Wednesday, February 18, 2015

jessica murray
think it through, guys. would a group opposed to a pipeline due to the threat of spills decide to blow one up, thereby spilling oil everywhere? does that make any sense? i've been involved with these groups, and let me tell you that "highly disorganized and mostly on welfare" is the actual truth of it. unfortunately, people end up drawn to activism after they've failed at something else, and there's consequently a substantial problem with a lack of education. under that, there's a core of utopian socialists and quasi-anarchists that keep it running through creative use of limited resources. the highly organized and well-financed movement (with foreign backers) is the petroleum industry.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/rcmp-documents-warn-environmental-groups-could-pose-threat/45699/?ddlMonth=month&ddlYear=2016 

MH
Sure, just like the FBI saying the same about Martin Luther King and his fellow "communist" Civil Rights Workers, and the RCMP planting evidence to claim Ludwig Weibo was planning to bomb pipelines. These activists aren't "anti-Canada," they're anti-the oil and gas companies who own Harper & the Tories and will stop at nothing to increase their profits. It's Harper & his cronies who are "anti-Canada"; they'll destroy the Canadian environment and sicken or kill Canadians to make that profit.

jessica murray
if these groups had any money or structure, they'd use it to lobby parliament, like every other well-funded group (including the petroleum industry) does in our money-buys-influence "democracy". street protests are always the behaviour of the disenfranchised.

reality:
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-top-lobby-groups-in-ottawa/

KW
The groups do have substantial funding. Vivian Krause has documented the money trail at http://business.financialpost.com/2010/10/14/u-s-foundations-against-the-oil-sands/ $6 Million is not chump change to fund protest groups. As for the risk of terror activities, one only has to look at Daniel Johnson formerly on the Green Party of Sask. executive as he demonstrates how to cause train accidents through sabotaging of signal lights. http://www.genuinewitty.com/2013/08/18/saskatchewan-green-party-executive-promotes-train-sabotage-feat-daniel-johnson/

jessica murray
keith, the kind of foundations you're talking about do exist, but the purpose is largely to fund business opportunities in renewable energy and whatnot. activists on the ground consider these groups to be working against their interests in actually ending the fossil fuel economy. the anti-pipeline groups i was involved with (who advocated forms of civil disobedience like what was seen in new brunswick last year) were actively campaigning against both the green party and the ndp. that's part of the reason they're being targeted. so, the error is in connecting these groups to the protest groups. these are two very different things, with very different goals, and you can't conflate them.

one of the dominant aims of the american military establishment right now is in blocking petroleum exports to china. the article that keith posted has a little bit about that. that's not environmentalism, it's trade obstructionism. you can see some of this in the ndp's line on the pipelines, as well. it's willing to support pipelines that are connected to local refineries, and opposed to pipelines that export oil to us refineries. that's not an environmentalist position, it's a position meant to create union jobs. the grassroots organizations pushing the visible protests mostly understand all of this stuff, although they may get tricked sometimes.