[TheForge] power and accidents

[Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer]

In a democratic system, if we don't have a very wide spread of conflicting opinions,
we are doing something very wrong!
Why, we even allow discussion of arc welders here!

On Jan 16, 2013, at 8:55 AM, Bruce . wrote:

I've got mixed emotions about such things.  Extremists serve one
purpose -- the bring an issue out into the open.

Draft-card burners were extremists in their day -- during the Viet Nam
war -- and had a lot to do with getting the anti-war movement in the
news.  Back then it was implicit that one "supported the war" and it
was a real slap in the face to the authorities to find out otherwise.
General Hershey openly chose to punish protesters by drafting them --
being sent to Viet Nam being the punishment for free speech.  Of
course, nowadays, it's hard to find anyone who "ever" believed in the
Viet Nam war...

Bra burners, though much criticized, did much the same for the issue
of women's rights.  I'm always amazed that we STILL haven't passed the
ERA.  Meanwhile, I watch all the right-wing women in politics who
somehow don't realize that they wouldn't even BE in politics if it
weren't for women's rights advocates (on the "left") who went before.

PETA is a very short-sighted organization.  "Ethical treatment" of
animals I support.  Much of what has been done to lab animals is
indefensible.  (Did you know that known corrosives are placed in the
eyes of rabbits to test the?  If the effect were unknown such an
experiment might be called science, but when the effect is know
aforehand, it can only be called torture.)  However, PETA's insistence
that we all should be vegans is a bit much.  Vegetarians have the odd
concept that all those lovely sheep and cows and pigs and chickens
will go into retirement when we stop eating them.  In fact, they'll go
extinct!

So, again, Greenpeace is a few loud people who call attention to such
things as Japanese "research" on whales.  I guess the Japanese are
researching which whales taste best!  I don't have much sympathy for
whalers and wouldn't be real upset if Greenpeace sent THEM down the
Marianas trench.

Whales, fisheries, fracking -- we're destroying this planet and its
ecosystems.  We're doing the equivalent of slash and burn on a global
scale, but since it's major corporations involved in the doing, rather
than ignorant Brazilian farmers, there's no stopping it.  Short
sighted people with no ability to see past this quarter's bottom line
are in charge and they're sending the planet straight to hell.



On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Andrew Vida <osan at netlabs.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 1/13/2013 1:04 PM, Andy Gladish wrote:
>> 
>> It's not just the Greenpeace crowd that's making things rocky for nuclear
>> power-
> 
> 
> I understand the basic premise from which they operate, but they are such
> assholes about everything.  Ramming commercial vessels?  I'd LOVE to see one
> of those trawlers arm up with recoilless rifles and put one of those
> Greenpeace vessels in the Marianas Trench.  No, I do not approve of whaling
> and long line trawling, but I am not sure that some of Greenpeace's tactics
> are not every bit as egregious.
> 
> Tunnel vision can be a very bad thing.
> 
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-- 
Bruce
NJ
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