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Environmentalist group protests Bank of America


monsoon

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Hi there. (First post.)

I watched all of this from my office this morning.

Sure they trespassed on private property and wasted a certain amount of city resources and construction company time with their activity. And, sure, civil protest is (or should be) important to Americans and, in a literal sense, responsible for our very being as a nation (and as a less-segregated nation).

Seeing both sides, would anyone have objected to the contractors showing up for work, continuing with their construction (including use of the crane in question) and completely ignoring the protesters (doing nothing to expose them to additional danger, but doing nothing to allow them to impede their work)? I would have loved to see the police, fire and EMT personnel stay away, and to see the contractors get to work, like nothing happened. They usually stop sometime around 6 or 7pm. The protestors could have made their way down, then.

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I'm in Grad School in Boston. I've seen my fair share of protest, legal and illegal. The ones that actually make an impact are those that try to influence opinion and affect change. Sure, headlines are great but derail the actual focus of the protest. I've yet to discuss the merits of BofA, only the foolishness of this spectacle.
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Just my point, to what extent is breaking the law, well, breaking the law. This is clearly breaking our law(s). If we continue to celebrate one type defiance, we are suggesting others to push the envelope further.

You can not justify one, yet be against the other. Both are illegal. Both are reprehensible, but deserve differing degrees of punishment.

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Speeding and Premeditated Murder are both against the law...but I think you realize that each law does not hold the same degree of seriousness and is not punished equally. This protest didn't muder any innocent bystanders, sexually assault anyone, and no one committed armed robbery. It's trespassing - and who hasn't broken that law??? Think of all the simple laws people break every day...
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FriskyDingo: This type of protest brings a company's unacceptable practices to the attention of the entire country

Do you really think so? The antics get attention. I bet 9/10 people in Charlotte who are actually aware of the event cannot articulate what this group was actually protesting. This could not possibly make them care.

As an aside: what's BOA to do? Stop financing companies that are a necessary part of power generation? We'd all love safer energy generation than coal-fired plants, but what's feasible? You can't build nuclear (I won't purposefully start that debate). There's not a single practical method of energy generation that people like the folks who climbed the crane won't come out in protest of. If there is no current alternative, are the only institutions capable of financing power generation supposed to stop and break the chain - so there is no power? This one's on the power generators and their contractors - not their bankers. They climbed the wrong cranes/deployed the wrong signs.

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The only thing about this stunt is that it consumed a large number of resources.....police, fire engines, ambulances, etc.....if there was a bad traffic accident that resulted in the loss of life that could have been prevented by faster response by fire/ambulance, or a sexual assault that would have been averted by a police patrol that was rerouted to this scene, then the effects of this is much greater than some anti-BofA publiclicity (which I fully support :) )

My feeling is that the city shouldn't have expended any resources....some construction workers should have walked out on the crane, and yanked these guys up, possibly roughed them up some, and handed them over to an officer. Or, if possible, operated the crane with them hanging there.

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This wasn't a act of defiance against an oppresive government, this was an attempt to shame a company into changing it's business practices.

I didn't mean to advocate roughing anyone up, but I wouldn't feel bad if it had turned out that way....the people who are most directly affected by this is the hourly wage construction worker who was probably banished from the site for 2-3 hours, the drivers making deliveries to the site, the dump-truck operators (who sat there idling and polluting and losing income). If these people feel the need to break into someone else's property to get their message out, that's fine, but they should anticipate any consequences.

Just as a note, NC law allows a property owner to take lethal measures to defend/protect his property. While I doubt this extends to corporate sites that aren't permenantly occupied, anyone dumb/courageous enough to trespass shouldn't rely on the city/state to protect them.

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Actually, NC law does not allow an individual to take lethal measures to defend, protect or retrieve his or her property (including a dwelling). One is only authorized to take lethal measures to protect/defend oneself from what is reasonably perceived to be imminent death or serious bodily injury. Now one can certainly reasonably apprehend serious bodily injury or death when an intruder breaks into a residence, but I'm confident in saying that BOA/its contractors would not have been within their rights to use deadly force in evicting trespassers.

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Are you sure about lethal force? I thought that lethal force could only be used if met by lethal force-i.e., the protesters would have to be using lethal force themselves in order for the property owners to use lethal force to repel them. Even then, it isn't the property that's being protected, but human life...

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Well, now that I've been questioned, I'm not sure, but that's how it was explained to me before. My greater point was, someone committing a crime shouldn't be given protection above the victim of the crime.

My final word on the topic. I support their message in general, though I find it odd that they single BofA out. My bigger problem is that people are comparing this to some amazing expression of free speech, or sticking it to the man, or whatever. If I don't like the way someone lives (for example, drives a Hummer) I shouldn't expect to be allowed to go to their house, hang a big sign on their house saying Mr. Jones is killing the Earth, and chain myself to his Hummer. If I do, I should expect to be arrested, or Mr. Jones to kick my ass. People have choices, and all choices have consequences.

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Well, now that I've been questioned, I'm not sure, but that's how it was explained to me before. My greater point was, someone committing a crime shouldn't be given protection above the victim of the crime.

My final word on the topic. I support their message in general, though I find it odd that they single BofA out. My bigger problem is that people are comparing this to some amazing expression of free speech, or sticking it to the man, or whatever. If I don't like the way someone lives (for example, drives a Hummer) I shouldn't expect to be allowed to go to their house, hang a big sign on their house saying Mr. Jones is killing the Earth, and chain myself to his Hummer. If I do, I should expect to be arrested, or Mr. Jones to kick my ass. People have choices, and all choices have consequences.

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America was founded on civil disobedience. Remember a little thing called the Boston Tea Party? That was illegal. The American Revolution (against Britain)? That was treason and if we'd lost most of the Founding Fathers would have been executed for it. You cannot have a participatory democracy without citizen action. As I hinted at before, we are already on a slippery slope to a police state (IMHO) and the more people throw away their civil rights, the worse it will be.
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There is a difference between a private person's home and a public corporation's place of business. Perhaps my example of the Boston Tea Party wasn't a perfect analogy, but how about the labor unions? You can debate their role in today's society, but in the early days they did a lot of good, though some of their confrontations got waaaay out of hand. Child labor laws, OSHA, minimum wage laws, all those came from people protesting the large corporations of the time at the actual company's places of business.

And yeah, I know, I said I'd get off the soapbox. Sorry. :blush:

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I made the comparison to an abortion clinic earlier in the thread. Here is a toned-down comparison:

Do you advocate individuals, who are against abortion, blocking passage into an abortion clinic?

I do not. I see this attempted on regular occasion at the planned parenthood facility. Under both circumstances I believe one can affect change by protest, not by illegal activity. Elvigy, based on your criteria that a corporation carries a different set of rules, then I suppose you are more inclined to support this, correct?

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My final comment is more of a question because I really don't know the answer. Do any of the protesters have any answers for what we would do right now (emphasis on now) for power if we did not mine coal and burn coal in power plants? Cause the fact is, if we stop mining coal or stop funding coal companies, the U.S. will not have electricity. There are many promising alternative energy sources such as solar and wind energy, but they are not advanced enough yet to provide power to this country. Also, even if these technologies were fully matured, Charlotte is not a great location for either solar or wind to be very effective. Couple that with the fact that it will be at least 8 years or so before the first new nuclear plant in the US in 25 years is up and running, and we simply have no option but to burn coal for energy.

I hope this is somewhat coherent, it makes sense to me :blush: .

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^Which is funny, because I was driving my SUV into downtown this morning thinking about getting dark black granite on my bar when I heard about the stunt.

Again - I don't think a single person who pondered their attempted message that has not already thought about hydrocarbons, coal-fired plants and the unwillingness of the government/large power companies to invest in altenergy.

For better and for worse, America needs cheap power. BOA's decision to lend money to explorers/mining companies v. not to lend to such companies is a catch-22 for them. Loan to coal miners? Environmental damage and protesters. Don't loan to coal miners? Assuming other banks don't either, the coal stays in the ground and we (1) burn oil/gas for electricity or (2) energy costs increase exponentially while we fight over nuclear or non-nuclear altenergy. Neither is acceptable, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I think you need to preserve the status quo while others look for the alternatives. It's time to point the finger at the people who are impeding the development of altenergy. And don't look at the coal companies or lobbyists. They're doing their jobs. Look at the people whose influence is "bought" thereby.

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Well, although I have a mixed opinion about both sides of this- I would like to mention that I think their point got across, which was their intent. Hell- we're talking about it here on UP, we have a whole thread with lots of activity- not to mention the public media.

I must say, RAN has the best picture that I have seen of it. Great shot of the crane and BofA HQ. I'm sure the Mobuchu and the other photo enthusiasts on this site can appreciate that.

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I look at it in sort of a sick mindset. Does this mean that Charlotte is "all grown up now" since we're getting professional protesters coming to our city? Have we reached another level of city classification in that we're a target of national organizations?

I remember one of our briefings on protests and the talk of how it's a whole different ball game when the real protesters come to town if we have something like the GOP convention here.

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