That’s your opinion, but it doesn’t make people with similar experience who are critiquing the praxis and competence of JSO “armchair activists”.
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Indeed, and I wasn’t casting at everyone here, and that comment was aimed wider than those on this forum.
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Indeed, this is a revolutionary situation. But revolutions happen when a critical mass of people demand it. Is throwing paint at Harrods getting us closer to that or further away? It’s not a matter of doing something, anything.
The people who get what’s at stake already get it. The people who reject all reason are beyond help. The apathetic majority may very well be turned off by these stunts.
Direct action has to be directed at the right targets. We cannot throw paint willy-nilly. Maybe throw paint to expose Harrods as a massive polluter, rather than as a hapless stand-in for the affluent.
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Do you think nothing happened in the run up to every previous revolution ? I’m well aware of how revolutions happen. I’m also aware of how increasingly in recent times mass movements have sprung up without a constituent party or organisation driving them. … But yes, I disagree very fundamentally, it is a matter of doing something, anything. Of course it is, it makes no sense to say otherwise. Willy-nilly action for actions sake or not. why are so many people clutching pearls over paint on a shop window, a shop that primarily serves the well off and those mostly sheltered from the affects of the current economic situation. We’re not going to get a formally organised revolution, can we also stop pretending that’s a thing, let alone a thing that can actually happen (anywhere in Europe, but in the UK especially). There will (hopefully) be more actions that many will see as irrational… Larger ‘organised’ movements that the media mostly ignore like ‘Enough is Enough’ or ‘Don’t pay’. I mean that’s it in itself, there was next to no coverage of the Enough is enough protests a few weeks ago in every major city of the UK… bit of Orange paint on Harrods and everyone is talking about it. It’s batshit, it shouldn’t be this way, but if you want change you take what you can.
You can’t build mass movements anymore, they just have to happen, and they have to come into being like that or what they end up delivering isn’t much better than what they replace. I find myself increasingly agreeing with Giorgio Agamben, but the theory pre-exists his arguments . Revolution & Destituent Power | The Anarchist Library and to show off my old revolutionary history, what can be delivered is something like what existed in the communes of post-revolutionary Russia before Lenin well… basically broke everything up, NEP, etc, etc.
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If a Van Gogh is one of the few things that survive on a dead planet (for those who escape underground), I would assume it would be worth even more. Van Gogh paintings are symbols of hope and persistence.
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They’re also the ones who are most likely to support the Public Order Bill, and they are even more likely to support it now.
This is why I think Just Stop Oil is a false flag/agent provocateur organisation, and why I suggested that the Security Service/MI5 might be running it earlier this week. The timing for the change to these tactics is just too convenient.
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this article is not about a “mass movement”
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The “attack” on the Van Gogh was particularly unimpressive, the spokesperson indicated after the attack that the protestors knew that the painting was protected, they were pretending to attack it, there was no threat to the valuable thing. Equally, the Scotland Yard, Aston Martin showroom and Harrods paint attacks were mere performance pinpricks, the sprayers knew that the paint would be cleared up within hours with no sign of them ever having taken place. What use are threats to power structures if they are not threats?
No they don’t and haven’t – more affective activity – like the Dartford Crossing (and local road disruption) does.
Who do you think is going to enact effective national and international responses to the issue?
This is not about the kids* being alright, this is about performance instead of action. I quite admire the unconventional modern approaches adopted by various groups, XR comes to mind, but the monotony of repeated anti-strategic actions will not work and inspire apathy.
*and they are not all kids, just look at their press and media image library.
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Here’s another good example of how to do it right. A well-placed phoney press release can do wonders.
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I was replying to Jesse.
There were road disruptions with both the Aston-Martin and Harrods protests but they were featured as sideshows to the spray paint idiots rather than the main event. If you must make things a circus, don’t put the clowns in charge of managing it.
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I was counting those as local road disruption. The spray paint idea could have been used more effectively against more strategic targets.
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If they’re not aimed at changing minds - you wouldn’t have the cameras there.
I couldn’t care less about the store or the cars. But the world will be worth less even if we save the planet if we destroy what’s worth saving. You don’t have to destroy the village to save the village. Nihilism isn’t even an ethos.
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If he’s holding it high
He’s telling a lie
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If any works of “art” must be vandalized, then I believe said art should convey a very clear political message (i.e., statues of Confederate generals). I don’t think anything in Van Gogh’s oeuvre carries any message that could violently, much less philosophically, pit one group against another. Defacing Sunflowers seemed to only achieve general confusion at best and general non-political outrage at worst. And judging by the response of demonstrably left-leaning BBers here (such as myself), I’d say that a Van Gogh painting was a poor target.
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Beau makes the point that soup on Van Gogh is odd enough to get in the news and remember and talk about.
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