How would you call a demonstration that is so risk-free, poses so little danger to the status quo that no harm would come if you were to partake in it?

It won’t end your career, you won’t find yourself ostracised from clubs, zero negative impact whatsoever. You can put it on your LinkedIn and your boss will like it. You can set it as your avatar.

Extinction Rebellion bothered me for years: the instant elite consensus behind it, the kid gloves treatment they received by the hard powers, how disgraceful it was to the memory of actual dissidents. The media loved them; actual dissidents, when they get media attention, get 2 minutes of hate accompanied by public statements of disavowal by their former loved ones, followed by legal and financial troubles that equal a death sentence (as they’re meant to be).

I don’t mean to single Extinction Rebellion out, there are many such teacher-approved tantrums, and many more to come, it’s a perfect study though: so you oppose climate change. Okay, whose blacklist would that land you on, Braveheart? The Evil Oil Companies? They don’t care, in fact, if you protest well enough that they begin to notice, they might give you a position. They’ll bid against each other to get you (my advice: take all their money, don’t go exclusive).

No risk whatsoever.

If Greta Thunberg posed any real danger to any existing power, child protective services would have showed up, and she would have been institutionalized, silenced, no one would know about her, apart from her extended family and the neighbors. Yeah, that poor, weird kid, I heard she’s taking meds now.

But she’s a great student, regurgitating what the teachers want to hear, so she gets a podium to be angry on.

She’s not alone, she’s many: establishment-backed Red Guards, representing a set of elite-approved topics that need spearheading, furiously one upping each other with so little risk it’s unprecedented in history. The safest tantrum ever, with the best possible press imaginable. The teacher’s pets rebellion.

Is Extinction Rebellion still around? Did they stop during COVID? Was there an overlap between them and the anti-lockdown protestors? You know the answer. Did all these people, all these furious, so furious celebrities just shut the fuck up, masked up, and followed the orders? You know the answer.

Teacher’s pets.

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