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These are the latest posts across all categories:
Category: Peer Pressure
Author: Holly Revollàn-Huelin
Date: August 28, 2025 — 7 min read
Vanishing Evidence: The 404 Strategy of Selective Activism exposes how inconvenient truths in Newfoundland activism are erased — sometimes through outright deletion, sometimes through strategic silence. Using the Environmental Transparency Committee’s August 2025 post about quarry water use as a case study, the article shows how selective outrage distracts from bigger threats like fracking, despite leaders’ political, bureaucratic, and financial ties to the energy sector. From deleted posts and suppressed petitions to institutional 404s, the piece demonstrates how vanishing evidence shapes consensus, silences dissent, and reinforces hidden loyalties. Read More...
Category: Governance
Author: Holly Revollàn-Huelin
Date: August 27, 2025 — 7 min read
In Newfoundland, protest often begins as resistance but too often ends in opportunism. From Muskrat Falls to offshore oil to fracking, the loudest voices have turned outrage into political bids, industry appointments, or personal leverage. Figures like Andrew Parsons and Kevin Aylward illustrate how quickly protest visibility can shift into corporate roles, while local archetypes — the ambitious candidate, the elder, the enforcers, the gatekeeper, and the consultant-in-disguise — show how movements fracture into manageable pieces. The result is predictable: credibility is spent, trust erodes, and outside agendas advance. Protest becomes currency, traded for status, reputation, or influence — until even the evidence of resistance begins to vanish. Read More...
Category: Governance
Author: Holly Revollàn-Huelin
Date: August 26, 2025 — 7 min read
In Newfoundland, land is treated less as heritage and more as leverage. Sweeping claims, untested legal structures, curated “documentation,” and a surge of mineral exploration all reveal how governance vacuums are exploited. From the silenced 6(1)/6(2 debate to UNDRIP consent politics, outside agendas thrive on ambiguity. Land becomes currency, heritage becomes narrative, and without transparent governance, decisions about Newfoundland’s future are already being signed elsewhere. Read More...
Category: Governance
Author: Holly Revollàn-Huelin
Date: August 15, 2025 — 7 min read
This piece exposes how “outrage” in Newfoundland’s environmental and political movements is often selective, serving alliances rather than principles. Using examples from Jasen Benwah’s shifting stance on wind projects, UNDRIP land claim gatekeeping, and Darrell Shelley’s opportunistic politics, it shows how ecological harm is condemned or excused depending on who benefits. The article ties these local double standards to global financial agendas like GFANZ, where narrative control matters more than actual environmental impact, and warns that until consistent standards are applied, the land will remain a bargaining chip and truth negotiable. Read More...
Category: Peer Pressure
Author: Holly Revollàn-Huelin
Date: August 13, 2025 — 5 min read
This article examines the cultural pattern in Newfoundland where independent voices are often sidelined for speaking up too early. Using cases like Brenda Kitchen’s boundary-setting, Rae Miller’s role in delaying a petition with 85% local opposition to a wind project, and Duran Felix’s public confrontation during a protest, it shows how early dissent is reframed as disruption, punished socially, and later rewritten out of the narrative. The piece connects these incidents to broader community dynamics where unity is mistaken for conformity, making it easier for outside actors to control local debates. It argues that being early should be an asset, not a liability, in healthy communities. Read More...
Category: Governance
Author: Holly Revollàn-Huelin
Date: August 9, 2025 — 8 min read
This editorial exposes the “Technocracy of the Base” — a governance culture in Newfoundland where councils and committees operate more as administrative layers than as engines of strategy. Drawing on the Local Paradox framework, it shows how weak local capacity, reinforced by social conformity and peer pressure, creates the perfect environment for top-down agendas to flourish. From Muskrat Falls to Paris Agreement-aligned wind and hydrogen projects, decisions are accepted without scrutiny, not out of agreement, but from the ingrained belief that resistance is futile. Breaking the cycle will require more than policy tweaks — it will take cultural change, strategic capacity, and the courage to dissent. Read More...
