14 Comments
Sep 26, 2023Liked by Maurice Frank

I totally agree with your thoughts on Last Generation. Stopping traffic was perfectly inline with their message. But defacing public monuments that have nothing to do with continuing climate change and now interfering with people running a marathon is nothing but mean. The damage that was done to the Brandenburg Gate will not cost the government a large sum of money...How can needlessly increasing government spending on infrastructure or disrupting people engaging in a non polluting sport get their message across. Unless their message is that they are destructive.

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The point is not to message (who cares?), the point is to be so annoying that it becomes more interesting for politicians and government more broadly to agree with some or all of their demands.

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Sep 28, 2023·edited Sep 28, 2023

I thought it was quite appropriate to paint the tor the colour of flames given the world is on fire. I wanted to paint all the pictures of the tor orange too. Do you know the last 43 days have each set a new record hot temperature globally? If we're still running open comments on Internet in 2 years people will be complaining LG for not making more of a fuss sooner.

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You know the climate and environmental impact of huge, international sporting events like a marathon? All the travel getting there, the disposable cups and related detritus to take care of thousands of people so they can get some kind of official recognition that they exercise, and the added irony of it being sponsored by BMW.

Speaking of the car industry and sustainability, if I were an economist in Brandenburg, I wouldn’t be feeling too cocky that my growth is thanks to unpredictable Elon Musk.

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Isn't it ironic that the one disruptives were disturbing the other disruptives? Someone finally hit a snag :-)

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In the past I sympathized with Letzte Generation. As a species, we seem to be hellbent on destroying this planet with our greed, selfishness, and shortsightedness. So I understand their sense of desperation. But it seems that their acts of protest are becoming increasingly unhinged. A successful social movement requires not only the public's attention, but also public ACTION. What exactly does LG wants us to do once they get our attention?

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Not as unhinged as the climate!! https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/09/september-2023-highest-anomaly-on-record.html Anyone paying attention should be desperate.

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Well when they protest "normally", you don't hear about it. So they have, in a sense, no other option to gain media and public attention. As for what they want, political pressure! Politicians need to get a constant flow of emails, phone calls, letters so that they understand this is the most important issue

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Mild terrorists, not activists.

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Governments and corporations polluting the environment and destroying natural resources are ALSO acts of terrorism. Which group is ultimately doing more harm to humanity?

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For some reason, LG aren‘t doing much to help Germany transition off coal for generating energy (much more pollution than cars) or reduce emissions from the industry. Instead, they‘re comfortably annoying the general folk that‘s very far from being the main contributor to the emissions.

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Please read any book about how social movements succeed. You can start with Andreas Malm

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I think you are wrong, one only needs to read about successful social movements to understand that no social movement succeeds without impeding the functioning and inertia of systems. The link between the action and the stated goal is of little importance.

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I definitely don’t think you’re wrong! I guess despite the risk of alienation, I do still understand the perspective of using these big ticket events to rally as much attention as possible. But kind of a catch 22.

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