They gave him a CBE. Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire
Isn't this proof that he is no threat to the nature destroying establishment and by accepting the honour is actually part of it?
I've never heard Packham once speak out agaisnt the main cause of ecological devastation which is the inequality of power in the UK, the inability for a nature loving majority to express their will over minority rule. Has he ever mentioned the need for constitutional reform, the need for the conservation establishment to overthrow government departments and become the conservation government and to impose a conservation manifesto into law by force.
Instead he focuses on popular support and building his own profile and getting medals by whipping up the crowd with emotive subjects such as hunting, leading them into a war on symptoms rather than a war on fundamental values, power and policy.
Liberty is much more than just saying what people don't want to hear it is imposing will to create a world that expresses the will of the majority. They shouldn't be giving him an honour, they should be trying to assassinate him.
Some interesting comments on this link
7 comments:
It doesn't always have to be The Revolution Pete, I think he does an amazing job raising awareness.
Well he shouldn't claim to be leading a Revolution then. I agree. He is just a poster boy for status quo conservation i.e. slow managed decline and road to ruin. He does a good job at that- part of that job is managing resistance and part of that management is posing as that resistance to dis-empower genuine progression.
He is not the real deal for anyone serious about progressive conservation.
So who are these insurgent conservationists then? Or is that the problem, this country is so engrained in how it is set up that it is not possible for them to be heard and flourish?
Not much xmas cheer more like ill will to all men that have a different view.Its an unfortunate fact that by a very large majority the public couldn't give " a monkeys having sexual intercourse in the jungle of sunshine" about our desperately under threat wildlife. The change is now being driven by fear, that is fear of global warming and all that that implies. Chris P like the rest of us is a passenger on a road that in all probability is very close to being irretrievable. Apart from the mostly wishy washy Watch programmes that are BBC executive infant aimed candy floss he has often been standing bravely and almost alone trying to do his bit and not always getting it right, as an example his equation of is it worth saving tigers when the money and effort could be better spent on saving other species which is so badly flawed because whenever one prioritises a species one is also enhancing an under threat environment. If you feel frustrated because so many including those who are supposed to be fighting for our wild spaces just don't really get it you should be living in my skin.
You are obviously a very talented individual well able to take on those that we oppose but in doing so it is important not to become them. The Oxon Feather. (Barry Hudson)
Jono- the insurgency is everywhere and it is flourishing. Individuals addressing their consumer habits to support sustainable products is a great act of insurgency, also individuals providing alternatives/solutions and working for companies that are progressive or setting up their own businesses. Just spending more time birding, blogging about it and sharing on social media is providing alternative templates to life from materialism/capitalism. There's the Green Party pushing proportional representation so that alternative lifestyles and alternative political structures can emerge, extinction rebellion making a loud noise to address extinction- blocking bridges and bringing London to a standstill, kids are going on strike at school, infact children are leading rebellion- Greta Thunberg, Bella Lack, Dara McNulty, Bird Girl. Bird groups are taking control of their own patches (e.g Tice's Meadow) and bypassing the NGO conservation structure. There are tech companies and sustainable consultancies providing the necessary technology and communication platforms to provide the community structures to replace centralised capitalism, there are crypto-currencies, there is tech to assist public engagement in birding and nature-centric post growth lifestyles e.g. ebird, Merlin, birding apps etc etc, on line recording systems, there are pop up off grid permaculture farms it just goes on and on and on. The problem is we need a radical shift in the fundamental structure and value foundation of society that is currently driving inequality and environmental decline in order to maintain the status quo of economic growth as the raison d'etre for human existence- that extremist reductionist ideology will eventually lead to genocide. Packham isn't helping by leading the conservation argument and framing the conservation challenge as one mainly about hunting , prising apart urban-rural divides, herding morons by appealing to the human vulnerability of seeking for one simple answer to complex problems- the answers are complex and the strategy needs to be diverse. Populism is dangerous- it exploits vulnerability and fundamentalist agendas- like I've said before Packham would be better being part of a conservation council, the development of a masterplan, a manifesto for nature to be embedded into the DNA of the parliamentary process, a road map of implementation, a unification of a fragmented conservation community into a coherent body that takes on the establishment and overthrows it- not takes medals from it. In short the insurgency is everywhere if you look for it and all that is required of individuals is to support and back it where-ever they come into personal contact with it.
Barry- I'm with you all the way. The answers to all these problems are just sitting under everybody's noses- all they need to do is engage, social media and internet provides unprecedented inter connectivity, everyone saying- I'm not going to do my bit because it wont make any difference and then they go off to support the unsustainable nature destroying system by default. They are doing their bit whether they like it or not- either following the capitalist status quo and driving decline or changing track and driving progress to sustainable societies. Everybody does their bit by being alive and ts a simple choice- join the extinction insurgency or become the extinction. Genocide is inevitable (already started with austerity casualties, lowering life expectancy and the genocide of nature is nearly complete- ecocide) if we carry on down a road of growing inequality, minority rule and environmental decline. The elite fundamental capitalists are banking on managing the situation when humanity overshoots its natural limits- i.e. they are planning on managing the situation so that they survive and the capitalist drones who serve them do not. If your not a capitalist elite billionaire the next best option for everyone is to join the insurgency to develop sustainable societies so that it scuppers the billionaires plan.
You should make this an essay in its own right. The line about not doing my bit as it won't make any difference really hits home. As does the human life = GDP bit, that's the killer. Those stats on what tiny tiny number of people own some gigantic proportion of the world's wealth are bonkers. The rest of are just trying to keep afloat, set the family up, and have a little fun along the way, which I suppose is a bit "if you can't fight it...." How do you ban money, make it all worth nothing? What you have is what you know and that's it? I remember Captain Picard saying something about this.....
Also Caroline Lucas is the only political (co)leader saying anything sensible in the HoC at the moment.
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