Extinction Rebellion Protests

I’d be delighted to hear what the most suitable non-disruptive protest should be. Perhaps running a small notice on page 12 of the Guardian. That will certainly sort things out.

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I agree. I come back to the civil rights movement. Faced with the enormity of the issues and the fact that society needed fundamental change, a lot of people chose to just sit at home and moan about the fact their marches were blocking the roads.

You look back now and think of anyone who was alive at the time why the hell weren’t you trying to do something about it too.

Except for when it does.

Rosa Parks, for example. Or, for a bit of a left-field example of disruption, Covid-19.

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Again, I don’t think that’s true.

It’s certainly help me think about my impact on the environment, understand their arguments and consider how I can be more responsible. So based on that; I’d say it’s working.

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Breaking the law is disobedience. Almost by definition.

Vandalism has a long history in terms of protest. For those who feel strongly about a cause, it’s not a binary choice between OK and not OK. It’s a much more nuanced decision. Is it worth breaking some things if it helps to draw attention to the issue at hand, or to help to resolve an injustice?

How that question is answered depends on how strongly someone feels about the issue, and what impact they feel the issue will have on themselves or others.

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You are better than that reply Dan. I’m not sure that mimicking something I said earlier in the thread is a great example to be setting, nor adds anything to the discussion.

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I think what it added was clarification that no one was arguing it was okay to smash windows. As you seemed to be waiting for someone to make an argument for something no one was arguing for in the first place.

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I was merely making the point that you cannot accuse other people of putting words in your mouth, and then put words in the mouth of somebody else.

Otherwise the entire argument is unfair.

I never said, nor implied, that smashing windows was okay. I don’t agree with it, but nor am I doing to condemn the people doing it when:

  • without the sort of action extinction rebellion are undertaking it wouldn’t get the media attention it is;
  • without the media attention there wouldn’t be discussion such as this;
  • without this discussion which may result in people considering their environmental impact, which is the whole point of their actions.

But you read something completely different into my post, which as you know is discouraged around here!

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Media attention isn’t much good if you alienate the people whose behaviour you need to change

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They are trying to get the government to change, not people, though.

It’s a bit of both though isn’t it - mainly the government but if their actions made individuals think about what they can do even better.

The majority of people who are getting worked up by their actions aren’t even directly affected by it, but are directly affected by climate change 🤷

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I have been influenced by Extinction Rebellion. I now use the term ‘climate emergency’ rather than ‘climate change’ and it’s much higher on my agenda than it was before. They aren’t the only influence, but they are definitely part of it.

When I see perfectly ordinary people - many working people , retirees etc willing to be arrested for the first time in their life to make a stand, it does impact me and make me realise how serious a situation we are in.

And when the government dismissed them as a nuisance or tries to erroneously label them as extremists it exposes how far away they really are from being a government that will do what’s necessary.

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Don’t hooligans also destroy things and cause huge nuisances for people for a cause they believe to be good?

I’m of course not saying climate change isn’t good, but where is the line drawn? What gives anyone the right to take the laws into their own hands?

I personally think you lose all credibility when you behave in this manner to make your point because as we’re seeing in this topic that’s what we all focus on rather than the issue at hand.

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Detractors to the issue will always look for a way to ignore it. And if they can’t ignore it, they will always find an angle of attack, which is usually the unimaginative ‘oh what an inconvenience this is’ or ‘oh look one protestor out of 10,000 broke a window’ or whatever so they can dismiss it.

It’d be folly to try to make the protest convenient and supportable by people who would prefer to stick their head in the sand. That’s just pandering to the cause of the problem.

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To be fair you can be disruptive without causing criminal damage.

The blockades on Waterloo Bridge disrupted and I had to walk over to get to work (I actually engaged with several lovely people who were really open and welcoming for discussion and chats) and I have honestly thought so much about the emergency we face and what we can do as individuals and as a country and taken a few (albeit small) steps in my own life.

I am aware that there is likely a sub-group of people, as with any organization, who are there to cause damage, to be arrested etc, so I try to keep an open mind but I think you can, and they have, caused disruption and provoked conversation without resorting to violence or criminal damage.

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I don’t disagree at all. Not do I think that small faction is right to do what they do.

But I do think the idea that the whole movement loses credibility because of those people is imo wrong. Most people who think like that would have found a way to dismiss them anyway, or - because their protest was so bland and inoffensive - just totally ignore them

Oh I agree, I take any large group as going to have fringes, be it protest groups, political groups, or just large sections of society.

At the core I support ER, and it was the more jovial, open and accepting members that got me provoked by their cause. They took the time to acknowledge that for most people, gradual changes are more likely than just a sudden change.

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Indeed!

I work near where there first protests were. Despite the media making it look like some kind of violence fest it was more like a festival than a protest. People singing, playing instruments, handing out free vegan food and stuff.

Just the 10,000 met officers standing around them that made it feel like a protest :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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The problem is that even if a few kick off it needs a lot of officers per person to deal. Their way of protesting means it usually needs 5/6 officers per person and once you start having masses doing this it takes a lot of officers to safely do the job.

Believe me, it takes a lot of planning to police these events, and simply what it looks like is not the whole or bigger picture.

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That’s the mets opinion certainly. I’m a bit skeptical. I sit with a view over Trafalgar Square and watched as they sat there for three days, now moving, not doing anything, and anyway when they did move up to Parliament Square occasionally no one stopped them anyway.

There was a lot of show but it wasn’t exactly clear what it was for given the protest went on exactly as planned anyway.

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