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Getting Naked to Expose BP
Diane Wilson, a fourth generation shrimper from the Texas Gulf and a founder of CODEPINK, has been watching the BP spill and the botched clean-up with a mixture of dread and anger. After all, it's her livelihood and that of her community that's at stake. "I've lived all my life in the Gulf Coast, in the oil, chemical, and gas hellhole we call an energy corridor," said Diane Wilson with her Texas twang. "I've been fightin' these polluters for 21 years. But this BP spill is the nail in the coffin of the people who make their living along the gulf coast. This is our 9/11 in slow motion."
Diane has been incensed by the cavalier attitude of BP CEO Tony Hayward, who said that the largest oil spill in US history is a tiny speck in the vast ocean. "He had the nerve to say that those miles upon miles of underwater oil plumes that stretch to who knows where and do who knows what to the fisheries, the ecosystem, and Gulf of Mexico for possibly generations, is really going to have a ‘very, very modest impact.' Sittin' there listening to BP's lies made my blood boil," Diane fumed. "I realized I better get off my butt and do somethin' about it."
This
61-year-old grandmother of five is all about action. To protest
chemical companies polluting her bay, in 2002 Diane climbed a chemical
tower, chained herself to it and then did a 30-day water-only hunger
strike. As a CODEPINK cofounder who tried to stop the invasion of Iraq in 2003, an invasion she knew was
all about oil, Diane got arrested confronting Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld at a Congressional hearing. Then she scaled and tied
herself to the White House fence (and almost got shot by a sniper). She
even traveled to Iraq when the U.S. military was about to attack,
putting herself forward as a human shield.
So Diane put out a call for people to join her in Houston on Monday, May 24, to protest at the BP headquarters. Looking for a creative way to expose the company's criminal behavior (and entice the media, who rarely cover protests in Texas), Diane was inspired by the example of a group of women from Nigeria who took over a Chevron oil rig and threatened to strip naked if the company didn't hire more local workers and invest in the community. Faced with just the threat of nudity, Chevron gave in.
"If the Nigerian women could use their bodies on the Niger Delta, why can't we do it in downtown Houston?" Diane reasoned.
Diane doesn't take nudity lightly. She didn't grow up in a hippie commune, but in a fundamentalist Pentecostal family in rural Texas. "I was taught that flesh is sinful, it's the devil. I was so modest that if my sister said the word ‘bra', I would climb under the table. I was horrified by anything intimate. So for me, using nudity to expose the truth about BP was WAY outside my comfort zone. But I realized that it's the destruction of our ecosystem by corporate greed that's obscene, not a woman's body."
To prepare for the action, Diane got 100 pounds of fish from her fishing buddies, old fishing nets to drag the dead fish and fake oil to dump on them. She and one of her daughters made beautiful signs saying "Expose BP" and "The Naked Truth about Drill, Baby, Drill" and put them on big sandwich boards. "You could say we was cheatin' because we decided to use sandwich boards to cover our private parts, but that's about as nude as those of us from Texas can get," laughed Diane. "We'll leave the full-on nudity to the women from California."
The
action was superb.
About 100 people showed up from all over Texas and six other
states--including California. Some people wore pasties that said "No
BP", some dressed as fishermen, oily birds and fish. Diane put on her
white rubber fishing boots, smeared herself with oil and wore a sandwich
board that read "Expose BP's Obscene Side." Two imposter oil workers in
BP uniforms doused the group with fake oil, causing the birds and fish
to recoil and die on the sidewalk. The police and BP security stood by
watching, as nice as could be. It was obvious that BP higher ups had the
good sense to tell them that arresting protesters would not help their
image.
The group was having fun mocking BP, but when Diane took the megaphone to speak, the tone changed. "I am here because I'm outraged," she said, her voice shaking, tears welling up in her eyes. "My family has lived on this gulf for 100 years, we've been fishing these waters for generations and now we're seeing it decimated. All we're getting from BP is lies. We're not getting any answers from the government. That's why people have to hit the streets to demand solutions."
After the action, I sat down with Diane to hear her solutions and ideas for future actions. "BP should be shaken down like a rotten fig tree," she said. "The government should seize their profits and use them for the clean up and then to invest in clean energy. We should shame those senators who want to stop the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act legislation that would raise oil companies' liability from a pitiful $75 million to $10 billion. And we should demand that our government stop offshore drilling. No new permits, period. We have to seize this moment to move our country away from fossil fuels that are responsible for environmental devastation and wars."
CODEPINK has asked our supporters to email letters to Senator Murkowski, asking her to stop blocking the Big Bailout Prevention Act. It's time to protect the fishermen, the coastal residents and the wildlife, not the corporation at fault for the disaster. But for Diane, sending emails is not enough. She is calling on people throughout the country to boycott BP-not just passively, but by getting out to BP gas stations to protest and educate their communities on the company and the catastrophe. CODEPINK supports her call to action and is providing resources for action on our website. We'll also be bringing Diane to Washington, DC, to confront Congress, the White House Administration, and BP executives with the crude awakening about Big Oil.
"Pass out fliers to drivers. Ride your bikes around the stations. Get creative. Hey, maybe you even want to do your own nude protest," she grins. "Expose BP. Expose that Drill, Baby, Drill means Spill, Baby, Spill. After all, what's at stake is nothing less than our planet. And that's the naked truth."
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19 Comments so far
Show AllThanks for this article, CD and Medea. I just signed my name to the Murkowski petition and will get a group together to protest at BP stations.
Bravo. Great action. GoPink.
Kudos to Ms. Wilson and her associates for their continuing brave actions to uphold what is Right!!
But, she states:
"The government should seize their (BP's) profits and use them for the clean up and...."
What she and many folks are missing is that the global corporations have already seized most of the governments in the western world. We the people are already owned by the fascists who run the corporations.
We see the stark evidence of this every day on C-Span as we watch our "elected" "representatives" represent only the interests of the corporations and, of course, their own greedy, little selves.
Theater is great, though often sound and outrage signifying nothing. Yeh, baby, lets boycott BP. Buy our gas from someone else. Lets stop drilling and get power from renewables to run our plastic toys in our plastic world. Use our frequent flyer miles to attend a global warming conference. Protest and outrage have become a spectator sport. If we want change, we have to change. A stroke of the pen will recover any loss of revenue BP incures as a result of the spill. Look out your window, on the freeway, in your garbage can, can you see your reflection? I hope your recycling makes you sleep better. Naked women will surely get attention. Change requires sacrifice and we are much to fat. We applaud from the side lines then change the channel. Progressives! Cut your fuel consumption in half, don't buy anything wrapped in plastic, or trucked a thousand miles to a box store, don't pay your insurance premiums for one year. See what happens. We are, of course, much to fat and fearful to attempt such a thing.
The tactic of nakedness-as-direct-action is very culture-specific. Modest dress in public, particularly for women, is an important part of nigerian and most west-African culture, so the women stripping would have been a spectacle. In the west - even the US, it is either ho-hum or a complete distraction from the issue.
Calendar?
Hey Diane,
Why don't you get a big group together when you go to Washington and get naked right in front of the capital building. Don't bother with the sandwich boards. Stick out your duff and strut your stuff. Use the fake oil if you want though. Maybe that will get some attention. As you found out from the lack of police madness at BP headquarters, the Washington cops will probably leave you alone. Who knows, some of them might even join you, waving their dicks in Sen. Cornin's face. Good luck.
Great action. We need a lot more of these kinds of actions. yes, we should picket BP gas stations and boycott BP for starters
A simple but impressive demonstration indicates that hay distributed along shorelines might have captured a goodly portion of the oil.
video: Hay to assist in a defense against the oil spill in the Gulf
http://video.godlikeproductions.com/video/CWRoberts_Presentation_2wmv
"This is the method that is included in the Walton County Plan of Action."
Obama's wordy inactions echo a horrific refrain of having done little when much was required. Hay farmers and ranchers throughout the U.S. would have risen to the call, and hay would have been helping protect beaches and marshes before the oily goop arrived.
Thanks for next to nothing, Barack Hussein Obama, as deadly injury approached, thanks for next to nothing.
AGAIN, HOW MUCH IN CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BP TO OBAMA? Ah, politics ...
jjay
Bravo from Louisville to Diane, a true Patriot. Let's get naked in D.C. A naked march would not, could not be ignored - no matter how many bods are there.
Sounds like a great next step.
If the U.S. can occupy two 'terrorist' nations at the same time with over 175,000 military personnel and can nationalize the largest automotive industries in the world, then it's time to take over BP and make the profits go to the clean up. Every last drop.
THEN we can think about POSSIBLY returning it to more RESPONSIBLE management.
THIS IS OUR TIME. THE CAPITALISTS ARE CHALLENGING US FROM WALL STREET TO THE GULF OF MEXICO. IF WE DON'T MAKE THIS A LESSON OF THESE CRISIS OF MANAGEMENT, FOR MANAGEMENT, THEN IT IS OUR FUTURE, OUR CHILDREN, THEIR CHILDREN AND GENERATIONS TO COME WHERE WE WILL ALL LIVE WITH AND SUFFER THE DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES.
Naked bodies mean nothing to ganster capitalism! Wars for oil in the Middle East have caused over a million dead bodies! Pollution is killing millions more people throughout the world by polluted air, water, on land and at sea, and the environment increasingly uninhabitable for human survival.
This kind of demonstration is an example of the complete bankruptcy of "progressive" politics. For years "Progressives" have uncritically championed Obama and the Democratic Party, who are now expanding all the corrupt Bush agendas, foreign and domestic, with a vengence!
Not having any strategy or political program to address the many crises of humanity, clueless "Progressives" offer only titillating gimicks and powerless demonstrations of "moral outrage".
Why is this? Because both Democratic and Republican Parties are owned and controlled by corporate and capitalist interests. This basic fact of life is forever obscured by the delusions of Middle-Class "Progessives", always eager to engage in symbolic demonstrations, but incapable of organizing the millions of people now being destroyed by gangster capitalism. "Progressives" need to support working people, organized and unorganized, to found a new socialist political party to end the tyranny of the two-party capitalist political system.
Why haven't "Progressives" dared call for the nationalization (socialisation) of BP and all the oil companies? The drive of capitalism to maximize profit is the root cause of the many oil pollution crises throughout the world.
Nationalisation of the entire oil industry is an essential first step to end the destruction of the planet by this polluting industry. The companies, once owned by society and managed by the workers on the job, could use the billions in profits to clean up all the past and present polluting operations throughout the world. Polluting companies can be shut-down if concversion to non-polluting energy producion is not possible. With worker management of the nationalized industries, the workers on the job would have the last say in the safety and working conditions of any operation.
Nationalization of oil would undercut the motivation for the wars in the Middle East. Nationalization of oil would be the essential first step to enable the complete withdrawal of all troops, the shutting down of the 200,000 private companies hired by the U.S. and could mean a substantial closing of the 800 foreign bases around the world. The military budget cut be cut in half!
The funds generated by the nationalization of oil, the end of foreign wars for oil, could be applied to helping the states restore pulic education and public health services, maintain Social Security, and create millions of jobs to increasingly impoverished working people.
With this experience, the entire energy industry should be nationalized: Coal, Nuclear, Electrical, etc. End the privatization of energy industry entirely because the profit-driven current industry is killing workers, killing the environment, and killing the planet with Global Warming.
The survival of humanity requires an end to gangster capitalism and a transition to a socialist economy, devoted to the economic needs of the vast majority of people.
Read daily the World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org for information and education censored from corporate owned mass media including NPR and PBS.
BP is just a regular CORPORATION doing what most CORPORATIONS do.
After the medical care for profit ripoffs, the financial "crisis", and this oil spew, it must be apparent that CORPORATIONS either cannot or will not bring the kinds of results that make a sound, viable nation/society.
The for-profit CORPORATE BUSINESS FORM is at the root of most, if not all of the threats and problems we face.
CORPORATIONS are a greater threat than Al Qaida to a decent way of life.
Yet, large-scale organized response may be a big factor in surviving the coming climate shift. We cannot afford CORPORATE business as usual. We cannot afford PROFIT.
CORPORATIONS must be re-defined to directly benefit society as a whole, and soon.
Corp is Borg.
Wow, do I love Code Pink! I marched next to them in an anti-war-on-Iraq protest along w/3,000 others in Syracuse, NY. My only other encounter w/them was on a Pennsylvania superhighway when i heard a staccato hornblast and wondered what I had done wrong, only to see a pink van sailing by with a woman pumping her fist; I then realiized that it was because of my Kucinich-for-President bumper sticker.
I know their efforts often seem futile, but it's inspirational to see people trying so hard. They are trying to wake sheeple from their sleep, like their infiltrations of the Repug & Demo conventions. Alas however, such acts could not elect Nader or Kucinich.
Right on, Jerry Wells. The Western socio-economic system, entirely predicated on cheap oil, is patently unsustainable... to remain in denial of such fact is suicidal.
Predatory capitalism is a dead man walking without constant growth (impossibleon a finite planet). We must reduce consumption; a far less materialistic, more local society is imperative. Some of us have voluntarily chosen simplicity already, the rest (feudal Lords excepted) will soon be compelled to do so involuntarily.
Chop wood, Baby, carry water!
Protests are fun, but it's increasingly clear that they don't work. CodePink needs to get serious about changing our government. This can best be done -- indeed, it can only be done -- by changing the Constitution. The botched Central Asia wars and the BP oil spill offer a terrific opportunity to mobilize America to force Congress to approve various constitutional amendments to overhaul our election campaigns and campaign finance, codify freedom of choice and church-state separation, and change the policies on waging war, how energy companies operate and other issues.
It's time to do this. Colorful protests are merely political masturbation and don't really accomplish anything.
Medea Benjamin and her cohort Jody Evans at Code Pink have become mere shells of their former selves... when this beautiful rag-tag group of courageous women hounded the Bush Administration and their corrupt and murderous leaders, they were compassion and force and truth standing in the face of lies, killing, and the bloody entrails that followed.
But now, they tiptoe around Obama as if he were Jesus Christ climbing down off the cross. Their ill-fated trip to Afghanistan and their naive and gullible thoughts afterward coupled with with their hero worship of another lying and murderous American president is unfortunate and even laughable.
Hats off to CODE PINK..I have nothing but admiration for these BRAVE women of CODE PINK and their ballsy efforts to expose the scumbags of our nation for what they really are...These women bring me back to the 60s and for all of you spineless people putting them down in this post I suggest that you grow A set of balls and go out and do some heavy handed protesting on your own before you ridicule these true patriots...I am so FKN sick of you armchair critics....