Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022
Climate activists have thrown tomato soup over two Sunflowers paintings by Vincent van Gogh, just an hour after two others were jailed for a similar protest action in 2022.
Three supporters of Just Stop Oil walked into the National Gallery in London, where an exhibition of Van Gogh’s collected works is on display, at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, and threw Heinz soup over Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888.
The latter was the same work targeted by Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland in 2022. That pair are now among 25 supporters of Just Stop Oil in jail for climate protests.
I know Lemmy has mixed feelings here, but I personally applaud these activists for risking prison time to draw attention to a major existential threat.
I find it quite entertaining to see all the art aficionados coming out so shook by them getting a little bit of soup onto some plexiglass and a picture frame that they probably couldn’t even describe before these incidents. Close your eyes, Is it walnut or cherry? Painted or oil finished? Ornate or simple? 5 or 7 inches wide? Symmetrical or asymmetrical along a horizontal axis?
These protests, which thus far have involved basically zero actual damage of cultural significance have driven significantly more attention (good and bad) to their cause than anything else that has been done. Their protests are non-violent and generally nondestructive.
That said, the real crime here is the judge sentencing 2 years in prison for getting some soup on the frame of a painting - I don’t support violent protests, but I’m pretty sure you could just go around and slap oil CEOs in the face for a fraction of the sentence.
Slapping oil CEOs in the face would be much more relevant, and not be targeting irreplaceable cultural artifacts.
irreplaceable cultural artifacts
I mean it won’t be exactly the same, but I’m pretty sure they can buy more of that plexiglass that got soup’d. Calling plexiglass a cultural artifact feels like a bit of a stretch, but I do think it’s replaceable.
Just so we’re on the same page here, would this act have been acceptable to you or unacceptable if the painting had actually been damaged?
Frame of paintings like that isn’t simply replaceable, by the way, it’s also an artifact that’s generations old. It’s just less important than the painting itself.
Do you condemn the suffragettes?
Only the ones who tried to damage priceless historical artifacts for attention?
That’s a yes then, because damaging (actually damaging, not just getting plexiglass wet) was one of their major tactics. It got to the point where museum owners considered denying entry to all women
https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/firstworldwarcentenary/explore/gallery-stories/suffragette-action
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?
Depends on your definition of ‘damage’ - if a drop of soup gets under the plexiglass, I’m not clutching any pearls. If the paintings were completely destroyed, I would not be supportive.
That said its a moot point because these headline grabbing demonstrations have been nondestructive. Stonehenge is fine. The sunflowers will continue to be sunflowery.
Depends on your definition of ‘damage’ - if a drop of soup gets under the plexiglass, I’m not clutching any pearls.
I would, personally, but history, human heritage, and art are all precious topics to me. You don’t damage 100+ years of history by an artist so groundbreaking that he is a household name to this day just to get your name in the papers.
If the paintings were completely destroyed, I would not be supportive.
So your primary reason for remaining supportive of this is that the security systems worked perfectly. You do not approve of destroying priceless artifacts to raise attention to climate change and/or think that it would be counterproductive, also correct?
You don’t damage 100+ years of history by an artist so groundbreaking that he is a household name to this day just to get your name in the papers.
They didn’t.
Slapping a CEO in the face is assault. That’s a serious offense in most countries, and it would be extremely easy to get sent to jail for years.
Throwing soup at a painting that’s behind Plexiglas is, at most, disturbing the peace and vandalizing a museum’s floor.
Assault on an oil exec… I don’t see anything morally wrong here. It’s also straight to the point, rather than attacking art.
Morally, perhaps not. But legally yes, justified crimes are still crimes.
You’re welcome to work on that plan.
Good for them.
They’re getting media attention for their message. That isn’t easy to do.
I’m sorry, but these protests are going to far! That was a perfectly fine soup!
This is invalid civil disobedience. The point of civil disobedience is to disobey unjust laws (see: Rosa Parks disobeying bus segregation). So unless they think laws against throwing soup at paintings are unjust, their point is lost.
My tin hat tingles with these guys they’re either too upper middle-class to actually understand the real world or they’re making sure climate activists are a running joke.
No bad publicity.
Here are a few reasons why thats not true
-
People talking about these guys being dumbasses does not equate to people taking climate change seriously.
-
There is limited bandwidth for publicity, these morons are taking publicity away from people actively doing the research, enacting changes, building things the help mitigate climate change.
-
They give the opportunity for climate change deniers to lump all climate change activists together with these idiots, allowing them to replace the message of “Act against climate change” to look at all these dumbass climate change activists.
I’m taking it seriously. Are you not taking it seriously?
are taking publicity away
And this is being published where?
Here’s my challenge to you: every time you see Just Stop Oil pop up, post these articles. Get people excited about actually doing something.They give the opportunity for climate change deniers to lump all climate change activists together with these idiots
Deniers are too far gone. You spray paint stone henge, they complain about the lichen. You splash color on a ferrari dealership, they complain about the small business owners. You bomb an oil rig, they say that violence never solves anything. They’re already not on our side.
No, but actions like this will bring more people onto their side.
-
I see your point, I do. But I also see theirs. There will be no one around in the future to enjoy or make art if we continue fucking up the world with fossil fuels the way we are.
Maybe it’d be better to walk around posting little signs on the paintings descriptions with a catch phrase like “like art? Stop fossil fuels” then a little blurb about how there’ll be no art in the future if there is no future.
That’s probably how I’d handle it, maybe even try to work with the museum so the signs wouldnt get taken down. But, that doesn’t get media attention. It’d never end up in the news. Maybe after contacting 50 museums it’d get a small mention, but ultimately no one would care.
Our current news cycles don’t encourage people to act civilly when trying to be heard. So that’s why this sort of extreme behavior keeps happening. It’s a vicious feedback loop and just like climate change we don’t seem to be making any moves to stop it.
Just like the Civil Rights Protestors!!
/s
Actually, it’s almost exactly like the Civil Rights protesters. MLK even outright said that they didn’t do anything more than marches and sit-ins because those were already illegal and doing anything more could get them killed or prison sentences.
That said, I think this was a stupid way to risk jail time.
Well I just started peeing on people while yelling “Stop Big Oil!” and although I’m embarrassed to admit it, that does make me exactly like Dr. King. Oh, sure it may get me some jail time but that’s what fighting for freedom takes. Er, fighting big oil. Freedom from big oil.
And hey if my POV videos get me a few million clicks on the site in the meantime, I can’t blame the people. They’re hungry for justice!
You are either extremely deluded or a little deluded and almost intentionally misunderstanding their aims.
Climate activists have been chaining themselves to oil infrastructure for decades. How many times can you honestly say you’ve heard of it? I’ve heard of maybe one instance, and it got very little news coverage.
JSO has recently pivoted to this strategy of (temporarily) vandalizing monuments and works of art. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME it happens, it’s all over the news and spawns endless discussion. Almost like IT’S FUCKING WORKING.
I award to you the Useful Idiot Ribbon.
Yeah people do talk about what clueless freaking idiots they are. It sure is working! It’s jenius! Wait til Madison Avenue figures it out!
Climate activists have chained themselves to trees, to construction equipment, to the property of the companies they protest. THAT is serious action.
Throwing soup in a museum is completely tone deaf, utterly counterproductive and pathetic.
Climate activists have chained themselves to trees, to construction equipment, to the property of the companies they protest. THAT is serious action.
You know we need more people doing stuff like this, right?
Not “climate activists.”
You.Have you been inspired to chain yourself to oil infrastructure? To accomplish something real?
I have been inspired not to make a mockery of that action by doing something idiotic and posting it to Instagram pretending it’s serious.
I’m afraid “doing nothing” isn’t going to cut it here, man.
And did you make the news?
I’ll have you know I’ve been featured in several NextDoor posts!
That’s great, man. Maybe they’ll write that on your underwater tombstone.
This is what the American public thought of MLK in the 60s:
You mean the American Public that burned the Beatles records because John said they were “bigger than Jesus”? The American Public that treated German POWs better than black Army servicemen? That American Public?
What’s the source of that cartoon? I’m interested to know if it was in fact from Birmingham.
Just Stop Oil activists throw soup at
Van Gogh’s Sunflowersplastic sheet after fellow protesters jailedI dunno why these newspapers constantly print these phony headlines… Oh wait. It’s the clickbait and propaganda obviously.
Van Gogh tried to shoot himself in the heart and missed.
Bet this was done by big oil. No one is that fucking stupid.
I see a lot of confusion and misinformation in the comments about what Just Stop Oils demands are. Their website makes it very plain and you can read through the details yourself. The press has massively misrepresented the groups demands and goals so its best to read it for yourself. https://juststopoil.org/
These are the 3 demands they have.
✅ Demand 1: No New Oil and Gas Licences – WON!
🔥 Demand 2: Just Stop Oil by 2030.
🧡 We need a Fossil Fuel Treaty.
- Demand 1 they only just won when the UK government changed to Labour who have committed the first item, so all their previous actions were with the goal of not expanding yet further the use of fossil fuels.
- Demand 2 is to phase the use of fossil fuels out by 2030. The UK has a net zero goal of 2035 so this would bring that goal earlier but many other countries have a 2030 target in the EU.
- Demand 3 is all about trying to get a world wide treaty signed to stop the use of oil to try and meet the Paris agreement to keep within 1.5C.
There is no immediate demand to stop or anything so extreme, they are largely what the UK has already agreed to do but is failing to achieve.
guarantee half the clothes theyre wearing are made at least partially of oilbased material
But like, why don’t you go and blow up an oil rig? Or dump paint on an Oil execs car? Or protest directly outside of their house? Sure this sort of thing grabs headlines, but does literally nothing for the cause. If anything it builds momentum AGAINST your cause because you’re making people who don’t have a horse in the race (whether they should or not) think your entire group is dead set on destroying works of art.
So if throwing paint at a entierly replaceable cover for a dusty old painting is too far gone to be acceptable, what action can we take to stop oil production? Like. It needs to stop. To continue producing fossil fuels is a death cult. It needs to stop, like, a decade ago. I ask genuinely, how is this too far, and what is an acceptable response to an existential threat?
Go fuck with the billionaires and lawmakers at their homes, offices, doctor’s appointments, at the store, while they’re out for coffee, etc. Fuck with the people actually causing the problem
What’s your plan to keep society functioning with the immediate end of fossil fuels?
Society functioning in the way it’s currently functioning is the cause of the problem. It’s gonna stop because we change how we do things, or it’ll get stopped in a way we have no control over, which is worse across every possible metric.
Kinda dumb of you to assume the only option to stop oil is an immediate cessation of all usage
Kinda dumb to call for the end of fossil fuels a decade ago.
Why?
We don’t have a means to replace energy needs today and we were even further away a decade ago.
And we never will if we don’t start making progress on it, it’ll always be unfeasible because the powers that be don’t start making changes unless it’s doable within one election cycle. Just Stop Oil isn’t asking for immediate stopping of oil, just moving the deadline to 2030, which means there’s a few years to realistically invest in other forms of energy generation like nuclear, green energy, and other ways.
The OP wanted a complete stop of production of fossil fuels a decade ago. That is a completely different statement than we need to curb fossil fuel use.
You don’t think maybe we would be closer to having that means of energy production now if we started 50 years ago when we noticed the impacts of climate change?
Youre assuming climate activists have the MORONIC idea of just transitioning to shit tech, instead of the idea of investing in making tech that can replace oil usage
I don’t assume all climate activists have the moronic opnion that we need to transition to shit tech, just the ones who say we need to be off fissile fuels a decade ago.
That wasn’t my question. But if you must know, if the choice is between “maintaining the current standard of living” and “stop risking the habitability of the one place known that can support life”, I choose the latter. Everytime. And it’s crazy to choose the former.
But what about The Economy®™?!? We can’t possibly have Apple only make 10s of billions of dollars in profit instead of 100s of billions of dollars because we made the price of goods destroying our planet more expensive!
If we start to make the cost of goods proportional to the associated environmental destruction, I won’t be able to buy the 12th pair of Nikes for my shoe collection. I might have to wear my clothes more than once, and GASP, take public transit places.
Like sure, our grandkids may get to grow up in a world looking like something out of Mad Max, but at least I wouldn’t have to suffer any inconveniences to my lifestyle.
It’s crazy to think those are the only choices.
Investing in nuclear would help.
Why does it have to be an immediate end and not a phase out? Right now, we’re not even phasing out.
When someone calls for ending something last decade it required immediate action now.
Okay, well that’s not going to happen. But maybe, if we’re lucky, it can be phased out.
Pretty uncharitable interpretation of something posted by someone who I would guess you have a common goal with.
People that give a fuck about “priceless art” or whatever are so silly. Lmao.
I’m not saying to not continue posting articles like this, but I do think that maybe your time would be better spent arguing with people who don’t believe in climate change instead of arguing with people who do believe in climate change.
People that give a fuck about “priceless art” or whatever are so silly. Lmao.
Yeah, who gives a shit about the cultural history of humanity, am I right? After destroying paintings, maybe the can go after other things of cultural significance! Bulldoze the Great Serpent Mound! Blow up Angkor Wat! Carve rude words into the Elgin Marbles!
There is no art on a dead planet.
Got it. Cut up the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial into usable stone for building material.
While we’re at it, let’s also do it to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. That’s a lot of useful stone blocks.
No art on a dead planet, am I right?
If we’re all dead, the memorials are for all of us anyway.
It’s weird that there are people in this thread that think defacing the protective barrier of a painting is too far, but advocating for harming or killing oil industry executives is not because the painting didn’t do anything to cause our climate emergency. By that argument, defacing a building with grafitti can’t work, blocking traffic would put more pollution in the air, blowing up a pipeline would kill innocent people and animals.
Nothing is good enough for them except the status quo. They’d rather a museum burned down in a riot than plexiglass get covered in soup because riots are okay (but once that happens, the pearls will be clutched again.)
So if throwing paint at a entierly replaceable cover for a dusty old painting is too far gone to be acceptable, what action can we take to stop oil production?
God, I wish someone could actually trace the train of events that would lead to reduced oil production from this other than some bizarre notion that throwing soup at a priceless artifact of human heritage will Energize The Masses™ or suddenly convince people who think climate change is a hoax or overblown that it’s actually a serious problem.
Imagine if these activists spent more time going after companies benefiting from fossil fuel production rather than throwing soup in museums…
Then we wouldn’t be talking about stopping oil production right now.
We’ve literally been talking about it for decades. An Inconvenient Truth won the Oscar in 2006. What has talking about it accomplished?
That’s not my point. Everytime they deface something, we start talking again about stopping oil production. Sure we talk about it without that push too. But this means we start talking about it more.
Bit we’re not talking about stopping oil production. We’re talking about how stupid and pointless defacing art is.
We’reI’m talking about how stupid and pointless defacing art is.FTFY.
When has talking about ending reliance on fossil fuels ever stopped? I don’t remember it stopping.
Most people are aware that the Earth is warming and fossil fuels are the cause. There’s nothing you or I can do about that. It’s the corporations that have to be stopped. I can’t stop them. You can’t stop them. Talking about them won’t stop them and neither will throwing cans of soup.
In fact, I have no idea what will stop them, but talking sure as fuck won’t.
So we should just stop trying anything and do nothing?
Then they would be in cages already.
I brought up Karen Silkwood and Erin Brockovich elsewhere. They were not put in cages. They were just willing to do some very hard work rather than just stunts.
Right? Go throw soup at Darren Woods or one of the oil execs, not at a painting
Remember when famous assholes used to get pies in the face? What happened to that?
I remember when people would throw animal blood on rich fucks going to gala events who were wearing fur.
Right? I admit I don’t have the bravery it takes to do stuff like that, but it seems like neither does anyone else anymore.
So… that’s straight up assaut. There’s a good reason why they changed tactics, and it’s mostly because throwing soup at a Plexiglas barrier is 100x less destructive to property than covering valuable furs with blood.
I find it absolutely mind-boggling that you all are acknowledging that protests that make people uncomfortable are what works, then coming to the conclusion “but not like this, you can’t protest like this, that’s ridiculous!”
Imagine if all the people I disagree with did the thing I wanted…
I’m sure you’ve never suggested people doing something might be better off spending their time doing something else, but most people have.
They’ve done that too, and have encountered media blackouts.
As nice as it would be if they could simply fix the climate problem with the disruption a handful of protests cause, they can’t, and need to draw public attention to the problem.
These demonstrations open up the conversation in threads like this - you agree there’s a problem, you agree these protests don’t fix the problem, so let’s talk about what will.
I feel like we’re kind of entering an era where direct action and ecology-motivated terrorism are going to start becoming a thing. And I’m honestly not sure that would be a bad thing.
Peaceful protests have not worked, disruptive protests have been widely villified and the protestors jailed for very long sentences. If you are facing 2-3 years for holding up a banner or throwing some paint seems like criminal damage of a fossil fuel facility isn’t likely to net more years. As many have said in the past governments ignore peaceful protests at their peril, because once its clear that doesn’t work they become not peaceful.
If everything is illegal, nothing is illegal.
If you’re gonna get thrown in jail if you’re caught regardless, why not go for broke?
To fight another day. If every passionate soul bound themselves to another rather then fizzling out or going up flames then we could become many.
Assuming there’s no collateral damage to speak of, I’d argue it would be an act of self-defence for the benefit of all of us. In principle, I’d struggle to find reason to be upset by it.
There will be collateral damage. There always is. The idea there wouldn’t be collateral damage is already setting the bar higher than is feasible.
I don’t think that’s true at all, but if it is, it becomes a question of whether that damage is outweighed by the benefit of the action.
removed by mod
Yes - people protesting the climate apocalypse are the same as the oil barons, and I’m the moron.
removed by mod
removed by mod
removed by mod
Seems to me that it would be pretty difficult to encounter a media blackout to do this sort of thing at, for example, global climate summits, oil company shareholder meetings, etc.
But I’m not seeing much soup being thrown there.
By ‘media blackout’ they mean ‘it was a blip on the radar like this is, but this is NOW and thus relevant and important’
The people who talk about ‘media blackouts’ also seem to forget that everyone has an internet-connected video camera in their pockets.
What are you even trying to say here? That any bastard with a camera and something to show will magically be seen, or that everyone with a smartphone is going to be aware of everything that affects them? Because neither of those things is remotely close to the way the world works.
You were aware of the JSO protesters shutting down the oil pipeline? If and that’s a big “if” so, do you think the average schmuck is? No. But chances are that they’re aware of the stunts like the soup.
In Germany, protestors repeatedly shut oil pipelines off and locked themselves to the valves to prevent their reopening, blocking oil flow for several hours every time. I consume a lot of news, both mainstream and in my leftist bubble. That story barely registered anywhere.
The exact same protestors threw mashed potatoes at a Van Gogh. They were the main headline for over a week.
Hell, some guy set himself on fire a few years ago and it was in the news for half a day.
The media blackout is real, but it’s not a huge conspiracy. It’s just that the media reports on what gets them clicks, and nothing generates clicks like outrage. That’s why so much reporting also conveniently forgets to mention that the paintings are protected by plexiglass and nothing ever got damaged. But all the controversy gets people talking, and some people will inevitably question what drives people to do something like that. That is the real objective. If they wanted to be popular, they’d to greenwashed recycling videos on YouTube instead, or whatever else is hip with the neoliberal peddlers of personal responsibility at the moment.
And how will this get corporations to stop drilling for and selling and taking advantage of fossil fuels? How do you get from throwing soup to that?
You stop the problem from being buried under the fact that everyone is struggling to get by, or distracted by whatever the fuck the likes of the Kardashians are up to. You bring it to the forefront and prompt conversations like these - conversations where someone might realise that to stay the course on this one is to roll down the road to the apocalypse, and maybe they’d like to do something about that.
let’s talk about what will.
Stop throwing soup.
We’re at the point where idiots throwing soup are called sing more environmental damage than backwoods yahoos rolling coal. Shall we protest soup abuse? Because that’s more likely to help the environment
People throwing soup to protest climate change are doing more environmental damage than people burning fossil fuels in the dirtiest way possible because that’s their gender identity or whateverthefuck? You’ll need to explain that one for me, champ.
Well, clearly not throwing crap at paintings. Now I want to see these guys arrested and thrown in jail.
Then they wouldn’t get their five minutes of fame, though. And even worse, they couldn’t even claim their five minutes of fame was some self-righteous moment that they should be lionized for. A fate worse than death, basically.
I see shit like this and I think about people like Erin Brockovich and Karen Silkwood…
Sounds a lot like boring work that has no grand trumpets or asspats at the end of the rainbow, or that requires specialized skills and education. Can’t we just draw some attention to ourselves, cry out “Climate change!” and call it a day?
Nah - let’s just feel superior by whining about people doing something to defer the apocalypse - both stunts to draw attention, and shutting down oil pipelines directly.
Also the section “jso critics” and “does it work”
“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.
“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
If damaged art hurts your feelings get mad at the government killing all art on the planet and not the activists partially damaging some art.
“I understand that we’re pissing people off but there’s no other way to get attention” … not particularly compelling rebuttals in the critics section
Why not? How else should they be getting attention?
“JSO was central in setting the 2024 Labour agenda” is utterly deluded,
I won’t disagree
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.
Yeah I don’t get the vibe from you that you’d change your view
Partially related but do you have any evidence that jso tactics has a “greater backlash from the exact kind of educated people most likely to get involved in climate activism” or is that kinda vibes based
Can I request an article or at least a transcription?
YouTube provides transcripts. It’s in the discription on the website
YouTube provides transcripts.
Wow. I am behind the times. I’ll look through it then.
Instead of intentionally pissing people off at climate protesters, put effort towards educating people on the myriad of ways we actually subsidize fossil fuels and the corrupt relationships that keep that going, so people instead get pissed off at the fossil fuel industry, lobbyists, and corrupt politicians.
Of course some people do work on this already, Climate Town being a good example. We should be talking about those efforts instead of these.
“We do not need allies more devoted to order than to justice,” Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in the spring of 1964, refusing calls from moderate Black and White leaders to condemn a planned highway “stall-in” to highlight systemic racism in New York City. “I hear a lot of talk these days about our direct action talk alienating former friends,” he added. “I would rather feel they are bringing to the surface latent prejudices that are already there. If our direct action programs alienate our friends … they never were really our friends.”
“What’s blocking traffic have to do with racism? All it does is make people mad at black people!”
History rhymes.
Oh, I dunno, any action that’s actually related to the industry? Throwing crap at classic art as a means to bring attention to a cause completely unrelated to classic art is retarded.
I keep thinking that these guys have to be right wing plants. Can these people really be this stupid? Doing this shit and blocking roads only makes people your enemy. Go throw paint on billionaire’s houses or at your nearest court house you idiots
Point of order, they didn’t block the road. They were up on the sign poles. The police stopped traffic.
To everyone in this thread who has nothing but insults for these activists, what are you doing against climate breakdown? Besides sitting on your couch, insulting people who are actually trying to make a difference, facing jail time?
You are the kind of people who would’ve called the Suffragettes names and said they’re hurting the cause, as well.
Why are you placing climate change at the feet of the poor? Go fuck with billionaires and politicians who are causing this issue. All you’re doing is stomping the person below you because you’re mad at billionaires
Compared to what they’ve accomplished by getting some plexiglass wet, it seems like sitting on my couch has accomplished the same. Maybe more by staying home, unless they rode bikes or walked to do the deed.
Definitely more. You haven’t pissed a bunch of people off that are on your side on this issue.
If some soup on plexiglass can convince you to let the planet burn, you were never on the side of progress.
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?
This right here. For shame on anyone who genuinely thinks they’re on the right side of history, whining about soup on a Plexiglas barrier.
Anything that targets art is on the wrong side of history.
Old paintings are valuable because people bought into it. Like nfts or crypto. They don’t worth anything. Old people’s baggage. Quit carrying it.
I am insulted by your lack of culture.
No, no, you see, all attention is good attention, and attention is the most valuable thing to the climate change movement right now. That’s the issue. Not enough people are AWARE that it’s a THING. If they were, we would be making much more progress than we currently are.
/s
Not enough people are AWARE that it’s a THING.
I mean, considering how little has happened?
Don’t we need radicals at this point?Isn’t it said that violence is the language of the unheard?
Throwing soup at paintings is only radical in how radically stupid it is.
You want radical? Go sabotage an oil refinery. Become eco-terrorists.
What Just Stop Oil is doing is nothing more than feeling good about themselves.
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).
Human history and culture are leverage. The fact that people care about them is why they’re valuable.
Take a sledgehammer to an oil exec’s front door
Yeah, go for it. I support you.
it must be action that causes something useful to the cause,
Public attention can spur recruitment waves for the targets you really care about. If any campaign is to be effective, you need people to know who you are.
I ride my bike 24 miles a day every weekday of the year , use hugle culture and no dig in my garden, recycle that’s just the start do one, they’re virtue signalling twats.
Great, you’re reducing your personal impact. That’s a great start. I’m sure our politicians will think of your hugle culture and recycling when they sign the next gas drilling licenses. We can’t ‘individual action’ our way out of this one.
And btw, I’m sure the activists do their recycling too.
These clowns ain’t doing anything useful about it either.
Propose something better then. Or better yet, do it.
I don’t own a car. Most of what I do is done via bicycle, with the occasional public transport on the side. I don’t buy a new piece of tech whenever it comes out, or throw tech out unless it’s well and truly broken. I don’t participate in one-day fashion, usually wearing all my clothes till they’re threadbare.
But these are all consumer side things. They don’t do shit. It’s a wonderful corporate ploy to say that climate change is somehow in our hands. But throwing soup at great art sure as fuck isn’t going to suddenly change that.
You still heat your house, maybe even cool it down. You still work, probably for some organisation that pollutes a lot.
And you said it yourself. Consuming less at an individual level doesn’t do shit. Activism does. They’re the ones forcing climate change to be on the agenda.
