"Intelligent and rational" and "Greens party" are two concepts that do not belong together.

I’m not comfortable with the shift from protest to activism and now vigilantism. The spectrum starts with the democratic right to peaceful protest. The basic principle being “do no harm”.

We seem to have progressed, with the help of the internet and social media, through a series of stages where it seems activism is permitted to “do harm”. GetUp type groups can organize boycott of major companies and so called “rights” groups can destroy GM research crops and adulterate livestock feed to protest live animal exports.

Other examples from such as the Close the Gates anti-coal group, include the fabrication and distribution of fraudulent documents that inflict financial damage on stock markets.

More recently the escalating and dangerous activism of Sea Shepherd has drawn fire from legal opinion that this constitutes Piracy.

We are progressively moving along this continuum towards the other extreme which is terrorism. It already seems to be hard to distinguish between activism, vigilantism and terrorism.

It doesn’t matter what we call it, it is just ugly and increasingly unacceptable in any democratic society.

I still prefer to vote for those who seek to represent me.

Ah Spindoc, and having voted for them, what if they don't?

Well there's three minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Spindoc,
True but the high profile "Activists" are all sponsored by the vested interests, they're not real resistance groups, a "Green capitalist" is still a capitalist first and a green second, solar and wind power is going to mean big money in the future so that's why they want to undermine the hydrocarbon industry. The mainstream groups like Occupy,Sea Shepherd and Get Up!, WWF etc are cookie cutter globalist capitalist mouthpieces, they exist in every Western country and a few of the better off third world ones as well. You'll also notice that in every country we now have identical prime time pop panel shows spruiking the globalist message of the day, here it's "The Drum", and "The Project", in the U.S it's "The Young Turks", I'm not au fait with European media trends but you can be sure a similar format exists in every Western nation.
The we have the online "News" format, again spruiking globalism, 'Crikey", "The Huffington Post", "The Drum" etc.
The real resistance is tiny, not very flamboyant and totally non violent, it's also censored by the corporate media.

>>Ah Spindoc, and having voted for them, what if they don't?<<

You vote for someone else.

Cheers,

Tony

Yeah, JOM, I know just what you mean : )

Nice little job opportunity going here - activists for hire?:

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/01/25/mystery-company-posts-job-opportunity-anti-wind-power-protesters?utm

Seems like a reasonably well argued opinion piece to me. Especially as compared to the irrational respones that it has generated. Especially the first one which was completely irrational.

Which raises the question as to who are the silent activists that you seldom if ever read about in the mainstream "news"-papers, especially those produced by the Murdoch propaganda machine?
This webpage has an extensive list:
http://www.dabase.org/GCF.htm
Notice that most if not all of them are on would be called the left/green/progressive spectrum of the culture wars shouting match.

Plus if you check out the many references on the internet which refer to this site: http://www.blessedunrest.com you will find that there are literally thousands of groups large and small that are expressive of the vision and calling of this inspiring book. I remember watching an hour long Youtube talk by the author in which the names of thousands of groups were scrolled down on a side-bar. It was very inpresiive and inspiring.

Meanwhile this one stark image summarises the zeitgeist of the current system http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel14.html
It is featured in the book The Pentagon of Power by Lewis Mumford. A book which describes the historical origins and developments of what Mumford called the Invisible Megamachine or the formative MYTH at the root of the Western cultural project, and its drive to gain complete power and control over everyone and anything.

Meanwhile 40 years all the nightmare scenarios that Mumford warned us about have come true, and on a scale which Mumford could not even have imagined.

Poirot,
Yup that's the way it works.
I've overheard rent a crowd "Anarchist" goons at suburban anti development rallies sniggering about how good it is to be getting paid to turn up, on the other side of the coin I know of people who've been paid to infiltrate and misdirect green groups.
The Marcia Langton case is another obvious example.
http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/marcia-langton-and-abcs-betrayal
Nothing is ever what it seems, if something is published in the media or by an academic there's always a vested interest in the background and it's damn near exhausting to try and keep up with it so we can give our kids good information on which to base their political education.

What about Obama taking the law into his own hands and trashing the US Constitution with the NDAA,legalised assassination and Preventative Dentention?

When our Govts trash our Constitiutions and remove our rights,what options are there?

>>When our Govts trash our Constitiutions and remove our rights,what options are there?<<

You vote for someone else.

Cheers,

Tony

Tony
And does that work?

It rather depends on who the someone else is.

Cheers,

Tony

When our Govts trash our Constitiutions and remove our rights,what options are there?
Arjay,
they've been doing that for quite some time now with total support from half the population.

The shame of it all is Daffy Duck:

...The system used to control the outcome is still called audaciously, Democracy! And Anglo Americans (?), staring out with “black vacant eyes” (15), Zombies now, dead in a spent dream, sucked of spirit by the God of greed, “Capitalism”. Praying to the great Jehovah, Heads bowed, under the shadow of the founding Fathers, (Bible in hand): A futile wait and Alas no answer, only the masterful enemy gathering on yonder hill and a piercing call to prayer from the Mosque…

Anglo Americans ?
diver dan,
here's a greater chance of that scenario here because it's well in progress. The Americans are way too patriotic to let that happen to their country.

Individual:

...Reference Jose Orozco’s mural No 15, (Daffy Ducks link above).

...Where to now “The American Civilization”? ...Is dead in the water too harsh a term?

...Is dead in the water too harsh a term?
diver dan,
perhaps you misread me, I was referring to the fact that Australians are actually way more likely to be dead in the water than Americans and, no it's not too harsh a term, in fact it's not harsh enough for them to wake up. Let's face reality here, the signs are all around us every minute of the day but still the alarm bells aren't going off.