Oklahoma City cops charge Keystone XL protesters with "terrorism hoax" because their banner shed some glitter

When I start pronouncing favor like devour, I’ll start spelling it that way.

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Falsely charging “terrorism hoax” should itself be prosecuted as a terrorism hoax.

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It’s like living in a Victor Hugo novel.

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I think that was before we had discovered that glitter is a terrorist weapon.

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As if was with the Pennsylvania state police being formed because the mine bosses were tired of paying their own thugs to bust the unions, so it still is to this day.

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The fans could call themselves glitterboys.

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Sounds as if the Oklahoma Police department needs a few more boxes of glitter for the holidays.

OK, the charge is ridiculous.

But then, so are many well-intentioned but totally uninformed protests. As near as I’ve been able to determine, the only thing that the Keystone mess is accomplishing is to provide a bunch of lawyers, lobbyists and scare-mongers with a standard of living they in no way deserve. I’m not going to belabor the facts but basically, the Keystone pipeline appears to be no worse than any of the available options and better than most in terms to net damage to environment, cost and safety.

The problem is that any protest group, whether its concerns are valid or not, can easily get support, funding and publicity, while any opposing business interest is automatically branded as evil and its responses branded as as biased, self-seeking and untrue. Since the court of public opinion pretty well automatically sides with the opposition, business is left with little recourse in the means it uses to defend itself. Thus, the ridiculous charges.

So, let me ask the people beating up on the cops and on Trans-Canada, what would you do if you had a potentially profitable project which your scientists had advised you was environmentally neutral and superior to other options, but vehemently opposed by a variety of groups which were not above employing disinformation and tendentious arguments? Particularly when every factual presentation you tried to make was shouted down?

Okay - you don’t have to agree with the protestors to realise that calling them ‘terrorists’ is totally false. There’s a tendency to call for draconian laws because of the rare threat of extreme damage due to ‘terrorism’. Then, when the ‘terrorists’ don’t show up in mainland America for the last decade, those laws are deployed against normal citizens exercising their rights or causing minor civil disturbances. What’s a proportionate response to someone dumping glitter in your foyer? Invoice them for the cleaning cost - charge them with obstructing a public right of way if they’re blocking access to your building - the kind of thing that is dealt with by a fine either through civil or magistrates courts. Intimidating someone with the threat of 10 years in jail is nonsense.

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oh, the poor oil companies… so put upon, so misunderstood.

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they can have my glitter , when they wash it out of my cold dead beard !!!
i , I am glitterous !!
( sob ) won’t someone think of the unicorns !!

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This is quite the hypothetical question, isn’t it. No pipeline is environmentally neutral, only tolerable, and supposedly safe pipelines in Alberta have had one leak after another this year.

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Pipelines leak; trains derail; burning oil releases carbon dioxide plus a variety of complex carbon compounds, some of which are carcinogenic. All true. And the practical alternatives are?

Not poor, not necessarily misunderstood–it’s more like me calling you evil because you like oranges.

Agreed. I think we’re dealing with emotion more than reason on all sides of this particular situation.

No, we’re dealing with state violence on behalf of their corporate owners.

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actually, it’s more like me calling oil companies lying, evil scumbags because they’re an environmental and economic catastrophe, strenuously deny it, sort of like you’re trying to do here, and use their bought policy and politicians to avoid shouldering any responsibility for their actions.

oh, and i love this: “oil companies’ scientists said it was fine. what’s the issue? (…) bad protesters using misinformation!” i refuse to believe anyone is this naive, so i have to accept that this is your point… oil companies good, protesters bad.

i’m sure it’s easier to claim that criticism of these corporations is driven by emotion, rather than trying to refute more than a century of the oil industry’s absurdly destructive history. i’ll admit, it’s pretty easy to get emotional about an argument that is as obviously disingenuous as your statements above. forgive me, troll shills just rub me the wrong way sometimes.

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I have some vague understanding that if the oil remains relatively costly to transport, alternative environmentally-friendly options may become more appealing.

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If this guy visits the OK PD they will be up to their necks in glitter (and he would be #1 on the most wanted list)

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Now hey. The Invisible Hand will have to slap you, going on like that…

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