Extinction Rebellion

[redcogs]

It is desperately important that XR do not fail, yet i feel they will. Maybe i am just too accustomed to our side getting crushed, which has made me pessimistic? i hate this feeling.

 

[DaphneM]

I don't know what that's a photo of, but how do you measure what's "best"?

It seems to me it has to be primarily about going some way towards stopping the thing you're protesting about.

Weird dancing and costumes might be fun for those taking part, but if they alienate many of those who might otherwise be joining in protest or other action, it's valid to question how successful that protest really is.

You would prefer it to be effective rather than anything else

 

[LDC]

It is desperately important that XR do not fail, yet i feel they will. Maybe i am just too accustomed to our side getting crushed, which has made me pessimistic? i hate this feeling.

I can't see a way for XR to expand and win much now tbh, but that's OK, for me what's important is some form of climate politics does, which I think is likely to come. Maybe the catalyst for its emergence will be widespread crop failures, a very hot summer in Europe, or something similar....?

I think the complicated battle will be what form do climate mitigations take when they do come in, and how will the wider green movement will respond when/if they're not equitable?

 

[Chilli.s]

XR I see as a stepping stone, after a few more blisteringly hot summers and long cold winters with expensive heating and blown down garden fences itll be all "told you so". More comprehensive belief in how mankind fucks up nature across the whole of society will make another type of protest

 

[teqniq]

The Met made to look like the lapdogs and lickspittles that they are:

XR co-founder demands police arrest ‘criminal’ government after intimidating conspiracy charges dropped - Extinction Rebellion UK

Gail Bradbrook has had conspiracy charges with a maximum jail term of ten years hanging over her for two years since police raided her home, arrested her in handcuffs and seized computer equipment and personal papers in May 2021. Now the Met have finally admitted that they have insufficient...

extinctionrebellion.uk

And, well actually they've only got themselves to blame.

 

[ska invita]

Very entertaining interview with Roger Hallam here in which he calls Nick Robinson a cunt for half an hour.. . Don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it on the BBC or similar. Fair play to him for trying to puncture the entire format of a BBC political interview and it's always bullshit framing

BBC News - Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, Series 1, The Roger Hallam One

Roger Hallam challenges Nick to emotionally engage with the reality of climate change.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[edcraw]

Very entertaining interview with Roger Hallam here in which he calls Nick Robinson a cunt for half an hour.. . Don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it on the BBC or similar. Fair play to him for trying to puncture the entire format of a BBC political interview and it's always bullshit framing

BBC News - Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, Series 1, The Roger Hallam One

Roger Hallam challenges Nick to emotionally engage with the reality of climate change.

www.bbc.co.uk

Really can’t figure him out, not that it matters. Obviously XR is a lot more than just him - as it should be.

 

[bluescreen]

Very entertaining interview with Roger Hallam here in which he calls Nick Robinson a cunt for half an hour.. . Don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it on the BBC or similar. Fair play to him for trying to puncture the entire format of a BBC political interview and it's always bullshit framing

BBC News - Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, Series 1, The Roger Hallam One

Roger Hallam challenges Nick to emotionally engage with the reality of climate change.

www.bbc.co.uk

I came here to post that. Extraordinary, throwing metaphorical paint all over the Robinson project.

Can't say it would have endeared Hallam to many R4 listeners but then he wouldn't care as that's not his point. He seems very concerned about his own mortal soul.

 

[redcogs]

Roger H strikes me as Gandalf the White struggling against the evils of Mordor. He is an impressive figure in so many ways. i never thought to hear someone accuse Nic Robinson of being a treasonous snake who will eventually face justice for the crime of aiding the 1%'s genocidal project of murdering millions of people. Cant help admiring his spirit and ability to focus on laying bare the catastrophe that humanity is facing unless we act. But sadly my feeling (and fear) is that most of us will be found wanting because our relatively comfortable lives allow it to be so. How fucking distressing is that.

 

[platinumsage]

He’s a few blades short of a wind turbine, that’s for sure.

 

[redcogs]

i dont really think that Hallam is mad platinumsage, and in his defence i would say he has a personal preparedness to place action above rhetorical words - a rare quality indeed. The main issue for me is: will humanity more generally, especially the earths toilers, become receptive in large enough numbers to the idea that we all need to make the profound sacrifices in our standards of life and living as quickly as the Hallam narrative suggests that we need to? i am doubtful that enough numbers can be guilt tripped into that, however laudable.. Yet i remain sympathetic.

 

[LDC]

Along the lines of the other Hallam interview above here's a few minutes of him talking at The World Transformed in which he also throws a slightly mad spanner in the works of 'normal' talks.

 

[brogdale]

i dont really think that Hallam is mad platinumsage, and in his defence i would say he has a personal preparedness to place action above rhetorical words - a rare quality indeed. The main issue for me is: will humanity more generally, especially the earths toilers, become receptive in large enough numbers to the idea that we all need to make the profound sacrifices in our standards of life and living as quickly as the Hallam narrative suggests that we need to? i am doubtful that enough numbers can be guilt tripped into that, however laudable.. Yet i remain sympathetic.

Tend to agree with what you say here. My take on the Robinson interview is that there was a definite whiff of quasi-religious zeal and moralism that Robinson did pick at a bit. I’ve no idea about what membership of ER or JSO is like in reality, but Hallam left me feelythat it might be a tad cult-like.

 

[8ball]

Along the lines of the other Hallam interview above here's a few minutes of him talking at The World Transformed in which he also throws a slightly mad spanner in the works of 'normal' talks.

Don’t have time to listen to it all right now, but the first sentence was an actual belly lol.

 

[platinumsage]

Along the lines of the other Hallam interview above here's a few minutes of him talking at The World Transformed in which he also throws a slightly mad spanner in the works of 'normal' talks.

That's four minutes I won't get back. Not sure what he achieved compared to a 5-year old shouting "poo" instead of their lines in a nativity play, but I guess you had to be there.

 

[pbsmooth]

Very entertaining interview with Roger Hallam here in which he calls Nick Robinson a cunt for half an hour.. . Don't think I've ever heard anything quite like it on the BBC or similar. Fair play to him for trying to puncture the entire format of a BBC political interview and it's always bullshit framing

BBC News - Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, Series 1, The Roger Hallam One

Roger Hallam challenges Nick to emotionally engage with the reality of climate change.

www.bbc.co.uk

It's like a comedy sketch. He's there for an interview but he's answering every question with "stop interviewing me this is ridiculous when there's a climate emergency!"
he doesn't seem to have any answers other than calling people a cunt or useless for not stopping, y'know surviving, to be a full-time protestor.
and he's no public speaker.
but otherwise, good luck to him!

 

[8ball]

That's four minutes I won't get back. Not sure what he achieved compared to a 5-year old shouting "poo" instead of their lines in a nativity play, but I guess you had to be there.

I found there wasn't much to grasp onto, especially in terms of the "how many people have to die" thing.
Like, how many people are dying right now, and from what and compared to when?

And how confident can I be that going and sitting in the road is going to change any of that (aside from the small likelihood of dying of exposure)?

 

[redcogs]

Along the lines of the other Hallam interview above here's a few minutes of him talking at The World Transformed in w hich he also throws a slightly mad spanner in the works of 'normal' talks.

Thanks for posting LDC. Hallam does not lack courage. Telling a socialist audience they are cunts for refusing to do what he thinks is necessary when the stakes are so high cant be easy. If i'm honest, i agree with his premise. Existential threat should have the Left in utter fury and be producing a response that matches the situation. i dont really know why Hallam's challenge to all of us (i include myself, lazy old git that i am) doesn't resonate more widely. Maybe people are just unconvinced by the evidence and are clinging on to the old ways because its easier? Perhaps we are so consumed by pessimism born out of decades of defeat that we are incapable of rousing ourselves. Maybe a catastrophe which really really rams home the reality of what humanity is facing will transform and unify the Left's traditional sectarian divisions? i dont know what the answers might be. What i think is i can't find myself completely deriding Roger H as so many do. What he says inexplicably gnaws away at me, and i dont really think that XR and Stop Oil should be ridiculed or dismissed out of hand.

 

[8ball]

Maybe a catastrophe which really really rams home the reality of what humanity is facing will transform and unify the Left's traditional sectarian divisions?

I think something that has a major effect on the rich is likely to be a catalysing event.
Obv not that relevant to the Left, though.

 

[redcogs]

I think something that has a major effect on the rich is likely to be a catalysing event.
Obv not that relevant to the Left,

Aye a covid infection that has transmuted to one that kills only those with bank accounts containing more than a couple o million quid would be my favourite.. Or is that figure set too high?

 

[8ball]

I'd just like to know before you release it so I can cash in on the shares bonanza.

 

[redcogs]

Shares! omg little wonder the movement is in such a state. You'll be voting tory next

 

[8ball]

And next week on The Brains Trust…

 

[PTK]

Along the lines of the other Hallam interview above here's a few minutes of him talking at The World Transformed in which he also throws a slightly mad spanner in the works of 'normal' talks.

He looks old enough to know that using "cunt" as a term of abuse is very misogynistic.

Yes, the worse thing in the world that you can be is a vagina, for the vagina has a mind of its own and will not allow a penis enter it whenever the owner of the penis wants it to do so.

 

[8ball]

Yes, the worse thing in the world that you can be is a vagina, for the vagina has a mind of its own and will not allow a penis enter it whenever the owner of the penis wants it to do so.

Different kind of cunt.

He’s talking about fucking cunts.

 

[kabbes]

He looks old enough to know that using "cunt" as a term of abuse is very misogynistic.

Because it was used against women to reduce them to their sexual organ. But the word subsequently lost that usage and instead acquired a more general abusive interpretation, like “dick” or “arsehole”.

 

[Brainaddict]

Along the lines of the other Hallam interview above here's a few minutes of him talking at The World Transformed in which he also throws a slightly mad spanner in the works of 'normal' talks.

A Huck editor was complaining on twitter about them platforming him, on the basis that there are way more interesting climate activists to platform. Having watched that I have to agree. He has no strategy beyond 'get in the road', and thinks he can shock people into action by being rude to them. It's so weak. Would have been a bit amusing to be there tho.

 

[kabbes]

I actually agree with Hallam, from an ontological standpoint. He’s saying that he just fundamentally doesn’t believe in the separation between emotion and act. The intellectualisation of the problem of climate change is an abstraction that belongs to the capitalist mode of “head versus hand”, i.e., of splitting intellectual labour from manual labour. Those who take this split for granted, which includes those involved in reproducing capitalist power relations, are literally incapable of understanding his position. From his perspective it is psychotic to respond to “people are dying” with “and how do you want me to feel about that?” — it epitomises a financialised epistemology that he rejects. This split between knowing and doing, which he rejects, also means that questions of “strategy” are like asking a cornered wolverine if it has reasoned through its best plan of action. Of course not, it is just responding to being cornered.

Now, he knows this is a tough sell. He can’t easily explain this kind of late 20th century poststructurialist philosophy in a five minute interview to people that have never even heard the words “ontology” or “epistemology” before (and that’s not a sneer — why would they have heard of these things? Particularly because they belong to the exact head/hand split he abhors in the first place). So he turns it instead into a process of acting congruently with the self. “I occupy the road because I am enraged. I need no other purpose or reason.”

I may or may not agree with him, but either way I think he is consistent and logical. Certainly not “mad”.

 

[Brainaddict]

I actually agree with Hallam, from an ontological standpoint. He’s saying that he just fundamentally doesn’t believe in the separation between emotion and act. The intellectualisation of the problem of climate change is an abstraction that belongs to the capitalist mode of “head versus hand”, i.e., of splitting intellectual labour from manual labour. Those who take this split for granted, which includes those involved in reproducing capitalist power relations, are literally incapable of understanding his position. From his perspective it is psychotic to respond to “people are dying” with “and how do you want me to feel about that?” — it epitomises a financialised epistemology that he rejects. This split between knowing and doing, which he rejects, also means that questions of “strategy” are like asking a cornered wolverine if it has reasoned through its best plan of action. Of course not, it is just responding to being cornered.

Now, he knows this is a tough sell. He can’t easily explain this kind of late 20th century poststructurialist philosophy in a five minute interview to people that have never even heard the words “ontology” or “epistemology” before (and that’s not a sneer — why would they have heard of these things? Particularly because they belong to the exact head/hand split he abhors in the first place). So he turns it instead into a process of acting congruently with the self. “I occupy the road because I am enraged. I need no other purpose or reason.”

I may or may not agree with him, but either way I think he is consistent and logical. Certainly not “mad”.

I think people get that though. But it's the logic of Hamas isn't it? "I am enraged and I have an absolute right to express and vent my rage, because the things causing my rage are objective facts."

So as well as being strategically a chocolate teapot, it's a logic that can potentially lead to a very dark place (and probably will do at some point when we start getting ecoterrorist attacks that kill people).

As for asking him not to act like a cornered wolverine and do some actual strategising, yes it goes against his instincts but he is in fact a human, not a wolverine, and is thus able to go against his instincts,

 

[Karl Masks]

Thanks for posting LDC. Hallam does not lack courage. Telling a socialist audience they are cunts for refusing to do what he thinks is necessary when the stakes are so high cant be easy. If i'm honest, i agree with his premise. Existential threat should have the Left in utter fury and be producing a response that matches the situation. i dont really know why Hallam's challenge to all of us (i include myself, lazy old git that i am) doesn't resonate more widely. Maybe people are just unconvinced by the evidence and are clinging on to the old ways because its easier? Perhaps we are so consumed by pessimism born out of decades of defeat that we are incapable of rousing ourselves. Maybe a catastrophe which really really rams home the reality of what humanity is facing will transform and unify the Left's traditional sectarian divisions? i dont know what the answers might be. What i think is i can't find myself completely deriding Roger H as so many do. What he says inexplicably gnaws away at me, and i dont really think that XR and Stop Oil should be ridiculed or dismissed out of hand.

Does not lack courage? Perhaps that is so, but he's only speaking to a handful of people who are largely on their side, even if they don't like being called cunts.

He ignores the reasons why people don't just get out on the roads and doesn't seem to understand that there might be reasons. Just as he didn't understand why his previous, failed, strategy of mass arrests didn't and wouldn't work. He has to build a narrative and not asume people understand the existential threat ahead of them, one that might not even directly (despite the weather we've had). Instead he just insults people.

His comment that good people shoudln't tolerate evil is clearly true, but it's just abstract. Tell that to the young woman JSO blocked who was driving her baby to a hospital appointment. Do you think she would like to be called a fucking cunt for facilitating, in small part, the climate apocalyupse? What is his solution to her situation, ignore her child's needs? Of course not that would be completely unreasonable.

I agree with the trhust of his points but I think he remains utterly naive.