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Extinction Rebellion

Also how much have XR been infiltrated I wonder...Cant be very hard.

Regarding the upcoming actions I have caught wind of some of the plans...sounds like it will be a good spectacle at the very least! Some good logistics in the pipeline too (if the actions last long enough to see them actualised)

I’d be surprised if plod didn’t know their plans for next week. Boats have been banned, & I suspect also, it’ll all be over in a day, tops. Kettle tactics right from the off, with mass arrests.
 
Not really their fault is it? There are radical history blogs (good London calendar here: http://past-tense.org.uk/pdf/calendar2015.pdf ) but they are pretty niche and unlikely to even come up in google searches unless you are looking for very specific things. People can only learn about these things in person most of the time. There's definitely space for a well-made website that gives a good history of the last 30-50 years of agitation/protest/riots in the UK but it's a huge project and would probably need funding to be really both comprehensive and easy to use.


If only there were any books or shit detailing the history if resistance in the UK. Such as https://www.amazon.co.uk/Exist-Resist-Matthew-Smith/dp/0995783209
 
I’d be surprised if plod didn’t know their plans for next week. Boats have been banned, & I suspect also, it’ll all be over in a day, tops. Kettle tactics right from the off, with mass arrests.

As previously said, what's the point in kettling those who's intention is to stay put?
 
Not really their fault is it? There are radical history blogs (good London calendar here: http://past-tense.org.uk/pdf/calendar2015.pdf ) but they are pretty niche and unlikely to even come up in google searches unless you are looking for very specific things. People can only learn about these things in person most of the time. There's definitely space for a well-made website that gives a good history of the last 30-50 years of agitation/protest/riots in the UK but it's a huge project and would probably need funding to be really both comprehensive and easy to use.
yeh it's obvs nothing someone could do from looking at things like schnews, do or die, the chronology of anti-authority violence in the 80s etc etc :rolleyes: not to mention violent london etc
 
Never been in a static one either. Notice what's happening and get punchy and out your pop. Or you get nicked.
oh i agree. if you know what to look for it's obvious when a kettle's coming. but so few people have their wits about them. case in point: when bush came to london in 2004 there was an action meeting at victoria station. i spoke to the organisers and asked them what the plan was if a kettle was imminent. 'oh we'll have a meeting' they said, ignoring the fact that you might have 30 seconds to choose whether to stay or go. a loose line of cops formed outside the assembled throng, and i made sure i was outside that line. so when the whistle went to move off the police moved in and of maybe 150 people only i and 3 or 4 others evaded the kettle.
 
Yeah, I don't think the problem is a lack of resources on radical history out there, although of course it would be better if there were more.

I think it's a mix of the cultural stuff around a general tendency for people to be a bit more a-historical than previous generations in struggle have been, but I suspect it's also connected to the dynamics around XR that constantly go on about them being something new and unlike anything before and the ones with the 'right' answer. I mean what's the point of looking at other stuff if you think what you're doing is unarguably the right way and provides all the answers already?
 
Yeah, I don't think the problem is a lack of resources on radical history out there, although of course it would be better if there were more.

I think it's a mix of the cultural stuff around a general tendency for people to be a bit more a-historical than previous generations in struggle have been, but I suspect it's also connected to the dynamics around XR that constantly go on about them being something new and unlike anything before and the ones with the 'right' answer. I mean what's the point of looking at other stuff if you think what you're doing is unarguably the right way and provides all the answers already?
until xr i had never encountered a group which thought writing to the queen was a good idea
 
Never been in a static one either. Notice what's happening and get punchy and out your pop. Or you get nicked.

10 years ago I was witness to Smash EDO anti-war activists being kettled with horses on the South Downs (their first kettle tactic failed at the meeting point in Wild Park as everyone was savvy to it) many injuries, & not a pretty sight. Also a moving kettle from the London Road to the arrest RP on Lewes Road, which was quite a trek on a hot day with no water.
 
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until xr i had never encountered a group which thought writing to the queen was a good idea

I dunno, most of the early (and sometimes later) incarnations of activist/direct action groups have bonkers ideas and shit politics freely flowing through them in some way. I guess the test for me is how prevalent those ideas are and what potential they have to change, either through discussion and growth or just with the radicalizing power of batons on skulls.
 
I suspect it's also connected to the dynamics around XR that constantly go on about them being something new and unlike anything before and the ones with the 'right' answer. I mean what's the point of looking at other stuff if you think what you're doing is unarguably the right way and provides all the answers already?

Exactly so. A complete failure to accept that agitprop has a long history because, for sure, a lot of the more vocal ER members(?) have never been involved in any sort of street protest before and absolutely believe this really is something new and radical...and breaking through this complacency was most dispiriting aspect of ER weekly meets (of which I have, I admit, attended precisely 1 and a half-arsed march when it went past my house).
And a lot of tension around internal hierarchies. Insisting they are essentially non-hierarchical when it is abundantly clear that this is not the case, with all the usual entitlement, loudest voices and class struggle, making them an unwelcoming place for anyone not toeing the ER line or coming from a different starting position. I have had exactly the same conversation as Bahnhof Strasse...with the implication that, as an older wc person, my only value was as an arrestable. I have concluded it isn't for me, tbh.
 
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I went on an XR bike ride a couple of weeks ago, was a sunny day and the chance to hold up some traffic sounded fun. Whilst waiting for the off one of the local bods started telling me about their weekly meetings in the build up to next week's actions. I said I might mooch along, he then got excited and asked if I would be prepared to go up to London, said I might do. Then without missing a beat he asked if I'd like to get arrested, to which I replied no. He said it really wasn't that bad, to which my riposte was that on the various previous occasions I had been nicked it was invariably a pain the fucking arse. He asked where i had been busted before, I left out the raves and drugs shit and mentioned one Reclaim the Streets and Twyford Down. He'd heard of neither...

Few of them even seem to have heard of the The Committee of 100, who utilised pretty much the exact same tactics. And failed in their objective.
 
Few of them even seem to have heard of the The Committee of 100, who utilised pretty much the exact same tactics. And failed in their objective.

Sure they'll have some 'reason'. Monbiot seems to have re-written history to have blamed the failure of all the direct action movement of the 90s and 00s on the black bloc.
 
Yeah, I don't think the problem is a lack of resources on radical history out there, although of course it would be better if there were more.

I think it's a mix of the cultural stuff around a general tendency for people to be a bit more a-historical than previous generations in struggle have been, but I suspect it's also connected to the dynamics around XR that constantly go on about them being something new and unlike anything before and the ones with the 'right' answer. I mean what's the point of looking at other stuff if you think what you're doing is unarguably the right way and provides all the answers already?

I have a suspicion that to some extent this idiot idea that innovation is synonymous with ignoring all the lessons of the past is something that has been imported from business.
 
It's well worth having a look at XR's website for the plans for these coming weeks of actions.
 
If only there were any books or shit detailing the history if resistance in the UK. Such as https://www.amazon.co.uk/Exist-Resist-Matthew-Smith/dp/0995783209
I've never heard of that book and I've been involved in protest/political action for 20 years. It's true there are resources that people can look at online but (a) you've got to know what you're looking for. You can't look up the Committee of 100 if you've never head of them. And (b) most people don't spend as much time on the internet as us. To trawl through libcom or something is a very time-consuming way to learn about stuff. We probably enjoy the process so we do it, but lots of people won't. I guess what needs to happen as a starter is more experienced and knowledgeable people within XR need to be passing their knowledge on, suggesting the important things for people to look up if they're interested in x or y. I'm sure it's happening a bit, but apparently not enough. The website idea I suggested was just an accelerator to make it less time-consuming to learn some of the key bits of history a new activist might want to know.
 
I've never heard of that book and I've been involved in protest/political action for 20 years. It's true there are resources that people can look at online but (a) you've got to know what you're looking for. You can't look up the Committee of 100 if you've never head of them. And (b) most people don't spend as much time on the internet as us. To trawl through libcom or something is a very time-consuming way to learn about stuff. We probably enjoy the process so we do it, but lots of people won't. I guess what needs to happen as a starter is more experienced and knowledgeable people within XR need to be passing their knowledge on, suggesting the important things for people to look up if they're interested in x or y. I'm sure it's happening a bit, but apparently not enough.
More experienced and knowledgeable people being code for the lamentable Roger et al I suppose
 
im unwilling to sleight people like Roger who is currently slammed up for having the courage of his convictions. He is a brother.
 
i accept most of the criticisms. He's a wide eyed petitbourgoise hippie with little apparent appreciation of the state's inevitable resort to a violent response to XR. But he aint Tommy Robinson. He is set on a collision course with capital, and so are we. Until i learn otherwise he's my brother.
 
When I was a teenager in rural North Wales in the days before the internet I managed to find out about radical history and protest off my own back. I devoured whatever I could find.

It's much easier now.
 
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