Bishop Hill More violence and intimidation from greens
Jan 24, 2014 BBC Energy: gas Greens The Mail is reporting that environmentalists are flocking to the iGas site at Barton Moss, where they are intimidating the locals, spitting at policemen and generally behaving badly.
[Chief Inspector] Roberts said the force had recorded offences of assault, damage, harassment of residents and workers, a flare fired at the police helicopter and threats to kill.
'I attended a residents’ meeting last week and people there were close to tears and have had enough of this daily disruption to their lives,' he continued.
'Locals, who initially supported the protesters, out walking their dogs and driving down Barton Moss Road have been approached by protesters in balaclavas and have been questioned by them, which has been extremely intimidating.
This is perhaps a good moment to ask ourselves whether the BBC has ever made a programme critical of environmentalism or environmentalists.
Reader Comments (72)
It's only just down the road from Salford Quays. 7 kilometre grid squares away. They could walk it.
This is perhaps a good moment to ask ourselves whether the BBC has ever made a programme critical of environmentalism or environmentalists.
Fair question. But has anyone else?
During the recent controversy over enviro-groups lobbying the BBC, one obvious question that was not, AFAIK, asked was "Who else are they lobbying?". If e.g. Channel 4 News isn't lobbied, I'll eat my hat.
On TV, even.
If the BBC do turn up it will only be to get footage of protestors fighting with police while yelling "You're hurting me!" and "I'm not resisting!" Remarkable how there is always a film crew on hand at this point, you might almost think it was prearranged...
In the BBC culture, "bad environmentalism" is as inconceivable as "I hate Big Brother".
How could the BBC chock full of suits who are on the march as common purpose apparats and or, higher up the tree bien-pensants of the left wing champagne Socialists but old agitators way back to when they were Trotskyite student activists, how could they make an anti eco warrior documentary? It's somewhat akin to, seeking to entreat the Iranian Theocracy to build a Sunni Shrine in the city centre of Tehran.
I wonder if the local JobCentre is doing its duty? UK Taxpayers need reassurance that they are.
"Former soldier had his benefits cut after he volunteered to sell poppies because Jobcentre staff said he wasn't 'actively seeking work' "
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518615/Former-soldier-benefits-cut-volunteered-sell-poppies-Jobcentre-staff-said-wasnt-actively-seeking-work.html#ixzz2rJr3xQAm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518615/Former-soldier-benefits-cut-volunteered-sell-poppies-Jobcentre-staff-said-wasnt-actively-seeking-work.html
Its also in the Manchester Evening News where some of the protestors attempt to explain themselves and fail.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/salford-fracking-protesters-intimidate-local-6554055
Forget the 'enviro'...
They're 'mentalists'....
If it's any consolation, most people are sick and tired of activists anyway. There's a folk wisdom about them, in much the same was as folk wisdom about climate change, etc
I remember seeing Swampy on Have I Got News For You. He did not know who Neil Hamilton was and it was seen as being cute if I remember correctly. I doubt much has changed since. Having been present at the battle for Newbury this news does not come as I surprise.
Ha, they're (AlJaBeebya) probably there on weekends protesting against the proles getting affordable energy.
Swampy wasn't seen as cute on HIGNFY. The panel scented stupidity and chewed him up and spat him out. It was the end of his 5 minutes of fame, and public sympathy for the motorway protestors.
Not exactly on topic - sorry!
Fuel poverty in the UK
Any locals who supported these eco lunatics but who are now on the receiving end of trouble from them should get no sympathy from the public. If these people did not learn from the disgraceful conduct of the eco lunatics disgraceful conduct at Balcome where they urinated and defecated in gardens and threatened locals, it's their own problem now.
Shorter Euan Mearns - "Traffic please"
Indeed. Environmentalists are always presented as the Good Guys in any situation. If a protest turns violent, the media either blame the police or sympathise with the movement being besmirched by a few radicals .. as if they don't blatantly invite that. Drillers , needless to say, have never been anything but the Evil Bad Guys in any documentary or fiction entertainment.
Ironically, the protesters have swallowed the mainstream media "Good Guy" image whole and have come to believe they can do no wrong.
The blog below has an interesting article on sexism
http://athousandflowers.net/2013/06/10/its-time-to-drop-the-macho-crap-and-listen-to-the-voices-of-women-on-the-left/
see photo of Glasgow against education cuts and overt sexism .
In 2011 at Occupy Wall St, a woman was raped: there was also serious sexual assault at Occupy Glasgow.
Many political protests have changed since the1950s when M Foot led the CND Aldermaston Marches. The reality since the late 1960sis that political protests have attracted large numbers of violent and aggressive people who the organisers cannot or will not control. Many of the aggressive types take drugs and drink which makes it very difficult to reason with. Many of the protesters who cause problems are a mixture of various Trotskyist and Anarchist groups and left over of the 1980s travellers. In Brighton in the 1980s was home to many of the Animal Liberation front. These violent protesters are not particularly large or strong but the days when the Police was full of top level rugby players is long gone( Andy Robinson, Dean Richards, Paul Ackford to name but a few): consequently they are easily intimidated.
Part of the problem is that fewer and fewer law abiding men are physically strong, fit and can fight ( not many have boxed, trained in martial arts and been in the Armed Forces ) consequently a few violent protesters cause vast problems through intimidation.
Until law abiding men take up boxing and/or martial arts as a norm , ( most boys boxed pre -1939whether they liked to or not) , then we will see sort of intimidation.
The "locals" have learned a hard lesson.
Climb into bed with dogs and you wake up with fleas/
'environmentalist' and 'greens' are a massively broad group, with massively different opinions and approaches don't tar all based on the actions of a few...that's just lazy headline grabbing stuff. It smacks of framing to me, which is done across the board. No doubt I'll get the usual accusations of being a troll.
There was an interesting claim from one of the anti frackers in the Manchester Eveneing News article (referenced above):
"They even threw another disabled man down a hill so they could snatch arrest a pregnant woman"
A hill? At Barton Moss? I don't think so.
"This is perhaps a good moment to ask ourselves whether the BBC has ever made a programme critical of environmentalism or environmentalists."
I'm not sure if they are ecofacists but teh BBC I recall did a couple of programmes on the Animal Liberation Front who probably are still active but now for the Greenshirts?
John @2.07pm
You said it!
As for protestors, of the green/environmental leaning, would residents complain if they were peacefully protesting? Don't think so. So, the cap fits, in my opinion.
Gekko (above).
Couldn't agree more - my first thought on reading the post. +1.
Also that the chances of the BBC producing an unbiased programme with the merest whiff of disapproval about the noble protesters are less than nil.
xplod
Sorry is that you agreeing with me or calling me a troll..FFS
No, John, I won't accuse you of being a troll. And I'll agree with you that "'environmentalist' and 'greens' are a massively broad group".
But any grouping can be tarred by a minority. Football hooliganism only began to subside in this country when the clubs and reasonable fans accepted that their tolerance of the violent minority was harming all of them. A vigorous approach to policing and law enforcement also played a role, and policing costs remain significant for football clubs and police forces.
When did Greenpeace last make a contribution to the policing costs of their "direct" actions? Did they pay in Russian Roubles? Did they, in fact, willfully encourage or incite breaking the law? Did the majority of greens and environmentalists turn a blind eye? Did the BBC and other media outlets do likewise and give uncritical or sympathetic reports? Questions, questions.
At least football hooliganism didn't (usually) influence the result on the field. Some in the green movement are wedded to the idea of more than just legitimate protest rights, but also some imagined right to prevent an activity from taking place. A bit like union protests from the 1970s.
Pro Green get airtime & get patsied, that's the BBC way
anti-green banned, or given an aggressive time
- When Christian May from Institute of Directors was interviewed about the new investment from Total Oil The BBC TV News reporter woman demonstrated the pro-green aggression technique
Ah Swampy, many moons ago I picked up a prospective American client at Manchester Airport. He had heard about the protest and could not understand why the authorities were not "fixing it"!
I explained it was a difficult situation as the protesters had barricaded themselves in a tunnel. His reply - "Don't you Brits know how to pump 'crete?"
Didn't do any work for him, too concerned about what might happen if we got something wrong!
A quick check of the frackfreegtrmanchester.org.uk domain shows it's registered to a local, in fact a sixth former at a local school who was also involved in demonstrating against waste incinerators.
I wonder what the locals think of it all.
Jan 24, 2014 at 2:30 PM | Unregistered Commentermichaelhart
Thanks, I don't agree with your comparison but vaguely see your point, as 'movements' of one type or another are not the same as football clubs, they are a lot more complex and amorphous. I also don't feel Greenpeace is the representative body of 'environmentalism' or the 'greens'. I also feel that 'movements' in general have the right to halt activity, as has been seen many times before in history. btw, I talking in general and not with this particular protest. I am an environmentalist but what that means is vastly different depending on who you talk to.
I agree with michaelhart and will not brand you with "troll" John but ignorant or naive may be more appropriate.
mikeworst
Didn't take long. Have a good weekend.
Before I go, do me the honour of explaining my ignorance and naivety mikeworst. I love a good lesson on a Friday
Ah Swampy. A crafty little digger if ever there was one! I remember that episode of HIGNFY, Swampy was like a little boy allowed to stay up & listen of a grown ups conversation, totally out of his league intellectually & he made no discernible contribution to it! He was simply pathetic!
Remember Cuadrilla on the Fylde Coast where this whole process started. They had to withdraw from sites and/or have their activities seriously curtailed by another bunch of Swampy type ecoloons. These protestors were organised into power factions with names like the RSPB, Friends of the Earth and a particularly obstructive subversive organisation called the DECC, named after their leader, Ed (I'll Decc you) Davy, who has a forehead which is ideal for the purpose.
I actually quite admire protestors in some ways, their beliefs may be wrong, but at least they are doing something about what they believe. The rightness or wrongness of protesting is a decision to act on your beliefs, and that needs to be applauded in an age of lethargy and fear.
Personally, I am slightly envious of protestors' naïve view of the world, the black and white nature of their arguments. Life is simpler when there's bad guys and good guys. As you get older, you realise there is no such thing, just a gradient of greyness.
The big bad corporation that you think is greedy in your youth, you realise provides jobs and investment when you get older, so they're not all bad. You certainly can't 'break up capitalism' without causing massive misery and unrest. The military interventions and nuclear weapons you marched against as a student, you realise did actually maintain a sort of anxious peace most of the time. The roadbuilding, and development of green spaces, etc. they are all a mixture of good and bad.
But when you're 20, not only aren't you sometimes aware of the good side of these things, you are also arrogant enough to think you are the clear-thinking arbiter, balancing the good against the bad, an that your view MUST be the right one, and at an age where you feel slightly disempowered generally, don't trust he established structures and powers anyway. Ripe for it.
But I'd like to be 20 again.
John, I suggest you read the blog"athousandflowers". Many demonstrations attract aggressive and violent protesters, some even resulting in rape. Many organisers will not or cannot stop those undertaking acts of violence or intimidation. Many women have endured intimidation, including that of a sexual nature, at demonstrations where left wing(SWP ) and anarchists are present.
Many former trots are now senior people in local, national government, the law and the media. The problem is that there are few journalists apart from Nick Cohen and Rod Liddle who really understand the threads connecting the hard left, anarchists( Class War) and greens. I thought the hard left and anarchists had given up by the late 90s but I think many were just keeping low. K Livingstone winning the London Mayoral election in 2000 as an independent was due to the extensive Trotskyist support, especially Socialist Action.
It is time some investigative journalist wrote about the threads connecting the hard left, anarchists and green fanatics because they appear better organised than those trying to produce Shale gas and oil.
Right, the anti frackers have overstepped the mark, and it is now right for the police to take positive action. The government should show full support for law and order and the police. Protestors must be warned to keep within the law, or be punished.
John, it's clear we are not going to agree, and I have little to add to my first post.
Other than to say that I am an environmentalist too.
I have spent a good part of my life spending leisure time with the environment. I have received much pleasure from getting out and walking on the environment, camping in the environment, climbing on the environment, looking at the environment, smelling the environment, and listening to the environment. Occasionally flying over the environment, and, very rarely, skiing on the environment.
I have significant industrial experience of working with chemical compounds that may, or may not, be discharged safely into the environment in certain amounts at certain times, and being charged with supplying technical information for the safe use of those compounds. I chose the location for my advanced degree in the physical/natural sciences (formally Organic Chemistry Ph.D.; i.e. Carbon chemistry with a biological slant), largely on the beauty of the surrounding natural environment of the university.
I write on this blog mainly because I remain unconvinced that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are a problem for the environment (almost certainly a large net benefit), and that they are, and will continue to be, a huge benefit for the human race.
Thanks Micheal Hart. Have a good weekend.
A friend of mine is a photojournalist who covered the Quebec City riots during a "summit" a few years ago. He has a great photo of locals "escorting" anarchists out of their neighbourhood. Well, if by escorting you mean at the end of a two-by-four...
Caligula,
Can't do that here or the police will arrest you for being mean to the protestors!
On a serious note, this is why I would never EVER want my details released if I was in a position to provide any kind of financial support to the GPWF or anyone like that. You never know who might end up stalking you or what "accident" might befall you.
Mailman
Reminds me of G. Orwell's Animal Farm page 22 and onwards.
Jan 24, 2014 at 2:29 PM | John
"... FFS"
As my dear grandmother used to say, "good manners cost nothing."
On the wider point, I dispute that there is a real spread of opinion amongst "greens," other than concerning how truthful to be about the real-world implications of acting on your concerns. Sure, there are plenty of GINOs about, simply because it's fashionable (not so fashionable as it was, however): but we should pay you the compliment of assuming that you do mean what you say.
Amongst non-GINOs, there is an underlying consensus that human impacts on the natural world are bad (other than those of so-called indigenous peoples, of course); that human reproduction is bad; that poor people's wish to give their children a more prosperous life is bad; that all trade and industrial activities are bad; that travel - except by them - is bad; that the consumption of by human beings of water, energy, food or anything else is - when you get down to it - bad ; and so on and on.
And all these things should be be controlled and restricted by people who think as they do - MUST be, if we're to save the planet from our sins!
I'm not ready to join in pretending that it matters whether Jonathon Porritt, say, is either less or more objectionable than Tony Juniper or Swampy or Paul Ehrlich or David Attenborough or William Connolley or anyone else. The differences between deep greens and their shallower brethren are differences of degree only.
Mailman:
Too true, but at least there is some justice in your "legal" system at times:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544671/Cleared-20-minutes-Businessman-defended-property-fuel-burglars-fighting-against-fence-post.html#ixzz2rGNCv8sB
That wasn't the legal system, the legal system did its best to nail the victim and let the criminals off with derisory £75 fines.The jury sent a very clear message, and there is another message in the comments to that article, look at the ones which are getting thousands of upvotes, which is thousands more than for any other article.
Are you listening, Mr Cameron? You said this would stop, and the police and justiciary are ignoring you.
Charlie
Ken Livingstone won the mayoral election (despite being continually ridiculed by the supposedly leftwing BBC and Guardian) because he was better at persuading the voters than the Conservative and Labour candidates. That’s democracy.
The BBC’s onesidedness with regard to protesters goes much farther than their support for Greens - as far as Cairo last year and Kiev today, where “people like us” (westernised, college educated), bent on overthrowing elected governments, are defended by media who claim to be pro-democracy.
Those who think that its a leftwing thing should have been around in the days of the anti-nuclear and anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, when there were no more faithful defenders of the official consensus view than the Guardian and the BBC. (And there, the protesters weren’t trying to overthrow a government, but simply to change a policy).
With the climate scientists and Cairo students it’s a question of social solidarity with our own kind. With the druids, dropouts and mentally retarded of Balcombe it’s probably more akin to the sympathy that one used to feel for the poor benighted savages of the colonies.
I would require all fracking protestets to sit down and watch Fracknation, and then see what they have to say. Should open a few eyes (& brain cells).
'Locals, who initially supported the protesters...
... got what they deserved.
Locals, who initially supported the protesters...
... got what they deserved.
Cheaper gas bills and council tax what not to like.
So where were the Manchester police when Rioters were burning down Salford and looting the Arndale Centre two years ago.
Under the criminal police and evidence act the police can get a restraining order against anyone on just suspicion alone of intent to commit a violent offense.
So if any of the Balcombe protesters arriving at Barton Moss on just suspicion alone the police can get a restraining order against that person IE intent to cause violent disorder.Arrested if they go anywhere near the site.
Similar way they deal with Football Hooliganism.Get a restraining order not allowed to visit a football ground or another country hosting a football championship.
If someone with accounting experience wants to get really cute Lush and all the Environmentalist NGOs have to publish their accounts why not ask to see them and find out exactly how much they are paying these idiots.
They are obviously not being supported by the local community anymore especially after this and watching Benefits Street on Channel Four.
Andrew Montford is a Chemistry Graduate and an accountant.
The London Mayday Riots and the anti WTO riots there were people there who were trained in a camp in Oregon.partly funded by Anita Roddick and Body Shop.
If Lush cosmetics or any Environmentalist NGOs are paying people to travel and live in Manchester that 'is conspiracy to propagate a violent disorder.That is a crime. No different from someone paying for a jihadist to visit a terror training camp.