Hi, sorry to not have got back to you before. I’m due to give birth any day now and am a bit preoccupied to be able to give a proper response to your question.

I’m certainly no expert on political and social movements, but my opinion is based on a randon mix of personal experience, articles and publications here and there (i.e New Internationalist) and books. If you haven’t already read it, I recommend ‘One no, many yesses’ by Paul Kingsnorth.

Seeing as I’m not an official researcher of socio-political movements, I couldn’t say when exactly this movement started, but I don’t actually think it started at any particular time, given that it is so worldwide and multi dimentional.

The Magna Carta was sealed by King John at Runnymede in 1215 because of a particularly effective piece of direct action by some disgruntled barons!

‘Nuff said!

Though of course we could mention the Chartists, Suffragists and Suffragettes too, and that’s before we even go outside of Britain.

Ever heard of Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi?

Sheesh!

“Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.”

(Do you want me to qualify that one as well?)

Quantify and qualify.

Otherwise its just a sound bite.

Well go and get some kip; I’m sure you’ll feel much better for it.

Oh dear, I’ve seen some real arseholes online in my time but none as skilful as you. ;D

Harry @ 45 “expose the people giving the orders”.
As is evident from one of the clips, the police, as a matter of policy, aren’t that keen on divulging…perhaps you can help.

Well go and get some kip; I’m sure you’ll feel much better for it.

But such criticism has no credibility when it comes from keyboard worriers in what to me is an increasingly reactionary blogosphere.

Straw man alert…really tired of these smears.

If I can thank PP for anything, it is for at last giving me a clear definition of the term “left”.
And as someone standing in the middle I say yes I am one of the people doing something .. first off by taking the time to look at things from all sides … how do you get a clear view from any where else? if you want a more detailed list I would be more than happy. I don’t think it’s the media who gave me an impression .. I think its the wackos themselves, from personal experience mostly. I am very passionate about life the universe and everything… but there is a such thing as blind passion. They have a right to protest, but not the right to glue themselves to the front door of a building! What do these people want, and I can’t believe anything would make them happy! why do I say that? because question their ( or just about any other group of “activists”) thoughts and actions and they just get furious! ? How do we live in a world without energy? This plant will give power to a million people, we do not live in the dark ages anymore and the government is not trying to kill us! They say “clean coal is science fiction” …. maybe living in the “green world” they envision is too … but that doesn’t mean things can’t and won’t keep getting better, but things can’t change over night and that goes for all it’s problems!
I do not think this video shows any brutality.
As for other things that have been said here .. I do not agree with everything done by police, I just don’t know the answer, or at least one that applies to everything.

Thank you Francis for your very well argued replies. I’m afraid I have let my passion cloud my ability to argue without getting snide…

That’s a non-question, driven in part, I suspect, by the “eco-fascist” insult levelled by some self-professed defenders of modernity against environmental activists as a whole.

Society will be green when individuals, corporations and governments act with environmental responsibility. One can envisage “green” democracies, just as one could imagine “green” police states. As a libertarian of the left my own ideological prejudice should be clear enough.

Those who say that some in the Climate Camp community have an agenda wider than opposition to anthropogenic climate change are absolutely correct. And therein lies the movement’s strength. You do not have to accept the entire package, and many of the 1500 souls who last week camped out by Dux Court Road can in no way be described as yoghurt knitters sporting matty dreads. But the fact that many of them do buy into the counter-culture did not, it appear, deter local residents of the Hoo peninsula and other loyal “citizens of Rome” with whom they came into contact.

Climate Camp – creative, open, well-planned, well-argued
The UK state and its hangers-on – intellectual necrosis writ large

Do you think that what you term modern democracy can ever be really and truly ‘green?’

From the politics of protest was modern democracy born. And the politics of protest will be what saves it.

Well, yes I don’t doubt the truth of that. But by that token having the public think about issues and stimulating debate is surely pretty thin gruel? People can debate it all they like, they are either driving to the airport, flying off to the Med and demanding energy from a coal fired power station or they are not. Whether they are debating the merits of the issue as they do so seems a bit beside the point.

This is my issue with the manufactured publicity stunts. I do not question for a second that most activists are highly political animals (far from it). What I am questioning is whether their politics are actually effective. Politics is the art of the possible, what I see on the part of these climate/environmental groups is an ever greater tendency to preach to the converted. Politics is about what is possible in the wider society, not just a society of the converted.

You probably feel I have too much faith in ‘conventional’ politics and you may well be right. But the politics of this protest are very low impact – whatever the visibility.

Out of pure interest when would you date the beginnings of such a movement?

However, I would like to know whether there is a country in the world, where the police do not from time to time harass innocent people? I don’t condone this kind of behaviour.

I am interested in why it happens, because that’s the first step to stopping it. Are there times when the police is specifically ordered to rough people up?

Interestingly, Francis Sedgemore writes that:
`This was most definitely political policing, designed to intimidate those taking part in Climate Camp, and those reporting on it from a non-hostile perspective.’

If so, then it would be good to expose the people giving the orders. How can that be done?

Of course, even with specific orders, police officers will sometimes behave badly — some people just enjoy violence.