Just Stop Oil activists jailed for throwing soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
Just Stop Oil activists jailed for throwing soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers
www.theguardian.com
Just Stop Oil activists throw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers after fellow protesters jailed
This was the one soup-throwing which did any damage at all; in this case to the frame.
The penalty is appreciably worse than for minor violent attacks.
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.
The worse part is that they started with a plain wrong argument, this is not to attract the attention of billionaires, altough it can too. This is to catch the attention of everyone, to create a higher mass that is needed to change something, and tbh they are making more people aware of the issues, even if they get some stupid arguments against them when they are really doing no real harm as far as im aware.
But it’s not moving the needle, not at all ! It’s only fuelling antipathy towards environmental activism, and you can bet your favourite thing rightwingers are using that to pull centrists into their side.
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.
These people didn't get a jury nullification, though, so clearly that doesn't apply here. I don't have a problem with all of their actions, just these that cause permanent or potentially permanent harm to historical artifacts.
And I disagree with your premise that history and its artifacts are a worthy sacrifice for any cause; that's how we get ignorant people and despots who weaponize that ignorance.
Doing "something" doesn't mean it's effective or worthwhile. I could throw soup on a painting, or I could spray paint a billionaire's mansion. I could paint Stonehenge, or I could sue the polluters. I could deface historical artifacts, or I could lobby a politician.
What they did is so dumb, and while I appreciate people who want to see anything done, making the news isn't some kind of event that will realistically "move the needle" and suddenly open the eyes of the ignorant.
The actual harm that people are doing is making the fight against big oil look like it’s being done by clueless morons. The proof is all the comments saying this very thing.
Yes, yes, they did something, and kudos there but not all press is good press.
This isn't to trigger billionaires. It's to trigger EVERYONE ELSE.
To do what, exactly? Become activist? Because regular people aren't going to see this and go, "Hmm, yes. I think I'd like to go pour gasoline on the Constitution."
If that's their plan, it seems to me they're effectively holding regular people hostage, while the billionaires causing the problems roam free and careless. "We're gonna keep breaking shit until you all do what we want!"
Regular people's power comes from voting and organizing, but you have to convince not just the activists like yourself but the moderates and centrists that your cause is worthy of giving up their status quo.
It’s triggering them. To think environmental activism is a joke.
Good job!
I'll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v0dYQ9t5WU
Tom Nicholas is really great in this piece. SLRPNK link
I'll just leave this here: https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/commentary/public-disapproval-of-disruptive-climate-change-protests/