Oh dear, Laurie. You and Activist Polly seem to have missed the point of Climate Camp completely.

It is absolutely “a protest about having a protest” – one on 17th & 18th October 2009 at Ratcliffe-on-Soar (see http://www.thegreatclimateswoop.org/)

Climate Camp in the City is a temporary autonomous zone set up to plan, discuss and learn about how to make this kind of hard-edged, climate change focused direct action as effective as possible. That’s why there are so many workshops and sessions about activism.

Still, sneer if you must, young cool lefty kind of person. I’m sure that will help.

1. Funny, all the people I spoke to there were very excited about the potential for running some workshops and doing some education instead of having to mess around with the police for once. They were happy about it. Very happy. Maybe the desire for this Camp to be a week of confrontation and protest is only present in the hearts of you and your journalistic peers. This Camp has always been billed as a learning centre and a base of operations, not a protest. Protests will be happening during the week, but not at the camp itself.

2. You know at least two people who were there on the day who weren’t there to take photos. And I suspect you knew that when you wrote this article, but why let the truth stand in the way of a good exaggeration? For that matter your opening anecdote rather strongly contradicts the rest of your piece. “It’s full of hippies”? Exactly who it should be full of. Your friend felt out of place because the Camp is going to plan.

3. Within the space of two paragraphs here you ridicule Climate Camp for being an educational space for activists, and then go on to discuss people who are just getting involved in activism and don’t quite know how to go about it. Make your mind up.

Frankly, this post is crap. You could at least go and take a look at the Camp yourself before you take the piss.

Wow, there are a lot of assumptions and generalisations in this for someone who wasn’t actually there. Even your friend Polly was only there, like me, for the first few hours – which was more like the build of an event than the event itself. I wouldn’t presume to make generalisations about “what Climate Camp was like” unless I’d participated myself for the whole week; the start was exciting, but it was the first step in a long process, and more about meeting-and-greeting, introducing the group consensus democratic process, getting people into their neighbourhoods and finding groups of volunteers to build the loos, than direct action. Even so, the message on people’s minds was climate change – not the clashes with police that have provided a neat media smokescreen to obscure that message. Don’t put words into the campers mouths, especially if you weren’t there to hear what they were saying.

I’m confused by the significance of Polly’s comments in this article. Like me, it seems she only took part in the swoop, not the actual camp. And yet, her impression was that it was full of hippies – rather than journalists and photographers, as you go on to claim. Doesn’t this rather undermine your point?

No more flights to Tamil Nadu for you Kevin…

Well, bad as CLIMATE CAMP INC., might be, it just HAS to be better than the tented accomodation the Sri Lankan government is providing for 300,000+ non-so-happy Tamil campers.

Not that the virtuous-compassionate-caring-left can be omniscient and/or omnipresent but it really IS odd that almost nobody on the left seems to care two hoots about the very really suffering occuring right now – this very minute – in Sri Lanka.

Probably because it’s wog-on-wog cruelty, rather than something being done by truly evil people like Israelis or white Rhodesians

@ Kevin

a temporary autonomous zone

cough,(cobblers),cough. A permitted side-show, a pressure valve to allow the disgruntled bourgeois to let off a little steam over mung bean stew, while the real shit keeps on going on.
While much of Laurie writes is highly contestable (yes, the personal is political to you but doesn’t mean you can make great sweeping generalisations from the personal to impose political ‘solutions’ upon others, while a lack of lived experience is another major reason and not always appreciating the bloody huge gulf between theory and the real world another:they’ll all come in time, and the prose is there), this is on the button.
The camp is simply part of a white, middle-class, bien-pensant rite-of-passage for many of its participants, before they go off on their gap years or to do their pupillage/wonkery/new media start-up with the backing of mater and pater. It’s politics as a parlour game.
Do twitter’s server farms run off renewable energy?
Can the green message be captured in 140 characters or fewer?
London-centricity again
Could you get me a fair trade frapuccino with impeccably-sourced soy milk, please?
Meanwhile in the rest of the country (let alone the rst of the globe…) folk are trying just to get by in very straitened circumstances.

You say: “A glance at the shiny shiny website turns up ‘Photos from the Camp’, ‘Media Circus Twitter Feed’ and ‘Our Open Letter to the Police’ and precisely zero aims and objectives.”

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/about
“Every Camp for Climate Action event weaves four key themes: education, direct action, sustainable living, and building a movement to effectively tackle climate change both resisting climate crimes and developing sustainable solutions.”

HELLO ANYONE THAT WORKS HERE!

The racist idiot in Comment 5 is utilising some pretty racist langauge, any chance of that going?

Er, Daniel, he’s using the term with clearly evident irony, to highlight how unenlightened/blinkered too many of the conspicuously-’conscientious’ upper-middle-classes are.

Er, no, you clearly have not read any of his other racist comments he’s left about the site.

Either that or you’re joking in which case, enough of the jokes for now, can we get rid of the racist comments please?

Lord Binkstein, I understand that you cannot be omniscient and/or omnipresent, but the Socialist Party/CWI has actually been doing a lot of work with regards stopping the violence in Sri Lanka, and I am sure other left groups have as well.

But then acknowleding that would distract from your ridiculous, narrow-minded point of view. Lord Blinkered would be more appropriate.

“any original intentions seem to have been lost”

Ah yes, the original intentions – and what wonderful intentions they were. As I explained on my blog earlier this week, the stated intentions of the Climate Camp – detailed on their website – include (and I’m not joking here) protesting against “tall buildings”.

Sometimes the truth is far funnier than anything that falsehoods have to offer.

Denny, for pete’s sake, listen to yourself. No, you and Helen weren’t there to take pictures – but you WERE there to Twitter, which you did do, including making contact with Skynews: http://twitter.com/denny In fact, IIRC, you were one of CC’s official representatives on Twitter? I think you need to take a look at yourself before claiming that you’re exempt from the media circus aspect, from being there to observe and comment as much as to take part.

Please note, I’m not saying this is a bad thing – not at all. I love how virtual direct action is getting. All I’m saying is that it’s a weird, dissipated way for people to express political sentiment – and it seems in some ways counterproductive. And I’m not ‘ridiculing’ Climate Camp for being an educational space for activists: it’s positive that that’s what it is, I just happen to find it bloody funny. But that all seems to me to be far removed from what it says on the tin, and to be – generally – vague in its aims and objectives. Everyone going there seems to have a different idea of what it’s about, yourself included.

Well said, Laurie.
Isn’t virtual direct action something of an oxymoron, though? CC is is apolitical politics: the Green activist movement(s) can and does do proper politics, but CC ain’t it.

‘And yet, her impression was that it was full of hippies – rather than journalists and photographers, as you go on to claim. Doesn’t this rather undermine your point?’

…she also told me that it was full of journalists and photographers. I think you’re nitpicking a little; I just found her initial assessment of the event funny, as, I think, she intended it to be. I wouldn’t take it personally- indeed, I’m not taking the fact that the place was full of terrible journalists personally.

You said ‘expressly or primarily to take photographs’. I wasn’t taking photographs. I was there primarily to take part. I did also Twitter for CC, correct, but it wasn’t my sole or main reason for being there – more of a side-effect.

Sky contacted me, rather than the other way around – they asked for my permission to repost my feed (but didn’t actually wait to get it before they did so).

And listen to yourself, you contradict yourself inside sentences let alone paragraphs: “I’m not ‘ridiculing’ Climate Camp for being an educational space for activists … I just happen to find it bloody funny.”

To use a term like ‘wog-on-wog’ cruelty might seem uncool but, given the context of what is happening in Sri Lanka, it is 100% appropriate.

IRONY ALERT:
One might discuss the ongoing extrtion and intimidation in the Taigistans of the Occupied Six Counties as taig-on-taig violence. Nobody cares much about THAT either.

ON TALL BUILDINGS:
Are old tall buildings built by – er – less sophisticated people all right? I mean, like those in the Wado Hadramaut or, say, the Potala in Lhasa. Well, the Potala HAS to be alright, hasn’t it?

Stands to reason, ‘cos it was built by Tibetans, not property developers with nasty names like Goldberg.

Helen’s point about the longevity of the camp also applies – you’re judging the camp by the swoop, which seems a bit short-sighted at best.

Biffo:

No it is not accurate, although you are a relatively accurate description of a tit.

“Isn’t virtual direct action something of an oxymoron, though?”

As Climate Camp isn’t a direct action on this occasion, it’s a bit of an odd description.

Direct actions will occur. They won’t be at Blackheath. They will be organised by the people who are at Blackheath, not virtually.

I’m not judging the camp by the swoop, I’m judging it by everything I’ve heard, read, seen and had reported to me before and since. The beautiful thing about Climate Camp is you don’t need to be there to grasp its cultural significance – you can just tune in to the Guardian’s flickr page or, indeed, to your Twitter feed. Although I must say, the concept of a ‘swoop’ is something I particularly enjoyed.

This is the first time I’ve heard CC described as ‘not direct action’. What, then, by your estimation, is direct action? A significant proportion of the people going, I think, expected it to be direct action – and certainly the way it’s been organised, with the open letters to the Met and the like, confirms that anticipation. Since you insist on keeping it vague and meet-and-greet-y, though, perhaps we should describe Climate Camp as ‘Direct Inaction’? I think that idea’s quite charming. Very British.

I’m really sorry for finding this all a little bit ludicrous. I find the *educational aspect* positive, and *the event as a whole* funny – does that make it clearer? I’m sorry if my taking the piss annoys you, but I refuse to stay straight-faced on this one.

On the side issue of Lord B’s racist language or not at at #5, for what it’s worth I read the post as deliberate sarcasm (or irony, whatever) and to that extent just about acceptable, though pretty unnecessary. I’ve not seen any of the other comments he’s made, but is that relevant to whether or not that is acceptable. Oh, and I’m a self-serving leftie but I’ve written on Sri Lanka at http://www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk/?p=1097 in follow-up to Conor Foley’s piece on LibCon – surprised Lord B’s not seen them.

On Laurie’s OP itself, she will of course get major slagging off for a piece that infuses wit whimsy the serious point about the growing self-referentiaity of what I’ll call for shorthand ‘the protest movement. To a great extent, I’d contend, that this is because there is now a standard dry blogpost style on many of the main blogs, and that anything that stands out against the crowd like this is immediately supsect. Fair play to LibCon for allowing different styles of post (just wish I could get an administrator account to post stuff I feel like, Sunny, hint, hint).

On the sunstantive issue, I think Penny is quite right to question the direction of the protest i.e. that it’s lost any specific aims that it had. As I’ve set out in an earlier LibCon post about Standard & Poor, the protest left needs to start to identify manageable targets in a ‘how to eat an elephant’ manner, or the lack of focus will a) lead to greater self-reference in the absence of anything else to reference b) piss people off and stop them going c) fail to engage with other non-physical forms of political activity, including the use of the existing albeit inadequate democratic process.

Against Tall Buildings :sigh:

How odd. Surely tall buildings mean less sprawl, more efficient use of energy and other resources, easier to provide mass transportation? If by tall buildings, do they just mean skyscrapers rented by bankers and the like? Or does it include housing towers, like the massive new one going up in the Elephant? Does tall building include a wind turbine, which is not only tall, but more likely to built in the middle of nowhere?

Do these little rich kids realise how deeply conservative they are (in the small c, rousseau sense of the term)?

she also told me that it was full of journalists and photographers.

…Which you didn’t mention in your article?

I think you’re nitpicking a little

Well, I made lots of other less-nitpicking points first, which you haven’t bothered replying to

I just found her initial assessment of the event funny

Does that make it relevant to your argument, or good journalism? Would an offensive joke be worth including in an article just because it was funny?

I wouldn’t take it personally- indeed, I’m not taking the fact that the place was full of terrible journalists personally.

Yes, but, as previously pointed out, you weren’t there, so why would you?

I’m not at all sure what this article is intended to achieve, or even what the main point of it is. If you want to make a comment about the virtual nature of modern protest I don’t think you’ve approached the topic productively. If you’re just taking the piss, is this the right forum?

Laurie -

This is the first time I’ve heard CC described as ‘not direct action’.

Um, isn’t that the point of your article – you claimed that it was more interested in learning how to resist police harassment and publicising itself than in real, direct action with an agenda? I think you were wrong when you said in the post, but it’s weird to hear you deny so quickly that that’s what you were saying – your article came across as primarily a criticism of Climate Camp for not being direct action.

It’s not, primarily, and wasn’t publicised as such. But it’s associated with and provides training for direct action. If this is news to you, maybe you should talk to the people involved before leaping to conclusions?

You can make your points in a humorous fashion if you wish, I’d contradict them either way. It’s not the tone I’m objecting to so much as the content.

‘Indirect Action’ would be more appropriate, given that the Camp is a training ground and launchpad for direct actions. If you hadn’t grasped that then you misread their publicity materials before the event, they were pretty clear about it.

“The beautiful thing about Climate Camp is you don’t need to be there to grasp its cultural significance”

Is that right? There’s certainly something to be said for being there. More than I was expecting, in fact, being a virtual sort of person most of the time. Maybe you should pop along and have a look.

For the sake of those who can’t be bothered to go and read the Climate Camp website for themselves, the ‘tall buildings’ thing is a heading on a paragraph, not a campaign point. The original comment about it here is wilfully misinterpreting for comedic effect, I assume. Ha ha

I’m not sure what the point of this post is either frankly, and neither do I get what point it’s trying to make.

The question begs itself: if you have a protest where most people have gone along to take photographs of a protest happening, is that still a protest?

Er, you’ve said later that people go there to do community organising, to do workshops and do direct action. So they’re not sitting around taking photos are they?

We’ve set the bar for the ultimate 21st-century direct action: a protest where nobody apart from press, photographers and twitterhounds turns up at all and they all have to take pictures of each other taking pictures of each other in an infinitely recursive loop of pseudo-political voyeurism until we are all drained entirely or someone behind a camera screen somewhere stumbles across the face of justice.

That’s because the press were looking for evidence of fights between the police and protesters to kick off. Why would you try and blame Climate Camp for that?

But outside London, the press aren’t interested; instead, we’re drawn to the pretend protest, the virtual protest.

How the hell is it a virtual protest? What did you expect on the first day? A riot?

There will be direct actions later and they will try and get themselves heard. They did with Kingsnorth and they did with Heathrow.

By all means criticise Climate Camp for not having the right ideas, or that they’re not policy focused enough, or that some people there are quite naive.

But to say they have no direction at all is naive.

It is a direct action movement and they’ve been at the fore-front of environment related direct action.

This whole ‘direct action’ thread is getting a bit confused.

Here’s what I mean:

You seem to be saying that the camp is a risible non-event because it is not a march, a procession or a direct action, it’s a bunch of people taking photos of each other doing nothing while twittering about it.

This is, quite possibly, a fair comment on yesterday’s swoop. The swoop was designed to defend the camp against a hostile police response. Hence the massive amount of scrutiny and coverage: they were, quite understandably, prepared for the worst. I don’t find their defensiveness funny, in the circumstances.

Of course, the police are sensible enough not to continue the hostilities under so much scrutiny, so it proved to be redundant, leaving lots of media coverage, photos and twittering about a perfectly uneventful site takeover, with lots of hippies in a field trained to react to a baton charge that never happened. This is, yes, kind of funny, and it’s also great news for the camp.

You’re talking about the swoop. Which lasted for, ooh, six hours, out of a total seven days of camp. The swoop was intended to facilitate and launch the camp; it is not the sum of it. Go along to the camp this weekend, take part in a few workshops, talk to people about their message, and then see if you still think your comments apply to the week as a whole. The swoop may have been an anti-climactic virtual non-event, but would it have been as uneventful if there HADN’T been that much media scrutiny? Quite possibly not. It was, therefore, successful; and it paves the way for the meat and potatoes of the camp itself. I don’t think you’ve quite twigged the distinction between the aims of the swoop and the aims of the camp.

Also from the Climate Camp site – the ‘vague and meet-and-greet-y’ objectives for this Camp:

Team Up. Get Trained. Take Action.

Build
Learn how to construct a wind turbine, erect a marquee, or cook for two hundred people. We aim to make the camp a model of sustainable living, and we need you to help us do it.

Meet
Concerned about climate change? You’re not alone – join thousands of people from all walks of life to share ideas, make friends and start taking collective action.

Learn
Discover alternatives. Get up-to-speed with the science. Learn the skills you need, from composting your waste to talking to the media. Whatever your interest, with hundreds of workshops there’s sure to be one for you.

Take Action
Find like-minded people. Get trained-up. Make plans. Whatever you want to do, there will be people here to show you how. And get prepared to join people taking direct action all over the world, with the Climate Camp mass action against coal on 17-18 October 2009.

Guys, you’re misreading me. I’m not trying to say that Climate Camp is not direct action – and to accuse me of doing so is missing the point rather. I don’t have some kind of pure gold standard for what direct action is. I wasn’t expecting a riot on the first day – although I think there are quite a few people who are disappointed that rioting hasn’t happened yet! It’s not like it’s only real direct action when someone gets his or her head kicked in, for goodness’ sake.

For better or worse, Climate Camp and, indeed, all the protests this summer have redefined what we understand as direct action forever – and some of that is unaccountably for the better. But some of it is woefully self-referential and counter-productive, and some of the productive bits are hilariously weird. Excuse me for pointing that out!

If everyone is misreading you the same way, maybe you miswrote.

In what way are the productive bits of Climate Camp hilariously weird? None of your comments in the article are about them, they’re about the first few hours of swoop and setup. The main camp hasn’t happened yet, it’s happening as we speak. They’re still building the compost loos, but there’s already a group of activists on Bishopsgate playing Climate Change Roulette with police. Which I guess is hilariously weird, in an “effectively communicating your message” sort of way, but that’s not what you were talking about.

“A glance at the extensive and exciting-sounding programme of workshops shows more sessions about activism for students, community organising, resisting police pressure and the legacies of the Brixton riots than sessions about the actual environment.”

So in other words, more sessions about what to do next rather than preaching to the choir who already know about the environment?

What more do you want? More people? – Well then stop blogging and go yourself. More “action” – name one protest movement in this country which has done more direct action these past few years. Less cameras? Do you think anyone cares how many cameras there are?

Helen,

That does explain things a bit better – I think I was getting the aims of the swoop and the camp rather confused, although I’m not the only one there. To be honest, I hadn’t realised that the swoop was so removed from the camp. Seems to me that the former was more classically a piece of direct action/street theatre whereas the latter is a bit like the Glastonbuy Green Futures field in Blackheath? I’m all up for that.

But that’s the point. The way it’s been interpreted and understood seems to be wildly different from what anyone expected or, indeed, what was advertised. I find the self-referential nature of the whole thing – fascinating, and charming, and sweet, and ridiculous. It’s changing the nature of what we understand by direct action; I think that’s grand, but I also think it deserves comment.

If you look at the original article I put up on Penny Red, there’s a paragraph about better cameras than sticks – I’ll put it back in here when I get a minute, to make the tone of the whole thing clearer.

Helen -I don’t think ‘everyone’ is misreading me. I think you and Denny are misreading me, and swinging between reasonable and personally offensive in the process. I think we should call a halt to this now.

The way it’s been interpreted and understood seems to be wildly different from what anyone expected or, indeed, what was advertised.

I’m going to have to disagree with you here; firstly, you seem to be the only person in this thread to have got that impression, which suggests it’s not just me. Secondly, all you needed to do was read the website and join their newsletter and you wouldn’t have got these misconceptions. I’d be interested to know where you were getting them from. I thought we learned to do research for ourselves rather than trusting the media’s representation of Climate Camp at the G20?

you and Denny are misreading me

i.e. people who were there? What can we extrapolate from that?

I’ve done bloody research, Helen – I’ve talked to people who were there, read everything I can get my hands on. I’ve just not come to the conclusions you’d like me to come to. And please note that I’m not, actually, just talking about Climate Camp here – if you’d read my last couple of paragraphs, that might have been apparent?

This is not an article rubbishing Climate Camp, I’m just pointing out that it’s not all it seems, and making a few points about the virtual nature of protest and whether or not that divorces us from real anger in the teeth of a recession. Is there any chance we could have a discussion about any of that?

For better or worse, Climate Camp and, indeed, all the protests this summer have redefined what we understand as direct action forever – and some of that is unaccountably for the better. But some of it is woefully self-referential and counter-productive, and some of the productive bits are hilariously weird.

The self-referential bit only happened because a media scrum was looking for a big ruckus and didn’t see one on the first day. I think that’s good because with all the media attention it would have been easy to attract loads of negative publicity. Instead they get lots of good PR and then they do some direct action later once the opportunists have gone away.

I’m not the only one to not get the point of your criticisms. If you are going to criticise someone on the left and an org that should be part of the coalition – then something more constructive would have been better. This smacks of typical left-wingers looking for something to criticise for it’s own sake.

Hi Laurie,

I think your post does contain some pretty unfair generalisations about the Climate Camp linked to a rather narrow idea of what a political protest should be.

And it’s not really fair either to defend it by saying you’re only “taking the piss” when Helen and Denny point out the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in your argument, as though they were being humourless.

Guy

‘The self-referential bit only happened because a media scrum was looking for a big ruckus and didn’t see one on the first day. ‘

Well, that doesn’t change the self-referential nature of the whole thing – I find that aspect to contemporary protest just as fascinating. But it’s not something that’s unique to Climate Camp – it happened at the G20, too.

‘I’m not the only one to not get the point of your criticisms.’

Maybe that’s because I’m not really criticising, I’m commenting on a phenomenon. I didn’t intend this piece as an out-and-out criticism, just a speculation on the self-referential nature of contemporary protest. And you do have to admit, when you get down to it, there were a LOT of photographers.

@40 …and Kevin. And Neuroskeptic. And Mark. And Sunny. And Guy.

Guy @41 – where exactly have I said what a political protest should be? I’m merely commenting on how much the media is the message these days. And Climate Camp embraces this – just look at their website!

Oh, balls to all of you, I’m going to go and do some actual work. If you don’t see it the same way I do, fair enough, that’s allowed. But I stand by my conviction that it’s all a massive, fascinating farce. I think the day we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves on the left is the day we admit defeat. It’s all far too serious to take seriously, and far too important not to analyse from a semiotic angle.

Commet #45 is the best of the lot, well said LP!

Thank you.

Very astute piece. Funny, too.

I’ve no idea what proportion of the people at the Climate Camp are describable as hippies, but there’s something charmingly hippyish in the concept. It’s a throwback to a more innocent age, when people seriously believed that peace and love could change the world, before they grew up and became bankers. Or New Labour.

Helen and Denny seem to be getting terribly worked up over this – which I kind of understand, given how much effort it takes to fire off Twitter messages, how important it makes the whole thing feel that there’s so much media coverage – almost as though you’re part of something BIG. Look – the aims of the Camp might not be uppermost in the coverage, which is inevitably dominated by the relationship between the Met and the campers, and whether there’s going to be trouble – but somewhere in there the message may register with someone.

Helen writes, “I wouldn’t presume to make generalisations about “what Climate Camp was like” unless I’d participated myself for the whole week”. But that misses the point rather spectacularly, unless you’re deluding yourself that CC is actually going to change the world. What Laurie’s saying, I think, is that the prime significance of CC is as a media event – and frankly it wouldn’t matter if they all went home tomorrow, the image of the thing is fixed by now: a group of well-intentioned, peaceful and rather naive student types sitting around making daisy chains, hoping the police won’t bash them. Since G20, the Met have been on the back foot, so any trouble will reflect badly on them rather than the campers. If I were a CC sort of person – which I’m not, obviously – I’d call that quite a result.

“It’s a throwback to a more innocent age, when people seriously believed that peace and love could change the world, before they grew up and became bankers.”

…and we know what happened next. Your cynicism is looking a little dated.

To put it another way now I’ve calmed down a bit (and Neuroskeptic, I think this also answers your question): I’m not saying ‘this is wrong, you were wrong, do it differently’. I have no right to – as many of you have noted, I wasn’t there. I’m not saying it should have been different. I’m saying how it was done, which is in some ways difficult to look at, but is part of an inevitable lurch towards future actvism.

The only criticism of the notion of virtual protest is when it leads to what’s happening now, with the media trying to kick off something that wasn’t going to happen and working themslves up into such a voyeuristic paranoia that the gentler, vaguer aims of eg. Climate camp become subsumed in popular expectation of rage, rioting, surveillance and counter-surveillance. All of that is more of a criticism of the media than of the Climate Campers themselves.

But still, I think it’s interesting, hence my writing about it. I think it’s interesting that cameras, not big fuckoff sticks, are our new estimation of what people power really means – control, evidence, taking back the gaze. Instead of taking a penknife to a demo, you take your camera, and then you load the pictures up on the internet, maybe even while you’re still there. How awesome, and how weird, is that?

Virtual protest isn’t a bad thing. It’s a new way of operating, and it can be hugely positive. I think it works best with events that are more focused in their aims, merely because ‘let’s all hang out, eat tasty vegan food and plan for a better world’ isn’t that effective a meme to spread electronically. But then I’ve got a bad case of techno-utopianism.

That the message of Climate Camp is confused isn’t any slur on the organisers – what has confused it has been the media response, and the energy of disaffection it has tapped into in the emerging activist generation. The part of it where we’re all looking at each other waiting for something to happen – that’s weird, and compelling, and not at all a bad thing. It’s just a *new* thing. And pointing it out is the first step to harnessing it properly.

@ Neuroskeptic Not at all – “what happened next” is the whole point. Hence the additional reference to New Labour. What goes around, comes around.

Okay.

I think what you’ve missed about “virtual protest” is that it’s a response to police brutality. Mocking it comes across as being victim-blaming. This isn’t an exciting new virtual movement for its own sake: the press presence and twitter feed are an attempt to reduce the likelihood of the police harassing and brutalising this Climate Camp as they have every previous one. Call me humourless if you like, but think about how your article would read to one of the victims of police brutality.

I do think that the virtual/citizen journalism/media focus on dissent as a consequence of the G20 is interesting, but I’m not at all sure that it’s productive to ridicule the Campers for what basically amounts to self-defence.

Oh, I’m totally aware that it’s a response to police brutality. See the paragraph that I’ve just added back in. The fact that cameras, not sticks, are our first line of defence now is a phenomenal thing – I think it’s funny, but it’s important too.

The fact is that police violence combined with the evident power of citizen sous-veillance to change the course of direct action and achieve justice and protection for citizens is a new thing, a wonderful thing – and it’s turned direct action into a riot of snapping shutters. Police brutality has this year turned people on to the idea of reclaiming the gaze and the message for themselves.

I think the main thing I’ve done wrong here is in pointing out just how ridiculous all of this is, I make it sound like an out and out criticism. It’s not. Today, you can achieve far more at a protest with a camera than with a sharp stick. And I think that’s weird, and it’s wonderful.

Hrmm. I see your point, but I also think that the sous-veillance isn’t the “direct action” in this instance (or indirect, whatever), but the facilitator of it. Anyone who thought that the cameras and journalism was the main point of the swoop was mistaken: they were just a tool for making sure the camp was established in safety. The camp itself is the main message, and I’ve commented before on the way that the media have generated a mirage through the coverage of dissent as being a story about police vs protestors, rather than about the issues being protested about. Does that make sense?

Ah, now there we do disagree. I think the camp itself has *A* message, but for the country at large as well as many of the attendees that has become obscured by the media event – and in a weird way it’s like a riot taking place on camera. The police are watching us, we’re watching them, everyone remembers G20 and if we can only take more or better pictures than them then somehow we’re going to maybe win the semiotic battle, and meanwhile the journalists and interested bystanders are taking photos of all this happening. I think that IS the point. I think that whilst everyone’s been standing around waiting for something to happen, they’ve made something happen. If pictures were punches, it’d be a massive and very directed riot. As it is, it’s just happening without violence, unless you interpret taking a photo as an act of violence, as the Met seem to.

Right. Okay. I can see that the media coverage has generated this sense that the press circus is the “main event”, and I can see that as a journalist, rather than an eco-activist, that would seem to be more important to you. But I don’t think it is to the Climate Campers.

…to which all I can think of to say is . I think it’s a shame that the main event does not translate as well into the terms of the media event, but yes, I think we do have different priorities here.

Helen, why is what the Climate Campers think is the main point more important than what the world – as informed (or not) by the media – thinks is the main point? In terms of the impact the camp is actually likely to have, surely the media circus is far more important. I mean, it’s not as though the environmental side of things isn’t well covered in other respects (science reports, coverage of climate change summits, etc). The campers want to think that they’re helping save the planet by sitting around at Blackheath, of course they do; but the best way they can do so, long term, is to have the maximum possible exposure. The content of that exposure, ultimately, is less significant than the fact that they’re getting it at all. And believe me, without the media circus elements delineated so brilliantly by Laurie, the press probably wouldn’t even have shown up.

“The campers want to think that they’re helping save the planet by sitting around at Blackheath, of course they do”

Very patronising. Sort of ignores the point (repeated many times in this thread, never mind elsewhere) that the Camp exists primarily to train and despatch people to commit direct actions.

Those direct actions are where your ‘impact’ occurs, and they’re where the media circus gets fed.

“The content of that exposure, ultimately, is less significant than the fact that they’re getting it at all.”

And this is very far from true. If all the coverage is about the right to protest and whether or not the police are honouring it, where’s the climate change message in that? The meta-coverage does little for the Camp and nothing for its cause.

“The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching.”

– Protesters at the Democratic Party Convention, Chicago 1968

“In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.”

- The Society of the Spectacle Guy Debord. (1967)

Still worth a read.

As for creating a tent city in the middle of a city – look up Hoovervilles and The Bonus Army from the early 1930s.

@ Denny “the Camp exists primarily to train and dispatch people to commit direct actions.” and then “If all the coverage is about the right to protest and whether or not the police are honouring it, where’s the climate change message in that? The meta-coverage does little for the Camp and nothing for its cause.”

This is where I’m not really getting it. The Camp would seem to have two purposes: an ostensible purpose (to train activists) and a secondary-purpose (to get publicity for the cause). What you call the main purpose, if it is the main purpose, is unaffected by whether there are no press there or a thousand. It could be as underreported as the Bilderburg get-together and still do its job. As for the secondary purpose – I suspect that if it weren’t for the meta-aspects, especially the police/demonstrators angle, the press would scarcely be interested at all. So it’s only by virtue of that angle being there that the camp is getting coverage – and the high publicity it’s getting will, presumably, draw more attention to the camp’s true message than if it had been taking place without all the surrounding fuss. So your cause is actually benefiting from the media circus, however unwelcome you find its emphasis.

I think you make a very good point here Laurie. The whole event was indeed self-referential, self-deluding and self-defeating. Whatever serious point was being made was always going to be undermined by the satirical potential of a bunch of middle-class eco-goons congregating on Blackheath…which contrary to the impression given by certain twittering non-entities is hardly deepest, darkest Sarf London.

I can see why Sunny would defend the event; he had a nice day out playing with his phone and no doubt spinning like a weasel trying to read something radical and demotic into the event. Frankly, he’d have found a more revolutionary strain on the tofu stall of a Tunbridge Wells church bazaar. Face it people, the left has gone. You might not have dug the grave but you’re only too keen to be seen (and photographed) laying new flowers at the plot.

The miners’ strike was a protest. It had dire consequences and killed off the working class voice. It hasn’t been revived. There was a brief period when it might have returned but unfortunately it was drowned out by Nulabour and the identity brigade clamouring for a version of social justice based on victimology and the received wisdom of post-modern claptrap. What’s going on now isn’t protest…and you know it…it’s student posturing. Why bother with the Che Guevarra poster when you can post yourself on Facebook sticking it to the man? Problem is..for most people at climate camp, the ‘man’ is more than likely their dad.

I don’t have a problem with this. Striking poses is harmless and pretty entertaining for the rest of us. Go for it…call yourself progressive… (whatever that means these days). Just don’t call yourselves left wing…you’re not…that’s gone…it’s insulting to the memory of those who were, whose party was appropriated and ransacked by daddy’s mate from the squash club and the nice woman at the council’s diversity department.

Laurie’s called your bluff here people. She’s seen right through you all.

“Cameras are the contemporary semiotic equivalent of the concealed bottle, the brick in a sock, the pocketknife:”

We need more feisty young crusaders like her…people with a bit of direction; a bit of grit; leaders who still recall the days of the big row down at the pony club and the Oxford food fights.

@ monkeyfish. Don’cha know it’s the new Henley?

“The question begs itself: if you have a protest where most people have gone along to take photographs of a protest happening, is that still a protest?”

Yep. It’s a post modern protest. The medium is the message.

Alisdair Cameron

Well, that’s what I thought but now…

“Sort of ignores the point (repeated many times in this thread, never mind elsewhere) that the Camp exists primarily to train and despatch people to commit direct actions.”

I’m kinda getting the impression it’s the new Bora Bora. Will you inform the Airbourne Rangers or will I? Blackheath loves the smell of Napalm in the morning.

Mind you I suppose that makes the Boy Scouts the new Madrassas. I believe they’ve given up firelighting and penknife badges and they go in for recycling and sustainability.

“Yep. It’s a post modern protest. The medium is the message”

And the X large is the discourse.

Thanks for the support monkeyfish, but I’m on the verge of calling troll. Anyone else?

Monkeyfish: great post, but the Footlights are at Cambridge.

Like a lot of other people, I’m having trouble seeing what’s so hilarious, or even completely new, about the cameras. They’re more numerous than before, no doubt, and everything happens much faster — but protests have _always_ been about the reporting as much as the reality. Name a protest that was more important in itself than as a symbol, and you’re probably reduced to strikes and revolutions.

As for people turning up to take photos: great! Some attendees will always be rubberneckers; the challenge is to convert them into committed activists. Polly notwithstanding, the setup of the Climate Camp seems like as good a plan as any to make that happen.

@ Laurie (67). Well, if it’s the same monkeyfish who used to post on CiF, no not a troll, just a cheeky bugger. Seems you can take the piss out of CC (only to do some rapid back-pedalling/’clarification’ downthread), but not monkeyfish.
You can’t say that your

a four-day sit-in protest about…something. The environment. Capitalism, also. And associated…badnesses

is ripping any less piss than the acquatic simian.

a throwback to a more innocent age, when people seriously believed that peace and love could change the world, before they grew up and became bankers. Or New Labour.

Sorry to sidetrack, but this kind of jab annoys the hell out of me. Is the idea that you can only join a protest if you plan to spend the rest of your life growing cabbages on a commune? What’s wrong with bankers-in-the-making getting pulled in by the hippies, and spending a few years exposed to different ideas.

Between this argument and its counterpart, ‘that event’s only for hippies, it has no connection to the real world’, you can dismiss anything the climate activists do.

Don’t mention it Laurie. I’ve heard troll is the preferred terminology these days. It used to be Old Labour, Trotsky, Luddite, Dinosaur, unelectable, “caught in a socialist fantasist timewarp”. All those pithy little putdowns that Nulabour used to hurl our way as they strode towards a brighter fairer tomorrow. Good job they managed to marginalise us, we might have really fucked things up eh?

They don’t have to bother these days, there’s a new brand of ‘socialists’ to do it for them. Only thing is I don’t get where the socialist bit enters into it…is it just that you liked the name? A post ironic piece of market branding?

Anyways Laurie…don’t worry, we’re history…(or should that be ‘combined humanities and diversity awareness’…do we still have history today? Christ I’m a doddery irrelevant throwback)

Monkyfish – me too, dahling, and I’m not even 23 yet. Back in my box…

Alisdair Cameron

The very same. More recently…Captain Lard, Sherbetfandango, MFIshelfunit, Charliepolecat. Banned again I’m afraid (mentioned meerkats once too often I’m supposing). But…as you can see, I know a thing or two about rebranding.

I wouldn’t say I was cheeky mind…just sick of waiting for one single solitary relativist, identity monger or single-issue fanaticist to ever justify their position…in the end I get lairy and the sarcasm glands get over stimulated. Still, I live in hope.

I’m not to keen on Oxbridge graduates in their early twenties giving me a load of old book about equality and harping on about things that went on when they were still in nappies either. But, like I say…I’m caught in a bloody timewarp.

Sunny, give the man a regular spot, if only because it would mena New Labour types choking on their cappucinos as the the ‘foe’ they thought they’d vanquished with their Thatcherite ways, namely the ‘Old’ Labour/Left has arisen. Think of it as Liberal Conspiracy’s own zombie/undead/vampire thriller, which I gather are quite popular with the young ‘uns.

Denny

“Learn how to construct a wind turbine”

Wouldn’t that mean a 4 year engineering apprenticeship? Or do you mean erect a wind turbine? You’d have to buy one first…daddy footing the bill? I believe it’s 5 times dearer than just building a power station.

What are you on about, granddad? I’m STILL wearing nappies. They’re the next big look. Honestly, get with the times.

Right…I’ll get my poncho

The Whitechapel Anarchists have posted an entertaining account of their encounter with the Climate Camp organisers at Blackheath. Nice to see the Camp committee forming a bodyguard to protect the Metropolitan Police. Perhaps they could get deputized as Special Constables and self-police the event, issue ID, perform searches of everyone on the site, confiscate contraband, possible weapons (balaclavas and boardgames?) etc.. One of them already seemed ‘up for it’ in Met terms when he threatened to use his hammer on the anarchist’s sound system. No respect for property these protesters.

This thread has made me lose hope in everything.

It’s a glorious, liberating feeling.

Fellow Traveller: obviously the WAG write-up of that event differs a little from the other accounts to be found online. Mostly in that in the WAG version, there are more people on their side, and less on the other side.

Personally I do agree it was foolish to let the police on site. If WAG had bothered to attend the first camp meeting (where it was mentioned that this might happen) then they could have spoken up against it. Given their passionate views on the subject, they could quite probably have won enough people around to have got today’s ‘no police’ rule put in place yesterday instead. If you want to do without government by the state, you need to be willing to take part in the self-organisation of any group you participate in, no?

I heard that stereo they had at the site. I’m not sure a sledgehammer would have damaged the sound quality much.

*80*

I’ve felt so much better since I gave up all hope!

Can you get patches to help you give up hope, or d’you have to go cold turkey?

This is the first time I’ve found Laurie to be intentionally funny.

Nice one.

Fellow Traveller

Nice link. Loved the self-deprecatory jokes about time keeping and organisation but the sidebar full of conferences, bookfairs, shops, other events and the sheer number of links kinda takes the shine of it. Still I loved the fact that you turned up just to let them know what a huge mob of self-indulgent egoists they were…that is why you went I take it? I’ve said it a million times myself: just cos you’re marginalised, disenfranchised and irrelevant, doesn’t mean you can’t turn up to take the piss. “I have nothing to offer but my sarcasm” as a much wiser man than a lot of other people might have once said.

It must still feel a bit weird organising an anarchist conference though. Reminds me of that woman who wrote to Bertrand Russell telling him she was a solipsist and she was surprised she didn’t meet more of them.

Well, it starts slowly – a few niggling erosions here and there – but before you know it, you’re hit by a ten-ton tank, on a one-way ticket to misery.

“…telling him she was a solipsist and she was surprised she didn’t meet more of them.”

Ahaha!

monkeyfish wrote:
Still I loved the fact that you turned up just to let them know what a huge mob of self-indulgent egoists they were…

I didn’t turn up: I don’t have any association with the Whitechapel group. And I gather from their account that the anarchists joined the camp, not to ridicule it as you suggest, but because they believed they had a common cause and struggle, a perception damaged by the treatment they received. They didn’t set out to wreck the camp or subvert it as you seem to imply although I imagine many of the camp organizers subscribe to that view.

Fellow Traveller

Fair enough. But seriously…read your link again and tell me they didn’t turn up to take the piss.

“Around 1pm we decided to tie up our banner, only to be told by climate camp prefects that “This is an autonomous zone. Could we not put it up!” at which point we decided to act autonomously and put it up much to the amusement of the journalists. We then went to the pub.”

“Despite winding up the “Tranquility Team” about the fact we had come straight from the Westham / Millwall game and trying to spread a rumour that it was Hackney Wick there really was nothing else going on. So the pub it was.”

I could go on…doesn’t come across as sharing a “a common cause and struggle”. Maybe it’s their anarchist prose style that lets them down.

Anyway..I’m not knocking piss taking. If it’s all you’ve got left in your quiver, I say, go for it. Gets to them all in the end…unless you’re a middle-aged, drunken, scouse would-be socialist with skin like a rhino. (I say ‘would be’ cos it’s hard to do on your own…like a one man formation dance team)

As Czeslaw Milosz once so memorably said “Irony…is the glory of slaves”. Used to love that quote until Christopher Hitchens adopted it. Often drop it in when accused of trolling.

89

Love Milosz. I often throw in Ketman when I’m pretending to be all intellectual like. I imagine there’s a lot of Ketman on display at the climate camp (you see).

denmark

“I imagine there’s a lot of Ketman on display at the climate camp (you see).”

Oh yes, I’m sure there is. Problem for the eco-warriors is they’re not living behind any iron curtain, theirs is not a pragmatic or basic survivalist variety, theirs comes into being through a basic cowardice, a fear of revealing their crypto-fascist proclivities. I don’t doubt there are many there who, at heart, are petty, narrow-minded pious moralisers, disguising their naked disgust at humanity (particularly what they regard as the chavish element-though they’d never use the phrase) through an appeal to a high minded eco-puritanism.

The ones with the real issues are the would be progressives who’d quite like to see the global population cut by 75% or so…Lovelock’s disciples. Who’s gonna be the first feminist who denies women the chance to procreate for instance? Tricky one that. Caught between their preferred solution to saving the planet and preserving the most fundamental grounds for feminine exceptionalism. That’d take a brave soul. Up for it Laurie? (question, not a dig..don’t even know where you stand on ‘over’ population)

Solution is, grow a few dreadlocks, keep chanting and munch on the tofu…that way, you stay looking progressive and hope someone else bites the bullet…or they could always sit back and secretly pine for some kinda mass extinction. Swine flu? Irony is they’d probably self identify as humanist.

Does this really cut it as ketman though. Don’t think it hits any of Milosz’s criteria. Can it be ketman, when it’s inspired by a basic lack of honesty and a desire to preserve a ‘right-on’ image? I can think of a few more apposite terms?

I must be a very simple soul, but I just, y’know, enjoyed this post. Very funny and interesting, and basically uncontroversial except where intentionally cheeky. So thanks for writing it, Laurie.

But then I dunno if I’m clever enough to read Liberal Conspiracy these days. Half the other commenters seem to be talking in Martian.

I’ll get me coat…

Monkeyfish, did you see that thing in the Guardian yesterday about geo-engineering solutions to climate change, eg sticking tubes of algae on the sides of buildings &c? I’m intrigued by the possibility that some combination of such wonderfully bonkers ideas will eventually work to arrest climate change, because I don’t know what the eco-puritans you mention will do then. What will happen if, some day, we can all fly to Paris for the weekend and drive tanks and keep the heating on all the time because some hyper-intelligent geek has basically solved the problem? The moral fallout will be fascinating.

Meanwhile, the campers apparently had reason later to invite the police back in

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/08/436956.html

(love that “not important” tag)

Trouble in paradise…

Sunny, give the man a regular spot, if only because it would mena New Labour types choking on their cappucinos as the the ‘foe’ they thought they’d vanquished with their Thatcherite ways, namely the ‘Old’ Labour/Left has arisen. Think of it as Liberal Conspiracy’s own zombie/undead/vampire thriller, which I gather are quite popular with the young ‘uns.

Heh!

Anyway, the original point I made stands. The journo scrum at Climate Camp arose because of the G20 riots and because there is increasing coverage of how the police is restricting the rights of environmental protesters.

The direct action has already started and will continue all week.

Also, I have little time for people who sneer at environmentalists simply because they’re deemed to be middle-class. I didn’t realise protests were a working class preserve now or that environmentalism only concerned poor people. This is the kind of class hatred that the Daily Mail indulges in.

Alix – when that carbonless energy abundant utopia arises – fantastic. Until then we have a lot to worry about.

Well I went there yesterday and I think class does have something to do with it.
They don’t seem to be able to attract any other kinds of people.

They’ve fenced themselves in and have barrirers at the gate to channel people, which surprised me somewhat. The’s no media down there that I could see, as it’s totally a non story. Why all the need for a camp anyway? They could have hired the University of London Union building for a week and held their workshops and stuff there.
And that’s got toilets and kitchens already.

And whats the big deal about these compostable toilets? A dozen portaloos would have done the job much more easily.

How about some direct action against the funfare that’s also on the heath? Funfares must have a big carbon footprint. All those trucks and diesel generators.

Why any more attention should be paid to the Climate Camp than (for example) to the Socialist Workers Party summer conference, I don’t know.
What makes the politics and actions of climate camp something that your not allowed to reject in the same way as a person might not have any time for the SWP?

Damon ; Youre not allowed to criticise CC too much simply because its trendy, the Hampstead left hasnt got anything of its own to blart on about now that Nulab has embarrassed even them – so it ( much like the SWP of old ) grabs onto the nearest thing . The fact that the Green ” movement” is as backward and reactionary as old fashioned Conservatism doesnt seem to bother them too much.

Ali Cameron , Monkeyfish , nice to see other Banned cifers here ! Pretendingtocare : )

Between 8 and 9 in the morning on monday, you can attend a session on Creative Visualisation. That is defined on the web site as: “A guided exercise in creating and using mental images and sensations”. When I was growing up, it was called day dreaming.

Twenty five years ago, I might have felt that the Climate Camp was for me. But I wouldn’t have been cool enough, even at that age. And I would have resented the group think that is going to dominate all of the open meetings. There’s a workshop entitled “If Nuclear is the Answer, you’re asking the wrong question” just to remind anyone with an open mind that they’re not welcome.

Is this all there is to “Green politics”?

Whether or not climate change is caused by humans, it threatens many people in low lying countries. If CO2 emissions are the cause of climate change, the world isn’t going to change quickly enough to save the physical lives and the cultures. And at which workshops does Climate Camp address this? Err, one hour on friday.

Yeah, I agree with the “Concensus” here.

Chill out Laurie. Granted with the Police change of tactics a few people dressed in black are a bit at a loss for something to do, but everyone else just seems to be getting on with it.

Saying “Everyone is only there to take photographs” because “My mate Polly said so when she came back” you are making yourself look a bit silly aren’t you. Not that i am against people making themselves look silly of course.