(This is a MaxiPost... Read Part-1 of this series).
There is place for all opinions in a
democracy. There is abundant room for protests and agitations. These are not
hindrances to a democracy but its essence. But time is equally of essence. How
long do we protest and agitate? How long do two parties keep insisting their
opinion must prevail? In the end either some compromise is worked out or one
party wins the battle by the acceptance, defeat or death of the other. Don’t
look too far for an example of compromise in differing opinions. The partition
of India was opposed by a large number of people but those in power made the
compromise. We moved on. Unfinished debates usually take a deadly turn. We have
seen that for Telengana too, haven’t
we? Kashmir? Some countries wage
wars to settle difference of opinion. Some people even kill footballers for losing a match in the World Cup through
self-goals. Therefore, the argument that there is place for all opinions in a
democracy is true but the debate cannot be forever. On critical issues someone
has to bring the curtains down.
In the case of Narmada Dam it took the SC to bring the curtains down. But even
that is not acceptable to Medha Patkar.
What will be acceptable to her? That all her opponents die so she can prevail?
We protest, we agitate, we stall and all that is fine. But surely, the SC of
this country or the parliament has to be accepted as the final arbiter. One
cannot go on forever with “only my
opinion should prevail” kind of agitation. That then is not merely opinion;
it is intolerance for an opposing
view to succeed lawfully. There are still those tricksters who argue Narendra
Modi is not “legitimately” elected to the PM’s office. They can continue to
retain their opinions but our democratic process has definitely brought an end
to that debate. The problem with the Medhas, Greenpeaces and Kejriwals is that
any other outcome other than that of their choice is unacceptable to them, even
if lawful and legally endorsed.
Of these, Greenpeace (GP) is the McDonald’s of NGOs. They operate in 40
countries have 28 regional offices, thousands of staff and unknown number of
volunteers. Let’s read a bit of what former GP founders say. This is an excerpt
from ex-founding member Paul Watson
(on the anti-whaling adventures of GP):
“Greenpeace is a
major international corporation. Over the years, those of us who envisioned and
founded Greenpeace way back when, have watched in frustration and anger as
faceless bureaucrats turned ideals into profits, secure in their understanding
that the media myth of Greenpeace cannot be tarnished irreparably within the
mass media culture. For every person who gets wise to their scam, two more are
recruited. Greenpeace is a massive direct mail publicity machine utilizing
media and psychology to part people from their money… We created a large green
corporate monster that has forgotten where it came from and is now busy feeding
frantically at the trough of public guilt. Greenpeace has become the world's
largest multinational "feel-good" corporation… Greenpeace is posing
and marketing the illusion of saving the planet and they have an army of
gullible volunteers and paid canvassers who have been talked into believing
that Greenpeace is really, really saving the environment and saving whales in
particular… It's obscene, and it is high time that people woke up and saw these
large green organizations for what they really are - high-powered public
relation machines designed to fleece the public… It is now the Green Piece
organization. They have become very successful and efficient with their
incredible corporate skills in turning hot red blood into cold green cash”.
Greenpeace started with a few volunteers
in small boats to oppose nuclear tests by the US. Their boats kept getting
bigger and bigger. Their protesters and agitators knew how to create drama and
how to collect money. This tactic is now common to modern agitation technology
in India and abroad. One could say GP was among the pioneers: Money and Drama. Take a look at these pics:
That’s a GP rubber boat attacking a
Japanese ship. On the right is a larger GP boat blocking a Russian tanker from
uploading oil. Mind you, the oil upload is a legal operation but that doesn’t
stop GP from physically impeding and blocking operations. That is mild. In 2013
two of GP (Australia) activists invaded a farm and destroyed GM crops. They
filmed their act of vandalism and used the video for publicity and drama. The
NGO was sued and paid $280000 in damages. They are rich, they can afford that.
The two volunteers were given suspended sentences because it was a first time
offence and one of them was pregnant. The
two employees took the rap but GP didn’t take any responsibility for this act.
I wonder if these are “democratic” protests (do read the whole story). Err… remember our own Kejriwal re-connecting power-lines
of defaulters and asking people not to pay bills? India tolerates these jokers
because they peddle a fake “moral
superiority” over everyone else. And many gullible people fall for their
tricks.
You can oppose GM crops or power bills
but there is a line that one does not cross. The dangerous addition to
agitation technology is break laws, destroy private property, intimidate and
dare the govt to take action. Time to read about another ex-founding member of
GP, Patrick Moore:
“Canadian
ecologist Patrick Moore, a former Greenpeace founding member, is a critic of
the organization. Moore's main criticisms have been leveled at the campaign to
protect the forests of British Columbia. In addition, Patrick Moore had once
spoken out against nuclear power in 1976, but today he supports it, along with
renewable energy sources. In Australian newspaper The Age, he writes
"Greenpeace is wrong — we must consider nuclear power". He argues
that any realistic plan to reduce reliance on fossil fuels or greenhouse gas
emissions need increased use of nuclear energy. Phil Radford, Executive
Director of Greenpeace US responded that nuclear energy is too risky, takes too
long to build to address climate change, and by showing that the U.S. can shift
to nearly 100% renewable energy while
phasing out nuclear power by 2050”.
Do note, according to the GP expert
above (Phil Radford) even advanced countries like the US can shift to 100%
renewable energy only by 2050 and that is just a wild estimate. Most of the
advanced countries have been using fossil fuels for hundreds of years but GP
wants India to stop straight away. India has been struggling to cope with a
huge population and the demand of electricity but GP wants us to live with
solar panels and windmills. Their lofty idea may be attractive to gullible
people but it is neither feasible nor implementable. Indians are already agitating for power. Many of them have lived
without it for centuries. They want it yesterday while GP, which is unable to
get advanced countries to replace their current systems, wants India to make
all the shifts. Here’s more from the actual article of Patrick Moore:
“It is the IPCC
(UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that my former colleagues in
Greenpeace, and most of the mainstream environmental movement, look to for
expert advice on climate change. Environmental activists take the rather grim
but measured language of the IPCC
reports and add words such as
"catastrophe" and "chaos", along with much speculation
about famine, pestilence, mass extinction and the end of civilisation as we
know it. Until the past couple of years, the activists, with their
zero-tolerance policy on nuclear energy, have succeeded in squelching any
mention by the IPCC of using nuclear power to replace fossil fuels for
electricity production. Burning fossil fuels for electricity accounts for 9.5
billion tonnes of global carbon dioxide emissions while nuclear power emits
next to nothing. It has been apparent to many scientists and policymakers for years
that this would be a logical path to follow. The IPCC has now joined these
growing ranks advocating nuclear energy as a solution. In its recently issued
final report for 2007, the IPCC makes a number of unambiguous references to the
fact that nuclear energy is an important tool to help bring about a reduction
in fossil fuel consumption. Greenpeace has already made it clear that it
disagrees. How credible is it for
activists to use the IPCC scientists' recommendations to fuel apocalyptic
fund-raising campaigns on climate change and then to dismiss the
recommendations from the same scientists on what we should do to solve it?”
That was written in December 2007. Since
then the IPCC itself has been under scanner for Climate Change falsification of
data and fraudulent practices in 2009-10. That, though, need not concern us in
this post. So what attracted GP to India? Well, the same reason that MNCs were
attracted to India post-1991. You now go to a super-store and you’ll find
shelves packed with soaps, body-sprays and stuff never heard of before. The
shelves are as crowded with these products as people in a Modi-rally.
Naturally, the McDonald’s of NGOs, GP, had to make an entry – even if a late
one. You see, since the mid-1990s the donors and donations to GP were
decreasing so they turned to the masses for direct collection of money (see here under “funding”). Some
call it the MLM type of business.
As with the MNCs, if you want to find
masses for your products where do you go? China or India! And that’s how GP
found their market in India. And people like emotion, drama and the media feeds
it to them in large doses. Just say the
govt is “anti-poor” and you can easily collect 1000 people around you in India
and also, importantly, money. And tell Indians: No nuclear power, no coal-fired plants, no dams. Call everyone who
opposes you corrupt, call everyone who opposes you anti-poor, call everyone who
opposes you anti-environment and you have a winner. That is precisely what
GP does and that is precisely what Arvind
Kejriwal & Co do. And what GP did earlier in the sea is now an adopted
“agitation technology” in India. Take a look at these pics:
The top montage is from the Kudankulam
protests and the bottom couple are from MP. These make good TV but the leaders
of these agitations do deserve to be prosecuted for endangering lives of
ordinary people. The MP river-agitation was a farce though. The leader was
quite clever in appearing to sink in water but was always ready for TV
soundbites. Let me reproduce a TOI report that I had quoted earlier and it’s a great example of “choreographed agitations”:
“Welcome to the
village which was in the eye of the storm with 'jal satyagrah' for the past
three weeks… It's a story of how the entire media was taken for a ride with the
help of mobile phones, which came in handy for keeping tabs on TV crews. The
spot shown on TV channels where the agitators protested is not the village
proper but the banks of a canal running into the Narmada…When TOI inspected the
place of demonstration after the water receded, the spot was found to be only
two feet deep… "We were sitting in water," said Mehtab Giri, a
villager who joined the protest. "First, we laid bricks and stone slabs on
which were placed iron doors used for sluice gates of the dam. This would help
us sit comfortably during the protest… "Whenever the media took shots, the
second arrangement in the slightly deeper water was used. Agitators waded into
water to show the level sometimes chin-deep and at others, neck-deep. When they stood up, it was hardly till
their waist." And they weren't in water all the time; they frequently
walked in and out of the canal"… there were only three people in the water
most of the time… The third was NBA worker Chittarupa Palit, who also walked
out to brief the media and file documents. Others took turns. The evidence is
all in the television shots".
There! That’s modern TV-time agitation
technology for you. And the hearts of viewers melt at the sight of these
suffering people and they start shelling out money. What about Kudankulam and
that charlatan SP Udaykumar? He’s as
fluent in Nuclear-science as Russians are in Bhojpuri. There are cases filed
against him and I hope he is prosecuted for his illegal activities. The
agitation he led was nothing but “sponsored
fear-mongering” backed by Churches. The story is a long one but explained
in depth by @TheKaipullai in his blog: “5
reasons why there is something wrong with the protests in Kudankulam” Part-1 and Part-2. I strongly recommend you read both parts and decide
for yourself. Of late, it is money and not causes that motivate the actions of
many of these unscrupulous NGOs. And they will claim they are God’s angels sent
to save you from yourself. “We are
killing the earth, we are killing the earth”! That is enough to frighten
anyone from the devil that is you.
There is an irony to the GP story that
came out only 2 days ago on June 16. When the greed for money is never-ending,
what do you do? Gamble! That’s what
some people do and that is what GP did. “Greenpeace loses £3m in currency speculation” says the headline. And the
explanation is: “We offer a full apology to our
supporters for the series of errors that led to the loss”… Greenpeace says the
staff member, who worked in its international finance unit, was not acting for
personal gain, but had failed to obtain authorisation from senior management.
He has since been released from his contract”. So you see, as in the GM
farm destruction it’s the employees who acted on their own. GP had nothing to
do with it. Oh yeah, some employee handled millions of Euros without the GP
management having the slightest of clues on what was happening. Do you believe
that? If that is believable then you can understand why many gullible people
buy the dooms-day screaming of Greenpeace. It’s money and innovation in
agitations.
… To be continued.
