Plane Stupid shut down Stansted Airport

[Blagsta]

I don't think they should be responsible for spreading into the community doing good works, but that's the logical conclusion from the various posters in this thread arguing that they should have done this rather than taking this action.

What it boils down to IMO is theoretical bollocks versus practical reality in terms of the options open to a group of 50 people determined to influence government policy, ideally in a relatively short space of time.


their we go again danny - class-blindness



how does the fact that they've targeted stansted airport, equate to them being class blind by your very own definition as stated on this thread? Unless I've missed something and stansted is actually now owned and run as a workers co-operative, as are all the airlines flying out of it.

or do you actually mean something different by 'class blind'?

read that link I posted

 

[free spirit]

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Foundations.pdf

which bit was I meant to be looking at? this line?

This is a tricky business for within Marxism there is no consensus on any of the core concepts of class analysis.

 

[Blagsta]

which bit was I meant to be looking at? this line?

You're meant to read it if you want to understand something of what is meant by "class analysis".

duh

 

[free spirit]

read that link I posted

did you actually read that link?

funnily enough I'd already pulled that link up from google myself skimmed through it and discarded it as utter drivel.

since you want me to use it though, perhaps you can help fit the protests against stansted into this diagram, and use that to illustrate why a protest targeting stansted is a bad thing.

 

[danny la rouge]

I had presumed you meant that the action by targeting one of the airports used most by working class people was wrong, and they should instead be targeting the city boys or something similar... now it just looks like a term that you're using in a way that means you can alter it's meaning to suit your argument at whim.

Let's take this specific protest. I have explained it several times, but I'll do it again if you like.

If activists have a clear understanding of how society works, they can use that to intelligently choose tactics and targets. Basically, the government will protect the interests of the class with the power and the wealth. The corporation generates the wealth of that class. The working class does the work which creates the wealth, but the wealth is channelled upwards to the top.

The corporation is amoral. It is a machine for generating wealth, and it does so with no regard for people or planet. Capital basically wages a war on labour, and unless resisted, its only boundary will be what gets in the way of short-term gain.

So, what do we know about aviation? It is heavily wasteful of scarce resources, it is heavily polluting, and it contributes about 1.6 % of CO2 emissions.

So, frequent flying is obviousy something society is going to have to do something about. Therefore, hitting frequent flyers or business class passengers is the intelligent thing to do.

These campaigners didn't, though. They chose a target proportionately more likely to be working class, and not frequent flyers.

But, you say, the campaigners want to protest about runway expansion. OK, so who is responsible? BAA and Ryanair, for a start. So, target their offices, maybe. An occupation, a blockade.

Not sexy? Done that before? OK, well if you want direct action, then chain yourself to a digger.

They have chosen their target intelligently though. This action was a direct response to the government overturning the local council decision to reject the building of a new runway at Stansted.

But their target was the flyers. It made it look like they were saying they didn't want working class people to fly. Maybe they weren't, but that's what it looked like. Who had responsibility for overturning the council decision? Joe Public and the kids off on a holiday?

If you piss off people who you need to support you, then your action has been counterproductive.

 

[free spirit]

I'm not necessarily saying that class analysis as a concept is utter drivel, but that paper you linked to certainly is.

 

[Blagsta]

did you actually read that link?

funnily enough I'd already pulled that link up from google myself skimmed through it and discarded it as utter drivel.

since you want me to use it though, perhaps you can help fit the protests against stansted into this diagram, and use that to illustrate why a protest targeting stansted is a bad thing.

If you don't want to know what people mean by "class analysis", that's fine. Just don't complain when people use terms you don't understand because you're too lazy to do any reading.

 

[Blagsta]

I'm not necessarily saying that class analysis as a concept is utter drivel, but that paper you linked to certainly is.

It's been a couple of years since I read that paper admittedly. Maybe you could tell me what you disagree with?

 

[steve0223]

i think thats a great idea actually of how to make this stuff relevant and meaningful so if i get some time i will try and do that.Meanwhile here's one of my own

but in the meantime an accessable and comprehensible audio file by david harvey called the enigma of capital is worth a listen..

http://davidharvey.org/media/Enigma_of_Capital.mp3

 

[danny la rouge]

I don't think they should be responsible for spreading into the community doing good works, but that's the logical conclusion from the various posters in this thread arguing that they should have done this rather than taking this action.

No, it isn't. That isn't at all what i've said, and I'm pretty sure nobody else has. That's a misreading.

What it boils down to IMO is theoretical bollocks versus practical reality in terms of the options open to a group of 50 people determined to influence government policy, ideally in a relatively short space of time.

A group of 50 people will have limited effect if they think they can get a government to act against the interests of the business classes by acting in a vacuum.

their we go again danny - class-blindness

Yup. Class-blind liberals.

how does the fact that they've targeted stansted airport, equate to them being class blind by your very own definition as stated on this thread? Unless I've missed something and stansted is actually now owned and run as a workers co-operative, as are all the airlines flying out of it.

I'm sorry, but I've explained this loads of times. I'm not sure how to proceed now without sounding grumpy and patronising. I obviously want to be sure I'm explaining myself properly, but since others seem to have understood me, I have to assume there's a starting point they share with me that you and others don't.

But, again, I don't have a problem with them chosing Stansted - they want to hit BAA and Ryanair, fine. But the way they chose to do it was counterproductive. I have been through all this. I don't know how else to say it.

 

[danny la rouge]

Well, exactly.

 

[free spirit]

<snip>But their target was the flyers. It made it look like they were saying they didn't want working class people to fly. Maybe they weren't, but that's what it looked like. Who had responsibility for overturning the council decision? Joe Public and the kids off on a holiday?

so like I presumed you meant, the problem you refer to when you talk about their class blind approach, and the lack of a class analysis is the class breakdown of the users of Stansted airport, and the fact that it is used more by working class people.

if you don't want to have to explain basic concepts, then perhaps you shouldn't confuse the picture by stating that you actually meant something different... ie.

I said the protesters were class-blind because their actions are fairly obviously not part of a coherent critique of capitalism.

to blagsta - I fully understood what danny was on about up until the point when he stated that he meant something entirely different by it, and your link was the marxist version of an attica special, so please accept my sincere apologies for not asking you to explain the bit's I disagree with - life really is too short.

 

[Blagsta]

to blagsta - I fully understood what danny was on about up until the point when he stated that he meant something entirely different by it, and your link was the marxist version of an attica special, so please accept my sincere apologies for not asking you to explain the bit's I disagree with - life really is too short.

I posted it because I thought it was quite easy to understand. I assume you read it all?

 

[danny la rouge]

Originally Posted by danny la rouge
<snip>But their target was the flyers. It made it look like they were saying they didn't want working class people to fly. Maybe they weren't, but that's what it looked like. Who had responsibility for overturning the council decision? Joe Public and the kids off on a holiday?

so like I presumed you meant, the problem you refer to when you talk about their class blind approach, and the lack of a class analysis is the class breakdown of the users of Stansted airport, and the fact that it is used more by working class people.

if you don't want to have to explain basic concepts, then perhaps you shouldn't confuse the picture by stating that you actually meant something different... ie.

Originally Posted by danny la rouge

I said the protesters were class-blind because their actions are fairly obviously not part of a coherent critique of capitalism.

.

Two aspects of a whole. The first is about whether their tactic was intended to be direct action or not, if it was direct action then it looks like they are acting directly to prevent workers from flying.

However, the reason they made that mistake is that they don't have a coherent critique of capitalism, which I suspect you don't have either, since you seem unable to tell the difference between targeting Ryanair and targeting working class flyers.

 

[teuchter]

Marxist aeroplane does not take off.

 

[free spirit]

anyway, it's neither fair nor accurate to say that Plane Stupid haven't done any class analysis of Stansted.

It’s the rich who are really benefiting from the artificially low prices of air travel.

The average income of people using Stansted Airport is £47,000 per year – and it’s supposed to be a budget airport!

Low-skilled people and people on benefits, despite making up a quarter of the population, only took 6% of the flights whilst the top quarter of the population took almost half of all flights. (Civil Aviation Authority)

75% of those who use budget airlines are in social classes A, B and C, while people with second homes abroad take an average of six return flights a year. Most of the growth, the government envisages, will take place among the wealthiest 10%.(Civil Aviation Authority)

and just to try to bring this thread around to what the point of the protest actually was, here's a graph curtest of the Department for Transport to illustrate what the impact of building new runways at Stansted and Heathrow is expected to be on passenger numbers.

With no new runways, passenger numbers from London's airports would rise by about 25% between now and 2030. With new runways at both Stansted and Heathrow they are expected to rise by around 90%.

this is over a time period when all other aspects of the UK's economy and life, including all other modes of transport are being expected to severely cut their CO2 emissions.

Once they've built the runways we can be certain the companies will do everything they can to use them as much as possible - ie. to maximise the profit potential from the additional airport capacity, so the only realistic method of stopping this totally unsustainable increase in flights from London airports is to prevent the runways being built in the first place.

Running alongside that battle is the battle for improved and cheaper public transport (preferably in public ownership), which if done right, should be able to replace the majorty of the internal flights that actually make up a significant proportion of stansteds traffic, leaving enough space for the working class holidays to continue relatively unaffected.

Obviously there's a potential battle ahead if the supply is constrained as the airlines may feel able to up their prices, but the price charged by the airport itself for landing fee's is already heavily regulated, and I see no reason why the airline ticket prices shouldn't be as well if it looked like they were profiteering. To be honest though I think price is most likely to go up because of increases in fuel costs as the airline industry isn't taxed on fuel, it's price is likely to be more greatly affected by fuel price increases than other modes of transport... at which point we'll really be wishing we'd invested in the alternatives rather than relying on cheap air travel fueled by cheap oil and tax breaks.

 

[elbows]

OK lets try another real example and see how much of a confusing mess is made as the class blind and the class blinkered dance.

It has recently emerged that near the end of November, someone got into a coal power station, and fiddled with something which caused a 500MW turbine to go offline, and they didnt switch it back on for about 4 hours.

The person left a crudely made banner saying 'no new coal'.

It is estimated that this action of a single person lowered our total carbon output for that day by 2%

Nobody suffered blackouts because other capacity made up for it, but it is possible to imagine similar action that disrupted power stations could cause a temporary loss of power to many homes and businesses, affecting people pretty much along the full spectrum of class. Or a shortfall in power may be better managed, and specific high-electricity using businesses would be cutoff and homes wouldnt be affected. Its not possible to say whether the infrastructure and humans would manage such a shortfall well or not, a specific geographical area might get shutdown almost at random, as happened a while back when lots of power stations went offline at the same time. So anybody engaging in such a disruptive protest, cannot really be sure who will suffer the most from their actions.

So how does that example fit into the things being argued here? As far as I know the identity of the intruder is unknown, I suppose it could be funny business, we may never find out.

Personally Im not too sure about action like that, the potential for some people to suffer quite badly due to loss of electrical supply makes it rather risky. At the same time our power stations are an issue I care rather a lot about. But again, I expect that unless demand for electricity is destroyed for other reasons, we are going to face a time where supply doesnt meet demand. So I suppose I believe that one day we will no longer be able to take for granted our ability to fly, drive, heat our homes and power our gadgets.. Our electricity grid becoming flakey and blackouts becoming normal is a striking example of the reality check I think will come. If capitalism had been successfully building new capacity, if the raw resources/fuel were there for the future, then only direct action protesters or terrorist attacks on infrastructure would be likely to bring about that sort of reality check, there would be nothing much else in the way of continued growth of carbon emissions. Its hard to say that governments or business would do much unless they were afraid of resources peaking, or they actually believe the climate change will be soon enough and catastrophic enough to destroy their position & profit.

 

[chilango]

freethinker, I don't want to get too bogged down with long statements so a quick recap of my main question..

what was the specific aim of that specific action?

Once we're clear on that, we can discuss whether the action was tactically correct, and strategically correct or not.

 

[danny la rouge]

anyway, it's neither fair nor accurate to say that Plane Stupid haven't done any class analysis of Stansted.

You're using the term in a different way. To have a class analysis is to have a philosophy of society, rather than an exercise one carries out on a situation. like a risk assessment. But that aside, average income of people using Stansted Airport might be £47,000 per year, but what is the mode income?

Furthermore, class is not usefully defined by income, but best defined by relationship to the means of production.

It’s the rich who are really benefiting from the artificially low prices of air travel.

I don't dispute that.

Low-skilled people and people on benefits, despite making up a quarter of the population, only took 6% of the flights whilst the top quarter of the population took almost half of all flights. (Civil Aviation Authority)

Is that at Stansted, or in general? If in general, it backs up what I've said: target business class. (And it misses out those who are not 'low-skilled' or on benefits nor 'in the top quarter').

But chilango asks the pertinant question: what was the aim, and was it direct action?

 

[david dissadent]

what was the specific aim of that specific action?

To once again bring airport expansion into the national media limelight.

It did not happen 'in a vacuum'. It happened in an enviroment where the government is determined to present itself as being genuinely green as part of its stratagy to try to remain in power. The governmetns narrative is that it is commited to CO2 emission reductions. The protesters rather successfully reminded a huge number of people that they are not.

In that it was successful. The government now as just that little bit more to think about when it weighs the political costs and gains from airport expansion. The more it looks like it will be kept in the public conscious, the less attractive it will be to persue.

If sufficient pressure is brought to bear that the government backs down, this will endorse the views of those who are claiming the government is not acting enough on climate change and enhance the credibility of those calling for more action. It will also make the government more exposed to other pressure.

It is one tiny part of a very broad movement that often has very different goals, objectives, political 'analysis', economic outlook, hopes, fears and education. But it also has a major UN appointed panel full of the worlds leading experts to give advice to the very highest levels of civil society. It is a movement that has managed to get its message to the very center of world politics.

 

[danny la rouge]

Marxist aeroplane does not take off.

Who's a Marxist?

 

[free spirit]

Two aspects of a whole. The first is about whether their tactic was intended to be direct action or not, if it was direct action then it looks like they are acting directly to prevent workers from flying.

However, the reason they made that mistake is that they don't have a coherent critique of capitalism, which I suspect you don't have either, since you seem unable to tell the difference between targeting Ryanair and targeting working class flyers.

ah right, so nobody can ever take any action against anything unless they have first submitted a full critique of capitalism in triplicate for approval by the thought police.

well, in that case you're probably right.

or there is an alternative point of view you may wish to consider which is that you are wrong, and it is both possible and desirable for people to take action, and make a positive contribution to a campaign without first doing a night study course in marxism.

If people want to study marxist thinking to the nth degree as well as taking action then that's their choice, but it isn't a pre-requisite thankfully.

 

[free spirit]

Who's a Marxist?

so you're not a Marxist than?

you could have said before I attempted to plough my way through 23 pages of tedium that Blagsta posted to explain you POV on a paper entitled 'Foundations of Class Analysis: A Marxist Perspective.'

 

[steve0223]

Even marx said don't be a marxist. Anyway, i hate averages as in my experience they hide a multitude of sins.

But that aside, average income of people using Stansted Airport might be £47,000 per year, but what is the mode income?

That average income they've used proves little except that statistics are very political, but it's also quite revealing.

The document they refer to contains all sorts of figures and divides each table into 'Business' and 'Leisure'. But plane stupid have pulled out all their figures from the Leisure section. So there you go - that's who these actions seem to be aimed at.

There's also more to that figure that makes it sound like it's mainly the super rich that are flying all the time from Stanstead. For example that average income of £47,000. This is a 'household income', which these days is like 2 wages, after tax, bills, 2 kids worth of spending etc. So it's not one 'persons' income after all. And on top of that it's a 'mean' figure, which means that it is highly distorted because of the extreme disparities of wealth (or class as it is known)

A quick look at the table shows that more than 68% of passengers earned household incomes less than this figure of £47,000, 7.2 % on less than £ 5,750. 81% of the flights were people going on holiday or visiting friends of relatives. This isn't the super rich swanning around, this is everyday people on a holiday, or doing the very human thing of going to see people. Attacking these people is not a way to build a movement for social change

Never trust statistics tho, see for yourself:

http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=81&pagetype=90&pageid=10195

 

[free spirit]

But that aside, average income of people using Stansted Airport might be £47,000 per year, but what is the mode income?

The mode income is £57,500-80,499.

I got bored and made you a graph which should pretty conclusively illustrate the point that an action taken at Stansted can in no way be said to be disproportionately affecting poor working class people.

also bear in mind that (as has previously been pointed out in this thread), this was a monday morning in term time - ie. the protest was timed as far as possible to minimise the problems caused to families going on holiday and the like.

when you look at the actual stats, it's probably about right if it was mainly middle class and a few posh uns targeting an airport with mainly middle and upper income passengers.

[source=CAA]

 

[steve0223]

But if anyone wants to help blockade this , i would LOVE to:

"Planes ‘fly empty’ to keep slots at Heathrow
Ghost flights to secure multimillion-pound rights"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article4340518.ece

 

[free spirit]

lol - well 2 people look at stats and see 2 different things...

the 50% mark for income distribution is around £36,000.

 

[Blagsta]

so you're not a Marxist than?

you could have said before I attempted to plough my way through 23 pages of tedium that Blagsta posted to explain you POV on a paper entitled 'Foundations of Class Analysis: A Marxist Perspective.'

So you didn't read it. Pity.

 

[free spirit]

So you didn't read it. Pity.

right, I've read upto page 15 and learned nothing I didn't already understand about the term, merely developed a rapidly growing desire to headbut the nearest wall rather than read any more of it.

is there some particular point in that 23 pages that makes class analysis particularly relevent to the temporary closure of an airport by protestors protesting against the recent decision of the government to allow a new runway to be built at that airport?

if not, then like I said before, forgive me, but I decline to put myself through anymore of that torture.

 

[teuchter]

I think it's just the regular Blagsta tactic of make patronising remarks and tell people to read up on something instead of actually backing up whatever point he is making.