Extinction Rebellion
- Thread starter Jeremiah18.17
- Start date
Well I'm glad it's more harmonious there!
But actually this kind of returns us to the XR point. Do I spend my time maintaining a building for a group the main order of business of whom seems to be who to ban next and is constantly struggling to find consensus meaning that all decisions are continually deferred or do I spend it (As I did this afternoon) out putting up access for mural painters for XR in what turned out to be quite a laugh?
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
Well, I'm an infrastucture man so I tend to work on the basis that when it's not a laugh is exactly where a stolid brand of helpfulness is most important, because we've got endless opportunities to paint murals but very few walls to call our own.
It's also always worth bearing in mind that in any vaguely fractious volunteer collective about 80% of the honourable comrades will usually move on within three years. Often less. And in the worst case scenarios if no-one's fighting the radical corner it'll be the most obnoxious chancers who end up with a free building.
It's also always worth bearing in mind that in any vaguely fractious volunteer collective about 80% of the honourable comrades will usually move on within three years. Often less. And in the worst case scenarios if no-one's fighting the radical corner it'll be the most obnoxious chancers who end up with a free building.
"Social centres and were they worth it ?" Is probably a whole other thread.
However I think you've put your figure on it, albeit in reverse. The ownership of buildings is a major cause of strife. Instead of collectives forming around affinity or similar beliefs we end up with a weird hodge podge of a coalition which has a major asset. This is what leads to strife instead of people peaceably going their own way and acting together as and when their interests overlap.
The movement I got involved with didn't own buildings, it squatted them.
Take it you didn't get down the April rebellion then?
Not really. You said the street parties had gone. They haven't. It's just not anarchists doing them anymore.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
As in the street parties run by organised crews of reasonably well linked self-conscious anarchists (though I'd reckon Occupy had and to a lesser extent regional XR still has an anarchist lean). They disappeared along with the squats and the musical movements, and the focus is somewhat different now as a result. But I just don't see the point of pining over what was or sneering about what is tbh.
But then again I came in when the party scene was already on its last legs, and was never big into it in the first place, so I guess I lack nostalgia.
But then again I came in when the party scene was already on its last legs, and was never big into it in the first place, so I guess I lack nostalgia.
I don't the collectives putting on street parties were anything like what you mean by "anarchists". In fact class struggle anarchists at the time looked down on them as useless bongo playing liberal hippies.
So I'd suggest you're suffering from fauxstalgia.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
So what are you bemoaning then? That unorganised non-anarchists used to put on better parties in the good old days in some nice squats and now they've all grown up and fucked off and the today's anarchos aren't so much fun any more? I mean fuck man of course they have, that's life.
And for the record, I've always got on fine with bongo players putting on hippie gigs, in fact I'll usually do the bar, door or washing up if I'm about.
And for the record, I've always got on fine with bongo players putting on hippie gigs, in fact I'll usually do the bar, door or washing up if I'm about.
No , I'm pointing out that there's always been a bitter remnant denouncing the new thing as naive liberal nonsense.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Sometimes the new thing really is naive liberal nonsense tho
But it generally gets the right idea.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I don't doubt that people from XR have or will get the right idea but I have grave reservations about XR as a vehicle
Thanks Red Sky. That is good news.
I think XR is needed. What boils my piss is that it’s still anything but class politics. Annoys the fuck out of me.
i can agree with this. But can any of us wait around until an ideologically acceptable and politically pure movement springs up? According to Roger Naive we've a decade or so before famine grips the globe and social collapse begins to bite.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
A better movement would not only have better politics but be a movement which will be effective at more than publicity and blocking streets
Where do I sign up?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
we have to come up with a name before we take to the streets
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
What makes it not 'class politics'? And I mean it as a serious question and point of discussion.
The anti-roads and related stuff was often dismissed as such, but this is a good article that I think addresses some of those criticisms and made a really big impact on me when I first read it.
The politics of anti-road struggle and the struggles of anti-road politics - the case of the No M11 link road campaign
Sometimes I think people have a tendency to dismiss anything that isn't about blokes in flat caps assembling tractors in a factory as not class politics.
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Of course it's class politics but from what I've seen the politics of XR are the politics of forelock tugging, eg when they wrote to the queen
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Some of it is for sure (really a small minority) but surely/hopefully it has the potential to transcend that?
And how and why is that totally different to loads of what people support as 'real class politics' when that's also often also asking parliament for reforms, begging MPs for help, etc etc.?
E2A: In Berlin on a Friday night talking about XR on the internet. fml
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Dear your highness please would you mind if me and some of my mates this weekend overthrew the world carbon economy and replaced it with a hippy oriented peace and love green eco windmill and chimes barter based Ommmm exchange?
E2A: In Berlin on a Friday night talking about XR on the internet. fml
Kein Problem
Extinction Rebellion Berlin (@XRBerlin) on Twitter
Obviously the environment killing us all is (not) in the interests of the working class but it’s not as if it’s tied to any other demands.
