Hypocrisy is destroying protests movements.

Hypocrisy is destroying protests movements.

Protests failing to impact because protestors not “live” their message.

Firstly, I would like to make it clear I am against pollution in all forms, and I do accept that climate change is occurring. I have been an advocate and practitioner of natural medicine for more years than I care to remember. When younger I actively tried to live and support “organic self-sufficiency” growing our own food and learning about permaculture. BUT I am also pragmatic, I accept reality. One reality is that the protest movements have changed since the days of “flower power,” now they are organised, calculated and orchestrated. They are also exposed to far more scrutiny, far more scepticism than the ban the bomb marches ever were. They seek out and get far more publicity, but this comes at a price, they are exposed to much more critical evaluation than the hippy happenings ever withstood.

Many protest movements appear to be the work of disenchanted upper middle-class people, with very left (of political spectrum) beliefs. They are not the people ”laid off” at a local factory, they are champagne socialists with intellectual rather than passionate arguments. The organisers do not come from the slum tenements, they come from private education and universities. The right-wing groups may recruit marchers from the disadvantaged poor who are suffering as the result of politically motivated social engineering, but almost all of the environments protest groups appear to despise the working-class poor, they certainly do not share their aspirations or fears, nor do they share the working class need for protection of their way of life, their social norms and attitudes.

Now we appear have “professional protestors” a concept that was totally alien to the earlier generations. There is a media report (late June 2024) of a protestor flying thousands of miles to join in a climate justice camp while also going on record, a few years earlier, that she would go “flight Free” and when called to explain the contradictions in this, she apparently claimed she did not have to justify her whole life to everyone. Yet all these climate protestors are demanding that every person on the planet has to change ( justify) their whole way of life. There are reports, with photographic “evidence,” of protestors ending disruption of public roads and getting into large cars to be driven off. There are many reports of “celebrities” who claim to support activists who want to ban personal transport freedoms, that is they want to deny the masses the right to own and use private cars, yet these same celebrities use private jets and private cars to travel round the world in luxury, just for personal pleasure.

The exposure of hypocrisy is, understandably and justifiably, destroying the acceptance of the protesters avowed aims. Apart from the moral hypocrisy there are questions to be answered about how all these international jet set activists finance their lifestyles and travel. There is one case on record, of a protestor due in court, as a result of being arrested at an environment protest, asking the court to delay action as she wanted to go on holiday to a country many thousands of miles away. Nearly all of the population, that this person was trying to coerce into accepting her views, cannot afford holidays thousands of miles away and so it is obvious they are going to view the lady’s claimed beliefs with great scepticism. Where does the money come from? It was reported that protests in England were “supported” by an American “charity” but who provides this organisation with the funds to finance disruption of the lawful activities of people in another nation, and why?

Underlying all the thoughts about protests over climate change are the simple facts that there are some people making a great deal of money from getting governments to enforce change on their people, in the name of going green. The enforcement of totally arbitrary targets is costing the poorest people a great deal, and this appears to end up making a few other people very wealthy. Climate change is a fact of life, it is always happening and whatever targets and financial hardships, whatever losses of freedoms inflicted on the masses, it will go on happening. The rate of change may be slowed but there is no guarantee of this.

Protest about pollution, protest about the existence of modern slavery, protest about whatever you feel strongly about, But be honest, be genuinely sincere, disrupting sporting events, preventing people getting to work on time, defacing public buildings will only antagonise those whose support you need. Hypocrisy is destroying protest and blaming the media for the exposure of it will not help. In democratically governed nations (however flawed the actual processes of delivering democracy are) you need to persuade the majority of the people that your personal view, that your personal opinions and interpretations of fact, your expectation of the future, are valid and supportable. You will never get the majority to support you if you are not totally sincere. Claiming others should do as you say, not as you do, will get exposed in the modern world. Failing to be open about who gains from changes you want the masses to make, will also get exposed and the exposure will ruin any chance of success, however valid your aims.