“Militant suffragettes destroyed contents of letterboxes and smashed the windows of thousands of shops and offices. They cut telephone wires, burned down houses of politicians and prominent members of society, set cricket pavilions alight and carved slogans into golf courses. They slashed paintings in art galleries, destroyed exhibitions at the British Museum and planted bombs in St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and near the bank of England.”
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And perhaps there’s the difference. They targetted “the great and the good” - those who could make a difference - rather than the people whose support they needed.
And society was structured very differently in those happy days of the widespread use of public transport!
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Listened to Law in Action on Radio 4 last night. New laws are being talked about/ introduced, covering protests & demonstrations. One law is called ‘locking on’ which means you can be arrested for carrying a u-shaped bicycle lock, or bicycle lock & chain, something like that in your bicycle rucksack, with which you could use to lock yourself to railings, as the suffragettes did, in pursuit of your particular protest. And there are stop & search laws proposed that could be used to search your bicycle rucksack.
Is this what we want? Some say not.
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Again you manage to draw a completely illogical connection Porridge. Or perhaps you can explain how asking the question ‘what would you do?’ logically implies not being able to justify protest?
To most people, the justification is obvious:
- We are heading into armageddon
- We would like our children to have a life
- Our leaders aren’t really doing anything to avoid it.
I can just see you sitting in the passenger seat of a car about to drive off a cliff, but refusing to reach across and grab the wheel because that might inconvenience the driver.
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It’s probably not what ‘we’ want, but it’s likely to get widespread support thanks to these kinds of actions by protesters. Certainly they are getting their cause talked about, but the discussions I read elsewhere are not positive among those who wish to reduce their CO2 and pollution footprints.
Brexit all over again, where a damaging change to legislation is made supported by popular opinion?
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Very careless, Geof! I said “suggests”. Maybe that’s why you didn’t understand the point. But turning the question back on the interviewer, especially when you have an opportunity to justify your behaviour (assuming it’s justifiable), is what Kevin the teenager would do. (In case that’s a cultural reference you don’t get, here’s an example: https://youtu.be/dLuEY6jN6gY?t=80)
You may probably be right, and perhaps the suffragettes were not supported by the general public – don’t know for a fact - but they did eventually achieve what they wanted despite all, and it was an important achievement.
This is what I wrote - not ‘unlikely’.
Sorry - one of my dyslexic moments!
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But Cop 27 isn’t getting anywhere it seems to me – not yet anyway.
Stop Oil is doing what the Suffragettes did, who also had some opposition/disapproval.
"Suffragettes were pleased that ‘The Cause’ was being brought to everyone’s notice. The reaction of the public, however, was mixed. Some felt that women were justified in going to such lengths. Many others believed that violence was totally wrong as a means of gaining an object.”
The Suffragettes achieved their aims eventually.
Well, so did the IRA.
Isn’t the problem with the current type of road protest that it targets the general public?
Most people might grumble at a bit of disruption coming as a by-product of a protest, without lessening their support for the cause which is the reason for the protest, but really don’t like it when they’re the ones being targeted.
That’s life it seems isn’t it - railways, nurses, teachers, postal workers, et al , all cause public disquiet/inconvenience.
Ah - you admit the connection you draw is not a logical one - so now you need to explain the mechanism by which asking ‘what would you do?’ ‘suggests’ not being able to justify protest.
It might come as a surprise to you Porridge, that to most people the justification for climate protest is obvious, and most people - and international law - regard peaceful protest as a fundamental human right. Why are you arguing against that - and allying yourself with the most extreme oppressive regimes in the world?
I thought it was obvious.
Q. Why are you doing [action]?
Is your best answer, the one which suggests you have a well thought out strategy,
A. Well, what would you do? or B. An answer which explains why what you are doing is justified.
That sounds like a generalisation based on wishful thinking. Do you have any evidence for your belief?
The only poll I could find was conducted by GB News, so it’s at least as unreliable as anything from the Guardian!
The result wasn’t encouraging for the Just Stop Oil brigade: only 13% support their protests.
No - according to the Office for National Statistics three-quarters of adults in the UK are worried about the impact of climate change - you are in a small minority in not recognising the justification for the protests Porridge - a minority about the size of those Brits that support Nigel Farrage - you know - the GBNews guy.
Still - at least you have answered my question on why you are willing to ally yourself with the most extreme oppressive regimes in the world.
I posted the statistic showing 74% are worried or very worried. Most reasonable people are desperately worried about climate change.
That is not the same thing as believing all climate protesters are justified in what they are doing.
(Do you think that sometimes you’re so convinced that you won’t agree with me that you don’t read my posts carefully enough?)
Think of it in another way. I could believe in home rule for Ireland without thinking that the IRA’s bombing campaign was justified.
One can believe a cause is just without believing that the rightness of the cause justifies any means of bringing it about.
It is academic, as it happens at the moment, because I see that the protesters themselves have done the decent thing, and are allowing police and the rest of the emergency services to get back to doing the important work they were unable to do while babysitting!
But that remark about Farage - burn!
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But yet again you’re switching the terms of the discussion. We’re talking about the protestor that threw back the ‘what would you do?’ question to an interviewer - you think a more effective reply would be to ‘justify’ climate protest - I think the justification is obvious to most people, and they already agree with it.
The problem is that some people (including you it seems) just don’t get the overwhelming urgency of the situation. They think that after about 100 years of scientists warning about the problem, and 40 years of conventional protests like petitions, marches, etc, we should just continue doing things like that, and avoid more disruptive protest. It is these attitudes that throwing back the question ‘what would you do?’ exposes - and I think the reason it bugs you so much is precisely because it does effectively expose your complacency.
Your analogy with IRA bombing is outrageous, as the protests have all (so far) been peaceful - the environmental movement actually has a very strong tradition of non-violence - though there is a long history of justification for violent protest that includes most of the great names in the history of human rights - not only the Suffragettes, but Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, etc - indeed, substitute ‘climate/ecological breakdown’ for King’s words about justice etc and you have your ‘justification’ of disruptive protest - and the problem of your complacency in a nutshell:
I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
And didn’t Jesus physically attack the money-lenders? I imagine you there saying “Now Jesus, interfering with other people’s property is rather inconvenient, you know - wouldn’t it be better to write a strongly worded letter?” !
(Oh and by the way, the protestors have suspended one action in the UK, on the M25, on condition that the government acts - other protests continue all over the world. And given the appalling record of the current UK government, my guess is that the M25 protests will soon not only resume, but escalate.)
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Genuinely hilarious, Geof, thanks!
A post on social media saying radical protest doesn’t turn people away from a cause “despite what people say on social media”.
I suppose they’re feeling the pressure, posting something as daft as that.
Mind you, Extinction Rebellion were the intellectuals who thought disrupting public transport was a good way of persuading people to use their cars less …
You’re at it again Porridge - implying - or should I say ‘suggesting’ - that there is some irony in a social media comment that debunks some other social media comment. But there isn’t, is there? Indeed - that’s what your own post has just tried (unsuccessfully) to do !
Now that, Porridge, really is both ironic, and hilarious !