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Tim DeChristopher Is Going to Jail, Now It's Our Turn
"The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders." --Ed Abbey
"The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time." --Terry Tempest Williams![](/sites/commondreams.org/files/resize/imce-images/tim_de_christopher_0-350x417.jpg ""… those who write the rules are those who profit from the status quo. If we want to change that status quo, we might have to work outside of those rules because the legal pathways available to us have been structured precisely to make sure we don’t make any substantial change." (Portrait by Robert Shetterly - Used with Permission)")
"… those who write the rules are those who profit from the status quo. If we want to change that status quo, we might have to work outside of those rules because the legal pathways available to us have been structured precisely to make sure we don’t make any substantial change." (Portrait by Robert Shetterly - Used with Permission)
There's something about the redrock canyons that seems to inspire great writing -- I was lucky enough to know Ed Abbey and to count Terry Tempest Williams as a great friend. Both wrote -- and both fought. They fulfilled the duty they owed that great landscape. They fought to protect great chunks of land.
And they're joined by Tim DeChristopher, sentenced today to 24 months in prison for a creative act of resistance straight out of the Monkey Wrench Gang. He didn't damage anything except the pride of the Bureau of Land Management, when he posed as a bidder and won 14 parcels of land at an oil-and-gas lease auction. They were gorgeous pieces of land that he protected -- but far more, he was acting on behalf of every landscape left on the planet.
Because the oil and gas under that ground needs to stay there. The carbon it contains is, we now know, ruinous -- it's what is heating the atmosphere, setting new temperature records every day. If you sweated through last week's record heat, if your crops are withering in the southwest's epic drought, if you watched the Mississippi swallow your town -- then Tim DeChristopher acted for you.
And it's time for you to take the same kind of responsibility. In a few weeks, those of us at tarsandsaction.org will be gathering in Washington DC for two weeks of civil disobedience against the proposed Keystone Pipeline, that will carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. Jim Hansen, the NASA climatologist, says that if those tar sands are fully exploited it's "essentially game over for the climate." If those words don't inspire you to act, nothing will -- and so far more than a thousand have signed on, meaning this will be the largest civil disobedience action in the history of the country's climate movement.
This action won't be as risky as Tim's. People are signing up to come to DC for three days. On the first they'll attend nonviolence training, and on the second they'll sit down in front of the White House. No one knows for sure how the police will react, but the legal experts say jail time will likely be measured in hours, not years. Still, it's a very real way to say to President Obama (who will make the Keystone decision all by himself) that this is the great moral issue of our time.
DeChristopher acted before he wrote. But he's a writer too -- in court he read an essay before his sentencing, which ended with these words about civil disobedience:
"At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow."
I think he's right.
44 Comments so far
Show AllTim DeChristopher was prosecuted by the Obama administration and by Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder.
Instead of prosecuting the criminals in the Bush junta who set up the illegal land sale, Eric the place-Holder prosecuted someone who peacefully and rightly disrupted the ILLEGAL sale of public property.
As the old strike song goes, "which side are you on?"
I voted for Obama. Now I HATE him. I will NEVER again vote for a Democrat in a presidential election. Never have I voted for a Republican. They are stupid liars. But now, thanks to Obama, I will never again vote for a Democrat, either.
As a life-long Democrat, I sincerely hope that Barack O'bullshit loses in 2012. With friends like him, who needs enemies?
When Tim DeChristopher finally gets out of prison, he will get my vote for sure!
Yes
V.P. I nominate this for your best post ever! Absolutely right on! (And great characterizations, too.)
Ditto, and I really don't mean to sound racist but this will. What he wrote is basically in my opnion, is Obama is a house BOY just saying yes massa. All the other puppets in the presidency have also been lackeys for the elites, but after 150 years working hard for their civil rights, a black man has truley sold out on all those that fought for him to get to where he is now. Congrats Obama. You have been admitted to the usually white elite club that shits on us. I am glad that MLK is not here to see this. I can not believe Sharpton is still happy with him n
VP great post.
Joecool9, I unfortunately agree with you. Obama has betrayed black America more than any other group (see Glen Ford's articles). Obama did not have the same life experience as most other African Americans. His African father left his life early and he grew up with his white mother and her family. At an early age he moved to Indonesia when his mom married Col. Lolo Soltero, a participant in the Indonesian genocide. Then the Philippines. He has no empathy for the terrible plight of poor black Americans today. He has done nothing to improve the job market and that always affects the poorest the worst. Obama is a bad man, a cold blooded killer, a prostitute for the plutocracy.
I would add my kudos to VP and state my serious objection to the blatant stupidity of Joe notatallcool.
There are ample ways to be critical of our president and his administration without resorting to melanin references. Blatant racism is very stupid, results in divisiveness which very well may be the purpose of such ignorance from what is becoming the usual source of such.
I beg to differ. I don't think joecool's comments are racist. And I do think Obama's race is relevant, when one considers how African Americans continue to support this African American President, despite the fact that they have suffered greatly as a result of his pro-Wall Street, anti-Main Street policies.
Do you then criticize a politician of Asian descent by mentioning his epicanthropic fold? Or his faintly yellowish skin color? It is the height of absurdity to think that calling any African American, especially our president,"boy" is not more than tinged with racism.
Further, oh apologist for scum, the history of that poster is replete with such references. Smoke meets fire with semi literate imbeciles rooting for the blaze.
Outstanding post, Professor. Thank you.
Great post, indeed.
A nitpick: I looked up the Apollinaire poem to find the French original, and discovered that it was actually written by Christopher Logue: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Guillaume_Apollinaire#Misattributed
Chaokoh, thanks for your passion... compelling.
What is ironic in all of this (and I respect Bill's work on behalf of wild places), is that Bill is a regular oval office visitor and being manipulated by Obama's righward agenda which inlcudes a fantasy called 'clean coal" and nuclear energy hegemony lurking in our collective future. Problem with Bill is that he can see no alternative political solution other than to carry his begging bowl and bow before the Powers that Be who run the status quo/corporate machine. Bill and his ilk are offered a bogus place at the "table" while being told what he can do for them; but he must be smart enough to know by now that it is a ONE WAY conversation. Bill rightly notes Christopher's couragous act, while next week, or next month, or two years from now voting for the same dysfunction that put Christopher behind bars. Bill just cannot go far enough to endorse the Greens via his public voice.
In the meantime, he will decry actions by the same forces he supports and is responsible for them.
What if millions of people each sent Obama one cent on their credit card, wouldn't that cause this campaign to loose money. We can only get their attention with money, it's the only thing they care about. Or Email the campaign and tell them the money you were going to donate to Obama is being sent to Mr. DeChristopher instead.
Tim DeChristophers essay that he read in court, that appears at the end of this article, are beautiful, moving words. I agree with Mr. McKibben: I think he is right too.
In fantasy" Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". In reality Tim DeChristopher goes to jail. When it comes to protecting the environment and human lives it is more of an honor to be incarcerated for civil disobedience than to be elected to congress or to be a president who is more interested in protecting the corrupt,corporate, profiteers.
If Mr. O had any decency, this guy deserves a pardon and to be given an award.
He wouldn't even have to pardon him. Bush saved Scooter Libby by commuting his sentence.
My guess is that Obama WILL pardon him (or at least commute the sentence) at an opportune moment for maximumum effect (on the eve o f the election?)...to get votes.
But this would not represent "decency" but the height of hypocrisy -- and cynicism.
Obama not only prosecuted Tim, he made him suffer through the trial and uncertainty about future jail time with the idea that he (Obama) would always have the opportunity to "intervene" in the eleventh hour and pick up votes of those who have left him.
Of course, most people won't recognize that Obama continued the prosecution when he could have ordered it dropped long ago*, which is what Obama counts on.
*Of course, Obama would never have "risked" the latter for fear of being accused by Republicans of "interfering" with the legal process. Obama is basically hedging his bets -- trying to have it both ways. No surprise there. He's a coward. Pathetic, really.
JIMBO: I think they also "get off on" torturing the elderly. I would imagine that a lot of people who rely on Social Security and/or government checks are wondering if they will be in receipt of them in coming weeks? Imagine the stress level that would indicate for the very poor?
VP is right, we're watching the desecration of our nation in not entirely slow motion, as towns see their retail streets closing down, with no purchase power to keep currency in motion.
Holding and true to his neoconservative ways, I doubt o will commute his sentence or pardon him. Remember, commuting a sentence does not expunge or pardon the 'crime'.
Doesn't it seem strange that this guy goes to jail, having caused so little harm through his fraud, and yet our country's bankers lied, cheated and brought the world financial system to its knees, forcing bankruptcies and foreclosures that still plague us, and none of those lying fraudsters are in prison for two weeks much less two years.
This shows who has bought and rules the country.
Not strange but ignorant and criminal, and caused no harm, just the opposite!
Tim is a deeply committed man that I am sure can sleep with a clear conscience.
He is a Martin Luther King without a church.
Great article indeed. We live in madness, and in madness we will die.
This entire issue and the conviction of Tim De Christopher is an example for those of us who might be brave enough to challenge our corrupt government of what will happen if we do so. But rock the boat we should, or better yet, tip the fucking thing over !
Unfortunate in the short term, but he's going to be the winner the long term. The government and the corporate lackeys that direct it have further entrenched Tim as a folk hero. He'll get out and have an opportunity to be even more vocal and reach more people. So, in a way, it's a win for our side, not theirs. Not so great for Tim for a couple of years, but I doubt he'll serve the full sentence.
In some ways, those that oppose the shameless and misguided use of land are like the American Indians in the 19th century. We keep losing a little bit at at time. And what really ended the empires of the Great Plains, for example, wasn't the government so much as it was the capitalist interests that wanted the land. The government, as it is today, was little more than the advance guard of capitalism. A pawn.
So, in hindsight, what should they have done? What could they have done differently? Perhaps nothing would have changed the ultimate outcome, but I think if they could do it over again, there would have been a much more coordinated and forceful resistance. And that's precisely what we need. A coordinated and forceful resistance.
Ultimately, the American Indian was overwhelmed by numbers and technology. They didn't have the same tools to fight American capitalists. But we do. The primary tools are money and the law, not guns. Let's use our money, our minds and good lawyers, ones willing to enlist in the cause, to fight these bastards. To the last man. To the last dollar.
Unfortunately, most Americans have never heard about Tim, his fight for our future, or his current plight.
Maybe some modern day artist could write and record a song about him and this whole fiasco? Where are the folk/protest singers when we need them?
Yes, I read DeChristopher's pre-sentence essay, and it makes me proud to be a fellow West Virginian and hopeful about today's youth. But I am deeply disappointed by McKibben & company's call for a drawing-the-line civil disobedience to stop the tar sands pipeline...by getting ritually arrested, without significant media coverage, in front of the White House. Similarly, a group has decided to do a Tahrir-and-Madrid-style campout on Wall Street, and they state the importance of issuing a unified, single demand--and what they came up with is is, they demand that Obama set up a Presidential Commission to study how to get money out of politics! Who the hell came up with that one, the infiltrator from Wall Street or the Obama Administration (or both--it's kinda hard to separate the two)?
This is a time when it's DESPERATELY important that people rise up in unity and force change, as those behind the Arab spring and the EU protests are still trying to do. Yet these two key protests in the US are being led by those who would piss away precious activist energy on, in the one case, a demand you might expect Obama to agree to as a sop when it's clear the protest doesn't have the power to make real change--and on the other, a tactic that will not stop business as usual, that can and will be easily ignored. So the participants can go home feeling proud to have been arrested but there will be no impact. It's seriously enough to make me wonder if there are infiltrators with great charisma, able to persuade the real activists to go along with tactics that will not threaten the status quo.
Yeah. Its sad and maddening at the same time. The same ones calling for people to travel to D.C. to only be arrested for nothing.
mwildfire, if you're referring to the October2011.org movement scheduled to start on October 6, 2011 in Washington, D.C., I don't see anywhere that this group is demanding that Obama set up a Presidential Commission to study how to get money out of politics. I would be shocked to learn that sponsors of this action, such as Chris Hedges, Margaret Flowers, Cynthia McKinney, and Medea Benjamin, would be foolish enough to ask for a Presidential Commission. They know better. Do you have any support for this assertion? I think you might be confusing this action with some other group.
No--I refer to two different things here, the August protest in DC that this piece by McKibben talks about, which I think is a stupid tactic.... and the move to occupy Wall Street, in New York--that one is sooner I think--and that's the one that has a stupid demand. Great idea, but blown on uniting around an absurdly useless demand.
Having said that, it's incumbent on me to say what I think would be a better tactic. An effective one must be impossible to ignore, and must somehow stop business as usual. Ideally, a civil disbedience action is not too symbolic--that is, it directly attacks the problem. In this case, either a node of the proposed pipeline--perhaps the place it would cross the Canada-US border--could be blockaded or activists could go directly to a tar sands site, ideally one where native peoples have tried to stop the ravishing of their land. Many US activists would be stopped at the border--but that's not all bad, as it would happen as many different sites and each one would have the potential for media attention. If it were at the border, activists could converge on both sides. Another choice might be a place where the pipeline is very controversial--in Nebraska maybe. But not in DC--I expect someone gets ritually arrested at the White House every day of the year. You think Obama pays attention to who today's arrestees are? It's true DC cops are mild and mellow compared to most. But minimizing costs to the activists is not the point--maximizing their impact is.
This jailing is from the Obama White House, not a leftover from Bush. How much punishment is necessary to get Democratic voters to learn the error of their ways?
I encountered a woman one afternoon many years ago, who was drinking at the bar, alone, while casually, openly burning her forearms with her chain of lit cigarettes...
Oh...Kay...
I'm going to try on an uncharacteristically optimistic, "half-full" approach and suggest that perhaps that woman was judiciously removing an infestation of ticks from those forearms.
I guess the tie-in is the idea that her public, personal choice to self-injure in a way that, while subjectively painful, was relatively superficial in nature, even oddly, arguably artistic, but certainly not life-threatening, was sending a disturbing message to all in her vicinity, but not an effective one...
in the end, there was only harm to herself, and despair...and a vague feeling of responsibility on my part, though I'd never met this person before in my life, accompanied by doubt as to whether either external or internal solution was even possible, let alone whether her current action was so oriented, or another might be...
was one to try to stop her? join her?
should one stop Bill? join him?
why?
It's time to shut down the U.S. Murder Machine.
Stay Home Friday, July 29. If you can, stay home from work and do not go shopping.
Call Congress and tell them:
HANDS OFF OUR SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE & MEDICAID!
TAX THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS!
END THE WARS AND BRING OUR TROOPS AND DOLLARS HOME!
Contact Congress: 202-224-3121
Contact Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER
(202) 225-0600
EMAIL: http://www.speaker.gov/Contact/
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID
Phone: 202-224-3542
EMAIL: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL
Phone: (202) 224-2541
EMAIL: http://mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactForm
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Boy you have got to get your mind right. Remember the Warhol quote from 68 "In the future everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes" Update that to everyone will spend time in a Federal Court. The judge will say we have to help you get your mind right so you don't get in any more trouble. Sixty million laws and counting. When everything is illegal, the real power lies in not who you put in jail, but who you don't. Maybe in exchange for all of our jobs the Chinese can show the US government how properly run a reeducation camp.
I'm sorry. I truly am. But these types of actions have gotten so weak, so ineffective, that in the not to distant future I fully expect to see ads by the travel industry promoting a.. uh...A Patriot Weekend in Washington. Complete with a plane (or more likely bus) ticket and all accommodations including bagged meals, all protest permits and free entry to a rock concert. BONUS! Reserve your space today by credit card and receive your own little plastic drum to bang on.
Great human being (Tim,) great article, great posts. Maybe there is hope for compassion to save humanity.
thanks to Tim for the brilliant caper he's doing time for, and for his eloquence.
as for what to do, the only think i can think of is a nationwide general strike. it would have to be led and organized by lots of people though, and they'd need to be hard nosed- no begging or crying- we are trying to start a revolution.. maybe the first move would be to capture fox news.
Paint a rabid fox on a billboard - challenge the primal appeal of das kapitalist mascot.
DeChristopher is a real hero and obviously did what he did for something other than publicity.
I'm not so sure about McKibben sometimes, especially when he opens his peices with things like
"There's something about the redrock canyons that seems to inspire great writing -- I was lucky enough to know Ed Abbey and to count Terry Tempest Williams as a great friend."
He obviously wants everyone to know he was part of the "in" crowd.
Who cares whether McKibben "knew" Abbey (so did lots of people, including some real anti-environment folks) and counts "Terry Tempest Williams as a great friend"? What difference does it make? (other than to McKibben, who is obviously using it to gain standing)
Don't know about Terry Tempest Williams, but I'm pretty sure this would have made Ed Abbey wanna puke (but, then again, I did not know him).
Haha, can't help but agree.
McKibben has his heart in the right place and is trying to do the right thing, but he's ultimately a college professor from Vermont. Middlebury, at that.
Meaning, do you think this guy has stones, a real pair of balls? The conviction may be unyielding, but to put it nicely, I think a little tougher rhetoric is in order.
DeChristopher's remarks to the court were full of gently veiled fury and contempt at the status quo, and PoS prosecutor Huber. A true voice of justice. Have I ever felt that sense from one piece of McKibben's writing? I wish I could say yes, but sadly no..