The news tells me that Climate Camp in Greenwich now presumably being in full swing, I don’t know if it is or isn’t I’ve not been down there and have no intention in going. At least not without being heavily armed with non-organic petrochemical based soap to keep the hippies at bay. From their website it seems it’s not meant to be a protest but an educational event, I guess that having it as a camp saves on renting a venue and the publicity and location makes it more likely that bored middle class students will put on posh welly’s and carefully purchased scruffy clothes to go down to be told how guilty to feel and how to “stick it to the man”.
All that aside I must admit I quite like some aspects of what the Climate Camp is doing which from my point of view can be boiled down to just two things:
1) Making use of ancient rights to use common ground, a stroke of utter intelligence on their part , though they might like to recall how the peasants revolt actually ended.
2) It provides a wonderful source of free entertainment, both for those going down there (festivals are so expensive and with climate camp you can experience the same mud and squalor for free*) and for those of us watching from a distance.
Leg Iron provides a rather good summary of how pointless even the alleged softly softly approach the police are taking is. Again the reportedly disorganised “swoop” to the camp was a clever idea for both wrong footing the police and getting maximum attention.
However so far for me the best entertainment has come from this article over at Liberal conspiracy. The article itself is terribly amusing but the arguments between the author and two people they know ** is utter comedy gold. The denials, evasions, melt down and throwing toys out of the pram followed by massive back peddling is wonderful. It’s all of the techniques used by the righteous , as Leg Iron names them, in one easy to digest packet. It should really be preserved as a case study for showing how such arguments work.
Meanwhile I wish everyone down at the climate camp well and whilst you’re protesting about big oil try not to think too carefully about how the plastics in your wellys, phones and the like where made.
*I Don’t go to festivals either so this is utter ill informed prejudice about both things on my part but it makes it al the more amusing for me.
** I also know the people concerned and the author and they’re all three as white privileged and middle class as I am.
