Plane Stupid halt flights at Aberdeen airport for 6 hrs (3/3/09)
- Thread starter danny la rouge
- Start date
Indeed - Plane Stupid - it does EXACTLY what it says on the tin......
"Mediators" - bollox - I don't see why it couldn't have taken anything more advanced than a crane to shift the twats - locks round the neck notwithstanding - if you voluntarily put yourself in harm's way then be prepared to take the consequences.
At least if one of these hooray Henry/Henrietta idiots gets sucked into an intake and causes damage, mummy and daddy can be sued by the airline who've lost out.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Except they're not. You're projecting your prejudices onto them. Yes, it is true that working class people have benefited from cheap flights, but so has everyone. And cheap flights profit only the rich, whereas it will be the poor of the world including this country who are worst hit by climate change.
IMO the reason why so many middle class people are involved in activism is a combination of improved education and the economic ability to take risks. Solidarity needs to extend across class boundaries.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
And, can you tease out for us your position on:
- the group's stance on capitalism.
- whether you really think an action's success can be measured in terms of the carbon emissions stopped for the duration of the protest.
- whether your aim is to price working class people out of flying, leaving the wealthy free to continue their extravagant behaviour, as they always have been. Yes, we know that climate change will disproportionately affect the world's poor, but are you really saying that the working class are the ones who must forgo air travel because of that?
- the group's stance on capitalism.
- whether you really think an action's success can be measured in terms of the carbon emissions stopped for the duration of the protest.
- whether your aim is to price working class people out of flying, leaving the wealthy free to continue their extravagant behaviour, as they always have been. Yes, we know that climate change will disproportionately affect the world's poor, but are you really saying that the working class are the ones who must forgo air travel because of that?
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
You're a fucking idiot. And a nasty piece of work at that too. Fortunately for you, if the revolution ever comes, you'll probably be given the mercy and human decency that you deny others rather than the life of pain and misery shovelling shit in a gulag that you clearly deserve.
well thats the impression they give out
ive flown twice in my lifetime, whereas most of them were probably flying twice a year at least from birth - if id saved up alal year to take the 5 year old on holiday and a bunch of posh cunts fucked it up with a misguided and ineffectual stunt like this or the heathrow action id be fucking furious and quite happily give the cunts a slap the next time i saw them
they cant empathise with this, because for them to miss one flight is one of many, whereas to many working class people its a big fucking deal
theres no end of ways to attack the airline industry without fucking up peoples holidays
as for middle class activists, i dont have a problem, but without mentioning names, ive seen or been involved in more than one group that has split almost perfectly along class lines
one reason for this is that quite often the middle classes dont actually like the working class that much when they actually have to deal with them - another factor is that the middle classes (especially ex- public school types) often seem to be unable to break the unshakable notion that they should be in charge - which is certainly a feature of plane stupid - there was a perfectly good environmental movement before they came along and instead of networking and building links with the activist network out there they decided that THEY KNOW BEST - although it seems that all the plane stupid leadership care about is getting their names in the papers presumably as a basis for the political careers that they will no doubt end up in in 20 years
teuchter
je suis teuchter
What is the alternative?
Some sort of personal carbon trading scheme? (I would be in favour of this if it could be demonstrated that it could actually work)
I think this whole thing about it leaving the wealthy free to continue extravagant behaviour is a spurious one, or at least, it's an argument that should be applied to everything, not just flying.
For example ... should we abandon planning policies that restrict the amount of development in areas of natural beauty, because it pushes prices up in those areas meaning that only the wealthy can enjoy living there? Should we abandon fishing quotas because they push up the price of fish meaning working class people can't afford to eat as much fish? Should we stop trying to protect rainforest so that poor people can afford to eat more burgers?
More exactly the aditional carbon emissions generated by these puerile stunts.
"Golly gosh petronella - Golf - a wizzard wheeze - what"?
Let's just hope that their grasp of the realities of life are better than their knowledge of Scottish Geography.
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
Exactly right. I've noticed that the kind of privileged people who infest groups like Plain Stupid despise people who go "on holiday". They don't...they "travel". And they like to "travel" to places that are untouched by "holidaymakers" - people like you and me. So the best outcome for them is ordinary people priced out of cheap flights, and holidays in the kinds of places ordinary people can now get to - so they can keep it all to themselves.
guess they aint coming back, thats plane poshos and lee jasper whove both bottled out of justifying their position in the last few days
you just dont get the same calibre of reformist traitors anymore
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I'm not entirely sure it was the real Lee Jasper you know.
Call me suspicious if you will.
Call me suspicious if you will.
geminisnake
a complex mass of conflicting ideas
I am now really, really trying not to call you suspicious Fridge........................................ oops 
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Go on then, why don't you start off by defining your criteria for a protest action where inconveniencing other people is acceptable. Or do you disapprove of all protests?
And while you're at it perhaps you could clarify what your take is on climate change and the part that aviation plays in it.
And maybe a few words about the Trump golf course too.
hardly, ive been involved with enough of em
i find a protest unacceptable when it fucks up the lives of the working (or any tbh) class without offering any realistic alternative
its not direct action, its stuntism and really a bit pathetic
rts blocking motorway to holdl a rave was direct action and didnt risk actually really fucking up the day to day business of w/c life - these actions do, those actions also involved thousands of peopple as opposed to just a few posh kids
of course all protest has the potential to inconvenience people, but you gotta ask how much and is it worth it
and like i said if these fuckers had trashed my holiday then fuck them 100%
and im an anarchist, with more sympathy than most to this kind of action
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Please can you define the term in bold a bit more precisely.
And what exactly do you mean by "realistic alternative"? Alternative to what?
(And you didn't answer the other questions I asked.)
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Yes, you already said that. It's good that you included a five year old for extra emotional impact, along with your prejudicial stereotyping of the protesters. Well done.
But why don't you answer the questions I asked in my posts 80 and 82? Don't you want to discuss this seriously?
But why don't you answer the questions I asked in my posts 80 and 82? Don't you want to discuss this seriously?
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
Some kind of carbon rationing. As opposed to the kind of scheme where Chris Martin buys some trees and flies everywhere anyway.
Well, of course. I heard one Plane Stupid spokesperson say what needs to apply to aviation is the full force of the market, so that prices rise realistically, instead of being held artificially low by the various government interventions.
In other words, if you can pay for it, carry on as usual.
It creates a 2-tier approach to carbon responsibility: those who can afford to be irresponsible, and those who can't. In fact, we need everyone to be responsible, not just those who can't afford to opt out of responsibility.
And, yes, that holds for everything.
Now who is being spurious? I'm not suggesting we "stop trying to protect the rainforest". I'm not suggesting we stop trying. I'm suggesting that if pricing the poor out of behaviour is the chosen tool, then it's the wrong one.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I would agree with you there.
As do Plane Stupid, I think:
http://www.planestupid.com/offset
I don't see how my rainforest example is substantially different. If rainforest is being cleared to make way for cattle farming, then this is helping to bring down the cost of beef - the cost of a luxury, making it accessible to more people. Just like flying is a luxury, and cheap flights make it available to more people. I don't think it's a spurious comparison at all.
Oo, I'm so going to regret this, but I'll have one attempt at answering all the questions (and not getting offended by the coarseness 
).
Let's start with the biggie: capitalism. I can only speak for myself, but it's pretty clear that capitalism and corporatism (and a theory of value based around profit) are the root cause of pretty much any problem you can name. PS is not an anti-capitalist group: our purpose / terms of reference / call-it-what-you-will is to tackle aviation and its impact on climate. However doing that means advancing a message around endless economic growth ("ideology of the cancer cell"), people before profit (i.e. Sipson and its inhabitants over BAA and its shareholders - or the right to not have aeroplanes over head every minute or so) and the clear class issue that is the myth of cheap flights.
Put another way, we used to demand (we have these demands, they shape what we say and what local groups ask) a tax on aviation fuel. We stopped demanding that, because it was seen as a state intervention (not in the Libertarian way): i.e. asking the Government to do something instead of doing it for ourselves. Read our blogs to get a better idea of individual activists' political beliefs.
Cheap flights are several things. One thing they are not is a great social liberator. What they've enabled is the wealthy to fly more than ever before. Check out the Sustainable Development Commission's research (http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/AviationandSocialExclusionData.pdf): In 1987 4.71m people from social groups D/E flew for leisure (13% of flyers - table 7). In 2004 9.26m people flew for leisure, down to 10%. For people in social group C2 it's 7.82m to 15.5m (22% to 17%). Not bad... until you look at social groups A/B: 11.93m (1987) to 30.95m (33% to 35%) and C1 (11.76m to 33.56m - 32% to 38%). So although more people from the bottom three social groups are flying, this is dwarfed by the growth in the top three social groups, and the person sitting next to you on a plane is now more likely to be posh than in the 80s.
Second homes in Majorca are more of a problem than a summer holiday in Malaga, but for fuck's sake: the climate is changing, it will affect the poorest people around the world first and worst, and in that context I don't think anyone - working class or not - can justify a stag do in Prague or a shopping trip to New York. Let alone flying to a business meeting that you could have done by phone but wanted to feel important and earn some air miles.
When we started on aviation, no one was saying anything about it. It's 13% of the UK's climate impact! Energy was covered (FOE, Greenpeace, WWF and people taking action against nukes and coal) so we focused on carving out a new front. I'd say it's been successful: Stansted probably won't expand and Heathrow definitely won't. We judge our success by CO2 emissions stopped, attention drawn to an issue (five of us dancing about on the roof of Parliament didn't stop any CO2 but it did expose the corruption between BAA and the Department for Transport) and how many pints we get bought in the pub afterwards.
Our media people tend to sound posh because they're mostly uni graduates or students who have had training in speaking clearly and succinctly while chained to a runway at 4am and getting shit from TalkSport journalists. There's also an element of self selection: it's those who put themselves forward who do media, we don't make people, and people from uni or public school tend to put themselves forward.
Oh, and I haven't flown since 2002 - and my family all comes from far, far away, so I don't see them much. I don't think we can justify flying when we are telling others not to fly as much.
).Let's start with the biggie: capitalism. I can only speak for myself, but it's pretty clear that capitalism and corporatism (and a theory of value based around profit) are the root cause of pretty much any problem you can name. PS is not an anti-capitalist group: our purpose / terms of reference / call-it-what-you-will is to tackle aviation and its impact on climate. However doing that means advancing a message around endless economic growth ("ideology of the cancer cell"), people before profit (i.e. Sipson and its inhabitants over BAA and its shareholders - or the right to not have aeroplanes over head every minute or so) and the clear class issue that is the myth of cheap flights.
Put another way, we used to demand (we have these demands, they shape what we say and what local groups ask) a tax on aviation fuel. We stopped demanding that, because it was seen as a state intervention (not in the Libertarian way): i.e. asking the Government to do something instead of doing it for ourselves. Read our blogs to get a better idea of individual activists' political beliefs.
Cheap flights are several things. One thing they are not is a great social liberator. What they've enabled is the wealthy to fly more than ever before. Check out the Sustainable Development Commission's research (http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/AviationandSocialExclusionData.pdf): In 1987 4.71m people from social groups D/E flew for leisure (13% of flyers - table 7). In 2004 9.26m people flew for leisure, down to 10%. For people in social group C2 it's 7.82m to 15.5m (22% to 17%). Not bad... until you look at social groups A/B: 11.93m (1987) to 30.95m (33% to 35%) and C1 (11.76m to 33.56m - 32% to 38%). So although more people from the bottom three social groups are flying, this is dwarfed by the growth in the top three social groups, and the person sitting next to you on a plane is now more likely to be posh than in the 80s.
Second homes in Majorca are more of a problem than a summer holiday in Malaga, but for fuck's sake: the climate is changing, it will affect the poorest people around the world first and worst, and in that context I don't think anyone - working class or not - can justify a stag do in Prague or a shopping trip to New York. Let alone flying to a business meeting that you could have done by phone but wanted to feel important and earn some air miles.
When we started on aviation, no one was saying anything about it. It's 13% of the UK's climate impact! Energy was covered (FOE, Greenpeace, WWF and people taking action against nukes and coal) so we focused on carving out a new front. I'd say it's been successful: Stansted probably won't expand and Heathrow definitely won't. We judge our success by CO2 emissions stopped, attention drawn to an issue (five of us dancing about on the roof of Parliament didn't stop any CO2 but it did expose the corruption between BAA and the Department for Transport) and how many pints we get bought in the pub afterwards.
Our media people tend to sound posh because they're mostly uni graduates or students who have had training in speaking clearly and succinctly while chained to a runway at 4am and getting shit from TalkSport journalists. There's also an element of self selection: it's those who put themselves forward who do media, we don't make people, and people from uni or public school tend to put themselves forward.
Oh, and I haven't flown since 2002 - and my family all comes from far, far away, so I don't see them much. I don't think we can justify flying when we are telling others not to fly as much.
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