Why protest in places you don't usually see protests happen?

Post Reply New Topic

I seem to think those people from Just Stop Oil are now protesting in places and at events you don't usually see protests happening in. One protestor jumped on an indoor snooker table, some people sprayed orange powder on some flowers at the Chelsea flower show, some of these guys ran into cricket and tennis grounds spraying powder and confetti and recently saw a graduation ceremony being targeted as well. I understand freedom of speech and expression but I seem to think they are doing in places now you don't usually see protests happening like on the side of the road and that people are disillusioned and fed up with their tactics and not attracting the public to their cause. I global warming is happening and we are doing all we can to stop it but don't always like the doom mongering rhetoric that's put across like we will all die tomorrow if we don't stop oil right now. People still argue that we may need to still rely on oil for maybe another 20 or 30 years before we transition on to something else and that to stop it right now economies would fail otherwise.

Because it hasn't happened there before, its a Novelty and will be noticed by people who may not have noticed it otherwise. It might also stands a greater chance of making news headlines if its never been done before.

They just want to be annoying.

I don't understand why they don't protest in a pedestrianised high street somewhere. Not only will far more people see them but they'll also not annoy the general public.

We will need to rely on oil for a while to come too. Obviously being the usual middle class trendies, they make a lot of noise but offer zero in the way of practical alternatives and neither have any interest in learning about alternatives, hence why they all have the most useless jobs completely unrelated to STEM fields.

They're an incompetent bunch and their lives will never amount to anything.

The goal is to put pressure on the government, not to reach 'the people'.

The oil lobbyists spend billions persuading the government not to make any changes that threaten profits from oil. Climate activists can't compete with that. There is no mechanism that allows climate activists to put their message to governments in a way that results in action. Disruptive protest is the result of that feeling of powerlessness.

The only way activists can apply pressure on governments is through media coverage. Protests in the street don't generate any media coverage at all these days. Even when hundreds of thousands of people show up, it's more or less ignored. The climate crisis doesn't sell papers - people don't want to hear it.

The only way to get headlines is to do things that disrupt. That means being annoying and getting lots of people arrested. Any protest worth doing has to be annoying, otherwise it's a waste of time, no one will take any notice. Greenpeace have been protesting non-disruptively on fossil fuels for decades. It's achieved nothing. Carbon emissions have gone up every year.

People complain about climate protesters now, as they complained about suffragettes (who incidently were far more disruptive than Just Stop Oil, they were literally blowing stuff up) and as they complained about the civil rights activists in the US. They use ad hominem attacks because the science is irrefutable now. So we hear that they're idiots, eco-mob, attention-seekers, middle-class wasters. But actually they are standing up for something they believe in - something very few people ever do. They're actually risking their liberty. Most of us just complain on our sofas or on the internet. I admire them.

But like votes for women and equal rights for minorities there will come a day when what they are asking for is just considered obvious and natural, because it's objectively insane to keep burning fossil fuel the way we are. I just hope that happens before it's too late.

I have often wondered why protests take place far away from the people and events being protested.

Protesting in Watts something that happened in Boston for example.

Protests tend to try to be disruptive. Protesting in places that are unexpected can contribute to causing disruption.

Yes, some people go to protests to cause trouble, or lose control once they get there, and some go just to watch what happens.

Yet others, including me, have gone to protests to draw attention to an issue, to push for action, to express solidarity with others (thus some of the protests in far-off regions), and/or to network/strategize, and cheer each other on when they feel hopeless and helpless.

One of the gatherings I went to in the summer of 2020 was more of a vigil than a protest, as many of us were in mourning and wanted to share our grief. It was an important moment in my life that touched me deeply. In that space and that time, we stood apart from so many things--and each other--but were connected in some really significant ways that I won't forget.