2/x

So: very different response than to our climate protests. Why? Because society could reasonably see us as an external irritant, criticising both fossilism and capitalism. But the fuel protests are OF society, they are society, increasingly: society's worst version of itself.

And obviously, you're not going to hit yourself, drive over your own foot, or stick yourself in jail for doing something that's really just asking for something entirely "normal" in the life you lead: that petrol is always there, and that buying it to drive to work doesn't make you poor.

3/x

So just to give you a sense of the challenge in Ireland right now: "Approximately 1,000 of the country's 1,600 service stations may be empty tonight", so nearly 2/3.

Now imagine that in Germany. Imagine ca. 9000 of Germany's 14442 gas stations without fuel. Now imagine the popular response.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41825720.html

5/x

Which means the perspective NOT JUST IN IRELAND is: a looming or actual petrol shortage will not just lead to price increases, but will leave whole areas without petrol. In our fossilist lives, that means: almost no mobility.

And that means: protests, blockades, riots.

Why? "Moral economy".

6/x

The "moral economy" (a traditional view of social norms and obligations, of the proper econ. functions of parties in the community) of fossilism states: people in rich countries ought to be able to buy petrol at prices that don't impoverish them. If prices rise beyond that, this justifies militant responses from the population, who will not see themselves as rule breakers, even if their actions are illegal, they will understand that they're simply enforcing the way things should be, the "normal" way things should run.

Cf,. German farmers' protest & gillet jaunes.

7/7

Which takes me back to the beginning: society will not want to actively "repress" these protests, as they are enforcing society's self-given rules. These rules are: we shut up and help capital destroy the world, if we get some nice shiny trinkets and cheap mobility along the way.

#TheComingFossilistInsurrection will be a consumer, not a workers revolt, so will come from a place, from a subject that we on the left verdräng, as we're embarrassed by how easily manipulated the consumer is. The consumer wants what it's been promised, NOT the revolution.

#TheComingFossilistInsurrection will mobilise society's most treasured desire: that things may stay the way they are, or were, in some perfect, imagined past.

That's why #AfD can promise this: "Ein Liter Sprit für einen Euro verspricht die Partei."

It will be another step on the way to hell.
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-warum-laufen-ihr-die-menschen-zu-beobachtungen-aus-schwerin-a-d8d9c424-1db4-41ec-bbee-25277641020a