Halloween was a whole lot scarier this year for five of the people behind the Burnaby, BC protests against Kinder Morgan. After weeks of rallies, delaying construction, and allegedly assaulting and harassing Kinder Morgan’s staff; the company decided to protect themselves by filing a $5.8 million lawsuit.
The protesters were in court this week and, needless to say, the media have rewarded them with the attention they so desperately crave. Fortunately for the protesters, and not so much for the public, most journalist’s reports are lacking in substance- providing their audience with little to no background on who’s really behind all of the ruckus.
Unfortunately, the fact that most reports that are lacking in substance is the good news. Outsiders who are trying to understand the truth face a bigger challenge- stories from some protest friendly media outlets demonstrate all the integrity of Pravda’s farm productivity reports circa 1932. (Yes Linda Solomon, that means you).
This series of four articles will address the problem by digging into the details of the protest, the people and organisations working behind the scenes, and by deconstructing some of the bovine excrement being fed to the public. After several weeks of investigation it’s become clear that everything is not what it looks like on the surface- despite the protest’s grassroots appearance, there are many well-funded organizations working in the background.
In Part I we’ll explore the protest’s connections to Simon Fraser University, it’s a fascinating tale about radicalism in our education system. In Part II we’ll explore the NGOs hiding behind the grassroots curtain, is BROKE Burnaby a collection of concerned residents or an AstroTurf front? Finally in Part III we’ll unmask some of the protest’s hardcore radicals, and their connections to the violence at the 2010 Olympics and Toronto G20.
Part I will be published on this site within the next 24 hours. Until then, take some time to go through the interactive chart and familiarize yourself with some of the key players. You can use the scroll wheel on your mouse (or the +/- buttons on the top-right) to zoom in and out, click on the circles and you’ll get a pop-up with details about the people and organizations they represent, hover your mouse pointer over a circle to expose the subjects network. Circles with red borders indicate an acceptance of the doctrine of diversity of tactics (use of violence) at protests.
Enjoy…
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Yup, defintely the usual suspects at work here. Love it how they try and present this as a ‘coming together’ of concerned joe and jane six packs, which like most of what they say is the polar opposite of reality.
Author
After three years of research it’s become clear to me that the same situation is happening across the country. From Elsipogtog (New Brunswick) to the unist’ot’en camp (BC), almost every major protest I’ve followed since 2011 has been connected to the same group of people. Equally, the deeper I research into the past, the more obvious it is this has been a continuous pattern for more than two decades.
Luckily, people across the country are waking up to this problem- social media is helping to turf them out. One could say that the Internet is killing the activist star. ..
Yes, you are spot on concerning all the so-called grassroots protests across the country. They are anything but grassroots when you do a bit of digging. Thank you so much for all your excellent work exposing who is really behind the protests and what they represent. Now if only we had some old time investigative reporters, but other than SNN we have none.
I look forward to the next article in the series.
I have often wondered, cui bono?
Why, OPEC and Gazprom, to begin with.
I wonder if any of their money has found its way into the hands of these “environmentalists”?
Great work, but that graphic is annoying.
Author
How so? I’m new at using this tool, if you have any recommendations on how it could be better, please let me know.
Thanks for doing the job the Media refuse to do, reporting the facts.
Author
Thank you!
It is nice to see the mug shots of the usual cabal of Luddite leftists.
But when did SFU go to the dark side.?
Author
As I’ll explain in Part I SFU, as an institution, hasn’t gone entirely to the dark side- the school’s president has made a statement about refusing to support people who commit criminal activities. That said, exploring the relationships, their Institute for the Humanities appears to be as radical as they come.
Stay tuned, I should be finished with Part I in the next few hours…
Try your website on an IPad. The problem is not that it doesn’t work. The experience so so much worse than that. Great content though.
It would be really helpful if this graphic could be displayed in full screen. This format (inside blog column) is to small to review the individual players, and have an overview of the links at the same time. Perhaps a link to a separate webpage with the graphic as well?
Where is part 1
Author
It’s right here, enjoy!
http://www.genuinewitty.com/2014/11/10/kinder-morgan-protest-unmasked-part-i-is-it-safe-to-send-your-kids-to-sfu-feat-vancouver-observer/