WEBVTT - The Tomato Soup "Controversy" 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:11.760 Security. 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:20.760 What is worth more art or life? Is it worth 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.319 more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.600 concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:35.239 of our planet and people? The cost of living crisis is. 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:39.479 Put On October fourteenth, twenty twenty two, two young people 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:45.159 approached Vangu's famous Sunflowers painting in the National Gallery in London. 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:50.120 They unzipped their jackets to reveal just stop oil t shirts, 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.520 opened cans of tomato soup and chucked it at the painting. 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.080 You can hear the shock of some of the other 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:04.280 museum goers in that video. There what security? Oh my gosh. 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.959 But the immediate response was nothing compared to the onslaught 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:13.200 of media coverage and commentary that followed. I can't think 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.400 of another protest in recent history that was so immediately 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:25.320 the central focus of the discourse. It's worth noting that 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:29.120 the painting itself was not damaged. It was behind glass, 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.520 and the soup only hit that glass display case. The 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:36.080 National Gallery later reported that the painting's frame had sustained 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.800 minor damage, but that's it. That did not stop many 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:44.319 commentators from referring to the action as destruction or vandalism. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.920 It's about the destruction. It is not about a better world. 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:48.880 They're not going to school to learn how to create 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.600 better tech to care the climate crisis, and not figuring 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:53.920 out how to geoengineered. Not doing something productive. They're doing 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.280 something destructive because the barbarians are about the destruction. These 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:58.000 oils stop. 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.640 The oil protesters in the UK started doing more and 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.360 more acts of wanton fadlis, and we've got a little 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.000 matchup of their antics in the last few days. 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.880 Those were conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and Peres Morgan, but 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.400 it wasn't just the usual suspects weighing in on this protest. 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.359 People in favor of climate action also chewed on it 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.360 for weeks, debating whether or not the climate movement should 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:30.440 be engaging in such polarizing protests. Here's leftist commentator Hassan 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:31.639 Piker weighing in. 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.400 I find a lot of these activists to be you know, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.839 I mean, they're doing they're right for their anger, their 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:44.040 frustration is correct. I feel like that kind of protest 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.320 oftentimes is just like very it's almost like self defeating, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:50.240 it's performative, it's cringe. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.480 Even climate scientist Michael Mann got in on the action 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.240 commissioning a survey and pointing to the results of it 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.160 as proof that the action was alienating, a claim that 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:08.440 lots of social scientists who study protests found rather alienating themselves. 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.720 Soupgate fueled Twitter debates for weeks, and yet just six 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.040 months earlier, right in the middle of Earth Month, another 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.919 big piece of climate news had happened in the UK 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:22.800 that generated almost no response. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.560 There's been two rounds of trinalization of protest in the UK. 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.080 Doctor Oscar Bergland is a researcher at the University of Bristol. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.080 He focuses on social movements and he's spent the last 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.280 few years particularly focused on extinction, rebellion and then it's 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.360 spinoff groups just stop oil and insulate Britain in the UK. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.920 He's talking there about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.520 Act of twenty twenty two and the Public Order Act 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.560 was just went into effect in May twenty twenty three. Together, 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.440 the two seriously curte protest rights. They give police the 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:06.680 right to impose time, noise and location restrictions on protests, 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:11.080 to arrest anyone deemed to be causing a public nuisance, 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.800 and to stop and search anyone they want near a 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.520 protest with no need to justify the stop. They can 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.400 also bar people they suspect will make a serious disruption 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:28.000 from being in particular places or around particular people. The 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.799 law even curtails how activists are allowed to defend themselves 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.360 in court. Climate activists have not been allowed to explain, 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.880 for example, that it's the urgency of the climate crisis 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.680 that drove them to commit particular acts. 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.480 Judges, in wanting to uphold the law as it is, 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:52.080 have tried to limit what the jury is allowed to 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.880 hear and let you know, you want allowed to give 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.719 certain kinds of evidence that you want allowed to mention 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.520 climate and so on. That text wasn't allowed to be 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:02.359 heard in court. 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:08.200 It's a restriction that could reverberate well beyond the climate movement. 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.240 It's absolutely the case that you know, if you give, 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:15.280 if you grant certain powers to the states to deal 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.480 with one problem, they will use six to two people 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:19.320 with other problems, so they seek it. 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.560 The passage of those laws got nowhere near the amount 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:27.039 of attention as the tomato soup incident, particularly outside the UK. 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.720 We've covered in previous episodes how the framing of climate 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:37.000 activists as uniquely disruptive or annoying, which is how the 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.560 Lion's share of media painted the Tomato soup stunt helps 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.840 justify laws that criminalize activism. In a future episode, we're 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.200 going to get into the details of how things shifted 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.680 so quickly in the UK, But for today, we're going 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.680 to look at why tactics like the tomato soup protests 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.720 and the many art and sport protests that followed it 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.480 strike a nerve. We're going to talk about what they're 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.640 intended to accomplish, whether they accomplish those goals, and why 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.920 activists have been making a point of annoying people and 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.880 getting arrested for the better part of a century. That's 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.720 coming up after the break I name U Westervelt and 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:23.960 this is drilled the real free speech threat. There's a 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.920 bit in the UK Policing Bill that you could miss 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:31.039 the significance of entirely if you didn't happen to be 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.640 obsessively reading everything you possibly could about the criminalization of 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.200 protest over the past few years. It talks about damage 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.440 to memorials and how the sentence for this crime has 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.800 been increased from three months to up to ten years 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:54.640 in jail. Those cheers you're hearing are from a Black 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:59.480 Lives Matter protest in Bristol, England in twenty twenty. People 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.159 are celebrating the fact that a statue of the slave 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.120 trader Edward Coulson, had once occupied a prominent position at 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.920 Bristol's Port, has been pulled down and thrown into the harbor. 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.520 The increased criminalization of protests recently is certainly a reaction 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:21.200 to disruptive climate protests, but it's also a reaction to 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.400 the Black Lives Matter protests, which began in the US 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.520 but quickly spread to other countries. Both movements bring something 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:32.000 that powerful interests have been fighting against for the better 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:40.120 part of a century, multi racial, cross class solidarity. Nick 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.760 Estes is an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.880 the University of Minnesota, co founder of the Native Advocacy 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.880 Group with the Red Nation, and an enrolled member of 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.640 the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He says the recent racketeering 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.400 charges against activists protesting the proposed police trading facility known 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.200 as Copp City in Atlanta is a clear example of 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.400 how much various protest movements are being lumped together. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.200 That's a very kind of clear example that they're seeing, 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:14.720 you know, the Black Lives Matter movement, Standing Rock, all 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.920 these other sort of social justice movements, climate justice movements 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.920 as connected, and the best way to contain them is 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.320 to basically slap a broad. 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.160 Label on all of it. 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:31.000 And it never anticipated that happening as Standing Rock. It 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:37.360 never anticipated exploding the way that it did. In my 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:44.600 own personal experience in twenty twenty, during the George Floyd summer, 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.800 I saw a water protector, a white kid who I 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.920 sort of knew, get gunned down. He got shot four 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.760 times in the back in broad daylight in front of 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:00.000 hundreds of people in Albuquerque, New Mexico, during an event 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:07.480 to take down a really you know, racist monument. And 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:09.520 I was just thinking that there was this sort of 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.880 demonization not just of Native people and black people, now, 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:18.720 was a demonization of any white kid who decided to 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:23.400 stand on the side of history with those very sort 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:29.120 of marginalized groups, and an active campaign not just by 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.680 law enforcement but by the media to sort of break 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:34.280 that sense of solidarity. 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.720 Rees and class critiques are consistently levied at the climate movement. 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.720 A recurring theme in conservative commentary about various climate protests 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.320 is that these are spoiled, rich kids, out of touch 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.360 elitists with nothing better to do than throw mashed potatoes 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.320 or soup at fancy paintings or block a road where 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.720 normal people are just trying to get to work. Don't 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:01.200 get me wrong, sometimes those critiques are absolutely valid. Historically, 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.000 the climate movement has not been great on race. Here's Rev. 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.960 Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus and a 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.280 longtime activist, on that history. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.760 The modern day climate movement meaning around the creation of 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:19.680 EPA right around between nineteen sixty eight and nineteen seventy two. 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:21.880 Most of the large, the big. 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.520 Green organizations were created within that four year timeframe. Which 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.960 also important is that the people were in the streets. 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.320 So you had the black people with the Black Power 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.400 movement was in the streets and that was. 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:34.800 The part of the process. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.840 You had the women's movement that was emerging, the gay 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.360 rights movement that was powerful in New York City. You 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.120 had the anti Vietnam movements. Even young white kids who 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.600 were putting out street heat, they weren't engaging. The climate 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.760 movement literally said at the very beginning, we are not 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.079 going to be a part of that kind of movement. 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.840 So even if it's the anti war movement, or the 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.360 gay rights movement, or the strong Femi this and womanist movement, 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.640 or the black power movement. They immediately pulled back from 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.480 the inception and they coasted along. So then you go 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.319 ten years and then when black folks are saying, don't 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.320 put landfills in our community, that was their moment, and 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.520 even then they pulled back. 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.440 So this is not just the Achilles heel. 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:26.040 This is who the movement is from its inception. And 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.840 then at some point in time they realized that and 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.839 some have some happen is that we can't do this 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.679 a loon. We're not big enough or strong enough to 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:40.160 beat the possip industry as a Birkenstock movement that's. 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.440 On the east coast, on the west coast. 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.240 So now they're a point where they're literally try and 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.720 do a crash. Course on racism. 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.720 Class has also been a blind spot for the climate 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.480 movement at various points. Here's Oscar Bergland on how that's 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:57.800 played out in the UK. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.079 Working class people will not be protected as the climate 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.160 crisis worsens, And what you have here is actually a 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.880 lot of working class people getting really angry about these 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.719 climate protesters. So that you get actual clashes between them. 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.160 I don't think that that's good for the climate movement. 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:21.240 That has a potentially long term damaging effect. I think 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:26.160 if your enemy is the fossil fuel industry, if you're 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:30.680 being dragged away by shareholders in Michelle shareholders meeting or whatever, 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.400 I think that's a good fight to take. But if 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.680 you're being dragged away by people trying to get to work, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.080 I don't think that's a good look. 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:44.520 But researchers and activists agree that these historic weaknesses are 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:48.600 starting to be addressed, and as that happens, the movement 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.160 is becoming a threat. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.000 This is the kind of the attitude, you know, that 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.360 we're seeing in general with this attack on you know, 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.679 it's become a culture war sort of tagline for anything 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.960 that is considered liberal or left or something that can 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:11.000 be dismissed. And I think it's fascinating because in my mind, 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.520 it's actually just trying to create lines of division between people. 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.000 And I think this is, you know, just sort of 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.680 the longer trend of the aftermath of Standing Rock. 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.959 In many ways, some people who would rather not see 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:32.280 a cross racial, cross class coalition fighting for justice have 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:36.800 been singling out white allies for critique or punishment, just 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.640 like Nick Estes saw at Standing Rock. It's an extension 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:46.160 of the outside agitator's accusation that gets thrown at protesters regularly. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.160 Scientist and activist Rose Abramoff says she got a lot 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.080 of this when she was protesting the Mountain Valley pipeline 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.360 in West Virginia. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.439 There was a lot of sort of you're nut around here, 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:00.920 are you, which is interesting because you know, I mean, 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:03.520 I would argue that the Mountain Valley pipeline is not 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.199 from around here, and that the main resistance against the 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.720 Mountain Valley pipeline is primarily local as locals who don't 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.360 want this pipeline going through their land. So that was 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.120 an interesting line of argumentation. 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.080 When people across the country went to Standing Rock to 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.760 stand with the Lakota and Dakota people defending their land 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.480 and water rights, fossil fuel industry spokespeople and police highlighted 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.440 the number of people from out of state in an 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:34.840 attempt to delegitimize the protest. Not only was that narrative false, 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:36.200 it was ignorant. 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:41.160 The thing about indigenous movements in contrast to modern sort 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.600 of political movements or political parties, is that they're not 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.040 sort of movements of strangers, other movements of relations. A 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.480 lot of people are familiar with each other, or they're 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.560 organizing according to their clan system or the societies that 0:14:55.600 --> 0:15:01.520 are created within traditional governance systems. There's societies, female societies, 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.960 warriors societies, all kinds of different societies that exist. 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.640 In the case of Standing Rock, the Sioux or Ochetti 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:15.440 shakoyn Oyat people are located in what is today Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:20.680 North Dakota, South Dakota, and Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Canada. 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:25.480 So after the defeat of Keison Excel the Northern Leg, 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:27.680 there was a lot of people in Standing Rock. 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:28.400 Was paying attention. 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.120 But it wasn't until I first went up to the 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.800 camps there and a lot of the people back home 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:40.480 that we had worked with on the Lobural Reservation were 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.480 already there. Members of the Ocheti Shalcoy would have their 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:45.680 own little camp system set up. It was actually just 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:50.960 uniting people on the ground, our nation, the Ochetti Shacoi, 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.240 the nation of the Seven Council Fires. It was all 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.119 proof that these things had never gone away. 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.520 If they're hard to get right, and guaranteed, sometimes even 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:07.320 engineered to piss off the public and ratchet up policing. 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.960 Why engage in more disruptive tactics. 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.040 I did TMC live, they covered the US Open, and 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.080 it was so funny because they both started out being like, Dana, 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.440 can you believe this keeping people from watching tennis? 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.280 This is social scientist Dana Fisher. 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.360 Presor Fisher. Welcome to TMZ lot. 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:35.360 Thank you for having me. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.840 So give us your take on what this did for 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.520 the climate other than movement, other than extending the match. 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.720 Yes, the movement is much broader than what we call 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.120 the radical flank, which is people who are engaging in 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.680 civil disobedience like gluing themselves at events and throwing food. 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.120 But the importance of this kind of tactic is that 0:16:58.160 --> 0:16:59.880 it's getting us all talking about the climate. 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:02.400 Well that makes it sound like you're saying it succeeded. 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.560 Then oh absolutely, I'm on coz line. For the first 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.560 day I were like, oh, I don't support that doing this, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.520 but I do support doing something on climate. So it 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:12.960 was just funny because I was like, look, you guys 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.600 are textbook. This is perfect, a perfect example of why 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.040 the radical flank happens. Because you're talking about it, and 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.240 it's actually encouraging sympathizers like you who care about the 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.560 issue to do something about the issue, but not that 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.120 nobody's asking you to glude yourself to anything. 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.440 Fisher heads up the Center for Environment, Community and Equity 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.600 at American University and has spent her entire career researching 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.760 social movements. She says the incident, both the protest itself 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.040 and the reaction after it, not only from the TMZ guys, 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.600 but also from one of the tennis players, Coco Goff, 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.560 who had a similar reaction, is an example of what 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.879 people call the Overton window effect. The idea is that basically, 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.960 if you see someone engaging in a radical, disruptive act 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:03.320 of civil disobedience, or even suggested a radical idea or policy, 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.480 it's likely that your initial reaction might be shock or 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.880 even dismay. But a lot of people, especially if they're 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.399 already somewhat sympathetic to the cause, we'll think, you know, 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.919 we really do need to do something about that. In 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.840 the context of climate protests, maybe gluing yourself to a 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.320 road or throwing soup but a painting is a bit much. 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.520 But people might think those activists are right, and we 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.919 do need to do something. That's the entire purpose of 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.280 what movement scholars like Fisher called the radical flank, the 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.440 segment of a movement that's willing to risk arrest or 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:44.280 cultural backlash or even violence to grab attention and rile 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.200 people up. The Suffragettes did it, the civil rights movement 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.000 did it, and the anti war movement did it too, 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:57.159 and it worked in all three cases. The Overton window 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:01.200 is referenced a lot by progressives these days, but it's 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.560 actually a term that was conceived of to understand how 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:09.120 to shift the public towards more conservative views. In many countries, 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.919 you could argue that far right ideas have shifted the 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.840 entire political spectrum to the right much more than civil 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:20.080 disobedience has shifted things to the left. Particularly in recent 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:25.399 years in Australia, it's mostly been left leaning labor governments 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:31.080 that have passed state laws criminalizing protest, which might be unexpected. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.359 Researcher Liz Hicks says, that's the Overton window at work. 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:40.320 It's meant to change that framework of what is seeing 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.879 as kind of normal and the middle ground and the 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.439 mainstream by dragging one inge it really far out to 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.119 the other side. But you actually see that a little 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.600 bit with the way these laws have been passed by 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.480 state labor governments. But the conservative position is so extreme 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.480 and ridiculous and also what the mining companies want. But 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.240 suddenly it doesn't look like it's a repression on spaege 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:07.119 because that is the moderate position between the representatives that 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.720 you have in Parliament and these industry stakeholders. 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:14.000 It makes sense. The concept of the Overton window was 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.840 introduced by a guy named Joseph P. Overton, who was 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.320 a senior vice president for the Macinaw Center for Public 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.840 Policy in the nineties when he developed this idea, and 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.640 the Macinaw Center is, yep, you guessed it, a longtime 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:36.639 member of the Atlas network of conservative think tanks. The 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.240 link between the climate movement and previous social justice movements 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:45.080 is becoming stronger as more people directly experience what Fisher 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:49.000 calls climate shocks. At the March to End Fossil Fuels 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.320 held in New York during Climate Week in September twenty 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:56.040 twenty three, Fisher surveyed participants to find out what had 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.879 brought them to the protest. She asked whether they had 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.560 engaged in other big climate protests previously, how they felt 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:07.160 about the activists participating indirect action and about their direct 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.720 experience with climate impacts. She said she was shocked to 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.480 find that a majority had experienced either increased exposure to 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.600 storms and floods, extreme heat, or wildfire smoke. 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.480 We ask people if they had experienced the following items 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:24.679 in the past six months. 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.040 Extreme heat, eighty. 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:32.400 Seven percent said they had. We asked them that they 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:36.480 experienced wildfire or smoke from wildfires, eighty five percent said 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:40.919 they had, and sixty percent said they had experienced more 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.719 frequent and powerful storms, including hurricanes, typephoons, tornadoes. 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:52.920 Activists who participate in direct actions aren't necessarily thinking about 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:57.480 the Overton Window or the radical flank, or civil rights history, 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.120 or with the media or other climate activists will think 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.240 of them. Oftentimes, they just want to feel like they're 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.640 doing something tangible and directly impactful. 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.760 We're trying to stop this pipeline, and this is one 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:12.640 of the most effective ways to do it, is to 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.080 just get in front of and literally stop work on 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:16.920 the pipeline. 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.639 That's scientist Rose Abramoff again. She was recently arrested for 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.959 locking herself to a drill at the Mountain Valley pipeline. 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.680 We stopped construction for about half of half a day. 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:35.240 The vast majority of activists don't start out doing direct action. Instead, 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.399 they show up to organize protests, maybe campaign for a 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:43.160 politician they like, or call elected officials. In an earlier episode, 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:46.520 we heard from Joanna Oltman Smith, who was arrested earlier 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:50.000 this year for smearing fingerpaint on the display case protecting 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.600 a DEGA statue in DC. She walked us through the 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:57.679 years of activism that she participated in before risking a 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.480 serious charge. 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.480 I've done a lot of on the ground organizing, and 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.720 part of that has been rallying and protesting. I've done 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:14.160 a fair amount of die ins and picket lines and 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:20.359 blockading of buildings to raise awareness on different issues. What 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:25.520 I just did with declare emergency in Washington, that was 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:31.720 my first time stepping up as an individual, putting myself 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:36.560 on the line with my partner Tim to really do 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.240 something that we knew would raise the alarm. 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:46.119 Tim is Tim Martin, a fellow climate activist from North Carolina. 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:50.199 In May, the two were charged with conspiring against the 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.920 United States government. That's a charge that carries a possible 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:56.960 sentence of five years in prison and a fine of 0:23:56.960 --> 0:24:00.200 two hundred fifty thousand dollars for each of them. Those 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:07.160 cases are still pending. If the idea that all attention 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:12.280 on climate protests isn't necessarily good attention holds any water, 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.399 it may be more in the sense that opponents of 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:19.400 the movement can and do try to leverage certain moments 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:24.560 to discredit activists, and that the more disruptive each protest gets, 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:29.760 the more aggressive police and security are getting in response. Again, 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:33.400 those who study social movements are not terribly surprised by 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:39.560 the lockstep escalation of both protest tactics and backlash. 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.760 I think it's worth remembering that, like the radicalization of 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:47.240 a civil rights movement, for example, happened over a very 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:51.840 prolonged period of time, and it happened as activists, we 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:56.160 start out with young people mostly you've led groups basically 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:59.960 decided to start being more confrontational, and they were confrontational 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.679 but nonviolent cit ins, you know, boycott, And what we 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:07.720 saw happen was there was this increasing frustration in violence 0:25:07.840 --> 0:25:13.479 from law enforcement and others whom you know, in you know, 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:15.840 we generally think of as counter movements, but it was 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:18.920 really you know, white supremacists in that case. But we're 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:22.520 seeing a similar process happen where the you know, non 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:26.000 violent civil disobedience is becoming more common and there are 0:25:26.000 --> 0:25:29.480 more people engaging in it, and we're seeing citizens and 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:34.399 law enforcement getting increasingly confrontational response, which basically is a 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:37.720 way that this kind of protest escalates from non violent 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:41.120 to violent, because most of the time the violence starts 0:25:41.600 --> 0:25:44.640 with the response, you know. And I mean we've justin 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:46.840 you've been watching any of the videos of climate defiance 0:25:46.880 --> 0:25:51.400 where law enforcement or secure we'll call them security folks 0:25:51.400 --> 0:25:54.560 of all sorts are becoming more and more aggressive in 0:25:54.640 --> 0:25:57.760 response to the non violent civil disobedience we see from 0:25:57.760 --> 0:26:01.280