Shell has come under criticism from environmental and human rights groups for human rights abuses and repeated oil spills in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. A 2009 report by Friends of the Earth found Shell to be the world’s most carbon intensive oil company.

The manifest dishonesty of reporting criticism of Shell without pointing out that in fact the UN investigated Shell’s behaviour in Nigeria and exonerated them is bizarre.

Even the Guardian managed to report that better than this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/22/shell-niger-delta-un-investigation

Who cleared up the oil from the pavement afterwards.
10:1 says it wasn’t ‘campaigner Anne Schulthess’.

In other news, a 3-year-old protesting the cruel and oppressive practise of force feeding him with Brussels sprouts, pours mayonnaise over himself at the nursery.

Is there anyone more heroic than those noble few who go on the internet to sneer at people for taking an interest in politics and trying to make a difference? You are princes among men, gentleman. I hope I can be like you when I grow up.

People dont appreciate what a sacrifice people like this are making by not shopping at Waitrose. I salute those ready to (almost) die for their beliefs.

Wait til somebody tells them Abel and Cole use petrol to power their tractors and delivy vans.

I do note she was careful not to get any in her hair.

All seems a bit student gaurdianista – compare and contrast with Tibetan monks who proceed to light the oil when they are protesting about frankly much more serious things than having mini-supernarkets in garage forecourts.

5. Chaise Guevara

Is there anyone more heroic than those noble few who go on the internet to sneer at people for taking an interest in politics and trying to make a difference? You are princes among men, gentleman. I hope I can be like you when I grow up.

Sure. Cylux laying into Mother Teresa for instance. So much more heroic to sneer at someone who sacrificed her whole life to making a difference from the safety of a comfortable office on the internet.

However the question you have to ask here is what difference? Is this woman trying to make the world a better place? As her views are delusional and if implemented would make the world worse, then sneering at her is entirely appropriate. She deserves worse.

@3 “” I shop at Waitrose because I want my lifestyle to reflect my commitment to tackling climate change”

More, please, more!!”

So where should people who want to tackle climate change shop?

@ 8 SMFS

“Sure. Cylux laying into Mother Teresa for instance. So much more heroic to sneer at someone who sacrificed her whole life to making a difference from the safety of a comfortable office on the internet.”

Hello, Captain Whataboutery, how are you today? It’s kinda a shame, as your first comment was the only one (at the time that I posted) that actually bothered to address the OP in any substantive way.

“However the question you have to ask here is what difference? Is this woman trying to make the world a better place?”

Quite evidently yes, unless it turns out she’s a shill for Sainsbury’s or something.

“As her views are delusional and if implemented would make the world worse, then sneering at her is entirely appropriate. She deserves worse.”

Ah, I see the problem. Unlike you, I’m not coming at this from the POV of a hateful fantasist.

@ 9 Richard

“So where should people who want to tackle climate change shop?”

As far as I can ascertain from the attitudes on this thread, nowhere. Apparently having a conscience makes you a twat, and we should all aspire to be complacent and selfish like the good people above.

@ 14 damon

“I can’t stand stupid middle class stunts like this.”

That’s funny, because I can’t stand classist snobs who wave their stupid classist ad-homs around on the internet. It seems we’re all suffering today.

Apparently having a conscience makes you a twat, and we should all aspire to be complacent and selfish like the good people above.

Having a conscience needn’t make you a twat.

However it is still necessary, no matter the strength of your beliefs, to try to work out the consequences of your actions before you carry them out or the import of your words before you say them.

In this instance, the protester, without question, acted self-indulgently and deserves to be appropriately identified (along with all the BP performance artists who turn up at the Tate every few months to massage their consciences).

I dont get it

Chaise,

You seem in an unusually bad mood today. Since no-one seems to have denied Ms Schulthess’ right to protest, just pointed out this was a silly stunt which likely inconvenienced others (but not necessarily Waitrose), if in rather jocular ways (which seems to be the best way to approach this to be honest – she’s laughing in the pictures after all).

My perspective is simple. Waste of time, as the few people who really care that much will already know through their interconnectivity. And as to the lack of clear message – is this about ethical problems in Nigeria or climate change – well, that says it all really.

And Waitrose are not, as far as I know, really an ethical retailer. They’ve just identified a market. I suspect most of their trustees (I believe?) would prefer the Shell deal to some ethical position that makes them less money – my reason for this belief is that they have agreed this already. I doubt there is much money for any major company to be made in being climatically ‘ethical’ at the moment to be honest…

oh, give over Chaise.

As it looks as though the stunt took place in the Brunswick Centre (Bloomsbury area) where there are many other shops are where there are a large number of flats above, it is possible that some people were inconvenienced.

Certainly the person who had to clean up would have been inconvenienced if she did not do so herself. (Did she?)

On the other hand judging by the photos she was pretty much ignored.

The question Chaise does not appear to be considering is whether such stunts are counterproductive.

(…and where there are…)

@ 16 pagar

“Having a conscience needn’t make you a twat.

However it is still necessary, no matter the strength of your beliefs, to try to work out the consequences of your actions before you carry them out or the import of your words before you say them.

In this instance, the protester, without question, acted self-indulgently and deserves to be appropriately identified (along with all the BP performance artists who turn up at the Tate every few months to massage their consciences).”

How is this “without question”? You can ALWAYS accuse protesters of being self-indulgent, and no doubt it’s often true, but that doesn’t make it true by default.

@ 20 cjcjc

“The question Chaise does not appear to be considering is whether such stunts are counterproductive.”

You mean that question nobody’s actually raised because they’re too busy sneering at the person in question for being all concerned and middle-class? The main reason I’m annoyed at the comments on here is how incredibly content-free most of them are.

@ 18 Watchman

“You seem in an unusually bad mood today.”

Nah, I’m all right. Pointing out the general arsery going on in this thread doesn’t mean I’m feeling grumpy.

“Since no-one seems to have denied Ms Schulthess’ right to protest, just pointed out this was a silly stunt which likely inconvenienced others (but not necessarily Waitrose), if in rather jocular ways (which seems to be the best way to approach this to be honest – she’s laughing in the pictures after all).”

Nobody said anything about denying her right to protest. And people aren’t “just” pointing out that it’s a silly stunt (or, in most cases, bothering to say WHY they think it’s silly). No, what we have is a thread full of empty sneering.

“My perspective is simple. Waste of time, as the few people who really care that much will already know through their interconnectivity. And as to the lack of clear message – is this about ethical problems in Nigeria or climate change – well, that says it all really.”

Agreed on clarity, but consciousness-raising is rarely pointless. Protests tend to amplify before they take effect.

“And Waitrose are not, as far as I know, really an ethical retailer. ”

I think they try to present themselves as such.

@ 19 Luis

“oh, give over Chaise.”

A compelling argument…

The parallel protest at the brussel’s branch went less well
http://destee.com/images/MaggieFire4.jpg

CJ @ 20

Certainly the person who had to clean up would have been inconvenienced if she did not do so herself. (Did she?)

Surely, that is entire point? When someone like BP does the any damage to the environment, they tend to deny they the damage has been done and that any damage is not their fault and hope that someone else will clean up BP’s mess for them and at both their own inconvenience expense to boot.

I’m organising a counter-demonstration in which I’ll fill every square inch of the shopping precinct with windmills, and make everyone walk home carrying their shopping by hand.

When someone like BP does the any damage to the environment, they tend to deny they the damage has been done and that any damage is not their fault and hope that someone else will clean up BP’s mess for them and at both their own inconvenience expense to boot

BP spent in the region of $20bn clearing up the Macondo oil spill.

@ TimJ

“BP spent in the region of $20bn clearing up the Macondo oil spill.”

I don’t remember them doing that as an immediate and fully voluntary decision, whereas I do remember them blaming (fairly, for all I know) another company for the spill. So what this has to do with Jim’s point is rather unclear.

I don’t remember them doing that as an immediate and fully voluntary decision, whereas I do remember them blaming (fairly, for all I know) another company for the spill.

Then your memory is at fault.

They dispatched a flotilla of 32 cleanup vessels within 2 days of the initial blowout; by 26th April they had 1,000 personnel working on containing the spill; by 29th April there were 69 vessels on the scene, a number which had risen to 260 by 7th May, 530 by 10th May, 650 by 17th May, 750 by 18th May, and 930 by 20th May; they have released $25m block grants to each of the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida to help accelerate the containment and cleanup activities; they have been doing their damndest to stop the flow of oil using a variety of techniques; they have given $25 million to Florida and $15 million each to Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana to compensate for reduced tourism in the affected areas; 19,000 personnel are involved in the cleanup, excluding volunteers; they have pledged full support for and cooperation with the US government investigation into the disaster; by 18th May they had spent $650m on the containment and cleanup which is in line with a pledge they made on 2nd May that they would pay “all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs”.

http://www.desertsun.co.uk/blog/?p=552

If your argument is that they didn’t immediately admit full liability for the spill, that’s because that’s still contested. They weren’t the operators of the rig, they didn’t own or operate the part of the rig that failed. The question of ultimate liability is a complicated legal one that will take years to untangle. It would be downright stupid of BP to admit liability for something they may not actually have been responsible for.

Regardless of the longer-term legal point, however, in terms of taking responsibility for the pollution caused by their rig, they took immediate, voluntary steps to remedy it.

TimJ – oh, you and your facts!

@ TimJ

Fair enough, I thought there was more pressure on them to get started than that.

@ 29 cjcjc

Oh, piss off, you patronising little troll.

Tim J @ 26

BP spent in the region of $20bn clearing up the Macondo oil spill.

And @ 28

Regardless of the longer-term legal point, however, in terms of taking responsibility for the pollution caused by their rig, they took immediate, voluntary steps to remedy it.

Only because they were made to clean up by a persistent Government, not because they believed they had any moral responsibility to do so. There are countless of instances of the oil industry has ignored their pollution. Given this protest was originally aimed at shell:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

Of course, the oil industry have been paying PR men to deliberately to lie about Global Warming, against which an oil spill, as devastating as it is, pales into relative insignificance.

@5. “Is there anyone more heroic than those noble few who go on the internet to sneer at people for taking an interest in politics and trying to make a difference?”

Yes there is, the middle class twats who give us something to sneer at in the first place, reducing issues like this to some emotive appeal on the basis of arty displays of their egos. Take the quote below from a post-mortem on the AV referendum; replace “the Yes campaign” with any lefty issue and the same applies.

“The YES campaign was eminently winnable. But it ended up being run by readers of the Guardian for readers of the Guardian. Readers of this newspaper are about 1% of the voting electorate – and are also a statistically extreme group. Their views do not chime remotely with mainstream British opinion. There is no purist Guardian editorial proposition that could ever come close to winning a referendum in the UK.

From the outset, the YES campaign was all about the tiny coterie of people who feel strongly about electoral reform. The emphasis was on these people “having fun” and being invited to comedy evenings. In email after email from the YES campaign, the quirky behaviour of this “producer set” was celebrated and the “consumer set” ignored. So, some bunch of local activists who had written the letters Y, E and S in big letters on a beach were hailed as creative geniuses. Others were highlighted for running a particularly successful street stall. From the point of view of any observer, it was all about “them”(the micro-percentage of constitutional reform obsessives) never about “us” (the people). None of this self-indulgent madness won a single vote for the YES side, but it probably lost thousands.”

Chaise Guevara @12. Better then that my comment saying what I said was deleted.

I think they do suck, but that’s not a legimate thing to say on LC I suppose.
Shouting ”Shell sucks” in the street though is somethiong to be applauded.

Only because they were made to clean up by a persistent Government, not because they believed they had any moral responsibility to do so.

Simply not true in this case – read the link I provided. BP took prompt and immediate action, quite independently of US federal intervention, which was mostly ineffective, where it wasn’t positively counter-productive.

Macondo divides neatly into two case-studies – what not to do prior to an incident, and what to do after an incident.

@ 34 damon

Don’t look at me; I don’t like Sunny’s censorship any more than I like your class snobbery.

Fair enough, I thought there was more pressure on them to get started than that.

There was a lot of continuing pressure for them to ‘do’ stuff which they either were already doing or that it was technically impossible for them to do.

It sticks in the mind, because I was tangentially professionally involved.

@8 I believe you have mistaken ‘sneering’ for ‘disagreeing strongly with her politics and often hypocritical actions’.

@ 33 test

Perhaps you and damon could set up an anti-middle-class group together? Chips On Shoulders Anonymous, something like that?

I think some comments might have been eaten. I replied to Chaise @22 with the words “parsimony is a virtue”. Not the sort of comment to be censored, I’d have thought.

@ 40 Luis

Weeelll…. it sounds like you were trying to wind me up, but I do think Sunny’s being kind of heavy-handed on this thread.

@ 37 Tim J

“There was a lot of continuing pressure for them to ‘do’ stuff which they either were already doing or that it was technically impossible for them to do.”

I do remember a lot of people offering “obvious” suggestions for BP like “Why don’t those idiots just plug the hole with concrete?”

42 – Quite. It’s almost always the case that when laymen cry up an ‘obvious’ solution to a problem that isn’t being done, there’s an extremely good reason why not.

Not quite always, obviously…

Tim J @ 35

If it wasn’t for OBama keeping his boot (unfairly, in my view) on ‘British Petroleum’s’ throat, they would not have spent anything close to 20 billion quid clearing up their own mess.

@ 43 TimJ

I think they did actually solict suggestions, but possibly omitted to add “only if you’ve got a clue what you’re on about, obviously”.

And yeah, occasionally a layman has an amazing insight, although I suspect that’ll happen less and less as emerging technologies become more complicated. The problem is when the layman declares that the experts are idiots because they didn’t come up with his “put anti-oil shampoo on the sea-birds” idea.

@41

no, I was merely being lighthearted.

If it wasn’t for OBama keeping his boot (unfairly, in my view) on ‘British Petroleum’s’ throat, they would not have spent anything close to 20 billion quid clearing up their own mess.

Bucks, luckily for BP, and I think that’s an assertion that you can believe but can’t prove.

@ 46

Either way, I can’t figure out what system’s being used for deleting comments on this thread.

cjcjc – this website was doing fine when you threw an online tantrum and said you’d never read any of my blogs ever again in the history of mankind. Couldn’t you carry through with it? Most disappointing.

Chaise Guevara, you’re getting things mixed up. I’ve got nothing against people being middle class, but everything against the middle class protest movements.

The film ”Just Do It” gave a perfect example of what I mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zavTd31qxho

Now what I would find interesting, would be if there was a space where you could discuss the pros and cons of that kind of activism without being called a troll.
But it does seem that the ideological blocks (of pro and anti that) just can’t mix or discuss things. It becomes a ”which side are you on?” question.
”Are you on the side of the righteous ….. or are you with the Daily Mail?”
It makes it a bit frustrating as it means there’s no space for dissenting voices.

My theory is, that because the protest movements obviously have ”a soft underbelly” so to speak, (that of them being a bit silly and middle class), that criticism from that quarter has to be just slapped down and ignored.
Just today, the ”contrarians” at Spiked were doing it again, in a review of a book about the Occupy movement.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/12151/

Is it best just to ignore that kind of ”trolling”?

Two things:

1) It really isn’t clear what the protest is about. Is it something specific that Shell have done? If it’s not clear, then this sort of thing can be misconstrued as fossil fuel users protesting about fossil fuel producers.

2) Did they clear up afterwards? A sheet on the ground would have been good. This is not trivial in my view.

That reminds me I must email you the latest climate bet chart – it has now swung (slightly) my way!

@49. Jack C: “It really isn’t clear what the protest is about. Is it something specific that Shell have done?”

Yes and no. It is about something that Shell has done (just being an oil company) and about Waitrose adopting them as a business partner.

I am trying to work out the political theory, but I presume that we are being advised by protestors to not conduct business with retailers who partner with oil companies. (Does the Co-Op sell petroleum products?) Thus, when the target is an alleged polluter (eg Shell), political action is directed at business partners rather than the polluter.

Shell are expected, by protestors, to suffer financial consequences because a woman poured oil on herself outside a branch of Waitrose. But the protestors could buy ONE share in Shell and kick up a stink with other share holders about ethical practices.

It is easy for protestors to not think. Inveigling the system is difficult.

@4. Chaise Guevara: “Is there anyone more heroic than those noble few who go on the internet to sneer at people for taking an interest in politics and trying to make a difference? You are princes among men, gentleman. I hope I can be like you when I grow up.”

I know what you mean but I disagree.

David Allen Green posted a fine argument about civil disobedience:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/02/law-rule-power-act-breaking

David Allen Green’s arguments were about civil disobedience, but with qualification they can be applied to civil protests. According to DAG, you need a reason to step outside law.

If you wish to make a mess of yourself by pouring (refined, unpolluted) oil over your body, what is the message that you wish to deliver? Is the slippery inconvenience to fellow citizens a triviality?

@ 52 Charlieman

Well, if pouring oil on the pavement is against the law, and it probably is, then that in itself is pretty damn trivial.

I really don’t get the “inconvenience to others” argument being cooked up here. I agree with Jack C above in hoping that they cleaned up their own mess, because: manners. There are forms of protest that are really just bullying innocent bystanders (French blockades, for example, or anything that deliberately holds up traffic). Maybe they have their place, but they generally don’t seem to be justified in my experience. This, however, is not one of them.

What message could she have been sending by pouring dirty oil over herself? Off the top of my head: “I am the planet, and this is what we are doing to our world”. But, whatever, symbolism is horribly easy to ad-lib. The actual message was “This company is doing something we disapprove of involving oil, here’s me doing something weird involving oil”. It’s attention-seeking, but that’s the whole POINT of protest!

As for my ire on this thread: at the time of my first posting, nobody (with the slightly surprising exception of SMFS) had bothered to say anything substantive about either her cause or her methods. Nope, it was just knee-jerk, lazy sneering from armchair revolutionaries like myself, aimed at someone who appears to actually give a damn about something. Pretty soon, it devolved into petty, point-scoring, ad-homming bigotry: “Middle class! Middle class!” Old and irritating tactics. There are few things that piss me off more than people being stupid and thinking they’re being clever, acting as if negativity is the same thing as wisdom.

I know for a fact that many of the people snarking on this thread aren’t, in fact, stupid (one of them’s Luis, for god’s sake), and that annoys me even more. They’ve got better options but they still go for the content-free abuse.

9. Chaise Guevara

Hello, Captain Whataboutery, how are you today?

Not bad, not bad.

Quite evidently yes, unless it turns out she’s a shill for Sainsbury’s or something.

No. It is not evident. She may think she is but given she does not understand what she is doing, it is not guaranteed. If we look at what she is doing – leading part of the attempted quasi-lynching of Shell until they pay the Greens off – then by no means can that be described as a sensible policy or one that will make the world a better place. She is mostly delusional but where she is not delusional, she is actively working to make the world worse.

Ah, I see the problem. Unlike you, I’m not coming at this from the POV of a hateful fantasist.

How would you know? We have been here before. Nike got slammed over shoe production. Their workers were left worse off. BP got smeared – Greenpeace just flat out lied – over Brent Spar, and the environment suffered. What does this idiot want to do? Impoverish the people of Nigeria and make not one little bit of difference to the environment. Great.

@ 54 SMFS

“No. It is not evident. She may think she is but given she does not understand what she is doing, it is not guaranteed.”

Yup, there go the goalposts. You didn’t ask if she was making the world a better place. You asked if she was *trying* to make the world a better place. Of course it’s not guaranteed that she’s making the world a better place: there’s a million and one things I could have gotten wrong or overlooked. But that doesn’t mean she’s not trying. It’s perfectly possible to honestly try to make the world better and make it worse in the process, enough people through history have done that to make it obvious.

“How would you know?”

Um, the main issue here is how YOU know, seeing as you’re the one making confident statements. To whit: “her views are delusional and if implemented would make the world worse”. Which views, specifically, and why are they delusional and doomed to create a worse world if implemented?

55. Chaise Guevara

Yup, there go the goalposts. You didn’t ask if she was making the world a better place. You asked if she was *trying* to make the world a better place.

I am not moving the goal posts at all. You are taking one little sentence out of context. You are slyly relying on re-defining what trying means. She may *think* she is trying to make the world a better place. But that does not mean she is.

What she wants is either stupid or bad. She should not be encouraged.

It’s perfectly possible to honestly try to make the world better and make it worse in the process, enough people through history have done that to make it obvious.

In fact we might have enough evidence by now that we could say that people like her invariably make the world a worse place. But then you’re young. You may want to wait another twenty years.

Which views, specifically, and why are they delusional and doomed to create a worse world if implemented?

Well the attempted smears on Shell – yet again we see radicals single out one company for bullying and intimidation. This is never a good sign. The fact she thinks being carbon-intensive is bad in itself. What she is demanding is a return to the Middle Ages. Plenty of sustainable agriculture back then. Which is inherently stupid if not malicious.

@ 56 SMFS

“I am not moving the goal posts at all. You are taking one little sentence out of context. You are slyly relying on re-defining what trying means. She may *think* she is trying to make the world a better place. But that does not mean she is.”

Nope, I’m just using this language called “English”. It’s bloody obvious that someone can try and fail, or even end up making things worse, because they’ve got something wrong. An honest person, however, will not conflate intent and result and use that to claim that they weren’t trying in the first place. Or leap into semantic ratholes because they’re too arrogant to admit they were wrong, even over something incredibly minor like poor phrasing.

“What she wants is either stupid or bad. She should not be encouraged.”

Says you, but I don’t see anything backing it up.

“In fact we might have enough evidence by now that we could say that people like her invariably make the world a worse place.”

Yeah, bloody protesters never make a positive difference. That’s why we haven’t achieved any social change in the last 100 years – women still can’t vote, gay sex is still illegal, American blacks are still legally second-class citizens.

“But then you’re young. You may want to wait another twenty years.”

Devoid of argument, he desperately throws an ad hom into the mix! Will it work? No!

“Well the attempted smears on Shell – yet again we see radicals single out one company for bullying and intimidation. This is never a good sign.”

You LOVE bullying and intimidation, it’s one of your favourite things. If this were a musical you’d be trying to find a way to rhyme it with “brown paper packages tied up with string”. Funny how it only seems to anger you when it’s the powerful being challenged by the weak. What smears?

“The fact she thinks being carbon-intensive is bad in itself.”

Yeah, bloody humanitarians and rationalists, with their empathy and their facts!

“What she is demanding is a return to the Middle Ages. Plenty of sustainable agriculture back then. Which is inherently stupid if not malicious.”

Is she, now? Show me the quote.

57. Chaise Guevara

Nope, I’m just using this language called “English”.

Yes but only to avoid discussing the actual issues.

Or leap into semantic ratholes because they’re too arrogant to admit they were wrong, even over something incredibly minor like poor phrasing.

I don’t mind admitting poor phrasing.

Says you, but I don’t see anything backing it up.

Come on. She doesn’t even have any friends on LC except you. Even if you want to ignore the issues, that ought to tell you something.

Yeah, bloody protesters never make a positive difference. That’s why we haven’t achieved any social change in the last 100 years – women still can’t vote, gay sex is still illegal, American blacks are still legally second-class citizens.

I was unaware that people like her were involved in any of those issues. How do you know? Do you know her? And them?

You LOVE bullying and intimidation, it’s one of your favourite things.

How would you know? Projection is never pleasant. My name does not, after all, derive from a mass murderer.

Funny how it only seems to anger you when it’s the powerful being challenged by the weak. What smears?

The accusations against Shell. Which the UN cleared them of. I doubt that you can break this issue down into the powerful and the weak. Because this is not a struggle between a single naive girl and Shell, but a single naive girl, her massive publicity machine and the international media. From which Shell will probably lose. Like the Brent Spar. But then so did the environment.

Yeah, bloody humanitarians and rationalists, with their empathy and their facts!

No evidence she is either a humanitarian or a rationalist. Nor that she has any facts. You make this up as you go along?

@ Chaise

You didn’t ask if she was making the world a better place. You asked if she was *trying* to make the world a better place. Of course it’s not guaranteed that she’s making the world a better place: there’s a million and one things I could have gotten wrong or overlooked. But that doesn’t mean she’s not trying.

Congratulations, mate. You have successfully encapsulated the progressive mantra there.

To paraphrase-

“It doesn’t matter that her protest does not make any rational sense- that she is not, in fact, a bird caught up in an oil slick or a Nigerian child horribly burnt in a pipeline fire. It doesn’t matter that she is not a polar bear taking his last gulp of air before drowning or any of the other environmental horror stories that get her emotional juices flowing. It doesn’t even matter that she is clearly a patronising, self-aggrandising, self indulgent, nuisance.

Because her motivation in carrying out this senseless act is noble. She does it for the right reason (out of compassion for others) so it is quite insensitive of the commentators here to point out her vacuity. Admittedly, the five year plans didn’t work out too well in practice but his heart was in the right place.”

That about it?

@ 59 pagar

“That about it?”

No, grow up. I’m getting bored of your straw men. Whether someone THINKS they’re doing good is important in how we judge them as a person. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explain why they’re wrong.

Apparently, a lot of prisoners in the Holocaust were accidentally killed by their rescuers, who gave them more food than their bodies could handle after years of starvation. Does that make the rescuers evil people? Of course not: they saw people suffering and tried their best to make things better, an act of good if ever I heard of one. So, if someone who was present knew that overfeeding starving prisoners could kill them, should they have kept quiet? Again, of course not, that would be bloody stupid.

Intended outcomes often differ from real outcomes, sometimes tragically. But that doesn’t mean the intent is retconned to match the real outcome. This is so bloody obvious that I can’t believe I’m explaining it to you, but failing to take it into account is foundation of the fallacy you’re building here.

@ 58 SMFS

“Yes but only to avoid discussing the actual issues.”

Happy to discuss the actual issues, if you ever get round to putting any on the table.

“I don’t mind admitting poor phrasing. ”

Are you admitting it, or is that a general statement?

“Come on. She doesn’t even have any friends on LC except you. Even if you want to ignore the issues, that ought to tell you something.”

Ah, so your backup is appeal to majority – and not even the actual majority, just the majority of people on a website. Great use of logic and data there.

“I was unaware that people like her were involved in any of those issues. How do you know? Do you know her? And them?”

OK, what do you mean by “people like her”, then? It’s a very vague phrase and I made my best guess as to its meaning.

“How would you know?”

We’ve spoken before.

“Projection is never pleasant. My name does not, after all, derive from a mass murderer.”

You’re like an ad hom gatling gun, do you know that? And you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.

“The accusations against Shell. Which the UN cleared them of.”

Which accusations?

“I doubt that you can break this issue down into the powerful and the weak. Because this is not a struggle between a single naive girl and Shell, but a single naive girl, her massive publicity machine and the international media.”

To the best of my knowlege, she doesn’t have a massive publicity machine. She has some photos on the internet.

“From which Shell will probably lose. Like the Brent Spar. But then so did the environment.”

Don’t know enough about Brent Spar to comment. But if that WAS a case of misguided activism making things worse, one swallow does not a summer make.

“No evidence she is either a humanitarian or a rationalist. Nor that she has any facts. You make this up as you go along?”

Trying to stand up to companies that pollute the planet and destroy lives sounds pretty humanitarian to me. I’ll admit I threw the “rationalist” and “facts” thing in there because my spider senses told me that climate change “scepticism”, or something like it, was just around the corner.

@60

Whether someone THINKS they’re doing good is important in how we judge them as a person.

Hmm. I wouldn’t go that far. The Conquistadors would baptise native infants then dash their heads open on rocks – the reason being that they didn’t want the children’s souls to be damned to hell and couldn’t see any way they could stop ‘the savages’ from turning to sin. So baptising them – clearing them of sin, then killing them – was the only sure fire way to save their souls. They honestly thought their infanticide was for their own good. That’s why I prefer to judge based on action and deed, rather than intentions and self perception.

@ 62 Cylux

So you’d have condemned those guys who fed the Holocaust survivors, then? Judging people on outcome is actually nightmarish, it brings a huge random element (from the accused’s perspective) into the concept of guilt.

For that matter, if you honestly believed that there was a wonderful afterlife for “good” people and eternal torture for the bad, and you thought the only way to make someone get the wonderful one was to kill them, wouldn’t that make killing them the right thing to do from that perspective?

For that matter, if you honestly believed that there was a wonderful afterlife for “good” people and eternal torture for the bad, and you thought the only way to make someone get the wonderful one was to kill them, wouldn’t that make killing them the right thing to do from that perspective?

No.

This site really is just a place for upper class disconnected bored pricks to debate, argue and prove there worth over completely trivial meaningless SHITEEEEEEE.

@ 66

To be fair, we also get the occasional bigoted troll going on grumpy rants and making themselves sound like an idiot

So does every site Chaise Guevara but really, what the fuck is this site about?

@ 68 X

“So does every site Chaise Guevara but really, what the fuck is this site about?”

Was the “about” section so hard to find? http://liberalconspiracy.org/about-us/

Whether or not it achieves its stated aims is variable. However, I prefer Sunny and his attempt to chase humanitarian political aims to you and your content-free trolling. When you go out of your way to be a waste of space, you’ve got little ground on which to make that same accusation against others.

Oh, and you should look up “upper class”, as you clearly have no idea what it means and therefore are only going to embarass yourself by using it. Cheers!

“When you go out of your way to be a waste of space”

This entire topic is a waste of space, its just you arguing with your regulars, it does not matter what the issue is, its the same people arguing against the same aspects of each others personalitys, the more meaningless and irrelevant the issue the more it draws you all out because you can take it further

@ 70 X

What are you doing here, then? Well, trolling, evidently, but why? Are you a hypocrite or just a glutton for punishment?

Seriously, I don’t know why people seek out sites they don’t like and then whinge about how much they don’t like them. It would be like me deciding to play R&B albums all the time and then moaning that I never get to listen to decent music.

If you disagree with the articles or BTL commenters on LC, great, join in and let us know what you think. If you dislike the existence of LC in general yet are such a masochist that you feel the need to wallow in it anyway, could you at least do it quietly?

Yes Sergeant!!

Why is it A – lick my ass B – you must be a troll then? I am here as time to time some interesting stuff pops up, for the months that I have been here I have noted who argues with who and how and its always the same, a few lone rangers out to prove a point against eachother over ANYTHING ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, I’m bored of this. You’re not even coherent now and from the parts of your post that are legible it’s clear you’re not interested in anything but pointless whining. I’ll just leave it to Sunny to clean your “contributions” off the thread.

Yes Yes Chaise Guevara, we are all pretending you arent a bored shitless individual stuck in work also, defending peoples rights to tip oil on there heads is serious business god forbid we did not have you lot protecting us!

Maybe thats the lefts problem? You all to fucking serious, and bored…

“Campaigner Anne Schulthess wore an intricate shell-themed white dress as the liquid was poured over her in front of a crowd of shoppers at lunchtime.”

I see her, I see the dress, I see the liquid. Still looking for the crowd of shoppers.