Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

News from the Hambach Forest: Eviction and resquatting

Dur­ing the last week a lot has hap­pend. On the 13th of Novem­ber the police start­ed to evict the camp area near the hole. It took till sat­ur­day 17th ear­ly in the morn­ing to get out the last peo­ple.

Dur­ing the last week a lot has hap­pend. On the 13th of Novem­ber the police start­ed to evict the camp area near the hole. It took till sat­ur­day 17th ear­ly in the morn­ing to get out the last peo­ple.

There was some atten­tion localy and in the whole press and TV in this lan­guage zone. On a press con­fer­ence we gave on the 19th of Novem­ber we anounced the we have since squat­ted for qui­et a while anoth­er area. South of the for­est. So we wern’t real­ly com­plet­ly evict­ed and resquat­ted inside a week:) On Wedns­day 21th of Novem­ber police came to evict this new area, but did­nt have any paper work, it hap­pend that the own­er of the area came to see his land , dur­ing this police action.

He was tak­en into cus­tody by police, this result­ed in pret­ty bad press for the police 🙂 It seems he got angry with the police and RWE as a result of this and does­nt want to evict us from his ground.

These days its windy and secu­ri­ty cars are going in the neig­bour­hood, there are even more peo­ple sup­port­ing, and more would be wel­come.

Squat more. Resist here and every­where.

Any time they hit us we come back much stronger 🙂

Two People Barricade Themselves Inside Keystone XL Pipe To Halt Construction

WINONA, TX – MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 7:30 AM – Sev­er­al pro­tes­tors with Tar Sands Block­ade sealed them­selves inside a sec­tion of pipe des­tined for the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline to stop con­struc­tion of the dan­ger­ous project. Using a blockad­ing tech­nique nev­er imple­ment­ed before, Matt Almonte and Glen Collins locked them­selves between two bar­rels of con­crete weigh­ing over six hun­dred pounds each. Locat­ed twen­ty-five feet into a pipe seg­ment wait­ing to be laid in the ground, the out­er bar­rel is bar­ri­cad­ing the pipe’s open­ing and nei­ther bar­rel can be moved with­out risk­ing seri­ous injury to the block­aders.

The bar­ri­cad­ed sec­tion of the pipeline pass­es through a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood in Winona, TX. If Tran­sCana­da moves ahead with the trench­ing and bury­ing of this par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of pipe, it would run less than a hun­dred feet from neigh­bor­ing homes. Tar sands pipelines threat­en East Texas com­mu­ni­ties with their high­ly tox­ic con­tents, which pose a greater risk to human health than con­ven­tion­al crude oil. TransCanada’s exist­ing tar sands pipeline, Key­stone XL’s pre­de­ces­sor, has an atro­cious safe­ty record, leak­ing twelve times in its first year of oper­a­tion.

“Tran­sCana­da didn’t both­er to ask the peo­ple of this neigh­bor­hood if they want­ed to have mil­lions of gal­lons of poi­so­nous tar sands pumped through their back­yards,” said Almonte, one of the pro­test­ers now inside the pipeline. “This multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion has bul­lied landown­ers and expro­pri­at­ed homes to fat­ten its bot­tom line.”

Recent­ly, over 40 com­mu­ni­ties world­wide planned actions with Tar Sands Block­ade dur­ing a week of resis­tance against extreme ener­gy extrac­tion and its direct con­nec­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis. A grow­ing glob­al move­ment is ris­ing up against the abus­es of the fos­sil fuel indus­try and its increas­ing­ly des­per­ate pur­suit of dan­ger­ous extrac­tion meth­ods.

“I’m bar­ri­cad­ing this pipe with Tar Sands Block­ade today to say loud and clear to the extrac­tion indus­try that our com­mu­ni­ties and the resources we depend on for sur­vival are not col­lat­er­al dam­age,” said Collins, anoth­er block­ad­er inside the pipe and an orga­niz­er with Rad­i­cal Action for Moun­tain Peo­ples Sur­vival (RAMPS) and Moun­tain Jus­tice, grass­roots cam­paigns in Appalachia work­ing to stop moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing.

“This fight in East Texas against tar sands exploita­tion is one and the same as our fight in the hollers of West Vir­ginia. Dirty ener­gy extrac­tion doesn’t just threat­en my home; it threat­ens the col­lec­tive future of the plan­et.”

“At this late stage, doing noth­ing is a greater dan­ger than the risks of tak­ing direct action to stop destruc­tive projects like Key­stone XL,” said Ron Seifert, a spokesper­son for Tar Sands Block­ade. “That’s why folks work­ing with groups like RAMPS, the Unist’ot’en Camp fight­ing a nat­ur­al gas pipeline in British Colum­bia and Tar Sands Block­ade are will­ing to use every­thing includ­ing their own hands and feet to ensure we all have a safe cli­mate and healthy, thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ties.”

Today also marks day 5 of the Hous­ton Hunger Strike in which Gulf Coast activists with Tar Sands Block­ade are going with­out food to demand that Valero divest entire­ly from the Key­stone XL pipeline and invest in the health and well­be­ing of the com­mu­ni­ties it’s poi­son­ing.

UPDATE: 7:30 am – Work­ers arrive. Con­struc­tion is effec­tive­ly halt­ed.

Twen­ty-two trucks and over thir­ty work­ers are on the scene with noth­ing to do.

UPDATE: 8:45 a/m – Sher­iffs arrive on site and are con­sult­ing with work­ers and talk­ing into the pipe.

UPDATE: 9:00 am – Police warn block­aders to leave the pipe or face arrest.

Police are demand­ing that the block­aders leave the pipe or be arrest­ed. The block­aders refuse to com­ply.

UPDATE: 9:20 am – Police threat­en to use tear gas on peace­ful pro­test­ers

Sev­er­al sher­iffs are shin­ing flash­lights into the pipe and threat­en­ing to use tear gas on the peo­ple inside. The block­aders are stand­ing strong and remain bar­ri­cad­ed inside the pipe. Hold­ing fast to their prin­ci­ples of non­vi­o­lent resis­tance, Matt and Glen respond: “we will not be deterred by threats of vio­lence.”

UPDATE: 9:50 am – Offi­cers are threat­en­ing to send a police dog into the pipe

Police are say­ing that they will send a canine unit into the pipe after the pro­test­ers. There are no dogs on scene but the police claim that they are hav­ing them brought to the scene.

UPDATE: 10:40 am – Police threat­en to lift pipe and dump out Glen and Matt

Police are con­tin­u­ing to threat­en tear gas and canine units. They are also say­ing that they could raise the pipe and dump out the block­aders. Doing so would cause seri­ous harm or even death; Matt and Glen are locked between two bar­rels of con­crete which weigh over six hun­dred pounds each.

UPDATE: 10:55 am – Crowd gath­ers to sup­port block­aders inside Key­stone XL pipeline

Peo­ple dri­ving by the scene are show­ing their sup­port by honk­ing and stop­ping to talk to pro­test­ers about the dan­gers of tox­ic tar sands. Despite threats of vio­lence, spir­its are high; the crowd and Glen and Matt are singing togeth­er.

UPDATE: 11:20 am – Police attempt­ing to block view of pipe and move sup­port­ers fur­ther from scene

Police have moved sev­er­al trucks and vans in order to obstruct the view of the pipe in which Glen and Matt are locked. They have threat­ened arrest and forced sup­port­ers off the prop­er­ty imme­di­ate­ly adja­cent to the pipeline ease­ment, despite the fact that the home­own­er gave pro­test­ers explic­it per­mis­sion to be in her yard. Police are also forc­ing pro­test­ers to move fur­ther along the pub­lic road along which they were stand­ing.

 

Activists interfere with international mining conference in Finland

“There is no such thing as socially and environmentally sustainable mining!”

Today in Espoo, Fin­land, a meet­ing of bureau­crats and indus­tri­al­ists  enti­tled Confe

“There is no such thing as socially and environmentally sustainable mining!”

Today in Espoo, Fin­land, a meet­ing of bureau­crats and indus­tri­al­ists  enti­tled Con­fer­ence on Social­ly and Envi­ron­men­tal­ly Respon­si­ble Min­ing was dis­rupt­ed by the group Hyökyaal­to (“Tidal wave). The fol­low­ing state­ment was released today:

With the North­ern min­ing boom the min­ing indus­try, famous for it’s chem­i­cal emis­sions, is threat­en­ing waters and ecosys­tems in var­i­ous loca­tions, where clean nature offers the most pos­si­bil­i­ties for local peo­ple. It is grotesque that the peo­ple involved gath­er to dis­cuss the min­ing indus­try as a sus­tain­able activ­i­ty while every emer­gency dam in the Tal­vi­vaara mine is leak­ing poi­so­nous waste into Vuok­si waters.

The action is a protest against the indus­try and the state’s attempt to legit­imize min­ing by dis­cussing its “sus­tain­abil­i­ty”. Pro­test­ers are remind­ing peo­ple that no such thing as “respon­si­ble”, “sus­tain­able” or “green” min­ing exists. The Tal­vi­vaara mine in Sotkamo, East­ern Fin­land is a clear exam­ple that the only green things caused by min­ing are the pol­lut­ed swamps and waters. The min­ing indus­try, famous for its chem­i­cal emis­sions, threat­ens the waters and oth­er ecosys­tems cru­cial to every­one liv­ing in the sur­round­ing areas. The action is arranged in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Stop Tal­vi­vaara move­ment and all the peo­ple to whom min­ing indus­try caus­es suf­fer­ing around the world.

The envi­ron­men­tal activists feel that direct action is the only strat­e­gy left to make a dif­fer­ence since the Finnish gov­ern­ment has decid­ed to sup­port min­ing and ignore the crit­i­cal voic­es from the peo­ple com­plete­ly. Thus, the pub­lic opin­ion has no impact in the par­la­men­tary sys­tem. A reveal­ing exam­ple of this is that the open­ing speak­er for the two-day green­wash­ing con­fer­ence is Hei­di Hau­ta­la from the Finnish Green par­ty.

The organ­is­ing group of this protest, Hyökyaal­to demands imme­di­ate shut­down of Tal­vi­vaara mine and aban­don­ing all oth­er min­ing plans.

www.hyokyaalto.org

Stop the mining boom!

Activists Lock Themselves to Trucks Outside Valero’s Houston Refinery

Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline

HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –

Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline

HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –-Long­time Gulf Coast activists Diane Wil­son and Bob Lind­sey Jr. have locked their necks to oil tanker trucks des­tined for Valero’s Hous­ton Refin­ery in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Tar Sands Blockade’s protests of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL pipeline. Valero Ener­gy Corp. is among the largest investors in TransCanada’s tox­ic tar sands pipeline that will ter­mi­nate near the com­mu­ni­ty of Man­ches­ter, locat­ed in the shad­ow of Valero’s refin­ery. Not only are Wil­son and Lind­sey blockad­ing the Valero refin­ery, the two life­long friends have also vowed to begin a sus­tained hunger strike demand­ing that Valero divest from Key­stone XL and invest that mon­ey into the health and well-being of the peo­ple of Man­ches­ter.

With a 90% Lati­no pop­u­la­tion, Manchester’s rela­tion­ship with the Valero refin­ery is a text­book case of envi­ron­men­tal racism. Res­i­dents there have suf­fered through decades of pre­ma­ture deaths, can­cers, asth­ma and oth­er dis­eases attrib­ut­able to the refin­ery emis­sions. With lit­tle finan­cial sup­port for law­suits and with­out the polit­i­cal agency nec­es­sary to leg­isla­tive­ly reign-in crim­i­nal pol­luters like Valero, the com­mu­ni­ty suf­fers while Valero posts record prof­its.

“All my life the Gulf Coast has been an envi­ron­men­tal sac­ri­fice zone, and enough is enough,” declared Diane Wil­son, who spent over twen­ty years orga­niz­ing to stop chem­i­cal plants from dump­ing tox­ins direct­ly into Gulf waters. “Key­stone XL will bring to dirt­i­est fuel on the plan­et right down to the Gulf, where already over­bur­dened com­mu­ni­ties like Man­ches­ter will be forced to suf­fer even more. After decades of tox­ic air in Man­ches­ter, I refuse to just let them con­tin­ue to pun­ish this com­mu­ni­ty. I won’t eat until Valero divests from Key­stone XL.”

Wil­son, a fourth-gen­er­a­tion Gulf Coast shrimper, is no stranger to civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. After years of fight­ing indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion in her home­town of Sead­rift, TX, her will­ing­ness to use civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in the strug­gle for clean water and the suc­cess­es it wrought for her com­mu­ni­ty changed the land­scape of envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice along the Gulf Coast.

New­ly des­ig­nat­ed by the Water­keep­er Alliance as the San Anto­nio Bay Water­keep­er, Bob Lind­sey Jr. was born and raised in Cal­houn Coun­ty, which has high­est rate of can­cer of any coun­ty in TX. Lind­sey also has a shrimp­ing her­itage stretch­ing back five gen­er­a­tions. His sis­ter has had four episodes of can­cer, and his father and nephew both died of rare dis­or­ders while in their for­ties. All of these dis­eases are trace­able to the chem­i­cal facil­i­ties around which Bob’s fam­i­ly mem­bers lived and worked.

“Me? I’m healthy. They’re the ones I’m fight­ing for. We have to be pre­pared to fight for those who can’t fight for them­selves or who are too afraid to fight for them­selves. That’s why I’m here.”

“Diane and Bob’s deci­sion to hunger strike in protest of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL and chal­lenge Valero’s long­stand­ing dis­re­gard for the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple of Man­ches­ter push­es the bound­aries of the Gulf Coast envi­ron­men­tal move­ment yet again, explains Ram­sey Sprague, a Louisiana Gulf Coast-born Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son. “Man­ches­ter deserves jus­tice as do all com­mu­ni­ties treat­ed as ener­gy sac­ri­fice zones. Cor­po­ra­tions like Valero and Tran­sCana­da can­not seem to func­tion with­out vio­lat­ing the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple every­where from Alber­ta to Man­ches­ter.”

Mapuche Indians Fight New Airport in Southern Chile

“This is a project that reflects the occupation…of Mapuche ter­ri­to­ry,” said Iván Reyes, an indige­nous leader staunch­ly opposed to the con­struc­tion of an inter­na­tion­al air­port in the south­ern Chilean region of Arau­canía.

Reyes, an agri­cul­tur­al tech­ni­cian, said the con­struc­tion project was approved thanks to an envi­ron­men­tal impact study “based on lies” that was car­ried out by Arcadis Geot­éc­ni­ca, the Chilean sub­sidiary of a Nether­lands-based inter­na­tion­al con­sult­ing and engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny.

The study “says there will be no impact on com­mu­ni­ties in the area. But in a lat­er analy­sis, we detect­ed that the base line and mea­sure­ments had been manip­u­lat­ed,” he said.

The new air­port, whose con­struc­tion was actu­al­ly approved in 2005, is now one of the most high-pro­file projects of the right-wing gov­ern­ment of Sebastián Piñera. It is being built in Quepe, 20 km from the city of Temu­co and near­ly 700 km south of San­ti­a­go.

The La Arau­canía New Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, which will replace the Maque­hue Air­port, will have a 2,440-metre run­way and a 5,000-square-metre pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal.

Temu­co, which is halfway between the Pacif­ic Ocean and the Andes foothills, is in the mid­dle of prairies, pas­ture and farm­land, and forests.

Although a few Mapuche com­mu­ni­ties sup­port the new air­port, which they see as a step for­ward for the region in terms of eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al devel­op­ment, many oth­ers are staunch­ly opposed, argu­ing that it will under­mine bio­di­ver­si­ty and the envi­ron­ment, and will destroy their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry.

The Mapuche, Chile’s largest indige­nous group, num­ber near­ly one mil­lion in this coun­try of over 16 mil­lion peo­ple, and the strug­gle for their ances­tral land in the south of the coun­try has fre­quent­ly pit­ted them against large land­hold­ers, log­ging com­pa­nies and oth­er pri­vate inter­ests.

At the age of 23, Tranamil is already a Mapuche leader, in charge of the reli­gious life of his com­mu­ni­ty, Rofue. He is tena­cious­ly opposed to the con­struc­tion of the air­port, which he describes as “a gate­way to invade Mapuche ter­ri­to­ry.”

Tranamil, or “machi Fidel” as he is known by the local com­mu­ni­ty, is one of the most active indige­nous lead­ers in the area. He has been arrest­ed sev­er­al times, and his home is fre­quent­ly searched by the police. Since 2005, his moth­er has been liv­ing with sev­en pel­lets in her right knee, after a harsh police crack­down on a protest.

The house where Tranamil and his moth­er live is warm and qui­et. They raise pigs and chick­ens, and have a small veg­etable gar­den.

“But soon, air­lin­ers will be land­ing every minute. That will not only vio­late our spir­i­tu­al life but also our cul­ture and har­mo­ny,” he said.

He also said that to build the air­port, “between 200 and 300 hectares of native (old-growth) for­est will be cut down, and lost for­ev­er. It would take 400 years for the trees to grow back to their cur­rent height.”

Evictions and Destruction on the ZAD Airport Protest Site

The ZAD air­port protest site in France is still being evict­ed, a process that start­ed on the 16th Octo­ber. The zone is grad­u­al­ly being mil­i­tarised but there are HUGE num­bers of pro­test­ers and seem­ing­ly more every day. We’re still fight­ing and it is not over!

 

The ZAD air­port protest site in France is still being evict­ed, a process that start­ed on the 16th Octo­ber. The zone is grad­u­al­ly being mil­i­tarised but there are HUGE num­bers of pro­test­ers and seem­ing­ly more every day. We’re still fight­ing and it is not over!

 

The ZAD is an air­port protest site in the west of France about 15 miles north of Nantes. The air­port project was first pro­posed over forty years ago and has faced con­stant local resis­tance ever since. The project is in the hands of the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Vin­ci, who also pro­vide us with such « ser­vices » as pris­ons, motor­ways and nuclear pow­er sta­tions. It is the par­tic­u­lar pet project of Jean Marc Ayrault, the for­mer may­or of Nantes and cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter of France. In 2009 the area host­ed a cli­mate camp, since when the emp­ty hous­es, fields and forests have been grad­u­al­ly fill­ing up with peo­ple dis­gust­ed enough by the idea of this project to stay and resist. The rea­sons for stay­ing are as diverse as the peo­ple but the occu­piers are unit­ed by an idea that fight­ing cap­i­tal­ism is an impor­tant part of every day life.

Until the sec­ond week of Octo­ber you could still arrive on the ZAD and tour around over 30 diverse squats spread across the two thou­sand hectares of threat­ened land. The peo­ple unit­ed there to organ­ise togeth­er and fight the air­port project but life was far from unpleas­ant. You could vis­it the beau­ti­ful straw bale house bak­ery which pro­vid­ed the whole area with free price deli­cious organ­ic bread twice a week, the numer­ous col­lec­tive gar­dens, the home made wind tur­bine to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty, an incred­i­ble range of cab­ins on the ground and in the trees made from col­lect­ed mate­ri­als, and you prob­a­bly would have been able to go to a con­cert, join us on an action, help us organ­ise and come to a few work­shops to learn to climb, or knit, or maybe build a rock­et stove.

Right at the moment though we don’t seem to be leav­ing our­selves much time for knit­ting work­shops. On Tues­day 16th Octo­ber the large scale evic­tions of the place we call home start­ed, and they weren’t mess­ing around. Riot vans arrived en masse from six in the morn­ing and had already evict­ed sev­en squat­ted hous­es and burned down a large cab­in by ten o’clock in the
morn­ing. Approx­i­mate­ly 1200 police were mobi­lized for this so-called ‘oper­a­tion Cesar’, pro­tect­ing the work­ers who use plain white vans, hid­ing their com­pa­ny names. Since then we have seen near­ly all of those hous­es razed to the ground, and most of the oth­er hous­es, cab­ins and homes evict­ed and destroyed. We have also near­ly all inhaled a deeply unhealthy amount of tear gas and seen enough blue vans and uni­forms to last a life­time.

Novem­ber 17th marked a huge change in this strug­gle. Some­where between 20,000 and 40,000 (depend­ing who you ask) peo­ple were unit­ed togeth­er on the ZAD for the huge Reoc­cu­pa­tion Demo. This involved a march from the near­by town of Notre Dame des Lan­des (where the demo stretched for near­ly eight kilo­me­tres) and a chest­nut plan­ta­tion close to the cen­tre of the ZAD where huge num­bers of peo­ple got to work build­ing new cab­ins. All day it was hard to move with­out get­ting in the way of peo­ple ham­mer­ing, saw­ing and car­ry­ing heavy things into the for­est. Wit­ness­ing this col­lec­tive ener­gy, and around ten large cab­ins fly up in the course of an after­noon is some­thing I feel sure no one who was there will for­get. More than that, I hope that every sin­gle per­son who squelched through the mud that day now feels a part of the ZAD, and that we will not lose this col­lec­tive force and feel­ing of strength.

Since then there has been vast amounts of con­struc­tion hap­pen­ing all over the ZAD. In fact it is hard to find a place on the zone where you can’t hear ham­mer­ing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the last few days this has been accom­pa­nied by the all-too-famil­iar sounds of con­cus­sion grenades and tear gas bombs. All of the new­ly con­struct­ed tree hous­es and the ground-lev­el cab­in in the Rohanne For­est were once again destroyed on Sat­ur­day in a con­stant cloud of tear gas. Despite being attacked and gassed all day, the huge num­ber of sup­port­ers on the ground stayed until long after dark, until the police final­ly crawled back to where they came from. The new cab­ins from the reoc­cu­pa­tion demo remain but they seem at risk of being destroyed soon. Dur­ing the week­end there were huge num­bers of injuries for the first time since the evic­tions start­ed, and also instances of police attack­ing bar­ri­cades in the mid­dle of the night. They are now mil­i­taris­ing the zone, stay­ing all night on the roads to stop us from mov­ing around, and grad­u­al­ly upping the pres­sure.

We got the mes­sage yes­ter­day that the evic­tions will stop if we stop build­ing, and I can smile as I type that I feel quite sure that will not hap­pen. We will con­tin­ue to build, and con­tin­ue to fight against this oppres­sion and this use­less sense­less project. We will not let them win so eas­i­ly. There are more of us than ever and it is impos­si­ble not to feel strong, even as they destroy our homes again and again. We have ever more peo­ple to keep rebuild­ing.

There is a call out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on our web­site (www.zad.nadir.org)

The strug­gle con­tin­ues for us, and we wel­come the sup­port of those as dis­il­lu­sioned as us with this com­pa­ny, the state, and the con­trol on our every day lives. It’s far from over, this is just the begin­ning.

Call out for actions dur­ing the moment of evic­tion of the ZAD
 https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article175

new call out for occu­pa­tion
https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article348

La Zad Re-occupied!

On Sat­ur­day, after 3 weeks of evic­tions, more than 30000 came to re-occu­py the ZAD. As soon as the demon­stra­tion arrived, 5 pre-assem­bled struc­tures start­ed to get built: a meet­ing-room of 80m², a kitchen house, 2 dorms, a toi­let and bath block and a work­shop.

On Sat­ur­day, after 3 weeks of evic­tions, more than 30000 came to re-occu­py the ZAD. As soon as the demon­stra­tion arrived, 5 pre-assem­bled struc­tures start­ed to get built: a meet­ing-room of 80m², a kitchen house, 2 dorms, a toi­let and bath block and a work­shop. On Mon­day, the work is con­tin­u­ing. Thanks to a sum of inge­nios­i­ty, mutu­alised know-hows and end­less human chains to bring the tons of planks, as well as cross beams, met­al sheets and straw need­ed for the work, the con­struc­tion showed rapid progress. The achieve­ment is breath­tak­ing and can only leave large smiles on the faces. In order to cel­e­brate that, and inau­gu­rate, a cock­tail is announced, this mon­day, at 17:00 on the build­ing site. We would like to remind that these new col­lec­tive build­ings are meant to become a cross­ing point for all oppo­nents and a head­quar­ter to organ­ise the resis­tance to the air­port con­struc­tion. The pre­fec­ture, who knows what they are about, have announced as of Sat­ur­day, that these new huts were “woed to dis­s­ap­pear”. But the land on which most of the recon­struc­tions were made is lent by a pri­vate own­er, opposed to the air­port and also ongo­ing expro­pri­a­tion. There­fore, there is no judi­cial way to evict these hous­es with­out lenghty pro­ce­dures, regard­ing the urban­ism laws, to be per­formed by the pre­fec­ture. We can there­fore reas­sure to every­one who got involved in the reoc­cu­pa­tion on Sat­ur­day, that, accord­ing to the law, these build­ing can­not be destroyed at least for some time. In par­ralel to these large con­struc­tions, new huts and liv­ing spaces are being rebuilt on squat­ted lands owned by Vin­ci. Dur­ing the whole week, tree­hous­es will nest again in the Rohanne for­est. Whether on lent or squat­ted land, we call for com­mon defense of each hut with all the required deter­mi­na­tion. If they evict us, we resist, and we come back!

Cyber-sabotage in Saudi Arabia

by DGR News Ser­vice

by DGR News Ser­vice

Civ­i­liza­tion is not a sta­t­ic force. It has metas­ta­sized across the world by accel­er­at­ing its own devel­op­ment, by trans­form­ing the blood and corpses of its vic­tims into new weapons with which to wage its relent­less war against all life

Grass­lands become grain mono­cul­tures feed­ing armies, con­quer­ing forests and moun­tains that become ships and swords that kill oth­er cul­tures, con­quer­ing more forests and moun­tains, whose trees and min­er­als are turned into tim­ber mills and trains, going forth to damn rivers, turn­ing the relent­less flu­id­i­ty of their being to elec­tric­i­ty to smelt iron and steel and alu­minum, which in turn become guns and ocean tankers, which expand this super­struc­ture ever fur­ther, tire­less­ly tak­ing in what lit­tle wild remains, absorb­ing every­thing and every­one into this accel­er­at­ing death march.

And yet, as the world is tied and bound tighter into this bru­tal arrange­ment, civ­i­liza­tion (and espe­cial­ly indus­tri­al­ism) becomes more and more vul­ner­a­ble, more open and frag­ile to dis­rup­tion and destruc­tion.

This brit­tle­ness is exem­pli­fied by the near-total depen­dence of the indus­tri­al econ­o­my on “advanced” tech­nol­o­gy, and the inter­net. This depen­den­cy upon a decen­tral­ized and acces­si­ble sys­tem that is poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed and controlled—at least com­pared to oth­er phys­i­cal struc­tures, like the offices of the same cor­po­ra­tions— presents a poten­tial point of pow­er­ful lever­age against the oper­a­tion of civ­i­liza­tion.

Activists and resisters around the world are begin­ning to real­ize this, and seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty it presents to groups engaged in asym­met­ric forces against destruc­tion.

Such as in Sau­di Ara­bia; from a recent arti­cle in the New York Times;

“On Aug. 15, more than 55,000 Sau­di Aram­co [described as the world’s most valu­able com­pa­ny] employ­ees stayed home from work to pre­pare for one of Islam’s holi­est nights of the year — Lailat al Qadr, or the Night of Pow­er — cel­e­brat­ing the rev­e­la­tion of the Koran to Muham­mad.

That morn­ing, at 11:08, a per­son with priv­i­leged access to the Sau­di state-owned oil company’s com­put­ers, unleashed a com­put­er virus to ini­ti­ate what is regard­ed as among the most destruc­tive acts of com­put­er sab­o­tage on a com­pa­ny to date. The virus erased data on three-quar­ters of Aramco’s cor­po­rate PCs — doc­u­ments, spread­sheets, e‑mails, files — replac­ing all of it with an image of a burn­ing Amer­i­can flag.”

This attack presents a good exam­ple of tar­get­ing a sys­temic weak point with­in the infra­struc­ture of Sau­di Aram­co and max­i­miz­ing impact through effec­tive use of sys­tems dis­rup­tion: destroy­ing three-fourths of cor­po­rate data will have impacts that last for weeks, and inhib­it the company’s oper­a­tion for some time. In fact, the attacked lever­aged the company’s response against itself:

“Imme­di­ate­ly after the attack, Aram­co was forced to shut down the company’s inter­nal cor­po­rate net­work, dis­abling employ­ees’ e‑mail and Inter­net access, to stop the virus from spread­ing.”

The cyber-sab­o­tage also high­lights the impor­tance of care­ful plan­ning and tim­ing.

“The hack­ers picked the one day of the year they knew they could inflict the most dam­age…”

This smart and strate­gic approach to action plan­ning is some­thing that is too often over­looked, ignored, or dis­missed entire­ly. Yet for resis­tance to be effec­tive, it must fol­low the same prin­ci­ples. Rather than strik­ing at weak points to crip­ple the oper­a­tion or func­tion of indus­tri­al activ­i­ty, attacks are typ­i­cal­ly made against sym­bol­ic or super­fi­cial tar­gets, leav­ing the oper­a­tion of the bru­tal indus­tri­al machine unscathed. We can­not con­tin­ue to stum­ble with strate­gic blind­ness, lash­ing out all but ran­dom­ly, and no more than hop­ing to hit the mark.

Again, civ­i­liza­tion is not a sta­t­ic force: every hour, more forests, prairies, moun­tains and species are destroyed and extir­pat­ed. Every hour, civ­i­liza­tion is pulled fur­ther into biot­ic col­lapse. We are out of time. With every­thing at stake, we are not only jus­ti­fied in using any means nec­es­sary to bring down civ­i­liza­tion; it is our moral man­date as liv­ing beings to do so. But for that resis­tance to tru­ly be mean­ing­ful and effec­tive, it must also be smart. It can­not be reac­tive and spo­radic, but strate­gic and coor­di­nat­ed; designed not just to inflict dam­age or dent prof­it mar­gins, but to dis­able the fun­da­men­tal sup­port-sys­tems that sus­tain indus­tri­al civ­i­liza­tion and bring it all to a screech­ing halt.

This is one rea­son why cyber-sab­o­tage has such poten­tial as a tac­tic to be used in dis­man­tling indus­tri­al civ­i­liza­tion. Most, if not all, of the crit­i­cal sys­tems that sus­tain it are by now reliant upon com­put­er net­works, which as the Sau­di Aram­co attack demon­strates, are very vul­ner­a­ble to dis­rup­tion.

Online attacks also lend them­selves as a tac­tic to asym­met­ric forces, and allow a very small group of peo­ple to car­ry out deci­sive, coor­di­nat­ed strikes from a dis­tance, rather than requir­ing peo­ple on the ground to coor­di­nate across the coun­try to achieve a sim­i­lar effect.

Civilization’s relent­less growth and accel­er­at­ing tech­nol­o­gy-spi­ral has ren­dered mur­der and death across the plan­et on a scale that would be unimag­in­able if it weren’t the hor­rif­ic real­i­ty we now find our­selves in. But this process of unceas­ing cen­tral­iza­tion and con­trol has also become its weak­ness, and for all its impos­ing gigan­tism, the tow­er of civ­i­liza­tion is incred­i­bly unsta­ble, and now begins to sway pre­car­i­ous­ly. It’s time to push with all our might, and top­ple it once and for all.

Learn­ing to lever­age key sys­tems against them­selves is cru­cial to the suc­cess of a mil­i­tant resis­tance move­ment, and ulti­mate­ly is at the core of any effec­tive strat­e­gy to dis­able the func­tion of indus­tri­al civ­i­liza­tion and ulti­mate­ly to dis­man­tle it. Cyber-sab­o­tage presents a vital oppor­tu­ni­ty to use the dynam­ics of indus­tri­al operations—such as the com­plete depen­den­cy of the elec­tric grid or oil refiner­ies upon com­plex com­put­er systems—to accom­plish that most fun­da­men­tal and nec­es­sary goal.

Wet’suwet’en evict Gas Surveyors

by Van­cou­ver Media Co-Op

by Van­cou­ver Media Co-Op

On the evening of Novem­ber 20th, 2012, Wet’suwet’en Chief Togh­estiy inter­cept­ed and issued an eagle feath­er to sur­vey­ors from the Can-Am Geo­mat­ics com­pa­ny who were work­ing for Apache’s pro­posed Pacif­ic Trails Pipeline (PTP). In Wet’suwet’en law, an eagle feath­er is used as a first and only notice of tres­pass. The sur­vey­ors and all oth­er peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with PTP were ordered to leave the ter­ri­to­ry and told that they are not ever allowed to return to Unis’tot’en land. As a result of the unsanc­tioned PTP work in the Unist’ot’en yin­tah, the road lead­ing into the ter­ri­to­ry has been closed to all indus­try activ­i­ties until fur­ther notice.

Togh­estiy stat­ed, “I have invoked the Wet’suwet’en Inuk nu’ot’en (Law) called Bi Kyi Wa’at’en (Respon­si­bil­i­ty of a hus­band to respect­ful­ly use and pro­tect his wife’s ter­ri­to­ry) to issue a tres­pass notice to Pipeline work­ers on her sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­ry. My Clan’s ter­ri­to­ry called Lho Kwa (Clore Riv­er) is locat­ed behind the Unist’ot’en ter­ri­to­ry adja­cent to the Coastal town of Kiti­mat and it is our respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect our ter­ri­to­ry as well. We will be stop­ping all pro­posed pipelines.”

The Wet’suwet’en are made up of five Clans, with ter­ri­to­ries that they are expect­ed to man­age for their future gen­er­a­tions. The Unis’tot’en clan has been dead-set against all pipelines slat­ed to cross through their ter­ri­to­ries, which include PTP, Enbridge’s North­ern Gate­way, and many oth­ers. The Unis’tot’en have estab­lished a per­ma­nent com­mu­ni­ty along the Widzin Kwa (Morice Riv­er) direct­ly in the path of the pro­posed ener­gy cor­ri­dor and made their oppo­si­tion extreme­ly clear.

Fre­da Huson, spokes­woman for the Unis’tot’en Clan, states: “PTP does not have per­mis­sion to be on our ter­ri­to­ry. It’s unced­ed land. We said “NO!” in their meet­ings. We’ve writ­ten them let­ters; I’ve sent them emails, say­ing “absolute­ly NO!” to their projects. Con­sid­er it tres­pass when you enter our ter­ri­to­ry with­out per­mis­sion. You’ve received your warn­ing. Don’t come back!”

This marks the sec­ond time that eagle feath­ers have been issued to pipeline work­ers. On August 23rd, 2010, Togh­estiy and Hag­wilakw of the Likhts’amisyu clan gave Enbridge rep­re­sen­ta­tives tres­pass warn­ings dur­ing a Smithers Town Coun­cil meet­ing where Enbridge attend­ed to attempt to smooth over their recent oil spill on the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er.

For more infor­ma­tion:

Fre­da Huson, Spokesper­son for the Unis’tot’en by email at fhuson@gmail.com or by cell phone at 778–210-1100.

Togh­estiy, Hered­i­tary Wing Chief of the Likhts’amisyu at toghestiy@gmail.com , inter­view requests can be made by send­ing an email along with your con­tact infor­ma­tion to the afore­men­tioned email.

A 9‑minute video explain­ing the com­mu­ni­ty can be found at http://stoptheflows.tumblr.com/ The Unist’ot’en community’s web­site is http://unistotencamp.wordpress.com/decolonizing-the-carbon-corridor/

Please note that nei­ther the Unis’tot’en Peo­ple or the oth­er Grass­roots Wet’suwet’en are asso­ci­at­ed with the Office of the Wet’suwet’en.

http://westcoastpipelinewatch.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/apache-surveyors-ordered-off-unceded-wetsuweten-territory/

Watch video of Unis’tot’en mem­bers turn­ing away sur­vey­ors, Nov 20, 2012:

http://youtu.be/sXmFwj4YKsQ

Day of Action shuts down Keystone XL Construction

Day of Action Sees Dozens Walk On to Work Site as the Nacogdoches Community Rallies with Affected Landowners at Lake Nacogdoches to Protect Fresh Water Supply from Toxic Tar Sands

NACOGDOCHES, TX – MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19,

Day of Action Sees Dozens Walk On to Work Site as the Nacogdoches Community Rallies with Affected Landowners at Lake Nacogdoches to Protect Fresh Water Supply from Toxic Tar Sands

NACOGDOCHES, TX – MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2012 8:00AM – Today, four peo­ple locked them­selves to heavy machin­ery used along the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline route. They were joined by sev­er­al oth­ers form­ing a human chain to block the move­ment of heavy machin­ery onsite, while more than 30 peo­ple walked onto the same con­struc­tion site to halt work ear­ly this morn­ing. Mean­while, three oth­ers launched a new tree block­ade at a cross­ing of the Angeli­na Riv­er, sus­pend­ing them­selves from 50 foot pine trees with life lines anchored to heavy machin­ery, effec­tive­ly block­ing the entire­ty of Key­stone XL’s path. Today’s Day of Action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with local landown­ers strug­gling to pro­tect their water and land from TransCanada’s tox­ic tar sands pipeline.

Key­stone XL would cross 16 large rivers in Texas, includ­ing the site of today’s lat­est tree block­ade, the scenic Angeli­na Riv­er. Nes­tled amongst 50 foot pine trees in forest­ed bot­tom­lands, the tree block­aders have set­tled in for a long stand­off in pro­tec­tion of their fresh drink­ing and agri­cul­tur­al water. The waters down­stream feed into the pop­u­lar Sam Ray­burn Reser­voir, the largest lake entire­ly with­in the state of Texas, renowned for its angling oppor­tu­ni­ties and com­pe­ti­tions.

“Tar Sands Block­ade stands with all com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the Cana­di­an tar sands. From indige­nous nations in Alber­ta, Cana­da to the besieged refin­ery neigh­bor­hoods of the Amer­i­can Gulf Coast where the tar sands will be refined, there’s a groundswell of resis­tance demand­ing an end to tox­ic tar sands exploita­tion. Today’s events sim­ply mark the lat­est in our sus­tained, com­mu­ni­ty-based civ­il dis­obe­di­ence cam­paign, and many more com­mu­ni­ties are des­tined to rise up to defend their homes from TransCanada’s fraud, bul­ly­ing, and reck­less endan­ger­ment of their lives and fresh water,” insist­ed Ron Seifert, a Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son.

Includ­ed amongst the Angeli­na tree sit­ters is local Stephen F. Austin State Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent, Lizzy Alvara­do, 21, an Austin-born, third-year cin­e­matog­ra­phy major. Lead­ing out­door excur­sions for oth­er local youth and hav­ing helped found the Nacog­doches Rat Skulls, an all female cycling-advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion, Alvara­do is an active mem­ber of the Nacog­doches com­mu­ni­ty.

“I climbed this tree in hon­or of all the landown­ers who have been bul­lied mer­ci­less­ly into sign­ing ease­ment con­tracts and who were then silenced through fear by TransCanada’s threat of end­less lit­i­ga­tion. That’s not what this coun­try stands for in my mind, and if we don’t take a stand here to secure our rights now, then it will keep hap­pen­ing to every­one,” pro­claimed Alvara­do. “What’s hap­pen­ing isn’t just threat­en­ing my community’s drink­ing water but it will threat­en that of all com­mu­ni­ties along the pipeline’s path.“

While these mul­ti­site actions halt­ed Key­stone XL con­struc­tion this morn­ing, local com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers ral­lied at Lake Nacog­doches to fur­ther high­light the threats Key­stone XL pos­es to the community’s water­shed and pub­lic health. These events around the Nacog­doches area coin­cide with a week’s worth of events in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Tar Sands Block­ade. Sched­uled to occur in over 40 com­mu­ni­ties around the world, these actions high­light the urgent need to address the cli­mate cri­sis.

Some actions have tar­get­ed pol­i­cy mak­ers or finan­cial insti­tu­tions bankrolling dirty ener­gy projects while oth­ers ral­lied to address the dam­age done by Hur­ri­cane Sandy through com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing and con­nect­ing extreme weath­er to extreme extrac­tion. Yes­ter­day in Wash­ing­ton, DC, more than 3,000 gath­ered at the White House to call on Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to reject the per­mit for the north­ern seg­ment of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL pipeline. Oth­er actions are sched­uled to hap­pen today and lat­er this week.

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“From the Sandy-dec­i­mate streets of New York City to these piney woods here in East Texas, com­mu­ni­ties are resist­ing dan­ger­ous cor­po­ra­tions like Tran­sCana­da. These sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are part of a bur­geon­ing move­ment of ordi­nary folks com­ing togeth­er in their neigh­bor­hoods, schools, and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters to draw the con­nec­tions between extreme extrac­tion like tar sands exploita­tion and extreme weath­er like the droughts dev­as­tat­ing farm­ers and ranch­ers all over Texas and the Mid­west. Today we ral­ly to build a future where all peo­ple and the plan­et are healthy and thriv­ing,” said Kim Huynh, a spokesper­son for the Tar Sands Block­ade.

UPDATE: 8:15 am – Police offi­cers arrive on site at Angeli­na Riv­er tree block­ade

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter to keep up with the lat­est updates.

UPDATE: 8:40 am – Police threat­en­ing to cut sup­port lines for tree block­aders

Chero­kee Coun­ty Sher­iffs have been caught on tape mak­ing mul­ti­ple threats to cut the sup­port lines of the tree block­ades, which could be poten­tial­ly fatal for Lizzy and the oth­er block­aders occu­py­ing the tree-sits.

UPDATE: 9:10 am – All con­struc­tion stopped at site of lock down; work­ers have com­plete­ly left site

Work­ers intend­ing to con­tin­ue con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline have com­plete­ly aban­doned all plans to work today at the site of our lock down and have left the site. A crew of block­aders will main­tain a pres­ence there while rein­force­ments are being sent to the new tree block­ade to sup­port Lizzy and the oth­er block­aders whose lives are being threat­ened by the police.

UPDATE: 9:30 am – Tran­sCana­da work­ers return to lock down site with police offi­cers and video equip­ment

Tran­sCana­da work­ers were over­heard telling the police that they want the block­aders out. Police are call­ing for rein­force­ments and get­ting out flex­i­cuffs.

UPDATE: 9:40 am – One per­son detained at lock down site, placed in flex­i­cuffs

The police have detained one per­son sup­port­ing the block­aders who locked them­selves to heavy machin­ery this morn­ing. Hear from the block­aders them­selves why they decid­ed to take action:

UPDATE: 10:15 am – Police pep­per spray two peo­ple locked down; one per­son arrest­ed on the ground at tree block­ade

Police have sprayed pep­per spray onto the skin of two peo­ple locked to heavy machin­ery on the Key­stone XL pipeline ease­ment as sup­port­ers and local media watched from the road. The block­aders who were pep­per sprayed respond­ed by singing loud­ly and are in good spir­its. Mean­while, at the tree block­ade, one per­son was arrest­ed on the ground for tres­pass­ing on the ease­ment.

UPDATE: 10:40 am – Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions take off in Min­neapo­lis and San Fran­cis­co

Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions took off this morn­ing with a ban­ner drop over­look­ing Min­neapo­lis. In San Fran­cis­co, demon­stra­tors ral­lied out­side the Cana­di­an Con­sulate in the finan­cial dis­trict, demand­ing that Cana­da with­draw its sup­port for the Key­stone XL Pipeline, and gath­er­ing strength for the con­tin­ued push to hold recent­ly elect­ed US politi­cians account­able to the will of the Amer­i­can peo­ple to com­bat cli­mate change.

UPDATE: 10:55 am – Sec­ond sup­port­er arrest­ed at lock down site; police putting hand­cuffs on block­aders locked to machin­ery

A sec­ond per­son sup­port­ing those locked to heavy machin­ery has been arrest­ed by the Chero­kee Coun­ty Sher­iff Depart­ment, while offi­cers have hand­cuffed the free hand of those locked down. The police are tam­per­ing with the lock box­es but seem unsure about how to remove the block­aders.

UPDATE: 11:10 am – Sol­i­dar­i­ty action in Palm Beach, FL results in arrests in front of Deutsche Bank

A sol­i­dar­i­ty action in Palm Beach, Flori­da tar­get­ing Deutsche Bank, a major financier of the Key­stone XL pipeline, has result­ed in the arrest of mul­ti­ple pro­test­ers. The pro­test­ers demand­ed that Deutsche Bank “refuse to facil­i­tate any future invest­ments in Big Oil, start­ing with the con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL Pipeline.”

UPDATE: 11:15 am – Two block­aders extract­ed from lock down; two more hold­ing strong despite police bru­tal­i­ty

The police have just extract­ed the two block­aders they had pep­per sprayed ear­li­er this morn­ing. Both indi­vid­u­als had their eyes swollen shut because of the pep­per spray. After they were removed from their lock down device, the block­aders went limp and were dragged away by police. This brings the total num­ber of arrests so far today to five. Please make a gen­er­ous dona­tion to help get them out of jail quick­ly and to sup­port their legal defense.

UPDATE: 11:25 am – Police pep­per spray remain­ing two block­aders, drag­ging away arrest­ed block­ad­er who went limp

Police have pep­per sprayed the remain­ing two block­aders locked to heavy machin­ery and con­tin­ued to bru­tal­ize the two block­aders who were already arrest­ed. They were seen drag­ging one block­ad­er who seemed in extreme pain and unre­spon­sive face down along the ground by his shoul­der and shov­ing him into the back of a police car while refus­ing to clean pep­per spray out of the eyes of the oth­er arrest­ed block­ad­er or pro­vide him with water.

UPDATE: 11:40 am – Remain­ing two block­aders extract­ed after being pep­per sprayed

All four block­aders that were locked to heavy machin­ery have now been arrest­ed after being pep­per sprayed and bru­tal­ized by Chero­kee Coun­ty Sher­iffs. This brings the total num­ber of arrests so far today to sev­en, with two sup­port­ers at the ground block­ade and one sup­port­er at the tree block­ade also being arrest­ed. Donate now to help get them out of jail and to sup­port their legal defense.

UPDATE: 11:55 am – Sher­iffs shak­ing tree-sit life­line; sit­ters refus­ing to come down

Sher­iffs shook the sup­port line for one of the tree-sits, even after being repeat­ed­ly informed that the ropes are crit­i­cal sup­port lines and must not be tam­pered with. Lizzy and the oth­er tree-sit­ters are refus­ing to come down, even with their lives endan­gered by the police. In response, sher­iffs cleared sup­port­ers out from under­neath the tree-sits and the one in charge was seen hav­ing a long phone con­ver­sa­tion next to a life­line.

UPDATE: 12:45 pm – “Com­mon­luck The­ater of Dra­mat­ic Nour­ish­ment” tar­gets Tran­sCana­da lob­by­ing firm

In a beau­ti­ful dis­play of non­vi­o­lent resis­tance, the “Com­mon­luck The­ater of Dra­mat­ic Nour­ish­ment” deliv­ered cook­ies and oth­er treats to the San­ta Clari­ta, Cal­i­for­nia office of McKen­na, Long, and Aldridge, the main lob­by­ing firm for Tran­sCana­da, in an attempt to change their hearts, “Grinch style”. The stark con­trast between the tac­tics of our move­ment and the tac­tics of those in pow­er could not be more abun­dant­ly clear, with this action com­ing on the heels of sev­er­al block­aders being bru­tal­ized and arrest­ed by Chero­kee Coun­ty Sher­iffs ear­li­er today. Pleasecon­sid­er a dona­tion to the legal fund to sup­port those who were met with vio­lence just for stand­ing up for the health of their com­mu­ni­ties.

UPDATE: 1:10 pm – Ground sup­port­ers block­ade cher­ry pick­er to pro­tect tree-sits; police retal­i­ate with reck­less pep­per spray and arrests

Chero­kee Coun­ty Sher­iffs brought in a cher­ry pick­er to try and extract the three tree block­aders. In response, a cou­ple dozen ground sup­port­ers stood in front of the truck with the cher­ry pick­er and pushed up against it in an attempt to stop it. The truck dri­ver refused to stop until they hit one of the sup­port­ers and almost dragged him under­neath the vehi­cle. In an effort to dis­perse the crowd, police began indis­crim­i­nate­ly spray­ing peo­ple in the face with pep­per spray, includ­ing a 21 year old woman from Nacog­doches and a 75 year old woman with a heart con­di­tion. The offi­cer who pep­per sprayed sup­port­ers is refus­ing to iden­ti­fy him­self. Two more of the ground sup­port­ers have been arrest­ed, bring­ing the total for today to nine. Donate now to sup­port these brave block­aders stand­ing up for their com­mu­ni­ties in the face of bru­tal police repres­sion.

UPDATE: 2:00 pm – From coast to coast, sol­i­dar­i­ty against the Key­stone XL

In Burling­ton, Ver­mont, and Fair­fax, Cal­i­for­nia, activists dis­played ban­ners decry­ing Key­stone XL’s role in the ongo­ing cli­mate cri­sis. “As com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to rebuild in the wake of Super­storm Sandy, it should be obvi­ous that the expan­sion of fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture is unac­cept­able,” said Sara Mehal­ick of Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont. “From Transcanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline, to Ver­mont Gas’s scheme to pump gas under Lake Cham­plain, to ExxonMobil’s plans for a New Eng­land tar sands pipeline, our right to a liv­able plan­et is under attack.”