Vote No on Hyperion Refinery... But Don't Paint the Road

KELO reports an outbreak of political vandalism in Union County. As-yet unknown individuals have been traveling the county and spray-painting "Vote No Hyperion" and "Vote No" on the county roads.

Now as vandalism goes, spray-painting the highway is pretty mild. Union County's residents aren't tearing out chunks of asphalt to hurl at Hyperion corporate security or local police (I assume the two will remain independent organizations). Heck, put that paint on thick enough, it might even seal a few cracks and stave off a pothole or two for another year. The road messages are less of an eyesore than roadkill. And a slogan lying flat on the pavement doesn't cause the aesthetic disruption of scrawling graffiti on the walls of a nicely painted building.

Nonetheless, even this opponent of the expansion of Big Oil's corporate power at the expense of South Dakota's environmental and legal security can see the counterproductive nature of campaigning by vandalism. Persuasion requires ethos, the impression of a speaker's moral character. Anonymous and illegal activity doesn't send a positive message about a speaker's moral character.

A better tactic would be for the road painters to turn their spray cans to some big sheets of plywood that folks can see from a quarter mile away. Get some fenceposts and stand those signs up in the farm fields and front yards. Then when someone asks "Who painted that?" you can say "I did, because that refinery is wrong for our county." Take ownership of the message, and it becomes much stronger.

If we were in Tibet or China, I could understand this sort of secret civil disobedience. But we aren't facing down the thugs of the People's Army or the Beijing Politburo. The Union County Commission won't subject us to torture or re-education for saying publicly that we oppose blaspheming the good earth by putting it at the service of a dinosaur industry. (Hyperion might, though corporations call re-education "community relations.")

Mary Erickson of Spink, who lives near the proposed refinery site, tells KELO that she thinks the road vandalism is "just the tip of the iceberg." She thinks in another month "...there will be a lot of people out there doing some things they probably shouldn't be."

Let's not go there, people. We have a fair public vote coming in June. We don't need to break the law to make the point that giving over our land to Big Oil is a short-sighted and unhealthy economic choice for Union County and for the nation. Let's talk as neighbors, offer our best arguments, then go to the polls and hope we win.