From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Notch another one up for the Greennazis
Date: 19 Nov 92 19:52:34 GMT
	<28289@castle.ed.ac.uk>
	<1992Nov17.184444.29099@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
	<28409@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: gtclark@festival.ed.ac.uk's message of 19 Nov 92 13:54:55 GMT

In article <28409@castle.ed.ac.uk> gtclark@festival.ed.ac.uk (G T Clark) writes:


   drw3l@delmarva.evsc.Virginia.EDU (David Robert Walker) writes:

   >In article <28289@castle.ed.ac.uk> gtclark@festival.ed.ac.uk (G T Clark) writes:
   >>	And as for Greenpeace wanting to disrupt the process,I just have
   >>to say that I thought protest was one of these democratic rights.

   >Legal protest, IMO, does not permit endangering others, nor does it
   >allow one to interfere with legal activities. This includes blockading
   >nuclear power plants, abortion clinics, naval weapons stations,
   >whatever. You can yell and scream about the activity all you want, but
   >if it is legal, you cannot interfere with it.

   >And if you deliberately put yourself in harm's way, you have no one to
   >blame but yourself if harm comes to you. If you really have so few
   >brain cells that you deliberately stand in front of a moving truck,
   >you deserve to get run over.

	   I don't think that it's clear that lives were in danger,and in
   any case I don't think that that's the point.

Ship collisions always involve risks to lives.

 ...

	   If Greenpeace wish to make the point that trying to ship large
   amounts of the most toxic substance known,which also happens to be
   exceedingly fissionable,is a bit stupid,then their avenues are limited.

Well, first if all Pu is not by any measure the most toxic substance
known. Secondly, is Greenpeace seriously arguing that Pu stores in
existence should remain precisely where they are now, or are they
just trying to be difficult? 

   Their usual tactic is to put their bodies in the front line,and this is
   what they`ve been doing here.If you have evidence of them attempting to
   injure people,why don't you tell us what it is? I can't really see how

Well, if you allow indirect attempts, I'd say their refusal to back
off from the Japanese ships is a deliberate action that increases the
chance people will be harmed. To make an analogy, if somebody is
driving an escorted hazardous load on the freeway, I say that
tailgating them for publicity is reckless endangerment, and that
if you try to cut back in when the escort cuts you off and signals
you to back off, then you're being actively counterproductive.
BTW if you did try that on the freeway you'd be in jail even
if you were technically exercising your freedom to drive, going
below the speed limit _and_ signaled as you cut back in behind
the hazardous load...

   it is that this differs from (for instance) their "occupation" of the
   seas around French atmospheric H-bomb tests.

 ??? Do you mean the underground test in the pacific, or was
Greenpeace really around in Algiers in the late 50's early 60's?

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  Just because there's a reason          			*
*  Doesn't mean it's understood              Specials, 1979	*