Cheers, and I guess another concern I have is the general attitude that the government is encouraging (and acting out through legislation) is that protesting is some kind of subversive act. This is very dangerous in what is supposed to be a democracy and could well create the complete opposite of what they are hoping to achieve i.e. the very extreme subversive tactics they want to avoid.
It's too easy to think that environmental protesting is confined to things like the M25 protest (incidentally by a group I don't really know much about) but they're not. Here's an interesting piece that is heartbreaking.
Climate activists are being killed for trying to save our planet.
If environmental protesters are demonised through language and media/government attitude then the collective consciousness becomes one of 'these people are nutters' when they're not. In the article, there are major protests against some truly despicable corporations and regimes. There are governments who are using all the right terminology and ticking all the right boxes just to get funding in Foreign Aid and then pocketing the money in off-shore accounts.
It's so much more complicated than reducing it to the M25 blockades and we're already hearing about hefty prison sentences which implies their criminality is on a par with drug dealers or people traffickers.
I do a lot of writing of letters regarding disability rights and issues and advocating regarding discrimination. I've been on the receiving end of the government's demonisation of disabled people and it's really nasty. I don't want to see this happen to anyone protesting.
I'm not on here to fall out with anyone and I was actually saying to Mrs Citizen yesterday that I actually respect our good if heated discussion and our exchanges definitely fall into that category!
Originally Posted by Citizen's Nephew
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