roachboy

first off, protest actions can occur because corporations have to balance shorter and longer term pressures--like lucifer said earlier in the thread, the shipping company is not suing greepeace because the negative pr such an action would generate outweighs any financial gain to be had from a lawsuit.
so the question of legality is moot.

this double set of constraints (suing to recoup losses engendered by the greenpeace action vs. the publicity that such a suit would generate) are typical. they duplicate the multiple theaters in which a private firm operates: they are simultaneously property-holding fictional persons and public actors whose ability to operate is contingent upon a minimal consent of the people.
any space of production can be transformed into a theater of political action at any time.
meanings in the world are reversible.
the world is not a simple accumulation of objects, like rocks or toasters.


this complexity of constraints is the main reason why analogies between a corporate person and a private individual are false---and these analogies have run riot through this thread.
the main effect of this false analogy is to erase complexity, not make thinking any better.

so a corporation may find itself legally able to act against political activists, but also find itself constrained from doing so.
if you look at how actual political action operates--and dont try to wave it away by the false equation of a corporation and private individual---the multiplicity of constraints a corporation has to balance is self-evident.

and the margins created by this multiplicity of constraints is the margin political actions have exploited from the earliest phase of capitalist development through today.
there is nothing you can do about it.

given that this is a simple empirical feature in the world, its elimination from thinking is an index that the thinking is based on poor foundations.
that these foundations do not appear poor to folk who use them indicates the extent to which politics and intellectual moves are intertwined--from this follows the entire problem that i have with the thread itself, that mm has with the thread, etc. it explains the direction of the criticisms.



the question of the action's legitimacy is demonstrated by the fact of this thread--quite apart from anything in the thread--that this thread is at all concedes the point. and the more arguments unfold, the more obviously legitimate the protest is. the debate itself proves it. no more argument is required. this is the third time i am saying this.



there is a certain "duh" factor in this thread as well: that someone who is in lucifer's position would react as he did to the protest action seems to me a "duh" point. that the greenpeace activists would see the same space (the ship) in entirely different terms is also a "duh" point. it seems to me that at bottom what the thread is really about is which perception of the action is "real" when the obvious fact is that both are, both are legit, both can co-exist, both do co-exist and in most cases--like this thread--they talk past each other.

__________________
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it make you sick.

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