> > As I understand it, the anti-roads protests germinated out of the
> opposition
> to road expansion projects that affect many people.
I don't know about North America but absolutely not in the UK. They were supported largely by a pseudo-aristocratic rump of village dwellers concerned about protecting the beauty of their (hugely expensive) rural homes and country life. Whatever popular support they did get was just a way of giving a two-fingered salute to the deeply unpopular Major adminstration. When he was booted out in 1997 the protests died off for two reasons. Firstly, any 'popular' support waned as Blair was himself not unpopular and, secondly, road-building came to an almost immediate halt.
In Ireland the road protests are/were something of a non-event. Attempt to get anywhere in this country and the need for new and better roads becomes immediately obvious. People realised this and the protestors were absolutely isolated. It probably didn't help that a lot of the protesters had invented spurious new age earth-centric religions for themselves.
I'd guess that Ireland's deep greens, Cultivate (http://www.sustainable.ie) would harbour a few intellectual refugees from the green lifestyle current. It has a big office in the trendy Temple Bar district of Dublin and doesn't appear to me to be 'oppositional' in any way. Except in the fact that they're demanding more concessions than the state and business is willing to give, they're kicking at an open door. They probably don't even want to knit their own revolution anymore, instead just wanting to put the brakes on economic development while nosebagging organic vegetables.
In its lack of a orientation to everyday concerns the (few) anarchist-inspired road protests in Ireland did make me think, at least on a surface level, of one anarchist - Proudhon. That said, in fairness the miniscule anarchist Workers' Solidarity Movement in Ireland didn't (if I recall correctly) get caught up in these kinds of lifestyle activities. They were active in the oppositon to bin taxes etc. Real, if dreary, work. Unlike the Green party and their hangers-on, by the way, who support consumpion taxes as a way of punishing naughty consumers.
Anyway, RTS was just an example.
> I've participated in plenty of anti-capitalist protests and I've seen
> lots of
> people my age. We all have real economic problems. From my
> experience, having
> spent years in the work force and having to pay rents is a very
> radicalizing
> motivation.
It is and it isn't. Long hours in a crap job to pay the rent are just as likely to make people want to switch off and go an enjoy themselves. 'Enjoyable' protest is always going to come a distant second to real enjoyment whether that's watching TV, getting drunk, going out dancing or whatever else.
> Many protests are treated as a form of entertainment. Anti-war
> marches
> usually have the feel of some mass stroll through the park. I don't
> see
> anything wrong with protests being entertaining. I know that the cops
> hate it
> when we are having a good time.
A million people strolled through London to protest the Iraq war. Then they strolled off and the war started.
Who cares what the cops think? I rather doubt they're scared, though. It always struck me a something of an anarchist fixation.
> Puppets at protests have some useful purposes, which I'm not going to
> elaborate on this morning. I can't see how puppets are a form of
> "lifestyle"
> except for a few people who spearhead puppet projects, like the Wise
> Fool
> Collective or WAG in D.C.
I see them as 'lifestyle' because the people that are heavily involved in this stuff are a subculture in and of themselves. Creating the carnival atmosphere seems to be more important than the issue at hand. Samba bands, costumes and face painting - yuck. The whole late 90s protest 'scene' (and that's what it was - a scene) was stuffed to the bursting point with identity politics. There may have been meaningful stuff in there but it was drowned out by all of the kid's stuff. Subcultures by their very nature are youth oriented and do not address problems in a material way. In this way today's subculture of 'countercultural' protest is not unlike the politics espoused by Blair and co.
Someone else mentione a book called 'Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy'. The Age of Fantasy? The politics of fantasy, more like.
On a personal level, it all reeks of straw and hessian 'make do and mend' - I don't want to make do and mend, I want modernity. a And anyway, isn't that exactly the wrong message to be sending out?
> I don't know. I might agree with you on some days. I think that
> protest for
> the sake of protest is preferable to lots of armchair politics.
It depends on the nature of the protest. Armchair politics is useless but it's rarely destructive. Anyway, well spotted. I am indeed sitting in an armchair - literally and metaphorically.
You know, I don't even know what a modern leftist programme would look like now. Seriously. People don't seem to care much about unemployment, poverty, exploitation and all of the old issues. I'm sure of one thing, though: demanding no new roads, a halt to construction generally, consumption-based water charges, taxes on rubbish, enforced recycling etc. ain't it. The left (here anywyay) isn't even engaged in 'really exisiting politics' except, in the case of the soft left (Labour, Greens etc.) to up the ante and make things worse!
When capitalism is attacked it seems totemic and, worse still, it's almost always attacked for the wrong reasons. There are lots of SWP posters up in Dublin at the moment complaining about 'the corporate takeover of Ireland'. What do they want? No jobs? Back to the 1980s which in Ireland meant mass outward migration, no jobs, no money etc? Not that there isn't something wrong with how things are done but complaining about Microsoft and Tesco being in Ireland isn't the answer. It isn't even remotely close.
Pip, pip, Jason.