Extinction Rebellion

[Gangster Octopus]

Anyone taking part in this?

[DCI Harry Batt]

I'm currently taking time out from activity, but I wouldn't touch anything organised by Roger Hallam and friends with someone else's barge pole.

[Gangster Octopus]

Who's Roger Hallam?

[Kevin S]

Two of them have glued themselves to a DLR train.

[ad hoc]

Blocking roads would seem to make more logical sense than shutting down rail networks. Given the cause.

[Etienne]

I've joined our local group.

[Paul S]

Delaying people going away for the Easter bank holiday isn't very clever and won't win them many friends. If anything this could be some of the worst publicity they could have asked for.

[Furtho]

Impacting upon the smooth running of public transport seems to me a very puzzling strategy.

[ad hoc]

Yes, I suspect you;re missing the point there Paul. The idea is not to build some kind of coalition, they make it clear that this kind of politicking has failed. The emergency is now, and the ER approach is to use non violent disruptive civil disobedience to get the message out there and to force change. The more disruption the better.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with this, but that's how it is supposed to work. They are certainly right in saying that other approaches haven't worked, and that this situation is so urgent that it needs radical action

[Nocturnal Submission]

I'm really not a fan of their tactics. I think that they are alienating. Something non-disruptive but consciousness-raising in a way that influences voters and political parties would be more productive, IMHO.

[Etienne]

I think campaigners have been trying to do that for the last 20 years, but I'd be very happy for suggestions that would achieve what you say.

[NHH]

Not half as alientating as trying to live on a planet 4 degrees hotter.

Something non-disruptive but consciousness raising is the acme of how to not actually get anything done; certainly not in the timescale we have before things go too far.
If you don't act now, then you're either in denial of the science, or in denial of reality. We're so past consciousness raising (which in any case was done 30 years ago with CFCs.

[NHH]

I think the public transport option makes absolute sense in a city in which if you don't drive or use the bus, you can literally have no idea that a protest was happening as you go underground nowhere near it, and come out of the network far away from it.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I'm fine with disruptive direct action but Extinction Rebellion seem terrible in a bunch of ways.

They're going to put a bunch of young, idealistic people through incredibly traumatic experiences for little strategic gain through their sloppy practices, bad analysis of power and dodgy tactics.

[Fussbudget]

I think the public transport option makes absolute sense in a city in which if you don't drive or use the bus, you can literally have no idea that a protest was happening as you go underground nowhere near it, and come out of the network far away from it.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, it's a good target because it's one of the only ones that will make people notice the protest? That might be true, but it's still a weird target from a symbolic perspective.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I think campaigners have been trying to do that for the last 20 years, but I'd be very happy for suggestions that would achieve what you say.

I thought someone would say that, (not a criticism BTW, just an observation). I think that most people react negatively to the "I'm going to fuck up your week; support my proposals" strategy. Environmentalists might think that it's great but Joe Public isn't impressed. If you've got any polling evidence to suggest that disrupting people's travel arrangements is a proven way of making them sympathetic to your views I'd be interested to see it.

There's a huge reaction against single-use plastics not because of people sitting in roads but because scientific research came together with television to highlight the problem in powerful, visually persuasive way. It's happening across a range of environmental issues, though obviously not quickly enough for many of us. Those campaigns in the last 20 years have been successful. I'd have liked to have seen more but I think that comes through more of what's been happening - persuasive science, media exposure and political pressure.

[Etienne]

They're not standing for election. Most people agree that we should take action against climate change, but government and corporations are able to ignore this because it's not on the agenda (despite 30 years of persuasive science and political pressure). I'm sure people are irritated by having their travel disrupted but is that honestly going to make them say that they are happy with a climate apocalypse?

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I thought someone would say that, (not a criticism BTW, just an observation). I think that most people react negatively to the "I'm going to fuck up your week; support my proposals" strategy. Environmentalists might think that it's great but Joe Public isn't impressed. If you've got any polling evidence to suggest that disrupting people's travel arrangements is a proven way of making them sympathetic to your views I'd be interested to see it.

There's a huge reaction against single-use plastics not because of people sitting in roads but because scientific research came together with television to highlight the problem in powerful, visually persuasive way. It's happening across a range of environmental issues, though obviously not quickly enough for many of us. Those campaigns in the last 20 years have been successful. I'd have liked to have seen more but I think that comes through more of what's been happening - persuasive science, media exposure and political pressure.

The usual logic of strikes, blockades, lock-ons and glue-ons is that by shutting down infrastructure, you're causing sufficient economic/political damage that it eventually costs less to give in than it does to continue to fight you. Obviously public opinion is another factor in the calculus that the government would be making, so can't be entirely discounted, but also latent public support can be leveraged into more disruptive actions.

XR don't really seem to have that theory of change though. Their leadership seem to think if enough people get arrested, the cops will step in to lobby the government, which is ridiculous. The blockades are a means to get arrested rather than a deliberate strategy of economic sabotage. But obviously when you're fighting lengthy court battles, the state has you where it wants you and XR don't seem to have a coherent critique of the penal system or the police. They seem to be alarmingly good at alienating more experienced activists who recognise where their strategy is headed.

[Paul S]

The thing is, the UK has pledged to reduced its emissions and we have made great strides in reducing our emissions, as the new the new low emission zone in London shows. As it happens, politicians across all parties have listened and have done something but there isn't a lot you can do when China is opening a new coal fired power station every week. As for blockading public transport and preventing people getting to work, go to state school, get a decent job like plumber, joiner, sparkie etc. but then you can't get to work due to a nunch of upper/middle class tossers lying about in the road stopping them! Not the way to recruit to your cause.

[ad hoc]

The thing is, the UK has pledged to reduced its emissions and we have made great strides in reducing our emissions, as the new the new low emission zone in London shows. As it happens, politicians across all parties have listened and have done something

This is simply not true. In any way. We've made very small baby steps, and we need to take massive leaps. We don;t have time to pledge, we have to do it and now. And politicians across all major parties (and business leaders) are prevaricating and hoping that someone will invent something that will help them to not have to take radical action.

[Nocturnal Submission]

They're not standing for election. Most people agree that we should take action against climate change, but government and corporations are able to ignore this because it's not on the agenda (despite 30 years of persuasive science and political pressure). I'm sure people are irritated by having their travel disrupted but is that honestly going to make them say that they are happy with a climate apocalypse?

Well, I agree with all of that apart from the last comment, which was clearly not what I said. I just want to know the point of the disruptive action. If I saw it having a positive effect I'd be right behind it.

One of the leaders of XR was on Newsnight last night and, when asked what they hoped to achieve by their tactics, didn't really have an answer, other than agreeing with the presenter that they were talking about the issues there and then because of it. Which is good, of course, and there's discussion elsewhere too, but I just think that there are other ways of making a huge impact and bringing the issue to the forefront of peoples minds other than doing something which people are struggling to see the point of, particularly the disruption of public transport.

[Patrick Thistle]

XR don't really seem to have that theory of change though. Their leadership seem to think if enough people get arrested, the cops will step in to lobby the government, which is ridiculous. The blockades are a means to get arrested rather than a deliberate strategy of economic sabotage. But obviously when you're fighting lengthy court battles, the state has you where it wants you and XR don't seem to have a coherent critique of the penal system or the police. They seem to be alarmingly good at alienating more experienced activists who recognise where their strategy is headed.

I agree with this.

What counts as non violent disruptive action? Hoax bomb threats every day to the stock exchange would mess the system up and really affect the corporations. Disrupting corporation AGMs could be effective too. You can say those things are illegal and irresponsible but so is gluing yourself to a train.

[Etienne]

I was chucked out of a British Aerospace AGM and threatened with arrest 20 years ago. We stopped the meeting. But BAe are still selling weapons to murderous dictators. I'm sure there are many flaws with ER and the organisers, (and i know there's a big internal debate over the choice of targeting Corbyn and public transport) but we have to try something different , anything different, to achieve something. We're really at the throw shut at the wall and hope something sticks stage. Paul, you might try paying some fucking attention to reality.

[San Bernardhinault]

The thing is, the UK has pledged to reduced its emissions and we have made great strides in reducing our emissions, as the new the new low emission zone in London shows.

As far as I know, the London ULEZ is about London's air quality and has almost nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions. It's about particulates and NOx and so on, the stuff that remains local and gives people asthma. There is some very unhelpful conflation of action to help local air quality standards and cutting global greenhouse gases.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I agree with this.

What counts as non violent disruptive action? Hoax bomb threats every day to the stock exchange would mess the system up and really affect the corporations. Disrupting corporation AGMs could be effective too. You can say those things are illegal and irresponsible but so is gluing yourself to a train.

The amount of ink that's been split over the question "what counts as non-violence" means it's probably hard to give a non-contentious answer. The "Centre for non-violence studies" takes anything up to small wars as "non-violent" while XR apparently have cited the anti-apartheid movement as a success for "non-violent" resistance - which would have been news to any of the hundreds of thousands of PLAN or MK guerillas who fought in the Border War.

But even among more celebrated "non-violent" movements, there was debate and contention about what non-violence meant - e.g. the around the Deacons for Defence in the Civil Rights movement - does self-defence against far-right and state violence sit within a non-violent framework?

Anyway, I saw that the XR activists who stopped the train have been remanded in custody for a month which is a fairly worrying sign.