They're at it again. Last week, the Earth First! group in Berkeley parked an (apparently running) 1982 diesel Power Ram 50 next to Ashby BART and proceeded to smash it with axes, sledge hammers, and dropkicks, littering the area with shards of glass, metal, and plastics. Earlier this year, the same group organized Berkeley's Fossil Fools Day "action," which consisted of white college-aged bicyclists in sweater vests laughing at people in older cars and those who had to fill up their tanks during rush hour, even going so far as to put up false "out of order" signs on the downtown gas stations, making people drive farther out of their way to fill up before going home.
Damn son, you better hope that shit ain't runnin.
When we went down to pick-n-pull last month to pull parts for our truck, and they didn't have the right year for what we needed after an hour of looking through the jungle of car after car, that shit ruined our day. The way we see it, these fuckers owe someone a new windshield, a new hood, two doors, a radiator, headlights, and the list goes on. At least give that shit away on craigslist! That shit ran on diesel fool! We coulda run that thing on veggie oil and never paid for gas again. What on earth would posses these fucking hippies to destroy a perfectly good compact pickup? Hmmm...
Sadly, we're not surprised. In April, they laughed at us for actually driving home from work instead of biking or walking because we can't afford to live where the jobs are. Now, they're saying the cars we drive aren't good because we can't get the $20,000+ loan for a new prius.
It's time for some real talk. This kind of ritualized spectacle aimed at making poor people feel bad serves only to reinforce the false blame mentality of green capitalism, where it is our fault as consumers for not buying the "greenest" products, or using too much water, or driving to work, rather than their fault for pumping carcinogens into the air, for blowing the tops off of once-great mountains, or enforcing the relationships which keep us in this cycle of perpetual poverty. Earth First Means Social War, motherfucker.
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There's a feature in the local rag about a newspaper staffer who decided to make a point about the Earth by living without electricity in a house in Phoenix for a year. This kind of self-loathing, self-imposed downward class mobility is exactly what gets the elite class off! Why not ask for a pay cut next? What a fool! Can we get some class analysis, please?! And hurry before this guy hurts himself!!
ReplyDeleteRight? It's crazy how this stuff has been picked up in the media over the past couple years. Remember when recycling and compost were things that only hold-over hippies did? Whereas once caring about the planet brought people together as it was necessary for survival, later was revolutionary and against the power structures which dominate the world, nowadays it is something which has been recuperated to be wielded as a weapon of capital. Capitalism is now green! It's all good!
ReplyDeleteWhat's amazing is how far this mentality which is based in liberalism and more generally in the opiate of capital & the state permeates the anarchist milieu. I really cannot fathom how this continues to be the case. We swear, if we see one more liberal (or "big 'D' Democracy" Anarchist, whatever you want to call it) "action" like this our heads are going to explode.
It's fucked how they do this to us.
I have heard tell of an encounter at a local college anarcho event here in town where a student-worker, after complaining about the bus commute to work and school, was advised to purchase a hybrid car or move closer. Scandalous, for sure. I can say from first hand experience that when I was in London, I met with some climate camp types, one of whom gave a Greek anarcho a hard time for planning to fly back from Greece after delivering money raised to replace a street vendors cart that was accidentally destroyed in the rioting. You can imagine my reaction to this nonsense. It's not easy to be pro-earth lib in this climate of total recuperation of the mainstream and even radical environmental movements. It's pathetic that it has come to this.
ReplyDeletedude, i hated on this when it was on indybay.
ReplyDeleteso dumb. soooo dumb. fuck ef. so over it.
Word. We all did.
ReplyDelete