“Community Columnist” Michael Schrader

(About the dangers of deliberate disinformation)

Written 25 February 2017

This past Thursday, while driving home in the evening, I was listening to music from my favorite Sarnia radio station. Interestingly enough, while the Sarnia station was playing music, one of our local residents was posting on social media a video of a flare up at the Imperial refinery, creating a great deal of concern and panic among fellow citizens about the apocalyptic doom occurring across the border. Obviously, something was going on, and those mean-hearted Canadians were deliberately withholding information from us out of spite. The Canadians want us all to die! They hate us!

So here is a question for all of my fellow Americans – don’t you think that if there was something really serious going on, like, say, the refinery were in danger of exploding or something bad like that, the Sarnia radio station would be broadcasting emergency alerts instead of music? One would think, but we are not in the right frame of mind to think anymore – we react, without giving the first thought to the outcome of our reactions. Now there are those who believe that Imperial is not being truthful of the severity of the situation, that it was much worse than they say. It really could not have looked worse because of the clouds, right?

I have driven into the city regularly for the better part of four years, so I have seen the flares in many different weather circumstances. Let me give this first hand testimonial – there have been occasions that it has looked like the refinery was on fire due to the cloud cover, weather conditions, and vantage point. There have been times that I would have sworn that something seriously bad was happening at the refinery, only to find out, as I travelled a few miles down the road, that it was all an optical illusion, due to reflections in the clouds. Since I have observed this phenomenon, I tend to believe Imperial when they say that the flares looked much worse than they were.

What about the alarms? What about them? Obviously, Imperial’s safety systems were functioning properly to alert staff that something was amiss. Not only was the flaring abnormal, there was a grass fire. Given how warm and windy it has been recently, a grass fire, even a small one, near a refinery is a cause for alarm. Would you rather that there had not been an alarm? Perhaps we would feel better if there actually had been a disaster, and then we could revel in our “I told you so” smugness while everything around us is destroyed in the massive fireball. When I say we, I mean those of us who survived the disaster.

When I saw the social media post, I was, how shall I say this, rather annoyed. There are actually laws against yelling “fire” in a crowded theater; there should be laws against irresponsible posts. Instead of posting a video online that you knew, or had to have known, would cause panic, and asking what is going on, why didn’t you just tune into the Sarnia radio and find out? Of course, if you were listening to the Sarnia station I was, you would have heard music, as it was not the end of the world that your video would have many believe. That video falls within the category of “fake news” – unsubstantiated, without context, and with the intent to provoke fear or paranoia.

Playing the Devil’s Advocate, suppose there actually was a real emergency on the Canadian side; why would any Canadian in a right mind want to make any effort to help us? We are rude to the Canadians. We have zero respect for their values or history. When the Canadians express concern about pollution coming from our side, we give them the middle finger. When over a thousand semi-naked undocumented Americans enter their country illegally, we don’t apologize permanently cancel the event that caused the trouble, we keep on doing it, knowing it annoys our Canadian neighbors.

Two lessons to be learned: stay off social media unless you know the facts; if you want help, you have to be helpful.

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