If you’re going to get six months for slow walking then you may as well make it six months for hurling rocks at Rishi Sunak.
I’d respect that a lot more than what they’re currently doing.
Well shit at this point the British need to protest the laws around protest.
As much as I loathe the civil disobedience tactics of movements like Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion; I feel like attacking our freedom to protest like this is going to backfire.
This may push such groups into radicalism because “we’re going to prison anyway, may as well go all the way.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A climate activist has been jailed for six months after pleading guilty to taking part in a peaceful slow march protest on a London road.
The sentence handed to Stephen Gingell, 57, is thought to be the first jailing under a new law that critics say makes anyone walking in a road liable for prosecution for “interference with key national infrastructure”.
Gingell, a father of three from Manchester, was one of about 40 supporters of Just Stop Oil who spent about 30 minutes marching on Holloway Road in north London at about 4pm on 12 November, the climate campaign group said.
The campaign’s “guerrilla tactics” were cited by the Home Office when it introduced the Public Order Act’s tough new anti-protest measures to parliament.
Police began using section 7 to tackle Just Stop Oil’s protests at the end of October, arresting 60 people taking part in a march in Parliament Square.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023, a law drafted by the fossil fuel lobby, was introduced in April by Priti Patel, and covers ‘interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure’.
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These people keep causing problems and inconveniencing everyone except the people that actually have the influence to do what they want.
The only thing they have accomplished is making “Just Stop” people look like clowns, and making everyone else dislike them and their message.
Just Stop Oil activists are among the worlds ultimate clowns.
…but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action‘ …
Do you realize they blocked the road in front of an oil refinery before this?
Or you could say these protestors are regularly getting in headlines, showing that there’s an escalating culture of absolute rejection of social mores so long as major, vital changes don’t happen. Creating serious problems for bureaucrats and elected officials that forces a response that often makes those officials and bureaucrats look like assholes.
The protests are factually inconveniencing and causing problems for people that have the influence to get policy changed, at least so long as democracy is functional. You aren’t going to be able to protest an oil magnate. They are not accessible for protest.
Your thesis is that people will vote against climate protestors just because they were late getting to work one day. If that’s correct, we may as well get out the Flavor-Aid because this world’s beyond saving. Everyone needs to be reminded and thinking about this crisis. Every day. It needs to be front and center. Time is running out. We have the solutions needed to avoid catastrophe, but too many are simply not aware and thinking about how terrible the danger is and need daily reminding.
We seem to be forgetting that protests once involved burning down neighborhoods and executing rulers. Which really is what we should be doing, given the enormity of the problem. This is a more civil compromise. Don’t buy into the media powers that want to turn you against anyone expressing discontent.
If the Earth Day protests happened today, the media narrative around them would be “Look at all these fuckers, on the streets, stopping me from getting to the gas station to buy a Slim Jim!” It’s fucked. The attitude is fucked.
The protests are factually inconveniencing and causing problems for people that have the influence to get policy changed, at least so long as democracy is functional.
The only policy they are affecting is the policy on jaywalking.
If the Earth Day protests happened today, the media narrative around them would be “Look at all these fuckers, on the streets, stopping me from getting to the gas station to buy a Slim Jim!” It’s fucked. The attitude is fucked.
Yes, that is the effect that JSO is achieving with their idiocy. They are fucking that attitude right into the general public.
Every-time this is said I always think of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gje3HiouzvQ
Agreed they should show up to the oil executives houses drag their families out in the street and hang them from the streetlights from shortest to tallest.
What are they going to do put them in prison? The same thing they do for a slow walking.
They did attack trucks at oil refineries. Do you know what the lasting impact was? Nothing. It didn’t even make the news.
No need to involve the families. Just take the executives out back.
Those aren’t children. They’re heirs.
I’d actually respect that more than what they are currently doing.
The only people who fall for this propaganda from upholders of the status quo are ignorant of history. Here’s a quote from Martin Luther King that I think is very relevant:
First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
You’re quite right, they never go after the politicians, or anyone with actual power. It’s always the average guy that ends up copping it.
@Ilovethebomb @RightHandOfIkaros The higher level politicians are better defended. It is often necessary to strike at targets that are both high value and soft. For every general secure in their fortress there are a dozen war profiteers just begging to be dragged to the front to clear their own mines.
For every general secure in their fortress there are a dozen war profiteers just begging to be dragged to the front to clear their own mines.
People driving to work aren’t the enemy.
Why not?
@Ilovethebomb The big multinational oil companies ARE-and their execs and those of their major stockholders have names and addresses.
Since peaceful protests are getting so much whining about an obstruction less than that created by a minor functionary’s motorcade and now prosecution, I suggested targetting those execs personally as we did over HLS. Tell Shell etc to “Ask the FBI about Huntingdon Life Sciences”(they are US based but have offices globally).
I would respect that a lot more than what they’re currently doing.
They go after politicians and people with actual power all the time. You ignored it because it didn’t inconvenience you.
Like when?
Like when they blocked the road in front of the oil refinery.
OK, fair enough.
Good
How have we forgotten that an oil heiress is behind just stop oil ??
What? Who? And why ?
It’s not really true, see: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/22/just-stop-oil-van-gogh-national-gallery-aileen-getty
This is one donor, not “the person behind”. The family made a lot of money on oil and has since entirely divested. The “heiress” in question is on the record saying she believes climate change threatens all of civilization and so she wants to put her fortune – especially given that a lot of it came from oil – to use stopping fossil fuels.
It’s basically EXACTLY what a sane person with a functional moral compass should do in that position, but it’s used as attack and slander regardless. Threads like this you ALWAYS see the right-wing talking points parroted faithfully by people who are either too gullible to do basic fact-checking or else are flatly disingenuous and manipulative.
Reminds me of vegans stopping and harassing people going to like a restaurant or fastfood chain.
There is a right way to do and wrong way to do it. Making people mad isn’t going to help the cause, but push them in the wrong direction.
The suffragettes put acid in postboxes, chained themselves to railings, and bombed the Chancellor of the Exchecquer’s house.
A few years ago, I read about how Mary Molony was an Irish Suffragette who disrupted a speech Winston Churchill was giving in Dundee by ringing a bell every time he tried to speak. She wanted him to apologise for remarks he had made about the women’s suffrage movement.
I remember when I read this, it reeked of something awesome that you find online that’s actually false (the story was shared on social media via a captioned photo with no sources), so I went digging for a proper source to check. I found some newspaper articles from 1908 and I learned that this event did happen, but also that people fucking hated Molony for this. There was a lot of “see, this is why everyone hates the Suffragettes”. (Sorry for saying this and then not sourcing)
It makes sense that people would be salty - Churchill was an asshole, but also a great orator, so I can see why one might be disappointed in missing the chance to see him speak, but I was shocked at the level of vitriol aimed at Molony and other Suffragettes from the time. Until this I hadn’t realised just how unpopular they were at the time. It’s drastically changed my perspective on protests and public perception.
And what’s interesting is that the suffragists (Millicent Fawcett chief among them) were at the same time working to peacefully lobby for suffrage, and yet they are not remembered remotely as much as the suffragettes.
What I personally believe is that the more militant wings of movements work best when they are bringing into focus something that the public already broadly believes. When people say ‘I agree with their point, but not their methods’, they’re doing a whole lot of discussion of your issue, and agreeing with your message.
At the same time I think you do need the quiet lobbying to be done to effectively push for specific legislation. Both a carrot to offer government an easy path, and a stick to keep it in the public spotlight.
Do EVERYONE a favor and pick up a history book at least ONCE in your sad little life.
The only people who say this are people who are ignorant of history. Here’s a quote from Martin Luther King that I think is very relevant:
First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Hey at least you’re unarmed and can’t fight back against your fascist government when they take your rights.
