The shale gas test drilling sites have been the target of sabotage by a bunch of eco activists who have no respect for the democratic process
Balcombe residents stand up to fracking.
The mouthpiece of the Dutch Green party and the cause of sustainability, the newspaper Trouw, is once again skirting the edges of responsible journalism while reporting on the "war on fracking": the protests at the site of the shale gas test drilling by the Cuadrilla corporation at the British town of Balcombe. According to Trouw anti fracking protests reached boiling point this week, culminating in the arrest of a great number of eco activists, among them Caroline Lucas, MP for the British Green Party.
Trouw is reporting that the MP was released on bail, while declaring "she isn't wont to participate in these sort of activities", but simply had no choice. Well, what do you know?! A member of parliament, with all the resources of democracy at her disposal, is forced to take recourse to extraparliamentary activism. That's sad!
They are really sensitive human beings too, these green democrats: "I have the feeling that the government just isn't listening to the people". At that point in the article Trouw is really going overboard. Lucas:
"At some stage the democratic means at our disposal have been exhausted and one feels obliged to resort to non-violent, direct action".
Stop! Democratic means exhausted? Ms Lucas has a seat on the left side of the aisle in the British parliament, where the debate on fracking is still ongoing. Her declared legitimacy of extraparliamentary 'direct action' is highly debatable.
But is Trouw's reporting correct? No, it isn't. Lucas MP, the activist democrat was actually declaring something quite different. She said: "Resistance is justified, because democracy isn't working." Which is an extraordinary approach. Hypocrisy is rife at the green front; stretching the truth for a good cause isn't considered a big deal. Fact-free alarmism and sabotage are dominating the debate on fracking. Trouw is really piling it on:
"Lucas understands that fear and hyperbole are part and parcel of the debate on fracking and she refuses to participate in the politics of fear. What annoys her, is that there has never been a proper debate".
And that coming from a MP who has the entire democratic tool kit at her disposal! At this time British PM David Cameron is speaking of an ongoing national debate. The shale gas test drilling sites have been the target of sabotage by a bunch of eco activists who have no respect for the democratic process whatsoever. A couple of Dutch MPs prove that these actions have nothing to do with a public debate either.
Marianne Thieme MP is tweeting that "We can learn a thing or two from the British protests against fracking."
It's really sad that parliamentarians should opt for extraparliamentary activism instead of open debate. The former director of Greenpeace Netherlands, Liesbeth van Tongeren MP is even worse:
"British protests against fracking are reaching boiling point. I was there and I made this video."
So the member of the Green party was in attendance when the Balcombe protests exploded, citing something about getting experience in "tactics & strategics" in the war on fracking. It's an outrage that members of parliament are engaging in such activities when the democratic means have not even been exhausted!
But even then. The green minority wants to have their cake and eat it too. They are just as democratic as the D in GDR. This is on par with dumping cement blocks in the North Sea against fishing, and the undermining of railtracks during transports of nuclear waste. These actions are potentially very dangerous and damaging to society as well as the economy.
To the green wing nuts democracy is just another railway track to undermine and an ethics program in which the end justifies the means. Because to them, democracy just isn't working.
For Gerton van Unnik