Climate change
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I think the Party should approach the Swedish climate change girl and put our case to her about capitalism being the cause of environmental destruction and the impossibility of combatting climate change under capitalism.
I think she may well have had her hands full of others trying to influence her, politicians NGOs and media.
It is more constructive to approach those more directly, face-to-face.
Extinction Rebellion are on our doorstep and perhaps the history of non-obedience campaigns such as CND and anti-war protests might be a lesson they should be reminded of, but conducted comradely and non-combatively so to have the best effect and gaining the widest hearing.
A explanatory leaflet on that subject along with another of the socialist environmental anti-capitalist case. I always think it strange that we believe just one leaflet is sufficient to distribute on such large topics. Just as easy to hand out two different leaflets at the same time as only one especially with distinctive designs and lay-outs.
We have the best ever slogan, “Socialism or barbarism, if we are lucky.”
Maybe we should list other slogans as another thread on the forum suggests we do.
“Share the World and Spare the Planet”
Or
“A World to Win, A Planet to Protect”
Anymore slogan ideas?
Climate change is not going away so I keep wondering why the Party is still reluctant to produce any banners with it as the specific theme.
We could buy in bulk cheap red flags stapled to bamboo canes featuring our globe logo with a suitable slogan accompanying it and just a mention of our website address
Surely we been to enough demos and marches and seen how the SWP floods it with their placards and attracts publicity.
There is no reason we cannot do the same with something that also is a good enough made souvenir that they take home stick on their walls and take to their next protest, so we do not to be accused of contributing to throwaway waste but something recyclable, as I have been accused of a few times when handing out leaflets.
If we aren’t present, no-one is going to hear what voice we have
“We could buy in bulk cheap red flags stapled to bamboo canes featuring our globe logo with a suitable slogan accompanying it and just a mention of our website address”
Surely we been to enough demos and marches and seen how the SWP floods it with their placards and attracts publicity.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perhaps we could also “buy in bulk” the genuine socialists to carry them. Get real, Alan.
I thought I had made myself crystal clear with my suggestion but to repeat and emphasise
WE HAND THEM OUT to the participants on the marches and demonstrations, along with leaflets which we already strive to do.
I never suggested that we ourselves form a flag-waving bloc. I don’t believe we have enough zimmer frames for such a task.
But if as you say we can no longer gather even three or four members to go along to events then I suggest we just wrap things up as a political party and stop pretending to be one and go extinct the same way as the SLP.
The fact just only a third of the supposed membership bothered to take part in the last party poll is not a hopeful sign. Robbo’s project ten-minutes- a-month-for-socialism appears to have fallen on deaf ears. It appears most cannot give ten minutes a year.
Selling up our assets and cashing in our investments will give each active member a surprisingly generous windfall rather than wait for the utility providers and local council gradually drain away our funds.
“We” and our “fellow travellers” have been spending 100+ years campaigning for the end of capitalism on the basis of a better but no necessarily necessary alternative.
Now we have something else which is the end of capitalism as a necessity that goes beyond a better than something better.
It is not often that you get stuff like the below in the reformist and policy tweaking guardian?
“…..Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?
Policy tweaks won’t do it, we need to throw the kitchen sink at this with a total rethink of our relationship to ownership, work and capital…”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism
I don’t think there is another issue currently that mobilises so many people across the world and brings into focus so clearly the failure of capitalism as an economic and political system. The climate emergency is not a single issue it’s a system issue.
Within the trade union movement, there is quite a lot of talk of a ‘just transition’ away from a fossil fuel dependent economy, but not a lot of understanding about whether this is just a green version of capitalism and whether that’s enough.
Our house is now on fire (Greta Thunberg). We knew it would be. I can’t think of a better example of the choice before us (socialism or barbarism). However barbarism is maybe a bit old fashioned as a tern, maybe it’s now socialism or extinction. The earth will outlive us.
My only caveat to your post, Rubychard, would be that some of the human species would survive (how many is pure speculation and conjecture). It would not be the total extinction of humanity.
But we can suggest that climate change could lead to the end of civilization as it is now, the loss of technological advancement, a regression of social evolution which some Deep Green primitives may well believe to be beneficial but an idea dismantled by Murray Bookchin.
I agree with you that there is a reservoir of potential support in the environmentalist movement to tap into. But it also requires some harsh home-truths to be told, and how we do that is the crux of the question, imho.
For those interested in metabolic rift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1673&v=iOs_T6c-Fsc
Thanks Brian. Not a bad lecture at all.(I haven’t got to the end yet as I paused it)
We did a book review in January 2010 Socialist Standard, of John Bellamy Foster’s
The Ecological Revolution – making peace with the planet under the heading Capitalism against ecology on this link.
I went searching further and came up with the following on Wikipedia.
Hi Alan
I still think socialism or extinction is a pretty good slogan for the party, for these reasons:
- play on ‘socialism or barbarism’
- link with Extinction Rebellion
- threat that human induced climate emergency poses to human society, regardless of whether some of us survive
- we are currently living through a mass extinction of other species
You agree that there are potential socialist allies in the environmental movement, but talk about telling them harsh home truths. I don’t think you will make them into allies if you frame it like that, however true that might be.
I’m glad that this kind of discussion is going on btw. It’s good to talk to you all.
Rubychard, i’m considered the Private Fraser of the Party for my very gloomy prognosis that we are all doomed…I have previously presented what are thought to be the apocalyptic catastrophe scenarios for the future
A search through the SOYMB blog, which almost daily has a post on the Environment, will reveal one of its most repeated slogans to be “Socialism or Barbarism” with the Istvan Meszaros rider “…if we are lucky” added.
When I say home-truths require to be told, it is because I don’t think we do environmentalists any favours by being tolerant of their continued trust in legislation and regulations, their strategy of pressuring governments to pass reforms as the means of halting and reversing climate change.
While eco-activists deliver their messages of extinction, then it is up to us to explain in equally stark terms that they still retain faith that capitalism can deliver solutions (even if they think they do not) because they simply do not understand what capitalism is or the consequences of it.
Ignorance pervades the environmental movement. They may very well know the science but they utterly fail to understand the economics. Even eco-socialists while presenting a more accurate analysis, often fail with the political tactics to achieve it.
Without advocating and working to realise socialism, no matter how well-meaning , regardless of sincerity, environmentalists are complicit in the extinctions they strive to avoid. The truth does hurt, and just as we would challenge those who prescribe quack cancer cures, even if they appear reassuring, we point out that surgery and the scalpel is the only real treatment, even if no guarantee of success.
But, yes, I am open to the manner we do this. I may well not be the most sympathetic or skilled in communicating and others are indeed better in giving bad news than myself.
Off-topic, try and get a copy of Pieter Lawrence book, The Last Conflict, which discusses an existential threat to mankind (in the book’s case an asteroid) but how policies to avert disaster inadvertently leads to socialism.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Conflict-Pieter-Lawrence/dp/1419647970
I don’t think “Socialism or Extinction” is a good slogan, because the human race is not really threatened with actual extinction. I’m not too sure about “Socialism or Barbarism” either. It’s more like “Socialism or Hopelessness for Ever” as that’s all capitalism has to offer and can deliver. Besides, you can’t scare people into wanting social change. That is more likely to get them to favour a strong government to deal with the perceived threat. What about the old “Socialism is the Hope of Humanity”? It used to be before Russia with its state capitalism spoiled things by making the word “socialism” toxic for many people.
I don’t think there is one good slogan. I try different empowering ones at the end of some of my screeds like ‘dissolve the politicians and elect yourselves, ‘ along with other favourites such as ‘don’t settle for crumbs take over the bakehouse’ etc.
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