Mass civil prison campaigns are effective if you got a mass to mobilize and your opponent lacks the ability to incarcerate in mass.
This means it could be most effective in semi colonial countries or those in which minorities rule (and a majority of what kind soever can be political activated more or less homogeneous).
Disclaimer: There might also be use to mass prison campaigns to resist unjust laws if you have political cadres that you know will be able to collectively influence the already large prison population while being in contact with the outside movement.
The civil disobedience for lapidar crimes e.g. property damage of XR has a base of mostly higher educated young people (which means they are more alike to judges and police than some others are), this could mean judges might sympathize more with them and it could be publicized without mass movements, the core of mass campaigns will not work, cause you lack your mass, your political organization and the constant pressure of clearly individually executed, collectively targeted laws of groups of society that already build power or own qualities (e.g. having the highest quantity in population count by far e.g. workers, blacks) themselves.
The US nowadays got a huge prison population. They have prisons which are not bad at individualizing and isolating prisoners in them. That makes their practice different to the collective imprisonment of some ANC or MK activists in Johannesburg that enabled to build a second set of externalities they were forced to endure and share their experiences.
The US did look into the last 80 years of handling political prisoners (I count people convicted of crimes of poverty and political drug enforcement as such as well, ovviously). They will feed you against your will in hunger strikes, they will continually violate your bodily integrity and routinely rape you, they will often not make you see others etc. In extreme they might just torture you / keep you at a blacksite without contact to other persons except your torturers.
Luckily though the US got experience and capacity to deal with prisoners and imprison people many prisons are overfilled for capitalist reasons, which means that in campaigns of mass incarceration you might not have the individualization that breaks people the hardest. With the integration of inner prison violence into the prison sector it is a tool of the prison staff and administration to let people get hurt, lack safe spaces and have their human rights suffered even more. The most violence in prisons still is dished out by the capitalist-industrial-prison system, the administration and the prison staff.
Since the prisons have capacity and XR is not organized or politically organized in a broad manner, mass incarceration campaigns seem to not work by sending people inside prisons/jails, cause the cadres would not be able to communicate to the organized outside and the prisons have capacity to house even more "inmates".
Thus there are three points in which their campaigns might have effects
(1) people might not be able to be policed/judged easy enough (likely if done by many, even unorganized groups of people)
(2) the police might just chose to selectively enforce the law showing lack of force or targeted state violence (dealing with problem (1), hitting political figureheads or marginalized groups instead)
(3) the unorganized masses might by pure shared experience become an organized conscious and political mass (highly unlikely and idealist) OR the actions might inspire a spontaneous emergent activation and "uprising" of a huge mass of (younger/academic) people who become politically organized cause of the propaganda of the few (highly unlikely as the RAF experienced in Germany, as well)
So my point of view is therefore that the effects of XRs campaigns of civil disobedience and being imprisoned will be:
a bit of media in support of actions versus climate change
a bit of status of XR esp. in younger/unpolitical people who "agree" with them (making them ignore the quasi-authoritarian and racist-accepting practices of XR organitaion)
the possible, but not highly likely possibility to block the performing of police functions in limited timeframes at specific locations
a propaganda of the deed actions that give a bit of experience with them a handful of people and a lot of people who will become depoliticized by the ineffectiveness of them
a lack of working together of newcomer activists with marginalized groups and the thought of having the primacy understanding of politics (e.g. Ecology as the main contradiction, as class was before in the class vs. feminism fight).
TL;DR XR does stuff (mass campaigns without a mass) that will not have the results they hope, but might make them feel good, esp. if they get lucky and might block a police station for a night (without being put into prison for sedition/kidnapping).
Shit, that was a crazy thorough response. Thanks so much! Also, I think you've captured my thoughts exactly.
I had the burning idea of it being something that's more "feel good" under the guise of political activism than effective activism itself.
For me, the shutdowns in Melbourne would have only been effective if they kept pushing them. That is, shutting down the city day, after day, after day. Each day protesting more beligerently and causing more of an uproar.
Once the discourse got so divided and people were forced to pick a side (for or against) I feel they would have had more people crossing over to join the line as it were.
Also, the constant 'non-violence' of the protest bugged me. Climate change, and the wilful ignorance of the political and capital class who perpetrate it is in itself a violent act. If XR wanted to make effective change blockading and resisting would have been more effective in my eyes than just being arrested.
We live in a society of violence in Australia. As a colonial nation we are surrounded on all sides by memories of it in statues, street names and currency. Violence captures mass attention and forces the question "which side are you on?"
Mass civil prison campaigns are effective if you got a mass to mobilize and your opponent lacks the ability to incarcerate in mass. This means it could be most effective in semi colonial countries or those in which minorities rule (and a majority of what kind soever can be political activated more or less homogeneous). Disclaimer: There might also be use to mass prison campaigns to resist unjust laws if you have political cadres that you know will be able to collectively influence the already large prison population while being in contact with the outside movement.
The civil disobedience for lapidar crimes e.g. property damage of XR has a base of mostly higher educated young people (which means they are more alike to judges and police than some others are), this could mean judges might sympathize more with them and it could be publicized without mass movements, the core of mass campaigns will not work, cause you lack your mass, your political organization and the constant pressure of clearly individually executed, collectively targeted laws of groups of society that already build power or own qualities (e.g. having the highest quantity in population count by far e.g. workers, blacks) themselves.
The US nowadays got a huge prison population. They have prisons which are not bad at individualizing and isolating prisoners in them. That makes their practice different to the collective imprisonment of some ANC or MK activists in Johannesburg that enabled to build a second set of externalities they were forced to endure and share their experiences. The US did look into the last 80 years of handling political prisoners (I count people convicted of crimes of poverty and political drug enforcement as such as well, ovviously). They will feed you against your will in hunger strikes, they will continually violate your bodily integrity and routinely rape you, they will often not make you see others etc. In extreme they might just torture you / keep you at a blacksite without contact to other persons except your torturers. Luckily though the US got experience and capacity to deal with prisoners and imprison people many prisons are overfilled for capitalist reasons, which means that in campaigns of mass incarceration you might not have the individualization that breaks people the hardest. With the integration of inner prison violence into the prison sector it is a tool of the prison staff and administration to let people get hurt, lack safe spaces and have their human rights suffered even more. The most violence in prisons still is dished out by the capitalist-industrial-prison system, the administration and the prison staff.
Since the prisons have capacity and XR is not organized or politically organized in a broad manner, mass incarceration campaigns seem to not work by sending people inside prisons/jails, cause the cadres would not be able to communicate to the organized outside and the prisons have capacity to house even more "inmates".
Thus there are three points in which their campaigns might have effects
So my point of view is therefore that the effects of XRs campaigns of civil disobedience and being imprisoned will be:
TL;DR XR does stuff (mass campaigns without a mass) that will not have the results they hope, but might make them feel good, esp. if they get lucky and might block a police station for a night (without being put into prison for sedition/kidnapping).
Shit, that was a crazy thorough response. Thanks so much! Also, I think you've captured my thoughts exactly.
I had the burning idea of it being something that's more "feel good" under the guise of political activism than effective activism itself.
For me, the shutdowns in Melbourne would have only been effective if they kept pushing them. That is, shutting down the city day, after day, after day. Each day protesting more beligerently and causing more of an uproar.
Once the discourse got so divided and people were forced to pick a side (for or against) I feel they would have had more people crossing over to join the line as it were.
Also, the constant 'non-violence' of the protest bugged me. Climate change, and the wilful ignorance of the political and capital class who perpetrate it is in itself a violent act. If XR wanted to make effective change blockading and resisting would have been more effective in my eyes than just being arrested.
We live in a society of violence in Australia. As a colonial nation we are surrounded on all sides by memories of it in statues, street names and currency. Violence captures mass attention and forces the question "which side are you on?"