A letter to the editor in today's Garden Island proposes a narrative that seems an attempt to exonerate Superferry demonstrators who pounded on the hood and tried to let the air out of tires of a car as it exited the ferry at Nawiliwili last summer.
I witnessed two vehicles — a police car and a ferry passenger car — try to run over people in the crowd. The citizens banged on the car with their hands and let air out of the tires to try to get the driver to stop, as the crowd was too dense for people to get out of the way. The media spun this five-minute event over and over as evidence of the “violence” of the crowd.There was fairly extensive video coverage of the event, and a couple of pieces I found on You Tube pretty soundly refute this account. One is a KHNL news broadcast while the other is an independent production that is sympathetic to the demonstrators. Both videos show a car that is stationary with six or seven people sitting on the ground in front of it. There is actually lots of room around the car. In fact, on the side where two people are letting the air out of the tires there is hardly anyone within eight or ten feet. And there is enough room on the driver's side, where most people are gathered, that the guy who bangs on the hood turns around and walks away unimpeded.
9 comments:
I get so bored by people like Diamond and Rose who think it is their right to disobey the law, and impede the free flow of traffic and the rights of others. They seem to equate non-violent with lawful. And in non-violently breaking the law, they act so indignently when the find out that the the people we authorized to enforce the law have to take action against them. With that kind of thinking, I too would want to be armed and shielded. No telling what leaps of logic they may take.
Alas, I used to read all the G.I. letters to the editor, but now I look at the author first before wasting my time. Oh hum...!
No kidding. Cutting down ironwoods near the beach is a major crime deserving jail time and huge fines, but harassing SF customers is just fine and dandy.
Some of these folks have an interesting set of double standards.
ALWAYS look at the author first in the GIN. You may save yourself from reading the 1001st Micken's letter about the bike path.
but still those are surefire ways(letters to the editor, or blog comments) to get reactions and response from others. sometimes people write things just for that. i'd rather read something that is engaging and challenging and hopefully educational. to discount such as boring or disregard because of who wrote it limits the potential for growth
Years of reading letters from certain authors has taught me that I will learn nothing from them other than what I already have learned from them....that some people live in their own universe with their own set of rules and morality disparate from the rest of society. No...I will learn nothing new from the authors I mentioned previously.
Especially with an attitude like that!
I have to ask whether Gordon "Doc" Smith is on your blacklist, manawai.
So who does get to "write" the history of the protests? The mainstream media, or the people WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE?
Luckly there's video so we don't have to take anyone's word for it.
i saw it on tv!
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