Sunday 12 March 2017

Heroic Fracking Lorry Driver

"Twenty thousand Englishmen cannot rule four hundred million Indians if those Indians refuse to cooperate with them." Mahatma Gandhi. "We are many and they are few." Percy B. Shelley. There are many other proverbs like that which give us the essential message that humanity on a collective level is able to resist of imposition of injustice if we choose because injustice comes from a tiny elite minority. The elite's power is dependent on the collusion of a disunited and apathetic populace. They know this. This is why any individual who steps out of line is immediately and severely admonished, and this punishment is usually disproportionately bad compared to, say shoplifting, because the individual might become an example to the others. This is the elite's worst nightmare. The elite hope that the fear of the consequences will prevent the lone rebel from playing up. Another very different proverb from Japan says: "Never be the nail that stands out above the rest because that's always the first one to get hammered." Unfortunately for people with courage and conscience, that is not an excuse. Yes, it's a lousy deal, but I've had to do it; so has everybody else who makes a stand. It's essential that we do set a good example because if we keep doing that then at some point a critical mass will be hit and the many will indeed rise against the few. You have to be a hero. One such nail who is willing to take a hammering for his principles is a lorry driver called Chris Allport who was ordered to deliver a drill pipe to a fracking well site run by the Third Energy fracking company near Pickering, North Yorkshire. He refused. He chose humanity over insanity, to quote Ian R Crane, see: https://www.facebook.com/groups/573619286143264/permalink/715352251969966/. We will no doubt have more news on this subject when Ian publishes the next episode of his TV show Fracking Nightmare, see: https://www.youtube.com/user/ianrcrane. However we know that this driver has not been sacked at the time of writing. This might change. If so then I'm sorry but it is inevitable for the reasons I describe above. But I also know that there are so many admiring people who will support him, as we did Tony Farrell who also made the heroic decision to put ethics before convenience and fear, and refused to surrender to threats, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/tony-farrell.html and: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/british-humanist-association-conspiracy.html. There is a brilliant live interview Ian did with Chris Allport. Third Energy tried to treat Chris as an unwitting mule. They did not tell him what his equipment actually was and told him to park outside the site and await more instructions. Chris speaks frankly about his feelings of morality and about how he values his principles. He clearly has pride in being a man of moral courage, justly I think. See: https://www.facebook.com/ian.r.crane.7/videos/1054554991316873/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED.

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