I was privileged to attend a screening in Camden with the fillmaker and a number of the climate & civil rights defenders featured present, which made for an especially moving experience.
Whilst hardly an easy watch, it is to be recommended to everyone as, like in the 1930s as Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote in his famous poem "First they came for the Communists, And I did not speak out..." Now I'd suggest in the UK it would be - first they came for the climate activists, then the Palestine protesters - and then after they get around to the leftists, then the trade unionists.. it will be as the Pastor's final line "Then they came for me, And there was no one left, To speak out for me.'
This is a detailed nearly 2 hour chronical of the work of JSO activists and the increasingly insane oppression they have endured, and continue to suffer, from the police and courts of this nominally 'democratic' country. It is soul-destroying to witness such brave, sweet, peaceful and principled folk being ground down one by one by a legal system that has so obviously now become an instrument of the capitalist ruling class on steroids. There should be no illusions watching this that the police serve to protect the public on the whole. The evidence is clear: the ruling class has wesponised the force into a high-tech instrument of crushing intimidation whenever challenged by even peaceful protest.
It's encouraging though to reflect that polluting corporate interests are clearly now riled, that tectonic cracks are emerging, as the ruling class state now resorts to such frantic multilevel oppression. It is clear from this film, which has no narration, merely the voices of the participants, that these defenders are at the cutting edge of protest, crossing that line where they make real progress, on behalf of the working class, the planet and indeed all of us.
The film is an education too on the spider web of new laws, conditions, and police procedures that are being laid out for anyone threatening the vested interests that are enslaving ordinary people and thrashing the whole planet.
I hope you watch this with the same admiration I now have for these pioneers, and that it fosters a feeling of solidarity wherever you are politically, and please encourage others to see this. Urgently, before there's no one left but you.
