Shechemite
Be the sun and all will see you
Perhaps you can mind your own business
Extinction Rebellion
- Thread starter Jeremiah18.17
- Start date
Perhaps you can mind your own business
editor
hiraethified
There's plenty of people on social media complaining and there's plenty of people finding fault with the whole XR movement. Nothing wrong with offering criticism of course, but in the face of zero alternatives to a truly global crisis, I'm prepared to give them a bit of latitude while they're in their infancy.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Yes. But "only" in a "oh shit this could lead to decades of authoritarian rule" way and not a "oh shit this will lead to irreparable damage to the ecosystem and large swathes of the world being uninhabitable and billions dying" way.
I'm willing to take the risk
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Shechemite
Be the sun and all will see you
I’d rather be honest with be myself about what I’m seeing than ‘give latitude’ to a political group.
There’s a lot about XR that other movements could learn from, including their tactics and their ability to handle criticism. The second one being somewhat ironic given your expectation that we give them latitude
editor
hiraethified
You could learn that including a childish personal dig with every post really isn't very clever at all. But I doubt if that's criticism you can handle. "You div"
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh we've not seen too much of their tactics beyond 'be excellent to the cops and block roads'. any success their tactics have enjoyed has been down to the police's surprisingly supine attitude, which previous, equally pacific, protests have not had.
Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
The energy it took to maintain the sites at parliament Sq, Waterloo bridge and Oxford circus while they were under near constant police threat detracted IMO from the energy needed to grow the movement and debate tactics/ideology
I had hoped this week would allow more reflection but lots of energy is going into maintaining against the police at Marble Arch now who are trying to claim the roads and the stage
I had hoped this week would allow more reflection but lots of energy is going into maintaining against the police at Marble Arch now who are trying to claim the roads and the stage
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the stage? sure the stage wasn't there yesterday
Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
Stage truck wasn't taken last night afaik
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
To recap.
I have no problem at all with causing disruption.
More disruption please!
I have a problem with:
for starters
I have no problem at all with causing disruption.
More disruption please!
I have a problem with:
- the idea of "arrestables" and "non-arrestables" reproducing the hierachies of activism present in Greenpeace or the latter days of the 90s eco-protests.
- the whole "the cops are on our side" nonsense. Sure, you don't need to go full ACAB, but you be "nice" to them whilst recognising their role in the system.
- the leadership - its all a bit shadowy. some are getting paid? who? why? what processes of accountability are there?
- the strategy of "get enough people arrested and they'll listen to us"
- the belief that that they can get capital on board
- their beyond left andc right rhetoric
for starters
editor
hiraethified
I think people will have thousands of differing opinions of where it should go from here but right now the pressure seems to be working and getting people interested in the state the world is in.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
TBH I'm softer on the whole arrestable/non-arrestable thing. While I can see problems I think it at least attempts to address the problem that getting arrested for political activity really isn't a realistic option for most people.
I do have huge problems with their strategy that <arrests = the State listens = the State solves the problem> though.
And the whole citizen's assembly thing seems fucked.
I do have some sympathy with the idea that this problem is so large it is going to need some level of global/State led and enacted co-ordination to sort it though, so despite myself I can get that bit of what they're saying.
I do have huge problems with their strategy that <arrests = the State listens = the State solves the problem> though.
And the whole citizen's assembly thing seems fucked.
I do have some sympathy with the idea that this problem is so large it is going to need some level of global/State led and enacted co-ordination to sort it though, so despite myself I can get that bit of what they're saying.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
This is a rather breathless denunciation, but makes the point that if you thought XR were being secretly anti-capitalist while saying they were apolitical, you'd be wrong: winter oak
You can make the argument that the climate crisis can be resolved within capitalism (I think it would be difficult but not necessarily impossible), but I wonder how some of their participants would react if the XR leadership said that outright.
You can make the argument that the climate crisis can be resolved within capitalism (I think it would be difficult but not necessarily impossible), but I wonder how some of their participants would react if the XR leadership said that outright.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
tbh i think that the climate crisis has to be largely resolved within capitalism (under a capitalist mode of production) purely on the basis that there's apparently but a decade to stop the shit spiralling out of control and there is no way on earth that you're going to go from capitalism to something else and save the world in that time
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
I grudgingly sort-of agree (I think). I guess the devil might well be in the detail... does solving the climate crisis entail the State being more authoritarian in a whole number of areas? If so, does this conflict with and degrade other struggles? Are we seeing the emergence of a movement towards a green capitalist State (as much as is possible anyway)? Where might that leave those of us with different politics?
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editor
hiraethified
Given that it's about creating infinite growth on a planet with finite resources, there's no question that capitalism is the main driving force of this ecological disaster, but capitalism is a bastardly resilient beast that will say anything to keep the fat profits rolling in (see: Shell). Even if the world was given five years left to live unless capitalism immediately stopped, it would simply carry on with a few on-message PR statements because it's all about short term fucking profits for fucking cunts.
Sorry. This wasn't a very articulate post.
Sorry. This wasn't a very articulate post.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Absolutely yes is the answer to the first question. Both the green new deal and XR are pushing in that direction. There is some movement in Labour towards the idea of a different type of state, but it definitely doesn't have as much momentum yet.
editor
hiraethified
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
it's entirely possible that there will be fat profits made out of climate change, e.g. if there were very thin waterproof white solar cells which could be laid on winter ice in the arctic to reflect a lot of heat while generating electricity which could be sold (if transportation could be sorted out)
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
oh very good
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Conversely one might argue that there's no way capitalism, particularly the bloated half-dead version we currently enjoy, is capable of changing tack on the scale required in the time scale required. Capitalism is not capable of accurately accounting for an existential threat, or of putting a vital resource like a functional ecosystem in a separate category from a manufactured product or an hour of human labour. Ultimately capitalism can only comprehend the end of the world in terms of how many cigarette lighters or bottles of shampoo it will cost.
All capitalism has done with climate change so far is to create new markets out of it. Like firefighters turning up at a burning building and just selling marshmallows on sticks to the people gawping at it.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Although prices would rise across the board so they could pay to build their Space Ark.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i've no illusions that capitalism's some nimble dancer who can change direction in a trice. but afaics it's do this under capitalism or don't do it at all. it's entirely possible we're all already fucked (or at least our kids / grand-kids are), being as the position's almost certainly worse than we've been told as no one's monitored the effect of shipping on climate change and it's only very recently that people have started to look at nitrous oxide emissions. some threats have been dealt with under capitalism before, eg the cfc ozone layer thing. i realise that the threat from climate change is of some orders of magnitude larger than that but i can't suggest another means of doing it. perhaps you should look back at your marx, "men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past"
I can see how it could end up as just cannon fodder geting arrested while your professionals waltz off into the sunset hand in hand with the politicians for a nice chat but I can sort of see how it could be useful to encourage people with different levels of commitment, responsibilities etc who would wouldn't normally get involved for fear of the repercussions.
