Mastodawn

Bread and Circuses

Asking has not worked.

Voting has not worked.

Marching has not worked.

Emissions keep going up. Extinctions are on the rise. Nothing has changed.

So, is it time now for some of us to take a step over the line?

Would you commit a "crime" if you knew that doing so could potentially save thousands of lives?

Those are tough questions, and they are given thought-provoking and perhaps challenging answers in this piece...
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The environmental movement has offered waves of demonstrations, petition drives, lobbying and other forms of protest. Yet, despite all that, Earth and its inhabitants are losing the war waged against us by capitalism. It follows that a reevaluation of strategy and tactics of the environmental movement is in order, including a closer examination of how nonviolence should be understood and practiced.

In this context, we need to ask ourselves whether the destruction of planet-killing machinery is necessarily an act of violence. The answer should be no, because it prevents violence against nature. But, as a whole, the environmental movement’s dedication to the strict avoidance of property destruction is extreme in comparison to virtually all other social justice movements.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://systemchangenotclimatechange.org/article/sabotaging-oil-and-gas-infrastructure-is-an-act-of-climate-heroism/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #AntiCapitalism

Sabotaging Oil and Gas Infrastructure Is an Act of Climate Heroism - System Change Not Climate Change

As corporations build fossil fuel infrastructure despite protests, we must take the tactic of sabotage seriously.

System Change Not Climate Change

Laura Sykes #Greeneralia Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses
Probably not (commit a crime) but this would be principally because of doubt that a crime would be likely to save lives?

Umm Ismael Muslimah Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses I sure would. Good trouble.

Alice Marshall Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses a general strike would work.

Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sl8KJDOqK4&t=0 Machines don't feel pain. This astounding documentary was one of the first I ever showed for the regular, free documentary night I created.

It was in a local pub & every week a small group would gather, watch & then spend a couple of hours talking about the topic.

What is staggering about The Coconut Revolution is that it took them next to no time to run their society on renewables.

The Coconut Revolution

YouTube

Mal 甄/kalessin/Peri Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses yes. The main issues I have are effective direction, efficacy, and likely penalties. I don't have great enough wealth to be assured I could pay off penalties, and my baseline health is not good enough to think I would definitely survive incarceration. So I would want to be pretty certain that breaking laws would count for something.

Grandpa Don Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses
Years ago protestors were chaining themselves to logging equipment, cofronting whaling ships, generally disrupting and getting headlines doing it. But fossil fuel and the machinery that produces it and uses it has not, to my recollection, gotten much disruption. Perhaps it is time. Block rush hour traffic in 10 major cities simultaneously. Let the transit run, and let electric vehicles through if they manage to get through the jam of belching guzzlers.

JTLeskinen Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses this is an interesting topic indeed 🤔 I’m actually surprised how slow the shift towards sabotage has been.

Alon Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses What do you mean, voting and marching have not worked? The places with the biggest climate protests in 2019 saw immediate changes in consumer behavior and government policy in a greener direction.

Elon Muksis 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 🇪🇺Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses I have been saying for years that serious ecoterrorism will start soon because nothing else works.

ex or current IDF unwelcome Apr 25, 2023

@breadandcircuses oddly oil and gas allow activists to get to sites to protest

@breadandcircuses Not really a whole lot different from the idea of time travel as a means to get Hitler's mother to miscarry.

Rhinos Worry Me has moved Apr 26, 2023

@breadandcircuses

#Climate #ClimateCrisis

Freek Bomhof Apr 26, 2023

@RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses
Although I support the idea that we need to step up against laws and governments that are climate adverse, the examples in your friendly reminder are cherry-picked in a wrong way.

None of these example "crimes" relate to laws that were democratically approved.

IMHO that reduces the power of your message.

Rhinos Worry Me has moved Apr 26, 2023

@freekbomhof @breadandcircuses

Were they created *less* democratically than our current laws, in your opinion?

Ron DeSantis's BDE Apr 26, 2023

@freekbomhof @RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses
So you're saying the U.S. wasn't a democracy? You're saying that Hitler wasn't elected by a democracy?

Interesting take. Crack a book.

Freek Bomhof Apr 26, 2023

@DoesntExist @RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses
Good luck fighting the good fight, brothers. I' m off.

GrannyDeanna Apr 26, 2023

@RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses

Lee 🌏Apr 30, 2023

@RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses
I've been thinking a lot about this.
The difference between a justice system and a legal system.
Because there is a difference.
It's important to note that our legal systems have all evolved from less democratic times, so they are inevitably tools for the rich and powerful. They are designed to work for the rich and powerful. If you have money, then you can tip the scales of justice.
Anyone got and good books on this subject they can recommend?

MysticalWolf Apr 30, 2023

@RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses Whoop there it is. And THEY WANT IT ALL BACK. Should hear my grandma saying that... And she's 2 generations ahead of me.

RobCornelius Apr 26, 2023

@breadandcircuses

Smash shit up.

Writing strongly worded letters to our representatives hasn't worked and it will never work.

The next time XR gets 50000+ people marching in central London we should refuse to leave and be like the French.

Rhinos Worry Me has moved Apr 26, 2023

@robcornelius @breadandcircuses

If you read the research XR refer to when they talk about 3.5% gathering in the streets being enough to change the system, it's clear that's what's required - the protestors have to STAY, clogging the capital until they get their way.

It mystifies me why XR etc ignore that part.

RobCornelius Apr 26, 2023

@RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses I couldn't make it to the demo as Earth Day coincides with my wife's birthday.

When XR started up they were saying things like "you have to be prepared to be arrested". Then something happened.

We need to be more like the French.

Rhinos Worry Me has moved Apr 27, 2023

@robcornelius @breadandcircuses

I think they discovered:

1) being able to be arrested voluntarily is a huge privilege, hence very exclusionary as a tactic

2) the government don't care if the jails are full or the "justice" system is overloaded - they want it that way

3) once your best warriors are in jail, activism becomes harder.

The French don't try to get arrested! They try *not* to!

RobCornelius Apr 27, 2023

@RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses

I think the turning point for XR was when some of their people glued themselves to a train and got abused by the travelling public.

Of course that made the 6 o'clock news...

It seems whenever XR, JustStopOil, InsulateBritain (all the same really) do something like the stunt at the snooker or Grand National the right wing press point out its rich white kids doing it and to be fair they are normally right.

Greenpeace and EarthFirst were much the same in their heyday. That episode of the Simpsons nailed it. Rich white saviours.

Rhinos Worry Me has moved Apr 27, 2023

@robcornelius @breadandcircuses

XR had/have a lot of work to do on that front, but at least they're trying to do the work.

I think they could have overcome the train incident - they were still building numbers and boldness. It was the pandemic that scuppered them.

But it's a diversion to say they're rich white saviours. Even if they are (and as you say, there's truth in it), no ecoprotestors are acceptable to the right wing press. Just imagine what they'd be saying if XR were 100% PoC?

Those who know, have a duty to act. Besides, indigenous people and PoC are doing far more resistance than us rich whiteys are, in sacrifice zones all over the world. They just don't get even the small amount of attention we do.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/29/global-witness-report-1700-activists-murdered-past-decade-aoe

#Climate #ClimateCrisis

More than 1,700 environmental activists murdered in the past decade – report

Figures likely to be an underestimate, says Global Witness, as land defenders are killed by hitmen, crime groups and governments

The Guardian

RobCornelius Apr 27, 2023

@RhinosWorryMe @breadandcircuses

Have you read the book Market Forces by Richard Morgan. That's what we are heading towards.

Rhinos Worry Me has moved Apr 27, 2023

@robcornelius @breadandcircuses

No, but I just looked it up. Yikes.

Yeah, feeling pretty bleak at the moment.

How about Butler's "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents"?

Robert Burgholzer Apr 26, 2023

@breadandcircuses I believe the premise of this summary is tragically flawed & your leads to violence & authoritarianism. People have the capacity for a singular focus. This capitulation to visceral desire to break something you urge us who try to devise a path forward to abandon our work -- and we get closer every day. Indeed, this proposition defames those who work for a peaceful and equitable path forward.
Fascism always whispers in our ear that "the only way forward is through force".

Orange Lantern Apr 26, 2023

@breadandcircuses You're already pointing out the actual issue: Capitalism, or actually, more precise: Conservative government. You'd have to fight this first to get all the other stuff resolved. In won't work the other way around. Destroying machinery and all kinds of disruptive protests will never yield lasting results, even if, for some reason, successful, because the underlying source of the problem still persists.

Also (as already pointed out by some) there is a notable change in attitude and thinking due to the efforts of protestors and activists. So it certainly wasn't wasted effort. The fact that we're talking about it at all is due to these protests and raising of public awareness.

It's a slow process, though, hindered by a system heavily opposing every progress in this direction. Becoming violent and an obvious target of attack will do nothing except giving conservative forces a lot of ammo to further and more aggressively stop any progress. People will get scared of the evil eco-terrorists perpetrating acts of destruction and mayhem and flock to conservative fear-mongers as a result. Except if you'd get a majority to support and participate. But to get there, you'd have to win the hearts and minds of people first.

Like every revolution, this has to come from the bottom up, not from the top. Get people to agree, convince or coerce them to make better decision and engage against conservative politics. Then we might have a chance. It will become really, really, bad, because people are lazy and scared of change (even if better) by nature, but it's impossible to rush.

J.H.Noyes Apr 26, 2023

@breadandcircuses

It always turns out that those that try to incite destruction of property with for either the FBI or the companies that own the equipment. The FBI's behavior is particularly egregious as it prefers to use well paid female operatives to groom young men that are either mentally ill or emotionally vulnerable.

mfjurbala Apr 26, 2023

@breadandcircuses sabotage of infrastructure would lead to terrible environmental impacts and put lots of people in danger.

People like me, who work in regulation and try to help the environment. But this means I'm at these oil and gas sites almost every day.

We've recently had several internal emails warning us about bomb threats and other terroristic actions. I'm trying to do the right thing but have to worry about not going home to my family because someone resorted to violence.

mfjurbala Apr 26, 2023

@breadandcircuses I get that the stakes are high, but violence isn't the answer. I think that ruins the message and gives the rest of the environmental scene a bad name.

Ben Walters Apr 27, 2023

@breadandcircuses why is sabotage necessary? Vote with your dollars. Shop locally. Grow your own food. Buy from a CSA. Etc. shift money away from large enterprises by making changes to your life. Those types of changes are life long and cost way more than replacement parts.

😀🚲Apr 30, 2023

@breadandcircuses guerilla bike infrastructure
https://twitter.com/AlecTang_/status/1296003010309394434

Alec Tang 鄧振揚 on Twitter

“guerrilla bike lane painting by bike. fan. bloody. tastic. wonder what I should do in the next week of level 3... 👏👍🎉🚲💨💪 https://t.co/AbgCayepbX”

Twitter

Tucker Teague May 1, 2023

@breadandcircuses I don't yet know where I stand on the means of change, but it does seem clear to me that the "solution" necessitates revolution. The things is, I don't know of many or any outright revolutions (especially that are political, social, and economic) that have not had and even required a lot of violence - and I don't like violence. At a minimum, though, I have little issue with "crimes" against processes and things. I'm all for a widespread "monkey wrench gang" approach.