[Vision2020] My Column / Megaloads & Hippies

[Joe Campbell]

Thanks Paul. I wanted to post on some other threads. In general, I know
little about the oil sands project. My horse is really in the way council
handled it -- WS teaming up with GR on a day when Tom Lamar was missing and
deliberately deceiving the Mayor about what was going to happen that
evening. The interests of the people who voted for Tom and Nancy were not
served that evening. This is a wild abuse of power, as I see it. That's the
real issue as far as I'm concerned -- the one that won't get reported in the
MP Daily News.

One quick comment. You write: "I don't know about Henry, but I'm not saying
'it's not my business, I don't live there' about the oil sands project.  I'm
saying that it should have nothing to do with whether or not we allow
megaloads to travel our highways.  In the same vein, the waiter at Starbucks
should not refuse to sell coffee to the people driving the trucks and the
local motels should not refuse to allow them to stay there, all in the name
of saving the people affected by the Kearl oil sands project."

Doesn't Starbucks have the right to say who it will or will not do business
with? If they wanted to refuse service to particular individuals they could.
And for that same reason, the waiter has the right to refuse to serve
certain people. It might cost him his job, but he gets to decide with whom
he wants to do business. And the waiter can try to rationally persuade his
employers not to serve the truckers, for purely political reasons. I'm not
saying anyone should do this. Why take it out on the poor truckers, who
already have stressful jobs in an anti-union era.

The fact is people have the right to draw a line in the sand here and now on
the oil sands project. I say this as someone who is in complete ignorance
about the oil sands project and many other environmental issues. I have no
position on the matter but I have the right to hear these arguments from
these people before the city takes a position of approval; a right to see
that debate played out in front of me, not behind closed doors. At least I
thought we had these rights until they were recently taken away by Walter
Stead, Dan "the Man," etc.

I'm not a hippy, although I'd like to be one.

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 8:57 AM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  I'm literally heading out in an hour on a four-day long trip, but I just
> wanted to clarify something here.
>
>
> On 06/09/2011 08:40 AM, Art Deco wrote:
>
> The Henry Johnsons and people of similar ilk who say of the oil sands
> projects "It is not my business, I don't live there" and do nothing are not
> much different from those who would ignore a child with gasoline and
> matches.  Due to the blasé ignorance and arrogance of the pro-megaloaders,
> the eminent danger of  the oil sands projects is not so temporally and
> visibly near as a field fire, but in the long run the oil sands projects are
> much more likely to have long range, wide spread, extremely adverse impacts
> than a child dying and a neighborhood being destroyed in a field fire.
>
>
> I don't know about Henry, but I'm not saying "it's not my business, I don't
> live there" about the oil sands project.  I'm saying that it should have
> nothing to do with whether or not we allow megaloads to travel our
> highways.  In the same vein, the waiter at Starbucks should not refuse to
> sell coffee to the people driving the trucks and the local motels should not
> refuse to allow them to stay there, all in the name of saving the people
> affected by the Kearl oil sands project.
>
> I'm all for everyone here going to the Imperial Oil main offices and
> protesting what they are doing.  I just don't think that trying to stop them
> from moving down the road merely because the chance to do so has fallen into
> our laps is the right thing to do.  If they fail the permit process, fine.
> But to restrict their movements only because they are an evil corporation
> goes against the idea of public highways in the first place.  Open that
> door, and you'll regret it.
>
> Paul
>
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