Sometimes the media fall for stunts that are only intended to give far-out fringe groups attention that they would not normally merit otherwise, without actually pointing out how extreme the group is in reality. Such was the case last weekend in Bellingham.
The Bellingham Herald was just one of the mainstream media outlets that gave serious coverage to a silly protest on the BNSF train tracks in Whatcom County. Commerce along that corridor was stopped, as were Amtrak passenger trains, all so one radical greenie could hang over the tracks, and two others could chain themselves to a train when the first law-breaker was being arrested.
The paper described the protest like this: “Trains were delayed for nearly 11 hours between Saturday afternoon, Aug. 27, and early Sunday morning when three protesters blocked the tracks on a trestle in Chuckanut Bay. The delays began around 4:30 p.m. when a man used three 20-foot-long poles to erect a tripod on the trestle in the path of a northbound BNSF Railway freight train, said Gus Melonas, a BNSF spokesman based in Seattle. The man then hung a seat from the top of the tripod, climbed in it and refused to leave.”
Apparently not wanting to bring any more attention to the stunt, the railroad issued a simple statement to the paper: “It’s obviously dangerous for people to trespass on railroad property but it also has significant ramifications,” Melonas said. “There’s significant consequences in holding up a train. We don’t take this lightly and we’re going to continue to monitor this and ensure these trains move safely.”
Evidently the reporter did not have too much time to spend on the story, because it ended by giving equal time to the protestors with a quick description of who was behind the stunt: “Deep Green Resistance, in a statement, said the goal behind the blockade was to protest the transportation of fossil fuels, which ‘must be stopped to save the planet from global warming.’”
Had the reporter actually taken a look at the website of the radical group behind the stunt, the coverage would have been a little more complete. You see, the goal of Deep Green Resistance is a simple one, “Unlike most environmental and social justice organizations, Deep Green Resistance questions the existence and necessity of civilization itself.”
That’s right, hanging over train tracks is a precursor to destroying civilization as we know it. On the “Who we are” tab on the group’s website, the nutters say “DGR asks ‘What if we do away with civilization altogether?’”.
And lest you think this is a joke, and ask the group (as one of their own frequently asked questions does) “If we dismantle civilization, won’t that kill millions of people in cities? What about them?” the answer is pretty straightforward: “No matter what you do, your hands will be blood red. If you participate in the global economy, your hands are blood red because the global economy is murdering humans and non-humans the planet over.”
These folks deserve nothing but scorn, rather than attention for taking up the time of Bellingham’s first responders. Hopefully a bill will be sent to the group, forcing them to pay for the cost of responding to their stunt – because “civilization” should not have to cover for them.
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