Just Stop Oil
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Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
No mention of the jail sentences recieved by the protestors who scaled the QE2 Bridge last year?
3 years is way out of proportion for a peaceful protest. However disruptive it is.
Here's a piece by one of the protestors.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
3 years is way out of proportion for a peaceful protest. However disruptive it is.
Here's a piece by one of the protestors.
Why I went to prison for Just Stop Oil
On 4th April, a jury at Basildon Crown Court found Marcus Decker guilty of causing a public nuisance. Before the trial, he wrote this defence of his a...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
It's probably the most notable real downside of the last few years of XR-Insulate Britain-JSO stuff that the Tories have used it as an excuse to vilify/criminalise and lengthen jail terms for protest more generally. I have a suspicion though that it'll backfire - there's a set of headbangers who are very active below the line on right-wing newspapers who love the idea of 20-year sentences fro minor disruption but I don't think it's shared by the majority of the public. Sentencing of the same order as GBH is quite obviously bananas.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Also raises the stakes dangerously.
If peaceful protest is outlawed, well...people may well pursue other avenues.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Going north on Holloway Road. JSO stopping southbound traffic. Expect delays
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Traffic jam up to suicide bridge
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
One of the hilarious stupidities of this generation of Tories is that they have forgotten that the liberal argument for allowing protest and free speech was to a large degree a self-interested one from the point of view of the elite. Better to let the anger blow off harmlessly, better to allow people to speak so they don't go further, because if you bottle it all up you'll end up poorly informed and vulnerable to populations that no longer support you. Their politics are so shallowly about clawing back as much power to the powerful as possible that they can't remember why they ever went along with 'liberals'.
I have mixed feelings about it. Obviously three year jail terms for a protest stunt is atrocious, on the other hand, the mask is off, the battle is happening, and the Tories have removed the safety valves one by one. Does it really go anywhere good though? I'm not sure. The main problem is the movements aren't big enough at the moment. As long as it is about containing a 'vocal minority' the Tories can do without the safety valves.
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
Waiting for "slow walkers delay other walkers and are bad for the economy. Report slow walkers on this number and our humane outsourced euthanasia contractors will be dispatched to resolve the issue".
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
It depends a lot on unforeseeable circumstances I think. The government logic is clearly to get in early to nip burgeoning cultures of revolt in the bud before it becomes a more serious problem, but as we know historically that sort of attitude often backfires by, as you say, removing the release valve of softer protest.
I agree that the "movement" is currently too small/ineffective to transfer the situation into more radical activity other than via the spectacle of semi-culty non-violent groupings around climate change. "The Left" at this stage is imv most useful as a repository/circulator of info, ideas and history whenever such movements re-emerge organically in any case, rather than aiming to become such movements' leading recruiters and organisers.
If Alex Callinicos (SWP), Rob Griffiths (CPB) or even my own lot in Solfed become the de facto strategists of social rebellion in Britain I'd probably consider it a failure in the making. None of us are numerically or structurally capable of directing that sort of mass wave even if we had a serious program to work with. Which we don't, because in the former two cases they're small cadres of aging political LARPers with tactics barely updated from the early 20th century, and in the latter we're enthusiastic amateurs with a similar headcount to the number of paid government ministers. Meaning we simply can't intelligently address every issue/attack put out via the collective brainpower of the relatively united, resourced, structured and full time dedicated forces of State and Capital, let alone be present in every place where those issues/attacks hit home. The Left (certainly in its "organised" forms) is thus likely not going to be involved with sparking of revolt, and even if it is, at best some of its more relevant warnings, ideas and comments will sink in when that revolt occurs mostly beyond reach.
So the question becomes whether the public is well enough divided and the threat of reprisal so pronounced that it'll stop organic (ie grassroots, self-evolving) revolt from getting out of hand. Our rulers seem to be worried that it isn't, hence all the pre-emptive legislation, and I share their uncertainty in that sense. They've pulled out all the stops, their technology of propaganda, surveillance and deterrence is more pervasive and powerful than ever before, but the public are unpredictable, and ultimately so much more numerous than them. There's simply not enough eyes even to read through the data they now have, let alone attempt to parse it all in the event of a rapidly-changing revolt scenario. Especially given how many of the workers in their own house have been impoverished by their actions over the years.
The pressure on their ability to retain the loyalty of the public, including their direct underlings, is only going to get higher as the situation worsens in Britain (and it will continue to as is), which puts everything up for grabs. Even though they can, ultimately, crush any challenger in this era, the cost if they've got it wrong, in terms of stability and the resurrection of the idea that their hegemony may not be a given, a moral right, is potentially very real.
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Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
Putrid, deceitful arsehole.
Just Stop Oil in response to Grant Schapps (aka Michael Green aka Sebastian Fox aka Corinne Stockheath) on twitter
"Guerilla tactics" can include holding a sign and/or walking along the street. Or filming someone being arrested for doing so.
Rich Felgate on twitter (posted earlier by Jeff Robinson in the Filth by Name thread)
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Quite annoying JSO Tweet that though, the 'Anarchists? ...' one. Like you couldn't be a construction worker and an anarchist.
Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Saw this last night. It's not bad, I quite enjoyed it. Both the politics and the characterisation are pretty thin in favour of telling a suspenseful story. But it's impressive to get something like this made at all, given that it offers no judgement and lots of justification for blowing up pipelines.
Mr.Bishie
pickled egg
Eh?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
and your second?
Attachments
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Saw them on Blackfriars road this morning at nine. Tactic now is to walk very slowly. Police in abundance but not arresting them. I'm assuming they can only arrest them if they stop.
Must say not happy that police are so close to them. Seems intrusive to me.
I object to new laws curbing peaceful protest. Sure the cops love having these new powers.
Good effort by Just Stop Oil
Must say not happy that police are so close to them. Seems intrusive to me.
I object to new laws curbing peaceful protest. Sure the cops love having these new powers.
Good effort by Just Stop Oil
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
Mr Retro
Beware hedgehogs
They should have gone up to Spurs today before the football and protest around the stadium. It will be full of filth and full of the people then need to persuade. Something tells me they won’t ever do something like that though.
ddraig
kicking against the pricks...
why does that amuse you?They should have gone up to Spurs today before the football and protest around the stadium. It will be full of filth and full of the people then need to persuade. Something tells me they won’t ever do something like that though.
What have spurs fans got to do with oil licences and exploration?
tommers
Fuck it, it's fine.
Yes, they've never protested at a football ground.They should have gone up to Spurs today before the football and protest around the stadium. It will be full of filth and full of the people then need to persuade. Something tells me they won’t ever do something like that though.
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