Sexy. Be safe, remember kids, always use use PPE when committing domestic terrorism!
Edit: fucking lol you guys I support what they are doing. I just think it's funny that it probably fits the technical definition of domestic terrorism even if we don't consider it that.
Terrorism can be based as well. The state uses terrorism all the time and it's fine, and they call any dissent they don't like, no matter how peaceful, terrorism.
John Brown was a based terrorist. The British Suffragette movement had a bunch of based terrorists. Mother Jones was based, and as much of a terrorist as most of Al Qaeda (i.e. not personally involved in terrorist attacks, but supporting movements that did engage in terrorism).
All you need is a sufficiently abhorrent status quo and terrorists who are otherwise decent human beings.
Violence: behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
Specific to Australia, terrorism: Terrorism is defined as "an action or threat of action where the action causes certain defined forms of harm or interference and the action is done or the threat is made with the intention of advancing a political, religious and ideological or group cause".
How much do you want to bet this, or actions like this get called terrorism? It fits the definition if you want it to, which is all that matters. Yes, it's bullshit if they call it terrorism, which is why the word needs to have its negative connotation stripped. There have been good terrorists in the past and there will be in the future. The word has no mention of it being done for evil purposes.
Violence: behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
Kill something? That doesn't even make sense unless talking about animals.
It is not commonly accepted that property damage is violence. And in this case it wasn't even property damage, but just a temporary disruption of the operation of the port.
Edit: that Australian definition is so hilariously vague that is is clear that who ever wrote that was perfectly aware what they were doing.
that Australian legal definition is so hilariously vague that is is clear that who ever wrote that was perfectly aware what they were doing and for what purpose.
It's like that for most nations. It effectively allows them to define any action against the status quo to be terrorism. The state is allowed to send the police (or other entities of violence) to attack dissidents, but you aren't allowed to use any "violence" (aka disruption) to fight against them.
I don't think this protest causes harm, serious damage, a public safety risk, or serious interference to critical infrastructure, so it's not terrorism by Australian law.
Terrorism doesn't have an agreed upon definition, we've charged people with terrorism for occupying a forest, we've also done it for flying a plane into a building. The only unifying factor is a political action the government doesn't sanction.
In the absence of consensus my opinion prevails (because I said so), and I say the thing OP referenced doesn't count as terrorism. Anyone who disagrees with me is, to put it simply, wrong.
(Occupying a forest sure as Hell doesn't count either, by the way -- and that's one I can speak about with particular authority, being a resident of a nearby neighborhood and personal acquaintances with some of the people involved. Frankly, the Atlanta Police Department and Georgia State Patrol are the terrorists here: their actions have not been legitimate enforcing of laws, but rather the acts of a gang trying to claim turf to build their jackbooted-thuggery theme park.)
That's just what the people misusing the word as a justification for overstepping want you to believe. The definition is very clear: It's inciting terror through violent acts against non-combatans to push an agenda. For example bombing some recruitment offices, so people don't dare go there to enlist or attacking large gatherings and leaving a message what the terrorist wants.
Except people don't use it that way. If you say "I live in Syria and I am afraid of a terrorist attack", 99/100 people would not understand what you said to possibly mean that you were afraid of the US drone striking you.
If they did, and anyone can use the term to refer to most any political organization and action that is associated with attacks on non-combatants, it becomes useless.
You would be surprised how many people outside of the west correctly identify US drone strikes as terrorist attacks. And no, that does not make the term meaningless at all.
No, it doesn't if it is, as you wrote or as they may claim, "unintended". Acts of terrorism are inherently intentional, because they require a goal different from just killing people. That goal is being advanced by having people know it's intentional. Terrorists fail their mission if everyone thinks they didn't do it on purpose.
I disagree. The governments try to make all terrorism sound evil, and they call anything they don't like terrorism. The word needs to either stop being used (which isn't going to happen) or associated with as many good and relatively peaceful things as possible as well. As long as the state has a monopoly on terrorism and anyone labeled a terrorist is viewed as evil, the state has all the power on dissent.
Because by using their definition consistently you ridicule and defang the phrase, same as 'queer'. Even by your definition, there have been good terrorists like the abolitionist John Brown, so it is in everyone's best interest to stop acting like terrorism is worse than fascism.
If you're terrified at the thought of a coal company being mildly inconvenienced, check those perls you're clutching; they might actually be diamonds by now.
Impeding the function of necessary infrastructure is pretty bad, especially when it comes to power plants.
The more you know about how the electrical grid works the more serious you realize impeding its function is. And depending on the time of year and the integraty of the grid in that area it can range from serious to really fricking serious.
This is about a coal shipping port. The impacts are weeks removed from actual power plant use. All this does is hurt the bottom line of these fossils fuel companies.
This is their low energy season. It's cool enough to have all the windows open and leave the air controls off, which is the major driver of energy usage and energy interruption related deaths. So they actually picked a good time to do it.
If two people doing little more than breaking a fence and climbing into a machine can seriously damage your nation's essential infrastructure, that's more on the government than on those two people. Any actual sabotage and there might not have been an infrastructure left to save.
The electrical grid should be able to handle any one power plant shutting down unexpectedly. Ideally it should be able to handle severed power lines and multiple simultaneous failures, with emergency generators for anything essential. Not even because of sabotage, just because power plants are complex machines that can just unexpectedly fail.
I think disrupting national infrastructure can be considered terrorism, it just amused me thinking of good guys non violently being "good guy" terrorists