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this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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At least they tried, instead of just discussing the form of protest on the internet. History will prove them right.
And I built a straw bale house 20 years ago that saves 75% on heating and cooling over my next door neighbours smaller house. I am making a real difference by making personal changes instead of trying to ram my moral superiority down other people's throats.
Fom the article:
Oxfam:
I think what you built is legitimately cool but your efforts are erased many times over by a single flight these people take. I think thats enough to suggest you shouldnt empathise with the rich being given an inconvenient message, not that it was meant to change their minds, its to raise awareness in us, the general populace.
Also, we need systemic change, not just individual effort. We will have energy needs irrespective of how efficient we make things, and political pressure is how we will force away from fossil fuels.
No doubt. My point was that I'm actually taking concrete action to dramatically reduce my own carbon footprint rather than pissing off a bunch of people whose support I really need for my cause by trying to ram my misguided sense of moral superiority down their throats.
Yes and this is an example of a justified campaign for some systemic change, something quite different from what you're doing. I'm sure you'll agree that once it is them causing a huge amount of damage, inconveniencing them is ok if it gets a message to them, and gets people talking about a non-proliferation treaty and the harms of private jets?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. But they won't be drawing up new laws. And we can't rely on their good will seeing all the cases of companies focusing on their bottom line while knowingly harming people and the environment.
I love the fact that you used the word justified here.
"Anything that I do to __________ is justified because I'm __________ superior."
That's self-absolution which is the hallmark of extremism.
A handfull of extremists gluing themselves to the road and throwing things at works of art aren't going to change the world. They're going to piss people off and get arrested and jailed and the world will move on. You need BILLIONS of people on board to get real change to happen and this is NOT the way to do it. Sure, it makes them feel good and they can sit around in a discussion circle and talk about how pissed off they made the people they were delaying but that's not going to make change happen.
But I never suggested anything so extreme, now did I? I argued that one harmless act they did was justified given the context of who they did it to, not that absolutely anything they do would be justified.
No one has ever claimed they and the stuff they've done is all it takes to solve these issues. They are a group that is part of a movement, and what they are doing is part of the work that is needed to bring about change.
You can't just look at the acts, you need to look at their effects. In a democracy, you need to raise awareness and pressure representatives to bring about change. Which is what they're doing by spray painting private jets and other vandalism they did.
I don't know why you think that. Do you think countries held referendums before deciding to shift to more renewables, pass green taxes, etc.? They haven't, and obviously they won't.
Vegan extremists targeted a restaurant called Antler in Toronto for months and months. They protested in front of the restaurant. They yelled at people about being murderers and rapists for eating meat. They made children cry because they were scared.
Antler is still there.
Inconveniencing people, endangering people, throwing paint at art and archeological heritage sites isn't going to change anything.
The problem is that most people have far bigger issues to deal with right now. The US is 8 months away from potentially slipping into a christofascist dictatorship. Lots of people can't feed their families. The wealthy and their puppets in government don't care in the slightest about what a few dozen people do to annoy the rest of us. No one cares (at least no one who makes any difference.) Is that a problem? Yes. Is throwing a bit of "paint" on a few jets going to change the world? No. Not at all. It will make zero difference.
There has been zero effect. None. It's pissed off a bunch of people. It's never going to chance the world. The wealthy have too tight a lock on power. Politicians literally don't care about what the people want. There's a great video on Youtube about corruption in the US where they talk about how if the government cared about what people wanted the line of how likely they were to do things would be almost the same as the line for how much people want them to do those things. In reality the line is almost flat but closely correlates with how much the wealthy want them to do things.
The graphs I'm talking about are around 5:50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig
It's interesting that you mentioned democracy and referenda. You need 170 or 180 million people on board to win an election in the US. You need 12 or 15 million in Canada. A few people gluing themselves to the road can't win an election and if you can't win an election you can't cauce change in our system.
Where do you live? In the US and Canada the balance of power between the far right and the right of center (in Canada) and the extreme right and the far right (in the US) is such that most of the policies are VERY pro-business. In Alberta in Canada like in many parts of the US the government is actively blocking or banning renewables. China and less developed countries see the value of having LOTS of renewables. Energy makes up the largest part of the cost of anything you buy so having cheap, clean energy makes your products cheaper. Nothing is ever going to change in the near-fascist democracies of the west until the oligarchs figure out how to get more wealth from making the change.
A few extremists gluing themselves to the road and throwing water paint at paintings is just going to annoy people who can't do anything about it.