Infinite_Loser

*See below*

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Willravel

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.

Infinite_Loser

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.

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hagatha

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.

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Willravel

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

mixedmedia

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.

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Willravel

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.

World's King

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.

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ubertuber

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.

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mixedmedia

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?



or maybe her?



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.

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PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Willravel

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!

aberkok

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.

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albania

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.

Frosstbyte

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.

Ustwo

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

Pot, see kettle....

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ARTelevision

This is a noteworthy thread.

carry on...

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debaser

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

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Willravel

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.

Frosstbyte

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?

Lucifer

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

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debaser

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...

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Willravel

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.

Baraka_Guru

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

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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Willravel

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

debaser

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

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Willravel

Solely?

JumpinJesus

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.

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Willravel

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.

Frosstbyte

I guess that means this thread jumped the shark.

mixedmedia

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.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Lucifer

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.

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JumpinJesus

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.

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The_Jazz

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.

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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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Willravel

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.

Bossnass

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.

Baraka_Guru

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.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

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...

Baraka_Guru

It's more so the prerogative of the courts.


[*Nice Freudian slip, by the by. ]

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Ustwo

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.

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