Plane Stupid Protest
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Richard George, co-founder of Plane Stupid, dictated the following statement from the roof of the Houses of Parliament
“We’ve come to this symbolic home of democracy to make clear that the consultation process of the third runway at Heathrow has, from the beginning, been a sham. We’re making paper airplanes out of documents that Greenpeace obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department for Transport, which proved that the British Airports Authority wrote sections of the consultation and that there has been a BAA official within the consultation committee pushing their forward their agenda – at the expense of the 70% of Londoners who don’t want the runway.
We’re taking direct action as a last resort because we don’t believe that the consultation has been a democratic process. This is the beginning of a campaign of direct action that will not cease until we feel we’re being listened to and until we’re satisfied that it’s Londoners’ views, rather than BAA’s, that the government paying attention to.”
huff and puff
I don't know... they got the issue at the top of the mainstream news, slipped it into the mainstream consciousness. And even if that doesn't mean that those who have the power 'listen' (and I agree - they almost certainly won't) at least it means that others may, and that could be enough to get some of them pushing from different sides, in different ways. I dont' see why this has to be seen as an 'appeal to the power to be nice'. It's an attempt to shout loud enough so that others join the shout, so that eventually the powers that be can't block out the noise any longer ('listen', if you like, willy nilly). I don't see that as something that needs to be derided utterly.
“direct action as a last
“direct action as a last resort” – if that’s the worst that you’re going to do – gaining access to a roof through class-based social networks and dangling a PR banner then I’m sure we’re going to see some radical changes….what a load of rhetoric huff and puff.
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Key words: “we’re being listened to and we’re satisfied” – So basically, appealing to the power to be nice (at best)? At worse, a very cynical, egotistical, self-promotional and might I say, hardly neck-risking, ‘act’.
What do you think the government exists for? Do you really believe the mythology of it existing to arbitrate as protectors of ourselves from ourselves? It exists primarily as a bureaucratic collection of mechanisms which attempt to enforce legal contracts to the benefit ONE party – that with wealth, power, etc….
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