| Topic: | Canning Town - the End for Extinction Rebellion | |
| Posted by: | Dennis O'Shea | |
| Date/Time: | 17/10/19 15:53:00 |
It's hard to decide what to make of the events at Canning Town train station. Overall I suppose it was a positive given the number of people who were prepared to stand between an angry mob and those who were determined to make their life more difficult. The incident perhaps shows the flaw in the idea of Extinction Rebellion. I am completely onboard with the idea that something needs to be urgently done on climate change and am comfortable with the idea that at times that might mean protest that skirts legality when there is no viable effective alternative. The problem that is developing is that many members of Extinction Rebellion have reached the conclusion that the strength and importance of their argument means that any protest they make must by definition be right. Causing inconvenience and financial loss to people who in many cases will be on much lower incomes than them is a necessary part of making their point they will claim. The idea of disrupting public transport is self-evidently daft but because Extinction Rebellion is against any sort of proper organisational structure there isn't really any way to stop people associated with the campaign from holding counter-active protests. This means that there probably will be more like the Canning Town incident in which the protestors are more interested in attention seeking than making a coherent point and this is what the media will focus on. Every time this happens more people will write Extinction Rebellion off as a group of deliberately annoying hippies. |