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Self-Righteous Direct Action At Heathrow

by | 21st, August 2007

WE’RE doing it for you, Stupid. Mick Hume writes:

In the past, direct action was employed by people fighting to defend their own interests – working people struggling for jobs and better pay, women demanding the vote, black people seeking civil rights. The pursuit of self-interest was the driving force for political change. Others such as we on the Left supported their struggles, but we acted in solidarity, not as self-appointed substitutes for the miners or disadvantaged minorities.

Today, by contrast, to take political action in your own interests seems frowned upon as greedy, even sleazy. Instead, the Heathrow protesters insist that they are acting altruistically “on behalf of” others, speaking for the “voiceless” – the poor of the developing world, unborn generations, or simply the planet. A picture from the weekend captures the essence of this direct-action-by-indirect-proxy. It shows a group of white, apparently well-heeled protesters, beneath a banner declaring “We are armed . . . only with peer-reviewed science” (we went armed with political arguments), while they carry huge posters of the supposed victims of climate change on whose behalf they are protesting – mostly impoverished-looking Africans and Asians.

These protestors are speaking for the ethnics, the poor, the stupid – whether we wanted them to or not…

Monsoons For Morons: Plane Stupid Protest Against Freedom At Heathrow



Posted: 21st, August 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink