Preening Interruptus
Or, Call It A Counter-Protest.
Lifted from the comments and further to recent rumblings, a safe space is violated.
“What is wrong with you?” they ask.
Says Joan,
We’re going to see a lot more of this. Good.
It seems to me that these ladies actually got off lightly. If you choose to block the roads, determined to needlessly frustrate hundreds, even thousands, of people, just so you can indulge in some in-group preening, while ordering drivers to walk, then you should expect some physical push-back from the people on whose freedoms and imperatives you’ve chosen to piss. Because, hey, sabotaging attempts to get to jobs, airports and doctor’s appointments, while impeding emergency vehicles and thereby endangering lives, is such a lark, baby.
Acts of planned and gratuitous aggression, including narcissistic aggression – which is what these ‘protests’ are – should be treated accordingly. It’s important that these cossetted pinheads, so gorged on their own sense of entitlement, learn to fear those on whom they recreationally impose themselves. Their expectations of impunity should be shattered. Along with the conceit that the way to make people sympathetic with your cause, whatever it may be this week, is to screw them over – because you can – while applauding yourself for doing so.
Update:
Despite the pretence of martyrdom and claims by the participants that they “do not enjoy” exerting power over random passers-by – or would-be passers-by – it seems quite obvious that personal gratification is by no means incidental. These disruptions and obstructions – forcibly immobilising large numbers of people – are very much recreational, a rush of ego, as bullying often is. Now imagine being so privileged, so removed from normal concerns, that being arrested is a form of recreation, a leisure activity, a way to impress your peer group and accrue status.
If your go-to solution, your preferred mode of expression, is to frustrate and harass random people who are just trying to get to work, or to get home – and you do this while feeling enormously self-satisfied about your own imagined radicalism – then this tells us very little about the world or any purported cause. It does, however, tell us quite a bit about what kind of tosser you are.
But then, Extinction Rebellion is a kind of moral sludge made of the credulous and incoherent, the tediously pretentious, assorted slackers, and a core of Marxoid fanatics, whose stated ambitions include the toppling of European civilisation, which they denounce as uniquely “toxic” and the cause of all conceivable ills. Or at least the cause of the voices that won’t stop buzzing in their heads. These are broken, ludicrous people and should not be taken seriously, except perhaps as an expression of malign psychodrama, and a self-declared threat.
What Joan said.
Oh yeah, no sympathy with these nitwits.
In Melbourne the XR crowd were proudly displaying a video of them moving out of the way for an ambulance. They actually thought it made them look good.
the XR crowd were proudly displaying a video of them moving out of the way for an ambulance.
While other emergency vehicles, which may be stuck a mile or two down the tailback, as a direct result of their behaviour, remain conveniently out of sight.
They actually thought it made them look good.
Vanity is a powerful drug.
I can’t think of a suitably witty caption for this, so I’m just going to post the link without comment:
https://twitter.com/OldManLikeRon/status/1185489880962519040
“It’s important that these cossetted pinheads, so gorged on their own sense of entitlement, learn to fear the people on whom they recreationally impose themselves.”
I doubt any of them will be trying it on in East London again…
View from above, with appreciative commentary:
https://twitter.com/tyIerzilla/status/1185278788197896192
D’oh. Just noticed I put the link above in the wrong thread. Sorry.
Somewhat Related
Dutch farmers are protesting against their government.
Rather like the Yellow Vests in France, I’ve not seen this on the Beeb.
Vanity is a powerful drug.
Indeed, listen to the first 30 seconds of this cheesedick, “…we do not enjoy…there in no other option…”
Sod off, swampy.
we do not enjoy
For some people, dishonesty is like breathing.
narcissistic aggression – which is what these ‘protests’ are
That.
I can’t think of a suitably witty caption for this, so I’m just going to post the link without comment:
My God, it’s like a mass psychosis.
They are, in part…
We’re over here now.
Hello, David. 🙂
My God, it’s like a mass psychosis.
They’ve weaponised the medium of interpretive dance.
We must flee.
I can’t think of a suitably witty caption for this, so I’m just going to post the link without comment:

Captain Nemo, how would you compare that mob of terrestrial vermin to these aquatic vermin you once had to deal with?
Spelunking down Farnsworth’s cheesedick link, this is great…
https://mobile.twitter.com/spacecadet0697/status/1184819733633339394
Right, I’m heading out for dinner with the in-laws. Play nicely. Use coasters.
I can’t think of a suitably witty caption for this, so I’m just going to post the link without comment:
Is crime by cruciform vegetables a significant problem in the inner city? Asking for a friend.
Is crime by cruciform vegetables a significant problem in the inner city? Asking for a friend.
Quite the opposite, if you call any vegetable the chances are good, the vegetable will respond to you.
In-N-Out burger workers take out the trash.
In the immortal words of the great Iowahawk:
Extinction Rebellion, allow me to introduce Tired of Your Shit Rebellion.
These nitwits have been prancing around thinking that civil disobedience is a one way street.
In-N-Out burger workers take out the trash
I’m reminded of the security video in an Italian restaurant where a young hoodlum comes in with a pistol and tries to rob the place.
The average weight of the middle-aged, Italian-eating staff, and patrons, was probably about 280, if not more. One of the cooks was closer to 350. So as six to eight of the patrons and staff piled on the hoodlum, one of the cooks just casually saunters over to the telephone to call the cops.
When they show, the perp has been pinned under half a ton (or more) of annoyed patrons, and was practically begging the cops to rescue him from them…
I’ve been seeing a few commenters here and there say it’s unacceptable to respond to the protesters in this way and that folks should just wait for the police. I’m not buying it – I’ve seen no evidence of people being hurt, aside from hurt feelings, which don’t matter. The responses of ordinary citizens are proportional and reasonable ways to settle matters (albeit they are dealing with completely unreasonable loonies).
The responses of ordinary citizens are proportional and reasonable ways to settle matters
I’m honestly flabbergasted by this. It’s so easy for this to tip over into a violent scrum as passions are running high. And that’s exactly what these protestors want – a violent reaction that they can blow up on social media to make themselves look like victims, turn into a witchhunt against whomever laid hands on them, and use this as a powerful disincentive against anyone else who might be thinking of acting in the same way.
I’ve seen no evidence of people being hurt, aside from hurt feelings
I did see a photo on Twitter, purportedly of one of the Extinction Rebellion people who interfered with a London commuter train, in the hospital with bruises and a very swollen nose. Sorry I failed to save the URL of the Twitter post, and that post did not link to anything (was just a photo).
The police aren’t there to protect citizens from criminals. They exist to protect criminals from citizens.
Until they no longer function as designed.
I’ve seen no evidence of people being hurt…
It wasn’t during one of their
demonstrationsriots, but there is this “anti”fa clod’s mysterious demise.Sadly, back here in Blighty, the police are once again showing us just whose side they are on:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7592483/Police-search-evidence-against-commuters-carried-attack-XR-protester.html
They stopped the traffic because they wanted my attention. OK, they have it. What they want me to do? Stop burning fuel and freeze? Sell my car and buy a horse? Depopulate Nottingham and let the Sherwood Forest to regrow?
we do not enjoy
As several people have noted elsewhere, imagine being so privileged, so removed from normal concerns, that being arrested is a form of recreation, a leisure activity, a way to impress your peer group and accrue status.
But then, Extinction Rebellion is a kind of moral sludge made of the credulous and incoherent, the tediously pretentious, assorted slackers, and a core of Marxoid fanatics, whose stated ambitions include the toppling of European civilisation, which they denounce as uniquely “toxic” and the cause of all ills. Or at least the cause of the voices that won’t stop buzzing in their heads.
These are broken, ludicrous people. One should not take them seriously, except as a self-declared threat.
From the Daily Mail Link:
Attacking a doctor ! How dare they attack a noble healer what heals people and the planet ?
Oh, struck off then ? Nevermind.
These are broken, ludicrous people.
Speaking of which, we are remiss because yesterday we failed to celebrate National Period Day for menstrual equality and ending period poverty because one in four American women (or men, thank you sister [or brother]) are forced to use cardboard “or even trash” instead of tampons or pads. It must be true the women (or men, thank you sister [or brother]) in the video said so.
…because one in four American women (or men, thank you sister [or brother]) are forced to use cardboard “or even trash” instead of tampons or pads.
Shoving cardboard and trash in your undies would certainly explain a lot of behavior at these Extinction Rebellion protests.
“They were a grandfather, an ex-buddhist teacher, a vicar and a former GP”
Is this the singular, politically correct ‘they’ pronoun meaning that this refers to one person who is all these four things?
Is this the singular, politically correct ‘they’ pronoun meaning that this refers to one person who is all these four things?
Good question.
If only there were simple rules of grammar that would allow us to express our thoughts precisely, with none of this perplexing ambiguity.
These are broken, ludicrous people.
A follow up to National Period Day, another front in the Terf Wars opens over this, and a sanitary napkin maker surrenders to the transgender “men” over having the symbol of Venus on the package because they might lose $129.68 in annual revenue by not caving to a tiny minority.
Related, WTF, New Zealand ?
Oh good, because those would clash with the painted nails and false eyelashes on the lads.
Let’s put it this way, pst314. If faced with the choice between saving those activists or a giant squid, I’d save the squid.
because one in four American women (or men, thank you sister [or brother]) are forced to use cardboard “or even trash” instead of tampons or pads.
Who in hell actually believes that stat? Even before disposable pads were available, and in countries where they still aren’t, women use cloth. Cardboard? Trash?
They can’t resist exaggerating the lie, can they?
One in four sounds awfully high. Maybe after another 25 years of deterioration…
They can’t resist exaggerating the lie, can they?
Not in the least, it is utterly insane. Apparently they think sales tax on tampons is unconstitutional.
Skipping past that “people who menstruate” nonsense, that works out to about two bucks a year/woman between the ages of menarche and menopause, not even the price of one coffee outside of a Waffle House.
Let’s put it this way, pst314. If faced with the choice between saving those activists or a giant squid, I’d save the squid.
Well, the squid are more likable.
[Side note: that drawing is from the first French edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Very fine drawings by a very fine artist.]
You folks got it easy. I live in Hong Kong where it’s daily barricades, firebombing the MTR (our Tube) and if the police try to stop it, it’s called “police brutality”.
Rather hi your XR nincompoops any day…
one in four American women (or men, thank you sister [or brother]) are forced to use cardboard “or even trash” instead of tampons or pads
Of a piece with the feminist assertion that one in four women in American universities are raped, that Super Bowl Sunday is the occasion for a massive upsurge in domestic violence, and that there is a massive hunger problem among the poor in America, some of whom are so food insecure they can barely keep their weight up to 300 lbs.
…that works out to about two bucks a year/woman between the ages of menarche and menopause, not even the price of one coffee outside of a Waffle House.
You’ve forgotten how these people think. A sane person says 2 bucks, I can afford that. The looners say 2 bucks that’s not too much for the state to pay. Same input drastically different output.
You’ve forgotten how these people think.
Not that they think at all; considering sales tax, a) is set by states (and counties and cities), and b) helps pay for all the socialist goodness they like so much, one would think they would be more than happy to chip in their two frogskins.
And she’s being groomed for a Congressional run.
I will NOT be your hostage. Please don’t be my speedbump, It will briefly sadden me if I run you over.
And she’s being groomed for a Congressional run.
Because feelings trump embarrassing things like anatomy and physiology.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is proof any idiot can get a Master of Public Health degree, and that having an MPH doesn’t automatically equate actually to knowing anything about health.
It’s important that these cossetted pinheads, so gorged on their own sense of entitlement
I submit “engorged” might be a more appropriate characterization.
I will NOT be your hostage. Please don’t be my speedbump, It will briefly sadden me if I run you over.
Mmmmmmmmm (engine noise, Doppler shifted by its approach) DUB-DUP mmmmmmmmmmmmmm (engine noise, Doppler shifted by its departure)