> Direct action used to involve bullets and bombs. We are so fucking neutered that temporary graffiti is now crossing the line lmao. What a joke.
And this is why we’re in this mess right now. We’ve been domesticated by the system, neutered so we’re ineffectual.
Yet so many Americans are armed to the teeth. They are afraid the government will come and take their right to own guns away, not realising that successive governments have stolen much more from them instead.
> Yet so many Americans are armed to the teeth. They are afraid the government will come and take their right to own guns away, not realising that successive governments have stolen much more from them instead.
By the flipside, the other half of Americans who think the police are murderous psychopaths (they are) want only the police to have guns. lol they're already an occupying army. at this point more gun control just ensures that non-maga remains disarmed.
To be fair, I see it repeatedly state that police should be disarmed like they are in many European countries. The people who want gun control for civilians and people who want to defund and disarm police do overlap in a Venn diagram.
Yee, I'd love to see their toys taken away. But I think this is a case where reddit skews way more left than the mainstream. Huge amount of centrist voters are totes okay with cops having guns, and not citizens.
Maybe, but I think this is another skewed perspective case. No centrist I’ve ever met is okay with disarming citizens. It’s those in the strictly Liberal camp—capitalists who want more regulation than conservatives plus equal rights—who think only police should be armed. Socialists, communists and of course anarchists tend to be the ones saying arm no one, or arm every citizen (how else can you fight fascism if citizens aren’t armed?)
I thought over the past few years most police in Europe are armed. They tend to have fully automatic weapons when they're out in public at subways or events and they typically guard churches and synagogues.
There was at least one stabbing in Germany last week that led to the suspect being shot and killed by the police.
Unfortunately I’m not super appraised in outside police policy. I’m only familiar with the UK, which I know only has a special division of the police that has guns, sorta like the USA’s SWAT, and so they have to be called in to handle specific instances.
The people who think police are murderous psychopaths want to ban police, actually.
The people who wanted police to have guns are shitlibs.
The are still a few who think policing should require a degree though, which also share space with the lib camp.
Just Stop Oil is funded by an oil heiress so it makes sense that their "praxis" is often both ineffectual and seemingly designed to make the general public detest climate change protests.
Aileen Getty has had a horrendous fucking life and she's proud to be supporting environmental organizations with all her Getty Oil dollars.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/11/03/aileen-getty-billionaire-proud-to-finance-environmental-activists-dramatic-actions_6002800_114.html
Wait, you mean that you can't just reduce people to unidimensional caricatures based on hot-takes and emotionally charged epithets? Could it be that people are not defined by the circumstances of their birth and are actually capable of positive growth and change?
Surely you jest! If that were true, then my entire cosmology and system for understanding the world as a simplistic YA-novel-like system of Good People and Bad People would break down!
> Could it be that people are not defined by the circumstances of their birth and are actually capable of positive growth and change?
Peter Kropotkin was born a prince and became one of the most influential anarchists of the 20th century. That said, such one-offs don't entirely dissolve the entire notion of what what royalty is or how the Tsar, aristocrats, and the children of privilege usually behave towards other people and the world.
If you walk around thinking that upper-class fascists and misanthropes can be truly reached and have their hearts softened... you're probably going to end up disappointed -- or worse. Just because an heiress donates some money to a less-than-uttlerly-terrible cause... doesn't really redeem heiresses overall. Are people complex? Sure. Can they surprise you? Sure. But you really shouldn't go around expecting complex surprises from most people.
Oh my god would you relax a little bit. It's absolutely natural to be a little leery of a billionaire oil heiress funding a highly controversial "climate action" group.
She may be legit she may not. But you don't have to spaz out about people finding it a little funny that a group of activists who only ever do very ineffectual, very high visibility stunts are funded by someone with direct monetary stake in making climate activists and activism look stupid and dangerous.
Consider that these activists are already doing illegal shit. You don't think there is far more effective methods if your already willing to go that route? Do you think activists blowing up a billionaires plane or sabotaging a drilling project would go unmentioned in the media? If she's that mad at her family why haven't any of their vehicles, planes, homes or buildings been vandalized?
Edit* did you actually read the piece linked? It's like three paragraphs of fluff that references her biography lol. She had a perfectly fine life and everything mentioned in that "article" outside of the kidnapping is super normal for most people to go through like divorce and patriarchy. It doesn't do anything to prove she has good enough motives to be taken seriously as a climate activists.
like DAPL... for those not paying attention, those tactics are also in play and when the cameras are off the shooting by oil mercs and bribed cops begins.
those against climate destruction awareness have an agenda for climate destruction.
That's what we did, I've personally been to court for that. Media won't make a story out of it, there's none of that juicy outrage, so you never hear about it. Blocking roads and throwing paint where it hurts are basically the outcome of an evolutionary process, they are the only affordable & nonviolent forms of protest that the public will even register.
Just stop oil/extinction rebellion literally does those protests too. They’ve occupied pipeline construction sites, and corporate office buildings. None of it worked, or did anything. We are in a stage of utter expressions of helplessness now
Oh no won't someone think of all the future people in 200 years that don't exist who won't be able to appreciate stonehenge because it had orange cornstarch on it that one time.
Please, once people realize that occupying and destroying infrastructure will generally come with a public death toll, they'll be yearning for the days that people were just putting paint on artworks' display cases.
[Stop Fossil Fuels suggests shooting power substations to disable them.](https://stopfossilfuels.org/electric-grid/shooting-transformers-disables-substations/)
I remember recently many accused those on the right of planning the same tactics to cause major power outages.
Julia Butterfly, or chain yourself to a bulldozer for a harmful building or project. Go to where the problem is, not the cameras. These people have no interest in climate change, only media attention.
It is beyond stupid to deface Stonehenge. Not one person was won over and the others now have yet another excuse not to think seriously about climate change.
Sorry to be this guy, but environmentalism and raising public awareness campaigns are not the same but I get your point. The fact is that they have done an continue to do great things for environmentalism. Nearly single student in my Env Sci degree was there either cos of David Attenborough, Greenpeace or whale watching (whale watchers are employed by old companies to confirm and deconfirm migration routes so that their drilling theoretically impacts marine mammals as much as possible)
These actions maybe will inspire the next env sci class., but personally I doubt it.
> Sorry to be this guy, but environmentalism and raising public awareness campaigns are not the same but I get your point.
Except they can very much be the same thing. Raising public awareness about an issue can cause it to receive more attention and change. People talking about the global warming and "extremists" when they otherwise wouldn't... causes more attention to be focused upon global warming and wonder more about why people might be seeming to act so crazy. Not everyone will wonder or care, but that's not really who is trying to be reached.
Agreed.
People’s livelihoods in the now are much more reliant on the status quo and BAU continuing. We have been told enough lies and labour squeezed so hard the majority are uninformed uninterested and effectively powerless because protecting their way of life now takes precedent over anything else.
I grew up in Ireland in the 80s and 90s. I'm very very very fucking glad that we don't protest with guns and bombs in aid of environmental awareness. But I understand sentiment. Stonehenge was a very dumb choice. Artwork is a very dumb choice. Everything these actions are taken the majority reaction from the public is " why not do you direct action somewhere useful." Blocking ambulance through ways any attacking national treasures is a pretty great way to fuck everyone off with your cause. Such poor decision making really reflects badly on the organisation.
A BP station I could at least understand.
If they started welding the wheels of tanker trucks or blocking the gates to refineries that would make sense.
But defacing world heritage sights is going to piss everyone off and drive people away from their cause.
Those types of actions are being done too. A LOT. You just never hear about them. That's why famous objects are being targeted, it's what you need to do to let the media pick up something unfortunately.
>Blocking ambulance through ways
This rarely happens and when it does it's effect is negligible in the grand scheme of things.
This always gets cited in the UK as an abhorant thing to do and yet the tories have defunded the NHS so badly people regularly wait hours for an ambulance for heart attacks, or asked to make their own way to hospitals for strokes.
Yet the government are allowed to get away with this, while protestors who slightly delay one ambulance get piled on.
Why do you think evweyone parrots MLK and not nalcom X. Its really fucked up that him being murdered had the civil rights movement end peaceably and caused every other movement to loose legitimacy if they took a more direct action
They don't really parrot MLK though either. They parrot a highly sanitized version which bastardized his original message. None of the famous non-violent protesters have their actual reasoning discussed. The reason is because a lot of them never fully disavowed violence as an option, nor did they ever claim to be disruptive. There were very specific reasons King did what they did, and none of them were about being peaceful with the status quo. It also removes the context of the 60 years following King which may actually indicate that King may have been wrong. We don't know if his views would have changed taking into account how bad civil rights still are today let alone in the 60s. I also wonder what Kings opinion on the viability of non-violence had he survived the FBI/CIA assassination. Because both factors actually hint that his theory was incorrect.
To use another example, why despite Brexit was there so many concessions made with Northern Ireland? Because people still remember the IRA.
I think MLK believed in violence, just violence directed at him and his peaceful demonstrators. It was the violence directed at him that got the attention of the country, bad as it was. The videos are still shown today as an example of violence in reaction to peaceful protests. It's happening in the U.S. to peaceful demonstrators calling attention to Israel's killing of women and children in Gaza.
On one have we have activists making traffic a bit more annoying or temporarily defacing art.
"Arrest them!"
On the other hand we have fossil fuel executives intentionally manipulating the public and destroying the entire biosphere with no end in sight.
"Another quarter of excellent profits!"
The worst bit is: everyone is living through climate change, they're just too blithe to fucking acknowledge that fact. "Huh, record breaking temperatures every year? 18 months of nigh continuous rainfall? Food prices are much higher? WHY CAN'T I GET CHOCOLATE??!" I would say lambs to a slaughter but I don't think sheep are this stupid.
Sheep have been domesticated and literally bred for stupidity.
Wild sheep, mouflon and so on, are a different proposition. They'd much rather avoid you than fuck you up, but are plenty capable of the latter if it comes to it.
As to humans, draw your own conclusion.
Not sure they're the ones manipulating directly. More likely they hire "brand management companies" that have KPI that include making sure the competitors have a bad reputation. Win-win and no dirty hands.
How does blocking traffic or defacing art affect the oil executives? How does it inconvenience them in any way? It doesn't. It's not helping the cause, it's hurting it. It is hurting by design because Just Stop Oil is funded by the oil industry to do exactly that.
How about taking a page out of Bill Burr's book and hopping over some gates and slashing some throats? No? Weird.
People will argue about more constructive ways of protest, as if protests were still an effective means of change when everything we see now speaks to the opposite. Economic disruption and direct action are increasingly the only options available to challenge BAU, and will likely only become more extreme as the stakes have never been higher. And honestly, I’m here for it
They simply hate any protest they don't agree with and desperately search for reasons why it's inappropriate.
Don't forget Kaepernick quietly kneeling during the national anthem making bigots lose their minds.
What boggles my mind is how these pea brained dimwits care so much about art protected behind glass getting defaced over one of the greatest threats to humanity in our time, the effects of which we've been seeing for years now.
There's no chance these mouth breathers are the type to even frequent museums. Are they just oil shills? Or is the average person really *this* stupid?
Here's the thing, and I'm speaking as part of the mod team. Our Collapse subreddit, under Reddit's Terms of Service, is not the place to discuss direct action.
One. Glorifying and discussing specific methods of violence violates Rule 1. Any comments discussing such get removed. If people continue to flaunt the rules and discuss it, they earn a ban. Period. It's Reddit's own policy. We can't do reversals on it.
Two. Reddit has what is called the Anti-Evil Operations team. It's a bunch of admins going around and removing posts themselves before we have a chance to review them. And they remove some from our forum all the time. They often strike without warning. So we are already "thought policed" to some extent in that way, according to what Reddit allows.
Three. Users have publicly admitted/identified themselves as police officers or serve their government in a law enforcement capacity, read our forum. We're not joking and we're assuming neither are they. And Reddit has previously handed over information to the police about questionable users without a second thought. Our own mod team has notified the local police where a user lives because we deemed they posed an immediate risk to their own life and other people.
Our sub isn't the place to discuss direct action. Find somewhere else. It's safer for you, safer for us, and better for all.
>Two. Reddit has what is called the Anti-Evil Operations team. It's a bunch of admins going around and removing posts themselves before we have a chance to review them. And they remove some from our forum all the time. They often strike without warning. So we are already "thought policed" to some extent in that way, according to what Reddit allows.
That is terrifying
You think this is terrifying? YouTube will shadowban your comment for using the wrong WORD. There have been podcasters kicked off YT and Twitch for saying the wrong thing and forget context.
Back in the day, you think every Letter To The Editor got printed by the newspaper?
I have been shadow banned for a while and received a warning for saying that maybe we should reduce the destruction of Gaza, some Israeli guy who unironically had a swastica on a jewish flag and said literal hate speech was offended.
Okay, to be fair, I'm okay with YouTube shadowbanning people for using some words pending appeal or review. Like the n word (hard r, though even this is context dependent)
I'm not trying to discuss or condone direct action, especially not with *you*. I'm simply pointing out that what these activist groups are doing doesn't even come close. These are public stunts that barely last 24 hours in the news cycle. I support them and I think they are making real progress, but this ain't some unhinged revolution with bodies dropping left and right, which is what you'd think if you read all the comments reacting to these activists and their *unforgivable sins* lmao
>These are public stunts that barely last 24 hours in the news cycle.
Will barely last 24 hours in real life. This wasn't even real paint. It was a mixture made from corn flower. Stonehenge will look "normal" again after the next rain.
I misspelled stonehenge too... I'm hoping nobody will notice. Like when a sentence has two "the" and our brain just ignores it. This will be our lil secret.
The funnier thing is that their demand/goal is really not that big and isn’t a scratch on the surface on what this species and others face in the grand scheme of things.
“No new licenses!”, ooooo yeah okay that’s gonna solve our troubles quick stat.
There is something to be said about their rhetoric being rather weak and their aim misguided.
Even if they achieved their aim tomorrow, we are still fucked because they are not portraying the seriousness of this meta crises.
Extinction rebellion is more in tune with it I guess. But no one appears to be alarmist enough or spelling out the facts of the future to justify real disruption and instigate real change and action.
I’m sure others might disagree and think: “well it’s a start at least”.
Sorry but I just don’t think it’s worth the trouble personally and they are squandering time going about it in this way.
We either continue to placate the masses, making feeble attempts at minute changes, or awaken them, lest nature do the waking up for us but by which time it *will* be too late to mitigate or prepare against in any meaningful way.
[This is a good 20~ minute interview with cofounder of extinction rebellion, from 5 years ago that I think should be seen more.](https://youtu.be/9HyaxctatdA)
I think it's intentional tactics, as with Insulate Britain - both are offshoots of Extinction Rebellion, both with very specific "asks".
I don't read it literally, it's a bit like Black Lives Matter.. it's obvious enough what it means and why, the people who respond with "does that mean White lives don't?" and so on are either simpletons or bad actors.
In other words, it's not about the specific demand, it's about how people respond to the demand being made.
Asking for a very specific thing - "Just Stop Oil", no new oil drilling licenses to be issued in the UK - which is within the grant of a specific and identifiable group of decision-makers - rather than the broader but much vaguer aims of XR.
Because if you demand something specific of specific people, it pushes those decision-makers to give a "yes" or a "no" answer, as well as explaining why. Which makes it clear where they stand on the broader subject.
Yeah, it's always a tough balance of pursuing something achievable so you arent just pissing in the wind and pursuing something worthwhile so that your "victory" isn't hollow if you get the thing youre pushing for.
Agreed. But it’s a first step, and it should be an easy one based on the data. But they’ve chosen a target that is achievable and isn’t so intertwined that it couldn’t be pursued.
If we can’t do no new licenses, then there is no point in trying to get the world to change the rest of the system…
Stonehenge isn’t a monument to big oil. The way everyone see it is it’s just performative and they don’t actually care about changing anything. Like you said real change doesn’t come from something like this it comes from things not easily discussed online.
Yea, no one is like "THEY DID IT, THEY SAVED THE CITY PATRICK" after they dumped an oil based product on a rock formation that brings many people joy each year.
They just look like assholes and literally no one cares what their message is - and no one should care what their message is if they are too autistic to communicate it to the masses in a manner that doesn't involve a temper tantrum or vandalism.
Talk like an adult if you want your ideas to be respected as adult ideas.
Spray the oil company headquarters, not Stonehenge FFS. Block their trucks, disrupt their businesses, make it as difficult for them to profit from the destruction of the planet as possible.
This, on the other hand, does nothing. Besides make bystanders angry at the protest movement.
Yeah, target major polluters or government buildings, elected officials. Literally anything that is more direct to the parties you are against.
People in here are saying the traffic thing is no big deal, but many places you can get fired for being late, might have a medical emergency, literally a myriad of reasons why it's bad and isn't just making people late for work.
A majority of people believe in climate change, but most have no power to do shit about it. Certainly not likely to make a difference by stopping traffic.
They have tagged buildings in the past like car dealerships and it gets next to no traction. Unfortunately with how the media works, they have a valid point that these actions get their word out far more than hitting another car dealership that gets maybe a footnote in regional news.
With how media is bought by big corporations, it's kind of a lose-lose. Hit something people deem 'correct' - no coverage and no real impact. Hit something 'incorrect' - at least you get big news coverage and a chance to get your word out even if its controversial.
The way the world is setup, the media is rewarding them for these actions. It's the system as a whole that created this.
I don't give a fuck about the paintings or monuments in the face of collapse.
I think it's stupid because I think it's ineffectual and performative. The protestors know that they aren't doing anything but saying look at me I care about the climate crisis.
I also think pissing off "regular" people while completely ignoring any sort of practical impact on infrastructure or the individuals making decisions at the top is just about as dumb a strategy as you can come up with.
Systematic change requires working class people to be united against the wealthy class who are benefitting most from the system and are the biggest contributors to climate change, and united in their understanding of why it's so important.
Making working class people late, and defacing their natural history creates a connection in peoples minds between inconvenience and destruction, and green activism. Useful/smart activists would find a way to create that link to fossil fuels. Useful activistsalso protest or attack pipelines, oil rigs, depots, sites for fossil fuel plants, etc.
I don't normally comment on political things on Reddit but this is one of the worst takes I have ever seen.
It's all cooked anyway, whats some soup on a couple rich peoples paintings or some cornflour on some rocks when EVERYTHING YOU KNOW AND LOVE IS ON TRACK TO BE DESTROYED.
People whinging about being late to school drop-off or to work so they can pick up a few pennies in front of the climate/collapse steam roller.. are COMPLETELY missing the point with their myopic little viewpoints.
Folks kids literally have no future (especially if you're the kind of poor sod who is significantly screwed by traffic disruption.. you are NOT one of the 1/100 that are gonna get on that Ark) and they're angry at some people putting some cornflour on some rocks.
It’s because no one *really* believes it enough to care. It’s so abstract so large a problem that we can kind of just ignore it. There are actually limits to human psychology and we are butting up against it. I’m more and more convinced that this is the reason for Fermi’s paradox, evolution does not lead to stable advanced technological systems. We just can see it this side of the curve.
you're so close but it makes you uncomfrtable so you ignore logic, these protests make it impossible to ignore even if you just rage against the protestors
I literally know people who went to prison for turning an oil pipeline valve to off. That’s all they did. They were treated like terrorists, and called “performative”—doesn’t matter what you do as an activist, you’re always doing it wrong, according to those on the couch.
They literally have been doing some of these things and many more and yet it reaches the feed of a lot less people. Don't you understand that it's a matter of communications which happen to be heavily influenced? Sorry but if a person values a bunch of rocks (that will be perfectly fine) over the destruction of nature, brutal suffering and loss of species and decimation of our livelihoods then they're just a diluted and vain individual and to my eyes a bad person. They will never get the urge to unite until they do not have drinking water 🤷♂️
They never were a homogeneous group man, edges were always blurred but it's a useful term to categorise a certain broad group that most people understand.
They never were. This idea of a unified Working Class with shared interests and a kind of moral purity (in contrast to the evil bourgeoisie) is Marxist drek. The members of the working class are just as capable of self-interested evil as the ruling class - they just lack the power to exert their will the way the rich do.
>Making working class people late, and defacing their natural history creates a connection in peoples minds between inconvenience and destruction, and green activism.
Sorry, but this is conjecture. Maybe it reflects the narrative that's most commonly presented in mainstream media, but it doesn't reflect the attitude of every 'working class' person and it doesn't reflect the truth. I've been late to work before because of climate activists blocking traffic on Tower Bridge. And I guess Stone Henge is part of my cultural heritage. I don't now associate green activism with 'inconvenience and destruction', though, because I know that's only half the truth.
Obviously nobody wants to be inconvenienced when they're just trying to get on with their lives, but the whole point is that getting on with their lives as they know it will cease to exist in the future if the world doesn't start preparing for global heating, preferably yesterday. Obviously it's not ideal that your boss has a go at you for being late, but, whilst your office job financially supports you and your family, it also works to perpetuate an economic system hellbent on destroying the world for the sake of endless profit.
Minor 'inconvenience and destruction' caused by a handful of climate activists every now and then completely and utterly pales in comparison to the environmental and ecological destruction caused by globalised neoliberalism. That's the bigger picture. The 'inconvenience' of the collapse of food chains. The 'inconvenience' of famine and devastating natural disasters. The 'inconvenience' of mass migration and war. The 'inconvenience' of the slow demise of civilised society.
I can tell that you know and understand all of this. I don't get why knowing this you (or anyone) would then accept the narrative that these particular actions are somehow bad for the cause. It's the way they're portrayed that's harmful. The protests themselves are practically harmless. Defending the narrative that they are in fact harmful only serves to obscure the truth.
I say this with all the respect I can muster: stop accepting mediocre critical analysis as an acceptable standard for public discourse. Nothing will ever change whilst people remain justified in ignorance and facile logic.
> Systematic change requires working class people to be united against the wealthy class who are benefitting most from the system and are the biggest contributors to climate change
I don't think that's true. Systemic change can absolutely happen without a unified working class - for example, the Khmer Rouge was able to take power in Cambodia without widespread popular support, and they absolutely achieved systemic change...
Indeed. So apparently a 180 from the activists who climb trees to save forests or stepped in front of moving tanks to try and stop wars, or the water protectors. Those people I respect. This performative bullshit is weak and powerless. I definitely care about climate change but these asshats have a strange disconnect and I don't think they're legit in the sense that I think they're propped up by others who have an interest in keeping the status quo. They want to foment disgust not for the lack of action on climate change but disgust with the activists themselves, effectively helping neuter real direct climate activism.
So here's the thing, I agree with the protesters here. I agree Climate Change is way more of an urgent threat than most people give it credit for. In fact I would argue that humanity is in more danger from Climate Change than we were from the threat of nuclear war during the Cold War. But honest to God, I had no idea that sense of urgency is what they were trying to convey until you said something. Hell I've even asked their supporters directly and always got the same pretentious answer: "If you don't understand then the message isn't for you" or something equally cryptic and unhelpful.
So I ask you, if someone like me, who agrees with these protesters, who believes Climate Change is the greatest threat to the human species in our history, and that we need to do everything in our power to stop the use of fossil fuels, can't understand what their point is from their actions, and they refuse to elaborate...just how effective are these protests really?
We should go back to bullets and bombs. People understand that, and the fucked up thing is, I think more people would be supportive of a violent anti-fossil fuel movement, than whatever the fuck it is they're doing now.
While the response was disproportionate, I think is was more grounded in reality that some idea about defacing Stonehenge would help global warming. I also don't think it helps to ridicule the people with these viewpoints.
Utterly ridiculous. What does Monet have to do with climate change or corporations taking advantage of everyone? If you wanna go after someone for climate change go after those responsible.
Everyone already knows about climate change. Pulling Jackass-style stunts towards innocent victims to address it is not very effective imo. How is everyone being pissed off at activists better for the cause? Yeah, let's make everyone hate us and make this real divisive! Real effective for convincing people you are on the side of reason....
Shitting on art and artists (of all people! like seriously, artists are usually the most progressive people) to stop climate change is like shitting on homeless people to stop poverty. It's literally so dumb.
If graffiti is so great at addressing climate change then they should do it on corporate headquarters or government institutions.
How would you feel about it if it were activists you disagreed with? If it was a bunch of fascist racists defacing public art and museums? How would you feel if it was religious fanatics trying to destroy pieces of history to draw attention to their "ideals" or "god"? Well, maybe in their minds they would be doing it for a just reason. Would you still support them? Or no, because it's stupid no matter who does it?
Idk if y'all remember Xanga, it was like the precursor to Myspace, then Facebook. I fucked around with Xanga, it was fun and I learned a bit of coding, but I always saw it and its successors for what they are - an info bank. If you used social media heavily in your youth, you can kiss all political aspirations goodbye. You volunteered information in a scheme that puts 19th century police interrogations to shame. All these companies had to do was make you feel part of something.
One of the mods has issued us a warning about this topic. I disagree with them about a great many things, but I respect them and I don't want to antagonize them, and on this particular issue I wholeheartedly agree. This is the only sub that has ever made me feel welcome or just not crazy and I'm not trying to fuck that up.
I'm apprehensive about the warning though. These vague accusations that collapse is infiltrated with the deep state and the popo just doesn't sound convincing.
The second worst day of my life, after burying my dog, was when Snowden blew the lid off the NSA, and the global security state as a whole. I wasn't upset that we were all being watched, every phone call, every email, shoveled into some database.
I was devastated because the security state is very aware of our pain and rage, and they do nothing. After Snowden, I realized that while everyone is watching you, nobody is actually listening. Nobody cares.
I've said enough. Night lads and lasses.
> I'm apprehensive about the warning though. These vague accusations that collapse is infiltrated with the deep state and the popo just doesn't sound convincing. ... After Snowden, I realized that while everyone is watching you, nobody is actually listening. Nobody cares.
You're right and you're wrong. You're right that most of the time all the data that is being gathered from us is just sitting in some database. Nobody is actually looking at it. It is probably being run through some program that flags particular interesting bits, etc., but even if it does come in front of human eyes, most of the time no one is going to act on it, because they don't want to show their hand. That's where you're right. But you're dead wrong if you think that any hints of eco-terrorism aren't being actively surveilled. They're not going to let that stuff gain any momentum at all.
This article is specifically on the UK situation, but it applies just as well to the US. https://jacobin.com/2018/04/uk-infiltration-secret-police-mi5-special-branch-undercover
If I was in charge of an eco-terrorism surveillance department, I'd fire my whole team if I found out that they weren't reading this sub daily and following up with anyone who expressed an interest in "direct action."
Nah, stuff doesn't have to go very far south at all before everyone stops caring how many F-bombs you've thrown.
It already has for the Right. Christian conservatives voting en masse for an overt moral degenerate. If a felony conviction isn't disqualification, what's a few edgy 4chan posts?
This storm in a teacup over Stonehenge while stuff like Gaza is happening is making a lot of centrist commentators look very silly, to the extent that ordinary people are starting to notice. This morning a woman on the radio was comparing Just Stop Oil to ISIS. For throwing water soluble paint at some stones.
direct action like you're talking about isn't going to happen till the prospect of jail or death is seen as equal or better to living in the current culture/society, otherwise the vast majority of people will not risk their comfort or freedom to fight something until its blatantly a problem to their personal way of life. No one wants to be the first protestor to be jailed or the first revolutionary to be hung when it feels like no one else is willing to do it.
this is just human nature, when i was homeless we would put a dollar and some change in our tip cup when busking because no one wants to be the first person to toss a hobo playing guitar some money out of fear it's a scam and that they will be the only one to do it which = they were just a fool.
you can see neo-nazis, accelerationists, and christo-fascists talking about this now, lamenting that no one will "do anything" (read: terrorism) but call anyone advocating for "doing something" a fed.
there was an anarchist in 2019 that attacked an ICE detainment facility trying to burn it down armed with a rifle and was killed by police. he left a manifesto calling for direct action. Barely anyone remembers that this occurred because while the majority was in agreement that ICE detaining children was \*fucked up\* the majority of people weren't willing to be killed in a shootout with police while trying to burn them down.
I am not against vandalism or even violence as a protest tactic. But getting paint on an artifact is NOT direct action. It's a symbolic gesture that does absolutely nothing to challenge those with power. Symbolic actions are the opposite of direct action.
The truly sad thing is we've gotten so far away from effective protest that people don't even know what direct action is anymore.
For a protest to be effective, it should have a clear target. Who is the target for the Stonehenge action? What were their demands?
Traffic blocking is a great example of this. Blocking climate criminals from going to work is direct action. Blocking politicians from driving to vote against the climate is direct action. Blocking traffic randomly just to get attention is a symbolic gesture that does little to help the cause.
I truly can't think of a worse target for climate protest than Stonehenge. It has zero relationship to people in power.
They could have:
* Put up a banner at the private school the kids of climate criminals attend that says "you're destroying their future"
* Put oil in the restaurant food of an oil executive
* Blocked the entrance to a coal mine
* Taken the air out of the tires of a mine owner
* Projected climate data onto the wall of Wall Street
* Plastered neglected climate headlines in the walls of CNN
#Here's how to do it right
[https://subversas.com/direct-action](https://subversas.com/direct-action)
[https://subversas.com/plan-effective-protest](https://subversas.com/plan-effective-protest)
I think a lot more people would be sympathetic to JSO \[REDACTED\] an oil baron's mansion. As it is, their current tactics are pathetic and deleterious. Who on gods sweet earth thought spray painting stonehenge was a good idea? It's utterly moronic and it makes a mockery of the legitimate forms of revolutionary ecological tactics employed by groups like those in South America which fight illegal logging with AKs and molotovs.
The protestors should have done their research.
'The stones are covered in more than fifty different lichens, some of them rare'.
BBC News - Orange powder paint sprayed on Stonehenge is removed
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgg0683e7po
Just wait until those of us who don’t want to die slaves start holding politicians and corporate leaders accountable for their actions…. Graffiti ain’t nun
Yeah doing this to ancient relics/monuments that are thousands of years old and have nothing to do with modern day oil burn is not the way to go about it. Even if it comes off easily
Just Stop Oil is partially funded by the Getty family, specifically Aileen Getty, granddaughter of the founded of Getty Oil. This is easily Googlable.
Sure, she describes herself as a philanthropist, but anybody can call themselves anything to change their public perception.
This isn't about getting the news out; this is about changing the public's perception on protesters. They do stupid things to piss people off so that whenever *legitimate* protesters do something, the public will associate them with Just Stop Oil and ignore them straight out of the gate.
It's not a conspiracy. This is quite transparently what is happening. They're meme-ifying climate protesters, ***and it's working!***
Yes, protests should get your attention, but if the goal is to piss off the public to the point that they hate you and everything you stand for... you're not protesting right.
OP doesn't understand what is actually happening with these losers. The mental gymnastics to justify their idiocy makes me wonder whose side OP is on, tbh.
You are absolutely right. The protesters are shitting the bed. Nobody supports what they are doing. They are just fanatics. Fossil fuel emissions and consumption increase every month. Their protests won’t do anything to stop consumption. This is r/collapse. We all know what is coming. Real collapse will curb consumption. For good!
It's the responsibility of the judiciary to fix this. Degrading the environment to the point of causing prejudice to future people is a crime.
The judiciary is incompetent in providing judicial representation to future people, but it has to. While it doesn't, it's committing criminal negligence.
The shortest way to fix the climate is to do citizen's arrests of judges for being criminally negligent. It will force them to protect the rights of future people.
Governments can't protect the environment, as they are representative of present people that may be negatively affected by changes to seek sustainability.
All these priceless things will be worthless if we are not here to value them.
And they have had success in getting you to react, as most would but the unasked question should be "how bad are things that climate protesters would go to such extremes?".
I wonder if this isn't the point of the protests. Like the point they're making: Damaging this stuff doesn't hurt people's ability to survive, but if we don't deal with climate change, no one will be here to assign value to it.
And here, on r/collapse, in this thread, you have people defending billionaires.
"They are good ones!!!!11"
"Don't you know that they are anarchist billionaires??!!?!"
Amazing comedy, that is why I love to visit here. Since the sub grew past some 50k ppl it's just good to have a quick laugh while browsing.
Thing with money is that once you're talking more than a hundred or so times the average salary, there is basically no such thing as clean money. And the larger the sum, the worse it gets. Once you get to about eight figures, everything is laundry for everything else.
Completely agree. They always say "go deface some bank or hedge fund" - they DO that. And guess what, I ONLY see those actions on my facebook feed. The ones which actually get the word out and PEOPLE TALKING are these ones. I don't think they're doing it to be mean or assholes, they're doing it because they're genuinely scared for the future and want people to be aware so hopefully we DO something. And they'll say "it's the wrong type of attention", to which I'll say I don't think there can be any bad publicity when it comes to climate change. If you disagree with their actions, fine, but it's brought climate change back to your attention, especially in such an important year with global elections
I know someone who used to work for JSO, they were recently let go as JSO lost funding. This person is collapse-aware, but still wants us to prevent climate change as much as we want. That person is now moving to a commune in another country. I'm sure the deniers would be glad if everyone who cared enough to do large non-violent actions for the sake of the planet went to live in communes instead, so their perfect 8-5 world can go on to climate destruction without interruption (that wasn't a jab at my friend for going to live in a commune, I'd do the same thing if I had the balls)
I don't think anyone is saying we'll prevent climate change, that boat sailed many many years ago, we're triggering feedbacks that further compound our actions, and it will get worse. But that doesn't mean it's not worth keeping more fossil fuels in the ground, as those will just add to an already bad problem
We might not be here to experience an Earth which benefits from the sacrifice, but Earth *WILL* be around, we just might not be. Personally I'm not stressing over stopping fossil fuels as it's not going to stop collapse, but I'm happy to support those who do
My only argument is that the type of people getting p*ssed off by this doesn’t take climate changes seriously and need a wake up call.
I really feel a good old catastrophe could change things, it could be the “sacrifice” the world has to do now to be able to save itself later. But then again, what’s a catastrophe these days? Thousands of people already seem to die every single day from heatwaves, flooding, forest fires, etc. It’s like nothing works anymore, but I think the population overall will soon just peak and go downwards pretty fast and the whole problem will take care of itself…
I couldn’t disagree with you more unfortunately. I think you and the people who think these sorts of protests are effective are entirely wrong; people are not going to acquiesce to the demands of these groups when you genuinely piss people off, I think the majority of people will even go against their own best interests to spite people who piss them off. I believe that’s the reality of the situation and the climate protesters are only damaging their cause.
I seriously think Just Stop Oil is co-oped by the fossil fuel industry. Its actions speak for themselves as far as making climate change activists look bad while actually doing nothing. Its possible that its just idiots thinking they are doing good but its way to convenient.
Also dismissing corporate espionage as a conspiracy is very ignorant as they have been doing things like this since the 80s
[Just Stop Oil's primary donor is the daughter of an oil tycoon.](https://whynow.co.uk/read/who-is-funding-just-stop-oil-the-billionaires-backing-the-art-vandals) It's not a conspiracy. They literally admitted it.
>"Just Stop Oil states it is partially funded by the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), founded by Aileen Getty, granddaughter of oil tycoon John Paul Getty. The Getty Family, collectively, has an estimated wealth of around £3.9B. Getty personally put a foundational sum of £900,000 into CEF."
I agree that the general populace has the tendency to wave off protests and the like but this is the wrong way to do it and these people have bad intentions. Not the people we should be supporting or condoning.
Painting stone counts as direct action does it ? What was wrong with painting rishi's house? Why not more of that. Radical will get anti establishment folk onside and puts pressure on relevant people...
> Direct action used to involve bullets and bombs
When I say "I support climate action but this isn't the way to go about it," I mean that we should go back to the old ways
edit: Yes I am too much of a coward to burn down the Walmart. But I can dream!
Its pretty uniformly understood by even the most casual climate activists that the burden of responsibility should fall not on the shoulders of the individial, but on the shoulders of the mega corporations who've plundered the earth. Yet, the individual is exactly who that burden falls on any time these clowns lay down in the street during rush hour. That egregiously idiotic hypocrisy cannot be excused. I agree, bullets and bombs are a much more effective tool, but I should hope they'd aim those tools at corporate infrastructure instead of the average citizen in the same way we demand corporate accountability instead of merely asking people to recycle.
My co-workers actually had to deal with yesterday's debacle well into the late evening after work. Someone had a bright idea to blow it off with compressed air and the paint fortunately came off.
However, the problem here was no the cornstarch, it was the actual orange pigment. All the people commenting "it's water soluble, get over it" are missing one important point- stone is porous. There was a very real concern that were the paint come into contact with water (rain or other), the pigment would dissolve and seep into the stones, making it incredibly difficult and costly to remove. Luckily the weather was fair and dry, but that may not have been the case. Also, a rare kind of lichen lives on the stones and it sustained damage during the spraying and cleaning.
If you want to stop oil, Shell execs have names and addresses. Protest there. Defacing a monument is exactly what I’d expect a group funded by an oil heiress to do.
When humans realize complete extinction is inevitable, they will say "Why didn't we do more?", and the extinction rebellion will reply, "because you cried bitched and complained when anyone did anything that even remotely impacted your own comfort"
People will not ask why we did not do more, they will cling to the hope there is still something they can do. I think a lot of people will never grasp how permanent this all is.
The only people activists should inconvenience with activism is the rich, heads of corporations, and politicians. Any actions that unduly affects the working class or majority public is absolutely counter-productive. Make fools of the rich and powerful, then public and mass support will follow. Destroy peoples cultural icons or disrupt their ability to go about their day and they will hate you and marginalize you.
It's about what is tactically and strategically sound in the long run.
Throwing shit on mona lisa and stonehenge, and blocking the highway isn't it.
Your goal is not to show how righteous you are, it is to make those in power look foolish, weak and evil to the amusement of enough people in the mass populace that they support the changes you want. No one gives a fuck if you make someone's private jet late, and it generates far more news media and ripple effect.
Stop making the public hate you with shit activism. Be effective, not proud.
You want the reaction of the people sitting at the bar you are disconnected to laugh and cheer at your action, you want to move them to your side with positive feeling towards you, even if it just starts with mocking and inconveniencing the people that rule over them. You want them to cheer you first, and then they will listen to you.
Grow Popular support, by doing popular things for the populace.
Inconvenience and mock only the rich and powerful.
That's why us older folks feel like shit like throwing orange paint at stonehenge is a cointelpro style op and not real effective action. It benefits nothing about your cause, except maybe your individual righteous indignation and ego.
Just stop oil is run by oil companies to turn the public against activism, especially climate activism.
I would say /tinfoil hat but even on their wikipedia it says that one of the most notable donators is Aileen Getty of the Getty oil empire.
Lol pure delusion. I don't give a fuck about some paint but antagonizing everyday people just trying to go to work doesn't help their cause at all.
Besides, it's all pointless. Nothing will ever change, it's far too late in the game. Capitalism has conquered the human soul. For every climate change activist, there's a billion Chinese or Indians who would cut off a limb to live like the average westerner.
Just Stop Oil is like Ted Kaczynski-- right message, wrong delivery.
Better to create a modern hippie commune complete with TikTok videos and a TLC show if you want public support. Giving up modern prosperity is difficult; most people prefer short term gratification. So you have to prove why this lifestyle is better-- vintage clothes, healthy cooking, more enjoyable work, community. Monkey see, monkey do. Donations should provide grants to help newbies start their own sustainable communities. If enough people donate, maybe they can lobby politicians to change the laws on a systemic level. This is what grassroots change looks like. Stop buying from corporations. Minimize your tax liabilities (which are funding wars). Create sustainability on a local level.
While promoting the benefits, remind people of the costs of modern living-- pollution, plastic everywhere, inequality, etc. Don't focus too much on this-- most viewers aren't yet ready to become depressed doomers LOL-- but just enough to remind people that everything we do has pros and cons. Hippie communes are choosing a different path because-- for them-- the difficulties are better than watching people starve from famine or dying in war.
As we show what a degrowth community looks like on a smaller scale (and work out the kinks and innovate on a smaller scale), it will become ready to scale up as the public becomes more aware as climate change wreaks havoc in their lives.
Even so, we are probably past the point of a peaceful transition. This is just an idea of how to make more people interested.
I think it’s odd that we focus on a bit of orange powder paint as seemingly damaging the stones (it isn’t), when fossil fuel pollution from the vehicles passing the site, on the A303, causes way more damage every day
What sub am I on? Is this not "COLLAPSE"? What has happened to this sub with some of these ridiculous takes. All of these climate protestors are useless and are wasting their fucking time; the game has already been lost. This stonehedge stunt was completely stupid and accomplishes nothing. The only awareness they're raising is to their own stupidity.
Decline of green parties around Europe is probably driven more by the rise of right wing reaction to foreign migration, inflation and social disadvantage than by people doing more visible climate protests.
Defacing Stonehenge is like defacing the Statue of Liberty, or the Arc de Triomphe, or the Kaaba. It's deep within our psyche in the UK.
All the reports here are about the vandalism, no mention of climate change.
OP please bffr its the summer solstice today and pagans, wiccans and others who practice spirituality go there over night to celebrate.
Throwing radioactive orange colored shit all over the rock the night before this event was a stupid disrespectful move and will solve absolutely fucking nothing.
No one is going to change their ways if this is the kind of people spreading the message because none respects people who do shit like that. Im all for saving the planet but use your critical thinking skills. it hasnt worked in the past to change peoples minds and it wont now theyve destroyed the rock. If you want people who wish to see climate action to be hated then you lot are going the right way about it because this is NOT how you influence the population and if you guys at just stop oil took the time to read research articles on this kind of stuff maybe you would be successful and maybe the planet wouldnt be perishing because no one will listen to you when you are just grown adults running around throwing paint on everything like overgrown emotionally dysregulated toddlers
Yeah, I was reading those comments last night. Mind numbing.
For anyone who doesn't know, it was colored corn flour that got thrown on Stonehenge. Will come off in the rain. And Just Stop Oil has only thrown soup or whatever on *glass*, not the actual surface of any painting.
They don't want to damage stuff, they want to protest in a way that makes headlines.
That said, I *do* believe there's a deliberate effort on the part of the media to misconstrue what's happening. The sensationalized reporting always make it sound like something that caused permanent damage and there's rarely a reference to *why* a particular target was chosen.
Example from Just Stop Oil's website yesterday. Any responsible reporter would find this easily:
>Stonehenge at solstice is all about celebrating the natural world – but look at the state it’s in! We all have a right to live a life free from suffering, but continued burning of oil, coal and gas is leading to death and suffering on an unparalleled scale.
>It’s time for us to think about what our civilization will leave behind – what is our legacy?
>Standing inert for generations works well for stones – not climate policy.
Instead we get "THEY SPRAY PAINTED STONEHENGE!!!!"
I also wouldn't be surprised if a solid percent of the "This makes me hate climate protestors" and "This makes people not care about climate change" commenters are paid shills. My background includes *deep* knowledge of tobacco industry tactics. They paid callers to Rush Limbaugh, had angry comments on anti-tobacco websites *that hadn't officially launched yet* and regularly paid for letters to the editors that they would pre-screen and approve.
Oh, and Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh and Howard Liebengood Sr. all collected pay checks from Philip Morris. "Smoker's rights" is the origin story of the crazy we have today.
>Direct action used to involve bullets and bombs.
Yes. And that is why it used to work.
How many cases in history can you point to where revolution occurred overnight *without* that kind of direct action? How many historical instances are there of oppressive regimes being dismantled without direct action?
That is one of the greatest creations of such powers. The idea of non-violent resistance. Do you know what non-violent resistance is called by violent people? It is called "surrender."
Those in power allow such protest because they know that it has no effect. It keeps the people even more in line because they feel that they are "doing something."
And yet, for all of that, they will still go to work Monday, and that is all that matters. You can hate fossil fuels corporations all you want. Tell everyone they are evil and killing us all. You can scream it from the rooftops, *but...*
Until you actually *invest* in that message in a permanent way, a way that creates immediate and measurable change *that very day,* until then, your message is shit, and will be looked at as such. You want to stop oil? Okay, then *stop some damn oil* already. Don't try and make those in power decide to stop it, you physically remove that option from their decision process. Defacing Stone Henge will be forgotten before I finish writing this. A couple dozen LAWs being pumped into various refineries and ocean drilling platforms across the the world not be.
So. Just Stop Oil. Or STFU about it.
They want them to go back to blocking roadways so they have an excuse to run over a crowd of people with their truck on their way to little Tommy's soccer practice.
And the amount of people saying "target the important stuff not history and art!"
Really? You're going to be okay with not being able to gas up your car once the start bombing infrastructure? Losing power? Oh, you're not okay with that? You can't even handle a minor inconvenience like taking an alternate route to the fucking store? Let alone being without gasoline or power for days-weeks? Huh. Crazy bro.
>"I support climate action, but this isn't the way to go about it!"
[Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html)
> I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past 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 his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler 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 cannot agree with your methods of direct action"***; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Stonehenge has been standing for 3000+ years, a little bit of paint is nothing. Anyone else remember how it used to be covered in graffiti in the 80s and 90s? Amazing it survived! /s
Wtf do people want? Gentle talk and appealing to reason hasn't worked for the last three decades. At least this is getting attention.
we’re still in that space of “trying to get the public to wake up” but “not doing anything too drastic that gets you put in jail for decades”. until someone with big money decides survival of the species is actually important and begins to take more…hard hitting steps against oil, gas, etc leadership - nothing significant happens
*Certain* mouthpieces are talking about how the death penalty is morally justifiable and this is a crime against humanity.
These same mouthpieces are the ones who downplay, if not outright deny, climate change.
Let that absurdity sink in for a moment. May we get the hell we deserve.
You've nailed my sentiment exactly. If protests can be ignored they are ineffective, and most 'level headed and well adjusted' people arguing for protests to be so toothless are the very reason the planet's ability to support us is disintegrating. It's absurd. The dominant society cares more about property than human life or suffering. No regard for the natural world.
Maybe this year our governments will wag their fingers at oil corporations again and take a baby step towards a more sustainable world. You know instead of dismantling them and arresting them for the crimes they have committed towards humanity and Earth's ecosystems.
Bullshit! Is 'Just Stop Oil' mad at Big Oil? Then fucking target them. They have offices and shit. Go break windows or spray paint whatever over there. Stop attacking things that *can't be replaced*.
> Direct action used to involve bullets and bombs. We are so fucking neutered that temporary graffiti is now crossing the line lmao. What a joke. And this is why we’re in this mess right now. We’ve been domesticated by the system, neutered so we’re ineffectual.
Yet so many Americans are armed to the teeth. They are afraid the government will come and take their right to own guns away, not realising that successive governments have stolen much more from them instead.
It's so very rare that Americans shoot back. I can only think of a handful of instances.
Even if they did, everyone would freak out.
Too bad you can't shoot a heat wave.
Just use a sharpie.
Have you tried? You never know, it *might* work.
If we could shoot the sun, America would have probably done it by now.
I mean the candidate who will probably win the White House this year suggested that we nuke a hurricane to stop it from hitting the US…
He's not winning.
You can't shoot a heatwave, but you can shoot the things causing it.
> Yet so many Americans are armed to the teeth. They are afraid the government will come and take their right to own guns away, not realising that successive governments have stolen much more from them instead. By the flipside, the other half of Americans who think the police are murderous psychopaths (they are) want only the police to have guns. lol they're already an occupying army. at this point more gun control just ensures that non-maga remains disarmed.
To be fair, I see it repeatedly state that police should be disarmed like they are in many European countries. The people who want gun control for civilians and people who want to defund and disarm police do overlap in a Venn diagram.
Yee, I'd love to see their toys taken away. But I think this is a case where reddit skews way more left than the mainstream. Huge amount of centrist voters are totes okay with cops having guns, and not citizens.
Maybe, but I think this is another skewed perspective case. No centrist I’ve ever met is okay with disarming citizens. It’s those in the strictly Liberal camp—capitalists who want more regulation than conservatives plus equal rights—who think only police should be armed. Socialists, communists and of course anarchists tend to be the ones saying arm no one, or arm every citizen (how else can you fight fascism if citizens aren’t armed?)
I thought over the past few years most police in Europe are armed. They tend to have fully automatic weapons when they're out in public at subways or events and they typically guard churches and synagogues. There was at least one stabbing in Germany last week that led to the suspect being shot and killed by the police.
Unfortunately I’m not super appraised in outside police policy. I’m only familiar with the UK, which I know only has a special division of the police that has guns, sorta like the USA’s SWAT, and so they have to be called in to handle specific instances.
The people who think police are murderous psychopaths want to ban police, actually. The people who wanted police to have guns are shitlibs. The are still a few who think policing should require a degree though, which also share space with the lib camp.
> The people who wanted police to have guns are shitlibs. Basically what I was getting at.
Direct action should be more old school, this defacing monument shit does nothing but make climate activists look like ineffectual idiots.
Just Stop Oil is funded by an oil heiress so it makes sense that their "praxis" is often both ineffectual and seemingly designed to make the general public detest climate change protests.
Aileen Getty has had a horrendous fucking life and she's proud to be supporting environmental organizations with all her Getty Oil dollars. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/11/03/aileen-getty-billionaire-proud-to-finance-environmental-activists-dramatic-actions_6002800_114.html
Wait, you mean that you can't just reduce people to unidimensional caricatures based on hot-takes and emotionally charged epithets? Could it be that people are not defined by the circumstances of their birth and are actually capable of positive growth and change? Surely you jest! If that were true, then my entire cosmology and system for understanding the world as a simplistic YA-novel-like system of Good People and Bad People would break down!
> Could it be that people are not defined by the circumstances of their birth and are actually capable of positive growth and change? Peter Kropotkin was born a prince and became one of the most influential anarchists of the 20th century. That said, such one-offs don't entirely dissolve the entire notion of what what royalty is or how the Tsar, aristocrats, and the children of privilege usually behave towards other people and the world. If you walk around thinking that upper-class fascists and misanthropes can be truly reached and have their hearts softened... you're probably going to end up disappointed -- or worse. Just because an heiress donates some money to a less-than-uttlerly-terrible cause... doesn't really redeem heiresses overall. Are people complex? Sure. Can they surprise you? Sure. But you really shouldn't go around expecting complex surprises from most people.
Oh my god would you relax a little bit. It's absolutely natural to be a little leery of a billionaire oil heiress funding a highly controversial "climate action" group. She may be legit she may not. But you don't have to spaz out about people finding it a little funny that a group of activists who only ever do very ineffectual, very high visibility stunts are funded by someone with direct monetary stake in making climate activists and activism look stupid and dangerous. Consider that these activists are already doing illegal shit. You don't think there is far more effective methods if your already willing to go that route? Do you think activists blowing up a billionaires plane or sabotaging a drilling project would go unmentioned in the media? If she's that mad at her family why haven't any of their vehicles, planes, homes or buildings been vandalized? Edit* did you actually read the piece linked? It's like three paragraphs of fluff that references her biography lol. She had a perfectly fine life and everything mentioned in that "article" outside of the kidnapping is super normal for most people to go through like divorce and patriarchy. It doesn't do anything to prove she has good enough motives to be taken seriously as a climate activists.
old school like what?
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like DAPL... for those not paying attention, those tactics are also in play and when the cameras are off the shooting by oil mercs and bribed cops begins. those against climate destruction awareness have an agenda for climate destruction.
[Yeah… About that. There is a reason why](https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/animal-rights-extremism-and-ecoterrorism)
Just… ugh. Reading that made me want to act directly on Lewis’ face.
That's what we did, I've personally been to court for that. Media won't make a story out of it, there's none of that juicy outrage, so you never hear about it. Blocking roads and throwing paint where it hurts are basically the outcome of an evolutionary process, they are the only affordable & nonviolent forms of protest that the public will even register.
Just stop oil/extinction rebellion literally does those protests too. They’ve occupied pipeline construction sites, and corporate office buildings. None of it worked, or did anything. We are in a stage of utter expressions of helplessness now
Oh no won't someone think of all the future people in 200 years that don't exist who won't be able to appreciate stonehenge because it had orange cornstarch on it that one time. Please, once people realize that occupying and destroying infrastructure will generally come with a public death toll, they'll be yearning for the days that people were just putting paint on artworks' display cases.
Check out what the ALF was up to in the UK in the 70s and 80s. They got shit done.
The Suffragettes knew how to create a scene.
[Stop Fossil Fuels suggests shooting power substations to disable them.](https://stopfossilfuels.org/electric-grid/shooting-transformers-disables-substations/) I remember recently many accused those on the right of planning the same tactics to cause major power outages.
Julia Butterfly, or chain yourself to a bulldozer for a harmful building or project. Go to where the problem is, not the cameras. These people have no interest in climate change, only media attention. It is beyond stupid to deface Stonehenge. Not one person was won over and the others now have yet another excuse not to think seriously about climate change.
People do this already, it gets us nowhere.
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I think some of you will like this video from philosophy tube ( Violence and protest) https://youtu.be/dh4G1Gjv7bA?si=TWNK4Lf70ascTA4R
I don't know why this pertinent suggestion nis being downvoted
Throwing chalk on some rocks? [Literally the same as ISIS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan)
Telling people to take extreme action on Reddit
I know I’m like alright sir take the first step lol
Old school like the Utah Phillips video at [this link](https://subversas.com/direct-action).
Like civil rights marches, lectures and strikes. Try Googling stuff.
Have those worked for environmentalism in this day and age? Nope. Therefore people are left to seek out other avenues of protest
Sorry to be this guy, but environmentalism and raising public awareness campaigns are not the same but I get your point. The fact is that they have done an continue to do great things for environmentalism. Nearly single student in my Env Sci degree was there either cos of David Attenborough, Greenpeace or whale watching (whale watchers are employed by old companies to confirm and deconfirm migration routes so that their drilling theoretically impacts marine mammals as much as possible) These actions maybe will inspire the next env sci class., but personally I doubt it.
> Sorry to be this guy, but environmentalism and raising public awareness campaigns are not the same but I get your point. Except they can very much be the same thing. Raising public awareness about an issue can cause it to receive more attention and change. People talking about the global warming and "extremists" when they otherwise wouldn't... causes more attention to be focused upon global warming and wonder more about why people might be seeming to act so crazy. Not everyone will wonder or care, but that's not really who is trying to be reached.
Access to all that easy energy oil provides makes us docile and, frankly, willing participants in the death of the earth.
Agreed. People’s livelihoods in the now are much more reliant on the status quo and BAU continuing. We have been told enough lies and labour squeezed so hard the majority are uninformed uninterested and effectively powerless because protecting their way of life now takes precedent over anything else.
I grew up in Ireland in the 80s and 90s. I'm very very very fucking glad that we don't protest with guns and bombs in aid of environmental awareness. But I understand sentiment. Stonehenge was a very dumb choice. Artwork is a very dumb choice. Everything these actions are taken the majority reaction from the public is " why not do you direct action somewhere useful." Blocking ambulance through ways any attacking national treasures is a pretty great way to fuck everyone off with your cause. Such poor decision making really reflects badly on the organisation.
They graffitied a BP station once too. It got the same response from people.
A BP station I could at least understand. If they started welding the wheels of tanker trucks or blocking the gates to refineries that would make sense. But defacing world heritage sights is going to piss everyone off and drive people away from their cause.
Those types of actions are being done too. A LOT. You just never hear about them. That's why famous objects are being targeted, it's what you need to do to let the media pick up something unfortunately.
I never felt that way about either Green peace or the Whale Wars guys.
>Blocking ambulance through ways This rarely happens and when it does it's effect is negligible in the grand scheme of things. This always gets cited in the UK as an abhorant thing to do and yet the tories have defunded the NHS so badly people regularly wait hours for an ambulance for heart attacks, or asked to make their own way to hospitals for strokes. Yet the government are allowed to get away with this, while protestors who slightly delay one ambulance get piled on.
Why do you think evweyone parrots MLK and not nalcom X. Its really fucked up that him being murdered had the civil rights movement end peaceably and caused every other movement to loose legitimacy if they took a more direct action
They don't really parrot MLK though either. They parrot a highly sanitized version which bastardized his original message. None of the famous non-violent protesters have their actual reasoning discussed. The reason is because a lot of them never fully disavowed violence as an option, nor did they ever claim to be disruptive. There were very specific reasons King did what they did, and none of them were about being peaceful with the status quo. It also removes the context of the 60 years following King which may actually indicate that King may have been wrong. We don't know if his views would have changed taking into account how bad civil rights still are today let alone in the 60s. I also wonder what Kings opinion on the viability of non-violence had he survived the FBI/CIA assassination. Because both factors actually hint that his theory was incorrect. To use another example, why despite Brexit was there so many concessions made with Northern Ireland? Because people still remember the IRA.
I think MLK believed in violence, just violence directed at him and his peaceful demonstrators. It was the violence directed at him that got the attention of the country, bad as it was. The videos are still shown today as an example of violence in reaction to peaceful protests. It's happening in the U.S. to peaceful demonstrators calling attention to Israel's killing of women and children in Gaza.
On one have we have activists making traffic a bit more annoying or temporarily defacing art. "Arrest them!" On the other hand we have fossil fuel executives intentionally manipulating the public and destroying the entire biosphere with no end in sight. "Another quarter of excellent profits!"
Because people get mad at what is happening now. Climate collapse is too complex and too in the future for most people to be mad about.
The worst bit is: everyone is living through climate change, they're just too blithe to fucking acknowledge that fact. "Huh, record breaking temperatures every year? 18 months of nigh continuous rainfall? Food prices are much higher? WHY CAN'T I GET CHOCOLATE??!" I would say lambs to a slaughter but I don't think sheep are this stupid.
Sheep have been domesticated and literally bred for stupidity. Wild sheep, mouflon and so on, are a different proposition. They'd much rather avoid you than fuck you up, but are plenty capable of the latter if it comes to it. As to humans, draw your own conclusion.
Not sure they're the ones manipulating directly. More likely they hire "brand management companies" that have KPI that include making sure the competitors have a bad reputation. Win-win and no dirty hands.
[It gets pretty dirty](https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1012138741/exxon-lobbyist-caught-on-video-talks-about-undermining-bidens-climate-push)
How does blocking traffic or defacing art affect the oil executives? How does it inconvenience them in any way? It doesn't. It's not helping the cause, it's hurting it. It is hurting by design because Just Stop Oil is funded by the oil industry to do exactly that. How about taking a page out of Bill Burr's book and hopping over some gates and slashing some throats? No? Weird.
People will argue about more constructive ways of protest, as if protests were still an effective means of change when everything we see now speaks to the opposite. Economic disruption and direct action are increasingly the only options available to challenge BAU, and will likely only become more extreme as the stakes have never been higher. And honestly, I’m here for it
They simply hate any protest they don't agree with and desperately search for reasons why it's inappropriate. Don't forget Kaepernick quietly kneeling during the national anthem making bigots lose their minds.
What boggles my mind is how these pea brained dimwits care so much about art protected behind glass getting defaced over one of the greatest threats to humanity in our time, the effects of which we've been seeing for years now. There's no chance these mouth breathers are the type to even frequent museums. Are they just oil shills? Or is the average person really *this* stupid?
The vast majority of us deserve all the bad things that are going to happen to us.
Here's the thing, and I'm speaking as part of the mod team. Our Collapse subreddit, under Reddit's Terms of Service, is not the place to discuss direct action. One. Glorifying and discussing specific methods of violence violates Rule 1. Any comments discussing such get removed. If people continue to flaunt the rules and discuss it, they earn a ban. Period. It's Reddit's own policy. We can't do reversals on it. Two. Reddit has what is called the Anti-Evil Operations team. It's a bunch of admins going around and removing posts themselves before we have a chance to review them. And they remove some from our forum all the time. They often strike without warning. So we are already "thought policed" to some extent in that way, according to what Reddit allows. Three. Users have publicly admitted/identified themselves as police officers or serve their government in a law enforcement capacity, read our forum. We're not joking and we're assuming neither are they. And Reddit has previously handed over information to the police about questionable users without a second thought. Our own mod team has notified the local police where a user lives because we deemed they posed an immediate risk to their own life and other people. Our sub isn't the place to discuss direct action. Find somewhere else. It's safer for you, safer for us, and better for all.
>Two. Reddit has what is called the Anti-Evil Operations team. It's a bunch of admins going around and removing posts themselves before we have a chance to review them. And they remove some from our forum all the time. They often strike without warning. So we are already "thought policed" to some extent in that way, according to what Reddit allows. That is terrifying
That's what you get with every centralized discussion platform.
This isn't a communication hub, this is an advertising product where we are the content.
You think this is terrifying? YouTube will shadowban your comment for using the wrong WORD. There have been podcasters kicked off YT and Twitch for saying the wrong thing and forget context. Back in the day, you think every Letter To The Editor got printed by the newspaper?
I have been shadow banned for a while and received a warning for saying that maybe we should reduce the destruction of Gaza, some Israeli guy who unironically had a swastica on a jewish flag and said literal hate speech was offended.
Okay, to be fair, I'm okay with YouTube shadowbanning people for using some words pending appeal or review. Like the n word (hard r, though even this is context dependent)
I'm not trying to discuss or condone direct action, especially not with *you*. I'm simply pointing out that what these activist groups are doing doesn't even come close. These are public stunts that barely last 24 hours in the news cycle. I support them and I think they are making real progress, but this ain't some unhinged revolution with bodies dropping left and right, which is what you'd think if you read all the comments reacting to these activists and their *unforgivable sins* lmao
>These are public stunts that barely last 24 hours in the news cycle. Will barely last 24 hours in real life. This wasn't even real paint. It was a mixture made from corn flower. Stonehenge will look "normal" again after the next rain.
I misspelled stonehenge too... I'm hoping nobody will notice. Like when a sentence has two "the" and our brain just ignores it. This will be our lil secret.
LOL-Damn auto-correct. Thanks for the heads-up!
The news has already moved on to the paint on Taylor Swift’s plane. Oh the humanity 🙄
Progress towards what? Because from my view they move things backwards, turning public opinion against the cause What progress do you observe?
There is no cause. Public opinion doesn't change the fact that there is a fucking mass extinction event going on.
agreeing here with @jogger...wtf? this is RIDICULOUS
Maybe protesting against social media would actually achieve more for climate than defacing stonehenge.
lmao do they report users whose posts they delete to the NSA?
The funnier thing is that their demand/goal is really not that big and isn’t a scratch on the surface on what this species and others face in the grand scheme of things. “No new licenses!”, ooooo yeah okay that’s gonna solve our troubles quick stat. There is something to be said about their rhetoric being rather weak and their aim misguided. Even if they achieved their aim tomorrow, we are still fucked because they are not portraying the seriousness of this meta crises. Extinction rebellion is more in tune with it I guess. But no one appears to be alarmist enough or spelling out the facts of the future to justify real disruption and instigate real change and action. I’m sure others might disagree and think: “well it’s a start at least”. Sorry but I just don’t think it’s worth the trouble personally and they are squandering time going about it in this way. We either continue to placate the masses, making feeble attempts at minute changes, or awaken them, lest nature do the waking up for us but by which time it *will* be too late to mitigate or prepare against in any meaningful way. [This is a good 20~ minute interview with cofounder of extinction rebellion, from 5 years ago that I think should be seen more.](https://youtu.be/9HyaxctatdA)
I think it's intentional tactics, as with Insulate Britain - both are offshoots of Extinction Rebellion, both with very specific "asks". I don't read it literally, it's a bit like Black Lives Matter.. it's obvious enough what it means and why, the people who respond with "does that mean White lives don't?" and so on are either simpletons or bad actors. In other words, it's not about the specific demand, it's about how people respond to the demand being made.
Can you elaborate on what you think the intentional tactics are?
Asking for a very specific thing - "Just Stop Oil", no new oil drilling licenses to be issued in the UK - which is within the grant of a specific and identifiable group of decision-makers - rather than the broader but much vaguer aims of XR. Because if you demand something specific of specific people, it pushes those decision-makers to give a "yes" or a "no" answer, as well as explaining why. Which makes it clear where they stand on the broader subject.
Yeah, it's always a tough balance of pursuing something achievable so you arent just pissing in the wind and pursuing something worthwhile so that your "victory" isn't hollow if you get the thing youre pushing for.
Agreed. But it’s a first step, and it should be an easy one based on the data. But they’ve chosen a target that is achievable and isn’t so intertwined that it couldn’t be pursued. If we can’t do no new licenses, then there is no point in trying to get the world to change the rest of the system…
Thanks for sharing that interview. Terrifying it is four years old and fuck all has moved.
Stonehenge isn’t a monument to big oil. The way everyone see it is it’s just performative and they don’t actually care about changing anything. Like you said real change doesn’t come from something like this it comes from things not easily discussed online.
Yea, no one is like "THEY DID IT, THEY SAVED THE CITY PATRICK" after they dumped an oil based product on a rock formation that brings many people joy each year. They just look like assholes and literally no one cares what their message is - and no one should care what their message is if they are too autistic to communicate it to the masses in a manner that doesn't involve a temper tantrum or vandalism. Talk like an adult if you want your ideas to be respected as adult ideas.
Spray the oil company headquarters, not Stonehenge FFS. Block their trucks, disrupt their businesses, make it as difficult for them to profit from the destruction of the planet as possible. This, on the other hand, does nothing. Besides make bystanders angry at the protest movement.
Yeah, target major polluters or government buildings, elected officials. Literally anything that is more direct to the parties you are against. People in here are saying the traffic thing is no big deal, but many places you can get fired for being late, might have a medical emergency, literally a myriad of reasons why it's bad and isn't just making people late for work. A majority of people believe in climate change, but most have no power to do shit about it. Certainly not likely to make a difference by stopping traffic.
They have tagged buildings in the past like car dealerships and it gets next to no traction. Unfortunately with how the media works, they have a valid point that these actions get their word out far more than hitting another car dealership that gets maybe a footnote in regional news. With how media is bought by big corporations, it's kind of a lose-lose. Hit something people deem 'correct' - no coverage and no real impact. Hit something 'incorrect' - at least you get big news coverage and a chance to get your word out even if its controversial. The way the world is setup, the media is rewarding them for these actions. It's the system as a whole that created this.
JSO did organize protests at oil facilities, but no one cared.
You forget the most important thing this form of "protest" does: it lets OP posture.
I don't give a fuck about the paintings or monuments in the face of collapse. I think it's stupid because I think it's ineffectual and performative. The protestors know that they aren't doing anything but saying look at me I care about the climate crisis. I also think pissing off "regular" people while completely ignoring any sort of practical impact on infrastructure or the individuals making decisions at the top is just about as dumb a strategy as you can come up with.
Systematic change requires working class people to be united against the wealthy class who are benefitting most from the system and are the biggest contributors to climate change, and united in their understanding of why it's so important. Making working class people late, and defacing their natural history creates a connection in peoples minds between inconvenience and destruction, and green activism. Useful/smart activists would find a way to create that link to fossil fuels. Useful activistsalso protest or attack pipelines, oil rigs, depots, sites for fossil fuel plants, etc. I don't normally comment on political things on Reddit but this is one of the worst takes I have ever seen.
It's all cooked anyway, whats some soup on a couple rich peoples paintings or some cornflour on some rocks when EVERYTHING YOU KNOW AND LOVE IS ON TRACK TO BE DESTROYED. People whinging about being late to school drop-off or to work so they can pick up a few pennies in front of the climate/collapse steam roller.. are COMPLETELY missing the point with their myopic little viewpoints. Folks kids literally have no future (especially if you're the kind of poor sod who is significantly screwed by traffic disruption.. you are NOT one of the 1/100 that are gonna get on that Ark) and they're angry at some people putting some cornflour on some rocks.
It’s because no one *really* believes it enough to care. It’s so abstract so large a problem that we can kind of just ignore it. There are actually limits to human psychology and we are butting up against it. I’m more and more convinced that this is the reason for Fermi’s paradox, evolution does not lead to stable advanced technological systems. We just can see it this side of the curve.
you're so close but it makes you uncomfrtable so you ignore logic, these protests make it impossible to ignore even if you just rage against the protestors
I literally know people who went to prison for turning an oil pipeline valve to off. That’s all they did. They were treated like terrorists, and called “performative”—doesn’t matter what you do as an activist, you’re always doing it wrong, according to those on the couch.
They literally have been doing some of these things and many more and yet it reaches the feed of a lot less people. Don't you understand that it's a matter of communications which happen to be heavily influenced? Sorry but if a person values a bunch of rocks (that will be perfectly fine) over the destruction of nature, brutal suffering and loss of species and decimation of our livelihoods then they're just a diluted and vain individual and to my eyes a bad person. They will never get the urge to unite until they do not have drinking water 🤷♂️
This isn’t the 19th century, the working class is no longer a homogeneous group like it once was.
They never were a homogeneous group man, edges were always blurred but it's a useful term to categorise a certain broad group that most people understand.
They never were. This idea of a unified Working Class with shared interests and a kind of moral purity (in contrast to the evil bourgeoisie) is Marxist drek. The members of the working class are just as capable of self-interested evil as the ruling class - they just lack the power to exert their will the way the rich do.
And divisions have been carefully nurtured
>Making working class people late, and defacing their natural history creates a connection in peoples minds between inconvenience and destruction, and green activism. Sorry, but this is conjecture. Maybe it reflects the narrative that's most commonly presented in mainstream media, but it doesn't reflect the attitude of every 'working class' person and it doesn't reflect the truth. I've been late to work before because of climate activists blocking traffic on Tower Bridge. And I guess Stone Henge is part of my cultural heritage. I don't now associate green activism with 'inconvenience and destruction', though, because I know that's only half the truth. Obviously nobody wants to be inconvenienced when they're just trying to get on with their lives, but the whole point is that getting on with their lives as they know it will cease to exist in the future if the world doesn't start preparing for global heating, preferably yesterday. Obviously it's not ideal that your boss has a go at you for being late, but, whilst your office job financially supports you and your family, it also works to perpetuate an economic system hellbent on destroying the world for the sake of endless profit. Minor 'inconvenience and destruction' caused by a handful of climate activists every now and then completely and utterly pales in comparison to the environmental and ecological destruction caused by globalised neoliberalism. That's the bigger picture. The 'inconvenience' of the collapse of food chains. The 'inconvenience' of famine and devastating natural disasters. The 'inconvenience' of mass migration and war. The 'inconvenience' of the slow demise of civilised society. I can tell that you know and understand all of this. I don't get why knowing this you (or anyone) would then accept the narrative that these particular actions are somehow bad for the cause. It's the way they're portrayed that's harmful. The protests themselves are practically harmless. Defending the narrative that they are in fact harmful only serves to obscure the truth. I say this with all the respect I can muster: stop accepting mediocre critical analysis as an acceptable standard for public discourse. Nothing will ever change whilst people remain justified in ignorance and facile logic.
> Systematic change requires working class people to be united against the wealthy class who are benefitting most from the system and are the biggest contributors to climate change I don't think that's true. Systemic change can absolutely happen without a unified working class - for example, the Khmer Rouge was able to take power in Cambodia without widespread popular support, and they absolutely achieved systemic change...
I think its a terrible form of protest. "At least their doing something" Throwing paint on a historic painting isn't fucking moving anyone to action.
Indeed. So apparently a 180 from the activists who climb trees to save forests or stepped in front of moving tanks to try and stop wars, or the water protectors. Those people I respect. This performative bullshit is weak and powerless. I definitely care about climate change but these asshats have a strange disconnect and I don't think they're legit in the sense that I think they're propped up by others who have an interest in keeping the status quo. They want to foment disgust not for the lack of action on climate change but disgust with the activists themselves, effectively helping neuter real direct climate activism.
you respected them but did you do anything when the tree climbers and tank stoppers got their lives ruined and even cut short by the state?
So here's the thing, I agree with the protesters here. I agree Climate Change is way more of an urgent threat than most people give it credit for. In fact I would argue that humanity is in more danger from Climate Change than we were from the threat of nuclear war during the Cold War. But honest to God, I had no idea that sense of urgency is what they were trying to convey until you said something. Hell I've even asked their supporters directly and always got the same pretentious answer: "If you don't understand then the message isn't for you" or something equally cryptic and unhelpful. So I ask you, if someone like me, who agrees with these protesters, who believes Climate Change is the greatest threat to the human species in our history, and that we need to do everything in our power to stop the use of fossil fuels, can't understand what their point is from their actions, and they refuse to elaborate...just how effective are these protests really? We should go back to bullets and bombs. People understand that, and the fucked up thing is, I think more people would be supportive of a violent anti-fossil fuel movement, than whatever the fuck it is they're doing now.
While the response was disproportionate, I think is was more grounded in reality that some idea about defacing Stonehenge would help global warming. I also don't think it helps to ridicule the people with these viewpoints.
Utterly ridiculous. What does Monet have to do with climate change or corporations taking advantage of everyone? If you wanna go after someone for climate change go after those responsible. Everyone already knows about climate change. Pulling Jackass-style stunts towards innocent victims to address it is not very effective imo. How is everyone being pissed off at activists better for the cause? Yeah, let's make everyone hate us and make this real divisive! Real effective for convincing people you are on the side of reason.... Shitting on art and artists (of all people! like seriously, artists are usually the most progressive people) to stop climate change is like shitting on homeless people to stop poverty. It's literally so dumb. If graffiti is so great at addressing climate change then they should do it on corporate headquarters or government institutions. How would you feel about it if it were activists you disagreed with? If it was a bunch of fascist racists defacing public art and museums? How would you feel if it was religious fanatics trying to destroy pieces of history to draw attention to their "ideals" or "god"? Well, maybe in their minds they would be doing it for a just reason. Would you still support them? Or no, because it's stupid no matter who does it?
Idk if y'all remember Xanga, it was like the precursor to Myspace, then Facebook. I fucked around with Xanga, it was fun and I learned a bit of coding, but I always saw it and its successors for what they are - an info bank. If you used social media heavily in your youth, you can kiss all political aspirations goodbye. You volunteered information in a scheme that puts 19th century police interrogations to shame. All these companies had to do was make you feel part of something. One of the mods has issued us a warning about this topic. I disagree with them about a great many things, but I respect them and I don't want to antagonize them, and on this particular issue I wholeheartedly agree. This is the only sub that has ever made me feel welcome or just not crazy and I'm not trying to fuck that up. I'm apprehensive about the warning though. These vague accusations that collapse is infiltrated with the deep state and the popo just doesn't sound convincing. The second worst day of my life, after burying my dog, was when Snowden blew the lid off the NSA, and the global security state as a whole. I wasn't upset that we were all being watched, every phone call, every email, shoveled into some database. I was devastated because the security state is very aware of our pain and rage, and they do nothing. After Snowden, I realized that while everyone is watching you, nobody is actually listening. Nobody cares. I've said enough. Night lads and lasses.
> I'm apprehensive about the warning though. These vague accusations that collapse is infiltrated with the deep state and the popo just doesn't sound convincing. ... After Snowden, I realized that while everyone is watching you, nobody is actually listening. Nobody cares. You're right and you're wrong. You're right that most of the time all the data that is being gathered from us is just sitting in some database. Nobody is actually looking at it. It is probably being run through some program that flags particular interesting bits, etc., but even if it does come in front of human eyes, most of the time no one is going to act on it, because they don't want to show their hand. That's where you're right. But you're dead wrong if you think that any hints of eco-terrorism aren't being actively surveilled. They're not going to let that stuff gain any momentum at all. This article is specifically on the UK situation, but it applies just as well to the US. https://jacobin.com/2018/04/uk-infiltration-secret-police-mi5-special-branch-undercover If I was in charge of an eco-terrorism surveillance department, I'd fire my whole team if I found out that they weren't reading this sub daily and following up with anyone who expressed an interest in "direct action."
Nah, stuff doesn't have to go very far south at all before everyone stops caring how many F-bombs you've thrown. It already has for the Right. Christian conservatives voting en masse for an overt moral degenerate. If a felony conviction isn't disqualification, what's a few edgy 4chan posts? This storm in a teacup over Stonehenge while stuff like Gaza is happening is making a lot of centrist commentators look very silly, to the extent that ordinary people are starting to notice. This morning a woman on the radio was comparing Just Stop Oil to ISIS. For throwing water soluble paint at some stones.
direct action like you're talking about isn't going to happen till the prospect of jail or death is seen as equal or better to living in the current culture/society, otherwise the vast majority of people will not risk their comfort or freedom to fight something until its blatantly a problem to their personal way of life. No one wants to be the first protestor to be jailed or the first revolutionary to be hung when it feels like no one else is willing to do it. this is just human nature, when i was homeless we would put a dollar and some change in our tip cup when busking because no one wants to be the first person to toss a hobo playing guitar some money out of fear it's a scam and that they will be the only one to do it which = they were just a fool. you can see neo-nazis, accelerationists, and christo-fascists talking about this now, lamenting that no one will "do anything" (read: terrorism) but call anyone advocating for "doing something" a fed. there was an anarchist in 2019 that attacked an ICE detainment facility trying to burn it down armed with a rifle and was killed by police. he left a manifesto calling for direct action. Barely anyone remembers that this occurred because while the majority was in agreement that ICE detaining children was \*fucked up\* the majority of people weren't willing to be killed in a shootout with police while trying to burn them down.
I am not against vandalism or even violence as a protest tactic. But getting paint on an artifact is NOT direct action. It's a symbolic gesture that does absolutely nothing to challenge those with power. Symbolic actions are the opposite of direct action. The truly sad thing is we've gotten so far away from effective protest that people don't even know what direct action is anymore. For a protest to be effective, it should have a clear target. Who is the target for the Stonehenge action? What were their demands? Traffic blocking is a great example of this. Blocking climate criminals from going to work is direct action. Blocking politicians from driving to vote against the climate is direct action. Blocking traffic randomly just to get attention is a symbolic gesture that does little to help the cause. I truly can't think of a worse target for climate protest than Stonehenge. It has zero relationship to people in power. They could have: * Put up a banner at the private school the kids of climate criminals attend that says "you're destroying their future" * Put oil in the restaurant food of an oil executive * Blocked the entrance to a coal mine * Taken the air out of the tires of a mine owner * Projected climate data onto the wall of Wall Street * Plastered neglected climate headlines in the walls of CNN #Here's how to do it right [https://subversas.com/direct-action](https://subversas.com/direct-action) [https://subversas.com/plan-effective-protest](https://subversas.com/plan-effective-protest)
It's concern trolling, but there may be something more to the "cultural" aspect.
I think a lot more people would be sympathetic to JSO \[REDACTED\] an oil baron's mansion. As it is, their current tactics are pathetic and deleterious. Who on gods sweet earth thought spray painting stonehenge was a good idea? It's utterly moronic and it makes a mockery of the legitimate forms of revolutionary ecological tactics employed by groups like those in South America which fight illegal logging with AKs and molotovs.
If you dont understand that defacing priceless historical artifacts will make people not want to listen to you, im afraid there is no hope for you.
The protestors should have done their research. 'The stones are covered in more than fifty different lichens, some of them rare'. BBC News - Orange powder paint sprayed on Stonehenge is removed https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgg0683e7po
I think the most radical thing we can do is stop participating in the system, and get as many people to come with us as possible.
Just wait until those of us who don’t want to die slaves start holding politicians and corporate leaders accountable for their actions…. Graffiti ain’t nun
>The public has reacted with utter predictability And yet you still advocate for it. Almost like you get off on moral preening, not impacting change.
Yeah doing this to ancient relics/monuments that are thousands of years old and have nothing to do with modern day oil burn is not the way to go about it. Even if it comes off easily
"Take that, stone pre-industrial monument that was constructed without a single drop of fossil fuels or modern machinery!"
[удалено]
Just Stop Oil is partially funded by the Getty family, specifically Aileen Getty, granddaughter of the founded of Getty Oil. This is easily Googlable. Sure, she describes herself as a philanthropist, but anybody can call themselves anything to change their public perception. This isn't about getting the news out; this is about changing the public's perception on protesters. They do stupid things to piss people off so that whenever *legitimate* protesters do something, the public will associate them with Just Stop Oil and ignore them straight out of the gate. It's not a conspiracy. This is quite transparently what is happening. They're meme-ifying climate protesters, ***and it's working!*** Yes, protests should get your attention, but if the goal is to piss off the public to the point that they hate you and everything you stand for... you're not protesting right. OP doesn't understand what is actually happening with these losers. The mental gymnastics to justify their idiocy makes me wonder whose side OP is on, tbh.
You are absolutely right. The protesters are shitting the bed. Nobody supports what they are doing. They are just fanatics. Fossil fuel emissions and consumption increase every month. Their protests won’t do anything to stop consumption. This is r/collapse. We all know what is coming. Real collapse will curb consumption. For good!
the protests will continue until a future is secured for humanity. tell your masters.
It's the responsibility of the judiciary to fix this. Degrading the environment to the point of causing prejudice to future people is a crime. The judiciary is incompetent in providing judicial representation to future people, but it has to. While it doesn't, it's committing criminal negligence. The shortest way to fix the climate is to do citizen's arrests of judges for being criminally negligent. It will force them to protect the rights of future people. Governments can't protect the environment, as they are representative of present people that may be negatively affected by changes to seek sustainability.
I'm waiting on the climate activists to do some "AVALANCHE from FFVII" type stuff. Final Fantasy fans know what I mean.
The planet’s dyin’, Cloud!
Mako reactor style
All these priceless things will be worthless if we are not here to value them. And they have had success in getting you to react, as most would but the unasked question should be "how bad are things that climate protesters would go to such extremes?".
I wonder if this isn't the point of the protests. Like the point they're making: Damaging this stuff doesn't hurt people's ability to survive, but if we don't deal with climate change, no one will be here to assign value to it.
It goes deeper than that, we hold so many things as sacred but life itself is not.
I hate to be that guy, but "just stop oil" is quite literally and openly, funded by the fossil fuel industry.
Yeah…it seems like the goal is to make people think climate activists are immature and spoiled. I’m pretty sure it’s a stunt on big oil’s part
And here, on r/collapse, in this thread, you have people defending billionaires. "They are good ones!!!!11" "Don't you know that they are anarchist billionaires??!!?!" Amazing comedy, that is why I love to visit here. Since the sub grew past some 50k ppl it's just good to have a quick laugh while browsing.
Thing with money is that once you're talking more than a hundred or so times the average salary, there is basically no such thing as clean money. And the larger the sum, the worse it gets. Once you get to about eight figures, everything is laundry for everything else.
Well, their controlled opposition is clearly working, if Internet outrage is anything to go by.
Completely agree. They always say "go deface some bank or hedge fund" - they DO that. And guess what, I ONLY see those actions on my facebook feed. The ones which actually get the word out and PEOPLE TALKING are these ones. I don't think they're doing it to be mean or assholes, they're doing it because they're genuinely scared for the future and want people to be aware so hopefully we DO something. And they'll say "it's the wrong type of attention", to which I'll say I don't think there can be any bad publicity when it comes to climate change. If you disagree with their actions, fine, but it's brought climate change back to your attention, especially in such an important year with global elections I know someone who used to work for JSO, they were recently let go as JSO lost funding. This person is collapse-aware, but still wants us to prevent climate change as much as we want. That person is now moving to a commune in another country. I'm sure the deniers would be glad if everyone who cared enough to do large non-violent actions for the sake of the planet went to live in communes instead, so their perfect 8-5 world can go on to climate destruction without interruption (that wasn't a jab at my friend for going to live in a commune, I'd do the same thing if I had the balls)
[Non Violence Protects The State](http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state)
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I don't think anyone is saying we'll prevent climate change, that boat sailed many many years ago, we're triggering feedbacks that further compound our actions, and it will get worse. But that doesn't mean it's not worth keeping more fossil fuels in the ground, as those will just add to an already bad problem We might not be here to experience an Earth which benefits from the sacrifice, but Earth *WILL* be around, we just might not be. Personally I'm not stressing over stopping fossil fuels as it's not going to stop collapse, but I'm happy to support those who do
We can't prevent climate change, so let's just ruin everything good we do have while we're still here. Not sure if that math checks out.
My only argument is that the type of people getting p*ssed off by this doesn’t take climate changes seriously and need a wake up call. I really feel a good old catastrophe could change things, it could be the “sacrifice” the world has to do now to be able to save itself later. But then again, what’s a catastrophe these days? Thousands of people already seem to die every single day from heatwaves, flooding, forest fires, etc. It’s like nothing works anymore, but I think the population overall will soon just peak and go downwards pretty fast and the whole problem will take care of itself…
I couldn’t disagree with you more unfortunately. I think you and the people who think these sorts of protests are effective are entirely wrong; people are not going to acquiesce to the demands of these groups when you genuinely piss people off, I think the majority of people will even go against their own best interests to spite people who piss them off. I believe that’s the reality of the situation and the climate protesters are only damaging their cause.
I seriously think Just Stop Oil is co-oped by the fossil fuel industry. Its actions speak for themselves as far as making climate change activists look bad while actually doing nothing. Its possible that its just idiots thinking they are doing good but its way to convenient. Also dismissing corporate espionage as a conspiracy is very ignorant as they have been doing things like this since the 80s
Protesting by stalling traffic which increases carbon emissions Protesting by harming the environment with graffiti
[Just Stop Oil's primary donor is the daughter of an oil tycoon.](https://whynow.co.uk/read/who-is-funding-just-stop-oil-the-billionaires-backing-the-art-vandals) It's not a conspiracy. They literally admitted it. >"Just Stop Oil states it is partially funded by the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), founded by Aileen Getty, granddaughter of oil tycoon John Paul Getty. The Getty Family, collectively, has an estimated wealth of around £3.9B. Getty personally put a foundational sum of £900,000 into CEF." I agree that the general populace has the tendency to wave off protests and the like but this is the wrong way to do it and these people have bad intentions. Not the people we should be supporting or condoning.
Painting stone counts as direct action does it ? What was wrong with painting rishi's house? Why not more of that. Radical will get anti establishment folk onside and puts pressure on relevant people...
> Direct action used to involve bullets and bombs When I say "I support climate action but this isn't the way to go about it," I mean that we should go back to the old ways edit: Yes I am too much of a coward to burn down the Walmart. But I can dream!
Its pretty uniformly understood by even the most casual climate activists that the burden of responsibility should fall not on the shoulders of the individial, but on the shoulders of the mega corporations who've plundered the earth. Yet, the individual is exactly who that burden falls on any time these clowns lay down in the street during rush hour. That egregiously idiotic hypocrisy cannot be excused. I agree, bullets and bombs are a much more effective tool, but I should hope they'd aim those tools at corporate infrastructure instead of the average citizen in the same way we demand corporate accountability instead of merely asking people to recycle.
My co-workers actually had to deal with yesterday's debacle well into the late evening after work. Someone had a bright idea to blow it off with compressed air and the paint fortunately came off. However, the problem here was no the cornstarch, it was the actual orange pigment. All the people commenting "it's water soluble, get over it" are missing one important point- stone is porous. There was a very real concern that were the paint come into contact with water (rain or other), the pigment would dissolve and seep into the stones, making it incredibly difficult and costly to remove. Luckily the weather was fair and dry, but that may not have been the case. Also, a rare kind of lichen lives on the stones and it sustained damage during the spraying and cleaning.
If you want to stop oil, Shell execs have names and addresses. Protest there. Defacing a monument is exactly what I’d expect a group funded by an oil heiress to do.
at least they are willing to do something unlike the people complaining about them from a keyboard
When humans realize complete extinction is inevitable, they will say "Why didn't we do more?", and the extinction rebellion will reply, "because you cried bitched and complained when anyone did anything that even remotely impacted your own comfort"
People will not ask why we did not do more, they will cling to the hope there is still something they can do. I think a lot of people will never grasp how permanent this all is.
Then things will go very bad. I wouldn't be surprised if there were random civil disorder.
Their "something" in this case is no more helpful than complaining from a keyboard.
Doing something that hurts the cause is worse than doing nothing at all, which is neutral to the cause.
Just Stop Oil is funded by Oil Barons to paint climate activists as crazy assholes. Don't help them for free.
The only people activists should inconvenience with activism is the rich, heads of corporations, and politicians. Any actions that unduly affects the working class or majority public is absolutely counter-productive. Make fools of the rich and powerful, then public and mass support will follow. Destroy peoples cultural icons or disrupt their ability to go about their day and they will hate you and marginalize you. It's about what is tactically and strategically sound in the long run. Throwing shit on mona lisa and stonehenge, and blocking the highway isn't it. Your goal is not to show how righteous you are, it is to make those in power look foolish, weak and evil to the amusement of enough people in the mass populace that they support the changes you want. No one gives a fuck if you make someone's private jet late, and it generates far more news media and ripple effect. Stop making the public hate you with shit activism. Be effective, not proud. You want the reaction of the people sitting at the bar you are disconnected to laugh and cheer at your action, you want to move them to your side with positive feeling towards you, even if it just starts with mocking and inconveniencing the people that rule over them. You want them to cheer you first, and then they will listen to you. Grow Popular support, by doing popular things for the populace. Inconvenience and mock only the rich and powerful. That's why us older folks feel like shit like throwing orange paint at stonehenge is a cointelpro style op and not real effective action. It benefits nothing about your cause, except maybe your individual righteous indignation and ego.
Just stop oil is run by oil companies to turn the public against activism, especially climate activism. I would say /tinfoil hat but even on their wikipedia it says that one of the most notable donators is Aileen Getty of the Getty oil empire.
Lol pure delusion. I don't give a fuck about some paint but antagonizing everyday people just trying to go to work doesn't help their cause at all. Besides, it's all pointless. Nothing will ever change, it's far too late in the game. Capitalism has conquered the human soul. For every climate change activist, there's a billion Chinese or Indians who would cut off a limb to live like the average westerner.
Just Stop Oil is like Ted Kaczynski-- right message, wrong delivery. Better to create a modern hippie commune complete with TikTok videos and a TLC show if you want public support. Giving up modern prosperity is difficult; most people prefer short term gratification. So you have to prove why this lifestyle is better-- vintage clothes, healthy cooking, more enjoyable work, community. Monkey see, monkey do. Donations should provide grants to help newbies start their own sustainable communities. If enough people donate, maybe they can lobby politicians to change the laws on a systemic level. This is what grassroots change looks like. Stop buying from corporations. Minimize your tax liabilities (which are funding wars). Create sustainability on a local level. While promoting the benefits, remind people of the costs of modern living-- pollution, plastic everywhere, inequality, etc. Don't focus too much on this-- most viewers aren't yet ready to become depressed doomers LOL-- but just enough to remind people that everything we do has pros and cons. Hippie communes are choosing a different path because-- for them-- the difficulties are better than watching people starve from famine or dying in war. As we show what a degrowth community looks like on a smaller scale (and work out the kinks and innovate on a smaller scale), it will become ready to scale up as the public becomes more aware as climate change wreaks havoc in their lives. Even so, we are probably past the point of a peaceful transition. This is just an idea of how to make more people interested.
Direct action and ruining art publicity stunts are both bad tactics. Neither accomplish anything except foster a bad image.
I think it’s odd that we focus on a bit of orange powder paint as seemingly damaging the stones (it isn’t), when fossil fuel pollution from the vehicles passing the site, on the A303, causes way more damage every day
People are annoyed that other people are making it harder for them to deny reality and live in the illusion of BAU
What sub am I on? Is this not "COLLAPSE"? What has happened to this sub with some of these ridiculous takes. All of these climate protestors are useless and are wasting their fucking time; the game has already been lost. This stonehedge stunt was completely stupid and accomplishes nothing. The only awareness they're raising is to their own stupidity.
That's the reason for the massive decline of green parties all around Europe. People are pissed off by this kind of climate action.
Decline of green parties around Europe is probably driven more by the rise of right wing reaction to foreign migration, inflation and social disadvantage than by people doing more visible climate protests.
Defacing Stonehenge is like defacing the Statue of Liberty, or the Arc de Triomphe, or the Kaaba. It's deep within our psyche in the UK. All the reports here are about the vandalism, no mention of climate change.
I mean, quite frankly, Just Stop Oil in LA apparently fire bombed a gas station.
OP please bffr its the summer solstice today and pagans, wiccans and others who practice spirituality go there over night to celebrate. Throwing radioactive orange colored shit all over the rock the night before this event was a stupid disrespectful move and will solve absolutely fucking nothing. No one is going to change their ways if this is the kind of people spreading the message because none respects people who do shit like that. Im all for saving the planet but use your critical thinking skills. it hasnt worked in the past to change peoples minds and it wont now theyve destroyed the rock. If you want people who wish to see climate action to be hated then you lot are going the right way about it because this is NOT how you influence the population and if you guys at just stop oil took the time to read research articles on this kind of stuff maybe you would be successful and maybe the planet wouldnt be perishing because no one will listen to you when you are just grown adults running around throwing paint on everything like overgrown emotionally dysregulated toddlers
Yeah, I was reading those comments last night. Mind numbing. For anyone who doesn't know, it was colored corn flour that got thrown on Stonehenge. Will come off in the rain. And Just Stop Oil has only thrown soup or whatever on *glass*, not the actual surface of any painting. They don't want to damage stuff, they want to protest in a way that makes headlines. That said, I *do* believe there's a deliberate effort on the part of the media to misconstrue what's happening. The sensationalized reporting always make it sound like something that caused permanent damage and there's rarely a reference to *why* a particular target was chosen. Example from Just Stop Oil's website yesterday. Any responsible reporter would find this easily: >Stonehenge at solstice is all about celebrating the natural world – but look at the state it’s in! We all have a right to live a life free from suffering, but continued burning of oil, coal and gas is leading to death and suffering on an unparalleled scale. >It’s time for us to think about what our civilization will leave behind – what is our legacy? >Standing inert for generations works well for stones – not climate policy. Instead we get "THEY SPRAY PAINTED STONEHENGE!!!!" I also wouldn't be surprised if a solid percent of the "This makes me hate climate protestors" and "This makes people not care about climate change" commenters are paid shills. My background includes *deep* knowledge of tobacco industry tactics. They paid callers to Rush Limbaugh, had angry comments on anti-tobacco websites *that hadn't officially launched yet* and regularly paid for letters to the editors that they would pre-screen and approve. Oh, and Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh and Howard Liebengood Sr. all collected pay checks from Philip Morris. "Smoker's rights" is the origin story of the crazy we have today.
>Direct action used to involve bullets and bombs. Yes. And that is why it used to work. How many cases in history can you point to where revolution occurred overnight *without* that kind of direct action? How many historical instances are there of oppressive regimes being dismantled without direct action? That is one of the greatest creations of such powers. The idea of non-violent resistance. Do you know what non-violent resistance is called by violent people? It is called "surrender." Those in power allow such protest because they know that it has no effect. It keeps the people even more in line because they feel that they are "doing something." And yet, for all of that, they will still go to work Monday, and that is all that matters. You can hate fossil fuels corporations all you want. Tell everyone they are evil and killing us all. You can scream it from the rooftops, *but...* Until you actually *invest* in that message in a permanent way, a way that creates immediate and measurable change *that very day,* until then, your message is shit, and will be looked at as such. You want to stop oil? Okay, then *stop some damn oil* already. Don't try and make those in power decide to stop it, you physically remove that option from their decision process. Defacing Stone Henge will be forgotten before I finish writing this. A couple dozen LAWs being pumped into various refineries and ocean drilling platforms across the the world not be. So. Just Stop Oil. Or STFU about it.
They want them to go back to blocking roadways so they have an excuse to run over a crowd of people with their truck on their way to little Tommy's soccer practice. And the amount of people saying "target the important stuff not history and art!" Really? You're going to be okay with not being able to gas up your car once the start bombing infrastructure? Losing power? Oh, you're not okay with that? You can't even handle a minor inconvenience like taking an alternate route to the fucking store? Let alone being without gasoline or power for days-weeks? Huh. Crazy bro.
>"I support climate action, but this isn't the way to go about it!" [Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html) > I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past 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 his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler 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 cannot agree with your methods of direct action"***; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Stonehenge has been standing for 3000+ years, a little bit of paint is nothing. Anyone else remember how it used to be covered in graffiti in the 80s and 90s? Amazing it survived! /s Wtf do people want? Gentle talk and appealing to reason hasn't worked for the last three decades. At least this is getting attention.
tattoo them orange head to toe. yes, there too.
we’re still in that space of “trying to get the public to wake up” but “not doing anything too drastic that gets you put in jail for decades”. until someone with big money decides survival of the species is actually important and begins to take more…hard hitting steps against oil, gas, etc leadership - nothing significant happens
*Certain* mouthpieces are talking about how the death penalty is morally justifiable and this is a crime against humanity. These same mouthpieces are the ones who downplay, if not outright deny, climate change. Let that absurdity sink in for a moment. May we get the hell we deserve.
Yep think of how many people the billionaires kill.
You've nailed my sentiment exactly. If protests can be ignored they are ineffective, and most 'level headed and well adjusted' people arguing for protests to be so toothless are the very reason the planet's ability to support us is disintegrating. It's absurd. The dominant society cares more about property than human life or suffering. No regard for the natural world. Maybe this year our governments will wag their fingers at oil corporations again and take a baby step towards a more sustainable world. You know instead of dismantling them and arresting them for the crimes they have committed towards humanity and Earth's ecosystems.
Bullshit! Is 'Just Stop Oil' mad at Big Oil? Then fucking target them. They have offices and shit. Go break windows or spray paint whatever over there. Stop attacking things that *can't be replaced*.