The front page of the newspapers today were carrying the story that a few ‘activists’ from Greenpeace had managed to evade intensive security arrangements clustered around the Houses of Parliament, scaling a floating crane to unfurl a banner that read Tony *heart* WMD. This annoyed me for a few reasons:
The main one was that after a hard day’s office work I felt no particular affinity and certainly no support for people who spend their days plotting for ways to ascend giant climbing frames, squatting in flats and tie dying their clothes ready for airing their unwashed armpits in sight of the house of government. I hate crusties. I seriously resent the fact that I have to graft hard for every penny that ends up on my table, turning my hair grey through endeavours designed to provide for an incredibly unaffordable London mortgage, while these fuckers piss around smoking roll ups and moaning about the capitalist state. Yeah great capitalist state that picks up your benefits tab, lobs you a load of housing benefit, and puts you through hospital when one of your mates, scabbed out on acid tries to remove your scalp with the top of a tin of beans. I’ve got no time for people whose main protest is to disengage, sit outside trying to piss in and quoting French philosophy. Without struggle there can be no revolution.
I’m also annoyed about the imposition of the WMD message itself. It just shows how out of touch these clapwits are, harping on about getting rid of the nuclear arsenal when there is absolutely no chance that it is going to happen. Didn’t you cunts know we’re at war? Don’t get me wrong, getting rid of weapons of massive destruction would make me pretty happy, it’s I just would rather we addressed some more practical concerns first. Hell, why not even try to address something where we could make a difference? Lets stop the build up of aggression over Iran. Lets curtail this madness in Afghanistan. Lets get out of Iraq. Principally, lets try to affect change, where change is possible.
The other thing is WMD? What the fuck? Is that my top concern? Am I not more concerned about some irate Birmingham mosque dweller strapping themselves up with home made explosives and a biscuit tin and sending me or my close acquaintances, commuters one and all to the great tube line in the sky? I think you’ll find I am.
Oh yeah and the fact the banner was addressed to ‘Tony’. I hardly think the leader of Labour personifies the government’s and the Conservatives’ support of keeping nuclear weapons. I hardly think it’s just Tony, sitting round going “yeah, I love atom bombs me. Brown, how much money have we got in the back for another neutron test in the Pacific? Lets fit a nuclear reactor under Stonehenge. Hell, Cherie any chance of some depleted uranium with the chicken hot pot tonight.†I hate the simplification of government policy into an attack on one personality. Tony *heart* WMD – it’s like a slogan from a photo next to another photo of Britney Spears falling out of a car in Heat magazine.
Finally, I’ve got no time for Greenpeace. a) they are ‘run by crusties’ as described above, which is pretty tough given they’re a bunch of shit pant wearing hippies rubbing linseed oil into everything and student weekend activists popping ecstasy tablets and salvia divorem and talking about repression. Untested virtue when your mum pays for your beer means nothing to me. However, the thing I can’t forgive Greenpeace for is that b) they spend years harping on and on about (often totally legitimate) environmental concerns, then go invisible on the whole thing round about the time everyone is starting to hear their tune. The last couple of years have seen more focus on the environment from scientists, politicians, business leaders and the public than ever before, but I can’t remember seeing Greenpeace making any meaningful statement on the matter for all of that time. These days they confine their activities to pulling stupid stunts, rescuing lone seals, and dressing old tramps and earth mothers up in lycra suits to send them running round oil platforms and scaling cranes like the bastard child of ‘Fathers from Justice’ and that pig-fucker Otis Ferry. Don’t even get me started on that cunt.
I don’t know. Hopeless though they are, it makes me feel good to know Greenpeace are still doing this kind of ridiculous stuff. Half-baked it may be, but it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when people start baiting authority in quite such a crass fashion. I was in a meeting with an MP and some of his constituents the other day whe none of them remarked that she now “had him by the short and curlies”. The graphic nature of the remark made everyone in the room wince, but it certainly got the message across.
And don’t forget, two ministers have resigned so far this week because Tony *hearts* WMD. Right on I say – maybe if they joined Greenpeace they might be able to help the crusties develop a more sophisticated rhetoric…
Otis Ferry IS a cunt though.
“they’re a bunch of shit pant wearing hippies rubbing linseed oil into everything”
You savage! Excellent.
I take your point, and if I was more confident about my understanding of how the whole environment issue has been reported, I may agree. I think it likely that the crusty element’s discourse on the environment has been underreported lately though because: a) they haven’t changed their tune and to give them too much limelight would be to admit that they’ve been right all this time b)it’s much more newsworthy to see business types and politicians getting involved, at least until the next time they would prefer us to worry about bird flu or Beckham’s latest cock ring.
Regarding WMD – I don’t think that now is the time to disarm – fuck that, in fact, let’s have more. Are we at ‘war’? I’m not sure. What I do know though is that there is a certain portion of the world’s society who are becoming more and more marginalised and unfortunately a growing number of them believe that they can can get to heaven with a pipe bomb. What would happen if a WMD fell in to their hands? Actually, following this logic, our having an Atom Bomb wouldn’t really make any difference would it? Still, I think I’d rather hang on to them for just a while longer…..
We don’t really have proper Greenpeace crusties here really – but a large number of mainly middle class, well-meaning individuals, who can’t help but wind you up with their weekend tye-dye robes and their pretentious, ill-informed, anti-American, hopelessly non-commital and unpractical, oh-so-holier than thou bullshit. During the week they drive 5 litre 4x4s and eat under-cooked rare birds imported from disappearing sections of the Amazon. The fuckers.
Nailed it, Groover, once again! I have no love for Greenpeace, simply the worst form of self-interested lobbying which will always be detected and ridiculed by the public, thus completely defeating the object of their existence. Furthermore, every laughably-dressed ‘lefty’ caricature that appears on TV with a cheezy soundbite and ill-considered opinions is easy meat for the right-wingers, who will expend no energy in crushing their argument, so making themselves seem to be the ‘reasonable’ people. Oh, and someone should point out to them the huge amount of fuel it requires to sail their stupidly-named ship up to an oil tanker to protest about CO2 emissions. And the environmental hazard that each one of them poses through refusing to wash.