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Just Stop Oil activists jailed for throwing soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
139 points (98.6% liked)
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I said this before when JSO used "washable" paint on Stonehenge: they are punching in the wrong direction. Billionaires don't care about human life, so why would they care about a painting?
These works belong to humanity, and by defacing them, you aren't winning converts—you're just pissing people off. Go vandalize something that belongs to the billionaires making things worse for the rest of us; unless you can win people to your cause, you're going to remain small-time vandals that get outsized prison sentences and unflattering media coverage.
Unless you can demonstrate an actual harm that these people are doing to the cause, I am going to give them my support for doing SOMETHING. If it moves the needle a millionth of a percent in the right direction, tear down all the art galleries. We only have one planet.
Many of these cases have had jury nullification, which means a jury of twelve people who have been vetted to remove bias, all unanimously agreed to say "fuck you" to the legal system rather than lock up JSO activists.
That tells me that there is considerable public support for them, whatever you say to the contrary.
Edit: Here's a study about the actual problems facing the climate movement. Support isn't the issue:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3
Abstract:
The abstract of that paper says that the real problem is people's lack of awareness of how incredibly high the support for climate action is, because that informs how likely they are to act.
In which case, all this hand-wringing about which actions increase or decrease support is a red herring, because the support is not actually in danger.
I would suggest that the real problem is people who handwring about the support creating the perception that the cause is less popular than it is.
Here's one study Pennsylvania University https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/commentary/public-disapproval-of-disruptive-climate-change-protests/
Do with it what you will.
Is there any data in here to suggest what the actual effect is on level of support, rather than people self-reporting their change in level of support?
Because here's one reading of the data, which I think is entirely reasonable:
The people who report "no effect" on their support, which at 40% is the largest single group, already support efforts to address climate change, and this makes no difference to them.
The people who report a decrease, great or otherwise, of their support, are just conservatives who know that the talking point is "this action decreases support" and so they're answering in a way that supports that narrative. In reality, these people were already opposed to any meaningful action in the first place, and this didn't change their actual level of support.
Without further analysis, this survey doesn't say much. Even the questions dishonestly imply that actual damage is being done to art, when that generally isn't the case.
Again, that survey comes up against a tide of jury nullifications, which would indicate a very strong material support for these activists and the cause they represent. The courts are trying to penalise people for mentioning climate change in their defense, which has got to blow back in their faces eventually. In fact these court cases may be an important part of swinging public sentiment against the government and towards radical action to change things.
Who gives a fuck about "disapproval?" "Disapproval" is entirely irrelevant -- actually no, more than that: "disapproval" is what reactionaries do when they can't ignore you anymore, which is a sign that you're winning.
Change like this doesn't happen because the Powers that Be "approve" of the protestors. Change like this happens because the protestors have caused enough disruption to force the Powers that Be to capitulate.
If you’re trying to affect public opinion, it’s extremely relevant.
Throwing soup on art. Listen to yourself. The Powers that Be are not affected one iota. In fact, as the study above has made clear, these twits have helped them.
Yeah, and they're not.
They did no such thing! They threw soup on glass, harmlessly.
Why are you lying about both their motives and their actions?
Those people who disapprove vote. They absolutely matter, and pretending they don't is why JSO will continue to lose.
What the fuck are you even talking about? Do you think the Civil Rights Movement succeeded because White Moderates "voted" in favor of it?
No, the Civil Rights Movement succeeded because the massive disruptions it caused made it clear that trying to preserve the white supremacist status quo would no longer be possible, and that the only alternative to negotiating concessions to the likes of MLK and the NAACP would be having to deal with the likes of Malcolm X instead.
Similarly, Just Stop Oil's path to victory has absolutely fuck-all to do with popular "approval" of their tactics, but everything to do with becoming so disruptive that it becomes worth it to capitulate to their demands to make the protests stop. Just Stop Oil is trying to be the Malcolm X of the climate movement. They don't want your approval, and they don't need your approval.
Spamming the false notion that approval matters all over the thread is nothing but the reactionary pearl-clutching of a concern troll.
I hate to tell you this but that’s literally what happened.
Okay, let me be clearer: they didn't vote to "approve" of the protestors. They voted to accede to the protestors demands even though they fucking hated MLK, because they had no choice.
It would not have succeeded otherwise, since they were the ones in power.
And look how well that's working out: https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/commentary/public-disapproval-of-disruptive-climate-change-protests/
Sounds like somebody is butthurt that they realize they don't actually have a good defense other than nihilism. Refute my points, if you have a problem, but ad hominem attacks aren't a valid justification why my points are invalid.
What part of your study is measuring an irrelevant thing do you not fucking understand?