Urgent ELP Information Bulletin (10th September 2011) Dear friends ELP has just
been informed that American ecodefence prisoner, Tim DeChristopher, has finally been
transferred to his facility, in Herlong (California).
He would welcome letters of support.
Tim DeChristopher
#16156-081
FCI Herlon Federal Correctional Institution
PO Box 800
Herlong, CA 96113USA
++++++++ Earth Liberation Prisoners Support NetworkBM Box
2407LondonWC1N 3XXEngland
Editor's Note: Yesterday Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to 2 years in federal prison and was handed a $10,000 fine for bidding on oil and gas drilling leases in an attempt to protect public lands.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the court. When I first met Mr. Manross, the sentencing officer who prepared the presentence report, he explained that it was essentially his job to “get to know me.” He said he had to get to know who I really was and why I did what I did in order to decide what kind of sentence was appropriate. I was struck by the fact that he was the first person in this courthouse to call me by my first name, or even really look me in the eye. I appreciate this opportunity to speak openly to you for the first time. I’m not here asking for your mercy, but I am here asking that you know me.
[Assistant U.S. Attorney John] Huber has leveled a lot of character attacks at me, many of which are contrary to Mr. Manross’s report. While reading Mr. Huber’s critiques of my character and my integrity, as well as his assumptions about my motivations, I was reminded that Mr Huber and I have never had a conversation. Over the two and half years of this prosecution, he has never asked my any of the questions that he makes assumptions about in the government’s report. Apparently, Mr. Huber has never considered it his job to get to know me, and yet he is quite willing to disregard the opinions of the one person who does see that as his job.
There are alternating characterizations that Mr Huber would like you to believe about me. In one paragraph, the government claims I “played out the parts of accuser, jury, and judge as he determined the fate of the oil and gas lease auction and its intended participants that day.” In the very next paragraph, they claim “ It was not the defendant’s crimes that effected such a change.” Mr Huber would lead you to believe that I’m either a dangerous criminal who holds the oil and gas industry in the palm of my hand, or I’m just an incompetent child who didn’t affect the outcome of anything. As evidenced by the continued back and forth of contradictory arguments in the government’s memorandum, they’re not quite sure which of those extreme caricatures I am, but they are certain that I am nothing in between. Rather than the job of getting to know me, it seems Mr Huber prefers the job of fitting me into whatever extreme characterization is most politically expedient at the moment.
In nearly every paragraph, the government’s memorandum uses the words lie, lied, lying, liar. It makes me want to thank whatever clerk edited out the words “pants on fire.” Their report doesn’t mention the fact that at the auction in question, the first person who asked me what I was doing there was Agent Dan Love. And I told him very clearly that I was there to stand in the way of an illegitimate auction that threatened my future. I proceeded to answer all of his questions openly and honestly, and have done so to this day when speaking about that auction in any forum, including this courtroom. The entire basis for the false statements charge that I was convicted of was the fact that I wrote my real name and address on a form that included the words “bona fide bidder.” When I sat there on the witness stand, Mr Romney asked me if I ever had any intention of being a bona fide bidder. I responded by asking Mr Romney to clarify what “bona fide bidder” meant in this context. Mr Romney then withdrew the question and moved on to the next subject. On that right there is the entire basis for the government’s repeated attacks on my integrity. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, your honor.
Mr Huber also makes grand assumptions about my level of respect for the rule of law. The government claims a long prison sentence is necessary to counteract the political statements I’ve made and promote a respect for the law. The only evidence provided for my lack of respect for the law is political statements that I’ve made in public forums. Again, the government doesn’t mention my actions in regard to the drastic restrictions that were put upon my defense in this courtroom. My political disagreements with the court about the proper role of a jury in the legal system are probably well known. I’ve given several public speeches and interviews about how the jury system was established and how it has evolved to it’s current state. Outside of this courtroom, I’ve made my views clear that I agree with the founding fathers that juries should be the conscience of the community and a defense against legislative tyranny. I even went so far as to organize a book study group that read about the history of jury nullification. Some of the participants in that book group later began passing out leaflets to the public about jury rights, as is their right. Mr Huber was apparently so outraged by this that he made the slanderous accusations that I tried to taint the jury. He didn’t specify the extra number of months that I should spend in prison for the heinous activity of holding a book group at the Unitarian Church and quoting Thomas Jefferson in public, but he says you should have “little tolerance for this behavior.”
But here is the important point that Mr Huber would rather ignore. Despite my strong disagreements with the court about the Constitutional basis for the limits on my defense, while I was in this courtroom I respected the authority of the court. Whether I agreed with them or not, I abided by the restrictions that you put on me and my legal team. I never attempted to “taint” the jury, as Mr Huber claimed, by sharing any of the relevant facts about the auction in question that the court had decided were off limits. I didn’t burst out and tell the jury that I successfully raised the down payment and offered it to the BLM. I didn’t let the jury know that the auction was later reversed because it was illegitimate in the first place. To this day I still think I should have had the right to do so, but disagreement with the law should not be confused with disrespect for the law.
My public statements about jury nullification were not the only political statements that Mr Huber thinks I should be punished for. As the government’s memorandum points out, I have also made public statements about the value of civil disobedience in bringing the rule of law closer to our shared sense of justice. In fact, I have openly and explicitly called for nonviolent civil disobedience against mountaintop removal coal mining in my home state of West Virginia. Mountaintop removal is itself an illegal activity, which has always been in violation of the Clean Water Act, and it is an illegal activity that kills people. A West Virginia state investigation found that Massey Energy had been cited with 62,923 violations of the law in the ten years preceding the disaster that killed 29 people last year. The investigation also revealed that Massey paid for almost none of those violations because the company provided millions of dollars worth of campaign contributions that elected most of the appeals court judges in the state. When I was growing up in West Virginia, my mother was one of many who pursued every legal avenue for making the coal industry follow the law. She commented at hearings, wrote petitions and filed lawsuits, and many have continued to do ever since, to no avail. I actually have great respect for the rule of law, because I see what happens when it doesn’t exist, as is the case with the fossil fuel industry. Those crimes committed by Massey Energy led not only to the deaths of their own workers, but to the deaths of countless local residents, such as Joshua McCormick, who died of kidney cancer at age 22 because he was unlucky enough to live downstream from a coal mine. When a corrupted government is no longer willing to uphold the rule of law, I advocate that citizens step up to that responsibility.
This is really the heart of what this case is about. The rule of law is dependent upon a government that is willing to abide by the law. Disrespect for the rule of law begins when the government believes itself and its corporate sponsors to be above the law.
Mr Huber claims that the seriousness of my offense was that I “obstructed lawful government proceedings.” But the auction in question was not a lawful proceeding. I know you’ve heard another case about some of the irregularities for which the auction was overturned. But that case did not involve the BLM’s blatant violation of Secretarial Order 3226, which was a law that went into effect in 2001 and required the BLM to weigh the impacts on climate change for all its major decisions, particularly resource development. A federal judge in Montana ruled last year that the BLM was in constant violation of this law throughout the Bush administration. In all the proceedings and debates about this auction, no apologist for the government or the BLM has ever even tried to claim that the BLM followed this law. In both the December 2008 auction and the creation of the Resource Management Plan on which this auction was based, the BLM did not even attempt to follow this law.
And this law is not a trivial regulation about crossing t’s or dotting i’s to make some government accountant’s job easier. This law was put into effect to mitigate the impacts of catastrophic climate change and defend a livable future on this planet. This law was about protecting the survival of young generations. That’s kind of a big deal. It’s a very big deal to me. If the government is going to refuse to step up to that responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and other citizens. My future, and the future of everyone I care about, is being traded for short term profits. I take that very personally. Until our leaders take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I will continue this fight.
The government has made the claim that there were legal alternatives to standing in the way of this auction. Particularly, I could have filed a written protest against certain parcels. The government does not mention, however, that two months prior to this auction, in October 2008, a Congressional report was released that looked into those protests. The report, by the House committee on public lands, stated that it had become common practice for the BLM to take volunteers from the oil and gas industry to process those permits. The oil industry was paying people specifically to volunteer for the industry that was supposed to be regulating it, and it was to those industry staff that I would have been appealing. Moreover, this auction was just three months after the New York Times reported on a major scandal involving Department of the Interior regulators who were taking bribes of sex and drugs from the oil companies that they were supposed to be regulating. In 2008, this was the condition of the rule of law, for which Mr Huber says I lacked respect. Just as the legal avenues which people in West Virginia have been pursuing for 30 years, the legal avenues in this case were constructed precisely to protect the corporations who control the government.
The reality is not that I lack respect for the law; it’s that I have greater respect for justice. Where there is a conflict between the law and the higher moral code that we all share, my loyalty is to that higher moral code. I know Mr Huber disagrees with me on this. He wrote that “The rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience’ committed in the name of the cause of the day.” That’s an especially ironic statement when he is representing the United States of America, a place where the rule of law was created through acts of civil disobedience. Since those bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice. The authority of the government exists to the degree that the rule of law reflects the higher moral code of the citizens, and throughout American history, it has been civil disobedience that has bound them together.
This philosophical difference is serious enough that Mr Huber thinks I should be imprisoned to discourage the spread of this idea. Much of the government’s memorandum focuses on the political statements that I’ve made in public. But it hasn’t always been this way. When Mr Huber was arguing that my defense should be limited, he addressed my views this way: “The public square is the proper stage for the defendant’s message, not criminal proceedings in federal court.” But now that the jury is gone, Mr. Huber wants to take my message from the public square and make it a central part of these federal court proceedings. I have no problem with that. I’m just as willing to have those views on display as I’ve ever been.
The government’s memorandum states, “As opposed to preventing this particular defendant from committing further crimes, the sentence should be crafted ‘to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct’ by others.” Their concern is not the danger that I present, but the danger presented by my ideas and words that might lead others to action. Perhaps Mr Huber is right to be concerned. He represents the United States Government. His job is to protect those currently in power, and by extension, their corporate sponsors. After months of no action after the auction, the way I found out about my indictment was the day before it happened, Pat Shea got a call from an Associated Press reporter who said, “I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow Tim is going to be indicted, and this is what the charges are going to be.” That reporter had gotten that information two weeks earlier from an oil industry lobbyist. Our request for disclosure of what role that lobbyist played in the US Attorney’s office was denied, but we know that she apparently holds sway and that the government feels the need to protect the industry’s interests.
The things that I’ve been publicly saying may indeed be threatening to that power structure. There have been several references to the speech I gave after the conviction, but I’ve only ever seen half of one sentence of that speech quoted. In the government’s report, they actually had to add their own words to that one sentence to make it sound more threatening. But the speech was about empowerment. It was about recognizing our interconnectedness rather than viewing ourselves as isolated individuals. The message of the speech was that when people stand together, they no longer have to be exploited by powerful corporations. Alienation is perhaps the most effective tool of control in America, and every reminder of our real connectedness weakens that tool.
But the sentencing guidelines don’t mention the need to protect corporations or politicians from ideas that threaten their control. The guidelines say “protect the public.” The question is whether the public is helped or harmed by my actions. The easiest way to answer that question is with the direct impacts of my action. As the oil executive stated in his testimony, the parcels I didn’t bid on averaged $12 per acre, but the ones I did bid on averaged $125. Those are the prices paid for public property to the public trust. The industry admits very openly that they were getting those parcels for an order of magnitude less than what they were worth. Not only did those oil companies drive up the prices to $125 during the bidding, they were then given an opportunity to withdraw their bids once my actions were explained. They kept the parcels, presumably because they knew they were still a good deal at $125. The oil companies knew they were getting a steal from the American people, and now they’re crying because they had to pay a little closer to what those parcels were actually worth. The government claims I should be held accountable for the steal the oil companies didn’t get. The government’s report demands $600,000 worth of financial impacts for the amount which the oil industry wasn’t able to steal from the public.
That extra revenue for the public became almost irrelevant, though, once most of those parcels were revoked by Secretary Salazar. Most of the parcels I won were later deemed inappropriate for drilling. In other words, the highest and best value to the public for those particular lands was not for oil and gas drilling. Had the auction gone off without a hitch, it would have been a loss for the public. The fact that the auction was delayed, extra attention was brought to the process, and the parcels were ultimately revoked was a good thing for the public.
More generally, the question of whether civil disobedience is good for the public is a matter of perspective. Civil disobedience is inherently an attempt at change. Those in power, whom Mr Huber represents, are those for whom the status quo is working, so they always see civil disobedience as a bad thing. The decision you are making today, your honor, is what segment of the public you are meant to protect. Mr Huber clearly has cast his lot with that segment who wishes to preserve the status quo. But the majority of the public is exploited by the status quo far more than they are benefited by it. The young are the most obvious group who is exploited and condemned to an ugly future by letting the fossil fuel industry call the shots. There is an overwhelming amount of scientific research, some of which you received as part of our proffer on the necessity defense, that reveals the catastrophic consequences which the young will have to deal with over the coming decades.
But just as real is the exploitation of the communities where fossil fuels are extracted. As a native of West Virginia, I have seen from a young age that the exploitation of fossil fuels has always gone hand in hand with the exploitation of local people. In West Virginia, we’ve been extracting coal longer than anyone else. And after 150 years of making other people rich, West Virginia is almost dead last among the states in per capita income, education rates and life expectancy. And it’s not an anomaly. The areas with the richest fossil fuel resources, whether coal in West Virginia and Kentucky, or oil in Louisiana and Mississippi, are the areas with the lowest standards of living. In part, this is a necessity of the industry. The only way to convince someone to blow up their backyard or poison their water is to make sure they are so desperate that they have no other option. But it is also the nature of the economic model. Since fossil fuels are a limited resources, whoever controls access to that resource in the beginning gets to set all the terms. They set the terms for their workers, for the local communities, and apparently even for the regulatory agencies. A renewable energy economy is a threat to that model. Since no one can control access to the sun or the wind, the wealth is more likely to flow to whoever does the work of harnessing that energy, and therefore to create a more distributed economic system, which leads to a more distributed political system. It threatens the profits of the handful of corporations for whom the current system works, but our question is which segment of the public are you tasked with protecting. I am here today because I have chosen to protect the people locked out of the system over the profits of the corporations running the system. I say this not because I want your mercy, but because I want you to join me.
After this difference of political philosophies, the rest of the sentencing debate has been based on the financial loss from my actions. The government has suggested a variety of numbers loosely associated with my actions, but as of yet has yet to establish any causality between my actions and any of those figures. The most commonly discussed figure is perhaps the most easily debunked. This is the figure of roughly $140,000, which is the amount the BLM originally spent to hold the December 2008 auction. By definition, this number is the amount of money the BLM spent before I ever got involved. The relevant question is what the BLM spent because of my actions, but apparently that question has yet to be asked. The only logic that relates the $140,000 figure to my actions is if I caused the entire auction to be null and void and the BLM had to start from scratch to redo the entire auction. But that of course is not the case. First is the prosecution’s on-again-off-again argument that I didn’t have any impact on the auction being overturned. More importantly, the BLM never did redo the auction because it was decided that many of those parcels should never have been auctioned in the first place. Rather than this arbitrary figure of $140,000, it would have been easy to ask the BLM how much money they spent or will spend on redoing the auction. But the government never asked this question, probably because they knew they wouldn’t like the answer.
The other number suggested in the government’s memorandum is the $166,000 that was the total price of the three parcels I won which were not invalidated. Strangely, the government wants me to pay for these parcels, but has never offered to actually give them to me. When I offered the BLM the money a couple weeks after the auction, they refused to take it. Aside from that history, this figure is still not a valid financial loss from my actions. When we wrote there was no loss from my actions, we actually meant that rather literally. Those three parcels were not evaporated or blasted into space because of my actions, not was the oil underneath them sucked dry by my bid card. They’re still there, and in fact the BLM has already issued public notice of their intent to re-auction those parcels in February of 2012.
The final figure suggested as a financial loss is the $600,000 that the oil company wasn’t able to steal from the public. That completely unsubstantiated number is supposedly the extra amount the BLM received because of my actions. This is when things get tricky. The government’s report takes that $600,000 positive for the BLM and adds it to that roughly $300,000 negative for the BLM, and comes up with a $900,000 negative. With math like that, it’s obvious that Mr Huber works for the federal government.
After most of those figures were disputed in the presentence report, the government claimed in their most recent objection that I should be punished according to the intended financial impact that I intended to cause. The government tries to assume my intentions and then claims, “This is consistent with the testimony that Mr. DeChristopher provided at trial, admitting that his intention was to cause financial harm to others with whom he disagreed.” Now I didn’t get to say a whole lot at the trial, so it was pretty easy to look back through the transcripts. The statement claimed by the government never happened. There was nothing even close enough to make their statement a paraphrase or artistic license. This statement in the government’s objection is a complete fiction. Mr Huber’s inability to judge my intent is revealed in this case by the degree to which he underestimates my ambition. The truth is that my intention, then as now, was to expose, embarrass and hold accountable the oil industry to the extent that it cuts into the $100 billion in annual profits that it makes through exploitation. I actually intended for my actions to play a role in the wide variety of actions that steer the country toward a clean energy economy where those $100 billion in oil profits are completely eliminated. When I read Mr Huber’s new logic, I was terrified to consider that my slightly unrealistic intention to have a $100 billion impact will fetch me several consecutive life sentences. Luckily this reasoning is as unrealistic as it is silly.
A more serious look at my intentions is found in Mr Huber’s attempt to find contradictions in my statements. Mr Huber points out that in public I acted proud of my actions and treated it like a success, while in our sentencing memorandum we claimed that my actions led to “no loss.” On the one hand I think it was a success, and yet I claim it there was no loss. Success, but no loss. Mr Huber presents these ideas as mutually contradictory and obvious proof that I was either dishonest or backing down from my convictions. But for success to be contradictory to no loss, there has to be another assumption. One has to assume that my intent was to cause a loss. But the only loss that I intended to cause was the loss of secrecy by which the government gave away public property for private profit. As I actually stated in the trial, my intent was to shine a light on a corrupt process and get the government to take a second look at how this auction was conducted. The success of that intent is not dependent on any loss. I knew that if I was completely off base, and the government took that second look and decided that nothing was wrong with that auction, the cost of my action would be another day’s salary for the auctioneer and some minor costs of re-auctioning the parcels. But if I was right about the irregularities of the auction, I knew that allowing the auction to proceed would mean the permanent loss of lands better suited for other purposes and the permanent loss of a safe climate. The intent was to prevent loss, but again that is a matter of perspective.
Mr Huber wants you to weigh the loss for the corporations that expected to get public property for pennies on the dollar, but I believe the important factor is the loss to the public which I helped prevent. Again, we come back to this philosophical difference. From any perspective, this is a case about the right of citizens to challenge the government. The US Attorney’s office makes clear that their interest is not only to punish me for doing so, but to discourage others from challenging the government, even when the government is acting inappropriately. Their memorandum states, “To be sure, a federal prison term here will deter others from entering a path of criminal behavior.” The certainty of this statement not only ignores the history of political prisoners, it ignores the severity of the present situation. Those who are inspired to follow my actions are those who understand that we are on a path toward catastrophic consequences of climate change. They know their future, and the future of their loved ones, is on the line. And they know were are running out of time to turn things around. The closer we get to that point where it’s too late, the less people have to lose by fighting back. The power of the Justice Department is based on its ability to take things away from people. The more that people feel that they have nothing to lose, the more that power begins to shrivel. The people who are committed to fighting for a livable future will not be discouraged or intimidated by anything that happens here today. And neither will I. I will continue to confront the system that threatens our future. Given the destruction of our democratic institutions that once gave citizens access to power, my future will likely involve civil disobedience. Nothing that happens here today will change that. I don’t mean that in any sort of disrespectful way at all, but you don’t have that authority. You have authority over my life, but not my principles. Those are mine alone.
I’m not saying any of this to ask you for mercy, but to ask you to join me. If you side with Mr Huber and believe that your role is to discourage citizens from holding their government accountable, then you should follow his recommendations and lock me away. I certainly don’t want that. I have no desire to go to prison, and any assertion that I want to be even a temporary martyr is false. I want you to join me in standing up for the right and responsibility of citizens to challenge their government. I want you to join me in valuing this country’s rich history of nonviolent civil disobedience. If you share those values but think my tactics are mistaken, you have the power to redirect them. You can sentence me to a wide range of community service efforts that would point my commitment to a healthy and just world down a different path. You can have me work with troubled teens, as I spent most of my career doing. You can have me help disadvantaged communities or even just pull weeds for the BLM. You can steer that commitment if you agree with it, but you can’t kill it. This is not going away. At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow. The choice you are making today is what side are you on.
by Will Potter on July 27, 2011 Green is the New Red
Environmentalist Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in prison
for using non-violent civil disobedience to disrupt a sham oil and gas
auction. He had been found guilty on two felony counts for making fake
bids in the auction, costing corporations hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and faced up to ten years.
He increased the bids on 22,000 acres of land in Utah national parks. A
federal judge later ruled the auction was illegal.
DeChristopher’s case has attracted international attention, and he has
become a spokesperson for the environmental movement. This case is much
bigger than DeChristopher, though (as he has often said himself). We all
need to be thinking: what’s next? How do we move forward?
Even if you do not consider yourself an environmentalist, or don’t agree
with DeChristopher’s tactics, this case should raise serious questions
about the misplaced priorities of our government and our entire culture.
DeChristopher’s two-year sentence is comparable to what members of
underground groups have received for property destruction. The court has
sent the message that public, aboveground activists, who use non-violent
civil disobedience, will be treated on par with underground activists who
use economic sabotage.
More importantly, though, the government has sent the message that the
people who step forward to stop ecological destruction will be met with
harsh punishments, while those who responsible for this destruction, such
as the oil and gas corporations bidding for public lands, will go about
business as usual.
As the judge said during sentencing: “Civil disobedience can’t be the
order of the day,” or it will lead to “chaos.”
But chaos for who? For the people? For the planet? Or for corporations?
This case, and the larger crackdown on the environmental movement, makes
strikingly clear that the government is more concerned about the latter.
As defense attorney Ron Yengich said: “We never impose the rule of law on
people who steal from poor people, destroy the banking systems or destroy
the earth.”
Moving forward, we need to remember one thing above all else: this is
happening because DeChristopher was effective.
DeChristopher’s actions exposed what goes on inside sham corporate
auctions, it cost corporations hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it
galvanized the movement.
At sentencing, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson said that DeChristopher’s
leadership in the environmental movement, his “continuing trail of
statements” for civil disobedience, and his speech outside the courthouse
were the reasons he faced prison time.
The judge went so far as to take the unusual step of having DeChristopher
taken into custody of the U.S. Marshalls until his prison sentence begins.
In many other cases I have covered, including those of convicted
arsonists, the prisoners were allowed to self-surrender. People are
generally only taken directly into custody if they are a violent threat or
a flight risk. Why was this different?
Because DeChristopher is inspirational, and he would clearly use his time
before prison to organize.
“You have authority over my life, but not my principles. Those are mine,”
DeChristopher said to the judge. “I’ll continue to confront the system
that threatens our future.”
Others have vowed to do the same. Thousands will be in Washington, D.C. in
August to protest the Keystone XL pipeline to the Tar Sands. They are
planning mass non-violent civil disobedience.
By Brittany Shoot, AlterNet
Posted on May 13, 2011, Printed on May 14, 2011
When you think of domestic terrorists, you don't tend to think of
university undergraduates who engage in civil disobedience. But
alongside men who are responsible for hundreds and even thousands of
deaths, Tim DeChristopher has been labeled a terrorist and was recently
convicted in federal court. His crime? At a sale where public land was
auctioned off to private companies, he placed false bids alongside corporate
giants to inflate the prices. Though Interior Secretary Ken Salazar later
suspended the sale of most of the land, aggressive legal action was taken against
DeChristopher's rather smart, strategic and truly non-violent resistance. He's
currently awaiting sentencing and could receive up to 10 years in prison.
In his new book, Green Is The New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement
Under Siege, which is based on years of research and his popular blog
of the same name, journalist and activist Will Potter delves into
stories like DeChristopher's and the widespread, disproportionate
crackdown on so-called eco-terrorism since 9/11. With personal insight
-- Potter was once questioned by the FBI for handing out anti-cruelty
leaflets in a Chicago suburb -- he explores how animal rights and
environmental activists like DeChristopher concerned with civil disobedience
and property destruction as a consciousness-raising tactic are labeled domestic
terrorists as part of a modern-day Red Scare, the Green Scare.
Other domestic and foreign terrorists, who take dozens of lives as part
of extremist groups, are given far less media scrutiny and treated as
mentally unstable outliers by authorities.
"An unspoken tenet of any terrorism definition is that it does not apply
to the systemic violence of people in positions of power against the
powerless," Potter writes. "It only applies when the flow of violence is
redirected upstream, against government." An engaging, enlightening
probe into the federal government's chilling effect on free speech and
activism, Green Is The New Red is part personal narrative, part journalistic
inquiry, part handbook for at-risk activists.
Brittany Shoot: Part of what you discuss in the book --
whether or not to use violence to raise awareness and force social
change -- is perhaps the longest-running debate among leftist activists.
How do you think violent action, even without human or animal
casualties, influences public opinion of social justice advocacy?
Will Potter: I would extend that debate to the term "violent action."
I can remember back to the mid- to late-'90s when Earth Liberation
Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF) crimes seemed to be a bit
more prominent, and there was a lot of debate about what the word
"violence" means, and I think that's an important one to have, too. That
automatically shapes the severity and tenor of the discussion when
you're talking about destroying an SUV. In the book, I talk a bit about
this and why I don't believe destroying property fits my and most
people's conception of what the word "violence" means.
BS: Many of the activists you profiled are discussing or
campaigning for the end of different types of cruelty and destruction.
For example, people who seek to end horrific abuses of animals might
break windows in a laboratory, or environmentalists might burn an SUV,
yet the public conversation then focuses on property destruction rather
than the ways humans systematically use, torture, and kill animals or
the devastating effects of climate change.
WP: Right! I never mean to downplay the severity of property crimes,
but I think we, as a country, have totally lost perspective. Burning an
SUV can be dangerous, and it's a serious crime. It cost someone money,
and it caused some harm. But you know, Osama bin Laden was just
murdered. I've seen some really interesting discussions about this on
Facebook within animal rights and environmental circles. A friend of
mine said to someone who was going on about the greatness of Osama's
death, "You've condemned groups like the ALF in the past for doing
things like releasing animals or for breaking windows. But it's OK to
cheer on this bloodshed?" The assumption with all of that is that
property destruction or violence or illegality or radical action --
whatever you want to call it -- is always more appropriate if it's in
line with systems of power. I think that's really the issue right now.
BS: In light of the ways the post-9/11 climate of fear
fuelled debates about domestic terrorism, how do you think Osama bin
Laden's death could alter the public discussion about eco-terrorism?
WP: What has stood out to me in the past couple of days is how little
we as a country have changed -- or to put it another way, how much this
rhetoric, these policies, and this way of viewing the world has become
institutionalized. President Obama made a statement in which he said
that Osama bin Laden may be dead but we will never forget the legacy of
what has happened.
I would actually argue that we have forgotten. We really have
forgotten what and how much things have changed. We have forgotten the
uproar that existed surrounding the Patriot Act that was passed in the
middle of the night. We have forgotten how national security policies
were completely overhauled in the name of fighting terrorism. We have
forgotten when "terrorism" was not a household word heard on the news
every single day. We have forgotten all of these things. To me, Osama
bin Laden's death really represents a pivotal moment in a long chain of
events that is becoming more and more everyday life. I don't want to be
pessimistic, but I don't think his death will lead to much change
because it has become such a big part of not just the Bush
administration but the Obama administration. Now that this threat has
been killed, there will be another threat.
BS: In some ways, this doesn't seem like it should be a
partisan issue, but as you point out, the legal maneuvers and chilling
effects passed under the second Bush administration have continued --
much to many people's disappointment -- since President Obama took
office. Why do you think that is?
WP: Going into the Obama administration, there was certainly reason
to believe that he would be different. The example I use in the book is
from a senate committee hearing on ecoterrorism where he submitted a
letter of opposition, saying the hearing was a misplaced priority, a
waste of government resources, scaremongering -- it was really
fantastic. But since being in office, his policies not just on so-called
ecoterrorism but about national security issues in general have been
quite awful. He has supported extraordinary rendition, which is sending
people to other countries to be tortured. He supported immunity for the
telecoms that illegally spied on Americans. The list goes on and on. I
don't know if that means that there's no possibility of change with the
Obama administration, but like you said, I think a lot of people are
quite disappointed. And I think if more people knew the extent of how
much Obama has not only supported but gone even further than the Bush
administration, I think there'd be a lot more outrage.
BS: How do laws like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and
the vague legal definition of terrorism in general contribute to the
government's ability to label eco-activists as criminals or worse?
WP: I'd argue there are two strategies going on at the same time that
make this happen. One is pushing the limits of existing laws. So, for
instance, with the [multi-agency ecoterrorist criminal investigation]
Operation Backfire cases, the government pushed for terrorism
enhancement penalties, which had never been used against
environmentalists or animal rights activists before. They did this to
officially classify them as terrorists and chalk this up as a victory in
the war on terrorism. It has also led to disproportionately harsh
treatment of ALF prisoners in the case.
The other simultaneous tactic is to push for new laws that go even
further. The most important example is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism
Act, which passed in 2006. It took an already an already vague and broad
law called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act and expanded it so much
that it could be used to target non-violent civil disobedience as
terrorism.
So you have these two things going on -- ambitious prosecutors, and
then ambitious corporations and politicians -- not that they're
necessarily working in lockstep all the time but their combined efforts
are what are really dangerous because all of it is in line with people's
personal self interests. The prosecutors want a victory to show their
relevance and to show a victory in the war on terrorism. The politicians
want a victory to show that they're relevant to corporations and
deserve their support. As a result, we're getting some pretty outrageous
court cases.
BS: In the book, you write about the discrepancies in public
rhetoric between different types of activists. Why do you think some
violent extremists, like people who murder abortion providers and bomb
clinics, are treated as less of a threat by the FBI than less violent
environmentalists who don't harm living beings but may engage in
property destruction?
WP: What we've had is a complete inversion of reality in a lot of
ways because the most violent, politically-motivated crimes -- for
instance, by the anti-abortion movement, militia groups, Aryan Nations,
KKK -- meant to instill fear in the general public to push an agenda --
in other words, terrorism -- are not being labeled terrorism, either
through media campaigns or in the courtroom or in legislation.
Meanwhile, groups that have never actually harmed a human being in more
than thirty years of so-called radical actions and extremism --
according to their opponents -- are the number one domestic terrorism
threat.
As part of my work, I went through Homeland Security documents and
FBI documents and one thing that really stood out was that, actually in
the FBI annual terrorism reports, it does not list violence by
anti-abortion extremists or any of these groups -- Aryan Nations, tax
protestors, or people who have murdered human beings, sent anthrax
through the mail, or flown planes into buildings. In fact, in the FBI's
report after September 11, it said in the first five years after 9/11,
every act of domestic terrorism was committed by animal rights and
environmental groups. In that same time period, crimes of physical
violence [by other radical groups] were occurring that didn't receive
that label.
BS: Tell me about some of your personal safety and security
concerns as someone who both reports on and is involved in heavily
monitored, aggressively prosecuted activism.
WP: I wanted to talk about this a lot in the book, and in fact, in
some ways, a main character in the book is fear because it's there in
every courtroom, in every interaction; it's kind of behind the scenes in
every component of this story. For me, it's not something you think
about -- and this was something I heard from everyone I interviewed for
the story as well -- you just have to go about doing your work.
Now, you'd kind of be out of your mind if you didn't, at some point
over the years, say, "Hey, all of this terrible stuff is going on. The
FBI has come to my door. Maybe I should think about whether people are
paying attention." And, it's unsettling to find information about my
speeches and articles in counterterrorism documents.
A real issue I've had in doing this work is feeling like it
contributes to public fear in some ways, by raising awareness of these
issues and makes people feel more afraid and makes people wonder if
they're on terrorist lists. I always try to emphasize that our fear is
being used as a tool. The way we combat that fear is by being open about
it and by talking to people -- talking to your friends and to your
community, talking about it through your work and fighting it head on.
BS: How can we get beyond the fear?
WP: I think the most important thing through all of this -- the
reason I wanted to write about this -- is that when people learn what is
going on, sometimes the first response is fear, and it can be
overwhelming, intimidating, and depressing. But I also firmly believe
that the more we learn about this, it can also be empowering. Tying back
to what we talked about before, going through all of these court
documents and interviewing people everyday, it is overwhelming but it's
also empowering because you realize what these corporations and
politicians are doing. It's not magic. It's not a superpower. These are
campaigns that have been done throughout history to social movements,
and they're largely the same tactics. I think by taking a close look at
what's going on, we can see it for what it is and be better able to
fight back against it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cae5Pr7CHgk&feature=player_embedded#at=51
Tim DeChristopher gave a moving speech after he was found guilty today. In
a few months, he will be sentenced. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
“Everything that went on inside that building tried to convince me
that I was alone, and that I was weak. They tried to convince me that
I was like a little finger, out there on my own, that can easily be
broken. And all of you out here were the reminder, for all of us, that
I was… connected to a hand, with many fingers, that could unite as one
fist. And that fist could not be broken by the power in there… All
those authorities in there wanted me think like a finger. But our
children are calling to us, to think like a fist.”
Thanks to Rising Tide North America for the link.
March 4, 2011 Democracy Now
A federal jury in Salt Lake City has convicted environmental activist Tim DeChristopher of two felony counts for disrupting the auction of more than 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling. DeChristopher was charged in December 2008 with infiltrating a public auction and disrupting the Bush administration’s last-minute move to auction off oil and gas exploitation rights on vast swaths of federal land. A student at the time, DeChristopher posed as a bidder and bought 22,000 acres of land with no intent to pay in an attempt to save the property from drilling. He faces up to ten years in prison. DeChristopher joins us today to talk about the verdict.
[includes rush transcript]
JUAN GONZALEZ: A federal jury in Salt Lake City has convicted environmental activist Tim DeChristopher of two felony counts for disrupting the auction of over 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling. DeChristopher was charged in December 2008 with infiltrating a public auction and disrupting the Bush administration’s last-minute move to auction off oil and gas exploration rights on vast swaths of federal land. A student at the time, DeChristopher posed as a bidder and bought 22,000 acres of land with no intention to pay in an attempt to save the property from drilling. He faces up to ten years in prison.
AMY GOODMAN: The jury deliberated for nearly five hours yesterday before reaching its decision. After the verdict, DeChristopher emerged from the courthouse and addressed his supporters.
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Everything that went on inside that building tried to convince me that I was alone and I was weak. They tried to convince me that I was like a little finger out there on my own that can easily be broken. And all of you out here were the reminder for all of us that I wasn’t just a finger all alone in there, but that I was connected to a hand with many fingers that could unite as one fist and that that fist could not be broken by the power that they have in there.
That fist is not a symbol of violence. That fist is a symbol that we will not be misled into thinking we are alone. We will not be lied to and told we are weak. We will not be divided, and we will not back down. That fist is a symbol that we are connected and that we are powerful. It’s a symbol that we hold true to our vision of a healthy and just world, and we are building the self-empowering movement to make it happen. All those authorities in there wanted me to think like a thinker. But our children are calling to us to think like a fist.
And we know that now I’ll have to go to prison. We know that now that’s the reality. But that’s just a job that I have to do. That’s the role that I face. And many before me have gone to jail for justice. And if we’re going to achieve our vision, many after me will have to join me, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Tim DeChristopher speaking outside the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City yesterday. He now joins us live from Salt Lake City.
Tim, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain first exactly what you did and when you did it. Talk about leaving your classroom after you took a graduate test in December. What year was it?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: It was December 19th, 2008. And as you said, I finished up my final exam that morning and went to the BLM oil and gas auction that was being held in downtown Salt Lake, with the intent to draw enough attention to what was going on there that the government could actually stop and rethink their actions, which at that point the Obama administration had already indicated that they knew it was illegitimate and that if they had any opportunity, they would like to stop what was happening, but it was unclear that they would actually have that power if the auction was completed.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And how did you actually—
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: So I went there and was just looking for any opportunity to do that. And when I walked in, I was asked if I wanted to be a bidder. And so, I said yes. And once I got inside then, I saw the opportunity to really stand in the way of what was going on and just couldn’t pass up that opportunity, so I started bidding and eventually started winning parcels and winning every parcel until they stopped the auction and took me out.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, how did they—so, all they did was ask you if you wanted to be a bidder? You didn’t have to prequalify or deposit a check or in some way show some bonding just to be able to bid on the land?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: No, I just had to show a driver’s license and fill out a short form with my name and address and that sort of thing.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you expect you would be able to do this?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: No. No, I didn’t expect that at all. You know, I expected to go in there and make a speech or something like that. And other folks that were in the protest outside told me that I would just get dragged out by security at the door. And I said, "Well, then let’s get dragged out by security at the door." And no one would go in with me, so I went in, and rather than drag me out, they asked me if I wanted to be a bidder.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, then talk about what you proceeded to do, Tim.
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Well, seeing the opportunity inside to really stand in the way of what was going on, I couldn’t turn my back on that opportunity, and so first started bidding to drive up the prices, and did that for quite awhile. Most of the parcels were going for $10 or $12 an acre, and so I was driving those prices up, and then, finally, decided that I had to actually win those parcels and started doing that and won about 14 parcels before they stopped the auction and then took me into custody.
JUAN GONZALEZ: So, in other words, at some point they recognized that you were not a genuine bidder? How did that happen?
AMY GOODMAN: How did they recognize that you were not an oil or gas company?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Well, there was actually a lot of testimony from the BLM law enforcement agents that were there at the auction. During the trial, he testified quite a bit to the fact that they knew from the moment that I walked in that I wasn’t a normal oil and gas bidder. They didn’t recognize me from these auctions that were held on a regular basis. And they noticed that I was younger, that I was dressed different, that I didn’t act like the others. And so, they indicated that they were suspicious the whole time, and they just needed to wait until it was absolutely clear, that there was no doubt in their mind, that I was not an oil and gas company representative.
AMY GOODMAN: So, once you did this and you bought this land, picking up paddle number 70, did you plan to pay for it?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Well, I didn’t know what the options were at the time. That was still somewhat unclear. I talked to some folks right afterwards that afternoon who offered to help with fundraising. And it wasn’t until the next day that former director of the BLM, Patrick Shea, who directed the agency under the Clinton administration, contacted me and offered to represent me. And then he informed me that there were a lot of different ways that these things could play out and a lot of different options and that raising the money was still a legitimate possibility. And so, we raised the money very quickly, actually, surprisingly quickly, and offered the initial payment to the BLM for the parcels that I had won. But they rejected that payment and said that I wasn’t bidding under normal circumstances, so they couldn’t accept that payment anyway. But that’s all stuff that the jury was not allowed to know. We weren’t allowed to tell the jury that I offered the payment to the BLM. All we were allowed to talk about in the trial was what happened on December 19th and nothing else.
AMY GOODMAN: And this ultimately invalidated the auction—is that right?—your participation. So explain what happened, from the Bush administration into the Obama administration.
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Well, it wasn’t actually my participation that invalidated the auction. It was my participation that drew a lot of attention to what was going on in the auction. But there were other complaints against the auction and lawsuits against the auction, which once the new administration came in, they invalidated almost the entire thing and admitted that they weren’t following their own rules in the first place. And it wasn’t because of my participation, but because of the way that they had operated and locked the public out of the decision-making process for public land, that the auction was invalidated. But again, that’s something that the jury was not allowed to know. The verdict in this case was a pretty much foregone conclusion, because we weren’t allowed to tell the jury any of that stuff.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And on what basis did the judge exclude this other important information, like, for instance, the fact that you were raising the money to actually pay for what you had bid for?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: The judge said that it was irrelevant and that it would confuse the jury, so they shouldn’t be allowed to know it.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what was the picture that the jury—
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: That was a frequent refrain that we heard during this trial.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Tim DeChristopher, what was the picture that the jury got? What did they understand with what was limited, what they weren’t able to know?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: I was able to explain to them some of my views. I was able to talk about what my intent was there at the auction. I was limited to pretty brief comments about that, but I was able to explain to them why I was there, what I was thinking. But I wasn’t able to introduce any evidence that supported what I was thinking. I wasn’t able to introduce anything that happened before December 19th, about the corruption within the Department of the Interior in the Bush administration, or anything that happened after December 19th, either me raising the money or the auction being canceled. So, I was only able to throw my views out there as unsubstantiated claims of what I was thinking.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the reason you did what you did, Tim?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Well, I saw this auction as, first off, a fraud against the American people, that the government wasn’t following their own rules and was locking the public out of the decision-making process for public property. I also saw it as a real threat to my future, because of the impact on climate change that this kind of "drill now, think later" mentality was having, and an attack on our public lands, on our natural heritage, in pretty pristine and irreplaceable areas in southern Utah.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And is it your intention to appeal the verdict in any way?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: And so, it my intent was to stand in the way of that.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Is it your intention to appeal the verdict in any way?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: I have no idea. We haven’t really talked about that with my legal team. That’s something that will happen after sentencing.
AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to read a part of a letter that was signed by Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben and Terry Tempest Williams, and it says, "When Tim disrupted the auction, he did so in the fine tradition of non-violent civil disobedience that changed so many unjust laws in [this] country’s past. Tim’s [upcoming] trial is an occasion to raise the alarm once more about the peril our planet faces. The situation is still fluid"—and it goes on, because this was written before the trial date. But it was under the Bush administration that you did this. Under the Obama administration, then-Interior Secretary, the former senator from Colorado, Ken Salazar, said these lands—what statement did he make? He said these lands would not be sold?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Initially they just stopped the auction and said that they were going to take a second look at everything that was going on. And once they did, they divided the parcels into three categories: those that should never be sold or never be drilled for oil; those that are appropriate for drilling at a future date, that could—that are eligible for being re-auctioned because they’re surrounded by existing oilfields; and those that need more study, just because nobody had ever really looked at where they were or what kind of qualities those lands really had.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And how big is the amount of land that they initially agreed to put up for sale?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: I believe the initial agreement was somewhere around 300,000 acres, but a lot of that was taken off because of the initial wave of protests from the National Park Service and others.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, under the Obama administration, it was then that you were charged, is that right, Tim DeChristopher?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: Right. It was almost two months after the auction had been invalidated that the Obama Justice Department pressed those charges against me.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, in that same letter by Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben and Terry Tempest Williams, they say, "The government calls that 'violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act' and thinks he should spend ten years in jail for the crime; we call it a noble act, a profound gesture made on behalf of all of us and of the future." Tim DeChristopher, do you have any regrets?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: No, I have no regrets at all, I mean, especially seeing the show of support outside of the courthouse this week. There were people were out there all day long, all week, and they were singing. You know, they were showing their joy and resolve in the face of intimidation. And I think that’s the really important thing that came out of this, is that people showed that regardless of what happens to me, they’re not going to be intimidated into being obedient to an unjust status quo.
AMY GOODMAN: Tim DeChristopher, we thank you very much for being with us. When is the sentencing?
TIM DeCHRISTOPHER: The sentencing is June 23rd.
AMY GOODMAN: Thanks for joining us. Tim DeChristopher, activist, founder of the environmental group Peaceful Uprising, he was convicted yesterday on two felony counts for disrupting an auction of public land in December 2008. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
Feb. 28, 2011 Huffington Post
SALT LAKE CITY — Hundreds of activists marched to the federal courthouse
Monday to support a man who became an environmental folk hero by faking
the purchase of $1.7 million of federal oil-and-gas drilling leases in an
act of civil disobedience.
Tim DeChristopher, 29, has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to
felony counts of interfering with and making false representations at a
government auction.
DeChristopher's fate will be in the hands of a jury – eight men and four
women – once opening statements are made in the case on Tuesday. The trial
is expected to last until Friday.
The possibility of just one juror sympathetic to environmental causes
could keep DeChristopher from a conviction, although a hung jury could
result in him being retried.
Prosecutors have offered DeChristopher multiple plea deals over the past
two years, but he rejected those, opting instead to go to trial.
The trial attracted about 400 people wearing orange sashes as a symbol of
solidarity, including actress Daryl Hannah. They gathered in Salt Lake
City's Pioneer Park for an early morning rally, singing Pete Seeger's
famous protest song "If I Had Hammer," shouting chants against government
control of public lands and waving signs that called for DeChristopher to
be "set free."
DeChristopher doesn't dispute the facts of the case and has said he
expects to be convicted. He faces up to 10 years in prison and $750,000 in
fines if he's right.
On Dec. 19, 2008, he grabbed bidder's paddle No. 70 at the final drilling
auction of the Bush administration and ran up prices while snapping up 13
leases on parcels totaling 22,500 acres around Arches and Canyonlands
national parks.
The former wilderness guide – a University of Utah economics student at
the time – ended up with $1.7 million in leases he couldn't pay for and
cost angry oil men hundreds of thousands of dollars in higher bids for
other parcels.
"We were hosed," said Jason Blake of Park City, shortly after the
consulting geologist was outbid on a 320-acre parcel. "It's very
frustrating."
DeChristopher, who plans to testify, has said the government violated
environmental laws in holding the auction. A federal judge later blocked
many of the leases from being issued.
DeChristopher had offered to cover the bill with an Internet fundraising
campaign, but the government refused to accept any of the money after the
fact.
Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that DeChristopher is the only
person ever charged with failing to make good on bids at a lease auction
of public lands in Utah.
"There's people who didn't have the money, but they didn't have the intent
to disrupt" the auction, assistant U.S. attorney John Huber told The
Associated Press in 2009.
On Monday, the protesters – from toddler to seniors – marched through
downtown to a plaza across from the courthouse where they continued with
speech-making and singing, some led by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary.
The group also staged a mock trial with participants standing nearly 9
feet tall on stilts and wearing oversized papier-mache masks representing
DeChristopher, the government and a NASA climate change expert.
"I'm here to support Tim, whose selfless act saved Utah's red rock
wilderness from exploitation," said Salt Lake City resident Sheri Poe
Bernard, 55, who said she believes the lease parcels were not properly
reviewed for environmental impact. "This is a very important issue ... and
I think it's a travesty that our federal government would put Tim on trial
when George W. Bush is not being prosecuted."
Bernard said she wrote to President Barack Obama, asking him to take
notice of DeChristopher's trial and make Utah ground zero for a national
conversation about climate change.
DeChristopher was not at the rally, but he raised his arm and waved to the
loudly cheering crowd as he entered the courthouse.
Hannah, who has been a visible figure in many environmental causes, called
him a "bright, beautiful example" of the kind of activism needed across
the country, particularly at a time when people are "at the bottom of
feeling their disempowerment."
Hannah said she believes DeChristopher's actions already have been proven
justified because a federal judge turned back the leases.
"He took a moral stand against injustice. ... He's already been
effective," Hannah said. "This case has the potential to be quite historic
and pivotal in terms of our rights as citizens to peacefully protest and
practice civil disobedience."
Filming outside the courthouse was Telluride, Colo., filmmaker George
Gage, who with his wife has spent more than two years working on an
hour-long documentary about DeChristopher. A rough cut of the film will
debut at Colorado's Mountainfilm Festival at the end of May, Gage said.
Gage also hopes the project will be accepted by Utah's Sundance Film
Festival for a screening. The festival was founded by actor and director
Robert Redford, who is also a DeChristopher supporter.
"I just think his whole message is so important," George Gage, 70, said.
"We were really impressed by what motivated him. He is so much aware that
we are wrecking this planet ... Tim is really concerned about what kind of
world that his children or my grandchildren are going to inherit."
The protest march had at least one detractor. Highland real estate agent
Robert Valentine mingled with environmentalists and talked about the need
for Utah to "exploit" its natural resources to create jobs and fund the
state's schools.
"I want to protect the natural resources. My hobby is hiking," the
69-year-old Valentine said. "But I think Utah ought to be allowed to have
more control over the resources more than we do."
http://www.peacefuluprising.org
Tim is facing ten years in prison on two felony charges for derailing
an illegal sale of public land from the outgoing Bush administration to
private oil and gas developers.
The government is embarrassed by this very public trial, and wishes
it would go away, but Tim has refused any kind of plea bargain because
he thinks a jury of his peers should decide if he was justified in
defying an unjust system that is dooming us to an unlivable future.
It is this kind of peaceful, powerful, and courageous civil
disobedience that is largely missing from the climate movement. An
outbreak of jury trials (and willingness to serve time if necessary)
could create a political atmosphere that allows a reasonable
governmental response to climate change–while bringing the damaging
injustices of our current system into the spotlight. People pay attention when
others make sacrifices.
Tim forced a trial so we would have
a chance to show the world that if you stand up for a livable future,
others will stand with you. Can you join us?
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