LIME

Some more stuff about Climate camp

Prosperity without growth, in a tent on Blackheath

....the Climate Camp suffers from a preoccupation with measuring its achievements in terms of the protests it has undertaken rather than a series of achievable goals that those outside the camp movement can easily identify with...


...The police have vanished, gone to confiscate some drugs at the Notting Hill carnival or practise their handbrake turns on the M25. And the campers admit that, actually, it feels a bit odd without them. After all, much though they may deny this, the police have actually been incredibly useful to Climate Camp – uniting the campers in the face of the common enemy, and keeping them in the headlines in the months between camps...


...Without the “common enemy” of the police, the protesters have nothing to motivate them. The interfering government chooses to ignore the campers, and suddenly the anarchists have nothing to do - there is no visible “man” to stick two fingers up at, so they are only left to pick their noses...


...We left the gates of Barclays covered in messages written on coloured paper...

...Then we decided to march around the city, and try to find some bankers in the local gastropubs having a Friday night drink...a man in a suit came up next to me and took hold of the end of it. At first I thought he was a camper dressed up as a banker for the event, but soon realised he was a genuine city worker, who had drunkenly joined us. He didn’t really know what was going on, and swung between asking us what it was all about, and shouting that he loved us all. As we approached the main access road to Canary wharf, he took the megaphone and danced around in front of the banner (and about 10 big cameras), and addressed the masses.

Our banker left us before we sat down and blocked the road for a while, (letting through the buses). Then back home to the camp, clearing out the free limes being given out by people advertising something on the way home...