bedlam updates

So what do Extinction Rebellion thought leaders make of the hordes of online commenters shitting on the diminutive child activist Greta from Sweden? Do you have a plan to win these people over? Because these wankers somehow don't find a determined tiny angry pixie adorable so what are your chances? When you block traffic. When you turn their daily commute into a nightmare are people going to emerge from their vehicles wearing flowing robes to bless you? Are arseholes in traffic who find themselves trapped in traffic going to have a spiritual traffic moment and realise they are were wrong all this time? Oh yes I see it now. “I am looking at blissed out self righteous folk who have obviously never been bullied. I want to be them. People who have never been punched, slapped or kicked are my role models. People who've never been told to shut up or fuck off are my leaders. I must join them at once.” I'm saying as an act of radical self care you want to

My view of Extinction Rebellion until recently was that cringey middle class people were using their privilege in the only way they could imagine : by throwing lame street parties, giving themselves trophies for turning up and lifetime achievem ent awards for surviving the greatest boom in couch potatoism in human history. I thought that's horrible, I hate it, but at least they're going to be brutalised by the cops and experience enlightenment. However, when XR Victoria here in Australia made an apology to and thanked the police my mind was opened to new galaxies of foolishness. BTW i f you think this is harsh, the firs t draft of this piece began, “ In the fourth in this series about climate justice and Extinction Rebellion I explore my profound grief and dismay upon learning Boomers in XR are calling themselves “Elders”. Boomers who have done fuck all but feather their own nests are Elders of a Rebellion now? You fucking old greyheaded cunts.”

I am a shit eater. Since Occupy my job has been to eat bad activist's shit. But this isn't about my endless need for breath mints, it's about Extinction Rebellion and it's seeming mission to create armies of bad activists who will have bad experiences and go back to their lives bitter and wanting the planet to burn. In my current role as eater of Extinction Rebellion shit I have been called angry, judgemental, a failure, angry, part of a vile concerted campaign to attack XR leaders and accuse them of being nazis, frightening, angry, stupid, a troll, a whinger, a whiner, and all this name calling is of course very cool. Well done, rebels. Why do Extinction Rebellion people tell anyone with an enquiry to come to a meeting or read a book? Why the pat answers? Do XR people just not know how to put XR principles into their own words? Have they been told, at a meeting, to behave like this, as bizarre gatekeepers who will only point curious people further

A big lesson from Occupy was to forever after ignore anything hippies say or do, but then Extinction Rebellion came along and made this impossible. Horrible. As a caucasian destined to only ever experience fleeting moments of coolness, interacting with hippies or boomer brained freaks is pure claustrophobia to me. There is no communicating with people who have realised they are amazing. There are problems with XR that need to be addressed but house cats with a bone deep need to join a cult and be heroes have reacted extraordinarily intensely to any non dreamlike questions about tactics and strategy. I'm not saying XR is Scientology for people who have never lifted a finger for anyone else in their life. But the deep bitterness a lot of these instant champions feel about not being seen as saviours is classic excitedly clueless tourist. I'm not saying XR is a CIA operation, mostly because middle class people can be so extraordinarily full of shit that it feels like you're

I've been interacting online with Extinction Rebellion people here in Melbourne, Australia and I have some things. My things are that XR is doing everything backwards and is attracting people who aren't going to learn activism, they're going to be burned out and walk away in bitterness and despair. Instead of filling the jails to make the system burst open, people's live will be filled with the shock of being manhandled and processed by cops, dragged through the justice system and then targeted by the powers that be for the rest of their lives. Because going up against the powers that be changes you and no amount of philosophising can change that. XR as it will burn out hundreds of thousands of people because it gives participants no path to victory. Do you know that activists win stuff all the time? So why are XR Thought Leaders acting as gatekeepers who exclude experienced activists who have all sorts of good shit to teach newcomers? What we're seeing so far is

Yelling At Racist Dogs was born insulting people going to a Milo Yiannopoulos event and two years later Milo is begging for coins and Yelling At Racist Dogs has just sold out six live shows. Poor Milo, relying on ticket sales from people throwing money at the problem of not having a soul. I remember their faces and the one who did a nazi salute and possibly even worse, the smugness. We saw this smugness again at a Jordan Peterson event. It's the look of people who can afford tickets to a show about why they're special. They know they're privileged and know their creature comforts come at the expense of others and then a hero comes along and frees them from their conscience. But all of these people are going to drift away because having no integrity is only sustainable if you're getting paid for it. If being garbage costs money you'll stop. And the wankers getting paid for it, Milo, Jordan, have to keep up a steady flow of bullshit and it's crushing to hav