Green Washing and Running Through the Wringer: condensed edited shorter

***The foregoing was edited because it was far too long***
###and it still is too long###

As I have explained previously, I am not very fond of most mass demonstrations; particular when they involve impeding traffic on public streets and inhibiting the mobility of uninvolved or disinterested persons. For one thing you might be endangering the life of a mother about to give birth or just generally screwing with lives whose paths you cannot know.

That is not to say I am against making views known, uncovering corrupt skulduggery, or free expression. Those things do not require stepping on rights of others.

I have attended civil assemblies related to the powerlink debacle.
Sunrise Powerlink in southernmost California. And fairly easternmost as well. Out there where few people live. Despite facts from their own reports, and facts confirmed through other sources, SDGE and those who stand in line for ill-gotten gains bulldoze forward.

In the name of green energy, which it isn't.

Cloak anything in greenness and it flies in CA. Unbelievable. Often it is more harmful than the alternative.

The path of corruption is a complicated and boring. In simplest form, the utilities commission, and the judge assigned to the original review all said it was a bad plan. Arnold, the ever-compenasting-for-something governor, threatened to fire the commission if they did not reverse their opinion and override all objections, which they did. Of course everyone knows that politicians like Arnold and Al Gore are experts on electricity and its production.

It should be tied up in court, yet with all that mess pending, SDGE is still going ahead with their ground breaking. It occurred last Thursday out in the wilds near Boulevard. That is way east and so far south you can literally see the border fence between the US and Mexico.

It was down a dirt road leading to what had once been a ranch, a Chargers' spring training camp, and a homeless rehab facility. Now it is an SDGE work camp, heliport. We are talking middle of nowhere. So, out of interest and curiosity I went with a couple of friends to see what was up. A couple hundred people showed to express their disapproval of this thing.

The complex is fenced in with barbed wire, and they had a point beyond which you could not pass. Only officials and invited guests. The actual buildings and all that are far within this multi acre annexation of land. The need an acre, they take 600. Everyone was well behaved and of all ages. These are east county horse people, wine makers, hermits, and recluses. And people who just like living out of the city.

Arnold showed up with a motorcade. They bussed people in from various parts of the county. News could go in while they held speeches to the choir and all that. It was bizarre.

What struck me most is that when they were approaching the gate on the dirt road where the people were (I suppose you could call them protestors although there was no blocking the road or pounding on cars--probably fifty cops and sheriffs hanging around), at the narrowest part they gunned the engines and flew by people creating a rather unsafe condition. There were little kids. It was a case of purely elitist arrogance.

Many of the others that came through did not race by, and people waved at them and they waved back. Some shrugged in that, "just doing my job" way.

I was heartened to see that this was not a crowd cut along party lines. Ray Lutz was there but largely ignored. Some of the most knowledgeable and involved people who have organized the lawsuits are almost as libertarian as I am. There were right wing tea party people, and left wing progressives. And Native Americans whose tribes I forgot. Their burial grounds are being screwed with.

No one knows where Gov. elect Moonbeam Brown stands on this, but he is another guy who pretends to be an expert energy engineer. He is all in with the green lobby so, no doubt, since it calls itself green and represents big campaign funding, he'll use it as an example of progressive government saving the earth.

This is a case where the knee-jerk democrats say "go green, rah rah rah", and the knee-jerk republicans say, "go business and capitalism rah rah rah", and both are completely ignoring reality. This is not free enterprise capitalism, and it is not green. No more than the mafia forcing people to pay protection to keep stores open were just trying to help keep the community safe and providing a valuable service.

For the cost of this system, they could put up enough roof-top solar to almost power the county. There's a curious thread, including Obama's secretary of the inerior who was a Sempra lobbyist. (the company that owns sdge and who has the Mexican contracts and plants over there. He's paved the way to help downgrade forest land classifications to allow this to go through.

And Arnold sat there like the wax figure of a man he is while his driver and other cars in his motorcade accelerated through a crowd of peaceful non-violent people causing a serious threat. And he'll say he's all about the safety of "da peepole".

Unlike many, I never liked Arnold much. Way back when he first became famous, he was such a clueless conceited dolt in interviews, I couldn't believe he achieved success as an actor. I tried to like him because various girlfriends seemed to. Where are they now? Obviusly they were nincompoops. Or maybe just I am.