The meaning of peaceful protest
 

On the 30th of August, my ship was entering Long Point Bay on Lake Erie, heading for Nanticoke to unload coal. At about 7:30 am, we received a radio transmission from a Greenpeace ship, who informed us that they were going to peacefully protest the fact that we were carrying coal to be burned at a generating station. At around 8 am, with no warning, a Zodiac pulled alongside us, while we were still underway, someone on board it threw a boarding ladder over our rails, and before we could react, two activists scaled the ladder and chained themselves to our unloading boom.


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

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

(Keep in mind how incredibly dangerous this is. If that person was to fall, they would die. No question about it. We were moving at 12 knots (about 14 miles per hour) and 300 feet behind that person is a propeller consisting of three 9 foot high blades! A woman was killed this summer in Montreal because she decided to go for a swim off a yacht when a ship was passing! she was sucked underwater by the propeller wash and drowned.)

Next the people in the Zodiacs painted "No Coal! No Nukes! Clean Energy!" on the side of the ship.

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

On orders from our head office we reduced speed and went to anchor to await the proper authorities to remove the people from the ship. Once the propeller stopped, a third activist suspended herself from a lifting point above the rudder, in an attempt to prevent us from moving again.

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

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

Again, seriously dangerous, not only to her, but also to the ship. If we had dragged anchor (if the anchor started to slip and move along the bottom), the ship would be helpless to prevent ourselves from running aground, and possibly causing an enviromental disaster.

After about 4 hours, the Ontario Police Tactical Terrorist Unit came alongside and removed the activists.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...enpeace012.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...enpeace020.jpg


In my opinon, this isn't a 'peaceful protest'. When a ship is illegally boarded while at sea, it is considered piracy. Under the International Maritime Organization's Maritime Security Act (which both Canada and the USA are signatories to), any illegal boarding of a ship raises the vessels security level to MARSEC 3, which is a terrorist act. If we had been in American waters when this happened and we had informed the US Coast Guard of a terrorist act, these two 'activists' would be in a lot more hot water than they are in Canada! Here, they've been charged with two counts of criminal mischief apiece.
Not to mention, the cost of the cleanup of the ship's side ($2000 of marine paint, not to mention the overtime cost of the crew to repaint as quickly as possible); the cost of having a fully loaded ship sitting idly at anchor for 24 hours ($40,000/day): once a ship goes to MARSEC 3, there are specific procedures that must be followed to return to a normal operating level and it takes a while to do; and the emotional cost to the crew. I (and 7 others) were supposed to get off for scheduled vacation that day. Having to wait another day may not seem like a big deal to some, but keep in mind, I had been on that ship for 4.5 months without a dayoff! The rest hadn't been off in 3 months. My watchman had a cracked forearm suffered in a fall two days before and had to wait an extra 24 hours before seeing a doctor!

Now, TFP, is this a peaceful protest?

Lucifer, I would only attribute this form of protest as nonviolent which I think is often considered "peaceful." But as you have pointed out, "peaceful" protest can have significant physically "violent" consequences. Decades ago, I supported Green Peace's effort to protect endangered whales by surrounding the whale, and that effort led to meaningful protections that have brought back the whale populations. But this particular action is reckless and radical, and I believe borders on eco-terrorism. This group could have tried to hamper the delivery of coal at the dock, but I think they wanted higher "drama" to insure greater news coverage. I suspect that they got the greater coverage they wanted, but perhaps at the cost of their credibility as a "peaceful" organization.

Whomever dreamed up this operation needs to spend some time in prison to reconsider methods of addressing the clean air issue.

Boarding a ship like that is piracy and the pirates should be shot before they are able to get on board.

And nuclear energy is clean, efficient, and the only current viable way to reduce fossil fuel dependency

Pirates. Should have shot 'em. If you're that stupid to board a ship illegally, you need to be shot.

I'm not sure if you can call it piracy if they didn't do anything like kidnap, murder, steal, or sabotage (causing a certain amount of damage). I think it depends on territorial laws.

And as far as nuclear energy is concerned... clean & efficient? Did you forget to factor in construction, waste, and disposal costs?

Oh goodie...wouldn't that be a great news event.:orly:

Greenpeace wants us to give up on our fight with mother nature. Wake up people or we'll never win. Maybe they just ran out of things that made sense to protest against. Unless they have some feasible, cost effective (magical )solution to the energy issue it seems sort of asinine to protest.

i'm all for a more "green" way of living but this is stupid.

I mean yeah it's better than loading the shit with explosives and going "FUCK COAL MOTHER BITCHES!" in sky writing, but still, it's pretty dumb, it doesn't target the people who matter. The people who matter are you and me. We need to make our own decisions about what kind of energy sources we support by voting or being active in politics where it counts. This...this does nothing but make people want to act in opposition to spite such absurdity.

"Peaceful protest" has taken on a bizarre and particularly twisted meaning. "Peaceful" to these protesters apparently means that they do not threaten to actively harm you in your physical person (i.e. they won't hit you or push you or shoot you) but they're thrilled to and intend to cause whatever manner of emotional or financial discomfort they can by whatever method they can. If you've ever watched a video of the Seattle WTO protests, that fact will become abundantly clear. For some reason, to them, it is "non-violent" and "peaceful" to barricade a street so that a person can't get to work unless they "force" their way through a chain of people who have locked their arms together. The poor person trying to get to work, then, finds himself the "violent" one because he has to move the other people in order to get past them.

Trespassing is ok, nuisance is ok, making things difficult or impossible for other people is ok. They're twisting language to suit their needs and purposes because to do otherwise would make them less sympathetic and more like the people they're so eager to stop.

In this case, they're going particularly to the extreme. They were trying to prevent the cargo from reaching its destination. Though pirates are usually smart enough to take the cargo for themselves, depriving the rightful owner of their cargo by illegally boarding the ship sure sounds like piracy to me. They should be treated no less harshly than any other pirate or terrorist. End of story.

Makes me want to club a baby seal just to spite them.

*NOTE: QuasiMondo does not condone or approve of the use of clubs or other blunt instruments to bring harm to baby seals, sea lions, and other creatures of the sea, land, air, and outer space, if such animals exist. QuasiMondo cannot be held responsible for individuals who would like to do such things.

Like Elphaba, years ago I supported Green Peace, even sending them a portion of a tax refund.
This...is fucking stupid and they aren't very well informed.
Except for brainless stunts like this, Green Peace has no clout, no credibility and very little viable agenda, IMO.
Wonder if I can get my donation back after 16 years?

Edit: This just occured to me. How was their boat powered? Didn't think solar power could get a boat to move....And, looking over their site(they really are out of touch with reality), I noticed they went by submarine to study life underwater...can solar power/wind power work underwater?

arg i hate green peace... can't they just get a life...

When one of the founders of Greenpeace thinks they have been taken over by wackjobs I think he has a point (no time to find the article).

I miss when they were known for protecting whales.

i dont see the problem.
i dont think it a particularly great action, but i dont see the problem with it.
its a standard type of greenpeace action.
they apparently like zipping around in zodiacs (tm).

anyway

the op is strange.
i cant figure out the point.
is it

(a) to present a view of the action from the side of folk who are positioned as "the man" by it even though they are simply working for a shipping company--which raises the question of whether and how thse who transport goods on a contract basis are complicit in the system of usage that is the object of the protest.

this seems kind of interesting.
why is no-one addressing it?

(b) the fact that the community kinda knows lucifer, in the way that we know anyone via 2-d, makes the responses to the post curious. i cant figure it out: is the logic above "we know lucifer---we empathize with him--- therefore greenpeace sucks?"

if that's not the basis for the various "greenpeace sucks" remarks above, then what is?

i have no iron in this fire, so am curious.


(b.1) given the way in which the op is framed, it is almost an interesting diary entry. in which case, there is no larger political point being raised--it is simply an experience that is being relayed.


(c) that a protest inconviences has no bearing on whether it is peaceful or not, useful or not.
this kind of action is SUPPOSED to inconvenience.
it isnt about stopping the use of coal in general--it is theater.
all direct action is theater.

you could object to it by saying that the action did not take account of the feelings and responsibilities of the ship's crew, and that would be true--but so what?
are you saying that you oppose any such political action?
or that you only oppose this one because you found it inconvenient?

from here the question becomes a version of (a).

variation: when did it come to pass that inconveniencing those affected was meaningful in judging a political action?
if the protest is directed at an element of the normal operation of the status quo, then it follows that there would be some value--if fleeting--in disrupting that status quo.
the problems with this follow from the idea of direct action itself, and not from the inconveniencing of people as a function of direct action.


sure, it would have been better for you, lucifer, to get on with some time off and for your crewmate to get medical treatment faster--but do these factors obviate the political expression of the activists?
or is it that you might support such political expression so long as it doesnt affect you?
i really do not understand what your argument is on this.

ancillary:

that such an action can be interpreted legally as piracy doesnt make it piracy.
this is obvious.

that "security" hysteria is as it is means nothing. that greenpeace could be taken as a "terrorist group" indicates that the law involved is so badly written that it makes no distinction between "terrorist" and peaceful protest. given that, i dont know why you'd invoke it. unless you see yourself as some kind of victim of a "terrorist action"....

You need to hire some ninjas to deal with these pirates.

Who would be better equipped to deal with the problem?

You are endangering a ship and its crew with unqualified peaceful protesters. This by the way was the point of the original post. Even though you are not shooting gun or blowing up bombs, it doesn't mean you are peaceful. Purposely endangering lives in a symbolic gesture for TV coverage may not be as 'bad' as a suicide bomber, but its not 'peaceful'.

Facts:
1) Piracy is robbery committed at sea. Their intention clearly was not to steal anything, nothing was stolen, therefore it was not piracy. They illegally boarded a vessel in international water.

2) No one was hurt, and the protesters clearly intended no physical harm to any of the workers, therefore it's non-violent.

If they would have blown a hole in the hull, then that would be considered a 'non-peaceful' protest. As it stands, all they did was cause you a minor inconvenience. Annoying? Yes. Worthy of the term piracy of terrorist? Absolutely not.

One could argue that they robbed the company of revenue (to the tune of $40,000 per day) and other expenses.

I understand what you're saying, but they were not paid the $40,000 per day. Their only benefit was personal satisfaction.

What they did was vandalism.

If I held a gun to your head, never intended to shoot you but wanted to get out the news for my cause would it be 'non-violent' if no one got hurt?

Or less extreme...

If one of the police unit sent to deal with it fell to his death trying to get someone off the rigging would it be 'non-violent'?

They were acting in an unsafe manner, on a ship whos working I doubt they understood well, in a publicity stunt.

And yes they did steal, they didn't 'take' the coal, but they cost the company involved a lot of money. They intended to hurt the operation of the coal plant as well. I'm not a lawyer but I'm sure if there is any point in suing greenpeace they would be liable for damages.

I'd call that apples and oranges. They had no weapons. Their intent was clear: stop the ship and vandalize it. Being a pansy green liberal myself, I can say with reasonable certainty they wouldn't have gotten violent.
If he was pushed, then it would be violent. If he fell because he slipped, he's clumsy and it's natural selection. Unfortunate, but to blame the protesters is like blaming the owner of the refrigerator that started the fire a fireman died in. Circumstance would have been to blame.
You don't need to be a lawyer to understand that no theft occurred. The Greenpeace people didn't walk away with that which was lost by the company, so there was no theft. Had Greenpeace taken the coal off the ship, then there would have been a theft, and thus piracy.

You can't 'rob' someone of unearned revenue.

You didn't answer the question but it can be skipped, its just to get people thinking what 'violent' is.

If you start a malicious fire on purpose and a fireman dies I think you are guilty of manslaughter. I've heard of arsonists charged with murder for that sort of thing before. Likewise you put these men in danger by your own illegal actions. As a direct result they were put in the same danger. Had one died it was your illegal action which resulted in their death. Law and fire officers put their lives in danger every day because of people doing stupid stuff, but to do something stupid on purpose raises it from 'job hazard' to 'willfull endangerment'

It would be easy to argue that they 'captured' the vessel since it was unable to go about its business due to their illegal actions. As such it would be larceny (they deprived the owner of their property) and I'd call it piracy as well. Just because they didn't go into port to sell their prize doesn't mean the ship wasn't in effect commandeered.

What you see as a peaceful protest I see as the capture of a ship at sea. Do you think the crew had any right to stop them from doing what they did? Say subdue them and put them in a makeshift brig? What about shooting them as they tried to board?

No, but there are quantifiable losses that the ship's owner took. Greenpeace should be held liable for them.

It blows my mind that some of you people think that boarding a ship is a legitimate form of protest. Is coming into someone's house or car also legitimate? Why is a ship a different and less protected form of property than one of those?

Their intent was to reduce the value of the ship and its cargo to zero, thereby depriving the owner of his property. Though they wanted it to just disappear instead of taking it for themselves to sell, their intent was to take it from the rightful owner and do with it what they wanted. Think outside the box a little bit. That's all robbery is-taking something from someone else so you can do what you want with it. The endangered a ship and its crew, themselves and the rescue personnel who were required to forcibly remove them from the ship.

Do you think there should be no punishment for that? That it's just "creative free speech"? Your rights end when they interfere with my rights. The company took quantifiable losses as a result of this action. People were put in peril. They trespassed on property and illegally boarded a ship at sea. I think a slap on the wrist is wholly inadequate.

They aren't deliberately creating a situation where a rescue vehicle or person will be in danger. They are only putting themselves in danger. That's now a lot of nonviolent protest work. I myself have put myself in front of things that could hurt me in protest. It was not to put in danger those who would stop me, but to help those who are in the process of doing something harmful to allow their humanity (not wanting to kill me) override their want to do what they're doing. It's really quite simple.

If, as an example from the Simpsons, I were to live in a tree expected to be cut down, I would only be putting myself in danger to prevent that tree from being removed. The police are under no obligation to put themselves at risk to stop me, and are free to find alternatives that are less dangerous if they choose to try and get me down.
It's a very weak argument to say they captured anything. The protesters joined workers on the boat. The only reason the boat didn't move was because the helmsman (correct term?) didn't want to hurt the protesters near the rudder. BTW, looking at the picture, the protester would have been fine assuming the line she was on was strong enough. The ship could have moved easily, therefore there was no capture.
Shooting them would have clearly been excessive, as they made their intentions clear before even boarding the ship when they radioed them. They radioed in over a half an hour before the initial boarding. I would have just notified the coast guard. I mean how far out can the coast guard be on Lake Erie?

Where did anyone say that? I must have missed it.

Your defense of what they did in the first part of post 27 sure makes it sound like you think this is legitimate. What did you intend for it to mean?

I'm arguing that what the protesters did wasn't piracy and was non-violent.

What they did was wrong. They should not have boarded the ship, and they should not have committed vandalism. There were better options, and as a protester, I feel like these people give me a bad name. A better way to have done this would to have gotten a permit to protest at the docks where it was headed, on a public street, and had local media covering it. Bring pictures of people who are victimized by the pollution and information in flyers outlining why you're doing what you're doing.

While this swashbuckling bullshit looks impressive, it tends to make more enemies than friends and that defeats the purpose.

Edit: an even better idea (yes, I'm a genius) would be to get in contact with the coal miners union and push them to request training for green energy work, saying that since the market may be moving away from coal soon, they need job security. Maybe get them training to construct solar cells or to work on hydro electric or wind power stations.

The protesters didn't 'join' us on board. They boarded illegally. Illegally! And in an unsafe manner while the ship was underway. We didn't invite them onboard. By that reasoning, it would be perfectly allright for me to come to your office and sit on your desk interferring with your ability to work, as long as I didn't get violent towards you.

http://members.aol.com/plittle/StrawmanPoster.jpg

Read post 29, please.

So given that we both agree it was wrong for them to do that, instead of snarky jpegs, what do you think ought to be done to protesters who illegally board a ship like this? We've expressed our opinion that they ought to be treated like pirates and given our reasons as for why. I think the analogy is perfectly appropriate, though, technically you are right that he did not specifically address your point.

lol!

irrelevant comment: they did have balls...

I love snarky jpegs. They help to literally illustrate my points.

Attacking them would be like attacking protesters having a sit in at a restaurant. It would be assault.
Call the police immediately and then cooperate with the police when they get there. Until then, act responsibly. The best way to stop a protester is to meet them with equal force. If they try to board your ship, get between them and getting on. If they move towards sensitive parts of the ship, put yourself between them and that part of the ship. Only take reactive action, and you've already won. It's really that simple.

Sorry Will you lost me with 'joined' the workers on the boat.

We will agree to completely disagree.

I know this has nothing to do with the current conversation at hand, but Im interested in who took the pictures?

I don't know why people are getting all worked up over that. The vessel was illegally boarded by protesters. Joined is simply a descriptive term, and I never excused their going on to the boat. Enough with the strawmen already. Jesus.

I was kinda curious about that, too.

I understand that this was a pain in the ass, and perhaps not a particularly effective pain in the ass, but a completely valid pain in the ass within the historical realm of political pain-in-the-assism.

Anyone remember the Boston Tea Party?

How's it quantifiable? There's no evidence to say that the company would be $40K richer right now. Said number is simply an estimate and, in most cases, isn't accurate. You can't sue for losses of revenue that you didn't earn, otherwise any protest which resulted in the loss of revenue for a particular business would be liable for a suit. The only thing which they can and should be held liable for is vandalism.

Sorry again will, but its not a straw man, I really find none of your arguments compelling. We know you and I have different world views and standards of evidence. To me it was the illegal capture of a ship at sea and green peace should be liable for damages, and had any police or crew been injured or killed as a result of that action, held accountable for that aspect as well.

The cost of operating a ship per day is not difficult to determine.

Boarding a ship =/= Illegally capturing a ship.

One is trespassing. The other is piracy.

On the point of using the word "joining" I was not in any way excusing the boarding of the boat or claiming that the action was not illegal. That was my point.

The other point's are simply disagreed on. Ultimately, we both think GreenPeace made a mistake in their strategy. On that we can agree, no?

That terroristic tactics have worked in the past does not excuse them in the grand context of civilized society, nor should I be ok with these protesters (who I don't agree with) because I agree with the motivations of the Boston Tea Party.

You're still not answering the question, will, no matter how illustrative your graphics are. I think these people ought to be CHARGED with piracy and Greenpeace made financially responsible for the losses sustained by the company. What do you think should happen to the PEOPLE who did something that we both agree was wrong?

The grey area, IL, is that they didn't just board the ship. They inhibited the ability of the ship to do its job. To some of us, that essentially constitutes taking control of the ship. In order to not hurt these people, the ship stopped moving and had to raise its security level and had to call the coast guard. That means it wasn't delivering its coal and it was sitting there not being useful. No they didn't drive the ship off, but they didn't board and offer the crew some beers, either.

Does no one read my posts?

1.) Trespassing isn't piracy, no matter what way you spin it.

2.) You can't sue for profit you haven't earned. If you could, no one would ever protest.

They should be charged with what they did - trespassing and vandalism.

I'm reading your posts, IL. :)

Those that boarded should be charged with any legal trespassing laws that might be in effect in US waters, and those that wrote no nukes (wtf?) should be charged with vandalism. There's absolutely no reason to consider this care piracy, as IL and I have both insisted all along.

BTW, what definition of terrorism are you using when you describe these people? If it involves violence, then I'll have to disagree there, too.

We're not talking about lost profits, but there are costs incurred that lucifer laid out very plainly in his posts. Why shouldn't the protesters be liable for those quantifiable costs?

Edit: I'll use extra-legal instead of terroristic. Happy?

Let me try this another way: Piracy typically involves theft. What, exactly, did the protestors steal? The most they're guilty of is trespassing and vandalism. They shouldn't be held accountable for anything else because there's nothing else they did.

$40,000 isn't the loss of revenue. That's the daily operating cost of running a bulk cargo ship, give or take a couple thousand either way. The cargo of coal was over a million.

The last two photos were by me, the others came courtesy of greenpeace.

I may be wrong here, but doesnt this apply?

http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multi/texts/BH825.txt
UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF THE SEA


I bolded the word detention as this is certainly, to me anyway, what the protesters intended on and did.

I love these photos. I feel like I am there except I can't yell "WTF" at the top of my lungs.

I guess there's just no reasoning here. I hope you feel the same way when you lose time and money when your property rights are trampled by "peaceful protesters," because I simply can't fathom why this seems like such a benign intrusion to you.

Erm... Expenses are the result of normal business operations; You're going to incur them no matter what. I don't understand how you could sue someone for that.

Anyway, if I decide to sit outside Wal-Mart and protest, costing them around $10K in profits for day, should Wal-Mart be able to sue me?

wal-mart does what wal-mart wants.

For fuck's sake, yes! YOUR RIGHTS END WHERE ANOTHER'S RIGHTS BEGIN. You cannot deprive someone of the total value of their property without consequence. Not even the government gets to do that (go read the "takings" clause).

(Id really appreciate it if someone would read what I posted and tell me if Im misunderstanding what it says)

http://www.exceler8ion.com/wp-images/Chill-Pill.png
Please, take a few deep breaths. This thread is getting a bit heated.
If the act of stopping the boat itself was illegal, then it may constitute the legal term of piracy, but it would be easy to argue against that point in court as law cannot rewrite semantics. Any dictionary will tell you that piracy constitutes theft specifically and has nothing to do with detention. Based on the actual meaning of the term piracy, as opposed to the above description, GreenPeace is not guilty of piracy. And, as Frostbyte says, the piracy itself is when the private party profits.

Still, it's a good point.

Great way to totally not answer the question :rolleyes:

Well, then you don't understand the law (Nor business). You can't sue for loss of profits you haven't yet incurred. Why? Because there's no guarantee you would have made those profits.

The most the company can sue for is trespassing and vadalism and that's the way it should be. Otherwise, no one would ever protest as they could be sued the second the company takes a monetary hit.

The messy part comes later in the sentence where it says "for private ends" which would create a question of whether or not their action was for public ends (their argument) or private ends (the shipping company's argument). I think it'd cut towards the shipping company, personally, but that's obvious.

Edit: I'm sure I'm right about what I wrote in that sentence and would be happy to flood this thread with legal authority for it, if you want it. You keep talking about profits and we're talking about operating costs wasted because of third party actions. You either don't understand what we're writing or your blindly ignoring it. But if you're so sure, go build a wall in front of the doors to a store and see what happens.

the people who said the activists are pirates will agree that you understood it correctly, while the people who said the activists were not pirates will probably disagree.

i, as a neutral party, think that you understood the meaning just fine.

[QUOTE=Infinite_Loser]Great way to totally not answer the question :rolleyes:

:thumbsup:
only cause i don't see a high five smiley...

Your desk copy of Websters is NOT the definitive definition of what constitutes piracy, Will.

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
(article 101) defines piracy as follows:
“Piracy consists of any of the following acts:
(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for
private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft,
and directed:
(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property
on board such ship or aircraft;
(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of
any State;
(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with
knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;
(c) any act inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in sub-paragraph
(a) or (b).”

http://www.imo.org/includes/blastDat...D7430/1073.pdf

International Maritime Organization

um Lucifer dear...I already posted that and asked if I was misunderstanding it because of the word detention in it lol

Ummm... Yeah... If you were reading my posts you'd know that I already addressed the expense/operating cost issue. Those are costs incurred as per normal business operations. You can't 'waste' an expense.

If I tried to build a wall in front of the Wal-Mart stores I'd more than likely be arrested and sued for trespassing/vandalism. I never said that said protestors shouldn't be sued for trespassing/vandalism, but that they shouldn't be held liable for expenses/unearned revenue.

yes, shani, I realize that. My beef is with Wil's dictionary as a definitive legal source

I don't think this is what Mahatma Gandhi had in mind.

satan is tech savvy. i guess i'm not all that surprised.

excuse me, lucifer...is the blue part of your signature from a book by tolkien?

It's better than lighting yourself on fire.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they have a pretty good idea how much it costs them.

i still dont see what lucifer was arguing in the op.
so far from the thread, nothing has been explained.

the argument concerning piracy seems to me moot: the argument regarding losses to the shipping company trivial. two problems with the last argument: (a) no context.
factoids without context are worthless.
for example, what tonnage is being transferred, how many days did it take and what did the shipper pay? how much does the shipping company stand to make off this transfer? but even with that information, the claim is still trivial...

(b) map the defenses of private interests over political rights above onto the matter of principle...

it looks like is that a segment of the folk posting to this thread effectively oppose greenpeace's right to protest at all--but they wont say as much, so prefer to hide behind property claims.

but look at it this way: private property is a legal construct. as a legal construct, they are extensions of state power. as extension of state power, they are also political. as political, private property claims operate at the consent of the governed.

following from this the right of the public to protest overrides private property claims. they implicitly suspend the illusion of consent. they involve, then, the assertion of public interest over private interests. if that is the case, then the private property based arguments against the greepeace action are moot.

so if there is no principled basis for opposing what greenpeace did that can be rooted in a claim that private property supercedes the public's right to protest, then the claims above regarding the material losses sustained by the shipping line because of this action amount to arguments against the right to protest at all.
do you actually believe that private property obviates the right to political protest?
if you believe that, then you oppose the right to politial protest at all.
why?

Okay, then let's look at that law:
Do you understand what this means? This means that when a pirate does something, it's for personal gain. That speaks to intent, which has been the subject of my posts since the beginning. Did the protesters benefit privately from boarding or stopping the vessel, or were their acting on behalf of the public? I'd say it's pretty obvious they were acting on behalf of public good which exempts them from the "private ends" description.

There.

I dont get whats so hard to understand in Lucifer's question in the OP

he wants to know if this was or wasnt a peaceful protest

I don't know why I keep coming back to this trainwreck....

shani:

the answer to that question is self-evident. there is no complexity introduced by the story. there is nothing interesting about it on this score.

but there is interesting stuff raised by the story--just not by way of the question.

the debate has unfolded around these questions--and not in the main around the question itself.

the debate as i see it is about whether greenpeace has the right to protest at all. i dont think you or several others who have posted here believe that greenpeace has any such right. the usage of the piracy law indicates as much. if you consider the boarding of the ship to be an act of piracy, then you oppose the right of greenpeace to undertake political actions of this kind at all. you do this when you eliminate the self-evident differences in intent between a political action and piracy. (this last bit refers to your post above among others, but my argument is not directed primarily at you.)

i'd just prefer that folk say it outright.

whoa wait a minute.....I made no comments other than posting the maritime def of piracy because I felt Will had the def of what a ship in international waters incorrect, and saying that the way I read it they did indeed pirate the ship....I said nothing to indicate whether I agreed with it or not (oh and I asked who took the pictures)

i only react to what i read, shani, not to what isnt there.
if your position is more complicated, then please, by all means, lay it out.

please show me where I stated a position as to their right to protest

Protesters have the right to protest, but they also have the obligation to deal with logical consequences. Furthermore, their right to protest without consequences is limited by their tacit agreement to protest without infringing on the rights of others. That is to say, when you infringe the rights of others in a society, society punishes you for that action.

Protesters, simply because they have a political message, should not be free from having to take on the burdens caused by their protests where it infringes on the rights of other people. They should be willing to take responsibility for accidental deaths or property damage caused by the actions, they should be willing to take criminal consequences and they should be financially liable for the losses incurred by those on whose property rights they infringe. Like in contract law, this would be damages for sufficiently clear losses as opposed to the ambiguity of "future profits."

Protest all you want-but if you board a ship and someone dies trying to rescue you or the company has to pay to maintain a ship an extra, unnecessary day because of your actions or your die because you fell into the water, that's YOUR burden, not society's and not the person whose rights you invaded.

if you want to discuss this, then let's go that way.
if you dont, then we can stop here.
either way, this snarky little exchange is over.
so either make a move or dont.

============================
frosstbyte: i dont follow. so you're saying that private property claims do obviate the right to protest in that the former can impose prohibitive costs on protest actions. and that's ok with you.

so it would follow that greepeace may have the "right" to protest, but its empty. in other words, they can talk about protesting, but if they inconvience Trade, they're liable.

so trade obviates the right to protest.
that seems to follow logically from your position.
is that what you mean?

One does not necessarily have to exist to the total dissolution of the other. They could follow the ship all the way to port and protest the coal all the way to the factory and protest outside the factory as much as they wanted, but as soon as they INHIBIT the trade process, they become liable for any costs or consequences (criminal or civil) associated with that inhibition.

I don't think they shouldn't be allowed to protest, just that when protesting creates loss, the protesters should be liable for that loss which would not exist without their interference.

try again....me posting a definition to try to clear up the meaning of the word as it applies to maritime laws and NOT the dictionary and saying that the way I read thats what they did in NO way defines my stance on the rights of protesting. How does me posting a definition equal me saying they did or didnt have a right to protest?

And me asking you to show where I said that they did or didnt have a right to protest (which is NOT the same as defining what they did) is not snarky..trust me when Im snarky there is no doubt about it

So is it all about intent? In that case the ship should have continued on its merry way and unloaded the coal with those two morons strapped to the boom. Hey, the intent was to unload coal, not mutilate the two air-thieves, right?

These people make me ill. Find me a cleaner viable source of energy than nuclear.

Anyone?


*crickets chirping*





That's right. The French had the right idea.

shani: dont worry about it. if you dont see what i am asking you at this point, then there's no reason to continue.

==================

frosstbyte: you do see what i am asking you, though: i was clear about what you said, i think, and understood my previous question to simply state the conclusion that followed from it. which i think you basically confirm, though it also seems that you dont like that conclusion. which i understand.

say that the logic behind the greenpeace action is to protest the flows of coal as much as the vendors and end-users. say they make no particular distinction between these 3 terms. you would effectively restrict their right to protest to shadowing and yelling things. stopping the flows--even for a short time--would not be illegal, but would subject them to prohibitive costs.

what i dont know from your posts is if you would recognize a right to protest counter to any legal claims like the one you appear to think legitimate, and whether the court case (hypothetical court case) would turn on this same issue.

for the sake of this argument, i'll simplify my position somewhat and say that the ability to inflict these costs of a protest group erases the right to protest in all meaningful senses. so it comes down to a matter of which you find more important: the rights of the polity to protest or the ability of corporate entities to generate profit.

i outlined the logic behind my position in no. 69 above--the quick restate: property relations are legal relations--law is an extension of state power--the legitimacy of law then rests on the consent of the governed--so it follows then that relations inscribed within a legal system have only limited purchase on protest actions because these actions indicate problems at the level of consent.

based on that, i dont think that corporate entities have any claims that should restrict the right to protest and that any transfer of costs engendered by protest would be obviated by the priority of the right to protest.

this is a simplification of my actual position because there are obviously limits that i would accept on what a political action can and cannot do or be--but i also support the right to revolt, so the matter becomes more complicated--but also runs off the edge of what is being discussed here. so for present purposes, that's the argument.

This ship could have moved considering the location of the protesters.
Wind and Hydro leave no radioactive waste whatsoever.

Viable, will. You can't power the even a medium sized city with wind or hydro. And hydro opens up a whole new can of worms (ie flooding large areas and destroying ecosystems)

thank you captain obvious.

:shakehead:

I don't have anything other to contribute to this thread but personally I feel the need to step up and say I think you're being a bit snide and condescending in your post.

Chill out.


of all the things to argue about in the world, this really isn't that important nor up to our concern. *shrug*

the company and greenpeace will do thier deal as they see fit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam
The Itaipu Damn puts out 12.6GW. The largest nuclear reactor in the world puts out 3.0GW.

To put it in layman's terms (which I need, I don't know jack about electricity), The Itaipu Damn powers all of Paraguay and part of Brazil. 34 billion kWh is enough electricity a year to run NYC. Itaipu puts out about 93.4 billion kWh per year. So this one damn alone can power almost 3 whole New York Cities.

And could you not have put 4 nuclear plants on the 1350 square kilometers that was flooded instead?

If you'd like to create 4 nuclear reactor's worth of waste... I suppose. Of course the land wasn't a wildlife refuge, no one was living there, and there is no waste whatsoever.

BTW, they actually helped to create a wonderful aquatic ecosystem there.

Nuclear waste isn't really waste, it's more like concentrated nature.

And from your article:

There are plenty of bodies of water no where near people. One could damn in certain places along the Nile or Amazon claiming land where there are no people.

Then how do you get the power to where you need it?

What's your definition of viable? One of the hottest debates in Ontario right now is centred around the impractical prospects of nuclear as a source of energy. The projects go over cost, they are wasteful, they increase the chances of an unhealthy environment, and they require uranium (which will likely skyrocket in price in the near future), etc.

The long-term solution for most areas is shifting focus to renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable development.

Nuclear makes us all ill.



And hydro isn't about dams exclusively; think run-of-the-river hydro.

Usefull energy on a scale that is economicky feasable at present.

Who? May the inhabitants downwind of Chernobyl, but then again the Russians are absolutely incompetant when it comes to nuclear safety.

Coal fired power plants put more uranium into the atmosphere a year than are in the cores of nuclear plants. And the stuff in a fission reactor you maintain control of and bury, returning it to the earth in a less radioactive form than it came out.

The simple fact is that nuclear is the only commercially viable non-emission technology that exists presently, all paranoia to the contrary.


Free flow hyrdo is a great thing, but it makes a river un-navigable, which increases reliance on fossil powered land transport, which is far less efficient than water transport. It also effectively kills the economies of most inland communities in South America which rely on the rivers as thier primary transportation.

Nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive.
Forsmark, Sweden almost had a meltdown just last month.

BTW, the Russians are second only to the US when it comes to nuclear safety.
http://library.thinkquest.org/3471/r...o_body_low.jpg

Yes, but the amount of energy that can be extracted from uranium makes them the most efficient form of energy over the life of the reactor.
But they didn't, did they.
That depends on what you define as safety. To get the results you mention above you must:
A. Discount military reactor incidents.

B. Non-incident releases.

Niether of which I am comfortable doing when talking about nuclear safety.
Cute graphic, but it isn't exactly how nuclear contamination spreads. Add to that the fact that sites such as WIPP and Yucca Mountain are sealed environments and it becomes rather irrelevant.

Gentlemen, this is all very fun, but it is way off topic (and I accept responsibility for that). Let us continue elsewhere and agree that the douchbags who illegally boarded that ship should be chum now, if it were not for the kind hearts of seafarers like Lucifer.

(his screen-name makes that last sentence quite funny)

I'm all for peaceful protest, but this is obviously dangerous and ill-conceived. Jail the little buggers.

nuclear power is expensive because the y are outdated, we haven't built a plant in a long time. but look at France, 80% of there power is from nuclear, and they do just fine.

that's just wrong, i can't find anything that happened last month, but the incident i think you are referring to was over a year ago, and it was no where near a meltdown:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...ar_Event_Scale

If any of you motherfuckers were really concerned about energy you'd quit talking about how to make it and start talking about how to use it better. I mean motherfuckers in a nice way.

Riding a motor boat out into the ocean to perform essentially empty sloganeering about renewable energy shows a lack of understanding about the actual nature of any impending energy crisis.

If these people are pirates, then they are the most trivial, uninteresting pirates i have ever heard of. I didn't see a single eyepatch, pegleg, or parrot. I'm just going to say it: They weren't pirates, even if they perhaps met the legal definition. Here's why:If you, as a pirate, have to point out the fact that, yes, you are technically a pirate, then you have failed at being a pirate. It's that simple.

I have. The key. To one eye willie.

This made beer come out of my nose.

Ummm... Ocean water is the future. Haven't you heard? Scientists have figured out a way to burn salt water using radio waves.

/endofftopicness