To wonder if a lot of the Just Stop Oil protesters are not very nice people on a personal level

[HazelSchmazel]

There are a few Just Stop Oil threads around and I've noticed that a couple of posters have stated that the protesters are not very nice people.

Which got me thinking .....

A few years ago, I was in a horrible relationship with a rather unpleasant guy - a selfish, alcoholic, abusive cheater, who treated me like dirt and ended up stealing a considerable amount of money from me. Despite being a daily meat eater, regularly flying, driving a gas guzzler, having children etc. he would regularly pontificate on saving the environment (and would castigate me on environmental grounds for having a cat - even though I'm a childless vegetarian, who never flies!). Needless to say, the whole experience made me very unhappy.

Fast forward to the present, and I gather that he is now a very active Just Stop Oil protester.

Now, I'm bracing myself to be shot down in flames, as I appreciate that of course, it's unreasonable to judge an entire movement based on one bad apple.

But could it be the case, that there is something about JSO that attracts these nasty characters? Just wondering ......

I think they're incredibly brave…

I think they are absolute cunts. Takes a real bastard to not give a shit that their actions are interrupting surgeries, disrupting normal people, causing aggro for anyone apart from big oil. I hope terrible things happen to them.

I have been personally affected by the actions of one of these groups. Fucking pricks.

Apologies for the bad language. Think it’s really necessary to convey my heartfelt opinion on them though.

From their perspective I might guess

They can't understand how you are prepared to sacrifice milllions of lives by your inaction - how selfish uncaring and down right nasty and evil anyone is who isn't making real efforts to reduce their carbon footprint and the general society footprint

A few British lives inconvenienced or even lost may seem a reasonable exchange for a few million Bangladeshi lives , Sudanese lives

I doubt they help much but I can certainly understand the disgust they feel at the inaction all around

I'm stereotyping I know, but I somehow doubt somebody with a name like 'Cressida' and her pals have much else to worry about than SAVING HUMANITY! and so on. I can imagine their shiny, earnest little faces (and I've read a fair bit of their sub-sixth form waffle, too).

Meanwhile, humanity is concerning itself with having to work so they can pay the rent and bills and feed their kids. To be even thinking about what's happening beyond the end of the month would be a position of unimaginable privilege to many people.

Well said, @midgetastic

They can't understand how you are prepared to sacrifice milllions of lives by your inaction - how selfish uncaring and down right nasty and evil anyone is who isn't making real efforts to reduce their carbon footprint and the general society footprint

What gives Cressida, the right to judge people with less privilege than her?

How dare Cressida assume people aren't making real efforts to reduce their carbon footprint?

And how about selfish, privileged, nasty, degree educated twits stopping for just a nanosecond to realise that the general society they despise so much is doing a hell of a lot more for their felllow citizens than they ever will.

Cressida is only 22. Please remember that. I'm about 20 years older than that; and the mother in me feels very protective, and I have been upset by some things posters have said about her. On one thread she was described in absolutely horrendous terms. By presumably older women, who should know better. Very unfeminist.
I really don't agree with JSO's actions (I am an environmentalist though) but the bile directed at them has been horrific.
Didn't we all do things in our early 20s that we'd never do now?
I realise many of JSO folk are much older, but I'm purely talking about Cressida here. I think people should try to understand more.

Extremist. Narcissistic. They are just a bit dumb. Do they honestly think that gluing themselves to the motorway etc and thus making us late will then make us support their cause? Or we will just be irritated. Or their mum saying they now can't get to the wedding? Deluded.

As a slight aside, I know of one of the founders of a national group for father's access to children after divorce being an abuser. Hence why he couldn't see his child! And another on a local level who supports single mothers but wants no contact with his own child.
There is quite possibly a character trait that attracts certain types to activism whilst being quite hypocritical in private v public life!
(Great name by the way OP!)

JSO aren't the reason ambulances take so long to reach people, that's because people voted Tory.

They tend to be very privileged people. They don’t need to fear arrest, because they (usually) don’t need to worry about employment. They think nothing of immediate damage they are causing to people, usually less privileged than them. Such as not being able to get to work. Missing pay or trying to make up hours somewhere else. It’s not something good people do.

I think Roger Hallam, appears to be a narcissist, if you read the judgement from when he was jailed.

I have seen 2 of the families who did statements about their family members. Who banged on about how awful it was that their jailed family members were going to miss family events. The hypocrisy of moaning ‘my daughter will miss her brothers wedding because she did something illegal and stopped thousands of people missing things that are important to them’ is astounding. And I can see how the 22 year old has turned out that way and just smacks of ‘but we are so important’

I don’t think they are good people. I don’t believe that all them believe their caused. It’s a way to cause disruption, damage people’s lives while still claiming the moral high ground.

I have mentioned this in a thread before but pro JSO ignore it. I work in an industry where our people work at height. An 8 hour climbing course doesn’t cut it. What they did was extremely dangerous. RH and another woman didn’t go up, because of previous arrests. But happy to send people up, inadequately trained to do so.

Would Roger, and the other organisers, taken responsibility had one of them died? Would they have accepted it was their fault?

Eh? They literally block roads and refuse to let ambulances through.

I agree with a lot of the other posters here, their strategies just aren’t working. All they’re doing is making people angry with them, no one who wasn’t interested in environmental matters before this is changing their views because JSO are doing their crappy A-level drama show stunts. Big oil companies certainly don’t give a shit because while JSO are doing their over privileged and disruptive flash mobs they’re distracting people from the actual issues. It’s utterly ridiculous.

I know one personally. She is generally a nice person, goes out of her way to help people, does a lot of volunteering. She is intelligent and has a full time job.

I think they do think about the effects on ambulances, but believe that the millions who will be killed by climate change outweigh that.

I always find it funny when they have mobile phones and wear jeans. Mobiles are terrible for the environment and the production of a single pair of jeans uses so much water. They want to protest about how we should all live, whilst not really doing that themselves.
I agree climate change is pressing, but getting cars to queue up (and use more gas) is counter productive like spraying building that then have to be cleaned with chemicals . It’s all nuts really.

also edited to add, why do they protest here in the uk when our pollution is far less than other countries. If they were serious they should start with china.

Give over.

She is 22. Which means she is an adult.

I have a 20 year old daughter. I was a 20 year old. I made mistakes. Consistently doing things like organise mass disruption wasn’t a mistake. She knew what she was doing and did it anyway. Because she chose to.

Its not anti feminist to point out that a 22 year old women is responsible for her own decisions and the consequences that come with them.

She believed she had the right to do whatever she wanted. And faced the consequences for it. She is an adult. Not a child.

If they wore hemp trousers you'd probably call them weird hippies who should get a job, instead. How do you know whether their jeans came from the charity shop?

I don’t think she can be that intelligent if she thinks that their publicity stunts are doing anything positive about climate change.

No body talks about it as a result of what they do, they only focus on the behaviour of the protestors. JSO is literally just a name, if they called themselves the wet bandits or the purple people eaters the effect would be the same. People would think they were over privileged dickheads.

They believe the planet is absolutely fucked and are doing all they feel they can to prevent that

in some respects, I can sympathise to be honest! What is everyone else doing? Recycling tin and and driving a brand new EV whilst planing a tree after a long haul flight?

I used to work with an animal rights activist. Very vocal about her veganism and critical about everyone who ate meat or wore leather.

We once had a conversation about her three huge rescue dogs. I asked what she fed them. The answer was cheap supermarket tins of meat. I asked if she found it awkward that she consumed more meat than the vast majority of us and she was so angry. ‘It’s not their fault they need to eat meat’. Yeah but don’t go lecturing other people.

I find that a lot of protesters are seething with hatred and intolerance and just want to punish someone. The extremes are terrorists who are generally foul people who have found a cause that lets them feel good about themselves while acting on their hatred and violence. Lee Rigby’s killers. The IRA. Pick a cause and hide behind it.

I can't understand why we're even having this debate. Most of us with half a brain cell agreed that something needs to be done but nothing is being done.

All these conferences that achieve nothing and people fly to get to the conferences and then places like China don't even turn up so they achieve absolutely little.

And the government and the big organisations and the bureaucrats do very little.

in the meantime the little man on the street does his best. is now arguing over with Cresida and her antics.

But little man is doing his recycling and not going on holiday and trying to do the right thing. and making very little difference.

so why we having this debate?

Most people aren’t even doing that but JSO is clearly not making a difference is it?

Just realised what the statement from the protestors mum reminded me of

I think especially in the current financial climate people are worried about the future if yhe planet and thus their children's future....but the most pressing concern is the near future eg next week!

Lots of people can't afford to take 2 days off to glue themself to a train, sit in a road, climb a motorway gantry. They are worried about paying bills, keeping a roof over their head and feeding their children now

Although I do have to disagree about protesting about China etc being the biggest polluters, when we in the uk are the consumers. People in the UK are using, buying, ordering cars/tech/clothes/other stuff from China and the Far East we just don't manufacture very much here (which causes problems of own)....but we can't look away and pretend all the pollution is nothing to do with us

Really? Thats odd as a paramedic friend spent their entire shift sat in an empty ambulance on the M25, I didn’t realise it was Tory voters sat on the road, how odd that the press reported that it was just stop oil members on the road.

All the JSO/XR protesters I know are 70 year old vicars who wouldn't hurt a fly or retired old ladies who are doing it for their grandchildren's futures. And a few very idealistic young people (those have always existed). But if it helps to dehumanise them to make you feel more comfortable destroying the planet, you might as well go ahead.

It's possible to have strong principles and not cause deliberate harm.

Did you read the Judge's sentencing remarks, because I would highly recommend them?