Call for community action against Australia’s corporate lackey government
From where we are now, the core of any successful campaign of resistance must be – can only be – civil disobedience.
The next two years will tell the story. We act now or the battle is lost.
Climate change countdown Part Two: Time to stand up and be counted Independent Australia, 21 Oct 13 By electing an Abbott-led Government, Australians have just collectively delivered an ironical two-fingered salute to our future environmental prospects, writes Doug Evans.
What have we just done?
Australian voters have just collectively delivered an ironical two-fingered salute to our future environmental prospects.
With a shrug and a yawn, at this critical turning point which may mark the end of our environmental viability as a species, they have just elected a conservative Government that denies the scientific evidence of global warming and regards global warming as a socialist plot. This is a government determined to promote the best interests of the environment’s worst corporate enemies. As if this was not enough, they have elected and delivered the Senate balance of power into the hands of Clive Palmer, whose business interests and personal wealth are inextricably linked to the destruction of our climate future. With time as short as it is, this was the worst possible outcome for the environment. The ludicrous climate change ‘policies’ of this disgraceful government are assessed here……
Stand up and be counted
From where we are now, the core of any successful campaign of resistance must be – can only be – civil disobedience. Peaceful, certainly, but there will be no happy ending here — unless and until ordinary Australians in sufficient numbers are prepared to physically confront the corporate beast and its elected, but fully owned, lackeys.
My neighbours are currently doing this by disrupting test hole drilling for the conservative Napthine Victorian government’s cynical, socially and environmentally destructive and incredibly wasteful East-West link freeway tunnel. The Lock the Gate Alliance is showing the way on coal seam gas as is Quit Coal. In the United States 350.org is showing the way.
In his 2010 book Requiem for a Species, Clive Hamilton wrote:
The passivity of the public has allowed our political representatives to be more and more dominated by a professional class of power seeking individuals who stand for little other than self advancement. … Reclaiming democracy for the citizenry is the only way to temper the effects of climate disruption and ensure that the wealthy and powerful cannot protect their own interests at the expense of the rest. … We all value and benefit from a law abiding society. Yet at times like these we have a higher duty and are no longer bound to submit to the laws that protect those who continue to pollute the atmosphere in a way that threatens to destroy the habitability of the Earth. When just laws are used to protect unjust behaviour our obligation to uphold the law is diminished……
The Greens continue to step up and have been integral to climate change campaigning for years, but they are a small party. Will the Labor Party shoulder its responsibilities? With both candidates for the Labor leadership having spruiked their party’s climate credentials and talking boldly of community organising, the signs are superficially propitious. The political opportunity to differentiate Labor policy from that of the current government beckons. But scratch even a little below the surface and it is clear that neither of the leadership contenders is prepared to address the yawning contradiction between Labor’s helpful, mid-green climate change policies and its environmentally destructive deep brown energy policies……
There is no way of knowing whether the necessary groundswell of resistance will eventuate or, if it does, whether it will succeed — but as Pablo Casals is reputed to have said
“…the situation is hopeless; we must now take the next step.”
I’ll end with another quote from Clive Hamilton.
‘If it is too late to prevent climate disruption there is still much we can influence. Any success in reducing emissions is better than doing nothing, because warming and its effects can at least be slowed down. Resisting those who want to capitulate is a fight worth having.’
The next two years will tell the story. We act now or the battle is lost.
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1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
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