- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022
Climate activists have thrown tomato soup over two Sunflowers paintings by Vincent van Gogh, just an hour after two others were jailed for a similar protest action in 2022.
Three supporters of Just Stop Oil walked into the National Gallery in London, where an exhibition of Van Gogh’s collected works is on display, at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, and threw Heinz soup over Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888.
The latter was the same work targeted by Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland in 2022. That pair are now among 25 supporters of Just Stop Oil in jail for climate protests.
You must log in or register to comment.
So if throwing paint at a entierly replaceable cover for a dusty old painting is too far gone to be acceptable, what action can we take to stop oil production? Like. It needs to stop. To continue producing fossil fuels is a death cult. It needs to stop, like, a decade ago. I ask genuinely, how is this too far, and what is an acceptable response to an existential threat?
edit: On the off chance someone reads this so long after the post, I just want to point out that nobody actually engaged with my question here.
So if throwing paint at a entierly replaceable cover for a dusty old painting is too far gone to be acceptable, what action can we take to stop oil production?
God, I wish someone could actually trace the train of events that would lead to reduced oil production from this other than some bizarre notion that throwing soup at a priceless artifact of human heritage will Energize The Masses™ or suddenly convince people who think climate change is a hoax or overblown that it’s actually a serious problem.
Imagine if these activists spent more time going after companies benefiting from fossil fuel production rather than throwing soup in museums…
They’ve done that too, and have encountered media blackouts.
As nice as it would be if they could simply fix the climate problem with the disruption a handful of protests cause, they can’t, and need to draw public attention to the problem.
These demonstrations open up the conversation in threads like this - you agree there’s a problem, you agree these protests don’t fix the problem, so let’s talk about what will.
I feel like we’re kind of entering an era where direct action and ecology-motivated terrorism are going to start becoming a thing. And I’m honestly not sure that would be a bad thing.
Peaceful protests have not worked, disruptive protests have been widely villified and the protestors jailed for very long sentences. If you are facing 2-3 years for holding up a banner or throwing some paint seems like criminal damage of a fossil fuel facility isn’t likely to net more years. As many have said in the past governments ignore peaceful protests at their peril, because once its clear that doesn’t work they become not peaceful.
If everything is illegal, nothing is illegal.
If you’re gonna get thrown in jail if you’re caught regardless, why not go for broke?
To fight another day. If every passionate soul bound themselves to another rather then fizzling out or going up flames then we could become many.
Assuming there’s no collateral damage to speak of, I’d argue it would be an act of self-defence for the benefit of all of us. In principle, I’d struggle to find reason to be upset by it.
There will be collateral damage. There always is. The idea there wouldn’t be collateral damage is already setting the bar higher than is feasible.
I don’t think that’s true at all, but if it is, it becomes a question of whether that damage is outweighed by the benefit of the action.
Seems to me that it would be pretty difficult to encounter a media blackout to do this sort of thing at, for example, global climate summits, oil company shareholder meetings, etc.
But I’m not seeing much soup being thrown there.
By ‘media blackout’ they mean ‘it was a blip on the radar like this is, but this is NOW and thus relevant and important’
The people who talk about ‘media blackouts’ also seem to forget that everyone has an internet-connected video camera in their pockets.
What are you even trying to say here? That any bastard with a camera and something to show will magically be seen, or that everyone with a smartphone is going to be aware of everything that affects them? Because neither of those things is remotely close to the way the world works.
You were aware of the JSO protesters shutting down the oil pipeline? If and that’s a big “if” so, do you think the average schmuck is? No. But chances are that they’re aware of the stunts like the soup.
let’s talk about what will.
Stop throwing soup.
We’re at the point where idiots throwing soup are called sing more environmental damage than backwoods yahoos rolling coal. Shall we protest soup abuse? Because that’s more likely to help the environment
People throwing soup to protest climate change are doing more environmental damage than people burning fossil fuels in the dirtiest way possible because that’s their gender identity or whateverthefuck? You’ll need to explain that one for me, champ.
Well, clearly not throwing crap at paintings. Now I want to see these guys arrested and thrown in jail.
Removed by mod
Yes - people protesting the climate apocalypse are the same as the oil barons, and I’m the moron.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Right? Go throw soup at Darren Woods or one of the oil execs, not at a painting
Remember when famous assholes used to get pies in the face? What happened to that?
Then they would be in cages already.
I brought up Karen Silkwood and Erin Brockovich elsewhere. They were not put in cages. They were just willing to do some very hard work rather than just stunts.
Then they wouldn’t get their five minutes of fame, though. And even worse, they couldn’t even claim their five minutes of fame was some self-righteous moment that they should be lionized for. A fate worse than death, basically.
I see shit like this and I think about people like Erin Brockovich and Karen Silkwood…
Sounds a lot like boring work that has no grand trumpets or asspats at the end of the rainbow, or that requires specialized skills and education. Can’t we just draw some attention to ourselves, cry out “Climate change!” and call it a day?
Nah - let’s just feel superior by whining about people doing something to defer the apocalypse - both stunts to draw attention, and shutting down oil pipelines directly.
Can I request an article or at least a transcription?
YouTube provides transcripts. It’s in the discription on the website
YouTube provides transcripts.
Wow. I am behind the times. I’ll look through it then.
Also the section “jso critics” and “does it work”
“No art on a dead planet” is a braindead justification and does not in any way outline how vandalism of art is supposed to translate into climate activism, while the four criteria outlined for activism are valid but in no way provide a special justification for vandalism of cultural artifacts, which has a significantly greater backlash from the exact kind of educated people most likely to get involved in climate activism, and very little disruptive potential.
“I understand that we’re pissing people off but there’s no other way to get attention” and “Negative attention is good attention, because maybe it will cause people to become positively engaged with the cause” are not particularly compelling rebuttals in the critics section.
“JSO was central in setting the 2024 Labour agenda” is utterly deluded, while all the cited actions by their sister organizations in Europe are much more traditional instances of civil disobedience that have long-proven track records and a clear and logical progression of action-to-influence.
This really reinforces my view that JSO are terribly naive and have no real idea on how their actions will seriously lead to mass change of opinions on climate change.
“No art on a dead planet” is a braindead justification and does not in any way outline how vandalism of art is supposed to translate into climate activism
If damaged art hurts your feelings get mad at the government killing all art on the planet and not the activists partially damaging some art.
“I understand that we’re pissing people off but there’s no other way to get attention” … not particularly compelling rebuttals in the critics section
Why not? How else should they be getting attention?
“JSO was central in setting the 2024 Labour agenda” is utterly deluded,
I won’t disagree
This really reinforces my view that JSO are terribly naive and have no real idea on how their actions will seriously lead to mass change of opinions on climate change.
Yeah I don’t get the vibe from you that you’d change your view
Partially related but do you have any evidence that jso tactics has a “greater backlash from the exact kind of educated people most likely to get involved in climate activism” or is that kinda vibes based
It’s weird that there are people in this thread that think defacing the protective barrier of a painting is too far, but advocating for harming or killing oil industry executives is not because the painting didn’t do anything to cause our climate emergency. By that argument, defacing a building with grafitti can’t work, blocking traffic would put more pollution in the air, blowing up a pipeline would kill innocent people and animals.
Nothing is good enough for them except the status quo. They’d rather a museum burned down in a riot than plexiglass get covered in soup because riots are okay (but once that happens, the pearls will be clutched again.)
Go fuck with the billionaires and lawmakers at their homes, offices, doctor’s appointments, at the store, while they’re out for coffee, etc. Fuck with the people actually causing the problem
Instead of intentionally pissing people off at climate protesters, put effort towards educating people on the myriad of ways we actually subsidize fossil fuels and the corrupt relationships that keep that going, so people instead get pissed off at the fossil fuel industry, lobbyists, and corrupt politicians.
Of course some people do work on this already, Climate Town being a good example. We should be talking about those efforts instead of these.
“We do not need allies more devoted to order than to justice,” Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in the spring of 1964, refusing calls from moderate Black and White leaders to condemn a planned highway “stall-in” to highlight systemic racism in New York City. “I hear a lot of talk these days about our direct action talk alienating former friends,” he added. “I would rather feel they are bringing to the surface latent prejudices that are already there. If our direct action programs alienate our friends … they never were really our friends.”
“What’s blocking traffic have to do with racism? All it does is make people mad at black people!”
History rhymes.
I’m not sure it’s the acceptability that needs to be discussed here. In what way does this stop oil? The way you phrase your comment seems to presuppose that this is a useful action but some find it unacceptable. You’re skipping right over the main problem with this. Destroying art is not a useful act.
And yet it damaged the frame, prevented people from enjoying a work of art and cost money from a museum that has nothing to do with the cause
Oh, I dunno, any action that’s actually related to the industry? Throwing crap at classic art as a means to bring attention to a cause completely unrelated to classic art is retarded.
What’s your plan to keep society functioning with the immediate end of fossil fuels?
That wasn’t my question. But if you must know, if the choice is between “maintaining the current standard of living” and “stop risking the habitability of the one place known that can support life”, I choose the latter. Everytime. And it’s crazy to choose the former.
But what about The Economy®™?!? We can’t possibly have Apple only make 10s of billions of dollars in profit instead of 100s of billions of dollars because we made the price of goods destroying our planet more expensive!
If we start to make the cost of goods proportional to the associated environmental destruction, I won’t be able to buy the 12th pair of Nikes for my shoe collection. I might have to wear my clothes more than once, and GASP, take public transit places.
Like sure, our grandkids may get to grow up in a world looking like something out of Mad Max, but at least I wouldn’t have to suffer any inconveniences to my lifestyle.
It’s crazy to think those are the only choices.
Kinda dumb of you to assume the only option to stop oil is an immediate cessation of all usage
Kinda dumb to call for the end of fossil fuels a decade ago.
Why?
We don’t have a means to replace energy needs today and we were even further away a decade ago.
You don’t think maybe we would be closer to having that means of energy production now if we started 50 years ago when we noticed the impacts of climate change?
Youre assuming climate activists have the MORONIC idea of just transitioning to shit tech, instead of the idea of investing in making tech that can replace oil usage
I don’t assume all climate activists have the moronic opnion that we need to transition to shit tech, just the ones who say we need to be off fissile fuels a decade ago.
And we never will if we don’t start making progress on it, it’ll always be unfeasible because the powers that be don’t start making changes unless it’s doable within one election cycle. Just Stop Oil isn’t asking for immediate stopping of oil, just moving the deadline to 2030, which means there’s a few years to realistically invest in other forms of energy generation like nuclear, green energy, and other ways.
The OP wanted a complete stop of production of fossil fuels a decade ago. That is a completely different statement than we need to curb fossil fuel use.
Why does it have to be an immediate end and not a phase out? Right now, we’re not even phasing out.
Pretty uncharitable interpretation of something posted by someone who I would guess you have a common goal with.
People that give a fuck about “priceless art” or whatever are so silly. Lmao.
I’m not saying to not continue posting articles like this, but I do think that maybe your time would be better spent arguing with people who don’t believe in climate change instead of arguing with people who do believe in climate change.
People that give a fuck about “priceless art” or whatever are so silly. Lmao.
Yeah, who gives a shit about the cultural history of humanity, am I right? After destroying paintings, maybe the can go after other things of cultural significance! Bulldoze the Great Serpent Mound! Blow up Angkor Wat! Carve rude words into the Elgin Marbles!
There is no art on a dead planet.
Got it. Cut up the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial into usable stone for building material.
While we’re at it, let’s also do it to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. That’s a lot of useful stone blocks.
No art on a dead planet, am I right?
If we’re all dead, the memorials are for all of us anyway.
When someone calls for ending something last decade it required immediate action now.
Okay, well that’s not going to happen. But maybe, if we’re lucky, it can be phased out.
Society functioning in the way it’s currently functioning is the cause of the problem. It’s gonna stop because we change how we do things, or it’ll get stopped in a way we have no control over, which is worse across every possible metric.
Investing in nuclear would help.
Grid wise with nuclear we have the capability of not using fossil fuels. Transportation wise we are decdades away before we have the capability.
I see a lot of confusion and misinformation in the comments about what Just Stop Oils demands are. Their website makes it very plain and you can read through the details yourself. The press has massively misrepresented the groups demands and goals so its best to read it for yourself. https://juststopoil.org/
These are the 3 demands they have.
✅ Demand 1: No New Oil and Gas Licences – WON!
🔥 Demand 2: Just Stop Oil by 2030.
🧡 We need a Fossil Fuel Treaty.
- Demand 1 they only just won when the UK government changed to Labour who have committed the first item, so all their previous actions were with the goal of not expanding yet further the use of fossil fuels.
- Demand 2 is to phase the use of fossil fuels out by 2030. The UK has a net zero goal of 2035 so this would bring that goal earlier but many other countries have a 2030 target in the EU.
- Demand 3 is all about trying to get a world wide treaty signed to stop the use of oil to try and meet the Paris agreement to keep within 1.5C.
There is no immediate demand to stop or anything so extreme, they are largely what the UK has already agreed to do but is failing to achieve.
Cool. But the goals are almost beside the point. This action makes people associate goals that I agree with, with being an asshole.
2030 is insanely fast for no oil, it’s also way more aggressive than what the UK is planning. Net 0 emissions is different than no oil. Net 0 emissions means you still use a bunch of oil but claim planting a bunch of trees or an algae farm cancels it out. Net 0 emissions doesn’t mean stop using oil based products like plastic either. No oil is totally a different demand.
Also UK doesn’t plan on net 0 emissions until 2050, 2035 is just massive reduction in transportation emissions.
-
It was covered by glass, unclutch your fucking pearls already.
-
Van Gogh is my favorite painter, and I would still rather have a habitable planet for future generations than have Sunflowers. If you’re more mad about this than you are about what big oil and gas companies are doing, sit down and have a good hard think about where your priorities are. I do not give a shit if you “agree with their message but not their tactics” or if you “think it makes the cause look bad” or whatever other bullshit you want to spew to cover your ass right now. Ultimately, if this caused you to feel a greater sense of righteous anger than the wholesale destruction of our environment for profit does, you are part of the problem. I’d rather side with the people who are trying to make a difference, even if I don’t like how they do it, than side with the people plundering our world for personal gain.
Van Gogh died penniless, right? He’d probably be cheering. “Oh no, rich people will be slightly less able to profit off of my work?”
Rich people profiting… is that your description of what happens at an art museum? Maybe you should get off the internet and go visit one.
It’s privately owned but okay
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/1/19/japanese-firm-defends-van-gogh-ownership-after-us-lawsuitNever said otherwise. All I’m saying is that when I pay my $10 and visit the art museum, I profit.
I’m willing to bet that the huge majority of those here supporting these vandals have never been inside a museum.
I would still rather have a habitable planet for future generations than have Sunflowers
What a laughable false dilemma.
I’d rather side with the people who are trying to make a difference
Your instinct is laudable. Where your judgment is failing you is that these are not people who are making a difference. Stop straining to make something meaningful out of a random act of vandalism. The tiniest act of actual divestment from oil would be more meaningful than slopping soup at a painting. Take the bus one day a month instead of driving. That’s a difference.
-
These pro-acrylic protests are getting out of hand!
Have my upvote, you monster.
Pro-acrylic or anti-ear mutilation?
Well, they are oil paintings sooo…
Yeah, but they were painted by a guy who cut off his ear, so maybe this is the Coalition of Two-Eared Painters.
Just Stop Oil activists throw soup at
Van Gogh’s Sunflowersplastic sheet after fellow protesters jailedI dunno why these newspapers constantly print these phony headlines… Oh wait. It’s the clickbait and propaganda obviously.
deleted by creator
Only in this case it would be shooting deliberately at the vest of a person covered from head to toe in said vest with a caliber that they’d know couldn’t penetrate it. There was no chance for it to penetrate or go around the protective layer, nor was it intended to be so, so that’s not quite accurate.
deleted by creator
My brother in Christ it’s your analogy
Is this a joke? They literally threw soup at the painting, but the painting was protected. And you’re calling this click bait and propaganda? I’ve seen some pretty ridiculous whining about click bait, but this might now take the top spot.
So imagine in retort of a joke your friend makes you lightly backslap them in the chest or something, these headlines would report it as you punching your friend. Is that accurate? It doesn’t really paint an accurate picture does it?
No. But I don’t believe this is even remotely an accurate analogy.
Let me try this way. If it’s no different than throwing soup against a plastic sheet…why didn’t they just hang up a plastic sheet in their home and do it there?
The whole point of this act was to target a famous painting to draw attention. They even say this was their intent.
You literally have to ignore what they said, abandon all reason, and undermine their goal in the process to hold the position that the more accurate description is to say they were just throwing soup at a sheet of plastic.
But the painting is safe, that’s literally the point, relying on the media going for the shock factor while not actually damaging anything. Yet the law is pursuing it as if they did damage the painting, putting them in jail for years, which is not a proportional punishment for the crime of vandalising a painting frame.
Way to miss the point and insult me and my reasoning in the process.
relying on the media going for the shock factor
Yeah, the shock factor of targeting the painting which is why a headline that says they threw soup at the painting is not click bait. It’s literally exactly what they explicitly and intentionally did. You recognize that, so why argue the opposite?
Yet the law
I said nothing about the law. We are talking about a headline. I absolutely agree that, because they knew they wouldn’t destroy the piece so there was no real intent to destroy it, jail time makes no sense.
Way to miss the point and insult me and my reasoning in the process.
If anyone missed the point, it’s you. If you are arguing that they intentionally argued targeted the painting for shock value, but at the same time it’s misleading the say that they threw soup at the painting, then that requires abandoning logic. This is not an attack on you, but an attack on the argument.
You’re being so pedantic, we both know what the article type is trying to do, it’s not aimed at people with the faculties to understand or research if the painting was actually damaged. People see the article as if they actually damaged the painting (because duh throwing soup at a textile material damages it usually)
The poster said it was a click bait headline because it should have said they threw soup at plastic. There’s nothing pedantic about pointing out, as you agree, that the whole point was the shock factor of throwing it at the painting.
Shifting the debate to some more nebulous “what the article is trying to do” is moving the goal posts because you can’t just admit that you realize I’m right.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
They have a history of blocking oil terminals. All it achieves is much less media coverage and a quick stop to it.
I don’t remember where, but I’ve read they’re funded by oil companies. I think it’s actually surprisingly effective, because generating outrage is the point of demonstrations like this. Also, iirc, all their targets so far have been behind protective barriers, so no real damage either. Should they be inconveniencing oil execs? Sure! (I’d honestly prefer if they [comment cannot legally be completed], but that’s probably asking too much.) But their current strategy gets more attention, and more attention gets better awareness. No one cares about a rich asshole. Everyone cares about world-famous art.
Because then it’s a violent protest and you won’t hear the end of it from the conservatives. It’s been p much proven that any action is better than no action, and them sitting outside a single persons home would be inefficient and also potentially harassment.
Also it doesn’t help that reporting around this stuff conveniently misses the parts where all of their actions are easily reversible and non damaging. If anything it shows how corrupt the media empire is
Hot take: I swear a lot of these kinds of “protests” are funded by the oil companies themsleves to make climate activists look like crazy crackpots easy for the media and average Joe to dismiss. Like with the Stonehenge paint bullshit. Really?
I agree. I think these people are serving as “useful idiots”. They don’t know they’re being manipulated by oil interests. Ther think they are fighting the good fight. They are undoubtedly benefiting those they claim to be against.
It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that has happened. It’s actually quite logical.
I’m sorry, but these protests are going to far! That was a perfectly fine soup!
Good for them.
They’re getting media attention for their message. That isn’t easy to do.
I know Lemmy has mixed feelings here, but I personally applaud these activists for risking prison time to draw attention to a major existential threat.
I find it quite entertaining to see all the art aficionados coming out so shook by them getting a little bit of soup onto some plexiglass and a picture frame that they probably couldn’t even describe before these incidents. Close your eyes, Is it walnut or cherry? Painted or oil finished? Ornate or simple? 5 or 7 inches wide? Symmetrical or asymmetrical along a horizontal axis?
These protests, which thus far have involved basically zero actual damage of cultural significance have driven significantly more attention (good and bad) to their cause than anything else that has been done. Their protests are non-violent and generally nondestructive.
That said, the real crime here is the judge sentencing 2 years in prison for getting some soup on the frame of a painting - I don’t support violent protests, but I’m pretty sure you could just go around and slap oil CEOs in the face for a fraction of the sentence.
Slapping oil CEOs in the face would be much more relevant, and not be targeting irreplaceable cultural artifacts.
irreplaceable cultural artifacts
I mean it won’t be exactly the same, but I’m pretty sure they can buy more of that plexiglass that got soup’d. Calling plexiglass a cultural artifact feels like a bit of a stretch, but I do think it’s replaceable.
Just so we’re on the same page here, would this act have been acceptable to you or unacceptable if the painting had actually been damaged?
Frame of paintings like that isn’t simply replaceable, by the way, it’s also an artifact that’s generations old. It’s just less important than the painting itself.
Depends on your definition of ‘damage’ - if a drop of soup gets under the plexiglass, I’m not clutching any pearls. If the paintings were completely destroyed, I would not be supportive.
That said its a moot point because these headline grabbing demonstrations have been nondestructive. Stonehenge is fine. The sunflowers will continue to be sunflowery.
Depends on your definition of ‘damage’ - if a drop of soup gets under the plexiglass, I’m not clutching any pearls.
I would, personally, but history, human heritage, and art are all precious topics to me. You don’t damage 100+ years of history by an artist so groundbreaking that he is a household name to this day just to get your name in the papers.
If the paintings were completely destroyed, I would not be supportive.
So your primary reason for remaining supportive of this is that the security systems worked perfectly. You do not approve of destroying priceless artifacts to raise attention to climate change and/or think that it would be counterproductive, also correct?
You don’t damage 100+ years of history by an artist so groundbreaking that he is a household name to this day just to get your name in the papers.
They didn’t.
Slapping a CEO in the face is assault. That’s a serious offense in most countries, and it would be extremely easy to get sent to jail for years.
Throwing soup at a painting that’s behind Plexiglas is, at most, disturbing the peace and vandalizing a museum’s floor.
Assault on an oil exec… I don’t see anything morally wrong here. It’s also straight to the point, rather than attacking art.
Morally, perhaps not. But legally yes, justified crimes are still crimes.
My tin hat tingles with these guys they’re either too upper middle-class to actually understand the real world or they’re making sure climate activists are a running joke.
I see your point, I do. But I also see theirs. There will be no one around in the future to enjoy or make art if we continue fucking up the world with fossil fuels the way we are.
Maybe it’d be better to walk around posting little signs on the paintings descriptions with a catch phrase like “like art? Stop fossil fuels” then a little blurb about how there’ll be no art in the future if there is no future.
That’s probably how I’d handle it, maybe even try to work with the museum so the signs wouldnt get taken down. But, that doesn’t get media attention. It’d never end up in the news. Maybe after contacting 50 museums it’d get a small mention, but ultimately no one would care.
Our current news cycles don’t encourage people to act civilly when trying to be heard. So that’s why this sort of extreme behavior keeps happening. It’s a vicious feedback loop and just like climate change we don’t seem to be making any moves to stop it.
This is so poorly motivated it makes me wonder if it were in fact staged by the fossil fuel industry to make climate activists look bad.
“I chose to peacefully disrupt a business-as-usual system that is unjust, dishonest and murderous.”
Ah, yes, the murderous system of [checks notes] art made generations before you were born.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Stop_Oil
In April 2022, it was reported that Just Stop Oil’s primary source of funding was donations from the US-based Climate Emergency Fund.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Getty
Aileen Getty is an American heiress and activist. She is a member of the Getty family, the granddaughter of J. Paul Getty. She co-founded the Climate Emergency Fund in 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Paul_Getty
Jean Paul Getty Sr. (/ˈɡɛti/; December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American-born British petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the patriarch of the Getty family.[1] A native of Minneapolis, he was the son of pioneer oilman George Getty. In 1957, Fortune magazine named him the wealthiest living American,[2] while the 1966 Guinness Book of Records declared him the world’s wealthiest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approximately $8.6 billion in 2023).[3] At the time of his death, he was worth more than $6 billion (approximately $25 billion in 2023).[4] A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th wealthiest American who ever lived (based on his wealth as a percentage of the concurrent gross national product).[5]
So she assuages her guilt for having a huge oil inheritance by donating some of it to encourage other people overseas to go to jail protesting other people doing what her grandfather made his money doing. Great.
I dunno. if I was born into a family rich on something like oil, I hope I’d spend a bunch to end our dependence on it. chiefly because it’s better than not, and I’d also have the fortune to do so, and the irony of using oil money to get us post-oil like we’re Norway would be a bit of added cheek.
What should she do in her position: lay about like Bruce Wayne or try to do good like batman?
Honestly, got no problem with that. We aren’t responsible for the actions of our ancestors. The issue is whether what she’s funding is effective.
Was it actually damaged? Seems like the only damage done was to the frame.
Damage was only done to the frame on this occasion, yes. Their claim of disrupting an unjust etc etc etc system though hinges on them disrupting the system of… viewing priceless art in a public gallery.
I 100% agree with their message, I 20% agree with their tactics.
I bet fossil fuel companies love this
