Extinction Rebellion
- Thread starter Jeremiah18.17
- Start date
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Now that's a 'headline' I had never expected to read!
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
c4y
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
So, after being told repeatedly by Hallam etc. that the only way to get social change is to get mass arrests, how are they going to adapt to something else? Are they even going to be able to given it'll be a complete about turn and admission they were wrong previously?
Idaho
blah blah blah
What was the question again? What was the list?
Idaho
blah blah blah
I would hope that in the far flung future, people could be wrong, acknowledge it and adapt. Stridently opinionated rightness is a failing of the British psyche.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
tbh i don't think they were necessarily wrong before: but they were wrong to believe that what worked once could be relied upon to work again. what's worked before (but not i think really been tried again) was what happened in the city on 18.6.99, when there were so many people spread over such a wide area and moving so quickly in many different directions that it was impossible to kettle and very difficult to break up. have as your metaphor smoke rather than water or dams. if xr had simply had loads of people wandering about in the roads in westminster, in the west end, they could have halted traffic and made it very difficult for the police to adequately respond. but by insisting again on camps which would last they showed a want of tactical nous.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Did Hallam repeatedly tell them that (granted, he certainly banged on a lot about non-violence)?
Also, it's quite possible that a lot of members of XR don't think he's the Messiah, and will be able to change strategy without a major mental breakdown.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
what was that you were saying about superiority upthread?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
let's hope they change tactics first, being as that's what's let them down
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Yeah, I'd heard this "be like water thing", so I'd figured the 'Occupy' style of things was done with.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
and these reasons are...
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Given climate stuff is only going to get worse, and that the movements and groups trying to stop/mitigate it will likely grow as well, I do think it's worth trying to engage and help things take better directions. Even if some of the stuff they're doing is hard to deal with.
I think it's worth addressing what we mean by working or not with the action and tactical ideas isn't it? Like you referred to J18 Pickman's model but tbh I'd say that worked on some levels on the day, but didn't work on a wider political and strategic level maybe?
I think it's worth addressing what we mean by working or not with the action and tactical ideas isn't it? Like you referred to J18 Pickman's model but tbh I'd say that worked on some levels on the day, but didn't work on a wider political and strategic level maybe?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
there's no reason why, with so many people, they can't offer something for everyone. some people like blocking things, so they can do that. other people like walking about, so they can do that, and other people like - well, let them just get on with it without telling everyone and spoiling the surprise.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
The main one imo being that as soon as they deviate from that, then unless they have a massive amount of general goodwill and support behind them, the media will create the narratives necessary for huge pre-emptive retaliation by the police and military.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
TBH I'm not too bothered about the non-violence thing even though it sticks in my throat on the street. Of course it betrays a more liberal politics, but in and of itself I'm less interested in them adapting that to some form of more militant liberalism, and more interested in the other political stuff.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Yeah, I agree some diversity (of both tactics and people), and chaotic unpredictability would be useful.
Idaho
blah blah blah
- Maintaining the moral high ground
- broadening the appeal to otherwise non politically active people
- not letting the govt make it only a public order issue
- letting the police make the first violent move in a world full of shared videos and live streams
Will that do?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
obvs j18 happened in a different political context, at the start of the era of summit-hopping. but there's lessons which can be taken from it in terms of presenting issues for public order policing. let's look at the things which have worked, things like mayday monopoly, things which accentuate the (few) advantages demonstrators have over the police. things like surprise, unpredictability and movement shouldn't be surrendered so readily, they've proven their worth over many years. blocking things? now and again it works, mostly it ends in tears.
but where j18 took 18 months to organise, xr have been putting this together in a few months. granted, they have more money and indeed more activists than there were back in the day. but they've also done it tactically cheap, without giving any real thought to countermeasures or mixing it up - what we used to call a diversity of tactics.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
shit
well they really haven't done that, with the yoga and so on, they'd have been better off having a riot than making it a protest for people from particular strata of society.
tbh it matters not a jot what demonstrators do, and it matters very little what the government do, the media will spin it as they want, be that professional demonstrators or hypocritical demonstrators eating in mcd's or whatever they want to say. doing something because you think it will stop the government or even the media making it out to be x y or z is really really stupid. they'll say it anyway - for example, the way that it's having an impact on the police's ability to respond to emergencies elsewhere in london. if it's a good enough cause observers won't mind too much what the government say. i remember being in crouch end on 1.4.90 waiting for a phone box and talking to this black man in his 50s about the poll tax riot, and him saying how happy he was that young people still had it in them to fight the police. the poll tax riot/s didn't do the campaign the slightest bit of harm, even though politicians and the government spoke out most vehemently against them.
i can see where you're coming from here but it's still not a really good reason.
not really, no
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
that was perhaps the best action of the last few days and even that showed some lack of practice using the equipment.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
when was the last time people throwing things at coppers in england (or scotland or wales) faced any sort of retaliation from the military?
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
What I'm getting at is what's the driving stratgey behind the thing irrespective of their tactics? Are we really looking at lobbying the State to sort climate change out as a sole strategy and causing disruption as the tool to push this, or are we thinking there's something else going on?
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Having the moral high ground is shit politics, not anything to be encouraged.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
their stated aim, their strategic objective, is to obtain changes in government policy.
as far as i can see whatever effort there is to prevent apocalyptic levels of climate change has to be done under capitalism as there's no time to turn everything upside down and put it back together again before all the tipping points are tipped. maybe there's five years, maybe ten, maybe - if we're really lucky - thirty. but at least the first steps to change things have to happen immediately or almost immediately. so on that front i see why xr might want to be non-violent, so the government has no real reason to say we're not talking to them they're nasty (and Idaho that's a better reason than any you've adduced).
but there's only so much non-violence will do, and it always risks being seen as weakness rather than a deliberate choice so the protestors can open a dialogue with power. what's really needed is some batshit crazy people so xr can say to the government you can choose between dealing with us or you'll have to deal with them.
it may be there's something else going on, but as there's been no obvious organizational learning in xr since the last time round i would be surprised if there were.
Idaho
blah blah blah
My suspicion is that you would have to do a lot of mental recalculation if non violence is effective.
In the self interest mortality vacuum we have with Johnson and trump, it might resonate.
