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'Dear Cyberstalker' (An Arrested Kinder Morgan Protester Writes)

Ten responses to the trolls at #BurnabyMountain.

J.B. MacKinnon 24 Nov 2014TheTyee.ca

J.B. MacKinnon's most recent book is the national bestseller The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be. He was arrested on Burnaby Mountain on Nov. 22.

1. Oh, how I enjoyed name-calling when I was a child.

2. Please be more specific about who has a right to protest. If they're young, you say they're "naïve." If old, "out of touch." If poor, "failures." If rich, "elitists." If they're angry, you say they're "crazy." If happy, you say "goofy." If dressed as Disney's Goofy, you say "trademark infringement." There seems to be almost no one left.

3. Yes, I know people who work in the tarsands. Yes, they all accept that climate change is real. No, they don't all believe that blind faith in the fossil-fuel economy is the best way forward.

4. When addressing someone as a "moron," be sure to check the spelling in the rest of your comment.

5. Does your contempt for "professional activists" extend to all paid advocacy? Do you hate the staff of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation? Are you down on Movember? How about the NRA?

6. Regarding your complaint that climate activists drive, wear clothes, eat food and then fart methane, etc: Did the people who lived in the system propped up by slavery have no right to argue for its abolishment?

7. Further to your accusations of hypocrisy: Please cease and desist in your enjoyment of weekends. They were won with civil disobedience.

8. Call us wrong, call us assholes (see #1), but don't call people who risk arrest for their beliefs "cowards." This shouldn't need explaining.

9. Before choosing the tone of your comments, ask yourself: "What are the chances that I am 100 per cent right about everything?"

10. Come out of hiding! Talk to real people using your real name! Engage in a two-way conversation! Who knows, someone might finally listen to you. Now wouldn't that feel good?  [Tyee]

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