Not Another COP Out!

For Climate Justice! Change the System

5pm Lookout Hill 25 Nov

Evening of talks, poetry & Music etc.

This November, ruling class scum (rich, politicians and state managers) from across the globe are descending, like locusts, onto the posh Durban Convention Centre for theCOP 17 meeting. We are told, by these very same ruling class parasites that they are coming to Durban and COP 17 to save us from global warming. Nothing could, however, be further from the truth!

It is, in fact, the ruling class who have caused global warming and environmental destruction. It is the rich and their friends in the state that have stolen and profiteered from oil and other minerals - so that they could live like kings and queens. It is them who have sent workers to die in the mines; it is them who have cut costs and poisoned workers in the factories and farms; and it is them who have dumped waste and air pollution all over the place, including in our townships. They have done this for two reasons - to make more money and become more powerful. While the rich have done all this, we have been forced to work in awful jobs (to increase their profits); to live in shacks and RDP houses that are falling apart; to live with no electricity and have sewerage running past our doors. When we complain, the ruling class try and silence us with the police. We say we will no longer be silenced!

The truth is that the whole COP 17 meeting is not about saving the environment or stopping global warming; it is rather about keeping the existing system in place – where workers and the poor are forced to work and live in misery – which includes being subjected to the bosses’ pollution! The COP 17 meeting is a meeting of the ruling class, by the ruling class, for the ruling class! It is about them trying to make money by buying and selling the environment, and screwing us over yet again.

The time has come to stop lobbying the ruling class – including those in the COP 17 meeting - as if they were our friends or as if they cared about us. The state and the rich are our enemies; not our friends. It is because of them, and the capitalist and state system that keeps them rich, that we live like dogs. To fight them and win the things we want – including less pollution - we need to use our own power. We need to stop going on our hands and knees and saying “please nkosi or please baas give me just a few more crumbs or please, please stop poisoning me at work or stop polluting so much”. We rather need to stand up and fight, and force them to stop doing what they are doing and give us what we want!

This means we need to begin linking our struggles and we need to build our class pride. Already townships protests are happening every day, and we need to start connecting these together so that they can become a massive movement. To do so, means recognising who our enemies are and who our friends are. To start to challenge the ruling class therefore, we need to continue to use direct actions, like protests, strikes and occupations, and build on these by directing them towards the right people - bosses, politicians and the state – and linking them up more and more until they become a massive force. That also means scoring victories here and now through our own actions, to win the things we need today like houses, clean water and cleaner working and living environments.

While we can and must win things today, if we want true freedom and equality, however, we need to build our movements into a huge force that can get rid of the ruling class, the state and capitalism in the future. We will only be free and equal when there are no more rulers and bosses. To do this we need to build on our existing struggles and through them fight for genuine People’s Power - where we run our own communities, cities and regions directly and truly democratically without scumbag politicians of any kind. We need to also begin to use workplace struggles, like for better wages and safer working environments, to also build our power as workers so that we can eventually seize the factories from the bosses and run them for the benefit of all. We don’t need any political party to do this, rather through our own movements, and through our existing struggles, we can build on our power until we are strong enough to get rid of the scum that rule and exploits us!

AGAINST COP17 AND THE RULING CLASS SCUM! FOR WORKING CLASS PRIDE! FOR WORKING CLASS POWER!