the UK? As in, the bits of the UK that aren't London or England? Pretty sloppy for a group that's dealing with such a geo-political based issue like climate change, to put it mildly
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Is it particularly likely there'd be any confusion especially as this proposal for action (not widely taken up) would leave the silhouette of a hand, which isn't a particularly contentious symbol?
 
Red Sky said:
Not as bad as those "The future's bright, the future's Orange" posters that went up.

Anyway, this particular proposal didn't really catch on.
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You mean the adverts? It's not the same really. A British direct action group using (for want of a better phrase) very similar branding to a unionist paramilitary group is different to a large corporation using one word in a way that could be constructed as offensive innuendo. That XR press release refers to "decorating the streets" and is pro police.
 
Also just to clarify this isn't just on XR, this is a general political education issue. A lot of British working class kids in places like London won't know about things like this or even that they need to double check for things like this and it's going to get worse.

Edit for clarity
 
muscovyduck said:
You mean the adverts? It's not the same really. A British direct action group using (for want of a better phrase) very similar branding to a unionist paramilitary group is different to a large corporation using one word in a way that could be constructed as offensive innuendo. That XR press release refers to "decorating the streets" and is pro police.
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Loyalist paramilitary group
 
muscovyduck said:
Also just to clarify this isn't just on XR, this is a general political education issue. A lot of British working class kids in places like London won't know about things like this or even that they need to double check for things like this and it's going to get worse.

Edit for clarity
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I think you say it yourself there . The chance of confusion is minimal.
 
TopCat said:
The HS2 protest tunnels seem crazy to me. A friend who knows says there are a lot of vulnerable youngsters down there.
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That's really shit to hear but considering their whole marketing thing seems to revolve around targeting vulnerable people and youngsters it's not really surprising. That's why the legal strategy that they have been throwing around is so neglectful and shortsighted that is it is criminal.
LynnDoyleCooper said:
If so that's the same as every site protest thing, they attract all sorts of people, plenty from the vulnerable/margins. Not a failure of them, a failure of society though. Although I know it does raise some problems and issues for sure.
Click to expand...

It's defo a problem with all protest movements. Thing is, the other movements I have been involved in at least attempted to put some welfare measures and legal protections in place for people.

I had a lot of amazing support when I had legal troubles in the Iraq war protests. It was like, here's a lawyer, here's some money for personal costs and fines, would you like some support at court? There was never any attempt to interfere with the decisions I was making about my legal problems.

But XR were very heavily influencing people to take an aggressive approach to the legal problems they were having as a result of the movement. There was a lot of pressure for people to take any case against them to Crown court. They were telling people, under no circumstances accept a caution. There was no support, just pushing people into making sacrifices for the movement.

That might be all well and good for some people but for people that are vulnerable or from an minority or are working class it can really fuck your life up. It's so tone deaf, which is frustrating because in principle XR are right a lot of the time. But their methods of dealing with people in the movement are so forceful, it's really hard for a lot of people to get behind them.

And on a fundamental level even if everyone was equal, any application of pressure like that detracts from people's autonomy. And that's where its starts looking a bit dark and horrible.

So yeah, it's a hard one. They are undeniably right about a lot. A lot of my close friends have got very involved with them and I would kind of like to back them but I can't help feeling there's something really off about the way they are going about things.
 
Grace Johnson said:
That's really shit to hear but considering their whole marketing thing seems to revolve around targeting vulnerable people and youngsters it's not really surprising. That's why the legal strategy that they have been throwing around is so neglectful and shortsighted that is it is criminal.

It's defo a problem with all protest movements. Thing is, the other movements I have been involved in at least attempted to put some welfare measures and legal protections in place for people.

I had a lot of amazing support when I had legal troubles in the Iraq war protests. It was like, here's a lawyer, here's some money for personal costs and fines, would you like some support at court? There was never any attempt to interfere with the decisions I was making about my legal problems.

But XR were very heavily influencing people to take an aggressive approach to the legal problems they were having as a result of the movement. There was a lot of pressure for people to take any case against them to Crown court. They were telling people, under no circumstances accept a caution. There was no support, just pushing people into making sacrifices for the movement.

That might be all well and good for some people but for people that are vulnerable or from an minority or are working class it can really fuck your life up. It's so tone deaf, which is frustrating because in principle XR are right a lot of the time. But their methods of dealing with people in the movement are so forceful, it's really hard for a lot of people to get behind them.

And on a fundamental level even if everyone was equal, any application of pressure like that detracts from people's autonomy. And that's where its starts looking a bit dark and horrible.

So yeah, it's a hard one. They are undeniably right about a lot. A lot of my close friends have got very involved with them and I would kind of like to back them but I can't help feeling there's something really off about the way they are going about things.
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A friend of mine was up in '19 for XR stuff, and she appeared at city magistrates. No one from XR turned up to any of the cases that day.
 
Grace Johnson said:
That's really shit to hear but considering their whole marketing thing seems to revolve around targeting vulnerable people and youngsters it's not really surprising. That's why the legal strategy that they have been throwing around is so neglectful and shortsighted that is it is criminal.

It's defo a problem with all protest movements. Thing is, the other movements I have been involved in at least attempted to put some welfare measures and legal protections in place for people.

I had a lot of amazing support when I had legal troubles in the Iraq war protests. It was like, here's a lawyer, here's some money for personal costs and fines, would you like some support at court? There was never any attempt to interfere with the decisions I was making about my legal problems.

But XR were very heavily influencing people to take an aggressive approach to the legal problems they were having as a result of the movement. There was a lot of pressure for people to take any case against them to Crown court. They were telling people, under no circumstances accept a caution. There was no support, just pushing people into making sacrifices for the movement.

That might be all well and good for some people but for people that are vulnerable or from an minority or are working class it can really fuck your life up. It's so tone deaf, which is frustrating because in principle XR are right a lot of the time. But their methods of dealing with people in the movement are so forceful, it's really hard for a lot of people to get behind them.

And on a fundamental level even if everyone was equal, any application of pressure like that detracts from people's autonomy. And that's where its starts looking a bit dark and horrible.

So yeah, it's a hard one. They are undeniably right about a lot. A lot of my close friends have got very involved with them and I would kind of like to back them but I can't help feeling there's something really off about the way they are going about things.
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It started off well didn't it? I remember they did a thing where they sort of said "here's everyone who can deal with getting arrested, they'll do the more aggressive stuff" and it was genuinely the least vulnerable people. At some point, I think when the openly pro-police stuff came in, that changed
 
Pickman's model said:
A friend of mine was up in '19 for XR stuff, and she appeared at city magistrates. No one from XR turned up to any of the cases that day.
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Seems to be the way of it. The thing that wound me up was the flyers going about telling people to under no circumstances accept a caution. They have no right to be giving out legal advice.

There was that sense of entitlement that wound me up and all tbh. For some people getting arrested has such massive potential for trauma. XR were just blind to that and wheter wilful or not that ignorance will be incredibly harmful to some people.
 
muscovyduck said:
It started off well didn't it? I remember they did a thing where they sort of said "here's everyone who can deal with getting arrested, they'll do the more aggressive stuff" and it was genuinely the least vulnerable people. At some point, I think when the openly pro-police stuff came in, that changed
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Yeah, the pro police stuff was part of it defo. I also saw a lot of stuff flying around at the time that was giving legal advice (that obviously was suited To XR) and also encouraging people to go out and have confrontations with the police but just be nice. Now stuff like that just doesn't compute in my head, having had the experiences that I've had. So that's when I started getting a bit worried like.
 
Grace Johnson said:
It's defo a problem with all protest movements. Thing is, the other movements I have been involved in at least attempted to put some welfare measures and legal protections in place for people.

I had a lot of amazing support when I had legal troubles in the Iraq war protests. It was like, here's a lawyer, here's some money for personal costs and fines, would you like some support at court? There was never any attempt to interfere with the decisions I was making about my legal problems.
Click to expand...
What was the situation with the student protests and Occupy? I'm not as young as I was but I'm younger than a lot on these boards. I've never known any sort of group activism that isn't me and people like me being exploited as much as possible and then left to my own devices to clear up the mess.
 
Grace Johnson said:
That's really shit to hear but considering their whole marketing thing seems to revolve around targeting vulnerable people and youngsters it's not really surprising. That's why the legal strategy that they have been throwing around is so neglectful and shortsighted that is it is criminal.

It's defo a problem with all protest movements. Thing is, the other movements I have been involved in at least attempted to put some welfare measures and legal protections in place for people.

I had a lot of amazing support when I had legal troubles in the Iraq war protests. It was like, here's a lawyer, here's some money for personal costs and fines, would you like some support at court? There was never any attempt to interfere with the decisions I was making about my legal problems.

But XR were very heavily influencing people to take an aggressive approach to the legal problems they were having as a result of the movement. There was a lot of pressure for people to take any case against them to Crown court. They were telling people, under no circumstances accept a caution. There was no support, just pushing people into making sacrifices for the movement.

That might be all well and good for some people but for people that are vulnerable or from an minority or are working class it can really fuck your life up. It's so tone deaf, which is frustrating because in principle XR are right a lot of the time. But their methods of dealing with people in the movement are so forceful, it's really hard for a lot of people to get behind them.

And on a fundamental level even if everyone was equal, any application of pressure like that detracts from people's autonomy. And that's where its starts looking a bit dark and horrible.

So yeah, it's a hard one. They are undeniably right about a lot. A lot of my close friends have got very involved with them and I would kind of like to back them but I can't help feeling there's something really off about the way they are going about things.
Click to expand...
i've supported people up at magistrates and crown courts before, for poll tax and anti-fascist stuff. and tbh it's a core activity of a protest movement, it's not some optional extra. i've always been of the view that if you encourage people to take part in an activity then you assume some responsibility for what happens to them as a result of that: and there's really no excuse for xr leaving people in the shit.
 
muscovyduck said:
What was the situation with the student protests and Occupy? I'm not as young as I was but I'm younger than a lot on these boards. I've never known any sort of group activism that isn't me and people like me being exploited as much as possible and then left to my own devices to clear up the mess.
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I don't know mate. That was a little bit after the time I was involved. I don't know anything about the occupy movement on that level.

When I was involved it was mostly against the iraq and afghanistan wars. While there was an attempt to brand what was going on at the time under various banners it was more just groups of individuals from my experience. There was more organisation of those groups on a regional and national level that helped people with various kinds of support and also helped organise camps and logistics and speakers and that. It was loose and there was no higher directive as such but there was a level of organisation that allowed us all to support each other.

Im sure there will be people on here that can tell you more about occupy though mate.
 
Pickman's model said:
i've supported people up at magistrates and crown courts before, for poll tax and anti-fascist stuff. and tbh it's a core activity of a protest movement, it's not some optional extra. i've always been of the view that if you encourage people to take part in an activity then you assume some responsibility for what happens to them as a result of that: and there's really no excuse for xr leaving people in the shit.
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With you 100 percent on this.
 
muscovyduck said:
What was the situation with the student protests and Occupy? I'm not as young as I was but I'm younger than a lot on these boards. I've never known any sort of group activism that isn't me and people like me being exploited as much as possible and then left to my own devices to clear up the mess.
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For the student protests there was definitely a pretty solidly organised campaign, the whole Defend the Right to Protest thing, and I think Green & Black Cross came out of it as well. Also in the brief window in between and fairly related there was UK Uncut stuff, which definitely led to a few local defence campaigns, and the whole Fortnum & Mason thing. Not entirely sure about Occupy, would guess it'd depend where you were, but I think for pretty much all of the 2010s people facing cases from most movements would be able to get support from GBC and Legal Defence Monitoring Group, until they packed it in, but then ACAB came along pretty shortly after. Anyway, the public statement about GBC not feeling able to provide support to XR is pretty unique I think.
 
hitmouse said:
For the student protests there was definitely a pretty solidly organised campaign, the whole Defend the Right to Protest thing, and I think Green & Black Cross came out of it as well. Also in the brief window in between and fairly related there was UK Uncut stuff, which definitely led to a few local defence campaigns, and the whole Fortnum & Mason thing. Not entirely sure about Occupy, would guess it'd depend where you were, but I think for pretty much all of the 2010s people facing cases from most movements would be able to get support from GBC and Legal Defence Monitoring Group, until they packed it in, but then ACAB came along pretty shortly after. Anyway, the public statement about GBC not feeling able to provide support to XR is pretty unique I think.
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Thanks for that, I think some of that's around the time I first wondered onto the scene. I remember Green & Black Cross' online presence and UK Uncut. I'm glad to hear that because it means there's a lot of young-ish people who have experienced good solid solidarity and support, which means the situation as it is now can be just a blip if we keep up doing the sort of stuff a lot of us are doing anyway.
 
muscovyduck said:
More on this here
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They've been building those tunnels for 7 fckin months and noones thought oh hang on is this actually a good idea?!? Wtaf?

Pallette wood ffs. And for 7 fckin months these numptys have been down there digging going oh yeah it's sound this. They've not thought to health and safety it or ask someone qualified?

It's criminal negligence that. And this is where that daft arrogance they've got gets really dangerous. Oh my days. I just hope everyone is alright.
 
Grace Johnson said:
They've been building those tunnels for 7 fckin months and noones thought oh hang on is this actually a good idea?!? Wtaf?

Pallette wood ffs. And for 7 fckin months these numptys have been down there digging going oh yeah it's sound this. They've not thought to health and safety it or ask someone qualified?

It's criminal negligence that. And this is where that daft arrogance they've got gets really dangerous. Oh my days. I just hope everyone is alright.
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yeh I hope this ends ok
 
Grace Johnson said:
They've been building those tunnels for 7 fckin months and noones thought oh hang on is this actually a good idea?!? Wtaf?

Pallette wood ffs. And for 7 fckin months these numptys have been down there digging going oh yeah it's sound this. They've not thought to health and safety it or ask someone qualified?

It's criminal negligence that. And this is where that daft arrogance they've got gets really dangerous. Oh my days. I just hope everyone is alright.
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It's got to be risky. That's how it works . It means that eviction teams have to shore up as they go, dragging out the whole process.
 
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