Extinction Rebellion

[Brian Peacock]

Rolling where? Down the rabbit hole?
Play illusionary politics if you want to but I will stay with realism.
The Polish right wing party has got back in. Surprise surprise.

Meh. The depressed, fatalistic cynic always thinks that they are the only ones to truly see the world how it really is - and it always looks dark and pointless.

I see XR as offering the possibility of hope. You're now going to tell me that hoping for anything is folly because you're without hope yourself. You're literally hopeless, and you can't accept that others are not as hopeless as you. Things used to be a lot shittier for ordinary people than they are today. But we had hope, and we made progress and things got better. People like you think that progress is impossible and that to even try is 'unrealistic'. You've basically turned yourself into an angry conservative who thinks that progress, along with coming down from the trees in the first place, was a bad idea.

You cant face realism that is your problem. You think you can change a part of society without treating the whole problem. The UK is so politically corrupt that it is not functioning. I am not saying "dont do anything" but what I am saying is "do something constructive". These random useless protests will achieve nothing. A new political force should be organised in the UK. One that would construct a new political system. Going on about the environment the whole time is too elusive. Get the country organised and actually functioning. The environment will have to wait.

I'm going to type this slowly so you can understanding it. Your 'realism' is simply fatalistic cynicism. You've delcared that a movement not being successful immediately is wasting its time and that even beginning to protest is a waste of time. That was your first impulse - to declare it all pointless, hopeless, and to claim 'realism' agrees with you.

I would suggest that the reason the government has shut down the protest is because the message is getting through - and that message is that dealing with the existential threat of climate change, in order to secure the social, democratic, scientific etc progress we have achieved off the back of colonialised industrialisation, requires a wholesale overhaul of our political, economic and democratic systems. The climate and environmental crisis is not something that we can put off sorting out until we've elected some nicer people into office - addressing the former requires addressing the latter.

[Scot Dutchy]

Thank you for accepting what I have been saying. Are you doing a "Boris"? You have just stated what I have been saying FFS

The whole system has to be overhauled. I dont here that from the protesters funny enough. The environment problems are the result of the system and there is no point going on about it when the same system is in place. So demonstrations are pointless.

[pErvinalia]

So when are you going to get off your arse and start overthrowing the system?

[Brian Peacock]

Thank you for accepting what I have been saying. Are you doing a "Boris"? You have just stated what I have been saying FFS

The whole system has to be overhauled. I dont here that from the protesters funny enough. The environment problems are the result of the system and there is no point going on about it when the same system is in place. So demonstrations are pointless.

Meh. Dry your crocodile tears of laughter. Do you think the system is just going to spontaneously change itself eh? Do you think Dutch farmers are going to just decide among themselves to stop using nitrates for example, or that political parties in government around the world are just going refuse to take money from the big polluters? You said that demonstrations and protests were useless, that we had to change the systems first and the environment would have to wait until after. And when I pointed out that the climate and environmental crisis is a symptom of a failing system, and that addressing the former necessarily involves dealing with the later, you change your tune and say thank you for agreeing with me. So, tell me, now I'm in agreement with you, and keeping the fact that the establishment love it when we protest just as much as when we stay at home, how do you think we should change the system without wasting our time?

[Scot Dutchy]

Not with stupid demonstrations. You have to change the system first. Demonstrating against the state of environment is pointless and a waste of time. In the UK you need a new system and that will not be achieved by demonstrating. A political organisation is required but it has to win within a corrupt system before it can acquire sufficient power to change laws and the system. Now rationally do you think that will happen? Do you think the establishment and the 1% in the UK would allow it? Forget it. You dont even have a national green party.

[pErvinalia]

Not with stupid demonstrations. You have to change the system first.

Systems don't change without demonstrations. History has made that abundantly clear.

[rainbow]

So, tell me, now I'm in agreement with you, and keeping the fact that the establishment love it when we protest just as much as when we stay at home, how do you think we should change the system without wasting our time?

Go on a tax strike.

[pErvinalia]

Most tax, at least in Australia, is automated via the employer. Hard to go on a tax strike.

[rainbow]

Most tax, at least in Australia, is automated via the employer. Hard to go on a tax strike.

Nobody said it would be easy.

[Scot Dutchy]

Only a political movement has any chance of change. Supporting political parties that want change which is why the farmers are demonstrating. Here the system is in place not like the UK where it one huge mess with people in power that could not care less.

[pErvinalia]

You're off with the fairies. There's no way a political party in this system is going to overturn the corporatocracy we exist under. It's going to have to be a ground up movement, not a top down movement. That's just fucking laughable.

[Brian Peacock]

Only a political movement has any chance of change. Supporting political parties that want change which is why the farmers are demonstrating. Here the system is in place not like the UK where it one huge mess with people in power that could not care less.

And how do you motivate a political party to develop policies that deal with the climate and ecological emergencies?

[Brian Peacock]

Only a political movement has any chance of change. Supporting political parties that want change which is why the farmers are demonstrating. Here the system is in place not like the UK where it one huge mess with people in power that could not care less.

How's that working out in your neck of the woods? Didn't your government just cave in to farmers protesting about restrictions on nitrates after they drove their tractors down the motorway? Are Dutch farmers a political party?

[rainbow]

Only a political movement has any chance of change. Supporting political parties that want change which is why the farmers are demonstrating. Here the system is in place not like the UK where it one huge mess with people in power that could not care less.

And how do you motivate a political party to develop policies that deal with the climate and ecological emergencies?

Throw yogurt/milkshakes at the twats in suits. That gets their attention.

[Brian Peacock]

Oh... the horror....