I encourage people to read up on histories of resistance in Appalachia as we move into a period of national resistance of the coal industry. One of my favorites is Fighting Back in Appalachia by Stephen Fisher.
A note from Dave Cooper, who travels the US telling about Mountaintop Removal, see his website at www.mountainroadshow.com This was originally written for a Kentucky audience.
Some Thoughts On Civil Disobedience
Speaking before an audience of over 1200 people at I Love Mountains Day in Frankfort, KY in February 2008, Kentucky conservationist and poet Wendell Berry said this about non-violent civil disobedience:
“…You know some of their names. Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King are two of them; there have been many others. Their solution to the problem of powerlessness is to make powerlessness a power….
“ [W]hile we are being patient, more mountains, forests and streams, more people’s homes and lives, will be destroyed in the Appalachian coal fields. Are 400,000 acres of devastated land and 1,200 miles of obliterated streams not enough? This needs to be stopped. …I will say that I don’t like the idea of resorting to non-violent obstruction, and I don’t feel very brave about it. It involves more time and trouble than I want to donate; the penalties can be unpleasant, and they can be much worse than that. Furthermore, I am now out of patience with useless protesting and lobbying, I have no interest in useless civil disobedience. You are not going to catch me making a merely symbolic gesture.
“…If this General Assembly and this Administration give notice as usual that they are blind by policy to the ongoing destruction of the land and people they are sworn to protect — and if you, my friends, all other recourses having failed, are ready to stand in the way of this destruction until it is stopped — then I too am ready.”
Of course Kentucky has a rich history of non-violent citizen opposition to strip mining. In November, 1965 Knott County widow Ollie Combs and her two sons famously sat down in front of a bulldozer to protect their Honey Gap home place from being stripped by the Caperton Coal Company. Caperton owned the mineral rights and planned to use provisions of the broad form deed to access that coal via “all rights of ingress, egress, or way and the privilege of constructing … roads in, on, under, across, and through and over the land without being in any way liable for any injury or damage which may be done to the land.”
Combs was physically dragged off to jail and when the Louisville Courier-Journal photograph of Combs eating Thanksgiving dinner in jail reached the late Gov. Ned Breathitt, he revoked Caperton’s permit to mine the Widow Comb’s land. Later, Gov. Breathitt arranged for aerial flyovers of strip mined land in eastern Kentucky for state legislators. Combs’ testimony before the Kentucky General Assembly, along with powerful testimony from Bige Richie, whose family graveyard had been stripped in 1959, steamrolled the coal industry, and a bill regulating strip mining and requiring reclamation of the land after mining was passed and signed by the governor. However, the broad form deed was not revoked until much later after a prolonged campaign and constitutional amendment in 1988, led by KFTC and citizens across the state.
Yes, non-violent civil disobedience works, and it is happening right now.
In the early morning hours of Monday June 30, four brave young protestors from Blue Ridge Earth First! and Mountain Justice locked their hands inside a concrete-filled barrel, blocking Tredegar Street, the main access road to Dominion Virginia Power’s headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Another protestor rappelled and dangled from a footbridge over the road.
They were protesting Dominion’s plans to build a 585 MW coal-fired power plant in Wise County, in the extreme western part of the state, near Letcher County, KY. Groundbreaking for the Dominion Virginia Power plant in Virginia City, which will not use carbon-capture technologies, began June 30.
Many of these activists, who are student leaders at James Madison University and Virginia Tech, attended the recent Mountain Justice Training Camp in Harlan County in May, where they learned about mountaintop removal, climbing skills and tactics of non-violent civil disobedience. Also arrested were eight others who were at the protest in a supporting role, including Kentuckian Emily Gillespie, a student at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.
Richmond traffic backed up for miles as police puzzled over how to disengage the protestors from the concrete barrel. Approximately 600 employees who work at the Dominion building, including top executives, were delayed for about two hours as the protestors were extricated and processed by Richmond police.
Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael N. Herring has said that he will seek jail time for the protesters, who also face up to $3,500 in fines each.
Responding to the protest, Dominion spokesman Karl Neddenien said “Dominion respects peaceful protest, however, we do not condone illegal activities, such as the blocking of the road and preventing our employees from getting to work.”
So was anything accomplished?
“It did affect the operability at Tredegar. . . . It had a significant effect,” Neddenien said.
Vice President Al Gore recently encouraged Americans to take action against coal-fired power plants. In an Aug 16, 2007 Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times, Gore said “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.”
And NASA scientist James Hansen has said “It seems to me that young people, especially, should be doing whatever is necessary to block construction of dirty coal-fired power plants.”
Many Kentuckians think that non-violent civil disobedience is “too controversial.” Yet our most respected environmental leaders in America – like Wendell Berry and Al Gore – are now begging people like us to take strong action to prevent the construction of new coal fired power plants and prevent the disastrous consequences of pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere.
The British government’s Chief Scientist, Professor Sir David King has stated that Antarctica is likely to be the world’s only remaining inhabitable continent by the year 2100, if global warming remains unchecked.
So what are you going to do?
The Richmond protestors need your financial support for their legal defense. To donate, please send a check to Mountain Justice Summer, PO Box 86, Naoma WV 25140 and put “Dominion Defense” in the memo field, or you can donate via Paypal by going to www.paypal.com and send your donation to Drumplaya112@yahoo.com
GREAT POST!
What ARE we going to do? As individuals, as communities, and as a movement? Typically, it takes bold activists pushing the envelope of what is socially acceptable with creative direct action to open the space in the public consciousness to talk about important issues, such as an end to the era of coal. It feels almost embarrassing that major public opinion leaders (quite pragmatic and politically-minded ones at that – not radicals!) are the ones asking where the movement is at in doing what needs to be done to stop coal.
I have a deep respect for those that put their bodies on the line in Virginia, and at Cliffside to directly confront power. And around the world – people are directly confronting coal left and right (From occupying coal trains in the UK, to blockading new power plants, to mass mobilizations calling for the shutdown of existing plants) – but where is the US on this?
Is it any surprise that we are decades behind the rest of the world on climate issues? That many in the movement are left supporting grossly inadequate bills like Lirberman-Warner as a best hope (and even that failed miserably)? That one of our biggest demands of our Federal Government is simply to engage in the international process on emissions talks (much less actually make meaningful reductions!)?
Perhaps it is precisely because our movement has not taken bold, visionary actions that reflect the urgency and the seriousness of the climate crisis – nor have we collectively shown the power than everday people can have when taking action together. As we see time and time again – politicians (and politics) can effectively ignore popular opinion, petitions, letters, polls, and lobbying – and go about business as usual.
We need to look at the strategies and actions that have been the catalysts for EVERY MAJOR MOVEMENT for social and ecological progress – and as Wendell said above – be “….ready to stand in the way of this destruction until it is stopped….”
-Matt
GREAT POST!
What ARE we going to do? As individuals, as communities, and as a movement? Typically, it takes bold activists pushing the envelope of what is socially acceptable with creative direct action to open the space in the public consciousness to talk about important issues, such as an end to the era of coal. It feels almost embarrassing that major public opinion leaders (quite pragmatic and politically-minded ones at that – not radicals!) are the ones asking where the movement is at in doing what needs to be done to stop coal.
I have a deep respect for those that put their bodies on the line in Virginia, and at Cliffside to directly confront power. And around the world – people are directly confronting coal left and right (From occupying coal trains in the UK, to blockading new power plants, to mass mobilizations calling for the shutdown of existing plants) – but where is the US on this?
Is it any surprise that we are decades behind the rest of the world on climate issues? That many in the movement are left supporting grossly inadequate bills like Lieberman-Warner as a best hope (and even that failed miserably)? That one of our biggest demands of our Federal Government is simply to engage in the international process on emissions talks (much less actually make meaningful reductions!)?
Perhaps it is precisely because our movement has not taken bold, visionary actions that reflect the urgency and the seriousness of the climate crisis – nor have we collectively shown the power than everday people can have when taking action together. As we see time and time again – politicians (and politics) can effectively ignore popular opinion, petitions, letters, polls, and lobbying – and go about business as usual.
We need to look at the strategies and actions that have been the catalysts for EVERY MAJOR MOVEMENT for social and ecological progress – and as Wendell said above – be “….ready to stand in the way of this destruction until it is stopped….”
-Matt
How About “The Battle of Blair Mountain” ? It really seems almost 100 years later only the faces have changed, not much else… A post on this written by me in May: http://endmtr.com/2008/05/12/has-anything-really-changed-in-the-last-100-years/
hopefully Mattie or someone will put a blogpost up about this soon, but 8 more were arrested today in Columbus Ohio after chaining themselves inside AMP’s HQ. they were taking a stand against the proposed coal plants in Meigs County OH.
http://columbus.indymedia.org/node/13899
http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2008/07/07/plant_protest.html?sid=102
**There are still people in jail! Help offset bail costs by donating!**
Money will be collected care of the Earth First! Journal at http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Several people were arrested late Monday morning while protesting plans for a proposed coal-fired plant in southeast Ohio.
Police were forced to subdue protesters after they entered the headquarters of American Municipal Power, located on Airport Drive in east Columbus, 10TV News reported.
Dozens of members with the group, Earth First, were at the headquarters protesting plans to build a new power plant in Meigs County.
According to police, five demonstrators entered the building and chained themselves up. Officers used Mace when the demonstrators refused to leave, 10TV News reported.
Eight people were arrested during the demonstration, police said.
Rest assured that the people will vote into our highest elected office this year a leader who will protect our land and our people.
The sad thing about that statement is that it could be true. Unfortunately we are as greedy as “they” are. Remember the cartoon: I have found the enemy and he is me? Our outward atrocities are a sign of our inner confusion.
Tom Merton said it well: Don’t just do something. Stand there.
Coal companies will continue to produce so long as you use the drug…. Yes, the drug is energy.
Coal Companies aren’t the problem – YOU ARE. And until you realize that there is no end in site.
Go protest and get yourself arrested – pay the fines and the rest of us will think of an actual solution. That solution is conservation, which many of you seem to fail to realize.
Quit punshing others for your inability to sacrifice.
Stark Baddin
Starkbaddin@gmail.com
Thanks Brian,
Yes, Blair Mountain is an amazing story, I encourage anyone and everyone to read about those radical men and women. The United Mine Workers of America risked death and many died fighting for social and environmental justice. Some great role models there.
And it’s heartbreaking to see how corrupt our government in WV still, is as well as hang out with the super smart and funny little kids still living in poverty in the “billion dollar” coalfields. It’s also incredible to read how many brilliant thinkers there were out there though, setting up the stage for us today.
Storming Heaven and the sequel also touch on the historic struggle for justice in the WV coal fields that puts a lot of the current energy justice issues into a historic context, while also highly readable fiction.
Stark, I think you are silly, and also, not listening to anyone but yourself. Which is fine, if that’s what makes you happy.