I can’t help but shake my head it utter and total bewilderment at OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino´s comments regarding Greenpeace´s actions in Lake Erie. Are we sure that he is not some American Republican implant? The rhetoric he uses is plagiarized straight out of Georgey Bush’s personal book “How to wage useless Wars for Idiots”.
"This was dangerous," he (Fantino) said. "It's using young people and putting them at risk. It terrorized the people on the coal ship, put our officers in harm's way and put the very foundation of the province's power supply at risk."
Meu Deus do Ceu! Greenpeace has been doing this for 30 years! Pick up a newspaper Ju..
Love em or hate em, Greenpeace has won a significant number of environmental battles and have righted the wrongs of a plethora of issues affecting peoples the world over. Many owe a great deal of thanks to Greenpeace and their (for our Nationalistic blowhards out there) MADE IN CANADA tactics. Without them, our oceans would have probably been plundered to death (they are already close) we’d have no whales left (the largest and most majestic of creatures); UV rays would still be penetrating the Ozone layer and frying us (they still are but to a lesser degree), and the French and Yanks would be setting off atomic bombs whenever the urge struck. These are global issues; there are myriad local issues too that I’ve been personally involved in, like the demarcation of the Deni Indians territories (the Amazon) which prevented a large multinational logging company from decimating the indigenous group’s ancestral lands; and the creation of two large extractive reserve in the Amazon basin protecting an area of tropical forest larger than Belgium from destruction, as well as the local communities that use this forest.
From the article…
But this does not mean the investigation is over, Fantino said, adding that the planners and thinkers should be ashamed of themselves. "You won't find the main players out there on the water," he said. "Using and enticing young people to break the law is mercenary, and it is despicable."
I’ve worked, and continue to work at times (and no, I’m not some “kid” with marching orders from above as Fantino bellows) with Greenpeace around and the world and now in the Amazon. We were recently run out of a small town, by thugs and the local council (using a similar tone of political bafflegab as our Fantino) and low and behold, who was among us? None other than Paulo Adário. Not only is Paulo in his late 50s, but he has also been the recipient of numerous death threats over the years and must always stay on his toes when ever he travels. Paulo is also the coordinator of the Amazon Campaign. Every action I have ever participated in has involved EVERYONE. It is NOT a matter of sending out misguided kids to do the dirty work, but it is a form of protest practiced by ALL to get the message out, especially to complacent and synaptically numb people around the world (sorry, I hate to say it but especially in North America –), that some things need to change.
Fantino’s language and tactics are no less SPUN and orchestrated than the event Greenpeace staged. However, instead of creating a dialogue to highlight a larger societal problem, Fantino’s message is to demonize a group and equate their actions with that of “terrorists”. This is indeed a sad world we live in, and it is moments like this that I am happy to have left Canada behind.
I think the OPP commissioner could have used a more conciliatory and Canadian tone, as opposed to borrowing the chest-pounding, “therebe terrorists amongst us” verbal diarrhea we see flowing from the south.
P.S I’m currently in the AMAZON “terrorizing” trees for Greenpeace. Happy Julian?
Here’s (below) what we are up against in Brazil… and if Canadians continue to allow political fools to use inflammatory rhetoric, it won’t be too far off in the distant future where you’ll see the same ilk of brut-thuggery in Canada accepted too.
