[Vision2020] Moscow's Muscular Megalod Embrace

[Ted Moffett]

On 5/28/11, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:

"I think that this issue should be about the technical details of moving a
large load across local highways."
----------------
"I see this as an abuse of power because people (here on the list and
in the papers) have made this into an issue based on what this
corporation does and not whether or not they are following the
regulations regarding the moving of large loads along our highways."

I think you misperceive the overall content on the mega-load issue in
discussions on Vision2020 and in the local press.

Apparently you have not read the May 18, 2011 "Letter from Moscow
Mayor Chaney to Idaho Transportation Department...", a website to
which was posted to Vision2020 Mon. May 23:
http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-May/076659.html
http://www.moscowcares.com/HIghway12/Letter_Chaney_ITD_051811.htm

If you have read it, you know there are objections to the mega-loads
passage posted to Vision2020 based on the "technical details of moving
a large load across local highways."

Also, I have not found the primary focus of discussion on this list or
in the press regarding the mega-loads is on ExxonMobil's behavior in
general as a multinational corporation.

In fact, I have been dismayed at the lack of focus, here and in the
local press, on what I regard as ExxonMobil's abuses of power in
promoting tar sands development, especially in the context of the
millions ExxonMobil has spent on junk climate science propaganda and
manipulation of government policy to address climate change, given the
profound impacts this will have on accelerating global warming, that
will eventually impact most everyone on Earth (actually, it already
is), including residents of Moscow, Idaho.

I will post critical references on this issue yet again, for those who
might have missed them earlier:

>From the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation
Campaign on Global Warming Science: Oil Company Spent Nearly $16
Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion, " ... used its
access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape
government communications on global warming":

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
--------------------
Also, NASA climate scientist James Hansen in acceptance speech for
Sophie Prize, June, 2010, pulls no punches in stating the truth:

http://www.sofieprisen.no/Articles/514.html

"But our governments have no intention of solving the fossil fuel and
climate problem, as is easy to prove: the United States, Canadian and
Norwegian governments are going right ahead developing the tar sands,
which, if it is not halted, will make it impossible to stabilize
climate. Our governments knowingly abdicate responsibility for young
people and future generations."
-------------------
I posted May 19, 2011 to Vision2020 a June 2010 resolution from the
city council of Bellingham, Washington, that specifically raised the
issue of tar sands development and global warming, which I also sent
to the Moscow City Council and Mayor Cheney, which sank like a stone,
with no response here or otherwise specifically addressing the details
of this city council resolution:

http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-May/076616.html

[Vision2020] Bellingham, Wa. City Council Passes Resolution Jun. 2010:
"Whereas... Canada's Tar Sands Generates Three Times More Global
Warming Pollution..."

Note that Moscow Mayor Cheney's letter referenced here makes no
mention of the ultimate goals of the mega-loads, to expand tar sands
development, nor the consequences of this for anthropogenic climate
change.  I think this is a grevious ommission, that might have been
rather deliberate, to avoid the politics involved in a city mayor
introducing the global climate issue regarding what many would insist
is exclusively a local municipal matter.

And there is a factual basis for concern over introducing global
climate change into local politics, given Moscow Councilperson
Carscallen's public comments referenced earlier in this thread, that
appear to be an attempt to de-legitimize concerns exclusively focused
on the mega-loads impacts to highways, streets and the public in
general, implying the real agenda of some is an alternative energy
bias against oil, so if the mega-loads were wind turbines or solar
panels, objections would lessen.

Indeed, if playing the game of local politics for election, given the
sizable local voting block that is not as environmentally oriented as
the image of Moscow might suggest, avoiding taking an aggressive
stance against the tar sands bound mega-loads, because of the impacts
on climate change, is probably savvy strategy.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> ________________________________
> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> To: Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com>
> Cc: Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com>; "vision2020 at moscow.com"
> <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Friday, May 27, 2011 11:35 PM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Moscow's Muscular Megalod Embrace
>
> Please clarify and defend the basis for the following assertion, with
> a definition of "too many people."  Does not democracy allow as many
> people as want to to "stick it to" any corporation they believe is
> abusing its power, as long as they "stick it to" them lawfully?  What
> is the number you define as "too many" regarding these "people?"
>
> Furthermore, explain how the aforementioned "too many people" are
> engaging in an "abuse of power," as you phrased it, which would imply,
> I think it is reasonable, that the operations of "big oil" as
> referenced are being critically or unlawfully impaired by this
> alledged "abuse of power," by "too many people?"
>
> Do I need to quote the recent mega profits, or the millions spend on
> lobbying the US Congress to promote their agenda, or the high gas and
> diesel prices, connected to the operations of the "big oil"
> corporation that you allege is being subjected to an "abuse of power"
> by "too many people?"
>
> Who has more power that they are abusing, the "big oil" corporation,
> or Idaho citizens who are objecting to their highways and streets
> being converted into industrial corridors with potentially long term
> and unknown impacts, serving the profits of one of the most powerful
> corporations ever to exist on Earth?
>
> I trust you have followed the backroom "deals" with some in power in
> Idaho government that appear to have been struck without consulting
> the public or local government regarding these developments?  And that
> the mega-load machinery could have been manufactured in North America,
> though this might have been more expensive?  Why should Idaho or
> Montana citizens suffer negative impacts to serve the profit agenda of
> ExxonMobil?
>
> Where is the "abuse of power?"
>
> Economist Milton Friedman, one of the primary architects of modern
> corporate captialism, wrote in "Capitalism and Freedom," (
> http://www.umich.edu/~thecore/doc/Friedman.pdf ) "...there is one and
> only one social responsibility of business- to use its resources and
> engage in activities designed to increase its profits as long as it
> stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open
> and free competition without deception or fraud."
>
> OK.  ExxonMobil's "one and only social responsibility" is to increase
> its profits.  But anyone who thinks there is no deception or fraud
> involved with Exxon/Mobil only has to trace the history of this
> corporation's funding of junk fraudulent climate science, to
> deliberately deceive the public regarding anthropogenic climate
> change, to understand the corruption and abuse of power involved:
>
> Union of Concerned Scientists
>
> http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
>
> January 3, 2007
>
> Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation
> Campaign on Global Warming Science
> Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create
> Confusion
>
> "ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of
> global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused
> lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists'
> Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has
> allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay
> government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."
>
> Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to
> "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change
>
> ---------------------------------
> It is within the scope of the public in a democracy to decide if there
> is deception or fraud or exploitation involved in a corporation using
> public assets to promote its profits.  And those questioning whether
> or not ExxonMobil is abusing its power to impose a burdon on the
> citizens of Idaho or Montana or Canada, or all humans on our planet,
> given the implications of tar sands development for climate change, in
> the pursuit of its profit, are pursuing their rights as citizens in a
> democracy.
>
> And you assert this is an "abuse of power?"
>
> WTF!
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 5/25/11, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> I see too many people that see this as an opportunity to stick it to big
>> oil, since they have the opportunity to do so at this moment in time.  I
>> think that's an abuse of power, myself.
> _______________________________
>> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
>> To: Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: "vision2020 at moscow.com" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 10:33 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Moscow's Muscular Megalod Embrace
>>
>> There is a significant number in the Moscow area who are ideologically
>> pro-business/pro-corporate thus friendly to big oil's needs, those who
>> might have supported Palin's "drill baby drill" mantra in the 2008
>> presidential race, who view obstacles to the tar sands development as
>> an impediment to lowering high gas and diesel prices and improving the
>> US economy in general, who think the opposition to the mega-loads is
>> really more about a progressive antipathy to big captialist economic
>> power and supporting an environmental agenda, rather than damage to or
>> blocking streets or highways, who therefore are "friends" of the city
>> council members who rolled out the welcome mat for the mega-loads.
>>
>> This point of view was in part expressed by Moscow councilperson
>> Carscallen May 17, 2011, Moscow-Pullman Daily News:
>> http://finance.comcast.net/stocks/news_body.html?ID_OSI=85595&ID_NEWS=190774448
>>
>> "I wonder if there would be as much discussion about these loads if
>> they were 24-foot-wide, 210-feet-long, and 30-foot-high solar panels
>> or wind turbine blades," Carscallen said. "I have seen people that are
>> honest that the Kearl Oil Sands are the reason they're against it."
>> ------------------------
>> I think it possible the local political "enemies" of this action by
>> the council might not be greater in number than the "friends" of this
>> action, though the enemies might be more publicly vocal in oppostion;
>> therefore I question that the council's action is "a matter that earns
>> politicians enemies but few friends" as the Trillhaase editorial
>> quoted below states.
>> ------------------------------------------
>> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>>
>> On 5/25/11, Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Moscow's megaload embrace gets muscular
>>>     * May 25th, 2011By Marty Trillhaase of the Tribune
>>
>>> > Which makes their eagerness to embrace a matter that earns
>>> politicians enemies but few friends curious. The last thing you'd expect
>>> from either Krauss and Carscallen is precisely the vote they cast.
>>> Go figure. - M.T.
>>
>>