A āBlood of Our Childrenā type action may not be a high risk arrestable action with some solid communication with the Police beforehand. If we make it clear that itās not disruptive to the general public, purely symbolic and that weāll clean up after weāve got all the media stuff done, they may agree to not make any arrests.
I think you will find that there are some rebels who arenāt comfortable with billboards either. Thatās the trouble with planning things this way. Any poster design you come up with there will be someone who doesnāt like it and any action you suggest there will be someone who doesnāt feel comfortable with it.
I have no problem with billboard actions but I think finding a relevant billboard to re-message will be hard. Most coal, gas and oil companies donāt do billboards -possibly for this very reason - and nor do Vic Forests. Itās hard to find a government billboard to target - except ones with health warnings and letās not go there. So any billboard campaign is likely to target individual companies rather than governments.
I think billboards are potentially a higher risk (large fines) lower return action. But still okay - if (and itās a big if) we can find a suitable billboard advertisement and come up with a suitable (and powerful) message.
We could suggest ideas, but they can do whatever they want of course. I unfortunately doubt decentralized actions are happening widely with high-risk actions. Iāve been doing calls to rebels over the last two weeks, many of them who have active involvement in their groups, and the majority donāt know what PTS is.
I also agree with Jane about the billboards idea, thatās itās high risk low return.
I think the best way to get around some people not being comfortable with a particular action is to vote on which high-risk actions we should do. Perhaps at the next PTS meeting?
Well right in this moment, there is nobody seriously proposing to paint-bomb a billboard, but at least in this case we have previous experience from someone vandalizing a Clive Palmer billboard with XR slogans and a logo during the election season last year - it went down very well. In any case, I donāt believe that taking feedback and trying to integrate concerns is ātrouble with planning things this wayā. If there are people with serious concerns about targeting billboards, we should try to integrate those concerns as much as possible within the DNA and Pās and Vās of XR. If we have a group gearing up to vandalize billboards, we should take feedback on that, and do our best to act in accordance with an approach that integrates the feedback.
In the case of blood of our children actions there is a significant amount of pushback coming from within the movement to say that now is not a good time for this action. This hinges actually on several factors:
- Itās been very contentious with indigenous groups with whom we are trying to build solidarity. While weāve so far failed to integrate much indigenous presence within the movement, an action that provokes indigenous people is not going to be helpful to doing so. Dealing with the social fallout that could follow this is probably not worth it at this time, especially when weāve seen so many organizing rebels ādeactivatedā in the last few months. This should be a time when weāre trying to reactivate rebels.
- Actions involving blood are very likely to evoke the pandemic, even if we have a big olā āclimate emergencyā banner in the middle of every shot. This action, however, is not about the pandemic. UK M&M guidelines āBe sensitive to our shared global experiences and support the expanded space to reflect upon what we have learned.ā
These main points push me to think that Blood of our Children should be kept on the shelf until a bit later on. Iām also thinking that a big second wave in Australia, while possible, is not highly likely in the next couple of months, and so thereās no urgency to carry out this action in particular, when we have so many other options in development. The public health response seems to have it under control. Case numbers are going down in the midst of a vigilant surveillance system.
I actually love this idea.(not as a paint the streets thing - but more in alignment with the naked rebels drawing attention to the elephant in the room at Westminster over a year ago)
What if a whole bunch of well dressed rebels snuck whoopie coushions into parliament. And one by one let them rip ā¦ with long pauses in-between, so it took a while to work out what was going onā¦ This would be an excellent one for Grey Power! Imagine ābrrrrrrrrrrupāā¦āOh! excuse me!ā etcā¦ It would need to be well filmed and very well recorded - Itās success would be in itās coverage. Some good editing and maybe a bit of a post production sound mix to ham up those farts.
#a gas-led recovery is an oxymoron
bahaha yes!!! Whoopie cushions would work really well! I think a stink bomb still brings it up a notch because it would force them into physical evacuation. Plus, the āsensory overloadā of stink bombs is pretty visceral. Just using whoopie cushions mean we would get kicked out, but with the right amount of fart smell as well, we could take them out with usā¦
I was wondering about that thing where you spill paint in an intersection and the cars spread it about making a fantastic colourful messā¦ I wonder if you could drop charcoal - like you use for a BBQ - and the cars would crush and spread itā¦ The location would be importantā¦ Trouble is you need soooo much of it.
keep chucking ideas out thereā¦ this is greatā¦
An oldie but a goodie: A big pile of poo dumped at parliament
āWe know the truth - a gas-led recovery is bullshitā
Weāre half way there!
Whoās got poo?
Reinserting a messaging idea that I feel attached to:
Overthrow Bullshit
The Adelaide group, on the back of the āmaybe not blood, maybe ash and charcoalā idea suggested 4 business days with 4 focuses: one day brings ash for bushfires, the next day is a water dump for floods, one is a sand dump for drought, and one is (leaf blowers??) for cyclones. The fifth could be blood.
This is John @strageplanet 's handy work.
This at an ambitious scale would be awesome.
Imagine the entire length of Royal Parade and Elizebeth Street
Bicycle Victoria might have a radical wing that might like to form an NVDA Affinity Group.
What made the Westminster naked action so successful and was that it was funny.
It was so funny that it disrupted parliament because, try though they might, they couldnāt keep a strait face and ignore what was going on - so they started integrating puns about bottomās into their business-as-usual speeches. Some times with no-pun intended someone might say āthe bottom line isā¦ā and everyone would start giggling. Which made a great media story and the rebels got the message out there that the elephant in the room is the climate emergency
Although it was disruptive, there was a lot of goodwill and respect.
Fart sounds are funny but fart smells are gross.
Iām not convinced that whoopie cushions are enough by themselves, Iām sorry. People stripping naked is a lot more disruptive than some fart noises. Giggles are great but canāt the joke be on the MPs, not between them? How does the media get a big story out of some in-jokes the parliament made after XR set off some fart noises and left? There also isnāt really the element of sacrifice on behalf of the rebels? Iām not sure if the offenders could even be arrested for it, it really needs to be bigger and bolder. Whoopie cushions in my opinion are a gag more than a stunt.
Soooo should we body paint people and then have them run through parliament?
Does anyone have any good sites in mind for an action that could be replicated in other cities?
WANTED: 3 rebels to do one of these somewhere in Melbourne.
Keep XRTV in the loop please folks!
Video or it didnāt happenā¦
Here are links to some detailed info on the vast number of fossil fuel projects in the pipeline from our friends at Market Forces:
Today we released analysis showing how Australiaās big four banks measure up against their Paris Agreement pledges, and what planned fossil fuel projects in Australia they could potentially fund next. Please find our media release here, as well as stories in the Guardian and the AFR.
Weāre putting a big focus on their lending to projects and companies expanding the fossil fuel industry, as this is the type of lending most incompatible with their Paris Agreement commitments.
Weāre planning to use this to push the banks to stop funding projects that expand the fossil fuel industry and to align their finance with the Paris Agreement (exit thermal coal by 2030, phase out oil & gas exposure consistent with 1.5Ā°C).
So this is a project I have been working on which is now looking for people who want to create groups around Australia who are wanting to post this giant 6m x 3m stencil. This could be posted to the side of a building. Coincidently it is exactly the same size as a standard billboard, so if anyone has their own private billboard they could certainly put this banner up on it. It is seven 1m x 3m lengths of butcherās paper painted in black and yellow (see the mock up). It just needs to be posted onto a vertical surface like wallpaper. Get in touch if you want one of these and I will stencil one out and send it off to you.