Resigning from public office to protest the fact that the other candidate got more votes than you.
Hewn into the living rock.
The BBC were reporting that “scientists” were relieved that rare lichens on the rocks are thought not to have been harmed by the corn starch thrown on them. And I thought, “Some corn starch is the least of those lichens’ problems if the climate heats up 3 degrees.”
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… a unique lichen that only lives on that particular rock 
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Hey, these are not just rocks. They are megaliths, meaning big rocks.
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In related news, JSO activists sprayed orange paint on private jets at London Stansted airport, while complaining about air travel climate damage.
They were arrested for suspect criminal damage and interference with national infrastructure.
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Which is also national, don’t dismiss this as a local event.
Although the case was about a smallish well in Surrey, the decision of the court will also affect, for example, the considerably larger Rosebank oil and gas field.
Which I agree with. Other kinds of protest are going to be effective, and some are going to be ineffective, and even counter-productive.
Quite possibly, I would certainly prefer to know the basics of the organisation, leadership structure; funding; methodologies (and more important why they believe these methodologies are or will be successful); etc. etc… I think we can take the aim(s) as read (end of fossil fuel use).
Do we? What is Umbrella? Who is funding JSO, is it all personal donations? Do any JSO members benefit from those funds?
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I’ve been involved in political activism in Ireland for over a decade and it doesn’t matter what you do, media pundits will complain you went about it the wrong way. With the referendum campaign for legalising abortion for example, we were bound to fail because the anti-choice side had their signs up first. then we were bound to fail because we ran a crowdfunder to print the signs (it was wildly successful). Blocking O’Connell Bridge in Dublin on International Women’s Day was going to turn public opinion against us. A banner drop from a vacant building along the route of a protest was a flagrant disrespect for private property. When we sold jumpers that simply read REPEAL we were trivialising the debate.
After we won, the same pundits were scambling to explain why in defiance of their chin-stroking. My favourite moment was one of them going on about how the jumpers were trendy and young people didn’t understand the gravity of what they supported.
And we weren’t doing anything particularly radical
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“Won’t somebody think of the private property!”
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I will say, once again, since people seem to be purposefully ignoring my point here: we DON’T KNOW what will have been effective until we know in the future. As I said several times already, when people in the past conducted various kinds of protests, they did not know of their efficacy. They could certainly look to the past and see what others did and take from those (like Rustin and King taking influence from Gandhi’s direction actions), but past success does not guarantee future success.
So anyone saying that FOR SURE, this is counter-production does not know that. We don’t know that this WILL be productive. WE DON’T KNOW…
And NO, people being pissed about this action is not any kind of evidence of whether or not this will be effective or not, because so many of the actions taken during other protest movements were OFTEN dismissed in the same way, and it turned out that they were impactful. 
In addition to small dollar donations, they also get funding from:
Which…
That’s just from going to their website and looking at their FAQ… Take that as you will…
It’s entirely possible this is some shady organization, or it’s just as it said. Feel free to do more snooping around online and see if you can come up with something more than this. This is what I found after a minute of looking at their site. If you can dig up some neferious CIA level shit, then go for it and let us know what you find.
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Good thing they didn’t actually use paint then?
Since I’m familiar with their methods I first assumed chalk dust or something when I first heard the news. There is a little debate about the exact contents but I wasn’t far off.
They never actually try to permanently damage the art work. It may accidentally happen, they are very much risking real damage but they aren’t actually “destroying” art.
I’m not saying anyone has to be ok with this form of protest, be angry, be horrified, but Stonehenge has not actually been destroyed. It’s still there, it will be cleaned and will continue to decay at an accelerating rate from increasing pollution.
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it would have been a matter of time.
You’re completely right about not knowing how to protest effectively until someone manages to do it.
That’s why it’s significant that protest tactics such as peaceful occupation, locking on, and slow walking, have been made illegal in recent years (in the UK - IDK about other countries.) These have been found to be effective in many local campaigns against new road building for example.
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It’s not even really that… it’s that what’s “effective” is what makes change, and we don’t know that until the change happens and then someone spends the time an effort to go back, dig up all the relevant sources, and crafts a narrative of those sources that makes sense and an argument about how we got from here to there… I’m really not sure how some people think history works, but it’s not stuff happens and then we all know about said stuff. We know what we know about social movements of the past, because someone spent years looking into sources and then making a narrative/argument about said sources… in some cases, those narratives/arguments get taken up by the state or other institutions that formalizes them as “our history”…
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There is, as you would expect, division.
However, I do not believe that this action is assisting the overall aim. Not just because of the action itself, but also because of the “justification” in the associated press release (I think an open goal was missed). History might give us an answer.
Thank you for taking the time to Google, I had already seen the FAQs but was unsatisfied, and knew about CEF’s involvement (because, you know, the press reptiles made great play of petrochemical dollars).
I would, but I suspect that it would lead inexorably to the Daily Mail and worse, so no thanks. I am intrigued by JSO and would like to understand them better.
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