(This was written in the hours after the Federal announcement of 209 conditions on Gateway approval, essentially a 'yes'.)
If anyone is surprised or disheartened by today's announcement about Gateway, you haven't been paying attention.
This government is the most rancidly reactionary, anti-democratic and pro-industry ever seen in Canada. That is not to let anyone else off the hook for their crimes, either.
It means you forgot the basic fact of how this works: They cannot be negotiated with. They must be stopped.
It further means any more appeals to "good will" by putting out ads begging them to be nice, talking about the Clark government as an ally as opposed to a colonial administrating enemy, is also not just doomed to failure, it is betrayal.
Those so-called "environmentalists" who work with Federal or Provincial governments have tried to use sugar and not the stick. There have been countless appeals, a million photo ops and greens joining the government.
There is no argument for joining in with the government at the federal or provincial level.
Appeals to common sense, the majority opinion, flattery of those cretins in power-- all of these methods have hopelessly failed.
Can we learn the lessons?
1: Power is not a friend. It is an enemy.
2: Capitalism produces power. There is no solution to this crisis that is capitalist.
3: Colonialism is the bedrock of the settler-capitalist model, from the building of the railroads over a century ago and including today.
4: Any environmental organization that works with government, signs backroom deals with government, or tells you that the only way to stop these ecocidal, violent acts by a minority is through voting or through building alliances with the enemy corporations IS YOUR ENEMY.
5. Perhaps the most important lesson right now?
THIS PIPELINE WILL NOW BE ATTACKED BY ALL THESE SELL-OUT GREEN GROUPS. THEY WILL NOW FOCUS INTENTLY ON THE SAME THING: STOPPING THIS ONE PIPELINE-- WHILE RAILCARS FILLED WITH TAR GOO START TO SPEED UP, AND FRACKING MAKES NORTHEASTERN BC LOOK LIKE SWISS CHEESE.
6. Let me use different words to repeat point five:
This decision is not about building the Gateway Pipeline. This decision is about building a fake issue that takes up all of our energies. They want us to play in the sandbox, while they frack everything, build other pipelines, dam the Peace again, and... most importantly...
Have all the professional, well paid environmental movement people who are currently fighting the Gateway pipeline do nothing else. Fight one pipeline, while the oil and gas companies destroy the planet.
After all of this settles down, the pipeline proponents and the board of directors of the various foundations that have bankrolled this useless, dead-end of non-resistance?
They will meet at a cocktail party, or perhaps a re-elect Gregor Robertson fundie, who knows... but when they do, they will bury the hatchet.
Unless we bury their whole system first.
Macdonald Stainsby,
a personal rant about Gateway. These are just opinions.
