Activism and secondary boycotts

Every so often political leaders give speeches that address the great issues of their times, and in doing so define their own values and crystallise perceptions of their personal characters.

A projection of Scott Morrison as he addresses
the Queensland Resources Council last week.

Take Lincoln’s 272 perfectly chosen words at Gettysburg, or Churchill’s World War II appeal to British stoicism: “We shall fight on the beaches”. Or Barack Obama’s nuanced “A More Perfect Union” dissertation on race in America, Ronald Reagan’s Berlin entreaty – “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall” – or Robert Menzies’ “Forgotten People” speech.

Scott Morrison gave such a defining speech last week when he addressed the greatest issue of our time: climate change. And he encouraged the polluters to pollute more and committed his government to finding new ways to punish those who would stand up against the polluters.

His speech to the yearly lunch of the Queensland Resources Council, a group largely made up of fossil fuel interests and companies that service them, is already being widely seen as definitive of the man: belligerent in rhetoric, authoritarian in tone, divisive in intent, unimaginative in vision, deceptive and insubstantial in content.

Read the story from The Saturday Paper by Mike Seccombe - “Activism and secondary boycotts.”

How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community revolution

Martin Rühl never imagined this fight would define the rest of his life. Not for a moment did he reckon it would become so epic in length, in scale, in consequences. He just thought his speck of a town should run its own electricity supply.

Wolfhagen, a somnolent town whose biggest previous claim to
fame was that one of the Brothers Grimm had  swtayed there.

A modest proposal, but in the Germany of 2003 it was highly unusual. Gerhard Schröder was still chancellor and, although a social democrat, was pushing through more privatisations of public assets than any other leader in German history. This was in a Europe that had learned from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to stop worrying and start loving the private sector. Now here, swimming against history’s current, was one orderly, slightly anxious engineer.

Read the story by Aditya Chakrabortty on The Guardian - “How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community revolution.”