[Politics] Artists Boycotting Barclays...

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Oh wow the Zionists have too much power line! We run the world don’t you know!! Perhaps run that line past the man who runs our football club

Indeed.

Things like this:

Barclays banks across UK targeted by pro-Palestine protesters

Windows were smashed and rocks thrown in the co-ordinated protests by the group Palestine Action.

www.bbc.co.uk

are not likely to attract a groundswell of support from the uncommitted.

This is a long way from the 1970s/80s boycotting of Barclays bank for investing in South Africa.

This is vandalism by seething anti-Semites. Pure and simple.

 

[SeagullinExile]

Oh wow the Zionists have too much power line! We run the world don’t you know!! Perhaps run that line past the man who runs our football club

 

[faoileán]

A number of major UK based banks have fingers in pies here, which doesn't necessarily let Barclays off the hook here.

They may not invest their own money as per the PR spin, but their loan book to arms manufacturers IS substantial and has increased significantly in recent years.

The old and cynical can choose to do nothing, some have options to redirect their pension investments. Many of the young just have their ideology and holding big business to account via boycott seems a legitimate response.

I would agree, but boycotting The Great Escape and Latitude is not holding big business to account; Barclays and Israel won't give a monkeys whether the Lambrini Girls play a gig in Brighton, but the festival organisers and punters are screwed.

 

[Motogull]

As far as I am concerned, Barclays are a bunch of kunnts.

Back in our dark days, Oxford made a piss-taking bid for Dean Saunders and Barclays forced acceptance. I fukken despise that bank.

 

[carlzeiss]

Don't know what this achieves

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/10/business/barclays-branches-vandalized-palestine-protesters/index.html

—

Around 20 branches of Barclays have been vandalized by pro-Palestinian and climate activists who said they were protesting against the UK bank’s business dealings in Israel and its funding of polluting industries.


Windows were smashed and red paint was sprayed across buildings, including in London, to “demand the bank divests from Israel’s weapons trade and fossil fuels,” Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian protest group, said Monday in a statement shared with CNN.


In Edinburgh, rocks inscribed with the names of Palestinians killed in Gaza were thrown through the windows of a Barclays (BCS) branch, according to the statement.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

As far as I am concerned, Barclays are a bunch of kunnts.

Back in our dark days, Oxford made a piss-taking bid for Dean Saunders and Barclays forced acceptance. I fukken despise that bank.

Don't you think this might have had something to do with the way our owners of the time were mismanaging our club?

 

[Motogull]

Don't you think this might have had something to do with the way our owners of the time were mismanaging our club?

Barclays could easily have allowed negotiations but no, they wanted to clear some funds that day.

 

[CheeseRolls]

I would agree, but boycotting The Great Escape and Latitude is not holding big business to account; Barclays and Israel won't give a monkeys whether the Lambrini Girls play a gig in Brighton, but the festival organisers and punters are screwed.

The situation with the Great Escape was really disappointing. A lot of bands dropped out, which was not great whenany bought tickets before the protests against the sponsorship.

The organisers just buried their heads in the sand as if nothing was happening. There was no communication to ticket holders. This may ultimately have a bigger impact than the initial boycott/sponsorship row.

 

[Chicken Run]

Bollox to that, I've been looking forward to watching the Acolyte

2 episodes so far, very good

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Reckon if you drill down deep enough into the sponsors of just about any tour or festival you're almost guaranteed to find someone or something to be offended by. This Is The Modern World

It was like all the nonsense last year with the world cup

People virtue signalling about not watching, whilst happily shopping and using services linked to Qatar

 

[de la zouch]

You used a common anti Semitic trope, that’s a fact:

An Introduction Antisemitic Tropes — Get The Trolls Out

Domination and Control, Holocaust Denial, Blood Libel, Dirt and Disease, Wealth and Greed, Demonisation and Deicide, understanding these antisemitic tropes is key to combating antisemitism.

getthetrollsout.org

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Boycotting a whole nation? Not one to flinch from extremism, then. What would be a win for you?

I'm with @SeagullinExile - I boycott Israeli goods where I can - some are difficult to do so such as security software on phones. It's hardly extremism though. Will my boycott make a difference to Israel ? Hell no but it gives me an enormous sense of wellbeing ( a reference just for you ! ). As for win - there is no win - just the knowledge that my money isn't going to a state I don't agree with. Feel free to replace Israel with Russia in the above diatribe although governments across the world have made it impossible to buy Russian goods anyway - I can't think what the difference is between Israel and Russia.

 

[Brovion]

That's the same line of reasoning, which I don't necessarily disagree with, that our Geordie friends use to wave away any criticism of their club being owned by a nation state which dismembers journalists.

"Oh, but if you don't like Saudi then you shouldn't watch Disney because the PIF has shares in Disney".

I get it as an argument - if Thing X is bad then Things Y & Z must by association also be bad.

There's only so much any one person can do to try and stay in line with their own ethics and morals because nothing is clean anymore.

The computer I'm using to type this has probably got conflict material in it. My mobile phone almost certainly does. So by the logic above I should not be using either of them. Climate change is a thing and the Internet which we use to talk about the merits of Graham Potter vs Fabian Huzeler contributes an estimated billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions each year. So somebody should be switching that off too.

But we can't. We can't protest every single thing. We can't boycott everything. Or we could. But then we'd find ourselves sitting in a field eating grass. Which would probably itself be boycotted for taking the natural food of the cows. Or something.

I don't know. I'm rambling - life is hard. Having morals is hard. It was all so much easier when I was 13 and the only moral choices I had to make were in videogames.

Yup, I think that's a pretty good summary. (Ditto your other post about people making their own decisions about what to boycott, even though they know it won't make a shred of difference). I think if boycotting something makes you feel a bit better about yourself then do it. I was always one for boycotts when I was younger. South Africa in the apartheid era naturally, but also Israel - although for the life of me I can't remember exactly why because back in the 1970s at the time of the Yom Kippur War they were seen largely as the Little Guys fighting off the Big Bad Arab nations who wanted to obliterate them.

But as you say everything is so interconnected now that it's hard to know where to start. Like so many things there is often just a 'Least Worst' option rather than an binary Good/Bad choice.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

All reminds me a bit of Ali G's hunger strike.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'm with @SeagullinExile - I boycott Israeli goods where I can - some are difficult to do so such as security software on phones. It's hardly extremism though. Will my boycott make a difference to Israel ? Hell no but it gives me an enormous sense of wellbeing ( a reference just for you ! ). As for win - there is no win - just the knowledge that my money isn't going to a state I don't agree with. Feel free to replace Israel with Russia in the above diatribe although governments across the world have made it impossible to buy Russian goods anyway - I can't think what the difference is between Israel and Russia.

I don't have a problem with any of that. It isn't what I'd do personally, because I support the existence of the state of Israel (while loathing Bibi, Likud and the other lunatics who have presently take over the asylum). Likewise I didn't consider for a nanosecond stopping listening to Protomartyr, Iggy Pop, Bell Hollow, NIN (etc etc) when Trump became president, loathsome and evil though he may be. But I am not bothered if others did.

All this is a very long way from chucking bricks through the windows of Barclay's bank, though.

 

[The Clamp]

What!!!!

I thought all banks made their money by helping those less fortunate than them.

This is shocking.


Somebody call someone.

 

[Baldseagull]

I have nothing against politically motivated boycotting, but in this case, the Israelis are completely oblivious to any potential impacts.

My Niece is recommending that all of the family cancel their Disney+ memberships as apparently Disney supports Israel.
I mean, does she really think Disney will notice, or Israel will care?
I love her dearly, but this is a prime example of "virtue signalling". Absolving yourself of any guilt, whilst not actually making any difference in the cause you support.

I avoid paying for anything Disney, nothing to do with Israel, I find them to be an unethical business, harsh on its own staff, and happy to destroy other businesses to make a quid. It won't make a significant difference to Disney, but it makes a difference to me.

 

[The Clamp]

I avoid paying for anything Disney, nothing to do with Israel, I find them to be an unethical business, harsh on its own staff, and happy to destroy other businesses to make a quid. It won't make a significant difference to Disney, but it makes a difference to me.

Quite tricky to avoid all things Disney with the amount of companies they own and associate with.

 

[Baldseagull]

Quite tricky to avoid all things Disney with the amount of companies they own and associate with.

It is, so I try to avoid, it isn't an absolute boycott.

 

[Baldseagull]

You used a common anti Semitic trope, that’s a fact:

An Introduction Antisemitic Tropes — Get The Trolls Out

Domination and Control, Holocaust Denial, Blood Libel, Dirt and Disease, Wealth and Greed, Demonisation and Deicide, understanding these antisemitic tropes is key to combating antisemitism.

getthetrollsout.org

No, he didn't, he was talking about Israelis changing away from their Revisionist Zionist government.
Zionism is not in itself a terrible thing, I have no issue with Jews wishing to live in a place they feel connected to. I have major issues with settling of occupied territories, and treatment of Palestinians.