Just Stop Oil activists throw soup over a painting again, hours after sentencings

[Dexta]

Just Stop Oil: Protesters throw soup on Van Gogh paintings - BBC News


Again (the headline in the link is wrong, click on the link to see the real headline) hours after the original activist were given 2 years for chucking around a bit of soup at the same painting earlier.

Unfortunately I'm unwilling to martyr my time in this way due to my "relationship commitments" (job in support work, elderly mother and grandmother etc). Maybe I'm just something of a coward. The jury's out.

[pattylt]

I don’t understand why this group doesn’t throw the soup on oil executives ot, at least, on gas station signs, refineries and corporate headquarters. The oil paintings aren’t the problem! They are national treasures and I understand the outrage they are trying to accomplish but it tends to just enrage people against their cause and tactics. I freely admit there’s something here I’m just not getting…

[Dexta]

Headlines, publicity, outrage. BBC no less. Great tactic JSO I say. Also, it's not the point it's an oil painting FFS, it's that lt's a Van Gough.

[Dexta]

Lolz, maybe that wasn't your thrust, and it's just an irony it's an "oil" painting. Hilarious really, perhaps. Taking bets now on how long these new three will get for throwing a bit of soupp around...4 years? 5?

[mordant]

I don’t understand why this group doesn’t throw the soup on oil executives ot, at least, on gas station signs, refineries and corporate headquarters.  The oil paintings aren’t the problem!  They are national treasures and I understand the outrage they are trying to accomplish but it tends to just enrage people against their cause and tactics.  I freely admit there’s something here I’m just not getting…

Recently I finished reading the generally excellent novel, The Ministry for the Future. It is near-future sci-fi about how the climate crisis COULD be solved, and also a very good way to learn a great deal about geopolitics and economics. At any rate ... in the book, various massive crises occur that radicalize certain elements of society against corporate interests (e.g., millions of people in India die in a heat wave; the entire Los Angeles basin is flooded in an atmospheric river, essentially destroying the city). Using automated and untraceable drones, some of these covert protest organizations begin systematically sinking container ships, a major source of pollution and carbon debt. They succeed to the extent that shipping companies like Maersk see no choice but to built carbon-neutral container ships that these dark groups will not sink. They build them to run on a combination of solar and wind -- it is more expensive but just becomes a cost of doing business -- and eventually they refine them to the point that they are actually faster, etc.

Maybe what these protesters are thinking of, is along similar lines ... change your ways or we'll hit you over and over where (we think) it hurts. It's just not fully / rationally thought through and they don't yet have enough reach to effect real change.

Personally I wouldn't go to prison for throwing soup unless it really made a difference.

[Gwaithmir]

I don’t understand why this group doesn’t throw the soup on oil executives ot, at least, on gas station signs, refineries and corporate headquarters.  The oil paintings aren’t the problem!  They are national treasures and I understand the outrage they are trying to accomplish but it tends to just enrage people against their cause and tactics.  I freely admit there’s something here I’m just not getting…

I think people like this simply have a penchant for raising hell.

[mordant]

Here's a more scholarly analysis of what the strategy is here -- it's called the "radical flank effect"

https://jamesozden.substack.com/p/whats-...t-throwing

[pattylt]

Here's a more scholarly analysis of what the strategy is here -- it's called the "radical flank effect"

https://jamesozden.substack.com/p/whats-...t-throwing

Really interesting paper.  I never thought about a radical wings antics helping the more moderate groups achieve more towards their goals.  Boy, humans are a screwy bunch!