Michael Tae Sweeney: once again noting that if you want to do a disruptive, attention-getting climate protest, a thing you could do is shut down a prominent pro golf tournament instead of attacking priceless artistic or cultural artifacts

once again noting that if you want to do a disruptive, attention-getting climate protest, a thing you could do is shut down a prominent pro golf tournament instead of attacking priceless artistic or cultural artifacts

Environmental protesters have sprayed Britain’s most famous prehistoric structure, Stonehenge, with orange paint a day before huge crowds are expected to gather there for the summer solstice. Tap to read more: cnn.it/3KMy67A

the fossil fuel company executives do not care about world heritage sites but they will get hopping mad at you if you shut down the british open by handcuffing yourself together in the middle of the 18th green

people will remember the time they couldn't play the final round of the british open a much longer time than they'll remmeber you spraypainted stongehenge bsky.app/profile/lega...

Yes, but then your protest wouldn’t be remembered 100 years from now.

Security at even the world's best golf courses is usually very lax! They are hundreds of acres and have miles-long perimeters that can't adequately resist an incursion by a determined group of protesters! A lot of times you can just straight up walk onto them, no fence or nothing

Not saying anyone should do this, but if an organized group of folks threw a ton of wildflower seeds on the fairways a few weeks before a course hosts a PGA event would be nearly impossible for groundskeepers to notice before it was too late. And it would certainly be noticeable on TV.

Golf tournaments don't have good security! Also, maybe "someone" always complains, I am not responsible for other people criticizing smart, good protests. I am the guy who criticizes stupid ones that are indistinguishable from oil industry psyops designed to discredit the climate movement.

Once again reminding you that these people go for what they can get, golf tournaments have better security. This is international news. And the monument has not been damaged. It doesn't matter where or how they protest, someone always says 'not like that' same with every cause

By god forbid you criticize ANY protest even if its an actual oil industry false flag because then you are PUNCHING LEFT (at getty oil) bsky.app/profile/rond...

Those are the ones with direct ties to Getty Oil iirc and work as a false flag group to crack down on real climate activists and have them discredited along with laws passed to curb protest.

Every good leftist should hate golf on principle, unrelated to the climate stuff bsky.app/profile/leas...

this would also serve as an effective way to protest the existence of golf

Feels like people should notice by now that there's only one notable protest group whose actions elicit the "Is this an op? Sure seems like an op" response every time

Not to mention that a lot of these types of protests are just ineffective or worse- actually turns people against your cause. I think people confuse getting attention with actual disruption.

"Getty Oil" hasn't existed since 1984

There's also ongoing investigations that most of the art stuff is for insurance fraud

I get the broader point, but the supposed evidence for this is that a granddaughter of an oil tycoon donated to several climate action groups, including Just Stop Oil. She never worked in oil and Getty Oil no longer exists as a company. www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/10/21/g...

Getty oil fortune heiress helped fund climate activists who have targeted artworks and museumswww.theartnewspaper.com The granddaughter of the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty has donated millions to support activist groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil

this would also serve as an effective way to protest the existence of golf

Disruptions of over-manicured/oil-sponsored/petrochemical-fertilized/highly-irrigated/pesticide-laced golf tournaments would also be on message, while defacing a druidic circle/ancient astronomical clock is not really on message.

Also it’s a lot easier to get into the corporate HQs of big company than you’d expect. It’s really not hard to spoof a key card reader

yup

Golf courses are usually in a community where houses are literally on the golf course. Surely you can find SOMEONE sympathetic to the cause to facilitate some shenanigans! Hell me and my friends used to play firework wars and other stupid teenage things on the golf course my friend lived on.

Agreeing with you, also, I feel like if it's a good faith protest, if the people who agree with 90% of your ideological platform are going "not like that", that might be a sign your protest is a shitty idea and you should reconsider? Someone always complains, and sometimes? They're absolutely right.

Also, to be catty for a second: lmfao 'Heritage, Archaeologist, solidarity' are you fucking kidding me.

Maybe not in the UK? I live very near to two recent US Open tournaments, and the security was what you would expect in the USA: durable, solid (no visibility) fences erected around the entire perimeter of the course. Roads closed. No parking anywhere within a half mile. Cop cars EVERYWHERE.

Kinda feels like the uk left over there collapsed into nihilism or apathy after corbyns loss instead of regrouping

I would be impressed if they did damage something tbh

I don't want to destroy golf courses because it's more effective than protesting monuments and art. I want to destroy golf courses because golf is disgusting and deserves to be destroyed.

I got drunk one night, circa 2010, and accidentally wandered onto Trump's Palos Verdes golf course and pissed on one of the greens. No fences, no security, no anything.

Drone that sprays Roundup a few days before.

Groundskeepers very much would notice, and I doubt wildflowers would be able to germinate and grow in the pesticides that golf courses rely on. Now, I did know some ecohackers who wrote naughty words in RoundUp on a golf course decades ago, which took a week or so to emerge.

Hey, tell it to Scottie Scheffler.

As a young person I snuck onto PGA Tour courses to smoke weed with zero difficulty. One time we got “caught” and the cops came and we literally just hid behind a bunker (at night) and they didn’t walk over the hill to find us so we moved 100 yards and smoked more weed.

Seconding this. I've accidentally wandered through golf courses several times.

I'm pretty sure there were police snipers at the last golf tournament in my area. So... You know.

Also, it's PETA's ideology: piss everyone off so that no one likes you and no one cares about your cause. (Also, while we're on the topic, PETA's ideas about pet ownership and zoos are just insane)

the spraypaint on stonehenge will not be around for 100 years lol

It’s in the middle of a big field, so figure it’ll take a half hour to get a power washer to the site.

Right, but: the audience isn’t those people. These protestors don’t want to achieve a goal. Well, yes they do, but that goal is to be performative.

Put another way: they don’t care about oil. They care about people thinking they care about oil.

the point stands though. nobody’s going to remember that shit

Right, the protestors are dumb in multiple ways, one of which could be mitigated with a venue change.

But they think people will. And there will be little crevices on the stones where the power washers won’t hit, so “evidence of our protest will remain”.

I reckon they're controlled opposition

That’s an interesting hypothesis.

I mean who doesn't hate these guys? I largely share their views and yet all I want to do is smack them in the face. And the UK has history of doing shit like that, embedding people in left-wing and environmental groups.

apparently not

Got your dumb ass talking about it!

As a north american, theres a british open? I know what stonehenge is. I do feel these people are a front group for oil tbh but regardless of that, they keep hitting places ive heard of.

Wondering if maybe protestors are doing some mental calculus here because my gut instinct is if I painted something historic "I'd get in trouble" but if I screwed up The Masters Tournament "I'd get the bloody shit kicked out of me and charged for that too"

I know it sounds tinfoil hatty, but is not at least possible these groups are literally funded by fossil fuel companies to defame the climate change activism community? These stunts are so brazen and stupid that they could have been conjured up by someone as empty as Sam Altman.

They won't get mad at either, and the fuel company execs aren't the people the protests are aimed at, because they won't ever do something right unless someone else forces them to

What, like this you mean?

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