Terrorists' vandalising Stone Henge and trying to force govt policy

[FoxJTT047101111]

We need the security services to shut the group down when they are carrying out what can be described as terrorist methods to influence govt policy.

Agree.

Why Stonehenge when they could go after the big carbon and oil polluters that are associated with financial systems like Stock Markets, certain Banks / Banking Corporations, tech giants, distribution giants, and the huge polluting fossil fuel multi-nationals?

Why Stonehenge when the people who love it are more likely to be 'hippie' and alternative lifestyle & belief types of people, probably use less and recycle more, love the landscape and the earth's magical properties, and care deeply about the environment?

I've been involved with the campaign(s) against the Stonehenge tunnel, and I can't recall Just Stop Oil ever doing anything to help.

Well put.

Headline grabbing action gets us all talking about our imminent extinction and that our a governments are not doing enough. In fact the current lots have actively encouraged the extraction of more fossil fuels rather than invest in renewables. I’m furious and we all should be. If getting arrested wouldn’t ruin my career and therefore my family’s financial security I would be going the same.

Why Stonehenge when they could go after the big carbon and oil polluters that are associated with financial systems like Stock Markets, certain Banks / Banking Corporations, tech giants, distribution giants, and the huge polluting fossil fuel multi-nationals?

They have been doing this but the media don’t report it.

Would be better to hack air booking sites with alternatives eg can you do a zoom call/ get a train or give flyers on SUV damage to roads and asthma outside SUV sales showrooms suggesting the most environmentally friendly car availability there instead

Their aim isn’t to persuade individuals to reduce their carbon footprint. Their aim is to stop the UK gov from approving new fossil fuel projects.

But it hasn't got us talking about that has it? It's just got us talking about the harm to Stonehenge.

I agree and I do everything I can and would like to do more but I don't think the tactics are good

Exactly. None of the people who think this is a sensible tactic have provided any evidence of it actually working.

On another thread on another board, far far away, I questioned the multi-national sponsorships and the new memberships of the Invictus Games and asked what's that all about? Seems like a load of Invictus-washing of undeserving reputations to me, and I know a lot of veterans agree and want to retrench to the Warrior Games.

It's why I don't think the UK government (i.e. the living bellend that is Johnny Mercer MP (Con)) should be trying to host the Invictus Games without proper public consultation about the sponsors, the financials, who's involved, etc.

I could understand Just Stop Oil getting involved with that.

This WHOLE THREAD and many thousands more all over the internet as well as IRL conversations are the evidence of this tactic working.

It provokes an emotional response and puts the climate catastrophe into conversations.

If they had gone out and spent a day planting trees it would not have made a blind bit of difference to conversations, because it would have garnered no attention at all.

And in those conversations, even those who oppose this form of action often respond with things like “why don’t they use their time to clean up beaches” etc which is good, it makes them think about and talk about positive climate actions which seem “sensible“ compared to this kind of direct action.

It's not the first time it's been used in this way

OH NO THE LICHEN

No, they aren't.

Evidence of people talking about what a bunch of arseholes they are is not the tactic working. Talking is not action. Even talking about cleaning up beaches is not action.

Without this, millions of conversations would not have happened this week. Also, riling people up with Stonehenge so the conversations included a lot of “they should go after the billionaires” and then hitting private jets the following day was an absolute masterstroke. It’s incredibly finessed activism.

I'm talking specifically about the Stonehenge fiasco. And I notice you still haven't claimed it's led to anyone actually doing anything!

Quite and its worse - it actively deters voters from the issues and enables the opposition to badge the whole environmental movement as Tarquins and Fionas being vandals. If some of the armchair clicktivists here could get their heads around the difference between signal and noise we might be in a better position.

However when their ignorance about the environment and species loss is displayed by casual dismissal of a rare species because "its only lichen, who cares" it marks them as someone with nothing intelligent to say on the matter.

I disagree. There are lots of posters on this thread pointing out the peril that we are all in. That people are already dying and it’s only going to get worse.

But what they did won’t destroy lichen. ‘They’ have said nothing about lichen. Posters in here have pointed out that climate change is a MUCH bigger threat to biodiversity and our survival. Which is true.

The lichen and the monument is either protected or it isn't. And it is. So it should be left alone.

In fact the wider landscape of Stonehenge (the UNESCO world heritage site designation) is supposed to be protected, hence the widespread opposition to, and fury about, the tunnel scheme.

I think I may have been a member of Greenpeace before many MNers were even born, when the Rainbow had fuck all to do with special gendery identities and everything to do with protecting rare species. We seem to have forgotten all that we ever knew.

Sorry, my steam-punk time machine isn't working so I can't currently stop that having happened.

It certainly goes in my mental scrapbook of 'performative historical events of great dumbness'.

Thinking back, I tied ribbons to the USAF fence at Greenham Common; I didn't deface Stonehenge. We got a lot of publicity for the 'actions' at Greenham.

They do.

Of course I haven’t claimed that.

How could I ? I don’t keep watch over everyone in the world and look out for their new planet-positive behaviours. I have noticed the awareness and conversations though. I mean, this is how marketing works. Not all adverts say “buy our beer”, more likely they’ll make you think about beer in general and when given an A or B choice you will recall their brand and make that choice. Similarly here, the action will make you learn how concerned many of us are about the environment, and when given a choice you might think “actually, I’ll take the train, Susan’s point about the poisoning of the Niger Delta was pretty shocking”

And Stonehenge is part of a wider campaign, and the private jet stunt was linked to it. A one-two punch. It was deft.

Ah right, so it's just vibes then. Gotcha. Well, let us know when any actual meaningful change happens.

They're not terrorists, but their tactics are very counter productive. It's almost like they know they can't achieve what they want, but they're going to make a noise about it anyway.

Let us know how the "fossil fuels, lichen protection and sneering at other people" campaign gets on.

Just seen a US commentator discussing this on a (very) US centric vlog.

I think that was rather the point.

It’s a campaign. Designed to influence the agenda. And it works.

Despite your wilful ignorance of how actual modern activism works and it’s mechanisms of harvesting the attention economy…