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Martin Waterhouse
San Ramon, CA
Never blindly accept someone else's rhetoric! Even when someone gives you a perfectly reasonable answer to a question. Remember, they are not you so always assume there's still some work to do to achieve understanding! That way when you need to act you will jump on YOUR bandwagon and NOT THEIRS!!!
Recent Activity
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Martin commented on the petition |Living on the West side of San Ramon, I am a bicycle commuter to Bishop ranch. I use Norris Canyon Road as an alternate safer route than the increasingly bicycle unfriendly Bollinger Canyon Rd. With an HOV access added to Norris Canyon, there will be NO safe cyclist routes available between Montevideo and Fostoria! These routes are many miles apart.
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Martin signed the petition | -
Martin signed the petition | -
Martin commented on the article |Well thought out discussion. I can certainly appreciate the issues you raise as one who accepted taxation without representation for 24 years as green card holders. For at least half of that time we were solicited constantly to register to vote - which we refused though surprisingly discovered that there are many countries that do provide voting rights for ALL tax payers! My wife and I finally bit the bullet a few years back and took out citizenship.
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Martin commented on the article |Who truly represents the plight of the indigenous tribes?
This entire issue is about as dirty (physically and emotionally) as it gets! EVERY principal in this toxic discourse seems to have an agenda. Chevron who constantly declare that Texaco had no involvement after 1992 is certainly the prime target but I sense it's more about the $$s than the true Amazon basin victims or even global warming. Where there is incredible culpability but no $$s (i.e. the Ecuadorian state owned PetroEcuador, to this day continuing to pump crap all over the place with abandon) there is no outcry for action in this case? Where is the concern where the innocent indigenous population is used as agenda-fodder by the media, anti-"big oil" spin doctors, highly compensated lawyers and the Ecuadorian government?
From what I can ascertain, the Ecuadorian government has profited and continues to profit significantly from exploiting those areas where then Texaco and other oil companies (interesting not listed in the lawsuit) no longer operate.
Obviously if $27Bn is awarded in Ecuador who will be the beneficiaries I wonder? I would suspect that it would go something like this: 1) the Ecuadorian Government directly and by way of taxes and other levies, 2) The Amazon Defense Coalition (i.e. a bunch of lawyers expecting to receive a significant percentage of the claim) 3) Media spin-doctoring companies such as Hinton Communications for their tireless effort in maligning Chevron 4) Some of the officials providing supporting evidence as an "appreciation" of their civic duty 5) Finally, if the Ecuadorian government resisted managing ALL of the remaining disbursements and they are lucky, the indigenous tribes will get some leftovers
I found this Global Voices report much more disturbing, especially the collusion between the above named participants in the lawsuit!
http://www.groundreport.com/Arts_and_Culture/Ecuador-Lawsuit-Against-Oil-Company-for-Environmen
My suspicion is that even if the lawsuit was awarded to the plaintiffs, no cleanup will be achieved. PetroEcuador will maintain the operations and continue to pollute. The Ecuadorian government may consider using their portion to further invest in other currently government sponsored ecologically heinous activities such as the Rio Tinto venture in Junin:
http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2009/05/locals-fight-mining-in-ecuadors.html
It's easy to take the hypocritical high-road. I'm finding it quite a stretch to compare this situation to the Exxon Valdez which at the time was an actively owned and operated vessel of Exxon's. This would be more like Exxon selling the Valdez to the Ecuadorian Government, and having a lawsuit against Exxon if it sinks 15 years later!
About the only thing I can control is my own consumption, at least I'm doing my part as a bicycle commuter! - Peace Out.
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