For most of us, climate activists throwing soup at the Mona Lisa and gluing themselves to art only makes environmentalists look unhinged and hysterical. They are doing for the environment what PETA did to animal rights . . . alienating millions while reducing science to the level of graffiti. However, in an LA Times opinion piece, USC professor Shannon Gibson has praised this in-your-face activism as a positive force in prompting a broader dialogue.
Dr. Gibson teaches environmental studies in the College of Letters, Arts, and Science. Here bio states that “as a participant-action researcher she focuses on the role of disruptive politics and social movements in climate and health governance.”
A column in “The Conversation ” Gibson says that all of the vandalism is a good thing in “deliberately shocking” the world into a new reality:
“By combining radical forms of civil disobedience with more mainstream actions, such as lobbying and state-sanctioned demonstrations, activists not only grab the public’s attention, they make less aggressive tactics more acceptable and possibly more successful.”
She added that
“in meetings with global activists in recent weeks, my colleagues and I have noticed their emphasis shifting away from government policy fights to battles in the streets, political arenas and courtrooms. The lines between reformists and radicals, and between global and grassroots mobilizers, are blurring, and a new sense of engagement is taking root.”
Gibson insists that this “radical flank effect” is produced by “in-your-face activism” and support for more “moderate action.”
The other possibility is that it paints the entire climate change movement as a bunch of batty activists gone berserk.
However, Gibson insists that “protesters’ perceived madness is indeed method.”
Of course, it may not be perception but actual madness.
Yet, it appears a mad method that is taking hold of academia. Georgetown Law Professor Josh Chafetz declared that “when the mob is right, some (but not all!) more aggressive tactics are justified.”
The mob has become the measure for righteous rage for many in higher education. Vandalism and attacking art has now become part of what is portrayed as a healthy and productive dialogue.
“I applaud the two young women for their bold act!”
While some cheer for sports teams or great achievements, others cheer for vandalism.
Jonathan: Someone else has an opinion on the controversy at our southern border. It’s Elon Musk. On Friday he said this on “X”: “Biden’s strategy is very simple. 1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible. 2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority–a one-party state. That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective”. Musk even suggested the influx of migrants is a secret plan by Biden to harvest Dem. votes in this year’s election. Musk is full of conspiracy theories! The financial “genius” forgets it takes 7 years to become a citizen with the right to vote. So it’s impossible for any of the migrants in the last four years to vote in this year’s election.
Of course, Musk’s posts are a distraction so people will forget his other problems. This week a Delaware judge voided his $56 billion pay package pushed through by his cronies on the Tesla board. Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled the pay package was not an “arms-length” negotiation. She ruled: “Put simply, neither the Compensation Committee nor the Board acted in the best interest of the company when negotiating Musk’s compensation plan. In fact, there is barely any evidence of negotiations at all”.
This decision will reverberate throughout the business world. Boards will now have to think twice before awarding outrageous pay packages for people like Musk! When a corporation friendly state like Delaware rules against you, where does a guy like Musk turn for help?
https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NakH2AydzN3-hSU9lBhBdm2asbeMTCb80gV2B7LQdPL25bLm3ssvceyV_y76hhZqImdzKI95yZFWhu-Y2Zd6M22zFyrTIyXTnT-qo4ebdmyaLLcGfjm0dmQ93Em928GdscwY6pPJAcBbQ7Mu5i1TM2FLyOko4QVKKkIfooJZQVM5TAvOnZOpHl0ORtmmNHWLcw0S9ur263NnTZ_zfMpmpHp8PDDOJ0Lih6dJZwzaroVLfamZX_kmfYiPn7edQ9JyKg5KE9cH0ENtgw_IPct4fwNQzkGF5wFIWO9hGz52HO2eEgsKsY_mlo=s0-d-e1-ft#https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_490,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fec1dad09-fec2-46de-add2-5591b51d2feb_950x876.png
Turley Remains Silent On Mayorkas Impeachment
On Monday of last week, Professor Turley told Fox News that the Impeachment drive against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had no legitimate basis. Yet Turley has yet to share that opinion here. How odd!
Is Turley worried that such an opinion would upset his MAGA followers?
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6345814125112
Oh, yeah, Turley is deathly afraid of upsetting his MAGA followers. That must be it (eye-roll).
FJB is an incontinent moron suffering from dementia, but has better mental acuity than 85% of his voters.
Mayorkas is a puppet, as is biden who is obamma’s skin suit. obamma needs to be waterloo’d with his gang of mixed race racists, rice, jarrett, holder, harris,…
Maybe Professor Turley has not addressed the issue of the Mayorkis impeachment in this blog, but he has made his views very clear elsewhere: he does not think impeachment is justified. Sorry, l don’t have the cite, but the gist is that Mayorkis’s conduct since taking office does not constitute high crimes or misdemeanors,, or any other stated grounds for impeachment.
I guess there’s no accounting for class.
Jonathan: I can’t make up this stuff! The MAGA crowd and the right-wing media are obsessed with Taylor Swift. They are peddling a conspiracy theory that the super star is really a secret agent for the Pentagon; that Taylor and Kelce are a contrived couple put together by the NFC; that Taylor is bolstering her supporters to vote for Joe Biden–all sorts of insane stuff.
And I have it from reliable sources that there is a socially mis-fit white male inventor who has come up with a sex-robot that is a dead ringer for Swift. The exact replica is selling for $2,000 so MAGA males can enjoy taking it to Taylor
—“Take that!”–but not in a nice way!
The MAGA crowd thinks Taylor is part of a psi-op to convince her fans to vote for Biden. FoxNews, your employer, is also going after Taylor and Kelce saying they expect the couple will endorse Biden at half-time at the Super Bowl. Fox thinks it will then be game over–so to speak.
So there you have it. DJT and the MAGA crowd are furious at Taylor because she has endorsed Dem. candidates in the past. It’s all about a strong woman who built up her entertainment empire from the ground up–through hard work. Not like DJT who inherited his wealth. And Taylor has something in common with another strong woman–E. Jean Carroll. In 2017 Swift was sexually assaulted by a Denver DJ. She also successfully sued her attacker. DJT hates all strong women. and he hates Swift in particular because she is getting more air time than him!
What does this have to do with climate protests?
It is interesting how the focus of our resident trolls has shifted from Donald Trump to “the Maga crowd”. Does this mean that the DNC has given up on preventing Trump’s nomination?
“Georgetown Law Professor Josh Chafetz declared that ‘when the mob is right, some (but not all!) more aggressive tactics are justified.'”
Chafetz is the worst kind of overeducated fool. We can’t always pick our mobs. Karma decides who knots the noose–not law professors–but any fool can start something.
As for climate change, purple-headed alarmists are as unscientific as deniers. A real consensus–the quiet consensus–is growing day-by-day between proponents and skeptics of climate-change theory. They are helping each other do better science, and they now tend to agree that there is an anthropogenic component to climate change, but they also increasingly agree that “tipping point” theories and alarmist predictions are bunk.
The main points of disagreement remain green energy and whether warming is net good or net bad. Those questions will probably take years to decades to sort out.
This proponent/skeptic debate is less sexy than conspiracy theories and doomer scenarios, so it gets little air time, but it’s far better supported by the very-complex evidence.
Please, the supposed “scientific consensus” supporting alarmism is dead–if it ever existed–so stop gluing yourselves to interstates.
Jonathan: So now it’s the “radical flank” of the climate change movement at USC that has attracted your ire. To dramatize your claim that the “mob” has descended into “actual madness” you attach a Guardian video of two “Just Stop Oil” young women throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting at the National Gallery in London.
If your read the Guardian article about the incident it’s clear there was no damage to the painting. After the gallery was cleared there was only minor damage to the painting’s frame and no damage to the painting itself. Why? Because the painting is “protected with a glass screen”. That’s probably why the two women chose that particular painting because they knew throwing soup on the screen would not damage the painting itself.
The two young women accomplished their goal of trying to focus international on the climate crisis. One witness said she supported the “Just Stop Oil” protest: “I support the cause and by the looks of it they are considered protests, with the purpose of raising awareness and shocking [people]. So long as they don’t hurt people or put people in danger, then I support them”.
So what is your column really about? Trying to portray climate activists as a “mob”. Two young activists throwing soup on a screen is not exactly a “mob”. And maybe, just maybe, this incident will help raise awareness in the international community about the threat to the planet caused by continuing to drill for oil. This incident could prove to be a catalyst for “a healthy and productive dialogue” you seem to desire–but only pay lip service to. Sometimes radical chic like the “Sunflowers” incident focuses the mind like nothing else. That’s not “actual madness” but a very inventive way to gain public awareness of the threat to the planet. I applaud the two young women for their bold act!
” I applaud the two young women for their bold act! “
Dennis, you belong in jail, along with those young women who have the excuse that they are young.
S. Meyer: So you think I belong in jail along with the two women who threw soup on “Sunflowers”? Really? How do you expect the UK authorities to prosecute me? I’m not a resident of the UK. I wasn’t there when the incident took place. I’m just here voicing my “free speech” right in support of the two women. Do you really think UK authorities should try to extradite me for exercising that right? You get more bizarre every day!
S. Meyer,
I respectfully disagree.
Dennis does not belong in jail for supporting those two young women.
He is a useful idiot, until he is no longer useful. Then his leftist betters will simply put him up against a wall.
The rest of us will watch and say, “Saw that coming.”
“I respectfully disagree. Dennis does not ”
Upstate, sure he does. Dennis finds Trump guilty of all sorts of things where neither proof nor logic exists. I want Dennis to experience what he says and advocates. Dennis can’t put the Dershowitz shoe on the other foot because the foot is stuck in his mouth.
S. Meyer: Sorry, but I haven’t found DJT guilty of anything. Two juries found him liable for sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll. Wasn’t me, dude!
Dennis:
a) Did you agree with the jury?
b) Did you not agree with the jury?
a) You prove yourself a fool.
b) You prove that all hope is not lost.
But it isn’t this single incident. These acts are occurring frequently; disrupting private meetings, there has been far more than one museum involved, and as Turley pointed out there are those that stop traffic. And Turley also wrote about college professors not simply overlooking such acts, but encouraging these acts. If you would pay attention you would understand Turley is focused on the disintegration of public debate from adult like point and counterpoint to the current state of vandalize, intimidate, threaten, and silence.
Fragile over-educated feminist lunatics
Dear Prof Turley,
Don’t know what throwing paint on the Mona Lisa has to do with the environment. Seems counter-productive .. . to say the least.
fyi. Meet the Press is dragging your name through the legal pig pen (e.g. ‘Turdley’). Again. Compared to Prof Tribe, eating high on the hog @ Harvard, your legal analysis amounts to little more than Trump’s warmed-over fried Chitlins and pickled pigs feet. .. with all the classic ear marks of Russian disinformation.
Otoh, I think the new gal who hosts Meet the Press is a robot. A cybernetic organism fitted with the latest SoA neural-link software App beamed direct from the MSDNC situation room (i.e. the WH).
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwAUYdO3Mhc
“vandalism is a good thing”
Is this lunatic correct? If vandalism made left-wing idiots like her think twice, should we advocate destruction at her home? That would be a wake-up call to intellectuals and “make less aggressive tactics more acceptable and possibly more successful,” ridding society of an intellectual waste product.
The two girls in the video poorly understand their point, expressing themselves lawlessly, which leads to chaos and a much more significant threat to society. Lawlessness of that nature should lead to jail and financial penalties.
When these nuts glue themselves to the wall in a museum (or to a building, or street), they should be left glued there for a while. Eventually they will need to pee, or worse.
A serious defense of life, liberty and property is always justified. Activists will continue to infringe these rights, until the defense is more detrimental to their own lives, liberty and property, than what their activism was hoping to achieve.
I would actually have some respect for them if they lived their lives the way they want the rest of us to live our lives.
Lead by example. Live their life using only hand tools, heat and cook using only wood, eat food they raised themselves.
But they wont. They are too soft and squishy.
‘. . . reducing science to the level of graffiti.’
That is perfect, and a perfect summation of so, so much.
Anti-censorship guru Turley’s fake website is in full censorship mode today, replete with his hired trolls posting fictitious garbage to make excuses for Turley’s censorship.
What excuses for censorship are you referring to? I haven’t seen any. The discussion is primarily about actions, not speech … that and the concept of double standards.
What is this censorship you speak of?
Whoa! Hey! The censorship is truly amazing! You comment was made at 10:13AM and is still here! Man, that is some damn fine censorship!
I’d like to see them do that to Hunters masterpiece’s. By God they’d get their peeper’s glued!
“when the mob is right, some (but not all!) more aggressive tactics are justified.”
Unless, of course, the mob is walking through the capital building.
Maybe some lefties should go and throw Red Paint on his car. How would HE like that?? So sick of these left wing nuts destroying everything because they can’t handle their own lives and have to make the rest of us miserable because they are full of hate and violence.
No consequences for these little darlings for vandalism ? Meanwhile, six peaceful non-violent protestors in Nashville are facing up to 10 years in prison for violation of the FACE Act because their protest took place at an Abortion Clinic. No double standard there Jonathan ???
Whose is the double standard?