Dominion Energy protest in Richmond
Twelve protesters have been arrested in Richmond, Virginia in an action against construction of a coal-fired electric plant by Dominion Energy. Beth Wellington and "Sparki" at It's Getting Hot In Here are providing frequent updates on this story. Donations for legal expenses can be made to Drumplaya112@yahoo.com.
Update on August 1: The above photograph was taken by Hilary Lufkin. I apologize for not giving her credit for it in this initial post. I just put up a new post about the sentencing of ten of the "Tredegar 12" on Tuesday, July 29th.
Labels: Ecoterrorism, Energy, Environment, Green Scare, Law, Politics
posted by Don Thieme @ 12:37 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I responded to your comment on my blog w. a question. Thanks for the mention on gamoonbat. Just now had a couple of hits, unless they were from you. By the way, rather than "soliciting donations for legal expenses" it might be more accurate to say that I provide information on how to make donations for legal expenses. Another aside, I hate the term ecoterrorism, at least as applied to non-violent social protest about the environment. The protesters did everything the rest of us did prior to their taking direct action: signed petitions, testified at hearings, wrote letters. I understand why you might use this tag, but maybe there are some others.
P.S. There was no violence in Richmond, nor in any of the activities by Blue Ridge EarthFirst, who have done things like sing Christmas carols w. new lyrics protesting coal investments by the Bank of America. The FBI defines ecoterrorism as "the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature." See testimony before Congress. http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/jarboe021202.htm
See also, Sourcewatch on the conflation of the terms and its history:
Ron Arnold, the Executive Director of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the word 'terrorism' has become a potent political weapon. Since the 1980s, Arnold has blurred the boundaries between nonviolent civil disobedience and more contentious tactics such as vandalism and sabotage - which have on the whole been rejected by mainstream environmentalists - and elevated property damage to equal terrorism as a societal threat. More recently, he has been joined by other prominent anti-environmentalists including self-styled "eco-terrorism expert" Barry Clausen and Nick Nichols, the now retired chair of PR firm Nichols-Dezenhall. (After Nichols retirement the company was renamed Dezenhall Resources).
The deliberate conflation of civil disobedience with terrorism by Arnold, Clausen and Nichols has paved the way for the introduction of draconian legislation, such as the so-called Ecoterrorism Prevention Act of 2004 , to ban or increase penalties for civil disobedience protests.
See (w. linked footnotes)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eco-terrorism
I agree with you entirely that "ecoterrorism" is a misnomer, and I am pleased to hear that you are also an advocate for non-violent protest on environmental causes.
I do not know much about Blue Ridge Earth First, but I see that some of them are students or recent graduates who attended a conference held at Valdosta State University this spring.
I know the members of this group through their support of mainstream citizen groups of which I am a member, such as the members of Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth and Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards. Since you said that you do not know a lot about the group, you might want to check out its website (which I linked to in my blog entry) where you will see the kind of actions the members have undertaken to supplement more traditional citizen involvement.
See: http://www.blueridgeef.org/
Very thougghtful blog
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