to support extinction rebellion - more London action tomorrow

[54321nought]

I am not sure what, but I have seen their previous demonstrations, and support their cause.

We were given badges at one event, and travelled home on public transport wearing them, and received absolutely nothing but 100% support from other travellers, which was nice, as I expected some hostility, publicly wearing their badges while roads in London were closed by them

Do you seriously think the government (or any government) gives a shiny shite about the plebs having their commute disrupted by a gang of hectoring middle class virtue signallers gluing themselves to the streets?

The government don’t care about the working poor.

And neither do XR. So how exactly, does that give them the high ground.

firstly, no mostly they are not privileged, not wealthy, not white, not middle class, just people who have slogged hard for decades,

You said most of them are retired professionals. They are definitely privileged.

Why is that so upsetting for you? It appears you really can't understand. You can be privileged AND worked hard for decades. Working hard doesn't mean your privilege just disappeared.

And for people who think risking arrest, fines, legal fees and a prison sentence is no big deal, please join and fight

I did, for BLM. I won't do it for someone whose whole purpose is to just cause issues that damage the most vulnerable in society
And as a mixed race person, those risks were definitely a bigger risk for me, than a white retired GP.

I have asked again and again what alternatives are there to pressurising the government other than massive disruption, but no body has come up with anything.

I gave a quick list off the top of my head. Your groups has infinite retired professionals with specialist knowledge. Many of who will ha e influence change in their own work. So XR could easily find better ways. You just don't want to.

And Infact, I doubt you do have more experience than most of mn. Mn is filled with women who have had abusive upbringing, left abusive marriages with kids and had nothing, sofa surfed to keep their kids safe. There people who have suffered all sorts of things.

But your complete obsession with proving you aren't privileged, seems to have you thinking you have had it worse than most, so you can pretend your privilege isn't there.

@torquewench

Do you seriously think the government (or any government) gives a shiny shite about the plebs having their commute disrupted by a gang of hectoring middle class virtue signallers gluing themselves to the streets?

Of course the government don’t care, but they are more than happy for you to get angry with protesters, or get wound up by litter, as it distracts you from the real problem, which is that humans extract 13,992,000,000,000 liters of oil per day. That’s equivalent to 35,259,840,000 tonnes of CO2. That should terrify you and if it doesn’t you need to read some information about climate science. It’s a massive problem and supported by our government, who use your taxes to subsidize the destruction of the environment. Something that all our children will pay the price for.

But your complete obsession with proving you aren't privileged

Hmm. Seems to me many people have been trying to prove the OP is privileged in order to invalidate and attack her.

I support the right of people to protest even in pandemics even if I don't support their cause so go ahead. However when they disrupt people getting to work who need to work to feed families or glue themselves to planes and if they break the law then they should be stopped and made to pay the resulting costs.

@Darker

But your complete obsession with proving you aren't privileged

Hmm. Seems to me many people have been trying to prove the OP is privileged in order to invalidate and attack her.

Really? How?

Op feels she isn't. But she doesn't understand privilege. She seems to think if you have worked hard, you can't be privileged.

The conversation has gone this way because op is trying to prove the retired XR supporters, of which she will soon be one aren't privileged. This is despite

Them going to university when only 4% of schooleavers went and living costs meant that it was only a choice for certain people. Privileged people.

They have retired fairly young

They are retired professionals, from a only well paid roles.

Lots of people have privilege of some sort. Its life. The issues occurs when you pretend it's not there. Especially, when you use that privilege to pretend you are altruistic, but actually just harming vulnerable people.

That's the issue.

And op invalidated herself.

Underprivileged households will the first to be damaged if there are no government plans to ensure that everyone can affordably transition away from fossil fuel use in their homes and transport. People in all income brackets care about playing their part to help the environment and the way to facilitate this is through government intervention. I don’t understand why there is not more public anger at the inadequate government response to the climate crisis.

It was me whose XR neighbours are retired GPs. One is from a middle class family and the other is from a properly deprived background and was the first of their family to go to university. They spent their working lives as health professionals helping people in one of the most deprived area of the UK.
They understand in a very practical way that it’s the poor, who always get the shitty end of the stick, will be the first to have to go without food or be pushed out of their homes by fire or flood when the climatic shit hits the fan if there’s nothing in place to help.

Underprivileged households will the first to be damaged if there are no government plans to ensure that everyone can affordably transition away from fossil fuel use in their homes and transport.

So it's OK to cause them issues now? Damage their livihood now?

People in all income brackets care about playing their part to help the environment and the way to facilitate this is through government intervention. I don’t understand why there is not more public anger at the inadequate government response to the climate crisis.

This isn't about the climate crisis. This is about wether people agree with XR. You can care about the climate crisis and not agree with XR tactics. Or feel that XR do more harm than good to the cause.

It was me whose XR neighbours are retired GPs. One is from a middle class family and the other is from a properly deprived background and was the first of their family to go to university

No one said no one poor went to university. Simply that the vast majority were not poor and they were privileged. You can also gain privilege, like by getting a well earning job. Having financial security etc.

Again, privilege doesn't mean you haven't worked hard. The two are not exclusive.

And yes, the op claimed several times that most of XR are retired professionals, including GPs. Retired professionals are, generally a privileged group with financial security.

They spent their working lives as health professionals helping people in one of the most deprived area of the UK.

You mean like many, less respected, less well paid Healthy care workers do. That's the job and they are very very well compensated for it.

They understand in a very practical way that it’s the poor, who always get the shitty end of the stick, will be the first to have to go without food or be pushed out of their homes by fire or flood when the climatic shit hits the fan if there’s nothing in place to help.

And yet they are quite happy for their preferred tactic to cause problems for some of these very people right now.

There's no moral high ground on 'these people will be impacted worse, so it's OK if impact them now'

No they don't understand. They dont understand how a few days lost wages can make or break people.

As health professionals, working in deprived areas they must know that any people have to take unpaid time off for medical appointments. That people end up not making ends meet, to go to appointments.

Yet happy with people not being able to get to an appointment, having to rebook and take more time off unpaid. They must also know that it's not unheard of for people to give up on treatment due to lost wages, travel costs etc.

Either they don't care OR they dont get it.

54321nought
You know the government are not doing anything like enough, they are leading us to disaster

Do I? Disaster? Did you read my BBC link yesterday?

Zion Lights, [former Extinction Rebellion (XR) spokeswoman] said that she had become unable to defend some of the group's claims.

XR "peddle messages of doomsday gloom that alienate" and offer "little in the way of positive solutions"

she initially joined XR because its message was "listen to the scientists" and the role of spokesperson gave her a platform "to talk about what I truly felt mattered".

However, she says she began to rethink her support for the group after an appearance on the BBC's Andrew Neil Show last October.

She was asked about co-founder Roger Hallam's claim that science predicts six billion people will die this century due to climate change - a claim that he made to BBC's HARDtalk.

Ms Lights said: "It's a headline-grabbing assertion - but unfortunately, it's also not true, or certainly not backed up by any evidence. As was obvious to anyone who knows me - and even to the casual viewer - I was plunged into a PR nightmare.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54103163

Hypnoshiding. The whole argument from some on here is that there was jam yesterday (when apparently loads of working class people went to university) they are working towards jam tomorrow, but today we can all get stuffed, there is no jam. I'm with you on this one.

No you are in the wrong. None of these XR actions would be required if the government responded appropriately. Get angry with your government. They have been ignoring non disruptive scientific publications, petitions and lobbying by environmental groups for years. The majority of climate scientists are really frustrated. I am going to keep asking,

1. what is your alternative to disruptive action that is effective? and
2. why aren’t you angry at the government for not listening to calm, rational, factual information about a crisis that will disproportionately impact the poor?

It does seem a BIT like their cause is an excuse to drink cider, dance, do yoga, chill out etc aka not have to go to work (basically like a pp says, it all seems like they're having a jolly good time)!

I support the cause, but honestly they seem like they're smug over priveleged hippies at a music festival most of the time.

@54321nought no of course not. But the people they are disrupting are not the right people. People in zero hours contracts cannot afford to lose a shift. People who cannot afford to be late without losing their shift. People who can't afford to
Feed their children don't care about this group. It doesn't mean they don't care about the environment etc.

When they start disrupting the people in power I will have a lot more respect for them

Thanks for the patronising tone!

I'm not "angry" with protesters, theyve never inconvenienced me. I do, however, sympathise entirely with the people they directly affect with their ridiculous, publicity seeking antics. People using public transport, likely being paid minimum wage, have more immediate things to worry about than industrial scale oil usage, they're terrified (to use your hyperbole) about how to pay their utility bills and keeping a roof over their head. None of which is assisted by XRs behaviour. They don't have the luxury of giving headspace to something intangible that they have no control over. Or the luxury of time to spend a day glued to a road. All XR seem to do is show contempt for the ordinary working person.

@Balonzette

It does seem a BIT like their cause is an excuse to drink cider, dance, do yoga, chill out etc aka not have to go to work (basically like a pp says, it all seems like they're having a jolly good time)!

I support the cause, but honestly they seem like they're smug over priveleged hippies at a music festival most of the time.

Seems to me, going by this thread, that it's a cult.

@Darker

Black young people protesting wouldn't be treated quite so nicely or have lots of supporters.

While this is almost certainly true, the fault doesn't lie with XR.

Doesn't it? www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-48147915

*Environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion has said it is sorry for the wording of its online prison guide, after a backlash from civil rights activists.

More than 1,100 protesters were arrested in April, when the group shut down parts of London for 10 days, and future actions are planned.

The guide, which has now been deleted from its website, advised that the risk of violence inside prison was very low because "most prison officers are black and do not wish to give you a hard time".

It also suggested people should use their time in prison to "practise yoga" and "learn from their experience".*

Yep @torquewench . The founders are... interesting.

I’ve been on an XR protest a couple of years ago. I individually do things but think joining with others to protest is also important to raise awareness. I’m not sure about XR from an intersectional point of view though. In addition to that, protests and strikes are not well received generally by the public and this had gotten worse over the years as society has continued to drift further to the right and become obsessed with individualism and blaming other people instead of governments and businesses that are the real problem. Sadly I think it’ll be too late by the time the general public realise they’ve been having a go at the wrong people and wrong organisations.

@NantesElephant

No you are in the wrong. None of these XR actions would be required if the government responded appropriately. Get angry with your government. They have been ignoring non disruptive scientific publications, petitions and lobbying by environmental groups for years. The majority of climate scientists are really frustrated. I am going to keep asking,

1. what is your alternative to disruptive action that is effective? and
2. why aren’t you angry at the government for not listening to calm, rational, factual information about a crisis that will disproportionately impact the poor?

1) have given several things I would prefer to see XR doing. Alternative options, that I thought a out for 2 minutes without an entire hoard of retired professionals and experts, at my disposal to consult with

2. It's obviously going to shock you to find this out.....but I can disagree and not be happy with the govenrement and disagree with XR tactics.

I know it's shocking. But it can be done.

This thread is about XR. Not the climate crisis in general. So we are discussing XR

Just to add - people can be ordinary working people and also care about the environment. I know, because I was one (I say was one because I’m now more financially secure in terms of work) I could see the picture was bigger than me, I could see the need to ensure sacrifices are made so my children could have the chance of a better life without worrying about devastation as a result of climate change.

Re the retired GPs on the protests - they must have read in the papers about people being unable to get to urgent medical appointments. Did this not worry them?
As for the response early in the thread that if the person needing to get to hospital had mentioned this to the X-R protester, then a protester would have transported them - really?? Really?
How would they have transported the patient to hospital when the whole street was completely blocked? What could they have done that the patient couldn’t do herself?
Are they able to teleport or some such? Or do they have cars positioned all around the area with drivers and engines running to accommodate such an emergency?

XR are a very new organisation and they attract a lot of different people. No-one is saying that they get everything right. I'm sure they are learning as they go.

I think an AMA from them would be very useful here.
A lot of strange perceptions.

@54321nought

well, I am going to join them, as soon as I am retired.

I was brought up in a council house, I was homeless as a teenager. I am dyslexic and dyspraxic

I have worked for 15 years as a research scientist, and a total of 30 years as a teacher.

I am a single mum and raised my children alone

I went without meals regularly for years to pay mortgage and child care

I have no savings,

I am prepared to make the sacrifice, and yes, being prepared to remain on a protest 24/7 whatever the weather, being prepared to be arrested and charged, paying legal fees and facing prison time is a huge sacrifice.

The movement is largely made up of people like me, retired, professional, understand that the government is leading us into total disaster, prepared to make the sacrifices to do something about it

And by the way, I wash twice a day!

Not when being arrested might make a difference to your employment/DBS clearance/salary, then?

Not when you've got a mortgage to pay, then?

Not when you have children to feed, house and retain custody of, then?

Not when it could affect your chances of going on holiday somewhere or an application for British Citizenship/Leave to Remain is at stake, then?

Doesn't seem that much of a risk other than being a trifle inconvenient for you, really. Especially as they give advice for local groups to set up a crowdfunder to cover any fees, along with a recommendation to use particular legal firms, rather than the free duty solicitor. From their own pages,

'You have a right to free legal advice once you’ve been arrested. Don’t use the duty solicitor but use one of these recommended protest solicitors'

'Please exercise caution when describing the crowdfunder. ‘XR Local Group Costs’ would be fine, but not ‘Help pay XR Court fine’, for example.'

And because I'm willing to give my sources so others can verify my claims because I'm not making them up , here you go extinctionrebellion.uk/act-now/resources/legal-info/