No, Just Stop Oil is not an “activist” group. They’re in cahoots with the enemy. They’re defamation, and their intent is to give the radical right something to point to.
Just Stop Just Stop Oil.
EDIT: There are waaaaaaay too many assumptions happening in this thread.
I once read a pretty good write up somewhere on Reddit with proof that they were getting reasonably large financial support from the daughter of an oil baron, and it’s unclear if she supports the left or right.
On the other hand, a friend of a friend was arrested at a just stop oil rally in Manchester, UK a few months back, and I know him well enough to absolutely believe he thought he was doing what was best for the world, although I’m unsure if he’d deface anything.
https://whynow.co.uk/read/who-is-funding-just-stop-oil-the-billionaires-backing-the-art-vandals
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/climate/climate-protesters-paid-activists.html
Sorry about the Times article, it’s a citation used on Wikipedia. Top one is not paywalled.
So let‘s talk about the first article. It‘s written by art critic Alexander Adams who likes to talk about things like „why the Left hates good art“
https://soundcloud.com/user-923838732/alexander-adams-why-the-left-hates-good-art
Just the style of writing in this article gives away a lot:
The self-professed aims of these organisations and their millionaire backers are to bypass politics and implement radical measures upon the world’s population without democratic consultation.
the referenced piece here is written by a Breitbart editor by the way.
Anyway, so Just Stop Oil are going to bypass the world‘s democratic order? Yeah? By demanding them to follow through with their climate pledges? Oh man.
Also, it is no news, that the Getty heir is contributing to various funds, so what. I am a landlord and support Extinction Rebellion, does that make their actions inauthentic?
The reality is that the UK is using pretty straight forward laws to prevent this kind of protest, they don‘t need some kind of internationalist cabal to do that for them.
There’s no proof but what else could be these people’s problem? They have to know what they’re doing to the image of people who do care about the environment. It’s not like they’re helping. I don’t get it.
it doesn‘t seem logical to you that some people are freaking out because everybody is talking about climate change while it is clearly happening and it is becoming obvious that too little is being done too late?
If that were true, wouldn’t their shenanigans be more destructive? Soup over a glass protected painting and colored corn starch on a monument are not really rage inducing.
“Protests must be polite and not ruffle any feathers” is what I’m hearing.
Sorry. But as climate change gets worse and corporations continue to annihilate the living beings on this planet while governments uphold their ability to do so, the protests will only become more radical. We’re long past the point of polite protests, and they didn’t work.
Radical in my mind is burning down an oil plant. Going after a piece of history is disgusting. At least ruffle the feathers of the people you’re standing up to.
I’ve read the other replies to my comment, but yours is the only counter that I mostly agree with.
Yes, going after an oil plant would certainly be a much more radical form of protest. The main issue is that targeting something like that carries massive risk and is unfathomably challenging. That isn’t to say they shouldn’t do it though.
My comment was more a response to some of the general negative sentiment that I see in response to other protests that are disruptive. It’s usually reactionary claims of “you’re making people mad, so it’s counterproductive”, while ignoring the fact that nothing else has worked.
“Protests must be polite and not ruffle any feathers” is what I’m hearing.
I don’t think that protests have to be polite, however protests do have to be productive. If your environmental group’s political agitation only results in turning public opinion away from the greater movement…I’m not sure if that’s a productive use of political capital.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to question a group’s motivation who are participating in unproductive political agitation. Especially considering that their funding comes from an oil heiress, who could be using her vast fortune to be lobbying to the people whom actually have access to the power that can bring about real change.
the protests will only become more radical.
I’d hardly say paying some teens to “vandalize” a painting that your family owns is really a radical act of protest. Now if they were conducting these types of actions against oil companies, or the political bodies who support them… That would be radical.
Okay but could they please target things that are actually causing the problem and not thousands of years old stone monuments that can’t possibly have any bearing on anything.
Otherwise they’re just being vandals. And then bean vandals is counterproductive to their own stated course.
This is so hilariously wrong. There’s a lot of stuff I won’t admit to since this is a public account and a public identity. Kairos. What I don’t support, however, is vandalism of historical monuments. Especially when the monument in question is so incredibly irrelevant to the crisis at hand.
There’s a lot of stuff I won’t admit to since this is a public account and a public identity.
haha
I’m sorry dog but spray painting an ancient wonder isn’t an environmental protest.
It’s corn starch. The ancient wonder suffers more defacement in the form of erosion because it rains every 4 seconds in the UK. Stonehenge will be perfectly okay.
