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Because governments were only using her for greenwashing and control public opinion.
She’s always made that connection… since day one. The whole “How dare you!?” Speech was about people still only talking about making profits of climate change rather then doung Everything to prevent more change from happening.
The reason she’s not the center of media attention any more is because she’s been the center of attention for years already and viewers/readers aren’t as interested in her any more. Her name doesn’t pull as much attention any more.
What is the name of the Arab girl that advocated for girls education on the Arab world? She was also blocked out by the media the second she started talking about socialism and the injustices that the capitalist system brings in.
Malala Yousafzai
Edit: a couple corrections.
She’s Pashtun (Pakistani), not arab, but she is a practicing Muslim. She was fighting against the Taliban’s ban on girls from education, which is not a feature of the rest of the muslim world. It’s a feature of extreme fundamentalism, of any religion, not of Islam.
Thanks you.
Edit: adicional thanks for the further corrections.
Did you read her book? I have it on my TBR list but it is a long list. I usually like to read fiction but try to do a nonfiction/memoir in about every 3-4 books (I read about 5/wk which varies d/t length).
Indeed, first time I hear about this aspect of Malala Yousafzai’s activism. Thank you, wow.
For context: https://socialistworker.org/2014/10/15/the-malala-you-wont-hear-about (Compare also this thread, where someone makes clear that her being involved with socialism is no misunderstanding.)
As you add more and more issues to the protests, the set of people that have the same opinion on every single issue gets smaller and smaller, until your movement falls apart.
In Germany around the same time, climate protests started to take stances on immigration and cultural approbation and also fell apart as a result.
This is what happened to Occupy Wall Street in the US, and I’m convinced it was intentional movement busting.
Probably the same thing with the climate protests in Germany.
Germany elected a more left leaning government and they actually did pass some good climate legislation. That was aided by Putin cutting of fossil fuels to Germany as well, but the protests and public mood were certainly on the site of climate action. However the protests were having problems of bringing the same numbers on the street as before covid and the fossil fuel industry spend on a lot on busting the protests.
Then the far right really gained strength in Germany and that became the much more pressing issue, rather then climate change.
New York Mayor Ed Koch put it best.
“If you agree with me 51% of the time, vote for me. If you agree with me 100% of the time, see a psychiatrist.”
You don’t have to like the candidate to vote for them.
Its a big difference voting for someone or actually getting out protesting.
I look at it this way. The GOP doesn’t do a lot of rallies and marches, yet they have a lot of power.
They organize their ground game and get voters to the polls.
Maybe we should start pestering politicians with asking when they’ll invest billions in climate adaption to protect from flooding and drought. Except for USA where they’ll pretend nothing is happening.
“Pestering” is nothing.
Find the ones who are doing something and give them full support.
You have finite resources. Don’t waste time annoying people who are opposed, work full time for their enemies.
In Germany around the same time, climate protests started to take stances on immigration and cultural approbation and also fell apart as a result.
Fell apart according to who? The media? This is really what the post is trying to discuss. Why did Greta Thunberg media coverage drop once she started get involved in other protests too?
The movement is stronger than ever. The coverage has disappeared, but there are more and more people willing to seek out every right answer and give up every privilege.
Centrists and right-wingers keep pretending that solidarity and radicalism makes movements weak, when it has always made them stronger. The moment Labor parties abandoned radicalism and chose the Third Way, their voter share dropped off a cliff. The moment movements abandon their most radical left-wing contributors to appeal to the lowest common denominator they collapse from in-fighting and the hardest workers moving off.
There is no Schelling point for less-than-complete justice. Nations, religions, ethnicities, even capital is just one of countless different ways to slice the pie and pretend that the hurt you suffer is more urgent and in-scope than someone else’s. If you morally accept rallying to one subgroup, then you have no defense against others you depend on from rallying to another subgroup and coming into opposition with you. There is no way around it:
None of us are free until all of us are free.
I remember smear pieces from German press after October 7 2023, where they claimed Greta would have fallen in the eyes of the world. The idea that “the world” may not follow the same narratives as Germany seemed to be beyond comprehension for those writers.
Germany is bound eternally to Israel because they’ll never feel like they’ve atoned for the holocaust and Israel is THE Jewish state unfortunately. The historic antisemitism in Europe has been so bad that basically nobody can say anything bad about Israel without them playing the “oh we’re doing that again?” Card. I have no idea what it would take for Israel to lose that association of anti-israel = anti-jewish that they’ve got protecting their every action. I know there are a lot of Jewish people who don’t support Israel’s actions, but apparently that’s not enough.
I have no idea what it would take for Israel to lose that association of anti-israel = anti-jewish that they’ve got protecting their every action.
I mean, I know what it took for me. It’s a shame so many in Gaza had to die for it, but I’ll never look at them the same. Changing all of Germany/Europe may take longer, but surely what’s happening is just as plain to anyone with eyes over there as it is over here in the land of the Mango Mussolini.
Wasn’t she on those topics pretty much from the beginning? I think it really just boils down to the media (and people in general) just moved on to the next story. Greta’s initial appeal was that she was a kid who was effecting change and reactions. These days she’s just another 20-something that shows up at protests and people upvote on social media.
A lot of people in the comments are talking about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. as comparisons, but where they differ from Greta is that they started with protests but were able to successfully fold that into movements and action. X and King didn’t just protest, they didn’t just yell at the walls of the establishment and demand change. King was the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which organized protests, but also helped mobilize voters, lobbied congress, and helped to draft legislation. X was part of the Nation of Islam which was a particularly powerful group in the 1960’s which challenged Civil Rights issues in the court system.
For a long time Greta really hasn’t had much to add to the discussion on climate change other than to say stop doing what we are doing. She’s not part of some powerful organization, she’s not lobbying governments, she’s not challenging issues in the courts, and she’s not proposing solutions, she’s just pointing out the problems everyone already knows exists and powerful governments are already ignoring.
I think she’s closer to Rosa Parks - she’s a symbol fighting the good fight, but not the leader of the movement
That’s a great comparison.
As a ‘climate activist’ she started as a parody, passionate and articulate about a hot topic but dismissable as a child. But when you start to say certain things, you lose broad appeal. You can go out and rail against the ‘elites’ ‘rigging the system’ to ‘keep us down’ but the moment you say the ‘bourgeoisie’ are ‘exploiting the workers’ and ‘using capital to wage a class war,’ you are not getting broadcast, and not being listened to by many people. People love Marxism by other terms but if you use the Marxist words, you won’t be taken seriously.
It seems in general that attention isn’t even On climate change like it was before covid. The news platforms are filled with populist governments wars and genocides. Eve. Though climate change is the greatest existential threat it’s ability ro grab attention has faded
Climate change is brought to you by lobbying networks that spans multiple industries. Why stop us when we can convince you to just let us.
We don’t want to actually fix the causes of climate change, that would be silly and harm to the poor billionaires.
We want you to think its your fault, and to stop using plastic straws.
Seek the news sites telling the truth, not handing you what advertisers will pay for.
Is that when the Venn diagrams kiss?
Europe has an energy crisis and its greatly affecting the poor. Germany is also taking coal away from Africa, after shutting down its nuclear plants, so its looking pretty stupid now to be talking about banning energy. America just voted in Trump again with a mandate to bring down energy prices as well.
Implying Greta wasn’t anticapitalist or antiimp before the Gaza war. Implying that “system change, not climate change” wasn’t one of the core chants in protests.
Why do you attack the OP this way? Do you really think that they are maliciously trying to hide away Greta’s politics?
Honestly I think half of “leftists” you see online are just right wingers yelling in bad faith to create a rift. They know we are so ideological and ready to cancel each other if we fail to meet our purity tests that they just need to toss in a match to make the left crumble.
Aside, aperantly Christianity is making a comeback with Gen Z, and one theory is that at least Christianity has an element of forgiveness (turn the other cheek), where atheists who base their morals on secular philosophy can become very harsh in their criticism and once someone is out, they are out. I can absolutely see the appeal of this change for the youth. I only say this as sometimes we do need to look in the mirror. If we are so smart, why do we always lose?
Of course this is the Internet where we kinda just bring out the worst in people.
Yeah, I think that saying “the moment she espoused certain politics, she vanished” while not acknowledging she and the movement held these positions while she was featured prominently in the news is kind of dishonest.
I thought it was when she started talking about the Gaza “conflict”
