Good God Extinction Rebellion blocking a funeral hearse.

[HelenaDove]

I know where they are coming from but for the love of God you dont block and/or lie under a funeral hearse. FGS think of the relatives and friends of the deceased and how they are feeling.

Unfuckingreal!

Reanimated what would the purpose of that be, please?

I could understand that theory if they had just done really stupid stunts but a lot of it has been dangerous and it's sheer bloody luck there's not been more injuries.

Damn those police running around gluing people to lamp posts...

Do people really think the police have the time and resource to come up with such a ridiculous stunt and organisation... that then requires even more resource to police?!?

I don’t doubt that there are probably undercover officers within XR; but it’s a bit in the realms of the tin foil hat brigade to think it’s all some sort of conspiracy...

I think there is something distinctly unpleasant about XR - an organisation that admits its tactics exclude People of Colour - comparing themselves to the US Black Civil rights movement.

Oh I'm not at all sure I believe that it's a police sting, but there does appear to be something dubious about XR. The sheer incoherency of the demands. The crass stupidity of the handouts. If you were a sociopath in the pay of the fracking industry, maybe you could come up with the idea of starting a protest movement that appealed to the dumbest, most spoilt and self righteous 'alternative lifestylers' in order to discredit the whole idea of action on climate change. It's not like we haven't seen evidence of how easy it is to mobilise the stupid, after all.

Extinction rebellion was founded from the very start as an anti-capitalist; direct action movement. Every action since has been in keeping with its stated aims.

The plan to target the Tube was tweeted from official channels, a formal press release sent out. One of the founders attacked the TFL building with a hammer.

It’s only now, when their decision backfired massively; that they’re backtracking and calling it a ‘rogue action not supported by the majority’; and all the conspiracy theories come out about how there must be some sort of infiltration or plan to make Environmentalism look bad.

Nope, XR’s methods are shit. Nothing to do with conspiracy theories and everything to do with the fact that people have been forgetting the fact that they were founded on anarchy.

I wonder if it’s a load of the May Day protestors all growed up? I remember them breaking windows and doors and acting like complete tossers - must be over 20 years ago.

Ah, that was a long time ago

www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/01/mayday.immigrationpolicy1

I had a lot more sympathy for them, but still had to physically run back to the office to take shelter, I'd been to an external meeting and nearly got caught up in it.

Some XR member called Robin Boardman on the news. Saying how diverse XR is and that they have members such as GPs doctors lawyers etc.

ALL MIDDLE CLASS PROFESSIONS.

They havent got a fucking clue how some people have to live.

Yep, XR are massively behind - you’d think they’d want their PR team to be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstance.

They’re wheeling out all of the ‘middle class professionals’ for the media without any apparent appreciation that the major criticism of them at the moment is the fact that they’re all out of touch middle class elites!

I'm not normally one for conspiracy theories ...

A bunch of people trying stuff out before Brexit?

Anyway, I'm off to the pub with a friend who also works in central London and I'm pretty sure she'll have some interesting theories ...

In a now deleted tweet they compared what they did to Rosa Parks.

Actively preventing people from getting hospital treatment, attending job interviews to improve their lives, arriving on time to get benefits, and getting to work in order to put food on the table IS a form of violence.

Don't tell me, a woman of colour with children who faces both racial, sexual and class economic disadvantage that your actions directly adding to that disadvantage isn't violent. And the irony of it! The people with the most advantage pontificating to those with the least!

I'm not suprised they got a beating. Common sense.

Cause it bloody is!!

So who has the peel the buggers off whatever they have glued themselves to things? Emergency services?

Spot on Catharine.

I see the requests for the thread title to be changed have fallen silent.

So here we have "yes, I'm a hypocrite, yes I'm happy to be part of extreme disruption for ordinary folk going about their business".

rebellion.earth/2019/10/16/celebrities-backing-extinction-rebellion-say-yes-we-are-all-hypocrites-in-open-letter-to-media/

Has some kind of virus gone out infecting brains?

AutumnRose - I wondered that. Their attitude seems to be ‘I NEED to travel all over the world by plane for my very important work but everyone else must lower their carbon footprint.’
I don’t think it’s doing the cause much good.

“We are so impressed by these personalities for coming forward. It’s easy to call people out for being hypocrites but that’s really a distraction from the much bigger, and perhaps more confronting conversation we need to have about the unworkable system in which we live.

So action is less important, less impactful, less necessary than conversation.

Well it confirms my suspicions that ER are a political movement for social upheaval and change for the benefit of the privileged few, with rich elites having zero intention to change their lifestyles and simply to pool and aggregate resources at the top, whilst passing on the financial burden for climate measures to the poor.

I realise, as the article says, they think this is some sort of mea culpa, but in fact it exposes the corruption behind the ideology.

And it also answers the nagging question for me as to why celebrities were so quick to jump to Harry and Meghans defence regarding the private jet criticism. I thought then, that the defensiveness was a bit peculiar, considering many supporting them were avowedly 'environmentally anxious' And the thought occurred to me that the celebs are part of the elites, who frankly live by supporting woke causes, and most frequently some sort of (often leftist) politics, and they do not want the spotlight on the fact they are the biggest polluters, materialists and wasters, and they were banding together to prevent criticism of their lifestyle, because the truth is, none of them intend to change it. That's what the elite greenwashing initiative is about that Harry promoted. Allowing the status quo and making you feel better in process. Well this statement rubber stamps my thinking.

So now the narrative is: 'We are just helpless victims (please overlook our privilege) of the system....we can't heeeellllppp but take our private jets etc. Give us a freepass fgs!!!' and 'Oh but you earning 8 quid an hour, fucking change your lifestyle and take the castastophe seriously, you polluting waste of space.'

Just Disgusting. The corruption stinks!

.

What is also reveals is how insecure those signing this letter are. I'll give David Attenborough a pass - they are afraid they themselves will end up being the target of this activism and being scrutinised so they are getting in early. ER are clearly stupid and already open to diluting their ideology.

Has some kind of virus gone out infecting brains

Yes the walking dead was prophetic!

It’s interesting how they’ve quoted David Attenborough, but he hasn’t actually signed the letter... gives me hope that he doesn’t agree with the methods of XR!

Lots of people are crediting XR with bringing things like this to the public consciousness but I actually think it was Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II which caught the public’s attention - they (plus now One Planet) were so open about Climate Change etc and pretty much every segment showed how the various animals they featured were now at risk from human interference/impact.

I think that message reached a lot more people in a much more agreeable way than XR’s methods, which are massively alienating.

Agree Dyrne

Attenborough also tries to bring attention to the overpopulation problem

He hasn't actually turned up to join the disruption I hope?!

I live a good 200 miles from London and a bunch of people from my city (40 or so) have gone down to the protest... Honest to god talk about hypocritical... Wonder how they travelled.... I'm all for doing your bit for the environment (I try but am far from perfect) but this imo is a joke.

I do hope they walked.

I think they were in Oxford Street today.

Me thinks they were there to get a jump on the Christmas shopping