Yves here. Richard Murphy put up this post to demonstrate the asymmetry between the rights of corporate carbon-killers, um, emitters, versus citizens trying to exercise their right to peaceful protest. Apparently Extinction Revolution strategies are serving as a pretext for heavy-handed responses.
Of course, if this were the US, the woman below might have been thrown on the pavement too, particularly if she was a person of color.
So this is yet another reminder that we in the Anglosphere don’t live in free societies any more. The right to speak and assemble are becoming things of the past.
By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist. He has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics. He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK
I mentioned the despair of the young in my previous post.
The words of this young woman seem to sum that up particularly well.
Britain in 2023. Take a cold hard look at this, and realise that things are set to get much worse. pic.twitter.com/zFw00dfShh
— Martin O’Neill (@martin_oneill) May 3, 2023
She just wants a future. She walked slowly down a road to say so. She was arrested for doing so.
There was another protest in London yesterday. It was against the new low-emission zone. There were few police present, apparently. I have not heard of any arrests. But it blocked Trafalgar Square.
I have also said this morning that we still have the right to talk about alternatives to mainstream thinking. That is true. But for how long will we be able to share them?
This young woman will, under new powers, now probably get a ban from protesting. Her right to a basic freedom will be contained so that the profits of Shell and BP might be unlimited in order that human life on this planet might end.
Let’s value what we have, and use it. The risk is, we might lose it.