Arrested protesting for Extinction Rebellion. AMA

[Pinktable11]

32 year old woman, separated, one child, healthcare professional .

I've read the posts about XR on here over the last week

Happy to answer anything, but do keep in mind if I'm arrested again today I may well be out of touch for 24+ hours, and longer if my phone is impounded 😁

[quote MsFannySqueers]@Davina69 YES! This is the case with all of these ER protesters. They whinge, moan and cause ordinary folk problems who are trying to go about their legal daily business. Come up with any actual solutions? Try to educate or inform the public? No that’s not as exciting as getting arrested to spice up their boring middle class lives. Perhaps if they had to worry about where their next meal was coming from or how to meet bills and rent they would have more to concern them. Utter utter twats and this is the first time I have been properly angry on MN.[/quote]
@MsFannySqueers I'm also feeling rather angry as I've witnessed this week, first hand what a set of wankers they are.

We have a huge issue with homelessness, poverty and discrimination yet these fools are sat swigging £5 bottles of vegan water and riding around on the train.

Why don't you go and live in a cave OP and come back in a year and tell us how happy you are then ?

@godmum Yep - a sanctimonious, half arsed, head tilted, DM sad face followed by a one fingered salute to anyone whose lives have been turned upside down by their pathetic actions.

@Andante57

Op would you go to China to protest?

They aren't brave enough to protest in northern working class areas so China seems pretty safe atm

That's very sad. Had it been known at the time, he would have been escorted through

By whom?

By no/one - because she’s talking shite.

I read all your posts.
It seems you refuse to acknowledge all that we have done to date.
The UK does not use much coal for generating electricity. This has increased the cost of electricity to us. The power stations that are left are for back up and emergency use and are due to be phased out.

The motor industry has made huge improvements in fuel efficiency and in reducing the harmful emissions of engines.
The government has legislation going through to impose more restrictions on us.
Your language implies that we are all in denial we are NOT. We want you to engage with us in solving the problems further reductions will cause to everyday living of ordinary families.
For example I live in a suburb a long way from London. Many of my neighbours have a daily problem of 4 people needing to get to 4 different destinations between 8.00 and 9.00am. Most use a car and many have two. To provide public transport would take huge capital.
The local Council is encouraging development of housing estates around 3 villages, that have few employment prospects and nil career opportunities for graduates or school leavers.

@Spudlet

I am going to add to my post actually - the result of the campaigning my colleagues and I did was legislation on the statute books in the UK that actually and measurably improved the welfare of the animals we were campaigning for. Because I suspect that what might be coming will be some flannel about old-school lobbying not working and so on…. But it can and it does. It isn’t exciting and it isn’t sexy. But it does the job.

Pff, that’s nothing @Spudlet. Didn’t you hear? OP has given up two whole days this year to sit around on the floor…

This is what sticks in my craw the most. It’s the absolute arrogance that shits all over the hard work of the organisations and people that have been quietly beavering away in the background to produce measurable positive outcomes for the environment. All that work is apparently meaningless and it’s only down to XR that any progress has been made, apparently.

It’s just become a bandwagon for people to jump on - do 2-3 days in the cold then you can feel all warm and fuzzy that you’ve done your bit for the year and go back guilt free to your lovely life.

@MaMelon

By no/one - because she’s talking shite.

Quite. No one 'escorted' my colleague when they swarmed round his vehicle at 5am. Refusing to let him move forward or reverse back. He explained what he was doing but nope, they just laughed at him. He was on his way to assist me - I was with an elderly lady who had fallen out of bed and two of us needed to lift her .

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the vast majority of people mistake the aim of XR. They don't want the public supports. What they want is the public's attention. They don't want a round of applause. They want the issue of climate to be headline news every day. So when the MSM lead with their pictures and "the terrible inconvenience they have caused to the good residents of Accrington Stanley" they HAVE achieved their goal.

Now, whether the government ever seriously acts on climate change or whether the public ever prioritises a government that seriously acts on climate change is way above their pay grade. And right now given that appears to be a NO given the continued reelection of a political party which puts climate change way way down the pecking order.

But, please don't say that a minor protest group is deciding your opinion on the issue of climate change - an issue which we now know is directly synonymous with the future form and viability of future generations life on earth. That's just a pathetic claim, whether you support XR actions or not. Take some responsibility for your own views and action/inaction. XR is just a tiny minor distraction in the scheme of 7 billion people led by a couple of hundred useless governments sleep walking into disaster.

I know a couple of people who are on benefits. They buy cheap tat from china to give to their kids for christmas. In part because they can't anything else.

Ultimately the OP has to address certain things like how you tell someone in this position, to not give their kids presents and how to persuade rich middle class people that a staycation rather than a week in Spain is a much better holiday option. Which given the threads about holidays this year, strikes me as something of a challenge.

Or how does DH get to work in Manchester from where we live (outside the city) when the plans of for the intergrated transport system only go as far as the county borders - keep in mind the skyrocketing price of housing in Manchester. (Also see many other cities around the world).

Unless you have ideas that you can put into place to solve these issues and challenge these lifestyle choices in a way which changes behaviour, it doesn't matter how many protests you make because thats why things won't change. Because there is no meaningful policy on the table thats practical.

Strangely enough thats what the moderates out there are focusing on, because they don't have the ego that drives them to show off on social media how committed to the cause they are because they are prepared to be arrested for it and they have the maturity to know that if they don't get off their arse to do the boring, no thanks bullshit to present to a committee of suits then no fucker else will.

Why would the OP protest in China? Firstly,no assume she isn't Chinese. And secondly one person in China has a small fraction of the carbon footprint of one British person. That's before taking into account that we've offloaded manufacturing (hence greenhouse gas production) onto China for 3+ decades.

Yeah yeah yeah, OP - so what, exactly, over the last few decades have you actually personally done to help the planet?

I'll tell you what I (and we as a family) have done. We don't buy out-of-season tropical fruit and veg, we buy local in-season produce from the farm shop, and UK-grown in the supermarket whenever possible.

We buy eggs from a stall up the road, whose free-range chickens we can see in the fields from our bedroom window.

We buy local honey, and have a bee-friendly garden. We don't use pesticides in the garden, and we also grow as much fruit, veg & herbs as we can. We have a mini-pond and a resident toad. And a compost heap.

Over the last 5 years or so I have personally planted well over 200 trees, some of which I grew from seed, and most of which are native species. I also volunteer at a local community tree nursery, where we propagate thousands of trees and endangered native wild flowers.

I've belonged to the RSPB for over 30 years, and the Wildlife Trusts for nearly as long. I have written stern letters about animal welfare to supermarkets.

I am a perpetual thorn in the side of our town council, over their insistence on mowing grass verges instead of leaving them for wild flowers, for constantly trimming hedgerows and destroying wildlife habitats, and for allowing fuckwitted developers to build endless housing estates on floodplain.

I have campaigned against increased air traffic at Luton Airport, against HS2, against the massive housing developments around here which are swallowing up the countryside with houses that local people can't afford, and which are now mostly bought by commuters.

I haven't been on a plane since 1996.

When our district council introduced recycling, I was on the Residents' Panel, and among other local people we advised the councillors what needed to be done. They listened, and our district council has for some time had the highest waste recycling percentage in the country.

We sent our dc to the nearest schools and they walked there.

As a family we recycle everything we can, and avoid buying food with excess packaging wherever possible. We re-use and repurpose everything we can. Hell, we even use the paper from cut-up old envelopes for shopping lists.

But one thing I haven't done is to antagonise thousands of people and waste taxpayers' money and precious police time by chaining myself to some fucking railings.

@Cam77

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the vast majority of people mistake the aim of XR. They don't want the public supports. What they want is the public's attention. They don't want a round of applause. They want the issue of climate to be headline news every day. So when the MSM lead with their pictures and "the terrible inconvenience they have caused to the good residents of Accrington Stanley" they HAVE achieved their goal.

Now, whether the government ever seriously acts on climate change or whether the public ever prioritises a government that seriously acts on climate change is way above their pay grade. And right now given that appears to be a NO given the continued reelection of a political party which puts climate change way way down the pecking order.

But, please don't say that a minor protest group is deciding your opinion on the issue of climate change - an issue which we now know is directly synonymous with the future form and viability of future generations life on earth. That's just a pathetic claim, whether you support XR actions or not. Take some responsibility for your own views and action/inaction. XR is just a tiny minor distraction in the scheme of 7 billion people led by a couple of hundred useless governments sleep walking into disaster.

So you admit they are a bunch of attention seeking wankers who think that the public as a whole are too stupid and ignorant to see their is a problem without them fucking up London to show everyone?

Good stuff.

These are all good points but there are well-established ways of measuring whole-life footprint - and of course durability is a huge factor.

“Mini roof box Mon 30-Aug-21 18:32:58
BigWoollyJumpers
We need to stop using fossil fuel. That's the main thing. There are many different ways it's use can be cut right down. It doesn't matter which way it's done, but it needs to be done

Yes, but how. Which many ways? Most of the ways so far proposed suggest dumping perfectly servicable vehicles, boilers, etc, and manufacturing new ones at great environmental cost, with the use of precious rare metals, mined from the earth (at, you guessed it, great environmental cost) and at a cost most people can't afford.
Exactly @BigWoollyJumpers. I drives sporty car that goes like stink but it’s old - a classic. I’m guessing I’m supposed to go electric. But I intend to run my car til it dies.“

The more people who see the protests and go and look things up for themselves, and get the real picture, the better

I purposely don't due to your actions. It has the opposite effect. To say I think you're a twat is me being extremely polite.

I think if you are young and comfortably off it is hard to grasp this stuff.
Nowadays I’m interested in regulatory change but I still, think the op is part of the overall picture.

‘RedToothBrush Mon 30-Aug-21 19:26:48
I know a couple of people who are on benefits. They buy cheap tat from china to give to their kids for christmas. In part because they can't anything else.

Ultimately the OP has to address certain things like how you tell someone in this position, to not give their kids presents and how to persuade rich middle class people that a staycation rather than a week in Spain is a much better holiday option. Which given the threads about holidays this year, strikes me as something of a challenge.

Or how does DH get to work in Manchester from where we live (outside the city) when the plans of for the intergrated transport system only go as far as the county borders - keep in mind the skyrocketing price of housing in Manchester. (Also see many other cities around the world).

Unless you have ideas that you can put into place to solve these issues and challenge these lifestyle choices in a way which changes behaviour, it doesn't matter how many protests you make because thats why things won't change. Because there is no meaningful policy on the table thats practical.

Strangely enough thats what the moderates out there are focusing on, because they don't have the ego that drives them to show off on social media how committed to the cause they are because they are prepared to be arrested for it and they have the maturity to know that if they don't get off their arse to do the boring, no thanks bullshit to present to a committee of suits then no fucker else will.“

WW1 achieved the suffragist's goals.

@bamboocat

Yeah yeah yeah, OP - so what, exactly, over the last few decades have you actually personally done to help the planet?

I'll tell you what I (and we as a family) have done. We don't buy out-of-season tropical fruit and veg, we buy local in-season produce from the farm shop, and UK-grown in the supermarket whenever possible.

We buy eggs from a stall up the road, whose free-range chickens we can see in the fields from our bedroom window.

We buy local honey, and have a bee-friendly garden. We don't use pesticides in the garden, and we also grow as much fruit, veg & herbs as we can. We have a mini-pond and a resident toad. And a compost heap.

Over the last 5 years or so I have personally planted well over 200 trees, some of which I grew from seed, and most of which are native species. I also volunteer at a local community tree nursery, where we propagate thousands of trees and endangered native wild flowers.

I've belonged to the RSPB for over 30 years, and the Wildlife Trusts for nearly as long. I have written stern letters about animal welfare to supermarkets.

I am a perpetual thorn in the side of our town council, over their insistence on mowing grass verges instead of leaving them for wild flowers, for constantly trimming hedgerows and destroying wildlife habitats, and for allowing fuckwitted developers to build endless housing estates on floodplain.

I have campaigned against increased air traffic at Luton Airport, against HS2, against the massive housing developments around here which are swallowing up the countryside with houses that local people can't afford, and which are now mostly bought by commuters.

I haven't been on a plane since 1996.

When our district council introduced recycling, I was on the Residents' Panel, and among other local people we advised the councillors what needed to be done. They listened, and our district council has for some time had the highest waste recycling percentage in the country.

We sent our dc to the nearest schools and they walked there.

As a family we recycle everything we can, and avoid buying food with excess packaging wherever possible. We re-use and repurpose everything we can. Hell, we even use the paper from cut-up old envelopes for shopping lists.

But one thing I haven't done is to antagonise thousands of people and waste taxpayers' money and precious police time by chaining myself to some fucking railings.

And this is what I respect.

I have a couple of friends who have actively changed their lifestyle in similar ways. They are active in the community and make a point of saying things like 'do we have to use plastic disposable cups?' and those little things affect events but also is more likely to get you thinking about what you do as an individual on a daily basis. Like buying products in glass bottles rather than plastic. Or walking to the shop to get a single loaf of bread. Etc etc.

This does a lot more to get me thinking and actually change what I do.

XR just make me think 'patronising hypocritical immature extremist wankers causing a nuisance' rather than really draw my attention to the actual environment and climate change.

@RedToothBrush
I don’t think Cam77 ever mentioned that she was part of XR and she said she doesn’t support some of the protests. Either way, her posts seem quite considered and at least free from mindless profanity - in stark contrast to your juvenile effort. It is possible to civil online you know.

Cam77 seems to be the only person taking any sense here! Asking the OP if she owns a TV or takes the train regularly is a ridiculous argument, come on

Imagine what a huge difference getting homeworking accepted and cars out of cities could do. work on that stuff and not abstract 'protests' with bongo playing twats called Munch.

I don't know if the OP will come back, but I have found this thread very interesting. I don't have the antagonism towards XR that some do, but I do question their tactics and I am undecided on whether I think they will help or hinder their cause.

The big difference to the suffragettes (and other direct action protests such as the anti-apartheid in South Africa etc) is that we live in a functioning representative democracy. The suffragettes could not engage with the political process because they did not have a vote, and were in many ways second class citizens. Ditto black South Africans. So to me it is quite understandable that they would resort direct action.

Where there are democratic avenues open to campaign and protest, I do have a problem with the use of radical direct action, criminal damage etc, which are themselves fundamentally undemocratic.

OP, if you come back, what is your answer to this concern?

Whats most telling is you have XR telling us all we need to listen so there will be change of attitude.

What you don't get is XR listening to what we are saying will change our behaviour or listening to what barriers we see to stopping behavioural change so we can work to tackle them.

The assumption is there isn't an appetite for change and its a sanctomonius lecture which treats grown adults as if they are thick and have know nothing.

Adults who have life experience and responsibilities which are important and relevant. How about XR do a little more of the two ears, one mouth thing and stfu and understand problems can't just disappear with the click of fingers because they say so.

The privilege and idealism of youth of every generation burns out when you've got to put a roof over your head and food on the table. People know that climate change is making that harder - that doesn't do anything but make behavioural change even more challenging.

Id argue ER arnt direct action at all

bongo playing twats called Munch