Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s very true. The frozen plains of North Dakota aren’t worth much without oil. With oil, they provide good paying jobs to people who otherwise won’t have them. I lived in the next state south for many years. Oil is definitely popular with the people of North Dakota.
With all due respect, I disagree. I loved the winters. I loved the people. I loved how its natural beauty was subtle and rewarded the patient, unlike El Capitan or the Black Hills. The economy was fine before oil appeared.
Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
171–180 of 245 posts
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
SLAPP as in Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. To keep the dissenting voices quiet and to scare other groups from protesting. Modus operandi for many industries.
A SLAPP is a frivolous lawsuit that the plaintiff has no chance of winning. In this case they won a judgment, so it's the opposite of that.
That's not technically what a SLAPP is. The reason it is called a strategic lawsuit is frequently that it will cost the defendant so much to defend themselves that they opt to settle rather than risk that cost. Even if the plaintiff is unlikely to win, it is rarely a "no chance" situation, and with judge/district shopping, it is quite possible for large corporations to move further from "no chance" than an individual or non-profit might.
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#173So they almost certainly are guilty, but the damages seem exorbitant
Hard to believe you’re downvoted in an organic way…
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oil companies have been suppressing climate change research for decades to keep cooking the earth for profits. Is that not corruption? I suppose if you are economically exposed to these gains, don’t believe in climate change, and/or won’t be here for the bad times from this, the facts may not matter to your mental model. The facts remain that climate change is real and oil companies are doing their best to extract ev…
Oil companies have a definite history of punching people and then suing them for running into their fist. But I should also point out that Greenpeace is the kind of shitty activist company that also does those kind of tactics, so an oil company suing Greenpeace leaves my priors as "I don't know which side is more likely right in this scenario."
> I don't know which side is more likely right in this scenario.
What are the motives? Follow the money? Who profits most might give an indication of who is more likely wrong.
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#175Sounds like it's time for GreenPeace USA to follow the chemical industries example - do a corporate reorg, put all the liabilities in specific subsidiary and then declare bankrupacy for that subsidiary.
The proper way to do it would be to let Greenpeace USA go insolvent and then immediately form GreenPeace America as a new entity unhindered by the liabilities of the old one.
This tactic has been used by our current President.
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well it is very hard to believe they're guilty, at least to me. Too bad the news report does not provide any actual information about the case and the evidence (actual journalism beyond clickbaity headlines). In environmental circles, Greenpeace is very well-known to be traitors working with big corporations to launder their image. They're opposed to sabotage and revolutionary tactics. Their activities are mostly fun…
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Not this tired nonsense again.
Contrasting specific technological and social artifacts with a form of economic organization and legal structures without noting how different they are is a cheap and weak form of argument.
If you want to insist that only greedy corporations could have made portable hand-held network connected computing devices possible, then make that point. If you want to insist that there could be no automobile or refueling system without a system in which corporate profits primarily are directed towards capital rather than labor, then make that point. If you find it impossible that powered flight would exist at a price where most people could afford it without specific laws controlling corporate liability and legal fiduciary responsibility, than make that point.
But "ah, so you use human-created technology while criticizing the organizations that make it" isn't really the winning argument that you appear to think it is.
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is objectively not what happened here though, the point of SLAPP is that it's a frivolous suit that's meant to just exhaust the resources of the "dissenting voices". They won this suit and honestly it's not hard to believe that Greenpeace is guilty to some degree even if proving it is.
> the point of SLAPP is that it's a frivolous suit The point is to shut people up. Lawyers don't like filing literally frivolous suits, that type of activity gets you disbarred.
In theory, yes. But does that actually happen IRL? I've never heard of a lawyer getting disbarred for the quality of suits he or she is filing.
Many years ago in Northern CA we had a lawyer that was basically going around filing suits against everyone she came in contact with as a way to pay the bills. She was eventually declared a "vexatious litigant" and had to get a judge's permission before she could sue anyone in the future, but they didn't disbar her.
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> they're like 90% left-wing activists I'm not sure that's an accurate description. Are "Human Rights" inherently left-wing? Is environmental protection inherently left-wing? Is political corruption inherently right wing? This is of legal experts each with 30+ years of experience in the fields with which this trial is concerned (environmentalism, corruption, humans rights abuses).
Perhaps anti-oil activists would have been a better term. That seems more plainly true to me.
They might or might not have had more valid cases in their respective pasts. But it doesn't seem right to me to term themselves "trial monitors" when they seem pretty plainly biased for one side of the trial. It would be more okay if they had some pro-oil attorneys on their board too, or called themselves "Greenpeace Defenders" or something.
I know, it's hardly the first or the most egregious case of deceptive naming out there. But it's still worth calling out in my opinion, especially when it it still, at the time of this writing, on the top of the HN thread about this, described as if they were unbiased legal experts.
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
J&J tried it but was ultimately rejected last year.
Somewhat different circumstances. Summarizing Matt Levine's various columns on the issue from memory: 1. J&J lost a lawsuit about talc and the winner was awarded $Xb (or maybe $XXXm, my memory is fuzzy) in damages. 2. J&J transferred $XXb to a new company. 3. It let the new company take on current and future liabilities for judgements on the talc issue. 4. J&J then had the new company declare bankruptcy. The bankrupt…
Generally true, but one key point. Under bankruptcy law, you can give liabilities to a subsidiary, but you have to give the subsidiary enough money to pay the anticipated liabilities. That’s the reason why J&J gave the subsidiary so much money. Otherwise, the bankruptcy would have been dismissed as a fraudulent transfer. The bankruptcy court approved the bankruptcy filing, but on appeal the Third Circuit dismissed the bankruptcy because the subsidiary wasn’t bankrupt enough. Basically, in order to avoid fraudulent transfer law, J&J had to write the subsidiary a big check, but that money made the subsidiary ineligible for bankruptcy.
(Disclosure: I was on the team that won the appeal against J&J on this issue. My comment above is about the public record.)
Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case
#180It would be very easy for an energy company to make hundreds of thousands of donations through "private supporters" to Greenpeace so as to cause problems for their competitors without liability, including defamation, and violent protests. They could be profiting by encouraging angry kids to go ruin their lives, and there would be no consequences for the executives behind it all. In fact, if this were actually happeni…
That's a hell of a cynnical conspiracy but then again, people like Jill Stein exist.
The Harvard educated doctor, magna cum laude, with a long history of fighting for a better America for all Americans.
The Jewish lady who was smeared as a Russian agent because she was at a diplomatic dinner that Putin also attended.
The woman who challenged election results in 2016, only for the response to be to make it harder to question election results (and that certainly never blew-back on all of us).
The lady who was then put under Senate investigation for two years over the so-called collusion with Russia which turned up precisely zero evidence.
Who put up the single best fight against two entrenched pro-genocide parties of anyone else in America's 350 million people.
The 2024 candidate with the highest vote to campaign funds ratio of any candidate by a factor of about ten despite having a tiny fraction of the election coverage.
What exactly are you saying the comparison is here? That Americans tend to cheer for the villains and boo the heroes just because the media tells them to?