Support Your Local Predators
A campaign to stop the slaughter of sharks in WA has been met by an entirely unhelpful burst of comments suggesting these people have been nowhere to be seen on the subject of our appalling treatment of refugees. Well done commentors! You have done the work of intelligence agencies by introducing conflict and loathing into a perfectly healthy push back on the murder of important ocean predators.
It’s always great to play the game of Wrong Protest. A Wrong Protest is any protest you feel is drawing attention away from the Right Protest. Interestingly not a game people like to play when it comes to Gay Marriage, the heroic campaign to give middle class men the right to mimic the bonds of slavery through a nice ritual that involves the State for some reason.
Right about now you’re thinking, “Are you a homophobe Sean?” A good question that can only be answered by people who enjoy making those accusations, a task also very important to the mission of separating allies from each other. Humanitarian laser-criticism: such a blast.
Protest is about to be criminalised in Victoria and it will be in large part thanks to people who spent a lot of time in self-congratulation mode. It felt good to support the wants of a minority and it felt even better to not be in the streets demanding action on climate change, refugees, indigenous Australia. It felt good to be right and it still does, doesn’t it?
A bunch of white, middle class people have come out to protest a real threat to the health of the oceans from which we came and this offends people who failed to activate those same people. You failed to activate them because you believed it was important to “raise awareness”, which amounts to “patronising your potential allies”. You wanted to lecture Australians about racism when in fact the real issue is power: who has it, who wants to hang onto it, who is hiding their power behind a handy smokescreen of self-righteous crap.
If your idea of protest is hounding people about their beliefs and what they care about you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Build alliances, find your allies, be an ally.
If I’m wrong I’m wrong, but it doesn’t matter what I or you believe, what matters is we get out there and fuck shit up. (While we still can, because while everyone was enjoying being right the forces of darkness were working together like a team of pros.)
It’s always great to play the game of Wrong Protest. A Wrong Protest is any protest you feel is drawing attention away from the Right Protest. Interestingly not a game people like to play when it comes to Gay Marriage, the heroic campaign to give middle class men the right to mimic the bonds of slavery through a nice ritual that involves the State for some reason.
Right about now you’re thinking, “Are you a homophobe Sean?” A good question that can only be answered by people who enjoy making those accusations, a task also very important to the mission of separating allies from each other. Humanitarian laser-criticism: such a blast.
Protest is about to be criminalised in Victoria and it will be in large part thanks to people who spent a lot of time in self-congratulation mode. It felt good to support the wants of a minority and it felt even better to not be in the streets demanding action on climate change, refugees, indigenous Australia. It felt good to be right and it still does, doesn’t it?
A bunch of white, middle class people have come out to protest a real threat to the health of the oceans from which we came and this offends people who failed to activate those same people. You failed to activate them because you believed it was important to “raise awareness”, which amounts to “patronising your potential allies”. You wanted to lecture Australians about racism when in fact the real issue is power: who has it, who wants to hang onto it, who is hiding their power behind a handy smokescreen of self-righteous crap.
If your idea of protest is hounding people about their beliefs and what they care about you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Build alliances, find your allies, be an ally.
If I’m wrong I’m wrong, but it doesn’t matter what I or you believe, what matters is we get out there and fuck shit up. (While we still can, because while everyone was enjoying being right the forces of darkness were working together like a team of pros.)
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