On the global climate change protests: A thought

Green new protest: a reflection on today's event

Scene 1. A cafe somewhere in the world. A young man and woman talking politics. September 20, 2019:

"Politically," he said, with a tone suggesting the fatigue that fits or follows resignation, "it's hopeless. Thatcher was right, that "there is no alternative." A socialist movement in any country will only provoke capital flight to elsewhere. There is now a single global economy to which national governments are irrelevant. The global system has a kind of government, in the Davos crowd and other international bodies of political leaders and rich men. They are accountable to their own progressive business thinking and otherwise no one. What can any of us do when the theater for any useful action is global?"

"Well," she said, smiling, after a brief and pensive pause, "I suppose the only hope would be some kind of global movement. Supposing there a mass strike of some kind, or even mass protests, coordinated and simultaneous, around the world?"

Imagine. Suppose there were. If one happens, it will not be the last time.

"I propose," she added, "as a slogan an adaptation of the closing line in Rossellini's "Paisa": These young people are not fighting for some beautiful idea; they are fighting for their lives. And everyone's."