Just Stop Oil protesters jailed after M25 blocked

[Nearly Sane]

Tough sentences. Thoughts?


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c880xjx54mpo

[Roses]

Serve them right, imo. Ambulance were delayed and some people missed important medical appointments!

[Nearly Sane]

Serve them right, imo. Ambulance were delayed and some people missed important medical appointments!

Does that merit sentences of 4 and 5 years?

[Gordon]

Given the current state of the prisons, and the daily cost per prisoner, and that many low-risk prisoners are being released early to reduce the congestion, I'd have thought that a fine plus 'tagging' restrictions might have been an option.

[Nearly Sane]

Given the current state of the prisons, and the daily cost per prisoner, and that many low-risk prisoners are being released early to reduce the congestion, I'd have thought that a fine plus 'tagging' restrictions might have been an option.

Community service. They might be good at painting.

[Gordon]

Maybe the Forth Bridge could do with freshening up - it would take ages, and they'd get a great view of all the cars going over the old Road Bridge and the newer Queensferry Crossing.

[Aruntraveller]

I can feel my bile rising. They are dickheads undermining a serious message. The sentence isn't strong enough. Ambulances couldn't get through, people missed flights, hospital appointments. If you are going to hold up traffic then stop the PM from getting to parliament or something. Affect the people who hold power not ordinary people trying to survive the M25, which at the very best of times is a dubious pleasure.

As the prisons are full I'd make them refuel airliners for the rest of their miserable lives.

[ProfessorDavey]

I can feel my bile rising. They are dickheads undermining a serious message. The sentence isn't strong enough. Ambulances couldn't get through, people missed flights, hospital appointments. If you are going to hold up traffic then stop the PM from getting to parliament or something. Affect the people who hold power not ordinary people trying to survive the M25, which at the very best of times is a dubious pleasure.

That is pretty well my thoughts.

Firstly, while the right to protest must be protected, than cannot be considered as a right to protest using any means you chose. So we'd already place restrictions to include peaceful protest only, but I think it is completely reasonable to restrict protests that deliberately aim to take out major infrastructure, and that would include roads etc. The caveat being where this is sanctioned by the authorities - such as a protest march on an agreed route.

But the second point is how stupidly counterproductive this has been. Society has broadly accepted that climate change is a thing and is a problem, and that we need to decarbonise. The basic argument was won a while ago so protest groups are pushing against an open door rather than trying to raise an issue that is largely not recognised or understood.

But what they have done is allowed the previous government to change the narrative - to imply that those who want decarbonisation are somehow extreme and allowing that extremist protest element to portray themselves as the moderates in the argument, despite banning on-shore wind farms, allowing new oil and gas licenses, pushing back many decarbonisation targets.

So top marks to the protesters for stupidity - shifting the narrative from push for decarbonisation is mainstream and those who push back are the extremists to push for decarbonisation is an extremist view and those who push back are the mainstream opinion.

Fuck-whits.

[Nearly Sane]

I was watching Invasion of The Dinosaurs, a 1974 serial of Doctor Who, this week. (Bear with me, I'm not on the wrong thread, but also spoilers, sweeties!) In it there is a conspiracy to return a selected group of British people to a 'holden age' of ecology which involves removing the rest of the human race from history. The selected group don't know that's the plan and think they are on a 3 month space flight in some form of suspended animation to another planet. (Don't look to closely at the plot, as it's neither the point of the serial nor this post)


Anyway, the people behind the conspiracy are doing it out of what they see as the best of intentions but have decided the end justifies the means, and the selected group as they gradually discover the truth react in different ways, initially one of them, played by Carmen Silvera of 'Allo 'Allo, thinks thar murdering Sarah Jane to shut her up, is OK.

I'm with pretty well everyone on the thread that those involved are fuckwits, and that it is counter productive but in general the fuckwits are acting out the best of intentions. As Prof D has highlighted the last govt was pulling back on environmental issues, and these protests gave them cover. At the same time, those pull backs were what triggered the fuckwits to think that the protests were necessary, and they would see the last govt as dangerous fuckwits, and those going too quietly along with it as deluded fools.


The Doctor Who serial is, amongst other things, highlighting that it's not the aim of the ideology being bad, that allows people to do bad things - hints of the it needing religion to get good people to do bad things quote. Note, reading the report there seem hints of a messianic influence  from Roger Hallam.

The other aspect here is that  protests like these allowed the last govt to introduce more severe restrictions on protests generally, and challenging that made difficult because, in this world where nuance has been removed from the dictionary  it's seen as supporting this type of protest.


I'm still unconvinced by this type of sentencing because that feels counterproductive. It will ramp up the conspiracy ideas of those who tout the idea of 'carbon judges'. I'm with Gordon and Aruntraveller on the idea of some suitable community service that in the words of the Mikado let's the punishment fit the crime.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Dinosaurs


https://youtu.be/UadpOCWhQVc?si=_8n4JO-FRu6j_5Dj

[Nearly Sane]

More JSO protectors found guilty. This of throwing soup over Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Sentencing will be 27th September. I suspect despite the judge's statement about the culprits having to be prepared for prison, this may not get custodial sentences other than suspended ones as it's not quite the same effect as the M25 protests.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51y99yrj49o