ECO RADICALS SHAMED IN DALLAS (After Freep Report)

First and foremost, I must thank everyone who participated in this counter-protest. Thank you for asking Freepers to participate. The most remarkable thing about this entire counter-protest has been the way several different conservative organizations worked together as a single unified front to fight off this attack on our city and state. The left has already trashed Austin and Houston, and we will not let them take Dallas too.

Thank you to the following people with whom I had the honor of serving both yesterday and today:

and to each and every person who spent even 5 minutes on this project. It was worth it.

Now to the report:
Tuesday a.m. I got up early and picked up some last minute items for the meetings - copies, signs, etc. I made it to the Bradford by 9 a.m. and spent the next couple of hours meeting with the leaders of each of the above listed organizations plus a few others. From 11-1:30, sauropod and I loaded up in the "bus" (my car), and headed all over the high-volume commuter traffic lanes to confirm the three billboards we had purchased for Wednesday morning's ExxonMobil shareholder meeting.

We also had billboards at I-35 and Beltline in Carrollton, and at the last south exit on the Tollway just before entering downtown. I never made it to the tollway to check, so if anyone saw that billboard, please let me know.

At 2 p.m., we gathered at the Bradford for a 2-hour training session on the evening’s events. We had a room with 40 chairs reserved and were pleasantly surprised when there weren’t enough seats. I counted 48 at the meeting at one point. Some brief introductions were made and Carol Jones (CSE), Mike Hardiman (ALRA), Peggy Venable (CSE), and Chuck Cushman (ALRA) gave guidance on the Mock Trial counter-protest. We handed out maps, talking points, flyers, press releases, cameras, and costumes! – LOTS of costumes! (more on that later with pictures!)

Once we closed the meeting, we loaded up in 5 supersized vans and went to Tina’s for dinner. Tina opened her house to us fixed the meal herself in addition to handling many other details of the project, such as reserving billboards, printing 100+ yard signs, helping Carol with the hotel arrangements, reserving parking for us at the Meyerson, renting the vans etc. THANK YOU TINA!

Once again we loaded up the 5 vans and headed to the Mock Trial at the University of Texas at Dallas in Richardson. When we got there, Niger Innis and Cyril Boynes of CORE and Jay Zane Walley (Paragon Foundation and our very own c-b 1) and friends met us. We had 48 in our group. We can’t get a definite headcount on their side, but Niger and Lloyd Christmas both counted 6 to 8 in the courtroom.

Niger Innis of CORE had sent a request to the trial organizers a few weeks earlier asking to be allowed to testify at the Mock Trial. He was rejected.

It was a pleasure talking with you yesterday. I had been in contact with your colleague, Scott Crow, and he told me I should call you. I've attached an official request, for my organization to give testimony at your upcoming trial on May 28th, to this e-mail.

dear niger, i am so sorry to take so long to reply to your request. i'm in dallas and things are very crazy, exxonmobil has hired to folks to counter protest our events, we have representatives arriving from different countries, and i lost one of our key staff people early last week. unfortunately the mock trial has already been scripted out and we've had to turn away some folks who are very connected to ExxonMobil, so unfortunately we're not able to accommodate your request.

hope that you will come to dallas any way and meet with some of the impacted community reps and that we can build solidarity with your organization.

Cyril Boynes, Special Advisor for International Affairs, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), had already prepared his testimony on behalf of the Peoples and governments of the People’s Republics of Chad and Cameroon. He gave me his copy and I will post it on another thread later today. Cyril will be seen and heard here. The left will not keep us quiet. The truth will prevail.

We were met by campus security and told to leave the campus. We couldn’t understand why we were being asked to leave when the trial had been advertised on the internet and was “open to the public”. We were then escorted out of the building and proceeded to the front of the building where our kangaroos and signs would be seen. We had 15 disposable cameras and the one I had with some very good pictures of the kangaroos doing their thing ended up with someone else. I should be getting many more and some better pictures later this week.

Another member of our group, Wanda, sat inside during the trial and took notes. She said that the courtroom displayed a very large United Nations flag and NO United States flag. She said when court was called to order, the presiding judge stated that the “International Criminal Court” proceeding was under way. She had many more details that I’m having trouble remembering at the moment, but I will be posting her report once she has finished it.

After the Mock Trial, we headed back to the hotel for a sign-making party with cake and ice cream. We made hundreds of signs. I’m sorry I don’t have more pictures of them, but I’m sure more will turn up later in the week. All signs were 2-sided and we filled up 2 vans with them. They were all very creative!

We all were up and out by 6 a.m. the next morning to head to the Meyerson Center where the shareholder’s meeting was held. When we arrived, there were already a few leftist protestors and a few police. More police arrived within the next hour. By 7:30 a.m., we had 98 counter-protestors with more than 2 signs each ready to go. The eco-radicals had about a handful of people.

Earlier in the morning, we had been asked not to plant the yard signs in previously friendly territory. I can’t help but think the local news had something to do with that. For 5 days prior to this event, local news had been showing clips of Seattle when reporting about the upcoming Wednesday meeting. They should know Texans don’t scare so easily. However, once the ExxonMobil shareholders saw us, they sent down a spokesperson to grant us permission to put our signs anywhere we wanted along the front of the building and blockades. We had literally hundreds of handmade and preprinted signs. Another thing to note is that we had free access to the trees, benches and water fountains outside the Meyerson Center. The leftists were in a bare parking lot with no trees or water. By mid-morning, they were looking so dehydrated and tired, we offered some of our sandwiches and water to them. They refused because the sandwiches had meat on them (ham and turkey).

Dare I mention restrooms after the embarrassing porta-potty threads? We were not allowed to use the restrooms inside the Meyerson Center. This is understandable considering the increased security since 9-1-1. However, the proprietors of two nearby buildings sent people down to tell us that we were welcome to use their facilities as much as we needed them. They were appreciative that we were out their defending capitalism. Thank you.

I’m sorry I didn’t get more close-ups of the opposition. I had 3 cameras and had started one early Wednesday morning, but I gave my cameras to those who had access to better pictures than I could get and I don’t have the pictures back yet. I will post them as I get them, but I’m sure it will be a few days.

That is accountability to a degree. It is not complete accountability, and will probably never will be.

It is the system we have. There are all sorts of laws that went through Congress and are too complex for voters. That's the problem with democratic control of land, and why the founders of this nation were against it (read Chapter 1). The integration of issues among Congressmen means that there will likely NEVER be traceable accountability for politicians. So you discount my system?

Some people made themselves very wealthy in the whole ordeal. The companies died or may die, but they made off like bandits.

Indeed they did and I hope that they are criminally prosecuted. Perhaps you should tell us why they won’t be?

And plenty of people lost and lost big. That is probably inevitable that any system will have moments like that, but let's apply it to environmental solutions. Imagine that Andersen's environmental verification branch, and it suffered from the same corruption that Andersen is paying for now. The market responds and Andersen dies.

Who does the cleanup?

Their insurer.

If people die due to the mess, who goes to jail?

First, this is a hypocritical argument. No one at Ford went to jail for Pinto gas tanks. No one at Firestone went to jail for bad tires. So all that regulation by the DOT failed, and I can tell you why. They built and tested the vehicles to DOT spec and because of that the liability falls upon the customer. Sir, I call that a subsidy, and that IS how the existing system works.

It is interesting that you brought up Andersen and Enron, because they exemplify the problems of political regulation. Both bought favorable regulatory treatment out of the Clinton SEC. You see, there is no accountability because the people were handed the liability and the risk by the power of government.

There is accountability to the people.

I would dispute that. Bubba walked.

Do the people make bad decisions with alarming regularity? Yes. Can the construction of government that we have chosen be improved to make it even more accountable and less prone to abuse? Yes. Would we be better off without it? No.

Where did I say that we should do without it? Perhaps you should read the book.

An interesting side discussion could easily arise from that comment- how to ensure an intelligent Congress.

I have a couple of ideas on that one, and they are relatively minor tweaks to the Constitution.

And how would the penalities be measured? By the assistance of other verification companies to provide the correct information? And once the companies are dead, then what?

Read the book. I cover that in great detail because the pricing system is tied to it directly.

So the insurance companies would pay to ensure they are getting good information so that their coverage is not a bad risk. But who verifies the insurance companies?

Their auditors do. Just like they do now. Imprecise information means that the rates have to go up to cover uncertainty. That motivates improving measurements and developing methods to reduce risk. That motivates developing an array of processes and tools to do the job at lower risk and increases the economic value of mitigating assets.

And what happens when one of them cuts corners and doesn't pay for good verification, or pays for it and gets gyped?

Getting gypped is the customer's problem. It is a competitive market. People do develop reputations. If they don’t do good verification, then there will be a problem and somebody sues. I know you don’t think that is deterministic enough for you, but I think UL does a pretty good job, for example, as does the IEEE, UPC, and numerous others in the existing certification market. They are certainly more reliable than the SEC.

What prevents sham insurance companies from being set up?

What prevents that now? Who audits their books? Gimme a break. You are effectively arguing for total socialism because control is equivalent to ownership. Does that work? Look at the California power crisis. The shortage was totally manufactured over 20 years to produce these precise conditions by environmental lawyers who now run both State government and some of the bigger power companies. Socialism doesn’t work because it is too much temptation to corruption. Environmental regulatory corruption in this country costs us TRILLIONS of dollars and now threatens the very survival of this nation. You simply don’t see that cost because you are too trusting of government and haven’t read the case for my assertion. I can back it up.

What happens if the insurance companies can't cover cleanup, or punitive damages, or just plan regular damages? Eventually, the same problems end up as in our current system. Only with less deterrence because there doesn't appear to be hooks into the criminal system.

Why should I design hooks when they already exist?

So I take company X to court because they dumped crap on my property. They show up with all the lawyers in the world and documents from a verification service that they have paid off to say that there is no way the chemicals came from company X. I can't get a civil judgement, and I am stuck with the cleanup costs and/or the exposure risk.

That’s criminal fraud. Ever heard of a district attorney? If you have no confidence in that, then you have no confidence in our existing system of justice and I would question why you would then defend it. The alternative we have is that the administrative branch writes thousands of conflicting rules that fail to cover specifics, enforces them preferentially, profits from fine money, and adjudicates disputes, effectively a corrupt police state. In answer to your question, however, you haven’t asked how the certification business even got there and how they got their insurance (because you haven’t read the book).

I would add that the critical hole in the existing system is that the agency has NO MOTIVE to succeed, analogous to the welfare state. The worse it gets the bigger the budget, and I will tell you that there are some VERY serious environmental problems out there and the EPA and environmentalists are prime movers in having made them worse (the big beneficiaries will be chemical companies and ag producers abroad, as planned). The corruption is systemic from graft to inspectors, to paying lobbyists for favorable rules, and preferential trade regulations, not to mention corrupt judges. As it is now, major corporations are using environmental law to destroy their competitors and make bigger profits from overseas investments. The corruption is so rampant that its scale boggles the mind.

As I said, I didn't say you are. I said you have crafted a thesis that has marked similarities to anarchist proposals, and suffers from many if not all of the same weaknesses, not the least of is that it wouldn't work (IMO).

Read the book. If you don’t know what process validation is, then you can’t understand anything would I say about how the system works here.

Finally, I would add that the implementation of the system design is incremental. I don’t propose a wholesale replacement of the existing regulatory architecture. We would only do so where we can PROVE that we offer a better product than a civic agency at managing a particular asset. That will exert an immediate tempering influence that should improve the performance of the agency immediately.

I appreciate the courtesy of your tenor but you are far too trusting of the existing system and apparently relatively unaware of its major environmental failings (many of which have yet to fully manifest). BTW, that "use of non-point water pollution to control land use" scam being implemented individually in the 50 states was born at the IUCN in Gland, Switzerland under aegis of the UN per the Agenda21. It doesn't get any more centralized than that. The coordination of the states is through NGOs and enforced by suit. What you are proposing ends up being exactly that. Sorry.

Interview of Conservative appeared on channel 11.

Interview of Mrs. Conservative appeared on channel 5.

Picture of Conservative debating opposition appeared
on page 1 of Fort Worth Star-Telegram business section.

My letter to Dallas Morning News, written today, appears below. We shall see if they choose to print it.

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To the Editors, Dallas Morning News:

Having observed numerous occasions in which the Dallas Morning News has recoiled in self-righteous indignation at accusations of its persistent liberal bias, I was once again amused by the reinforcement of such bias, in Charlene Oldham's one-sided article "The opposition speaks at Exxon Mobil Meeting", May 30.

In typical DMN biased reporting, Oldham ignores key facts.

Having been at the site, I know that she did not reveal that there were less than 100 unbathed, nose-ringed, Ruckus-trained anarchists who showed up to protest Exxon Mobil; their small numbers thankfully precluding them from wreaking Seattle-type destruction on downtown Dallas.

She did not tell us that the left-wing rabble was confronted by a counter-demonstration consisting of at least as many pro-America, pro-Capitalism, Exxon Mobil supporters.

Reports by channels 4, 5, 8, and 11 were balanced, as well as the article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Why not in the Dallas Morning News?

It is no wonder that my former carrier calls with offers to practically give your paper away.

Conservative

Interview of Conservative appeared on channel 11.

Interview of Mrs. Conservative appeared on channel 5.

Picture of Conservative debating opposition appeared on page 1 of Fort Worth Star-Telegram business section.

Conservative letter to the Editors of Dallas Morning News appears below. We shall see if they print it.