British schoolboy's amazing speech on social justice

In this video, a fifteen-year-old British student (I think the announcer calls him "Berkeley," but it could be "Rodney" or something else) gives and rousing, articulate call-to-arms for social justice, solidarity, and social justice. This young man is one of the best speakers I've heard, and I salute his passion and his integrity:

They can't stop us demonstrating, they can't stop us fighting back, and how ever much they try to imprison us in the streets of London, those are our streets. We will always be there to demonstrate, we will always be there to fight... We are no longer that generation that doesn't care, we are no longer that generation to sit back and take whatever they give us. We are now the generation at the heart of the fight back.

15-Year-Old Protester Goes Off On British Establishment (VIDEO) (Thanks, Glyn, via Submitterator!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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travtastic

Hold on, wait. When I meant to scroll down to the comments here, did I accidentally warp to comments on a Drudge article? Or was it Yahoo! News?
wingedearth

He sounds very enthusiastic and spirited, but I can’t tell from this speech what exactly he is fighting against. Is there any actual legitimate cause being fought over, or is this just a hate speech against police?
zunjine

It’s amusing that I’m assumed to be American. I’m not. I’m British.

Brian – your arrogant statement that I need more ‘education’ is rather sad. Can it not be that I disagree with you even while being as well aware of the facts as you are? I respect others’ right to hold views contrary to mine. I would hope you do the same.

Also, I adore your immediate use of the ‘trolling’ reference. I happen to disagree so I’m a troll. Yes, you suggest it rather than say it but it’s a very nice Socialist debating style – the classic denouncement. You do it well. I’m sure it doesn’t go unnoticed.

I wonder – what do you think the alternative to cuts is? Do you believe we can go on spending more than we recieve in tax? I believe otherwise.

Plingboot – war is neither good or bad. It is merely a fact of life in the imperfect world in which we live. I don’t think you get rid of war by cutting defence budgets any more than cutting healthcare would solve the issue of illness. We need soldiers and they, unlike you and I, actually put themselves in danger to protect the freedoms we believe in. Are all wars right? No. Of course not. Are they all wrong? Absolutely not. Either way it isn’t the army or the soldiers who are to blame. They do a hard job and many die. Can we show a little respect?

Of coure tax isn’t a dirty word. I am happy to pay tax but I am not happy to have people demand that my tax be spent on them and, should they not get that tax money, commit acts of violence or abuse their positions to extort that money. Education is a right. We all get free education up to the age of 18 when we become adults and (shock horror) may be asked to take responsibility for ourselves! As it stands the majority that go to university are from middle class backgrounds. Why should the public purse subsidies those who can afford to pay? I hope to see an expansion of scholarships and bursaries for the less well off but I don’t expect my tax money to pay for the wealthy to go and study Art History!

Whatever your opinions about tuition fees, this government has a democratic mandate. Does anyone here really believe that an election pledge is a binding promise? I doubt we are so foolish. In the end some policies will make it and some will not. That’s the way it works. It’s almost as if life isn’t perfect, isn’t it?
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Alternative to cuts?
  Increase tax rates, most substantially on all who make more than 10x the median income, and impose a .5% transactions tax on all financial transactions and transfers ie stock and bond trades.
  
  No?
- brian rutherford
  
  The reason I suggested that you needed some education was because you went from asking what the alternative to education cuts would be to suggesting that what “this lot” actually wanted was a communist state. Since it was such a ridiculous argument I decided that you weren’t scaremongering but just misinformed. It would be a similar mistake to think that someone who didn’t agree with you was a socialist.
  - zunjine
    
    ws mrly ntng tht yr ttmpt t dnncmnt ws vry Sclst nd n f th rsns s dslk Sclsm (th bg S knd).
    
    Y ssm, s, tht my ntr knwlgd f th lks f Clr Slmn (th wmn wh ntrdcd th chld spkr) s frm ths vd. Prhps t s y wh nds t dct hmslf s t th vws f ths ppl? r th vws f th ldrshp f th TC? vrythng n th rhtrc ws pr rvltnry Sclsm/Cmmnsm. Y bgn by dfnng vrythng n trms f ‘fghtng’ r ‘dfndng gnst ttck’ whl gvng nthng n trms f sltns – mrly ngr nd rghtsnss. ll vry ntrtnng whl thy rmn fr (FR) frm pwr bt nt s mch fn whn thy gt t b n chrg. Y cn’t rn cntry wth rghtsnss ln.
    
    plgs f ddn’t flly shw my wrkng – ths s, ftr ll, n nln frm nd nt n cdmc ssy. hp ths clrs thngs p lttl nd mght prhps frstll ftr ccstns f gnrnc.
    - Nick
      
      “your attempt at denouncement was very Socialist”
      I find it quite alarming that you associate an act as universal as denouncement with a single ideology. Whilst it is of course true that denouncement forms an early part of Socialism, this is also the case for any other ideology. Just as the politicians or activists of the Left would start by criticising and denouncing what or who they see as being wrong in society so would those of the Right.
      
      ” You begin by defining everything in terms of ‘fighting’ or ‘defending against attack’”
      The English Defence League which you later use as an example, is an organisation of the Right yet they would also talk in terms of ‘fighting’ and even more so in terms of ‘defending’, again you appear to be attributing terms that in themselves do not belong to any single ideology to Socialism.
      
      On a more positive note, I signed up to respond to your comment so thank you for that! ;)
      - zunjine
        
        dsgr tht th nglsh Dfnc Lg s f th Rght. Lk Nzsm th DL nd BNP r lrgly lft lnng n thr cnmcs nd wth rgrd t sss f lw nd rdr. t s n f th grtst slghts f hnd f mdrn pltcl dscrs tht th Sclsm n Ntnl Sclsm hs bn qtly drppd by ths wh wsh t ttck t.
        
        Whn spk f “dncmnt” prhps spk t brdly. Th lbllng f n’s pltcl ppnnt s n nmy f ll tht s gd – lk cllng smn trll – s smthng whch s lrgly cnnnctd wth th mr cllctvst frms f pltcl thght. Hrd t dnnc smn n sch wy f thr sn’t n ccptd “crrct wy” t b. Tht bng sd, y r rght tht thr pltcl grps s smlr tctcs.
        
        ‘m gld tht my vws, whthr y gr wth thm r nt, hv prmtd y t tk prt n th dscssn. dn’t prtnd t lwys b rght vn thgh tnd t thnk m nd wlcm rgmnts tht tst my pstn vn f nly s mns t strngthn t. spps n thng tht cn b sd fr ths yng mn s tht h s nt pthtc. xpct hs pstn wll mdrt n th ftr s h bgns t ndrstnd th rl wrld lttl bttr. d hp tht Clr Slmn dsn’t gt hr clws t fr nt hm. Sh’s vry dsgrbl prsn ndd.
      - Anonymous
        
        “I disagree that the English Defence League is of the Right. Like Nazism the EDL and BNP are largely left leaning in their economics and with regard to issues of law and order.”
        
        Your distaste all becomes a little clearer now you reveal that you think the EDL and the BNP are too left-wing for you.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        That’s right, hitler was a socialist, just like Stalin was a capitalist.
        
        They were both in fact despots.
        Who cares what theoretical mask tyranny may don?
        
        Education is a pure public good: to pay for it, tax the rich who have benefited the most from the advancements in our society brought about by all of our efforts, and all of our previous investments in public education.
        
        Let them move to the USA: for there too the taxes will get them.
        
        We all pay for everything we get. Rich and poor.
      - zunjine
        
        Nt ntrly sr wht y’r gttng t. Tht bng sd, Stln dd llw fr gd dl f prvt ntrprs t tms. Htlr, n th thr hnd, bgn by nstttng mssv pblc wrks nd splshng t pblc mny t mply th msss. Th stt st p nd rn rgnstns lk VW tc. n th nd thgh thy wr bth nt-dmcrtc whch th ssnc f sngl prty cmmnst dlgy.
        
        D kp n mnd tht Cptlsm s systm f cmmrc nd nt systm f gvrnmnt. Cmprng drctly Cmmnsm nd Cptlsm s slly. W lv n dmcrcy wth cptlst cnmy.
        
        I agree that education is a public good but at what point does it become a personal investment. There are loads of things I would love to study but I can’t afford it. Should I get government funding to learn to bake? After all, people need bread! You get free education from 5 to 18. After that you can choose what you want to do and decide if it is worth the investment. There must come a point when the public purse is closed and people start to fund their own choices.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        “…but at what point does it become a personal investment[?]
        ”
        
        At no “point” does it become so.
        
        Education is not an investment generating a return, except by a very weak and imperfect analogy. An analogy, moreover, which does not determine (or even elucidate) the reality of education, the utility of education, as it is experienced by the individual and society.
        
        An educated public itself is the return on public education.
        
        That is an absolute good, and needs no further ROI (return-on-investment) analysis.
        Just as a self-evident truth needs no further proof.
      - bmcraec
        
        Why is it that so many of the people who argue that helping each other (public education, public health, community and not corporate economics, or any “unpaid benefit” not provided by a church) seem to also profess to being staunch Religious folk of the Judeo-Christian style?
        
        Just because you can make a profit from something does not equal it being a good idea to do so. Folk who can’t see this seem to have a congenital defect in their perception of feedback loops. I suspect this is caused by chronic extreme myopathy. If it doesn’t effect the next quarter’s balance sheet, they become blind and deaf. Anything past that next deadline doesn’t matter, unless it clearly will cost you money or lose you money. That’s the only thing that seems to give these people any feelings whatsoever.
        
        Why can’t we all realize it’s a disability, like ADHD or Tourette’s, and make sure it makes it into the DSM-VI? Something needs to replace the spot that Asperger’s used to take up.
      - zunjine
        
        I’m going to have to call bollocks on that one. Sorry.
        
        So someone who wishes to spend his entire life learning should be free to do so at the expense of the public? So Jim goes and gets a job so he can support his family but John fancies doing his third PhD – so the tax man comes and takes Jim’s money to pay for John’s studies? Because, you know, it’s nice. Jim’s family will understand I’m sure.
        
        Well that’s a nice deal for the PRIVATE institutions who provide Higher Education. Lovely for them, really. They can get loads of money from the tax payer to provide a service to private citizens which is non-essential and entirely a personal choice.
        
        Honestly, go and think about this for a bit. Go on.
      - Alissa Barvin
        
        You think about this: I’ll hold your hand. Let’s see: Jim needs to support his family with a job. Without a college/university degree, there really aren’t many choices besides minimum wage jobs. However, Jim has to use all of his available income to support his family. He does not have enough to get a higher education which would make it possible to get a better-paying job, which in turn would better allow him to support his family. Jim is too busy trying to survive and to put food on the table.
        
        Now, John comes from a rich family, lets say (I’ve yet to see a significant number people from poor or lower-middle class families with the resources to fund one ph.d, let alone three.) He’s going to be fine. His education will allow him to make an excellent income. He’ll never have to worry about supporting his family. Furthermore, he gets awesome tax breaks, all courtesy of the brilliant scam of trickle-down-economics.
        
        Jim is stuck in a perpetual cycle of struggle: he doesn’t have the money for the education which would allow him to better support his family, because he is too busy trying to support his family with a miminum wage job, which is pretty much his only choice because he doesn’t have the funds for an education.
        
        On a larger level, the welfare of general society suffers over time. because Jim, who potentially would have proven instrumental in finding a cure for cancer, finding an alternative fuel source, etc… is too busy struggling to support his family to work on these issues.
        
        Jim is kept in poverty by his lack of education, while John goes along just fine. Why? Because he had the fortune to be born into a wealthy family.
        
        Cutting education is the best way to perpetuate class-inequality: to keep the poor poor and the rich rich.
        
        Zunjine, your faux-populism is sickening.
Anonymous

We know the context of this demonstration and we know that he and his mates were demonstrating against huge cuts to college education and to restraining access for many more families. This is not a talk to assign “style points”. This is one student who has awakened to taking action when access is snatched by the government with a swift hand. The youth in England are modeling real action now. We have become passive in the states, and if this young man is an indication of what young people are willing to say and do to make sure they are not ignored, then the nation has hope. If he were either my student or my son, I would be proud of him and I’d back him. These are the kind of young adults we need to speak a little truth and take real action.
smiraldo
pidg

Great public speaker – I give him 10 years before he’s a Labour MP, and another 5 before he starts going against the things he once stood for.
Lobster

When I was that age, I had a conversation with my history teacher about anarchy. I told him it sounded pretty good. It might right a lot of wrongs. He told me that that was because a 15-year-old doesn’t have anything to lose. No wife and family. No property to protect. No investment and no ties.

We like to believe that freedom is worth fighting for. How much freedom are we talking? What is the real cost? It’s cowardly to close our eyes and go on with our lives as the world contracts so violently around us. It’s reckless to endanger the lives of your loved ones for an ideal, no matter how noble.

I’m no longer too keen on anarchy.
sdmikev

Wow, I’m really concerned about you and some of the others who have commented. Did you even watch the video and pay attention?
This young man was trying to tell his peers about the importance of taking a stand as they did. This wasn’t a policy speech.
“Either they laid down and took whatever the government threw at them, or they stood up and fought back.”
“those are OUR streets [of London].”

Man, I wouldn’t think that so many boing boing readers were so complacent and/or pedantic about EVERYTHING.. How about some kudos for him for fighting for a better world. Damn.
- zunjine
  
  Hw cn y ssm h’s fghtng fr “bttr wrld” f y hv n d wht knd f wrld h wnts?
  
  Th nglsh Dfnc Lg wnt n rlly th thr dy t. Thy wld clm thy’r fghtng fr “bttr wrld”. Whn w nvdd rq w wr “fghtng fr bttr wrld” f y blv th clms md by ths wh spprtd th wr. Whn Chrstn mnstrs tll kds thy’ll brn n hll fr thr sns thy trly blv thy r fghtng fr “bttr wrld”.
  
  Jst bcs y’r ngry dsn’t mn y’r rght.
Anonymous

I’m pretty sure the announcer says “Barnaby.”
- Anonymous
  
  judging by the fact that the youtube account is under Rodney…. i think his name is Rodney
Anonymous

Education is a right, not a luxury
freddy nono

sorry, while the kid is full on piss and vinegar he doesn’t once state an actual opinion about the issues at hand. His only point is that he feels really strongly about going on the streets to protest. He is 15 years old and I don’t think we should be following the lead of 15 year old brick throwers. They don’t have the experience to know what life is about.
- travtastic
  
  I told you to ask before you use my computer, pappy!
- Anonymous
  
  Holy shit, that’s the most depressing comment i’ve read in a while. This kid talks passionately about taking a stand for what you believe in and not giving in, and you complain about him not giving more delicate information in his four minute speech as well as being a ‘brick thrower’. Fucking unbelievable.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m sorry, your generation digs a hole to big for the government to get out of and you expect students to have to pay for it? How about they cut the pensions, how about you make the people who got you into this mess hurt not the leaders of tomorrow? you want suggestions go and talk to the kid, go talk to the university students, don’t just put them in a corner and they to ignore there screams as you slowly suffocate them. You want the country to grow? Time and time again studies have shown that you need to provide education to the students. You want to save money stop giving banks huge tax brakes, give the cuts to those that got you into the mess not to those who your going to have to rely on to pull you out.
- Anonymous
  
  and you wonder why the younger generation doesn’t care? God forbid they’re lazy and don’t take action. But when they do they just get written off as ignorant, loud mouthed, and naive.
- Anonymous
  
  Cmon man, why you gotta hog the whole lawn. Kids love lawn.
- Anonymous
  
  Then again he hasn’t had years of being broken down by “the system”
- Anonymous
  
  I believe he quite clearly states how he is against the treatment of underage protesters, and that the government will not be able to brush them away. I would also say it’s clear what his opinion is.
- Frank W
  
  Fifteen-year-olds are too unexperienced to speak up, right? Riiiiight?
  
  The crowd at this meeting is not in disagreement on the issue at hand. Barnaby (?) doesn’t waste his moment on it. He’s got that right.
  
  The kid knows who he is, what he wants and what he stands for. At age fifteen. And he’s getting experienced in a hurry. He’ll be going places.
- Anonymous
  
  So just because he’s fifteen he can’t know what he’s talking about? While I respect and graciously differ with your first argument, I can’t help but feel that it is extremely arrogant to say that because he is fifteen years old he’s automatically just a “brick thrower”. Would you blindly follow someone if they were 40? It has nothing to do with age, but rather with maturity. For fifteen that boy was extremely mature, in my humble opinion. And just so you know, I’m nineteen and feel very strongly that I can intelligently argue my point, even though I may not have as much “experience” as some.
- Anonymous
  
  He does state an actual opinion: That protesting is not “brick throwing” and that students today are as ideological as we were in the sixties and seventies. Your suggestion that he is a “brick thrower” because he gathered with others to express his disagreement is exactly the problem he was speaking about. We have to passionately hold on to the right to disagree, even with the government and especially with the police.
- Anonymous
  
  The issue at hand is the right of the people to freely assemble. The opinion the speaker expresses in regard to this issue is that the people ought to have the right to freely assemble, and will not be intimidated into abdicating that right.
  
  I hope this clears up your confusion.
- Anonymous
  
  He is speaking in context, they are protesting cuts in the education budget. It is pretty clear.
- hattiesullivan
  
  ‘ His only point is that he feels really strongly about going on the streets to protest.’
  
  Well to be fair the treatment of students by the police and government when demonstrating has given us a lot to think about in terms of our rights (or lack of them). The police are trying to take away of democratic right to protest – and our rights not to be savagely beaten, contained in the freezing cold without food, water or toilets and our rights not to have our life threatened by truncheons or charging horses for simply being there, protesting. So he is making this point about our right to protest over making a point about government policy. What is happening on the streets as just as outrageous as what is happening in Parliament right now.
Rowan Parker

Are you sure he’s going off at the ‘establishment’? Sure it isn’t the government? The ‘establishment’ is, I assume, made up of adults with children. Surely there’s some children from the establishment that were protesting as well.
- Anonymous
  
  Do you live in some alternate reality where the government ISN’T part of the “establishment?”
Rayonic

Entities that can’t go out of business will demand more and more money to do the same amount of work. Seems to be a universal law.

And if they don’t get more money? They’ll stamp their feet and threaten to cut back the most popular and/or vital program they provide. As opposed to cutting down on management or pet projects or other superfluous wastes of resources.
Antinous / Moderator

Zunjine,

You’re off-topic and trolling.
- bmcraec
  
  I was just thinking that very thing, and then I read your post. Is there a distinction to make between gifted amateur trolls and professional foecal-matter entropists? Our learned colleague from Her Majesty’s sceptr’d isle has the ring of the latter, to these old eyes.
XenoTrout

Why does it matter what he had protested about? Whatever he happened to protest about on this particular day, he has likely protested about other issues in the past and will likely protest about the same and other issues in the future. Can’t someone speak about protest theory–here kettling as anti-protest psychological warfare, counter-strategy for protesters, and some ideas about media, youth and protesting–without need to mention the issue being protested? If you’re expecting him to argue the particular issue that he protested on that particular day, this singular speech will disappoint (though perhaps he has spoken or will speak about the issues he protests about on a different occasion), but I don’t think there was any need to argue the issue that he protested–perhaps because most of the students are already in agreement or perhaps that simply isn’t the topic of his speech–the content of his speech applies to protest about any issue and I think that was the whole point: be politically active and protest about the issues that matter to you, don’t be apathetic or frustrated and passive. Is there anything wrong with a speech about protest theory?

Here’s a description for a class about protest theory that I happened to find with a Google search: http://nyc.thepublicschool.org/class/2197

In case this whole “issue” thing is all that matters and “protesting” is not itself an acceptable issue: I’m a citizen of the United States of America who is in favor of higher taxes and against unreasonable detention, such as kettling non-violent protesters (is that protest as an issue?).
- Nick
  
  I understand your point and the comments certainly do appear devoid of any discussion about protesting however inherent in any protest is an issue as otherwise it would not be taking place. Discussion “about media, youth and protesting” is important but a lot of it would be informed by the issue at hand. For example, the fact that they are youths is clearly linked to the fact that they are protesting against university fee rises. Discussion of the issue also arises when talking about the level of violence; if the issue was less directly relevant to the youths would the protests have been more peaceful?
  - XenoTrout
    
    I’m no expert on protest theory, some of the points I’ve made in my previous comment (about particulars of protest strategy) may not be well refined, and others in favor of protest have different opinions on it, but the point I’ve mostly been trying to make is more about the validity of general and abstract protest theory (or theory of civil disobedience, political activism, or whatever you want to mark as the topic) disconnected from any particular issue, just as we can have abstract mathematics (disconnected from particular issues like tiling your bathroom floor with a non-periodic pattern and how much tile you’ll need to buy, or how to make sure the replacement Bay Bridge won’t collapse) and we can have political, diplomatic, self defense, and warfare theory and tactics without having to discuss them in the context of any particular issue or conflict. Certainly mathematics wouldn’t exist if engineering didn’t happen, and warfare wouldn’t exist if war didn’t, but the process and the execution are completely separable.
    - Ugly Canuck
      
      It is not the existence of war, but it is its necessity, which is at issue today.
- zunjine
  
  Fair point – that being said I do worry about the “our streets” bit. Who does he mean when he says “our”. He certainly isn’t speaking for me or the vast majority of people who were in London and were inconvenienced and put in harms way by the acts of violence that the ULU President has refused to condemn.
  
  There are many ways to be politically active – why is it that most students don’t vote yet so many are willing to march and a minority are willing to commit violence?
  - XenoTrout
    
    Fifteen-year-old students don’t vote? Those apathetic idiots!
    Unless I’ve missed something, voting age in the UK is still 18, despite attempts to lower it to 16. I can certainly see that among students (and at least in the US, people in general) over 18 there is an underprioritization of voting, which is really something someone should do something about (and various people and organizations have been trying to deal with for quite a while). Some say that voting is actually bad and should be avoided and I call those people idiots. Voting and protesting, however, are not mutually exclusive (though sometimes people protest because they cannot vote, at least on the issue they are protesting about).
    
    Fair point about alternatives to protest. I’m certainly not in favor of violent protest and when a campaign less disruptive than protest is as or more effective I favor that. But I think that “our” streets are the protestors’ (at least as individuals) as they are the non-protestors’–even those who don’t vote and don’t have taxes to pay. They are a shared resource typically used for transportation but occasionally disrupted by various events (parades, festivals, protests, and others). Disruption is inconvenient but it gets people to pay attention. A large number of steet-”owners” have decided that getting people to pay attention in order to highlight what they think is a very important issue is more important than the typical flow of traffic. Whether or not that’s fair or legal is a personal and regional issue. Shutting down enough transportation infrastructure to make travel impossible is more serious and I think should be considered more carefully, if not simply avoided. I certainly think it would be a nice courtesy to allow those not involved in the protest to pass through (sure, more slowly than otherwise, but that’s just due to congestion) and the protest be more spectacle than obstruction. If protesters obstruct (rather than simply slow by congestion) or detain non-protesters, that’s aggression. There’s a parallel in police activity obstructing or detaining non-violent protesters. Disruption becoming violent is almost universally unfair and illegal (and the ULU should have said something about that).
  - bytefyre
    
    I imagine that students don’t vote because, if British politicians are anything like Canadian politicians they are mostly, cowards, sellouts and liars and the ones that aren’t have little power.
Jonathan

Great delivery though. He really nails the cadence, at one point slightly rocking back and forth with his words.
puppetvision

I haven’t read every comment posted here, but I suspect several echo what I’m about to say…I agree with Cory that this student is an excellent speaker and his passion is commendable, but he’s really just expressing a passion for protesting and not proposing any real, practical solutions.

Protests and passion for social justice is admirable (and I believe in both), but it’s not enough to protest against something, you have to be able to articulate a vision for practical, workable alternatives to the status quo.

I consider myself centre-left and was at the G20 protests in Toronto last summer. This fellow reminds me of many of the young protesters I met there. They were angry, they were passionate, but unfortunately many (not all) were bereft of any real understanding of public policy and economics and didn’t have any tangible solutions to offer for the issues they were protesting against.

There are many brilliant people on the left who have excellent policy ideas. It’s just been my experience that the people with better, smarter ideas tend to spend more time thinking, talking and asking questions than marching in the streets and shouting.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Analysis must be followed by synthesis: that is, to be effective, protest MUST communicate suggestion(s) as to how to either change the world, or to change our conduct, or both, in order to change for the better the policy or situation being protested.
  
  So much the better, if the course suggested is practicable, and if it would tend to further or advance the perceived self-interests of those whose behavior will need to change!
- timso
  
  The first and the most important thing he says is that we (as I am young) do care despite of expectations that was set for our generation. This speech is just celebrating that. Isn’t it great that we care?
  
  So.. Practical solutions to celebrate that i care and i am not alone with my thoughts? Maybe bottle of bubbly with my friends and to the dance floor. Just kidding!
  
  It is quite good note about facebook.. Like -button is the first and the lowest step to show I care and see how many shares my opinion. Social media just teaches people to participate. This also is worth of celebrating.
  
  Next thing is to alter the old (legal) ways of protest, because they don’t work. Practical solution is to claim small piece of land independent and try to get approval from the goverment. After you have gotten the permission you can start make your own rules. That is also quite good way to test new practical solutions. This is ofcourse only example of artistic protest.
  
  Or it can be something like Wochen klausur did back in the days.
  
  Or something so radical that just ignoring the issue and finding the solution from the internet.
librarianguish

I think it’s great a 15 year old can speak so eloquently. He may not have a sophisticated level of oration, but he’s speaking to his experience as a sudent protester and it has obviously inspired him!
Anonymous

Boy knows his audience. Regardless of politics, I wish I could speak like that at 15.

Let’s hope he doesn’t turn into another totally committed ‘right or wrong’ country invader like Blair.
ultranaut

Kids are alright man.
Anonymous

His passion and eloquence (comparative to any average 15 yr old) are quite good. Its impressive that he can speak so clearly while obviously emotionally charged.

However….I heard nothing in his speech about WHAT he is fighting for…simply that his generation will fight. Well, that sounds more like an average teenager to me…as someone above put it: Piss and Vinegar. He sounds like he wants to rebel against ANYTHING the “establishment” and authority is telling him is right or good for him.

Well, I tell me kids to eat their veggies and not eat too much junk food…riot in the streets anyone? I also keep on them to complete their homework, and that school work and grades come before sports, video games, play, etc etc. Does this require a sit in or protest?

Look, I hear his passion regarding always being told what to do and that sometimes if not all times you need to question authority and ask “Is this the right thing to do? Is this the best thing to do?” But not everything requires protest and adamant vitriol. Sometimes acceptance is required. Trust is needed, even without agreement or understanding.

I love the line uttered by Frasier’s character in “Blast from the past” to his father played by Walken…

Dad: Son, I don’t understand.
Adam: I know dad, but I am asking you to trust me without understanding.
Dad: In that case, of course son.

Silly movie sure, but that…THAT…is the lesson that should be carried from it. Parents do their job to raise children to be good adults. And then we have to trust they know whats best, even if we don’t understand.

I always tell my 3 kids…”If you hate my guts when you are 30, if you can’t stand to be in the same room as me, if you are any religious denomination or sexual persuasion, if you have chosen a career I completely despise, if all the strife and conflict imaginable is standing as a towering inferno between us….but, BUT you are a good person, an upstanding member of your community, and advocate for the weak, and a proponent of equality, fairness, and justice. Then I did my job, and everything else is inconsequential.”

I TRUST that this young man’s parents or adult influences are helping to mold him. Helping to funnel his talents and strengths properly. Spitting at the wind regardless of how passionate it seems, is still pointless.
Ernunnos

It’s nice to want things.
Kwekubo

Sounds like Barnaby to me too.
Anonymous

And to all of those idiots who say he provided nothing concrete: you people are outrageous. If your methods worked, we’d not be in this mess. I assume you are the activists of today, enmeshed in power, my generation, slackers as always. How dare you not come out in full support of the energy behind this kid? Outrageous.
Nylund

Good for him. He’s doing exactly what kids should be doing. Speaking up and questioning his elders.
Anonymous

If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding, if you don’t eat your meat?
- manicbassman
  
  “Anon
  
  If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding.
  How can you have any pudding, if you don’t eat your meat?”
  
  oh how so ironic given who they caught swinging from a flag on the Cenotaph the other day…
  
  PS. the guy’s name is most definitely Baranaby…
  
  I admire his guts, I’ll fight for his right to express himself, however, I believe the British public should be fighting to escape from the stranglehold of Europe and voting for UKIP to get out and to merely be a member of the European Econimic area like Norway is and not a member of the European Union (of socialist republics).
  
  Please take a look at just how many high positions have been taken by former members of former soviet republics… the EU has been taken from within by the old Soviets…
  
  All three main parties are not acting in the main interests of their voters but instead are determined to lead us further into an inextricable mess.
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    Yeah, and Texas and California ought to leave the USA, too.
endymion

Absolutely inspiring. Very articulate and charismatic speaker. Some people just have it, and he has it.

What are they fighting against again?
HereticGestalt

Late to the party, but God what a perfect object demonstration that commenters always miss the point.

Anyone who thinks this wasn’t a fucking fantastic piece of oratory has never attempted serious public speaking. From experience, it is impossible to do something like this, especially at the age of 15, without bringing an amazing level of passion and skill to the table. If your only response to this is snide derogatory comments and ideological sniping, fuck you. Fuck you. I’ve debated with some of the best student speakers in the US, and I guarantee you that none of them would fail to pay respect to this kid’s strength and eloquence.

Get em, killer.
jphilby

Sounds like Barnaby to me three.
misadventures213

Amen. Content aside, this is polished rhetoric style — parallelism, anaphora, epistrophe, symploce.
- Anonymous
  
  I love the way you feel you just have to explain everything he did to prove you’re as clever as he is. He’s a pretty damn clever 15 year old, and he’s lucky. Best of luck to him and hope it works.
Anonymous

Definitely and clearly said “Barnaby.” I’m from north Louisiana, so I have an ear for this.
Ugly Canuck

I think 15 year olds should be immediately given the vote.
It is simply impossible that they could do a worse, more immature job of exercising their franchise than their elders have done.
hadlock

Great video. Keep tabs on this kid, I would love to hear more about his speaking carrer. Cory lives in the UK now, right? Revive your boingboing.tv and have Cory interview him(!)
bmcraec

I missed writing “is evil and stupid” after the parenthetical aside in the first paragraph. Sorry.
HeavyManners

It’s strange how something as inspiring as this speech can be so glibly dismissed… perhaps some of you are happy to give up so easily, luckily he isn’t.

The chap’s name is Barnaby Raine, co-convenor of School Students Against the War, and to suggest that he doesn’t have a grasp of the issues seems a startling misrepresentation of the facts. He seems to have been politically active since at least the age of 13

Here he is at the ‘Time to Go’ Troops out of Afghanistan demonstration & rally on Saturday 20th November, 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zy8J0to8qE
- osmo
  
  Hats off to Barnaby Raine then :D
  
  The only sad thing is that for some time now generation after generation have had to experience this first hand and sort of re-invent the wheel.
dan_coop

Sounds a bit like a Toff to me, I think he goes to Westminster School, one of the most expensive schools in the country. It’s nice that he is campaigning for students who are in a much worse off position, he won’t have any problem getting into Oxford himself.

If he only had some ideas on how to get out of this situation where the Government has no money and has to make cuts, then his speech would have had more impact rather than just saying he wanted no cuts whatsoever.

I think it’s great that the students are standing up and making a point, however it just makes me cringe when you have David Gilmour’s son hanging off the Cenotaph and people pissing on the statue of Winston Churchill which are representations of the people who stood up and died in great numbers in the fight against fascism.

Good luck to him though I’m sure we’ll be seeing much more of him in the future, hopefully it’ll be people like this guy who can figure a way out of this mess.
lewisjamieson

definitely barnaby
Anonymous

He’s certainly a great speaker.
As others have pointed out his message is rather unsophisticated, but that will come with age and he is clearly a bit of a toff, but then so is Tony Benn.

I did find it slightly disturbing that in rhythm, word choice and accent he sounds like a young Tony Blair from the days when he was still more Anakin than Vader.

I wonder if it will end up being endlessly referred to like the adolescent William Hague’s Tory conference speech when he inevitably ends up as a political figure.
- Anonymous
  
  ..it’s a little Tony Blair…Noooooooo!
- libraryboi
  
  Beat me to the Hague reference. The UK does seem to produce inspiring young orators. Watch a 16-year-old conservative version from 1977.
  
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7010000/newsid_7012000?redirect=7012090.stm&news=1&bbram=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&nbwm=1&asb=1
HeavyManners

Interesting dan_coop, you attack Raine for “Sound[ing] a bit like a Toff” and then act outraged that someone pisses on a statue of the Harrow-educated Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS.

That would be the same Churchill who suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners and claimed that the fascism of Benito Mussolini had “rendered a service to the whole world,” showing, as it had, “a way to combat subversive forces”, calling Mussolini the “Roman genius… the greatest lawgiver among men.”?
zunjine

I don’t really hear much mention of social justice. He’s a good speaker and he’s clearly angry about ‘cuts’. Odd because that seems to suggest that spending more is always good. After all, the opposit to cuts is to continue to spend money. So you spend money. Why? Surely the question is who’s money it is and what you spend it on. Let us not forget that spending more also means… yes, that’s right… taxing more! I wonder how many would cheer if he got up and said “more taxes now!”.

This is the most annoying part of this entire argument. The assumption that cuts are always bad. I expect he’d be very happy to see massive cuts to the military budget, for example, because war is ‘bad’. But then we’ve got lots of soldiers out of work. Of course it’s not just soldiers. It’s mechanics, doctors, drivers, computer programmers and so on. So they don’t want us to not cut. They just don’t want cuts to things they happen to like.

Would they perhaps like a state who’s spending accounts for something like 100% of GDP. That’s the best way, right? Then no one is out of work and these wonderful and fair minded politicians get to decide exactly what happens with all the money. Can’t have any cuts because all the money belongs to the government! Perfect! Wait… that sounds a bit like Communism to me. Now how did that work out for the USSR? Of course there are examples where it’s working really well. China, for example. No cuts in China. Of course you also have no freedom and can be imprisoned for writing a blog… Hhhmmm… OK, North Korea! Wait… no. This isn’t looking so great is it?

I wonder if perhaps this lot should start being a bit more up front about what it is they do want rather than shouting so much about what they don’t want. Eh? After all, we can all point at stuff we don’t like and get all upset about it. That’s not hard. But if they admitted to the world that what they really want is a Communist state with a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ pehaps one or two might decide they don’t really care for that sort of thing.

Yeah – they might not admit it if you asked them but make no mistake; these ‘revolutionaries’ (they really do start them young don’t they!) are the same misguided fools who took Russia in 1917. It’s all ‘fight the power’ now but what happens when they are the power? Such certainty and self righteous anger doesn’t mix well with real responsibility.

One final note – it’s interesting to see that this ‘solidarity’ from the students really kicked in when it came to the cost of going to university. None of them went marching when they cut Child Benefits for high rate tax payers did they? Where were the marches when the level of housing benefit was capped? Such genuin solidarity and yet it only shows up when something that directly impacts something that matters to them comes along. How very odd.
- plingboot
  
  I think in all honesty we can assume that war is bad, illegal wars certainly are! Poor out of work soliders? Really? Perhaps they could go into education instead.
  
  I never fail to be amused at some american opionions of british politics, even the moderate people seem to be somewhat right leaning and never far from spouting Communism, Socialism and Dictators! Argh!
  
  Listen, I don’t think tax is such a dirty word in britain. I’d happily pay more knowing it was put to good use. What is good use? You can’t beat education (along with healthcare a basic human right (at least in britain)). You’ve got to realise that the ‘state’ didn’t just magically start helping people one day, there were decades of hard won reforms. LEts not be so keen to lose what we’ve spent so long fighting for, lets not go back to the 19th century were the disadvantaged were in the hands of unscrupilious individuals and charity.
  
  You clearly think the dollar is better spent when it’s in your pocket (a Thatcherite motto). I’d disagree, sure you’ll be able to buy more crud from the mall for yourself with that tax you avoided; We can’t afford the truly important purchases, not individually anyway.
  
  Britain is a small country, I think our government is generally smaller and more accountable. I can visit my MP and I know she will work for me and take my concerns on board. Therefore, even with the current lot, I’m much happier with my government ( open to scrutiny under the FOIA) being in charge of say, a health system or university fee system than a private company that are neither elected, accountable nor covered by the FOIA, and are governed by an impenetrable network of financial interests.
  
  We expect our government to do what we elected them to do, if they don’t we rightly kick off. Which is why this topic is so (Both Clegg and Cameron famously pledged not to increase tutition fees) What’s currently happening is more in line of the dictatorship you warn of.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  War is the greatest of evils, and is the mother of many of the lesser evils: apparently, you’re simply ignoring what our modern weapons are now capable of.
  
  War is obsolete.
  
  The current wars are unjust wars which will eventually essentially alter or destroy the societies which commenced them.
  
  Your did not responfd to this:
  
  “I think in all honesty we can assume that war is bad, illegal wars certainly are! Poor out of work soliders? Really? Perhaps they could go into education instead.”
  
  Instead, you express your umbrage at being called an American, and then start saying that there have been “good wars”.
  
  I say that all such were in fact started by “bad people”…have you a counter-example from history?
  
  Who started the present wars?
  - Ugly Canuck
    
    And the justice or otherwise of past wars has NO bearing or relevance whatsoever on or to the answer to the question of whether or not the PRESENT wars are just, or wise, or useful.
    
    Don’t be changing the topic to “war” in general or in the abstract: we’re talking THESE wars. None other!
  - zunjine
    
    tk n mbrg t bng clld mrcn. mrly ntd m nt.
    
    K – wld y sy, fr xmpl, whn th S nd th K wnt t wr t stp th gncd n th frmr Yglsv tht w shld hv mrly styd t? Tht ws ‘gd’ wr n s mch s t ws rght fr s t fght t.
    
    Whn w chs t fght th Nzs rthr thn ccpt Htlr’s ffr t dvd p th wrld wth Grmny kpng rp nd th K mntng t’s mpr n s nd frc, ws tht wrng? W hd, m sr, mny rsns t rjct hs ffr bt t th cntr f t th mn wh wnt t fght nd wh dd n dng s fght bcs thy blvd tht th Nzs hd t b stppd. Ws tht ‘bd’ wr?
    
    Whn th mrcns fght th ‘Wr f ndpnc’ gnst Brtsh rl wr thy ‘bd ppl’?
    
    Wr tslf s nt ‘gd’ bt t s ls nt lwys ‘bd’ t fght. D y ssm tht w wld s n nd t wr f th K dcdd t stp fghtng thm? D y blv tht? f crs y dn’t. Wr s nt gd r bd, s sd, t s fct f lf. nyn wh rgs thrws rlly nds t chck t ny gvn prd f hmn hstry.
    
    ls, lt s nt frgt tht sldrs d thngs thr thn fght wrs. Ys, rms r fr wr frst nd frmst bt thy ls ndrtk hmntrn wrk n tms f ntrl dsstrs nd d pckpng dts. n fr wrld thr wll lwys b cnflct – lt s nt b nv bt t.
    
    Lf s cmplctd – fct tht th mst dngrsly tpn mng s r lwys kn t gnr.
- Anonymous
  
  you’d be surprised how many people would be willing to pay more taxes, who care about people other than those they directly provide for.
  
  just a pity there aren’t more.
- brian rutherford
  
  Zunjine, such a long post suggets that you are not merely trolling so I’ll take a stab at replying:
  
  “Let us not forget that spending more also means… yes, that’s right… taxing more!”
  
  He’s not asking that we raise taxes. I didn’t hear that in his speech. Putting those words in his mouth is a well known trick and I don’t think anyone here will fall for it.
  
  “They just don’t want cuts to things they happen to like.”
  
  If you were a nurse or a lorry driver or a doctor its your right to stand up and protest if you don’t like something. It might annoy you that students are standing up for themselves but its their right.
  
  ….as for the rest of your post. Well I don’t really know what to say. Education is a basic right in the UK. It should be accessible to all rich and poor. How you got from his passionate defense of this to the fact that he wants us all to live in a communist state is quite a jump. The fact that you showed you have some understanding of communism by your quoting Lenin suggests that your just a troll or , ironically, you need some more education.
vinegartom

Now if we could just get American kids to do something other than hold their parent’s protest signs I might have some real sense of hope. Beyond that: Bravo!
ln2961

I think it’s a pretty elitist when he makes the gag about needing a university education to avoid ending up in a police uniform. The police aren’t the enemy, that’s the problem with all these demos, they descend into fights between protesters and police, but it isn’t the police who make policies. The police force is comprised of working men and women who deserve respect just the same as everyone else does. His gag is really snobby, the opposite surely of the ideals he’s supposedly espousing.
- Anonymous
  
  It’s just a fact! In many countries when people can’t afford education there are just not able to get a job and end up in police or army!
Germanico

I have a college education, and I did ended up in a police uniform. Those policemen over there where also in that place because the believed in something. They also stood up for what they believed in.

I too admire his eloquence and passion, but belittling hard working men will not get my sympathy.
Anonymous

People ranting about the boy having no position on how to solve problem: He does not need to. That’s not his scope of speech here. Main point is this: It is not understandable that in an economy that is growing constantly for more than 50 years things are getting worse on education and social justice. I do not know where that money resulting from ever increasing efficiency is going, but I know for sure it exists. He doesn’t need to know where it is, he just needs to ask where it is, and why a goverments deems it to be the best option to cut on people that do not have money or political power.

That’s it.
Joseph Hertzlinger

He’s 15?

Hand him a copy of Atlas Shrugged (capitalism explained in such a way that an adolescent can understand it). Next year, he’ll be on the other side.
- sdmikev
  
  Heh. Atlas Shrugged was WRITTEN by someone with the mind of a teenager (if that). Her whole damn life she suffered from arrested development given her idiotic beliefs.
  The claptrap I’m reading in this comment section from people trying to tear this kid down is really amazing.
  Hard to believe there are so many people reading boing boing that appear to have quite a peasant mentality..
  Or the other nit pickers with their silly lofty BS.
  We need more kids like this one. The end. You’re wrong if you believe otherwise.
Ugly Canuck

Education is not an investment, but a duty, an obligation.
baph

“Cory, you said ‘social justice’ twice.”
“I really *like* social justice.”
floraldeoderant

I sincerely don’t mean to just flame you, but when ‘standing up for what you believe in’ means locking your children and your neighbor’s children outside in the freezing night… You need to find something different to believe in.
- floraldeoderant
  
  Aw fail. That was meant to be in reply to Germanico #84.
andrewvt@alumni.uwaterloo.ca

To me, it sounds like the kid knows the words, but not what they mean. No much beyond fight authority because that’s what you’re supposed to do.
Shift

Some of the comments on here are depressing.

Why is it that the protests of our parents in the 60s and 70s are lauded and aclaimed, but when our generation demands the same rights our parents enjoyed we’re demeaned and threatened?
Anonymous

Making long, loud, formulaic speeches, repeating time-tested rhetorical memes that have saturated our culture since the ’60s, is a great way to get lots of attention. And kids are highly motivated to get attention. And, despite older folks’ doublethinkful expectations, casual observation will verify many teens are damn good at talking, rapidly and with great complexity. On the other hand the characteristics of teen speech that most annoy grown-ups (e.g. repetition and clichÃ©) turn into assets in a public oration. So:

Yes, this is a speech. Is it an amazing speech? No, it’s just a speech, until and unless it leads to somebody actually changing something. At that point there will be an objective basis to look backward at the whole campaign and determine whether it was “amazing,” or just a formalized rite of young adult initiation.