Where do you get the power for the radio waves, and do you have a link? This sounds cool.

Oh, typo. Last month was the meeting to decide if they want to get rid of nuclear power from all of Sweden because there was almost a meltdown last year. Doesn't really change my point.

On the subject of nuclear, there are plant designs for which meltdown is impossible.


edit: sorry about the beer in the nose, debaser, heh.

Unauthorized persons announced their intent to peacefully protest, then illegally boarded a ship with chains (which could be used as weapons,) then detained the ship with their idiocy. When the ship was immobilized, they sent more people on board to ensure that it could not move until marine police arrived to remove them.

If someone announced that they were protesting gas guzzling vehicles, then tried to climb into my car with metal chains, you can bet that they wouldn't even make it halfway in before I fought back with all force necessary to stop the armed intruder from seizing my vehicle. I maintain my position that these "protesters" were not peaceful, and that they should have been considered pirates and shot before they were able to get on board and establish their illegal hold on a vessel in sovereign waters.

If you are around GreenPeace people, expecting to be in physical danger because of them is totally unreasonable and unfounded. I know plenty of people in GreenPeace (and ELF). ELF shows up, run (or get a fire extinguisher). GreenPeace shows up, plant a tree and simply expect to wait.

So, what's the logic behind the assumption that the shipping company can't sue Greenpeace for financial damages pursuant to the detaining of their vessel?

Don't people who sustain injuries in at-fault car accidents sue for lost wages? What's the difference?

You aren't looking at the big picture.

Non-emission? Where do you think uranium comes from?

By-pass channels.

And willravel is right, nuclear power plants can be ruinously expensive. A lot of money can be dropped into them (i.e. can go multiple times over budget) and they can still sit unused, waiting to go online at some unknown date.

Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says [Claude] Mandil [the General Director for Energy and Raw Materials at the Ministry of Industry], then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."

"Why the French Like Nuclear Energy," Jon Palfreman, Frontline, PBS.org.

I'm not at all sure what nuclear power has to do with the thread and original post. It might be a great debate for another thread...

Sure do!

http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/1570

/off topic

hehehehe thank you for the early morning giggle....and I agree 100%

Well, this has been interesting (and off topic in places). I just wanted to point out in response to the posts about why the ship couldn't move, or why it was in danger, or why we didn't just keep going about our business with the people on board.

Shipping isn't simply a matter of "hey, I got this cargo, who wants it?" Modern shipping is an incredibly tightly regulated industry. A 750 foot cargo ship can't simply tie up at the nearest marina. All ports and ships since 9/11 operate under MARSEC levels. Level 1 is the level at which ships and ports operate normally. Level 2 is a hightened state of security. Level 3 is imminent danger of a terrorist action or security breach. Before we enter a port, the ship has to send a security list of all crew/expected visitors/service contractors, etc. The ship has to declare that it is operating at MARSEC 1. The port has to respond also with the declaration that it is operating at MARSEC 1. We can operate and dock at a Port at MARSEC 2, it just means that the ship and port are on lockdown, with no shore leave for crew. When a ship is boarded like we were, that is a terrorist act under MARSEC, no matter if it is a political statement, peaceful protest or whatever your personal opinions are about what constitutes a terrorist.
When a ship goes to MARSEC 3, no port anywhere in the world will accept it at that level. We had to go to anchor and wait. Once the activists were removed, we on the ship had to wait for the government to declare us safe to move. We can elevate our MARSEC levels as we see fit to protect ourselves, but we can't stand down to level 2 or 1 on our own after that. Transport Canada Marine Safety has to review the situation and decide that it is safe for us to move. The activists were removed about 2 pm. We got the clearance to move at 1:30 am!

Then please enlighten me.
The ground? Granted, there are fossil emmisions from mining uranium, but there are fossil emmisions from building dams and windmills, so are they no longer non-emission either? You are nit-picking. Would you rather I use the term "so-low-emission-as-to-be-statisticaly-irrellevant"? It is a bit wordy...
But you still don't deal with the eco-system destruction problem with locks. River critters have to migrate too you know.
Over budget, yes. But all projects can. I shudder to think what some of the dams that have been built have cost. Still, from a dollar standpoint over the entire lifetime of the reactor, nuclear is the cheapest large scale power production on earth right now.

The reason they sit unused is because of dipshits like those in the OP. Concern for nuclear safety is one thing, paranoia is another. These luddites are obliquely responsible for the coal industry having so much of a share of the electricity market now because of their misinformation campaign regarding nuclear.

Everytime greenpeace protests a nuke plant, a coal exec buys a new SUV...

This is a circular argument. The political problem exists because of groups like Greenpeace. If it weren't for the mass hysteria, France would probably rely even more on nuclear energy than they do today.

Here is a link to the new PBR design that was refernced in the posts above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

I am not nit-picking, I am looking at the reality: When all is said and done, nuclear power plants cause emissions equal to 1/3 to 1/2 of that of a gas-powered plant. Nuclear power isn't low-emission, because of mining, refining, and transportation (mining/refining/waste management).

And what of uranium mines and waste disposal sites?

But nuclear is not the long-term answer. It is reactionary fix. (i.e. "Energy crisis! Quick, build nuclear!") More isn't always better. But this really is a conversation for another thread.


Greenpeace needs to change tactics. What they did was wrong, and not really effective in terms of changing views on the issues. This is why I'd rather support the likes of David Suzuki.

I don't think it's possible to protest peacefully. It sounds like an oxymoron to me. I mean, if you're so peaceful, how are you going to get your message out? "Peaceful" is an awfully subjective term, no?

The only people I feel sorry for here are Lucifer and his crew. Lucifer, you are my friend and I can deeply empathize with wanting to get off the ship. I'm sorry you were stuck on the boat longer than you wanted to be.

I support Greenpeace's actions, and for those who argue that no good can come of it, know that I am renewing my donations to them because of this thread. Change comes from shit-disturbers and the way they spread awareness.

Perhaps it would be better to join directly? How are your ship climbing skills?

Please don't joke about that. There was too much ship-related death in my summer to end up with that kind of nonsense at the end. These things aren't toys, and they are quite dangerous to be on. If you don't believe me, check out my journal.

I'm on your side, I think people supporting this kind of crap have their heads in the wrong spot. You can guess which spot :)

MLK Jr. never hurt anyone.

Physically, no. Economically, he absolutely did. Just ask the lunch counter owners and the Birmingham bus drivers. The whole point of his civil rights movement was to use economic pressure to solve the problem. You could use the term "economic violence" and wouldn't be far off the mark.

The US is currently using economic violence against Cuba that's had mixed results.

You're right, but I meant that having one's peace disrupted does not necessarily mean violence has been inflicted on them. No one was hurt on Lucifer's ship, yet the question was raised, "Do you call this a peaceful protest?"

If a protest doesn't upset someone's sense of peace, what's the point?

uh, I don't know fellas, I think the connotation of 'peaceful protest' is pretty obvious...I'd say there's some misdirected quibbling going on here.

Which kind of brings me back to what rb was trying to get at, and that is - is the issue this specific Greenpeace event or the idea of protest as a legitimate form of political action?

I'd guess the results of a poll on this thread to be about 50/50.

Economic violence? I'm kinda surprised at this sentiment. He caused a negative economic effect, of course, but to suggest that this was in any way something that can be called "violence" seems so totally incorrect that I've actually had to look up the word violence because I feel like I've lost my grip on language for a minute.

To make something clear, as one who has committed non-violent protest: when we, the protester, use the word "non-violent", we specifically are speaking of physical harm. When GreenPeace uses the word "non-violent" to qualify their protesting, they are specifically speaking to their not wanting to physically hurt anyone. We're not saying we're not going to inconvenience people. As a matter of fact, that's often the idea.

As for Martin Luther King Jr., inconveniencing some racists was the best thing he could have done and helped to change not only the transportation system, but actually brought about a real change in society. Had that bus company wanted profit, they could have caved before the planned boycott. Had the restaurant owners not wanted to take a hit, they could have allowed black americans to use decent restroom facilities, drinking fountains, and to sit where they please. It was up to them to figure out which side would be less profitable. If they had a lot more white customers, and were racist, they could have ignored the boycott. If, however, you realize your consumer base is black, then you plan accordingly. Instead, they stuck to their racist guns and took a hit. That's the free market.

so maybe we should wonder what exactly "peaceful" means.
obviously the notion of "violence" is mobile, a political matter: what constitutes violence is a matter of argument or perception. generally, however, folk who talk about social violence build in assumptions about assymetry of power--so it follows that in this case, the greenpeace activists would not be committing anything like a violent act because (a) there is no explicit violence, only inconvenience and potential for physical harm--potential that was not realized in this case and (b) the activists are operating in an assymetrical context. the only feasible way to equalize the power relations involved with the action is to cut it off from all wider contexts, view it in isolation and then construct interpretations based entirely on this narrowed view--which is what this thread is about.

but does this mean that lucifer's interpretation of the action as violence is therefore illegitimate? clearly he felt victimized by the action...and mapping the response onto greenpeace results in the argument that the action is piracy--which operates to the exclusion of considering it a protest action.

so who gets to designate what is and is not violence?
if you push this terminology to include any real or perceived boundary violation, is non-violent protest possible?
but if any boundary violation can be interpreted as violence, then it would follow that political protest itself becomes impossible--because by its nature political protest involves boundary violation. even a licensed demo that walks meekly up a city street between rows of police, beneath rows of fbi arrayed on rooftops taking photographs in the way that the state "security" apparatus has since, say, prague 1968---even that involves boundary violation insofar as it transforms city streets from spaces of flows to spaces of protest and in the process inflicts Inconvenience on Others.
boundaries are maintained then when there is no Inconvenience, and violence is just another word for being put out by the actions of others.
in which case, the "ethical" argument is that there should be no Inconvenience. therefore there should be no political protest.
another way: the argument is that any boundary violation is violence, so therefore private property boundaries are sacrosanct and take priority over the right to protest. any violation of private property is violence, is terrorism: a kid who crosses your lawn on the way to school is a terrorist; a demonstration on the streets is terrorism, greenpeace activists board lucier's ship are terrorists. everyone who fucks with private property is a terrorist.

so a non-violent society, from a bourgeois viewpoint, would be one in which everyone "stayed in their place" and those places were understood as natural boundaries. political actions of any kind would then be violent IF they did not remain the affairs of authorized agents who operated in authorized spaces and did not in so doing pose any Inconvenience--which is apparently, judging from alot of the responses in this thread, the criterion around which distinctions between violence and non-violence are made, once you abstract the notion from wider political arguments and treat it as if it were still meaningful.

that's quite an argument.

the qualifications so far have been mostly on the order of: i support the right to protest in general, but oppose it in particular. so you like the idea of political protest and think that should be enough. we can think about protest, but any given protest is violence.

the other trajectory in the thread has been a strange indirect debate over the validity of the *cause* for greenpeace's actions. this seems entirely beside the point--a better question would have been whether it made sense to board the ship if the coal industry itself was the target. this because the fact that one might disagree with the way greenpeace frames its positions regarding energy production does not in any way impact upon whether greenpeace has the right to protest, to organize and act upon their views, regardless of your agreement with the arguments. that there is a debate about energy sources in this thread is an indication that greenpeace's action was justified because it engendered that conversation about alternatives to coal. so it seems to me that the fact of the debate above over nuclear power concedes the legitimacy of the greenpeace action. it demonstrates that the action was legitimate as a political action. engendering the debate is part of the point of the action--the action is not geared toward the assumption that you would agree with greenpeace necessarily--the action is geared around prompting debate. and it did. so the claims within that debate concerning greenpeace's action itself seem to me empty--you lost the argument when you started debating.

"Expecting to be in physical danger because of them is totally unreasonable and unfounded." How the hell am I supposed to know that this certain member of Greenpeace is going to be nonviolent? I don't go about my day assuming that everyone is not going to harm me (quite the opposite, actually). Believing that because someone is a member of a group they won't harm me is a great way to become a victim. Believing that is the "unreasonable and unfounded" assumption.

I'm with MSD.

Because I'm telling you? :thumbsup:

Seriously, there are a lot of different socially active organizations out there that range from harmless to dangerous. GreenPeace is non-violent. That means they're not going to light anything on fire, bomb anything, or attack anyone. It's not an assumption; it's a fact. Contact GreenPeace or research them. GreenPeace is known for things like tying themselves to things, standing in the way of things, and tagging.

The point is that when someone breaks into your home, car or comes over the rail of your ship, you don't know that they are going to be peaceful. Unless you've got xray vision and can see under their clothes to see if they've got weapons, you have to assume that anything can happen! Just because someone announces that they are with Greenpeace and are non-violent, doesn't necessarily mean that they are! I can tell the world that I'm with Greenpeace too - it doesn't make it true. The 9/11 hijackers didn't wave their box cutters in the security line and announce that they were planning on being violent - they looked just like everyone else, which is why they suceeded.

They called first, identified themselves, and laid out clearly their intentions. Give me a break. :shakehead:

While, I can agree that Greenpeace is technically non-violent, the thing that has most of us worried, and this is what I said in my statement to the police, is that Greenpeace has effectively let the genie out of the bottle with this action. No ship has ever been boarded in the Great Lakes in this manner before. We are all afraid that we will see more types of this action in the future. While this protest may have been non-violent, who is to say that the next one will be. The next time it could be the Sea Shepard Society, or ELF, or it could be actual terrorists. The Great Lakes is the lifeblood of the American and Canadian industrial heartland. I couldn't count the number of American and Canadian Steel mills and smelters that are re-supplied from ships on the lakes, not to mention the grain ships from Thunder Bay, Duluth and Superior. Scuttling a ship in the Welland Canal, the St. Lawrence Seaway or the Sault Locks would effectively paralyze the industrial sector for months.

You can't say you're a member of GreenPeace and thus be a member of GreenPeace. All evidence available and precedence without exception can tell you that you're more likely drown in a puddle than be attacked by a member of GreenPeace. Again, it's unreasonable and unfounded to believe you're in physical danger from any member of GreenPeace.

I'm still surprised there's anyone in the coal, nuclear, or oil industry who haven't familiarized themselves with GreenPeace.

see my last (now edited) post #129

Will, are you just arguing to argue, or are you serious?

GreenPeace is an organization of people. People are inherently unpredictable. Your statement can be word-for-word translated to other organizations and you probably wouldnt agree:

Do you see how assuming something about someone PURELY based on their organization is a TERRIBLE idea? Do you see why it is unsafe? I don't care how convinced you are that they aren't violent, there are probably violent people in GreenPeace.

And you know what? If I were thinking of being a true pirate and taking over a ship at sea, I think wearing a GreenPeace shirt would be a really easy way for me to do it. I'm not actually a member, but if the boat is full of people like you, you'd immediately trust that I had no violent intentions.

Lucifer didn't know them from Sam; how is he supposed to assume they're not violent just because their jackets say GreenPeace?

This thread is showing me that a lot of people out there don't understand protesters at all, and it's really frustrating. I'm 100% serious.
The difference, of course, is that the Catholic Church, Muslims, and Congress never have suggested, as whole organizations, that they are non-violent, and also they have a history of being responsible for and directly connected to violence. Neither of those is true for GreenPeace.
It's based on precedence. GreenPeace has never been violent. Ever. In over 30 years and hundreds or possibly thousands of actions, not once has a GreenPeace member become violent. They've had violence done against them, of course. So, by precedence, the tanker crew is actually more likely to become violent than the protesters.

Sure, it's not completely impossible for a member of GreenPeace to become violent, but is so unlikely based on reality that planning for or expecting it is unreasonable. A Buddhist monk could become violent, too, but are you going to wear body armor into a monastery? Shit no. Why? It's completely unreasonable.
You'd be the first. Ever. In the history of the whole species. Think about that.

He'd be the first person ever to use group association as a means to gain implicit trust from another group and thereby infiltrate that group to his own ends? Or he'd just be the first person to do so imitating Greenpeace?

Either way, I think the question of "is GreenPeace" violent is somewhat less important than the point that lucifer brings up in his post 129. If these types of protests become more common in the Great Lakes, at what point do we decide that it's interfering too much with a vital trade route between Canada and the US. Since RB wants me to say it, I will just say that given the choice between the two, I'd have protesting go out in favor of trade with our biggest trading partner.

The concern is that this single incident looks like it cost lucifer's company in the neighborhood of $50-100k dollars in terms of actual expenses and opportunity cost. And the people who perptrated the act aren't really getting punished all that severely. That might make it a tempting way for other protesters to try to disturb this vital trade route. Furthermore, just because GreenPeace is the ones doing it now, that doesn't mean that ELF et al won't notice that it's not being taken very seriously and do something that's not "peaceful" on a ship. (yay I used a slippery slope argument)

Really, I think protesting is one thing. Boarding a ship is quite another.

I meant GreenPeace, but I'm struggling to think of anyone becoming a member of a non-violent organization in order to mask his or her violent intent or actions. Nothing comes to mind.
They won't interfere with maple syrup or zinc. It's very specifically things like coal and oil. And if they succeed, then gas and coal prices will rise, and the industries will have to raise prices for consumers. In this way, GreenPeace and other organizations are forcing people to be responsible. Let's face it, leave most people to their own devices and they'll act like big idiots.
I think it's called a slippery slope fallacy. A fallacy is an argument based on flawed logic.

ELF knows it'll get punished no matter what it does because they are VERY violent. They are classified correctly as a terrorist organization, and are treated as such. If someone called ahead and said ELF would be boarding their ship, one could call homeland security and have helicopters there in minutes with armed men.

On the flip side, you're showing me that you don't understand the "protect myself and property" mentality. I do not go about my day believing that no one will hurt me, or that someone does not wish to hurt me or my property just because they claim to be part of an organization that doesn't hurt people.

I'd much prefer to err on the side of being prepared and assuming someone is going to hurt me then be hurt and think "gosh, I wish I had been ready for that."

If someone is boarding my ship or climbing into my car without my permission I don't care who they are or what group they claim to be part of; they are a threat to my person and my property. Of course you have to match force with force, but the rule still applies that it's better to be safe than sorry.

if the aim of Greenpeace was to stir up the masses by this questionable protest, they really failed. i was in Ontario when it happened and it was on the media radar for about a day and then was gone.

I think the viability of such actions are questionable. They were trespassing on private property. Unfortunately, I foresee more events like this, particularly where greenhouse gases and global warming are a hot political issue.

I am biased, I don't like Greenpeace, I think they are just as corporate as the shipping company, only their business is "activism". And if the reaction of people in small town Ontario is a barometer of their success, they just came across as a bunch of assholes.

Welcome to the future of political activism. I'm overwhelmingly disenchanted with the tone of this discussion.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...speechzone.jpg

And you know, I hope everyone on this thread will take a moment and think about what their lives and our world might be like right now without the tradition of social and political protest.

And it's highly irrelevant - what you think of this protest in particular. The issues are not yours to pick and choose. What some of you are speaking for are the ideals of political repression and assassination and I think it's pretty ridiculous...to put it nicely.

Protests are not all the same.

There are plenty of ways to legally protest.

Illegally boarding and seizing a ship at sea is not one of them.

I can attack this protest without somehow subscribing to the slippery slope argument that if I block ANY protest they soon will never occur.

That's like saying that my by disapproving of PETA protests where they dump red paint on someone wearing fur I am supporting a protest-free America where we have Free Speech Zones.

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins. "

There are plenty of effective and legal ways to protest coal and oil harvesting and transport, just like there are plenty of effective and legal ways to protest the skinning of animals for clothing.

Dr. Moore is someone I personally respect and seems to understand whats going on in the environmental movement. What drove me from it in the first place. Of course now that hes not waving the anarchist flag hes considered nothing but a corporate shill, but then who would have thought the best way to help the environment was to work with the existing power structures to make it better when you could be painting 'no nukes' while pirating vessels on the great lakes. They call him an 'eco-traitor' I call him a grown up. Perhaps it coincidence he left the folds of the environmental left (though then it wasn't thought of that way) the same year I saw the light, perhaps thats when things finally got 'bad'.

Who would have thought the environmental movements would be a victim of the end of the cold war, but I can't fault his logic based on what I saw myself at the time.

Fear not fact, the montra of the modern 'environmentalist'.

For will:

You stand on a thin sheet of ice when you claim that something has never happened, particularly in the history of an organization.

Seems like hyperbole to me mixedmedia.

My thought is that whatever economic damage greenpeace has caused (repainting the ship, salaries and operating costs of the ship for the time it was detained) should be repaid by greenpeace. I can't think of a sensical reason for them not to be liable. Maybe they don't pay indirect costs like lost sales, but direct costs seem like a no brainer to me.

And will, your definition of violence seems strained - I doubt you'd argue about the emotional violence inflicted by racism.

I wonder if any of them thought about the fuel that was being let go by the ship the whole time the ship was waiting for these pansies to climb off.

Or the chemicals that have to be used to repaint the ship.. etc.

DUMB.

The shipping company can sue for the expenses incurred, because without the action of these noodles, the expenses wouldn't have been there. It's pretty simple.. really.

I guess few people understand that protests are meant to inconvenience one party. If they didn't, they wouldn't be effective.

I am referring to anyone on this thread who advocates for the position that these people should have been shot. And those who believe that any protest that interferes with 'trade' is not legitimate.

I've said this about a million times before, but no they can't.

It is not hyperbole. I'm not saying that Greenpeace shouldn't be liable and I already stated that these folks should be charged with trespassing and vandalism - just like most political protestors who break the law in our more enlightened age (while it lasts).

Money is totally beside the point - to me. Only it seems that now I live in an age where money is the only point. Pardon me while I express a little dissatisfaction with that fact.

Is an illegitimate protest like an illegal war? :rolleyes:

No one has a 'right' to protest in an illegal fashion. This was not a 'legitimate' protest, it was a crime.

Since you probably don't know much about my stance on the war, I'm not sure what that comment is supposed to mean.

*edit* Many organized forms of protest break the law. That in and of itself does not make it illegitimate.

You've repeated that over and over, but without any coherent logic or supporting evidence. That's why the issue is still being discussed.

MM - gotcha. I didn't understand that your "free speech zone" picture was directed at the shooters only. Regarding a world in which money is the only thing that matters... I share your dismay in a sense, but it's just how it is. I'm not condescing to you - I'm commiserating with you.

Well, uber, yes, the shooters.

AND the people who think political protest should be meek and mild and always performed within the confines of the law to be legitimate. This makes absolutely no sense to me given the history of political protest. It's nonsensical.

But, I wasn't feeling testy with you...sorry I came off that way.

It doesn't matter what your stance on the war was, it was to make a point.

I always found the concept of an 'illegal' war asinine. No war is legal ever. Legality is not something that applies to war.

Much like the idea of a legitimate or illegitimate protest. It was a protest and it was a crime. I'm not sure what an illegitimate protest would entail, they could have blown up the ship and it still would have been a protest, and a crime. The two do not meld.

If you could give me an example of a illegitimate protest maybe we could get some where since criminal activity obviously doesn't make a protest illegitimate in your eyes.

Again, statistically it would be more reasonable to prepare for anthrax in the mail. Being prepare for a danger like GreenPeace attacking is about as reasonable as preparing for, say, the second coming of Christ. Some people may want to do it, but they're crazy for thinking it's reasonable. You're wasting your time and energy thinking you're in danger from or preparing for an attack from GreenPeace.
They shouldn't have boarded the ship. It was stupid. That said, there still wasn't any danger.
This is probably what we should be talking about (instead of preparing for an imminent attack from GreenPeace). Obviously, GreenPeace had good intentions, but not only was it dangerous to board a ship (for them, they could be shot boarding a ship if they were confused for a pirate, which I guess is a reasonable mistake...) but either no one knows or cares, or people are pissed. It was a big fat failure, and it's a shame that the leadership at GP wasn't able to formulate a better plan. I'm thinking about joining just to make them more effective in their tactics. Boarding a ship is exciting and fun for them, but it's the wrong way to deliver the message.

Thank you, hagatha, for reiterating an excellent point.

Ustwo, first off thanks for providing links. Second, read your post again. GreenPeace isn't doing anything violent, and the suggestion that GP is 'associated' with other groups like 'Black Bloc' seem to magically appear without any citation or evidence. One can say GreenPeace is associated with ELF if one was so inclined, but that wouldn't make it true. Sometimes they share goals. That's it.
Yea mean like comparing a peacefful protest to someone holding a gun to your head? :lol:

Jinn, those un-linked articles are pretty weak. Spraying seals with a dye isn't violence. There is zero evidence to suggest that it has any effect on their ability to stay warm, and The usually blue color that seals are sprayed with could theoretically help them more than hurt them when they're in the water, where they spend a vast majority of their time. As for Poor Paul, he he left GreenPeace in 1977, 10 whole years before the incident in question. Why was he kicked out? You'll love this. GreenPeace didn't approve of his tactics. Crazy, right? I'm sorry, but this is really cut and dry.
Emotional violence is different than physical violence. When GP says it's non-violent, as I've said, they mean they will not commit physical violence. They will commit emotional violence, and may even damage property (so long as it doesn't put people in danger), but they will not commit violent acts that put anyone but themselves in danger.

What the hell...? I really think I type for my own enjoyment.

You can't sue for revenue you haven't yet earned, nor can you sue for the expenses you accrue due to operating your business. If you could, then no one would protest as any protest resulting in monetary losses to the company would be liable for suit. The point of a protest is to hit a company where it hurts, and that's it's wallet. They're meant to be inconvenient.

It's not hard to understand.

Ustwo, while I do agree with your point about the protest and it's "legitimacy", you're completely wrong about the legality of war. There have been rules and laws of warfare for well over 1000 years. Typically broken rules have only been enforced by the victors, but analogy that you're using to make your point sucks. You should find a new one.

You cannot apply the adjectives "legitimate" or "illegitimate" to the word "protest". The latter exists completely independently. Perhaps those words can be applied to the groups doing the protesting, but I do not see how any protest that is simply that can be legitimate or otherwise.

You are sadly mistaken. You can hope that a corporation can't sue you for something.. but big business can do whatever the fuck they want. These expenses have nothing to do with future revenues.. it has to do with the fact that the actions of a certain group of people caused an expense to a company that was otherwise non-existant.

If I cause you to wreck your car and injure yourself, I'm liable for the damages and lost wages because of my actions.. just as these fucks actions caused expenses that would not have otherwise been incurred.

It doesn't matter if it's a protest or not. It doesn't matter if it was piracy or not. The fact remains that these people caused an inconvience to the corporation that resulted in a loss and it can be taken to court.

Even if a court decided they couldn't sue for the expenses of being held in port, they will be able to sue for physical damages.

The fact remains that if these people wanted to be "peacefull" about protesting, they could have simply rode along beside the ship with loud speakers etc protesting and proclaiming their message.. they didn't need to put people in danger and cause vandalism.

WHOA, WHOA, wait a second. I enjoy them, too. :thumbsup:

[Start Threadjack]
And none of them applied in any of those wars. It doesn't matter what people write down, it matters what they do and wars are never illegal or legal, they are just won or lost.

Was it legal to bomb Pearl Harbor? For the Japanese yes, for the Americans no, the answer was not decided in court but in combat, the US won and the attack was therefore 'illegal'.

The Japanese committed war crimes to the Chinese civilians and US POW's. Had they won, these would not have been war crimes. On the other hand the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the firebombing of Tokyo would have almost undoubtedly lead to US leaders being put up on war crimes charges.

There are no laws in war, only gentilemens agreements. No court can enforce its will on a hostile army, which is why the law does not apply. Only the side in power can decide after what was legal and what was not.
[End Threadjack]

Caveat - I don't know if this applies to Canada.

Yes, you can sue for revenue you haven't earned yet but expected to. Yes you can sue for EXTRA operating expenses.

The question is does the damage to your business trump someone else's First Amendment rights? Typically no, but most companies aren't motivated to sue because of the bad publicity.

I can't see my company suing over this. We've already had a bad summer, publicity wise, and really didn't need anymore.

*See below*

Lucifer, the best way to stop protests is twofold: relating to them and false promises. If by some chance this happens again, confront them immediately, feed them a line about how this is 'one of your last shipments' or how your company is 'seeking alternates' by the worker's request or some such garbage. Make them think you're one of them. Then, convince them what they're doing is wasting energy and/or is bad for the environment. Lie if you have to.

If that doesn't work, switch tactics. Stop them from getting on the ship by preventing them from moving forward. If they try to walk up a ladder, be in their way when they get up to the deck and don't move. If, by some chance, they make the mistake of pushing you, they've assaulted you and you defend yourself.

No, corporations can't do 'whatever they want'. They can try, but it doesn't mean they're going to be successful. Expenses are, once again, occurred as a result of normal business operations. You can't sue someone for a cost associated with running your business. That wouldn't make sense. You can say that they 'cost' the business $40K, but I can tell you for a fact that they didn't. Such figures are typically just estimates and are rarely ever accurate.

You can sue for 'lost wages', but you won't get it 99/100 simply for the reasons I stated above (This I know, for my mom's a claims adjuster and deals with this kind of stuff every day). You didn't earn your paycheck for the day because you didn't work. It's really simple.

Erm... Duh. That's what a protest is designed to do. Do you think MLK Jr's sit-ins didn't cause a loss of revenue to the companies involved? You think they weren't inconvenient? That's the point of a protest.

For trespassing and vandalism? Sure. For piracy and unearned revenues? Not a chance in hell.

Then they should be liable for the vandalism and trespassing. Nothing else. From what I read, the only lives they endangered were their own.

You know, I was actually thinking about this post. You're right. If it was a whaling ship or a Japanese tuna ship that catches and kills dolphins or PETA breaking into labs and releasing animals, I would say, yeah, go protesters.

Hence, I agree with you stance on this topic, you can't pick and choose, you either accept social/political activism or you don't.

I think Hagatha wins the thread. Open, honest, not confrontational (one of my weaknesses).

Well perhaps I am putting words in your mouth using the word illegitimate, but I'm too tired right now to go back and see if someone used it and if so, who did.

But the gist of what I am getting at is that there seems to be among some participants of this thread, the presumption that these protestors crossed some 'sacrosanct' boundary by costing this company money. I think that's absurd.

Some protesting may be illegal, and some wars may be illegitimate, but the idea that protests shouldn't have any costs is so far beyond unreasonable. What if 74% of the public were to protest the war by buying only 50% of the gas they'd normally buy? Would you have the oil company sue the people for lost potential profits? Of course not. You see, just as MM said, that's absurd.

I chalk up Greenpeace with PETA and anyone that would blow up an abortion clinic.


Oh and any other extremest group that goes way outta their way to make other people lives harder. All the while thinking they are making the world a better place. But never getting any closer to a solution to the problems they've chosen to fight for.


Fuckin' morons.

Sounds like we're conflating illegitimate and illegal. Rereading the replies in this thread, that's where many of the disagreements focus.

That's not an entirely apt analogy, will. Not buying a product is not the same thing as preventing the company from transporting it in an open area (detaining the ship) and defacing their property, which will require expensive paint and manhours to fix.

Mixed - it's not exactly that I think money trumps conscience, but I do think that the financial penalties should flow both ways. Labeling something a "protest" shouldn't be a license to damage property, break the law, and cause financial havoc without compensation. After all, who's in the position of determining which protests are legitimate. What if it was Exxon protesting Shell's market practices? Do THEY get a pass?

Some of you may blow this off because it looks obvious on the surface, but I'm not so sure that I see anything greater than a difference of degree.

I get you, uber, but I have never stated that they should have a pass.

Part of my problem here, as it is often, is that I am thinking in much broader terms than the focus of this thread. But that's just the way I think. And personally, I think that's the only way to really think about this issue. Otherwise it's just bickering about personal tastes... oh yes, and shooting people. Everybody go back and look at the pictures of these and imagine shooting them...here I'll make it easy for you, which ones would you shoot first, these guys?

http://gallery.greenpeace.ca/main.ph...serialNumber=2

or maybe her?

http://gallery.greenpeace.ca/main.ph...serialNumber=2

Sounds like a bunch of big fucking talk to me.

Personally, I don't give a damn about this protest, but it is the attitude towards protest that has been engendered amongst some posters here that has caused me to, once again, become dispirited about where 'we' are headed in regards to our values and, in this case, our lack of respect for revolutionary perspectives on society and action - especially among young people. It seems more and more that anything anyone does to complain or rock the boat on the level of social activism these days is met with escalating levels of antipathy - whether we are talking about PETA or Greenpeace or racism in America or celebrities in Africa. But at least these folks are passionate about something outside of their own petty little lives (which they are folks! deal with it!) and are putting themselves out on the streets (or the high seas) to try and do something about it. I respect that.

Sorry for my off-topic rant, but I guess I am showing my age. Some days I really love TFP and some days it makes me feel old and out of step. This is one of the latter days.

MM, I'm 24 and I completely agree. So you're basically a 24 year old. You can now tell people you're 24, and they'll believe you!

ubertuber, I'm referring to the thread in general (and not your post) when I ask: Where is all the sympathy for these for-profit companies coming from? Now, I'm quite aware that Lucifer works on the ship, but I hardly think that Greenpeace is putting his job in jeopardy. Even so, I'd be happy to put him up should that ever happen, so no worries there.

Another fear we all might have is that if we say it's alright for Greenpeace, it's alright for terrorists. Whatever a "terrorist" is, I think that's a slippery slope argument.

We also might think that if it's alright for Greenpeace to do this, then it's alright for Exxon to do it. Well... I don't see it as a matter of degree. I see a clear line. As far as I know, Greenpeace exists to spread awareness and to educate on the state of the failing environment. Exxon exists to make money. I'd like to think that the forward thinking humanists here would throw their weight behind something in the pursuit of knowledge and saving our asses on this planet.

I don't think that one can successfully argue that there is a systematic and appropriate way in which we should hold a protest. I mean it's supposed to shake things up, and if the cause was truly great enough, I might even support violence(but, I guess we call this civil war no?). The only way one can judge it is using a case by case basis. My problem, if that wasn't clear in my initial post, is not really with the method. It's with what they're protesting. I don't think what they're protesting necessitates these kinds of actions.

So not supporting the right of people who believe one thing to trample the rights of other people who believe something else means that I'm a backwards moron who is against all forms of social progress and protest?

There is a DIFFERENCE between the right to gather and speak and protest and protesting which destroys property or trespasses on property or otherwise violates the rights of others. I don't know why you've reduced this conversation to the absurd extreme that free speech should only take place in a desert far away from everything else, because I don't think that anyone is saying that. I have a healthy respect for the environment and the cause for clean energy.

You may respect people who blindly adhere to a cause regardless of their impact on others. I respect people who have respect for other people. These people don't and are so consumed with their misplaced entitlement to be the savior of the world that they're willing to deprive other, random people of their time and money and ability to conduct their lives as they wish. Lucifer's a guy making a living who wanted some well earned free time off his ship. They're so caught up with "sending a message" that they've totally ignored the fact that real, normal people like them want other things out of life, and in fact they relish disrupting these people's lives.

If thinking that it sucks for people to pull that shit with very limited consequences, then I guess I'm exactly what you're describing. I think there are ways to effect change, but I think that what these people did (and any similar action) is not one of them. I guess I'm small, petty and selfish. Sorry for not being more globally minded.

Because its not against the law at this point not to shop.

Pot, see kettle....

http://www.treemo.com/files/treemo.desiree.17711.dd.jpg

This is a noteworthy thread.

carry on...

Lucifer, why didn't you guys just cut the boarding ladders?

Ustwo, I don't think you know what strawman means. Strawman isputting fourth a misrepresentation of the other party's argument, and then arguing against this incorrect argument.

Really?

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To 'set up a straw man' or 'set up a straw man argument' is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman

You put forth a misrepresentation of our argument-i.e. the public should be liable to gas companies if they don't buy gas-which is easy to refute and then attributed it to us. How is that not a strawman again?

'cause we're not stupid, insane or murderers. Read my post again about how easy it is to die by falling off the ladder

I was hoping you would have been able to do it prior to someone being on it. I suppose I don't quite understand the time-line of the event...

LOL... where to start?
I was proposing a hypothetical situation that was similar to your proposition. The parallel was speaking to a corporation's right to sue for lost possible or projected earnings because of losses from a protest action. It's not a strawman because I'm not misrepresenting anything.

A strawman would have been to directly address your proposition and misrepresent that.

But the problem, willravel, is that you are making an inconsistent comparison, because one action is illegal and the other is legal.

The protesting itself isn't illegal, the loss of profit isn't illegal. Just getting on the boat and tagging it, really.

If the protest consisted solely of illegal acts, I would call it an illegal protest.

Solely?

Isn't this the whole point of Lucifer's thread? That they violated the law during their protest by boarding his ship?

A hypothetical dealing with protesters doing absolutely nothing doesn't fit into the realm of the discussion. Had you used a hypothetical in which the protesters vandalized the gas station while breaking into it, then the analogy would be apt. At that point, one could argue that the owners of the gas station could seek damages for the loss of business and the cost of the cleanup.

I'm still not 100% sure what the thread is supposed to be about. By my understanding, and leaving the threadjacks about nuclear power, how GreenPaece is going to kill you, and what a strawman is (oh man, I've been in all of those...), this whole big thing is about how Lucifer was pissed at the circumstance. I don't blame him for that, of course. He was inconvenienced to say the least.

I guess that means this thread jumped the shark.

I'll say it once again, if your complaint is that this protest broke the law then you are complaining about nothing new. Protests break laws all the time. Sometimes that's even the point.

If your complaint is that this protest interfered with trade then you are complaining about nothing new. Protests interfere with trade all the time. Sometimes that's even the point.

When you argue against this form of protest, you are arguing against a huge chunk of events in the planet's very important history of protest.

If you don't have anything against protest as a form of political action, 'twould be better just to say you don't think this was a very effective protest and leave it at that.

NO, NO, NO. This 'whole big thing' as you put it, is cause Lucifer is trying to understand the limits of 'peaceful protest.' They said that they were going to protest us 'peacefully', we said 'okay', and kept on coming. If we'd understood that 'peaceful' in their eyes meant vandalism and trespassing, we'd have gone to MARSEC 3 at that moment, and either stood off shore out of reach of them, or had the whole crew out lining the rails so they couldn't have gotten on board.

And if for anyone who thinks I'm wrong about my predictions of more incidents, here's a link to another site with story and pictures about them blockading and vandalising another ship, this time in the Saguenay River, on the 14th.

http://kleercut.net/en/node/895


And while we are on the subject of Lucifer...I seem to have been lumped in with 'the man' over the course of this thread, just because I was on the ship that was boarded. Just for the record, I support protest as an effective means of change, but I also support the law. For me, 'peaceful' doesn't mean anything that gets the police involved and someone gets arrested. I'm a member of Project Green, an award winning, student-led environmental group here at Memorial University. We have a bike sharing and a ride-sharing program in place, as well as other environmental initiatives. I don't own a car, instead I walk, bike and take public transportation whenever possible. I recycle, which in the city I live in costs me about $14/month, because the city doesn't have a recycling program in place. Instead, each household can put out up to 10 bags of garbage each.

Wil's comment about the 'maple syrup and zinc' trade not being affected by this action is probably the most asinine comment I've ever read in TFP. Did you ever wonder where the road salt for Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Toledo, Superior, Duluth, Cleveland, Erie and all the little places in between (like Muskegon, home of Iggy Pop) comes from? It comes from Goderich, Ontario, a tiny little town with a very large salt mine. And it comes in all year to American cities on Canadian ships. An average bulk laker can carry 25,000 metric tonnes of cargo, not just coal, but salt, gravel, iron ore, stone, cement and other bulk commodities. In relation, the average dump truck can carry about 20 metric tonnes. So each laker is carrying the equivalent of about 1000 dump trucks. Think about that for a minute! That's 1000 more dump trucks on your highways for every laker that stops running. The great lakes trade is dying already. Each year there are fewer and fewer ships carrying cargo. We can't get crew and officers to work on them. The trucker's lobby in Ottawa and Washington is more powerful than the shipper's lobby. Already, some of our contracts have dried up and gone to the truckers, who can carry year round. Nanticoke generating station (and others like Lambton, Recors, Marysville) burns 5000 tonnes a day (!!) in the summer trying to keep up to the energy demand. When we made the dock finally and could start to unload, they were so desperate for the coal, we fed the burners directly from the dock. I agree the burning of coal is a bad thing (that's why I consistently support governments who promise to stop coal fired generating stations), but I also know that there is nothing in place to replace it yet. Windfarms are springing up all over the Great Lakes from Duluth to Sault Ste Marie to Tobermory, but there aren't enough of them yet. There is an overseas shipping company, the Wagenborg line, that has the contract to bring in the windmills. It would have been nice if an American or Canadian company had that contract instead.

What nearly always happens on the internet is that just about every person who posts in every thread has somehow come to believe that they are expert enough on a topic that they can speak with authority and confidence on any given topic. I can assure you that just about everyone reading this thread did not know anything about your last paragraph, but they'll insist that not only are they an expert on the topic, but they invariably know more than you. I have learned to take on the belief that 99% of people who claim authority on a topic are full of shit and are just hoping they don't get called on it.

These people exist everywhere on the internet. In one thread, they're a doctor, in another, they're an artist, in yet another, they're a race car driver, and in still another, they make the hot dog buns used in ballparks. You name the thread, that's their expertise.

Sorry to hi-jack this thread in yet another direction. Just wanted to add my expert opinion on opinions.

Lucifer = The Man?

Seriously, that makes this entire thread worthwhile (not that it wasn't already) and may be the Most Wrong Analogy I've ever seen on TFP.

Anyone who's met Lucifer IRL should realize what a joke that is. If anyone here is The Man in the connotation of Corporate America, I'm certainly on the short list. People that live lives of adventure and travel don't qualify.

Thanks for the chuckle, Lucifer.

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.

Don't make me post the chill pill again. I'll do it. I'm loco.
Peaceful is non-violent. That's how protesters speak. Did they shoot you? Did they strike you? Did they blow a hole in your boat? No? Then they were non-violent. If you get word again, phone the coast guard or whatever policing force has jurisdiction over your location. It's not difficult. If the protesters do something illegal, then they are stopped and arrested.
I don't recall anyone in this thread saying this wouldn't bring about more protests.
Wouldn't that make you a hypocrite for working for the coal industry? I mean if I, an avid anti-war type, were to work for Haliburton or be active in the military... well that would send out a rather mixed signal. I intend no offense, of course, but you have to see how being an environmentalist that ships coal is a bit odd.
Well you need to do your homework then. Aside from the joking comment about syrup, playing on an old cliche, zinc is Canada's largest export. Hardly asinine when speaking of shipping, I'd imagine.
So you're expecting GreenPeace to stop a boat carrying... salt? I wouldn't call that asinine (that'd be rude), but it hardly makes sense. Salt isn't on the GP agenda.
Perhaps the shipping companies will ship coal separately after this. That way only one ship gets stopped and the salt can flow. Or maybe, just maybe, they stop shipping coal. Now you see how GreenPeace works? All the salt, gravel, iron, stone, cement etc. will continue because it's still cost effective. The coal, on the other hand, will be less cost effective to ship.

I've read this thread with interest, my viewpoints have been expressed various times.

I don't like a cherry-picker discussion but this statement really caught my attention, in that it referred to doing homework and stated a falsehood.

Zinc is by no means Canada's largest export. Granted, until recently Canada was the world's largest producer of zinc. China now produces significantly more zinc than Canada, and Australia is pretty much on par.

They were non-violent, yes, but they were not entirely peaceful. "Peaceful" also implies actions that remain in accordance with laws. As a protester, if you break laws, you aren't being peaceful.

Disrupting a legitimate business' rightful activities isn't what I would call peaceful. But I think we've established that protests aren't necessarily supposed to be legal. Not all of we Thoreaus will decide to pay our poll taxes.

It's a semantic exercise. When they, GreenPeace, use peaceful, they specifically mean non-violent. Whether that's your definition or not is your propagative.

Good catch. You're right, it's probably cars that are their largest export. Googling it actually told me that Canada's largest export is trash. Not sure if that's true...

It's more so the prerogative of the courts.


[*Nice Freudian slip, by the by. ;)]

Commandeering another mans property against their will is never peaceful, ever.

The fact that Greenpeace is now controlled by radical nut balls who don't even understand the causes they are 'fighting' for only makes it more absurd.

Shame that the shipping company was so worried about potential bad PR that they let these hoodlums disrupt shipping. I think they overestimate how much people really give a rats ass what Greenpeace does these days. This sort of childish behavior should not be tolerated and they needed a spanking.