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Just Stop Oil activist jailed for six months for taking part in slow march [UK]
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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Yes, it's the people who are protesting the thing that are wrong, down with them. Jail is too good for them, I saw on the news that five people were a little bit late to work that day, so obviously, we can't stand them.
Maybe you should stomach some of this contempt for the oil companies.
Just so you are aware, there are people who believe Just Stop Oil is intentionally trying to make climate activists look bad because some of their funds come from a member of the Getty family. I first became aware of the conspiracy theory when they threw soup on that painting. I do not have the opinion that they demonstrate behavior that is significantly worse than any other group.
-https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/22/just-stop-oil-van-gogh-national-gallery-aileen-getty
There's nothing you can say or do to make climate activism palatable to those people. It's best to ignore them, and steamroll them where it counts. The best revenge against them is stopping fossil fuels, and living well.
Also saw the news about blocking an ambulance and firetruck. Also blocking the road to the hospital.. Putting lives in danger
https://news.sky.com/story/emergency-vehicles-blocked-by-just-stop-oil-protest-in-west-london-rush-hour-12717957
https://metro.co.uk/2023/07/21/furious-mum-shouts-my-baby-needs-to-go-to-hospital-at-just-stop-oil-activists-19168421/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/21/just-stop-oil-have-blood-hands-woman-dies-dartford-protest/
They were blocking electric cars Isn't that kinda bad messaging?
Just FYI, an electric car isn't environmentally friendly, a brand new electric vehicle is worse than using a second hand diesel car.
What we need to do is build working and viable public transport and to stop cancelling massive projects so the Tories can throw the cash at their mates.
Whilst absolutely true for the short term, the 'lifetime' emissions of a EV can be up to 70% lower than petrol cars in countries with renewable electricity, or 30% lower in the UK now with its mixed power generation.
Yes, if everyone switched to a EV today, the environmental impact would be immense due to manufacturing. But if they switched to it after their current ICE vehicle usable life has expired, longterm it would be better for the environment.
If everyone switched to an EV today, the electric grid would collapse and there would be mass catastrophe.
These protesters have a good point but they are extremely short sighted. We simply cannot just stop oil. We can slowly phase out oil usage, which is what most major economies are doing. Which is why these protesters look like clowns to anyone paying any attention at all.
If you go to the just stop oil website, they are very clearly talking about stopping all new contracts, not existing ones. It's perfectly possible to achieve this.
The whole of "stop oil" is about stopping "oil, gas or coal" use.
it's true it does take quite a lot emissions to build one. However in the long run it's much better.
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars
https://www.entergynewsroom.com/article/are-electric-vehicles-really-better-for-environment/
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/26/lifetime-emissions-of-evs-are-lower-than-gasoline-cars-experts-say.html
https://blog.evbox.com/are-ev-batteries-recyclable
A valid protest targets the perpetrators of the offending acts, not the victims of those acts.
Harassing people for having been victimized by a bad actor is not a protest. It's a temper tantrum.
So protesting is only ever acceptable if the only people impacted by the protests are precisely the offenders being protested. If anyone else is affected, protestors should go to jail for their heinous crime of protest. If the very people the protest target make themselves inaccessible to protesters, then protest is not allowed.
"The quarterback stole our lunch money, so we're going to beat up the chess club."
That's you. That's what you sound like.
If you want to be apt about this, it's more correct to say "The quarterback stole our lunch money, has been doing that for years, we asked the principal to step in, but they did nothing and gave the quarterback school funds. We put up banners asking the rest of the students to join in ousting the principal, but they did not pay attention, most of them didn't even know there were banners as the school paper didn't report on it. So now we are blocking the entrance to the school to bring attention to it.
"Also, this weirdo on the internet keeps saying we are doing things just as bad as the quarterback because they had to take the side entrance, fucking weirdos man"
Blocking the school doors would actually affect the quarterback, as well as all the other students. JSO isn't blocking the school doors. "Beating up the chess club" is the much more appropriate analogy to JSO's idiotic methods.
The equivalent of blocking the school doors would be something like picketing fuel stations. Same operational concept: inconveniencing people to bring attention to the cause. Except now, the people suffering that inconvenience are actually a part of the oil production and distribution chain, and not just some random people going about their lives.
They have been picketing fuel stations, refineries, more. It doesn't work, you obviously didn't take notice. What's the point in doing something that doesn't work, just, well I was going to say so "you" aren't inconveniced but you never were inconveniced you're just mad that someone else might be.
He wants them to do something that doesn't work because he wants to be able to ignore it. He doesn't like the aesthetics of social protests and doesn't understand the history of Civil Disobedience movements.
That's all there is to it.
Have each of these JSO nitwits record a video telling a major car dealerships that only the back half of their lot can be used for ICE vehicles. The front half is for electrics and hybrids only.
They'll scoff.
Go paint a line down their lot, separating front and back halves.
They'll scoff.
Target your JSO "civil disobedience" at any of those ICE cars in the front half.
They'll notice. At that point, stop talking to them and paint some more lines.
Start talking to insurance companies: they are the ones who will be putting a dollar amount on that extortion, and charging dealers commensurate to the risk. When they all realize the dealers just need to stock and promote electric vehicles instead of ICE vehicles, they'll take the hint.
Pitting the insurance industry against the oil industry is much more likely to achieve the goals of JSO than harassing the general public.
They would simply get arrested at the first threat because that's already illegal and people like you, who dislike protest, are in charge of the levers of law enforcement. Your theoretical protest wouldn't even happen.
JSO already crosses the "illegal" boundary with their traffic obstruction. Since they insist on ~~illegal activity~~ "civil disobedience" anyway, I would say that a calculated, effective act of protest against property is far less egregious than their counterproductive, impotent, whiny angst.
If a slight risk of jail time makes them squeamish, I can only doubt their commitment to the environment. Seems all they really want is attention.
Why not do that, and deflate ICE tyres on the side of the road?
New cars on dealer lots are only associated with people actively involved in the industry. You directly affect the oil executive's bottom line when you target those unsold cars. 100% of the harm you inflict directly impacts business of the oil industry.
Targeting a random car, the harm affects other, only tangentially related industries. Stranding a nurse, for example, affects the healthcare industry more than it affects the oil industry. Stranding an actor affects the entertainment industry more than the oil industry. Stranding a waitress affects the food service industry more than the oil industry.
If the objective is to protest the oil industry, the targets for protest need to be selected such that the majority of harm from that protest directly affects the oil industry.
Is the gas station violating your right to travel when it won't fill up your tank because your credit card declined, sir?
They did that for 40 years, and you didn't give a shit and nothing changed. Every effective protest has been more than holding up signs. It's caused inconvenience and disruption to society so that society takes notice .
So... anyone driving a car?
Not saying they are the worst perpetrators, but if you're saying it should only target offending acts then "just stopping oil" should be righteous in grinding pretty much every vehicle to a halt.
The further up the chain you go, the more respect I will have for your cause. Target fuel stations instead of the general public, and we can talk.
Why are the poor petrol station workers the ones who should be bothered instead of people driving cars? It's not going to annoy Shell, as a global mega corp, any more impactfully by blockading one of their stations. Its just the same annoyance with less impact and visibility.
But at least it's less likely to affect emergency vehicles that way.
The objective is to "stop oil", is it not? With oil gone, those "poor petrol station workers" are going to be out of a job anyway. They're part of the problem: they make their living selling oil. As employees working in the industry, they are legitimate targets for protest action.
You don't need to confine yourself to annoyance. Once you're actually targeting someone profiting from the sale of oil, you can escalate your protest.
Go dismantle their fuel hoses. They all have breakaway fittings to avoid causing serious damage if someone drives off with one. Go pull down some fuel hoses and put some pumps out of commission. Jam card readers. Hit E-Stop buttons. All are simple (albeit illegal) nuisances that don't actually cause property damage, but will disrupt operations and gain attention.
Want to go further? Target car dealers that sell only or mostly ICE vehicles. Go spray paint a red line separating the front and back halves of their lot. Tell them the front half of their lot is for electrics and plug-in hybrids only. Find an ICE vehicle in front of the red line,, and their dealership will be targeted for protest actions. Again, because these are legitimate targets working against your cause, you can escalate well beyond simple annoyance.
What you've laid out there are a few ideas for much less legal and much less exposure rich disruption. Annoying small businesses profiting from the sale of oil vehicles and fuel isn't going to make them pack up and start a new business and it's certainly not going to get more exposure to the cause. Sure it's an escalation, but you only want it so you don't have to sit in a traffic jam.
The article is about someone getting jail tome for a peaceful protest which is quite outrageous. Getting jail time for actual vandalism would be less outrageous.
You could pit the insurance industry against the oil industry. You could make it so expensive for a dealership to insure a brand-new ICE vehicle that they don't want the liability of having one on their lot. If an insurer had to pay out on one ICE vehicle at the same dealer every damn day, they would tell their dealer to comply with your extortion, or drop that dealer.
You are right, I don't want to sit in a completely unnecessary traffic jam. The roads are for travel. Travel is a human right, second only to the right to life itself. My right to travel extends out to the point where it intersects your right to travel. As fellow travelers, we must share the roads with each other, not deliberately impede each other.
Travel is so fundamental a right that deliberately and unnecessarily impeding traffic violates about half of the articles in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The right to travel is sacrosanct. Your right to protest does not grant you any power to detain me or impede my travel.
If you are going to insist on violating rights and privileges in an attempt to persuade the public to your cause, pick some less important ones. From a human rights perspective, violating the right to property by torching an empty car is far less injurious than violating the right to travel by impeding traffic.
Then get out of your car, and travel. Nobody is stopping you. Except the fascist government, who will ticket you.
The right is to travel. That right is not limited to "walking". The human right to travel is not restricted to those places a human can reach on foot. Further, your assumption that a particular individual is even capable of walking violates two additional human rights relating to the handicapped.
Go read each of the articles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and carefully consider whether being detained by some random "protester" while attempting to exercise the described rights would constitute an infringement.
I think you would be surprised at how many rights are predicated on the right to travel.
Is the right limited to driving in the right lane?
The right to travel extends to the point that it interferes with other people's rights. Roadways must be shared equitably.
The rules of that equitable sharing are known as the "right of way". Nothing in those rules allows protesters to claim exclusive use of a roadway.
A valid protest draws attention... Past that, were talking effectiveness.
I tend to agree that inconveniencing workers isn't a good strategy in general... But we're talking about it
The only "talking" being done is a demand for more police action to be taken against such disruption. The general public has identified its "hero" as the tribal cop who shut down a similar protest in Nevada by driving his cruiser through a group of protesters, and arresting them at gunpoint.
If your actions are so egregious as to make the public broadly yearn for American-style policing, you'be fucked up.
You would have demanded more police action to be taken against suffragettes
This protest targeted the perpetrators of the offending acts.