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Change? Green Jobs Advocate Faces Prison for Dropping Banner While BP and Massey Go Free?
The climate change and clean energy debates might have reached a new low--just ask the US Attorney General's office.
Ted Glick, a legendary nonviolent advocate, who dropped a "Green Jobs Now" banner down the hallway of the Hart Senate Office Building last fall, goes to trial on Tuesday, July 6th, at the Superior Court in Washington, DC. He faces up to three years in prison.
Three years for dropping a banner that reminds Congress to pursue green jobs and clean energy?
Yes, even a local Fox News station is flummoxed by the ridiculous news:
Let's put this bizarre situation in its proper context. Consider these recent environmental news events: The US Attorney General's office is still looking into "possible" criminal activity at Massey's Energy Upper Big Branch coal mine, despite hundreds of serious regulatory violations and 29 deaths. And despite a preliminary Congressional investigation that concluded BP oil intentionally sought to subvert industry guidelines and regulations, the Justice Department is still in the early stages of maybe pursuing a criminal investigation of the oil giant's criminal activity.
And then there's Glick, who simply wants Congress to move along in a time of crisis.
He's facing prison?
As policy director of the DC-area Chesapeake Climate Action Network, one of the most respected and effective grassroots organizations dealing with climate change, Glick has been an outspoken advocate for a just transition to green jobs and and clean energy initiatives. He drew national attention for his fast for climate change awareness last year. But he has two other banner-dropping misdemeanors, hence the severity of his possible sentence. Last May, Glick was offered a sentence of 30 days in jail, which he refused.
"I have no regrets in any way," Glick declared. "There's no way I would accept that anyone should go to jail for 30 days for hanging a banner."
According to news reports, the US Attorney General's office now "has asked the judge to triple Glick's sentence because he's a repeat offender."
Repeat offender? Give me a break.
Massey Energy has operated its underground and massive mountaintop removal operations in a continual state of violation for years.
Likewise, BP has operated its oil operations like repeat offenders for years.
Glick, on the other hand, is a true American hero in the climate justice movement, whose work as a policy analyst on climate change issues has greatly informed and advanced the nation toward a sustainable energy policy.
Glick doesn't deserve prison time--he deserves a Medal of Honor for his incredible work to halt climate destabilization and transition to green jobs.
Here's an interview with Glick and Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, just days after his banner-dropping protest last fall:
If you would like to help Glick, or attend the US Superior Court hearing, contact CCAN here.
32 Comments so far
Show AllThis seems like a particularly good topic for which the comments thread to open with a big, fat "told you so" from those of us who opposed Obama (and Clinton, and Kerry) from Day One. Man, did we ever take abuse. Now apologize and tell us what you're planning to do differently this November and in 2012.
You know, if W and Cheney hadn't use the constitution as toilet paper and done away with massive amounts of protections that we fought for 200 years to get, you wouldn't have any excuse to bitch, would you? It was W and Cheney and the whole administration that did everything they could to undo 200+ years of progress, and people like YOU let let them get away with it. NOW you want to bitch because the next guy in is playing with the hand that YOUR boys set up for him? How totally hypocritical of you.
You should have been out in the streets, demanding something OTHER than what you were bing given 10 years ago. Bitching about it now is a bit too little and a whole lot too goddamned late. The "abuse" you have gotten for being a right wing stooge is nothing compared to what those like me have taken for the last 30 FREAKING YEARS. Don't like how you're being treated? Then maybe you should remember that the NEXT time you get to shit all over people for their beliefs. Then maybe you will have the humility to remember a big fat "What goes around comes around". Don't be so surprised that it's your turn to be shit on. You have been doing it to the rest of us for 3 DECADES.
Take your GD attitude and shove it. The over reaches and the actions that you are bitching about were made possible by YOUR guy, who, for the record, is STILL a complete shit eating MORON. This situation we are in now is HIS doing, and you were nowhere to be seen while he was doing it.
Sit down and shut up.
"You know, if W and Cheney hadn't use the constitution as toilet paper and done away with massive amounts of protections that we fought for 200 years to get, you wouldn't have any excuse to bitch, would you? It was W and Cheney and the whole administration that did everything they could to undo 200+ years of progress, and people like YOU let let them get away with it. NOW you want to bitch because the next guy in is playing with the hand that YOUR boys set up for him? How totally hypocritical of you."
Yo Obama defender, you forgot to include all the Republicans and Democrats in Congress who let the f*ker get away with it including Obama himself when he was senator.
"You should have been out in the streets, demanding something OTHER than what you were bing given 10 years ago. Bitching about it now is a bit too little and a whole lot too goddamned late. The "abuse" you have gotten for being a right wing stooge is nothing compared to what those like me have taken for the last 30 FREAKING YEARS. Don't like how you're being treated? Then maybe you should remember that the NEXT time you get to shit all over people for their beliefs. Then maybe you will have the humility to remember a big fat "What goes around comes around". Don't be so surprised that it's your turn to be shit on. You have been doing it to the rest of us for 3 DECADES. "
Oh look at dat ! You seem to have a problem defending Obama so here you go bitching against truth tellers. We know you Obama cultists. Don't even think of lying.
"Take your GD attitude and shove it. The over reaches and the actions that you are bitching about were made possible by YOUR guy, who, for the record, is STILL a complete shit eating MORON. This situation we are in now is HIS doing, and you were nowhere to be seen while he was doing it.
Sit down and shut up."
Between you Obama cultists and the rightwing shits out here in South Carolina, I can't seem to tell a difference because you two are competing for the fascism contest. You morons who defended Clinton in the 1990s when you should have voted for Ross Perot and later defended Gore, Kerry, and Obama when you should have supported Nader amaze me. To hell with you fascist loving, gun grabbing, corporate kissing, neocon warhol, sushi loving, Volvo driving, latte "liberals" going to bed with the Cadillac driving, tax cutting, war mongering Republicans. If we had Ross Perot for 8 years and Ralph Nader for 8 years, this nation wouldn't have been a shitpot today.
Bravo and (mostly) well said...(Ross Perot???).
I think WJM assumes much and knows less. He doesn't have a clue as to what political actions any here have taken. I wonder if he himself was out in the streets protesting the coming Iraqi invasion. Or whether he attempts to register for the Green Party or any alternative to his sellout Democratic Party corporatist lackeys.
Change requires vision, vision is seemingly lacking in that poster.
Doubledee, hue sir, Frederick, and Sioux, the poster WJM is not a Democratic Party apologist necessarily. Check out his comment under http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/05-1. I think that he believes in supporting third parties with the exception of the White House and that he supports a bottom-up approach. For this post by WJM, I thought that he came out a bit too defensive for Obama making it sound like criticizing him was a crime or something. If more Greens and similar progressive and liberal people running Independent for office could get it, the confidence to elect one to the White House could shine among the public. If I remember WJM from sometime ago, he would like to see more Greens elected to Congress first before taking a stab at the White House. I guess it could be a practical yet progressive idea. Well, I'm getting ready to vote Green myself in this year's midterm elections for Senate and for House I might just do a write in depending upon the candidates.
I concur that the Dems' and Repugs' only mission is to outdo each other collecting corporate cash, I wish to comment on this article specifically.
When Obama fired Van Jones it became clear that serious green jobs were part of the campaign but not part of Obama's first term.
I concur that the Dems' and Repugs' only mission is to outdo each other collecting corporate cash, I wish to comment on this article specifically.
When Obama fired Van Jones it became clear that serious green jobs were part of the campaign but not part of Obama's first term.
If Obama is lucky to get a second term, I would be surprised if Obama made green jobs a high priority unless Peak Oil were to strike or events worse than BP were to unfold in these next 2.5 years.
Under our current system voting one party's nominee into the
Legislature and anothers into the WH weakens both.
WJM, no one is denying the damage caused by Reagan, Bush, and W. Bush, however, to pretend that Oilbama is not in that same lineage, is to deny what has become bloody obvious, and that is that BOTH parties are now owned by big multinational corporations.
Bill Clinton, through his leadership at the DLC, and then his actions as president, moved the Democratic Party's leadership base to the right. Clinton pushed NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO. It was Clinton that ultimately signed the most significant deregulation of Banking and Financial Services, doing away with Glass Stegal, and opening the doors wide to the derivatives nightmare that has taken down the world's economies.
This is not to ignore the Republicans' role in such developments, however to somehow pretend that the Democratic Party hasn't also sold this nation down the river, is to live in a political parallel universe.
And now Oilbama. I'm one of the absolute schmucks that voted for the Consummate Con Man. He makes Clinton's triangulation for power look like something a Cub Scout would do.
Under Democratic Leadership in the House and Senate and Presidency, the move to the right has continued, and accelerated in many ways.
Oilbama's AG has PROSECUTED a whistleblower. Remember Oilbama's nonsense about how he wanted an open government?
Oilbama's AG has asserted plenary executive powers that go farther than the Bush Administration's claims to such.
Oilbama's Administration is making a legal claim that it has the authority to put Americans on a hit list to target for murder. Bush's Administration never made that claim openly. The thought of actual codification which Oilbama seeks in this regard is chilling no?
Oilbama's AG has asserted the need for access without warrant, the location of cell phones from any carrier it requests activity logs from. Bush didn't even go that far.
Oilbama made secret deals with the big insurance companies, and big pharma BEFORE the actual debate started regarding the monstrosity health care bill, while he sat back and pretended that a "public option" was ever really an option to begin with. The bloody Centrists in the Democratic Party, with the blessings of Oilbama completely killed any mention of single payer. Also, the Health Insurance and Big Pharma bailout bill, saddles all of us under federal law to buy overpriced products from privately owned companies that already get huge subsidies from taxpayers. AND if that weren't enough right wing muck coming from Democrats, the so-called health care bill set back reproductive rights for women decades.
Oilbama's Dept. of Interior's Salazaar, went to court to get an exemption for BP of having to file environmental impact reports, or saftey reports for the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.
Oilbama is set to open for the first time in decades vast tracks of offshore oil drilling off of the East Coast, and Alaska. Part of why Oilbama is protecting BP, by limiting it's current outlays of damages to less than 2 billion dollars per year for 10 years, is to keep Big Oil on his side. The Oilbama Administration supports denying reporters access to cleanup operations. The Oilbama Administration has announced through Thad Allen, a ban on journalists' access, beyond a predefined perimeter. It is the Oilbama Administration, who's EPA is helping to cover up the health effects of exposure to oil and Corexit hitting the local populations, and workers hired by BP.
Oilbama has continued extraordinary rendition, to secret CIA facilities and other countries for torture, even though ostensibly the torture has stopped. Oilbama has shifted the torture duties to Bagram Airforce Base in Afghanistan, and meanwhile banned any reporter from covering any aspect of any proceedings of military tribunals at Guantanamo, that still remains open.
Oilbama has vastly expanded the war in Afghanistan, and vastly expanded the use of predator drones in Pakistan, Yemen, etc. During the campaign, it is true, that he spoke of a modest increase of forces in Afghanistan, but nothing like what he is doing now.
Oilbama is bringing once again to the US, the nightmare dream of Nuclear Power, subsidized by billions of taxpayer dollars. Such a rebirth of nuclear power plant construction wasn't attempted by Republicans since Three Mile Island. It took a so-called "progressive" to make it happen.
This list could go on, and on, and on, and on.
At this point, anyone defending Oilbama and what has become of the Democratic Party, needs to break through that cloud of cognizant dissonance that surrounds their once held principles – assuming that such were held in the first place.
HUE: Excellent post. I would merely add that Clinton's "centrist" record also includes the so-called Welfare reform debacle, and it was on Clinton's watch that the FCC deregulated media. This led to a handful of corporations owning the radio and TV dials (as well as bandwidths)... the perfect recipe for engineering consent in a population trained to respond to false cues and signals. Soft propaganda campaigns never had it so easy. As Bill C Davis once said, "Generals: On stage!" War made Easy, consent manufactured.
Good point Siouxrose. Thanks, and I always enjoy reading your posts.
If you can't take abuse, you can't be in political discussions at all. A thick skin helps, rather than constant whinging, which I heard from the Gore-ites -- "If you rotten people hadn't voted for Nader!" -- and from Third Party fantasists in more recent times.
We now have elective tsars who are placed in Fortress Washington for one or two terms, and there are going to be no third party insurgencies or independent movements that will somehow be able to "take back 'our' democracy", since it hasn't been a democracy, or 'ours', in any sense since the 2000 selection, and it was already rapidly degenerating through the previous decade, once the DLC (aka Democrats for Nixon) had finally marginalized the old liberal Democrats.
For myself, I believed that Obama's techniques rather than his policy speeches showed his actual intentions, since he appeared to be creating a lot of bad blood with the Blue Dogs & I gave him a shot to dismantle the DLC's machine while incorporating small pieces of it for other purposes. Instead, he just bought the whole thing & turbocharged it.
"If you can't take abuse, you can't be in political discussions at all."
Why,I wonder, do you rule out civil discourse? This place is beginning to sound like a middle school playground. My Dad once noted that those who need to shout and insult are usually hiding insecurities....
Disgraceful. Where are the gutless DINOCRATS when this HERO is being rode on a rail to prison? Where is Mr. CHANGE and his "green washing" BS speeches? I used to tell my kids half jokingly that the worst crimes in America were j-walking and littering. It appears I was right after all. Destroy an entire coastline though and no problem we'll even apologize to u. This country is down the tubes. Game over!
I wish I could feel differently about the direction of this country, but like you, all I can muster up is more despair.
I still remember when Van Jones was fired in September of 2009. Green jobs? Not so many -- NONE, in fact. However, to be honest, I was never as enamored with Obama's "hope and change" as many of my friends were. In fact, taking everything into consideration, I did NOT vote for Obama. From Obama's vote on several bills, including the 2005 Energy Bill and his FISA vote, to his intent to escalate the war in Afghanistan, I just could NOT buy into his rhetoric. I say this with a great sadness in my heart for what could be, but isn't.
Now, I read that a green jobs advocate is facing up to three years in prison? For unfurling a banner?
SEAGLASS, you are absolutely correct -- this is disgraceful!
Isn't 18 months long enough to call a moratorium on "I told you so"? If, you "I didn't support Obama" types have such a great alternative let's effing hear it, and not just "Greens!" or "Nader FTW!". I mean let's hear an agenda, lay out a political platform that could be implemented without having to replace 2/3 of congress, 5/9 of SCOTUS, and the President; cause I tell you, that's what it would take to achieve real change in this country through the democratic process, and not one of those replacements can turn out to be a capitalist mole or the whole thing falls apart.
Oh, and if you are considering revolution then you'd better consider how long the trucks can stop running before the people start to go hungry, cause very few areas in america can feed themselves without the whole damned apparatus of state and industry. The choice seems to be to submit to oppression or starve, imho real change won't be possible until people are starving anyway and have nothing to lose. just 2 cents on a
Monday morning.
"I mean let's hear an agenda, lay out a political platform that could be implemented without having to replace 2/3 of congress, 5/9 of SCOTUS, and the President; cause I tell you, that's what it would take to achieve real change in this country through the democratic process, and not one of those replacements can turn out to be a capitalist mole or the whole thing falls apart. "
Anyone can do that but which members of Congress will listen unless we first get people to vote for politicians who will use their power wisely and listen to what others have to offer aside from those with the money bags ? And why would one want to lay out an agenda of their own unless that one wants to run for political office in the first place where there's a chance to get it heard? You need a basis to build not only the agenda but the self and team confidence in making it a winning success. That's what I think the "I told you so" group is trying to tell us. MLK built his movement from the ground on up but he also had politicians back, even Republicans, who would listen to what ideas he had to offer for this nation. You make a great point but we are at a different time where people are pushed into feeling far less confident that their ideas will be listened to let alone carried out. What can be done to restore that confidence aside from electing politicians who will listen?
I hope I'm wrong, but I think desperation will have to end up taking the place of confidence. The men with guns, dogs and water cannons will be called up long before our politicians feel pressured enough to start listening to us.
The scenario where a bunch of us vote Green and begin to take back our government has a second act in which every available media arm goes to war with us, demonizing, marginalizing, calling up images of the Nazi party in the Weimar Republic... The third act comes when our problems are suddenly overshadowed by peak everything, environmental collapse and/or a limited nuclear exchange in the ME. No country in human history has every become as relatively powerful as we without going through the same process of enrichment, corruption and collapse. It's just human nature. I hope I am wrong.
You offer two choices, Greens or Violence. I think I'll stick with the Greens, recognizing that it took a long time to get into this much of a mess and it will take at least an equally long time to get out of it.
Desperation has been tried before only to fail more often than to succeed. Just last election, we voted to desperately get rid of Bush only to replace him with another Bush-ite with a different tone and makeup. If desperation must happen before more people will peacefully give Greens a chance, the already crushed confidence of most people will be further eroded. As to the third act, I wouldn't say that peak oil and environmental catastrophe suddenly overshadowed our ongoing problems so much that we didn't realize how the problems were tied to the catastrophes.
Let us drop or ignore the I-told-you-so's, but without this "no other plan" silliness. Were there fewer other plans, there might be less disunity about them. I take it you are not someone who actually likes 0bama's policies, so many of these plans would look better than a Democratic party platform.
Here are some central points shared by most existing plans. Not one invented by me, and I am authorized to speak for exactly no one, but what I have read repeatedly are the following:
- Recognize that radical action does not usually mean sudden action. This has been used as a clarion to compromise, but it might better stand as a call against the kind of capitulation that brushes progressives into rightist, corporatist, elitist organizations like the current Democratic party. Lack of full and immediate success does not mean "It didn't work."
- Recognize that changing policy does not always require replacing representatives. The POTUS, SCOTUS, and CongressOTUS are aware that they work for others, just not US. They do not work for US because WE vote for them or do not vote, instead of voting against them.
We imagine that to influence policy we must vote for a candidate that will win an election. That is not true. If the winner loses votes because he or she does not implement progressive policies, he or she will implement progressive policies or fail to receive votes. This is why the brutal, authoritarian American regime is not equal to a brutal, authoritarian fascist or Stalinist regime.
- Campaign and election reform. If you don't want to replace those Congressistas, at least let's work to free them from corporate servitude. As long as one needs a lot of money to run for office and win, everyone who holds office will have sold out. Let's legislate = time for all candidates in all relevant media. (The current Congrefs won't vote for it because every lobbyist in town would oppose it, but it would win in local referenda; free that, and the game changes for local legislators).
- Extralegal pressure does not = revolution. Revolutions are violent affairs. The US government is probably better at violence than anything else. There's no point fighting the enemy where the enemy is strong. However, the American government is very susceptible to nonviolent or primarily nonviolent pressures.
All of that power is founded on the resignation of the populace.
Many of my colleagues would tell you that the plan is to avoid compromise. But I doubt that is possible, in practice. Not everyone should vote against every Democrat under every circumstance, and that will mean some people probably should make least-worst votes. However, a least-worst vote makes no sense at all unless the least-worster grants at least some of what one wants.
0bama has not done so. Pelosi has not done so. Most of the Democratic Senate and House have not done so. Most Democratic Governors have not done so. Most have chased an imagined conservative or neoliberal wave and real corporate bribes. Putting momentarily aside Dennis Kucinich and others truly working for change within the Party, why vote for these people at all? If they hold the same policies, nothing is gained.
Obviously, the "I-told-you-so's" are useless even when they are true. And surely it does make sense to consider compromise where it is practical. But the Democratic faithful have received the worst betrayal in and since 2008 that I have seen in 50+ years of constant betrayal.
If you stop making mistakes, you'll be way ahead of me, but it's not because there is no plan, or no better one.
This is not surprising at all, given that a corporate version of "Numbers justify," (from Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux) is tacit law of the land in the USA.
Individuals are prosecuted while corporations go unpunished.
Corporations do not get punished because they are Very Special Persons. They have the money.
In the run-up to this year's Forth of July, I got to thinking: Are things--fundamental attributes of US Imperial and Domesitc policy--really any different in the USA today than they were when I was born 55 years-ago. The answer I arrived at was somewhat appalling but understandable to me as an historian--Very little has changed, with most change being merely cosmetic: For all the vaunted advancements in Civil Rights, the US Empire still kills multiple millions per decade and the fundamental distribution of power has actually become more stratified and solidified with public concerns ignored even more than before.
My point here is that what stands for Truth, Justice, and the American Way is no different, as the protestors go to prison while Corporadoes and their allies escape, while the populace is still sold the lie that the USA is a Great and Benevolent country with a populace more deserving than any other on the planet--that every war the Empire starts is waged to protect the "non-negotiable American way of life." That part of the lie we are sold is we've progressed--become more civilized--when the reality is that we've retrogressed in ways that allowed power to be increasingly concentrated and unaccountible--the very opposite of the Spirit of 1776. I would consider it amazing progress when a year elapses without the Empire killing one person; and we must remember that the Empire isn't just overseas, that it exists within the 50 states, too, as BP and Massey prove. Then the challenge would be to repeat that deathless year, and then repeat it again and again. That would be change.
I commend your efforts Glick but you can't pressure Congress to listen unless those green jobs are very lucrative. Obama never supported green jobs in all his years in Washington. He just hired Van Jones to do some greenwashing and followed Glenn Beck's political orders to dispose of him. Green jobs are not coming. We're just gonna suck it all up to the last drop and finish annihilating the planet until there's not a drop or oil or a particle of coal left to snatch. We also have some nuclear plants acoming. How's that for "change"?
Yet more illustration that the laws are written by the elite to serve the interests of the elite. Corporate lobbyists directly or indirectly write much of our legislation.
The Five Families of the Corporate Mafia are in control and the politicians are merely puppets.
This ought to be more clear than it has been in many decades, all one has to do is look through the miasma and choking hypocrisy and lies.
If Ted Glick is handed ANY kind of conviction, I hope it becomes a "Rosa Parks moment" for the Green movement.
Nothing special ... just your standard fascist police state tactics.
You DID know we are living in a fascist police state, didn't you?
Are the people ready to fix that yet?
Also, please don't forget Leonard Peltier who is now in his fourth decade of imprisonment for something he did not do. He was an active participant in the American Indian civil rights movement. The FBI is still withholding thousands of papers that would likely clear Leonard Peltier. The FBI appears only to be about maintaining the status quo. Justice is a foreign concept to them. Ted Glick's case is just more of the same.
Reminds me of the Sophie Scholl conviction in Nazi Germany, for dropping leaflets down a banister. It is good that even in the face of personal danger, there are heroic people willing to act non-violently to oppose injustice. The question is, why are the majority of Americans willing, even eager, to be complicit in war, injustice, and brutality? Something is wrong in America, that is obvious. How to establish democracy and rule of law in America, that is not obvious.