Cardiff Coal Protest

Why bother?

By doing that useless and impotent stunt you also show de facto disregard for the great working class traditions of the South Wales coalfields. The first moves should be to see what the working class of the valleys have to say, and engage in politics which can build alliances there. Otherwise you end up as only a professional protestor who regards arrest an an occupational hazard, but with no basis in any mass movement, or you end up as another impotent old cynical type who doesn't get involved cos it changes nothing. Rather, both are wrong because the conceptuatlisation of politics and the political process was wrong in the first instance.

People are engaging with, and taking action - of all kinds it has to be said - against coal and our reliance on burning it as a fuel. By no means do these people neglect or disregard the working class principles that have grown with the rise of coal by attempting to highlight the dangers of these activities. On the contrary, there lies a great and rare opotunity to create new jobs arround renewables, not only by investing in technologies but by investing in the future of employment. Indeed, coal will run out eventually- not only a threat to energy security and the climate but the employment in that sector.
The movement talks of a 'just transition' away from fossil fools and towards cleaner safer technologies as well as the creation of jobs- we have a severe investment gap, not an energy gap, and this could lead to bad times ahead for everyone, including the working class of the south Wales valleys.