Author: earthfirst

(USA) Love and Rebellion in the East Texas Woods

I’m writ­ing to ya’ll from a safe space near­by the Tar Sands Block­ade in rur­al east Texas.  Ear­ly this week, heed­ing the call of friends and com­rades already on site, we assem­bled a crew of Earth First!ers from the North­east US and made the 30+ hour dri­ve to the site to pro­vide cru­cial rein­force­ment.  The tree vil­lage set up on site is one of the most fan­tas­tic things we’ve ever seen, and the emerg­ing pic­tures on the inter­net do it no jus­tice. Down below the pods, hideous mon­sters in the form of mas­sive feller bunch­ers and doz­ers fill the air with the heinous sounds of cor­po­rate eco­cide: mechan­i­cal whirs, saw­ing, and worst of the all the sound of beau­ti­ful trees hun­dreds of years old falling to their death, dri­ving wildlife from their homes.

Yes­ter­day a feller bunch­er began clear­ing through a sec­tion of the for­est, rapid­ly advanc­ing towards one of the tree sit­ters.  Clear­ly print­ed in large let­ters on the side of the death machine read a warn­ing to stay back at least 500 feet.  A rov­ing team on the ground that I was part of began cat-and-mou­s­ing the feller bunch­er, try­ing to keep our com­rade in the tree safe.  On the ground two Tran­sCana­da work­ers and one local sher­iff oper­at­ing as an armed mer­ce­nary of the cor­po­ra­tion over­saw the oper­a­tions, try­ing to move through the felled trees to push back our crew from the clear cut site.  We con­tin­ued to advance, deter­mined not only to pro­tect our com­rade above in the canopy but to push them back and show them that we are not scared and that we will RESIST.  At one point as we had just watched the feller bunch­er take down an 80 foot water oak not 40 feet away from the sit­ter and we heard our friend scream­ing from above plead­ing for the safe­ty of their life, I ran towards the machine about 25 feet away mak­ing eye con­tact with the dri­ver who con­tin­ued to oper­ate the machine and yelling to Tran­sCana­da and their bought and paid sher­iff that we would not stay back, that they were going to kill our friend if they con­tin­ued to advance and they were required by law to stop the machine.  The sher­iff approached say­ing that “they” (speak­ing as if they were actu­al­ly part of TC) weren’t com­ing any fur­ther at that point and they turned the machine around to con­tin­ue clear cut­ting.  A crew of 7 of us held our ground and remained in defense of the sit­ter on the oppo­site side of a creek where we were forced to watch tree after tree fall. A dense part of the for­est was instant­ly turned in to a morose tree morgue.

 

Over­come with emo­tions, hav­ing nev­er seen a clearcut myself and cer­tain­ly hav­ing nev­er faced down a mas­sive feller bunch­er, I moved back through the clearcut, across the creek where our friend sat above us in a tree.  Feel­ing the ener­gy com­ing from the mer­ci­less­ly mauled fresh tree stumps, I lay over a large one cry­ing uncon­trol­lably as I watched the remain­ing few trees off in the dis­tance be cut and wres­tled out of place. I angri­ly con­tem­plat­ed the enor­mi­ty of the cor­po­rate state, the can­cer that is cap­i­tal­ism, and the injus­tice of the entire sit­u­a­tion. Com­rades were there to com­fort me and togeth­er we all walked away from the hor­ri­ble scene feel­ing renewed in our fight and cer­tain in our deci­sion to come to Texas to fight this mad­ness and call atten­tion to this scene.

As I write this now I’m receiv­ing word from the site that they’re cut­ting in from the south side, only 20 feet away from the sit­ter we spent yes­ter­day pro­tect­ing.  North from there at the wall that y’all have seen pho­tos of ear­li­er this week, sev­er­al of our friends’ lives are at risk and trees are being cut dan­ger­ous­ly close. TC is now clear­ing from the west side of the site, attempt­ing to box our site in and pre­sum­ably make way for cher­ry pick­ers and oth­er extrac­tion devices.

One of the locals who is cur­rent­ly resist­ing the Key­stone XL pipeline in sol­i­dar­i­ty with sev­er­al local landown­ers shared sto­ries with a few of us.  It is absolute­ly clear that Tran­sCana­da is pay­ing off local law enforce­ment offi­cers.  In addi­tion TC is relent­less­ly try­ing to serve peo­ple with law­suits, putting gag orders on landown­ers who had pre­vi­ous­ly been strong allies, and buy­ing off oth­ers.  Yes­ter­day one of our key allies awoke to TC in their yard with a big feller bunch­er.  TC had promised them mul­ti­ple times both ver­bal­ly and in for­mal­ly writ­ten depo­si­tions that they would give “fair” notice before begin­ning to destroy their land.  It seems like TC knew that this area is quick­ly receiv­ing an influx of resisters and gave this landown­er no warn­ing, know­ing that we’d have cer­tain­ly act­ed at that site.

Despite the sit­u­a­tion we are keep­ing spir­its high.  Last night I came out of the woods with three com­rades to head to a safe space to write this com­mu­nique to y’all.  We were excit­ed to find that many new friends and many famil­iar faces had arrived to rein­force the site.  We’re here for the long haul and are ask­ing y’all to come down to help defend our friends in the trees and stand up to Tran­sCana­da and their dirty pipeline.  What we’re doing is not enough, but there is strength in num­bers and with the aid of more friends we can turn up the heat on TC.  There are many oppor­tu­ni­ties to plug in in var­i­ous ways here and the pipeline is going in all across this region.  There are many allies and a sup­port­ive cam­paign.  We sit here anx­ious­ly wait­ing to re-join our com­rades and wor­ried for their safe­ty, and eager to return to the woods and keep up the fight.  We hope to see you in the woods.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty & For the Wild,

Your Anony­mous Com­rade

Scottish Coal rail terminal currently shut down — again!

Two peo­ple are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the con­vey­or tow­er at Scot­tish Coal’s Raven­struther Rail Ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire to pre­vent coal from being loaded onto freight trains and being trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion in York­shire. The action start­ed at 5am this morn­ing – a ban­ner read­ing “Coal Kills” was unfurled on the con­vey­or tow­er.

Two peo­ple are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the con­vey­or tow­er at Scot­tish Coal’s Raven­struther Rail Ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire to pre­vent coal from being loaded onto freight trains and being trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion in York­shire. The action start­ed at 5am this morn­ing – a ban­ner read­ing “Coal Kills” was unfurled on the con­vey­or tow­er. More updates to fol­low!

Coal Rail Ter­mi­nal Closed for a 6th time by Coal Action Scot­land sup­port­ers

At 5:00 this morn­ing two activists scaled the con­vey­or tow­er at Scot­tish Coal’s Raven­struther Rail Ter­mi­nal near Lanark, South Lanark­shire, and are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing it and pre­vent­ing coal from being loaded onto trains which then deliv­er the coal to pow­er sta­tions. There is cur­rent­ly a freight train on the pri­vate rail sid­ings at the ter­mi­nal. The activists say they will main­tain the occu­pa­tion until they are forcibly removed by police. This is the 6th time that the site has been closed in anti-coal protests since Decem­ber 2008.

Jo Reed, one of the occu­piers at the ter­mi­nal, said: “I’m tak­ing this action to cost Scot­tish Coal mon­ey as that’s the only thing they’ll lis­ten to. The coal tak­en here and trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion in York­shire is destroy­ing people’s health and envi­ron­ment in this area – it’s time it stopped! Burn­ing coal is caus­ing run­away cli­mate change and caus­ing harm at home and abroad.”

Today’s protest fol­lows a week-long direct action camp in July, at Glen­tag­gart East, the site of Scot­tish Coal’s new mine in South Lanark­shire. Through­out the week around 100 activists tar­get­ed infra­struc­ture in the area with an inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day, a block­ade of Bro­ken Cross Open­cast Coal Site and the open­cast­ing of landown­er Lord Home’s front gar­den.

The haulage of coal by HGV is a major issue in the area, and pro­test­ers are call­ing for a stop to all haulage through the vil­lages of Dou­glas and Gle­spin.

Gle­spin res­i­dent David Grey said: “Coal from Dou­glas Val­ley mines comes right through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, past two pri­ma­ry schools with no lev­el cross­ings. We were promised that this wouldn’t hap­pen when plan­ning per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the Main­shill mine. Now that the huge site at Glen­tag­gart East and 1 mil­lion tonne exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross have been approved, Scot­tish Coal want to bring even more coal through our com­mu­ni­ties. Action needs to be tak­en to pre­vent this.”

The start of a new 4 mil­lion tonne mine at Glen­tag­gart East will make these issues even more press­ing. Rob Hearne, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the protest today said: “Already over 1000 HGV trips are made through the Dou­glas Val­ley to rail­heads every week. Glen­tag­gart East will only add to this and make the prob­lem worse with anoth­er 333 trips a week.”

It is esti­mat­ed that today’s action will stop around 4,000 tonnes of coal from being trans­port­ed to Drax Coal Fired Pow­er Sta­tion and cost Scot­tish Coal at least £200,000.

Coal Action Scot­land
e‑mail: contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk
 Home­page: http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/

(Australia) Newcastle residents protest health effects of proposed 4th coal terminal

New­cas­tle res­i­dents and activists dressed in med­ical gowns protest­ed the lack of con­sid­er­a­tion of health and cli­mate change effects in the pro­posed build­ing of a fourth coal ter­mi­nal at the port of New­cas­tle, already the world’s largest coal port. A peace­ful protest and ‘lock­on’ occurred out­side The office of NSW Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard last Thurs­day who is due to con­sid­er the mer­its of the pro­pos­al.

Relat­ed: Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health | Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas | Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group

Dressed as doc­tors and patients, about 20 pro­tes­tors hold­ing ban­ners and plac­ards occu­pied the front steps of Gov­er­nor Mac­quar­ie Tow­er at 1 Far­rer Place, Syd­ney.

Two cam­paign­ers were allowed in to meet with Min­is­ter Haz­zard’s staff. They spent 25 min­utes dis­cussing the 4th ter­mi­nal and relay­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s con­cerns over health and cli­mate and request­ed a pub­lic meet­ing in New­cas­tle with the Min­is­ter.

On the steps of the build­ing Spokesper­son Alex McIn­nis said “We are here because there are plans to expand New­cas­tle coal port, which is going to hurt the health of the com­mu­ni­ty because of the impact of coal dust. It’s also going to dam­age our farm­land and cli­mate.”

“So, we’ve come to Min­is­ter for Plan­ning Brad Haz­zard’s office to urge him to reject the planned expan­sion of the coal port and lis­ten to the com­mu­ni­ties con­cerns over health and put those con­cerns in front of the inter­ests of the coal com­pa­nies and reject the coal ter­mi­nal.” she said.

Anoth­er pro­tes­tor dressed in a med­ical gown said: “We are here today because in the res­pi­ra­to­ry unit the asth­ma caused by coal dust in the Hunter region and New­cas­tle is a seri­ous health haz­ard. We are ask­ing Min­is­ter Haz­zard not to allow the pro­posed 4th coal ter­mi­nal in New­cas­tle to go ahead.”

Police attend­ed and asked the pro­tes­tors to move. Some vol­un­tar­i­ly left the steps. Two pro­tes­tors in med­ical gowns refused and had their locks removed by the Police Res­cue Squad and were tak­en away and arrest­ed.

 

A steep drop in coal prices and reduced Demand for coal has caused many coal com­pa­nies like Rio Tin­to and Xstra­ta to shelve expan­sion plans in the Hunter Val­ley and cut jobs.

The fourth coal ter­mi­nal at New­cas­tle pro­posed by Port Waratah Coal Ser­vices will expand coal export capac­i­ty from 210 to 330 mil­lion tonnes each year, yet the demand for coal appears to be falling. Min­ing and trans­port of this coal will dou­ble the coal dust pol­lu­tion from coal trains, piles and coal load­ers that peo­ple breath in towns through­out the Hunter Val­ley.

Med­ical aca­d­e­mics have argued that Newcastle’s T4 project puts short-term prof­it before health. Pub­lic health and com­pre­hen­sive health mon­i­tor­ing has tak­en sec­ond place in coal regions to the argu­ments in favour of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. The long term health costs are sim­ply nev­er fac­tored into the eco­nom­ic costs.

The med­ical and health issues of coal are well known. Coal dust con­tributes to asth­ma, can­cer, heart dis­ease and stroke and it inter­feres with lung devel­op­ment and com­pro­mis­es intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ty. In the US there has been health cost­ing data gath­ered show­ing that if the cost of dis­ease result­ing from coal was paid for by the coal and pow­er indus­tries it would almost dou­ble the cost of elec­tric­i­ty. Up to 50,000 deaths each year in the US are attrib­uted to pol­lu­tion from pow­er plants. A 2009 report by Physi­cians for Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty (USA) out­lined ‘Coal’s Assault on Human Health’ and the need to phase out coal on health, ener­gy and cli­mate grounds.

In Aus­tralia we have a woe­ful record of pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing and assess­ing health costs from coal. A good start to address­ing the imbal­ance between eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and health would be estab­lish­ing com­pre­hen­sive pol­lu­tion mon­i­tor­ing done reg­u­lar­ly and inde­pen­dant­ly for all coal areas — mines, trans­port cor­ri­dors, ports, coal fired pow­er sta­tions and near­by res­i­den­tial areas — at the expense of the coal indus­try and make the data pub­licly avail­able. Read more at Some­thing in the air: time for inde­pen­dent test­ing in coal areas.

The Coal Ter­mi­nal Action Group is rais­ing mon­ey to mon­i­tor coal dust in sub­urbs between the Hunter Val­ley coal mines and Newcastle’s port.

Doc­tors for the Envi­ron­ment in their sub­mis­sion and com­ment on the Envi­ron­ment Impact state­ment said :“From the data pre­sent­ed, New­cas­tle is a pol­lut­ed town with like­ly exist­ing health impacts and now we have a pro­pos­al that will undoubt­ed­ly increase pol­lu­tion. It is not that Aus­tralia needs to make this sac­ri­fice for ener­gy secu­ri­ty, as alter­na­tives to burn­ing coal for ener­gy cur­rent­ly exist. Fur­ther­more the mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty con­ferred on the world’s peo­ple by the export of this coal would not be insignif­i­cant.”

Sources:

is a cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist from Mel­bourne Aus­tralia who has been writ­ing on cli­mate change, sci­ence and protests since 2004. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at Aus­tralia Indy­media

(USA) Cascadia Forest Defenders occupy billboard by Biomass Plant

Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers are prob­a­bly most know for  tree sits and occu­py­ing gov­ern­ment offices — most recent­ly over log­ging in the Elliott State For­est, but when it comes to log­ging, mills and bio­mass plants are a part of the equa­tion, so today CFD is occu­py­ing a bill­board near the Seneca Sawmill/Seneca Sus­tain­able ener­gy plant:

ACTIVISTS OCCUPY BILLBOARD OUTSIDE EUGENE POLLUTER SENECA SAWMILL

Eugene, OR- This after­noon mem­bers of Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers occu­pied a bill­board out­side of the West Eugene Seneca Sawmill with a ban­ner that read, “SENECA JONES: BAILOUTS, CLEARCUTS, & POLLUTING WEST EUGENE”.

Seneca Bio­mass is a wood burn­ing pow­er plant in West Eugene that opened in the spring of 2011 amid pub­lic protest. Though the project has been mar­ket­ed as “green ener­gy,” Seneca Bio­mass failed its first EPA air pol­lu­tion test last fall. The plant releas­es an esti­mat­ed 17,900 pounds of air tox­ins into West Eugene Neigh­bor­hoods annu­al­ly —t his in addi­tion to the 73,000 pounds already released annu­al­ly from the mill itself. There are three schools with­in three miles of the Seneca Bio­mass facil­i­ty.

While there are many indus­tri­al pol­luters in West Eugene, it so hap­pens that Seneca Jones receives pub­lic fund­ing for its dirty ener­gy project. Seneca cur­rent­ly receives 10 mil­lion dol­lars in tax cred­its from the state of Ore­gon under the Busi­ness Ener­gy Tax Cred­it Pro­gram. Seneca is now suing the state for an addi­tion­al one mil­lion to off­set the pro­duc­tion costs of their new plant.

“They get paid, we get pol­lut­ed,” says west Eugene res­i­dent and Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­er Grace Warn­er. “It would be nice if the state would give that 11 mil­lion to help­ing schools– not to pol­lut­ing them.”

Seneca is also respon­si­ble for much of the clear-cut log­ging in Ore­gon pub­lic forests. Seneca is one of the top three pur­chasers of tim­ber sales in the Elliott State For­est, where com­pa­nies clear-cut up to 850 acres every year. While the State Land Board jus­ti­fies the destruc­tion of Oregon’s last rem­nants of coastal tem­per­ate rain­for­est to ben­e­fit pub­lic schools, log­ging in the Elliott con­tributes to less than one per­cent of the State’s annu­al school bud­get.

Ore­gon can do bet­ter. We demand that Seneca:

Stop pol­lut­ing West Eugene.
Stop clear-cut­ting Oregon’s ancient forests.
Start pay­ing tax­es like the rest of us.

(USA) From the Woods: Tar Sands blockade update

I’m cur­rent­ly part of a team of awe­some friends rov­ing through the woods of east Texas as part of the Tar Sands Block­ade (TSB).

I’m cur­rent­ly part of a team of awe­some friends rov­ing through the woods of east Texas as part of the Tar Sands Block­ade (TSB). This is an epic fight to defend Tex­ans’ homes and land against the clearcut­ting and pol­lu­tion caused by the build­ing of the mas­sive Key­stone XL pipeline.

The media team for TSB are doing an awe­some job of updat­ing our web­site as Tran­sCana­da (TC) and their hired goons advance toward our block­ade with heavy equip­ment and repeat­ed­ly endan­ger our peo­ple in some scary ways. A friend and I thought that allies of the TSB might appre­ci­ate an on-the-ground per­spec­tive, and so before I go back to defend­ing our block­ade I thought I’d update y’all.
     The for­est of east Texas is total­ly beau­ti­ful. Water oak, sweet gum and slash pine trees define the canopy, and green bri­ar, mus­ca­dine grapes and beau­ty­ber­ry bush­es cov­er the ground. This for­est is home to great blue herons, turkey vul­tures, whip­poor­wills, lots of deer, rat­tlers and oth­er snakes, armadil­los, and even occa­sion­al black bears. All of these are our nat­ur­al allies and have been incred­i­bly dis­turbed by the clear cut­ting of their home.   
     At the begin­ning of this week the bad guys were oper­at­ing a feller bunch­er and clear cut­ting a vast swath of for­est aimed direct­ly at our block­ade. On Tues­day morn­ing we tem­porar­i­ly stopped them by plac­ing our­selves direct­ly in the path of their machines. As a back­hoe was plac­ing tim­bers over a gul­ly so that oth­er more destruc­tive stuff like feller-bunch­ers could advance toward our block­ade, two of our team locked down to the back­hoe and stopped it in its tracks while the rest of us pro­vid­ed cov­er. The lock­down­ers were then tor­tured by local police with TC super­vi­sors watch­ing and laugh­ing. After they were extract­ed from the back­hoe, the tim­ber bridge got built and the feller bunch­er start­ed rapid­ly destroy­ing trees advanc­ing toward our block­ade.
     Then we ran out in front of it and one of my friends sat down direct­ly in its path. All of us were way too close to the back­hoe for it to oper­ate safe­ly. Instead of back­ing away slow­ly to a safe dis­tance per OSHA reg­u­la­tions, the oper­a­tor of the machine (which might’ve been the same guy oper­at­ing the back­hoe) decid­ed to fell anoth­er tree and drop it right on my friend’s head. This demon­strates anti­so­cial and poten­tial­ly mur­der­ous behav­ior and this guy clear­ly should be get­ting men­tal help, not oper­at­ing heavy machin­ery. TC super­vi­sors were watch­ing this hap­pen the whole time, and nod­ding with approval. This is crim­i­nal and they should be pros­e­cut­ed for reck­less endan­ger­ment and attempt­ed manslaugh­ter, both of which are ille­gal in the state of Texas. It’s lucky that I caught the whole thing on film and even luck­i­er that my friend jumped out of the way in time and is now rel­a­tive­ly safe.
Our friends in trees and on the Wall are incred­i­bly brave to be main­tain­ing their posi­tions despite the mech­a­nized onslaught advanc­ing toward them and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bru­tal­i­ty by TC’s hired goons, and we are here to sup­port them no mat­ter what. The bad guys have now advanced all the way up to the wall, leav­ing a scarred and dev­as­tat­ed land­scape in their wake. There are work­ers, boss­es and goons below (as I write this) mak­ing all kinds of scary and emp­ty threats. Our peo­ple are jovial and defi­ant in the face of dan­ger. We’re invit­ing all our friends and allies out to vis­it our block­ade and pro­vide sup­plies, encour­age­ment and rein­force­ments. We who are liv­ing in the for­est are com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing our posi­tions no mat­ted how intim­i­dat­ing this multi­bil­lion-dol­lar cor­po­ra­tion and their enablers in local law enforce­ment try to be. Run­ning cir­cles around con­fused TC boss­es and their goons in the beau­ti­ful Texas for­est is total­ly fun, and every­one should come out and par­tic­i­pate.You can help by com­ing down to join us, by doing sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against TC and their enablers in your local town, by send­ing us funds and/or gear, reach­ing out to your media con­tacts, and telling all your friends about this and ask­ing them to spread the word.
    We need: walkie-talkies, AAA bat­ter­ies, camo gear, rain gear, climb­ing gear of all kinds, tools, satel­lite inter­net, solar pan­els, deep-cell bat­ter­ies, woods food, water fil­ters, and video cam­eras.
     We make our stand here in the hope of inspir­ing oth­ers to make a stand against Key­stone XL in a broad diver­si­ty of ways. Cor­po­ra­tions should not be allowed to just roll over us the way they’ve repeat­ed­ly done for decades. Resis­tance is com­ing. Every­one affect­ed by this pipeline must real­ize that risks must be tak­en in defense of what we love. Lay­ing down in front of things, or any vari­a­tion on that, is good for pub­lic­i­ty but is nowhere near enough. Peo­ple must rise up and defend their homes.
Love and Rage,
Anony­mous Block­ad­er # 57

(Switzerland) Eco-anarchist Costa is released from prison!

Eco-anar­chist pris­on­er Cos­ta Ragusa is released like Bil­ly and Sil­va – Nev­er repen­tant – Nev­er for­got­ten!

Eco-anar­chist pris­on­er Cos­ta Ragusa is released like Bil­ly and Sil­va – Nev­er repen­tant – Nev­er for­got­ten!

The com­rades had been sen­tenced for plan­ning an attack against a lab­o­ra­to­ry of IBM nan­otech­nol­o­gy under con­struc­tion in Zurich.

(USA) When Big Oil Attacks

Tues­day after­noon in East Texas, after police bru­tal­ly tor­tured two pro­test­ers locked to a back­hoe and work­ers resumed destruc­tion of the for­est, mem­bers of the Tar Sands Block­ade, deter­mined not to be deterred by vio­lence, moved in to try and stop work again. One activist sat down in front of a feller bunch­er, a hideous machine used to rapid­ly cut down small­er trees, and, after mak­ing eye con­tact with the work­er, almost had a tree dropped on him. The video shows it all, and you can read the activist’s own telling of the inci­dent here.

There’s real­ly not much else to say. Big Oil is attack­ing our bod­ies, our homes, and the plan­et, and now that the cards are on the table, it’s time to fight back. Word on the street is that we’ve got a love­ly crew of Earth First!ers ready for action join­ing us tonight or tomor­row morn­ing, but there’s plen­ty of room for you to get involved too. Go here or email noneshallpass@riseup.net, and we’ll see you on the ground.

- Tar Sands Block­ad­er

A259 Link Road one hour from London help us now

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066.

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066. Our group is fight­ing a bat­tle with East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil to stop the A259 Link Road cut­ting through one of the most impor­tant her­itage sites in the land and also an invalu­able envi­ro­men­tal reserve.

Bull­doz­ers are already on the site dig­ging trench­es. An ini­tial road protest is organ­ised this week­end. Please famil­iarise your­self with the her­itage sto­ry because this is impor­tant. 5000 Eng­lish­men gave their blood in this val­ley and it should be pre­served and not des­e­crat­ed with a road that goes through open coun­try­side — see the videos on our web site — see why we are fight­ing to save this place one hours dri­ve from cen­tral Lon­don

http://secretsofthenormaninvasion.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/stop-the-road-camp-this-saturday-29th-september-2012/

 

(USA) Texas Tar Sands Blockade Continues Despite Police Torture

Despite sum­mer being over, things con­tin­ue to heat up in Texas for the Tar Sands Block­ade as we enter day 3 of the tree-sit.  On Mon­day, 8 peo­ple took to the trees to defend the land from clear-cut­ting that would allow for con­tin­ued con­struc­tion of the pipeline.  And yes­ter­day, two ground-dwelling allies locked them­selves to a piece of con­struc­tion machin­ery that was being used to build a road to the tree vil­lage, effec­tive­ly halt­ing TransCanada’s work for most of the day.

The police response to this action was pre­dictable but nev­er­the­less shock­ing.  Under the encour­age­ment of Tran­sCana­da super­vi­sors, police used sus­tained choke­holds, vio­lent arm-twist­ing, pep­per spray, and mul­ti­ple shocks from a Taser, all while the two block­aders were in hand­cuffs. Despite the tor­ture, the two block­aders held strong for hours, and their per­se­ver­ance has only fur­ther inspired block­aders to con­tin­ue the protests. This morn­ing, in response to the bru­tal­i­ty inflict­ed on our com­rades yes­ter­day, anoth­er activist has ascend­ed into the tree vil­lage to join the aer­i­al block­ade, bring­ing its total pop­u­la­tion to 9.

Ben­jamin Franklin, one of the tor­tured pro­test­ers, had this to say after being released from jail: “As some­one who has a reli­gious ded­i­ca­tion to non­vi­o­lence, I have a duty to assist non­vi­o­lent tac­tics. This is a path to change that works. Despite every­thing that hap­pened at the direc­tion of Tran­sCana­da, I don’t regret my involve­ment at all. I encour­age every­body to per­se­vere in the face of this type of sheer bru­tal­i­ty. To fol­low one’s moral com­pass in spite of extreme chal­lenges is the way we move for­ward towards a more humane, tar sands-free plan­et.”

Tran­sCana­da has shown bla­tant dis­re­gard for the safe­ty of peace­ful peo­ple, local fam­i­lies, and our plan­et. Despite their claims to be con­cerned for safe­ty, whether of pro­tes­tors, landown­ers, or the plan­et, time and time again this has been shown to be patent­ly false. From encour­ag­ing tor­ture to defraud­ing and coerc­ing peo­ple out of their land to cut­ting cor­ners with safe­ty mea­sures for detect­ing and pre­vent­ing spills, TransCanada’s only con­cern is abun­dant­ly clear – prof­it.

They can be stopped. Every day of delay costs them mon­ey and brings us a tiny bit clos­er to the goal of stop­ping the pipeline. The odds are low, but this is a winnable fight.

If you read the call to action or saw this awe­some video, you know how dev­as­tat­ing extract­ing and burn­ing tar sands oil will be to the cli­mate and how crit­i­cal stop­ping this pipeline is. This action has the poten­tial to be a huge turn­ing point for the resis­tance move­ment against fos­sil fuels, but it needs your help to sur­vive and suc­ceed. If you can spare any­thing, make a dona­tion here. If you want to do more, vis­it this page or email noneshallpass@riseup.net to get involved.

For the wild!

- Tar Sands Block­ad­er