[Vision2020] Fwd: Award Well-Deserved

Saundra Lund v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm
Mon Apr 30 23:16:28 PDT 2012


I don't mean to butt into the great discussion, but am I the only one who
was gob-smacked that Dan failed to realize that SOME of the drivers,
flaggers, and others associated with the transports -- those "just earning a
living" -- are GRATEFUL for the protests here & elsewhere?  That SOME of
them (who shall remain nameless) would have loved to join in the protests
but couldn't because they knew they'd lose their jobs?

Interesting that his blatant bias so completely blinded him even to that
possibility, let alone that it's fact.  But that, I suppose, is the risk
when one opts to be an ideologue rather the choosing to become
well-informed.

OTOH, I agree with others:  I found the reference to Auschwitz and the
Holocaust in McHale's response offensive.  Having known people who survived
"concentration camps," and others whose entire families were murdered in the
Holocaust, perhaps I'm overly sensitive to that kind of hyperbole.
Nonetheless, it's incredibly insensitive of anyone to compare mega-load
truck drivers & flaggers to those personally responsible for the murder of
over a million people at Auschwitz alone.  It's too bad, too, because I
think the letter otherwise was quite good.  That hyperbole, however,
resulted in some people just dismissing the letter in its entirety.  But,
who knows?  Maybe it reached more people that it turned off.


JMHO,
Saundra
Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.
~ Edmund Burke


-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Ted Moffett
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 11:10 AM
To: Joe Campbell
Cc: Moscow Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Fwd: Award Well-Deserved

On 4/29/12, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What did the author justify? Lawful, civil demonstration, which is 
> their right. No one is saying truck drivers deserve the same treatment 
> as Nazi guards. The point is one can't use a bad argument to prevent 
> lawful, civil demonstration, as Dan tried to do. Truck driver 
> sympathies don't trump civil rights.
>
> Joe
>

And further, I think a case can be made that truck driver sympathies don't
trump the moral reasoning that can justify civil disobedience, which is
unlawful.

The comment from McHale "We chanted, we held signs, we played horns and
drums, we sang songs and, yes, some of us entered the crosswalk.
All of these are perfectly legal actions..." broadly references those who
"entered the crosswalk" some of whom sat down in the street, thus blocking
traffic, which is not legal, which is why they were arrested.
 But why then write "these are perfectly legal actions" when it is rather
clear I think that some of those who entered the crosswalk engaged in
unlawful behavior?

Note Mayor Cheney's Earth Day award, which Carscallen was objecting to, was
given to a group some of whom engaged in unlawful behavior, what I think it
is fair to state in this case was "civil disobedience," behavior that while
unlawful is engaged in to protest or attempt to enact change for a
worthwhile reason, not just from criminal intent, as addressed by Henry
David Thoreau's famous essay "Resistance to Civil Government"
http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html
 "Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical
man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practise in himself.
... He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity.
His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is
written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable." - Mohandas Gandhi
---------------------
I assume that most would agree that civil disobedience should be reserved
for truly grevious wrongs that are not being corrected by lawful means, such
as the civil rights movement in the US to end discrimination based on race
or other factors.

Some would also include as justified civil disobedience the over 1000
arrested recently at the White House, including professor and writer Bill
McKibben and NASA climate scientist James Hansen, to protest the Keystone XL
pipeline, that will or may carry Candian tar sands oil product; and I view
the civil disobedience in Moscow over the tar sands bound mega-loads just as
morally justifiable as McKibben and Hansen's disobedience at the White
House.

Does anthropogenic climate change and ocean acidification, both caused by
humanity's dumping of 100s of billions of tons of CO2 into our atmosphere
and thus the Earth's oceans, which the Canadian tar sand project
accelerates, and the local environmental damage from the tar sands
development, add up to grievous wrong that is not being corrected by lawful
means?

I think the facts indicate this is the case.

Others on Vision2020 obviously do not think so; and I suspect this belief
that the tar sands development is not a grievous wrong is part of the
motivation to object to McHale's letter to the editor, with its reference to
Auschwitz, perhaps an emotionally loaded reference that it might have been
better to avoid.  Though those who perpetuated Auschwitz were in a very
different moral situtation from those promoting tar sands development, the
end result of both may be similar, insofar as Auschwitz caused immense human
suffering and it is probable the total impacts of the tar sands and other
fossil fuel use will also.

Of course the truck drivers of the mega-loads may not have any understanding
of the grevious wrong they are in part facilitating, and even believe they
are for the most part contributing to the social good.  Consider that some
of those at Auschwitz may have also truly believed they were doing some sort
of social good, just as some who have held humans as slaves.

Consider that everyone involved in economic activity that is based on fossil
fuel energy is to some extent responsible for the environmental damage
resulting; and that is just about everyone is the US who in any way benefits
from the cheap abundant energy fossil fuels make possible.

In this regard I am somewhat morally equivalent to the mega-load truck
driver when I pay for any good or service that is rendered possible by
fossil fuel energy.  I am making an economic choice that supports continued
fossil fuel impacts.

While for the most part I agree with the intent of McHales letter to the
editor, I think she is promoting hyperbole in stating the
following: "Perhaps he is smarter than the climate scientists who decry
mining the Alberta Tar Sands as the final act of irreversible, anthropogenic
climate change."

As the following superb analysis, "Keystone XL: Game Over?" by climate
scientist Raymond Pierrehumbert  (
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/raymond-t-pierrehumber
t/
), of NASA climate scientist James Hansen's comment, that I think McHale is
referencing, indicates, while the Canadian tar sands are and potentially
will be a great contributor to global environmental damage from
anthropogenic climate change and ocean acidification, coal is the
"800 giga tonne gorilla at the carbon party." And given the US has more coal
reserves than any nation on Earth, that we generate about 50 percent of our
electricity from coal burning, opposing continued or expanded massive coal
burning is just as important as stopping the expansion of tar sands oil
development.  We hear a lot about coal extraction in the eastern US, but in
the western US coal mining is expanding in part to be shipped to Asia:
Pacific Northwest to ship coal to Asia?
Proposed West Coast-based coal export terminals for shipping coal mined in
Wyoming and Montana to Asia are facing increasing scrutiny.
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2012/04/20/Pacific-Northwe
st-to-ship-coal-to-Asia/UPI-15191334941346/

------------------------
Keystone XL: Game over?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/11/keystone-xl-game-over/

Filed under: Carbon cycle Climate Science- raypierre @ 2 November 2011 -

The impending Obama administration decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline,
which would tap into the Athabasca Oil Sands production of Canada, has given
rise to a vigorous grassroots opposition movement, leading to the arrests so
far of over a thousand activists. At the very least, the protests have
increased awareness of the implications of developing the oil sands
deposits. Statements about the pipeline abound.

Jim Hansen has said that if the Athabasca Oil Sands are tapped, it's
"essentially game over" for any hope of achieving a stable climate.
The same news article quotes Bill McKibben as saying that the pipeline
represents "the fuse to biggest carbon bomb on the planet." Others say the
pipeline is no big deal, and that the brouhaha is sidetracking us from
thinking about bigger climate issues. David Keith, energy and climate pundit
at Calgary University, expresses that sentiment here, and Andy Revkin says
"it's a distraction from core issues and opportunities on energy and largely
insignificant if your concern is averting a disruptive buildup of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere".
There's something to be said in favor of each point of view, but on the
whole, I think Bill McKibben has the better of the argument, with some
important qualifications. Let's do the arithmetic.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet,  serving the
communities of the Palouse since 1994.
               http://www.fsr.net
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================



More information about the Vision2020 mailing list