Cripple. History Major. Irritable and in constant pain. Vaguely Left-Wing.
That’s a yes then
I am well-aware that Suffragists used this tactic as well, hence
Only the ones who tried to damage priceless historical artifacts for attention?
Or is your argument that the Suffragists were successful, therefore, every one of their tactics was wise?
May have been misinterpreted as a flat “I would rather someone vote for a party other than Dem or Rep” without “than not vote at all” to contextualize it.
Some people like the challenge. Not her first time on the trail, either.
I’m not condemning them for doing something small, only trying to emphasize that my issue here is not damaging things in general, but damaging, specifically, historical pieces. It’s just seems like throwing soup at paintings is the wrong approach on every level.
Polymorphism
This chain literally started with you responding to someone daydreaming about physically assaulting the young protesters with:
The point of that, something that you seem to have still missed, was not “I want to hurt them for being idiots”, though that may have been secondary, but “If the act doesn’t matter, just the cause, by principle that leads to absurd things, like acts with no conceivable serious connection with the cause being touted as a great success for that cause simply for linking the name of the act and the cause.”
not say the regular stuff like blocking traffic or vandalizing (non-priceless) surfaces in places that are visible to a mass audience rather than comfortably protected behind fences and security checkpoints.
I literally cite arson, riots, and general strikes as valid, but go off I guess.
I’m down with violence, man. But human history and culture isn’t the enemy here, it shouldn’t be the target, and simply ‘raising awareness’ is no longer the goal. Take a sledgehammer to an oil exec’s front door if you want to go the direct action route, not to the Magna Carta.
There are actually probably more effective uses of violence than the oil exec’s front door. But you get what I mean, I hope. Action alone is not enough, it must be action that causes something useful to the cause, like increasing fear in the politicos or ultra-wealthy (as the Suffragists did with arson and bombing campaigns targeting both), or reducing the effectiveness of society as a whole until negotiations are had (as with a general strike, though that’s not violent, generally).
When did An Inconvenient Truth come out again? Like, can I get a temperature check on the polite and respectful progress we’ve made since then?
An Inconvenient Truth raised awareness at a time when there wasn’t nearly as much awareness on the issue. Hell, in '04 Climate Change was still barely even mentioned by the Dem candidate. But that part is over - the comparatively easy part, the faces and names part. Now we’re at the part where we have to actually fight for fundamental changes to get anywhere, and ‘raising awareness’ as an excuse just isn’t going to cut it.
It’s also not about ‘polite and respectful’. It’s about making structural changes to an extremely complex and interconnected system, rather than getting some nice-sounding policy pass so backpats can be had.
Confirming that “We don’t want to do things the hard way that works, we want to do easy stuff” is the motivation is a hell of a take to present as a positive.
If some soup on plexiglass can convince you to let the planet burn, you were never on the side of progress.
I’m not the one that needs convincing. But I’m sure the majority that you actually need on your side are simply insufficiently pure, and a bunch of reactionary dogs anyway, so who cares about gaining their approval for the cause?
I agree except that potential damage to historical pieces makes me extremely upset.
I would prefer they ACTUALLY riot to that.
… and, in fact, that would probably be much more effective.
and how pointless the general idea of public protest is.
Me: “All I ask is that you don’t attempt to damage historical artifacts. Other property damage or human damage is fine.”
“WOW YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN PUBLIC PROTEST”
10/10
Pug my guy, all bets are off, every polluting industry is grinding billions to keep this cart on its current track.
But it’s the vandalism of art that’s going to turn the tides against that? A few middle class kids getting a handful of months in prison for tossing soup around at an art gallery?
Fuck, if you’re gonna be serious about taking this as a suffragist level crisis, you need suffragist level tactics. You need to riot. You need to attack the places the rich feel safe. Not toss soup on historical artifacts to ‘raise awareness’.
I’m sure if they could strike at oil execs they would
I’m extremely doubtful of that. That wouldn’t feel ‘monumental’ enough. They want to be part of a world-changing event, the bit that people look back and say “This is it, this is when it started!” without understanding the long and complex fight that led to that point. They want to be part of a notable event, not a mass campaign. But my distrust of their motives is beside the point; even if their motives were unimpugnable, this would remain a terrible way to go about things.
but have you tried to locate these people? Which mansion are they in at this time of year?
Man, the richest people in the world can be tracked with almost hilarious ease. Stunning amounts of information is publicly available. Flight logs, ship entry/exit to ports, publicly announced corpo meetings.
They need to garner mass attention now,
That’s just the thing - it’s not mass attention that the subject needs. The subject HAS mass attention. The issue is that people don’t perceive the seriousness of issue, or believe more is being done about it than actually is, or fall for political rhetoric that promises environmental destruction under the guise of conservation. We HAVE mass attention. People KNOW. But they aren’t on our side, or at least, rather, not on our side in the way that we need.
This is the grueling, ugly, thankless part that no one wants to do, the education, the politiking, the push to reorganize incentives to prioritize climate goals, the miserable prying of fringe supporters to a pro-climate position. And that doesn’t suit people who prefer there to be a single isolated issue they can focus all their attention on and get accolades for - there’s no point where the world collapses onto its knees, tears in its eyes, and cries out “I see now, I see, thank you so much!”
The most ideal realistic scenario is the scenario of women’s rights - in a hundred years, multifaceted efforts may, if we fight for it, render the question of opposing climate change obsolete - but no one is going to admit in a hundred years, save the lunatic fringe, of being pro-oil or the environmental equivalent of the time, just as no one except the lunatic fringe questions women’s suffrage now (I think if we presume that our efforts fighting the issue in the here and now are successful, at the very least the issue then cannot still be oil in 100 years, or we’ve utterly lost in that period of time, but I use oil just as a signifier of that ‘kind’ of position).
The fight will never end. And people get discouraged by that, so they try to hyperfocus to the detriment of actual progress on the matter.
Only the ones who tried to damage priceless historical artifacts for attention?
Literally the only demand I made is “Don’t attempt to damage priceless works of art or human heritage”, but I guess that’s too much to ask for the attention-seeking brigade.
The level of disdain you have for people who are already ideologically aligned with you is insane, especially considering that you believe that this kind of action, in addition, is just what is needed to win them over. Are we running on battered spouse rules or something?
You’ll notice how the only thing they can cite is “worry” by “staff” with no qualification for whether the worry was realistic.
I’m sure the staff whose job it is to caretake these priceless objects have no clue what they’re talking about, sure.
They’re not mentioning “worries” of the people who actual design the protection, because those people either don’t worry or should find a different job. A liquid leaking through to damage the painting is literally the purpose of the protection. Especially after such high profile events starting years ago.
So:
I find that argument that the onus is not on individuals to not damage paintings, the onus is on the gallery’s security systems to prevent them from doing so, to be uncompelling
You cannot realistically protect a painting from its frame. If you really want to totally protect it, you could plexiglass the whole exhibit, frame and all, but that’s just another step in the escalation of security measures vs. vandals, and does not address the underlying problem.
That such high profile events started and have continued despite repeated incidents of damage to artifacts (though thankfully nothing totally destroyed), as well as some near-misses like this one suggest that there is an issue causing these high profile events to continue. As these events have not led to any sort of climate policy change or mass change in climate change opinion, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than the reason for the continuation of these high profile events is internal reinforcement from these social circles and activist groups. Or, if you will, asspats.
“No art on a dead planet” is a braindead justification and does not in any way outline how vandalism of art is supposed to translate into climate activism, while the four criteria outlined for activism are valid but in no way provide a special justification for vandalism of cultural artifacts, which has a significantly greater backlash from the exact kind of educated people most likely to get involved in climate activism, and very little disruptive potential.
“I understand that we’re pissing people off but there’s no other way to get attention” and “Negative attention is good attention, because maybe it will cause people to become positively engaged with the cause” are not particularly compelling rebuttals in the critics section.
“JSO was central in setting the 2024 Labour agenda” is utterly deluded, while all the cited actions by their sister organizations in Europe are much more traditional instances of civil disobedience that have long-proven track records and a clear and logical progression of action-to-influence.
This really reinforces my view that JSO are terribly naive and have no real idea on how their actions will seriously lead to mass change of opinions on climate change.
Because this was always the plan.