On the morning of the action we got up at 6:30 AM in the church even though there was no breakfast served, and the opening rally was at 11. I guess we had to get our stuff out of there. It was raining. Some of us wore trash bags that we found, mine eventually turned into a toga. I shoved my stuff in Ed's car but he left with half of the Connecticut crew and I wound up going to a bakery with that musician couple that rocked with me the night before, those two young girls that whispered strategy with me, and Russel. We were warned to try not to have to go to the bathroom during the action, because who knew how long the cops would keep us on the sidewalk in front of the White House, so I didn't drink any water or eat anything, even though the big, puffy pastries at the bakery were super cheap compared to New York.
As we walked to the subway, Russel was barefoot on the wet ground. We passed some cool looking Solar Panel-art figurations. The first subway trip was okay, during rush hour, but when we tried to transfer it was really impossible herd stuff so we walked instead. We used a bathroom at a Starbucks but later they would actually blockade the bathroom with garbage cans and cones and stuff. Actually, while I was waiting for it originally, I talked to this guy from Appalachia who said he really dug the Reverend Billy but in Coal Country, a preacher could never talk about Coal.
I got some really great footage of the rally getting together, just a lot of people hanging out with signs. It wasn't raining. A girl with a megaphone, a green Kentuckians for the Commonwealth t-shirt and a red bandana around her neck walked all over a giant Beehive Collective poster explaining some of the story on it. People were dancing and people were playing music about Mountaintop Removal. There were a lot of songs like this that went on in different kinds of Appalachian country music, blue grass sorts of styles, and a Native America guy played a tune.
Soon the place was packed with what looked like 1500 people, but later I felt I could say there might have been more than 2000 people there. Anyway, I didn't listen to all the speeches but James Hansen gave one and Jonas Larry, the man who wouldn't give up his mountain, really a pretty old man, shouted, "The science is in! Coal Kills! Coal Kills!" Then we marched.
It was really beautiful and I was trying to find the banner I was supposed to be behind, wasn't sure if it was the Safe Jobs in Appalachia one, but let it go. At the EPA there were speeches and I climbed up the steps to film. We chanted, "Do Your Jobs! Do Your Jobs!" At this point it rained on us as we chanted this and I cried and could hardly cheer. I don't think I had ever cried at a demonstration before this and later in retrospect I figured I should take this into serious consideration, because I don't think of myself as an emotional person, but really- I don't plan on being an emotional activist. I don't think Gandhi and King cried too much. Just know that the thing that made me cry was that we were protesting the EPA for hardly taking care of the things our generation cared about or properly standing up for what was right.
We protested PNC bank for funding MTR. Inside the bank, Rev Billy, his choir and a bunch of young people were doing some awesome sermon, and at least Billy got arrested. We chanted, "PNC, We're Killing Our Communities!" I saw Al and told him to hold onto my camera. At last I didn't have to worry about getting arrested with my camera.
After some speeches in Lafayette Park, a path was cleared for people risking arrest. I went behind the Safe Jobs in Appalachia! banner with ten other people. We were third after Safe Water Now! or whatever and Protect Our Homeland with the people from Appalachia in the front. For kids walking onto the path, people shouted, "Get off this path unless you're going to get arrested."
We were in front of the White House. The police had a big "Clean Air Natural Gas" green-washing bus and 1 or 2 little vans for prisoners, and a few cop cars. They taped off the whole section of the street making a square and the protesters stayed behind the tape chanting with us, "The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated!" There were just over a hundred of us on the sidewalk, standing. The cops read us the law and told us to go away. Someone from Appalachia gave us the key to disobey and the people behind banners at the front, in front of two of three other rows of people, sat down. Actually, everyone sat down except for a line of Appalachian elders in the back, something like that. We would have decorated the fence but it was also barred off behind us. So as they read us more stuff we sang songs and passed the banners behind us to the back. We locked arms, mostly for a symbolic visual. We sang a millions songs and chants,like one I even led, and without deliberation, it just happened, "When I Say Mountain, You Say Justice!" and there was this back and forth between the sidewalk people and the people at the perimeter. So all the back and forth chants were like that and sometimes my side of the sidewalk people started them, sometimes the other, and sometimes the people at the perimeter started the chants. One was, "One! We Are the People, Two! You Can't Ignore us, Three! We Will Not Let You, Blow, Up, Mountains, One!..." We even sang old songs from the 60s like Joan Baez: We Shall Over Come... We Are Not Afraid... Oh deep in my heart, I do believe, that We Shall Overcome, some day...
There was a reason why one of the cops counted us at the beginning, I found, because although most of the front line to my left had been arrested, the cop skipped the two people remaining to my left and gestured me to get up. I stood up and people applauded as he tied my hands behind my back. A few young people, when they were arrested had started new chants, like "Save Our Mountains," but when the time came I swallowed and didn't say anything, but just thought about Gandhi and dignity and boldness. And this nice dude with a straw hat said to me, "What do you want us to chant for ya?" So I chanted, "Eco Justice Now!" and soon all two thousand or whatever people were chanting, for the first time that day, "ECO JUSTICE NOW! ECO JUSTICE NOW!" At the "Clean air natural gas bus" the cop said to the other, "This is number 35," I thought, "well there you go, that was the amount of people that were in the 350 CCNY shot."
James Hansen smiled at me, the man already cuffed, sitting on the bus, as I was escorted two seats past him and talked to a nice older woman from West Virginia who said she loved Obama, I said I think there's still hope, and this guy Charlie across the walkway who had black earrings and told me all about the people that police the borders and how either Earth First! or one of his Radical groups protested some Republican speech at I think Chapel Hill in North Carolina by literally holding a banner in front of the speaker, and how there's actually a student society there that is conservative, I said, holy shit, at City College in Harlem, well, we don't have a single conservative club, just a Left. And I brought up how the White House, looking at it right there handcuffed, looked equally oppressive with it's rich and conservative qualities and beautiful at the same time, neutralizing it. He said, "We should paint a big red fist on it," and I said, "Yea, and a rainbow prism!" The guy next to him, I started listening to him speak, said, "My family in Appalachia, we are descendents of indentured servants." Then the cop said, "I'm sorry we have to wait so long but unfortunately some of your friends decided to not cooperate and they have to go through a more complicated process." Charlie said, "Don't listen to him! He's trying to pit us against each other!" And then the bus flew through DC with cop cars and blazing sirens in front of it, through all the red lights and stuff, while the cop gave us a tour guide speech of DC, making jokes about monuments and Charlie kept arguing with him about stuff like whether America is really a Democratic country. He said, "I've never seen a ballot that actually said abolish all prisons."
We sat on on concrete floor somewhere while some people used a porta potty then they called us in by groups of 6 and I wound up in a little cell with one little bench, a toilet, a sink, and 5 other guys who were all at least 10 years older than me, including one guy from DC. There was one old man from Upstate New York who was in such Solidarity with Appalachia that he chained himself to some machinery on a mountain. They took us out one by one every few minutes and I was left with the DC guy and he had been talking about March 2nd One Nation and I said how the March 4 Education Movement was part of it and all about what happened with how k-university schools were in Solidarity on that day last year and how it goes on et cetera.
Well, a guy took my thumbprint and gave me a ticket that said my city of birth was Long Island, which isn't a city and then I was led out into the parking lot confused, and I walked halfway through the cars and saw some people sitting on a fence far away past a field of grass and so I walked that way and soon people were cheering and applauding as I walked up onto the grass. There were 25 people there, behind the fence and we did it for everyone who came out of jail. Seeds for Peace had pasta and bananas for everyone! and someone explained that no one knew anything but it seemed we had to come back to the same place the next day or within 15 days to pay 100 dollars and they couldn't reimburse us right away and Jonas Larry said he was refusing to pay his fine and so did this long haired guy from Coal Country and most people just wanted to pay the next day and get out of there like me. Also, I ended up changing my ride to a guy John who had a big car and was going right through New York City and I invited Kitty. The sun set and then I realized that in the opposite direction, over the odd empty road, you could see over DC, it was twinkling in the twilight.
This girl Erica in squeezed in a truck with me, going to a place where App Rising could put us up this extra night, said she came because she didn't go to Power Shift 09 and regretted it so much after hearing from her friends that she had to go to this, and we met this bearded Vermont guy with a guitar too. And we were brought to this room, just us at first and on the other side of a sliding wall was an AA meeting that was ending so we tried to be a little quiet but when they left I played for them one of my eco-political songs on guitar. And then Erica and I went into the lobby, sat on pluffy couches and I showed her how to play some chords. She was from Seattle but going to school in Upstate New York. I remembered that I still had no one to cover my Climate Justice talk the next day at 6:30PM and it was 10PM! so I called a bunch of people and found that it was actually noon the next day! but at last I got this wonderful woman from the Sierra Club Mid Atlantic Chapter to do it and she agreed to do it just on Hydrofracking, I was so free! except I had to pay 100 bucks the next day.
In the morning I was supposed to meet John after taking the subway somewhere but Erica's phone was dead and she was afraid her ride didn't know where she was so she was trying to figure out what to do. I convinced her to come with me and we put a paper on the door saying she was with me somewhere but eventually we realized, after 30 minutes of losing our heads, that we had the same ride. But she was so not wanting to pay the fine that she didn't want to pay for the subway and we convinced John to come get us event though either way it would cost almost 30 minutes and she wouldn't let me buy her breakfast but I got chai. John came with his buddy Scott in the car. We also picked up a girl named Eileen who had a Rev. Billy album to listen to later. The two girls sat in the middle and I sat way in the back with a bunch of stuff next to me.
At the station there were like fifteen people and someone relayed to us that they were letting us go to different stations since there was only one agent that could process each person at a time and it took a long time. So we drove to another station but they said that they couldn't do the opposite of what our tickets said even though we saw some kids outside from our demo that they processed. So we went back and there were still a lot of people. We sat on the floor. It was a small room with no staff person to be seen. There were just some posters on the wall about America and drive safely and stuff. The guy from DC and his wife came in. Kitty was there, she said she thought I was gone but wanted to come with us and was all happy. The agent said he would called stations and see who would take us. In the meantime the DC guy and his wife said they were going to another protest, this one of the FBI who broke into some activist houses or other and making them look like terrorists or something and people wanted to go and the agent came back and sent us to different stations. But when we got to the other station they said they didn't process fines there so we came all the way back and I went out to the back with this bearded dude with an earring because we needed to pee and in the field over a little hill there were tall grasses, butterflies and moths everywhere. It was like a little Utopia or something and we peed facing different directions and when we got back his group was leaving so it was just my group. We played Adlibs and laughed. We made fun of and discussed the stupid posters on the wall. I made an adlibs about a protest and with the words filled in it turned out hysterical and awesome, we even read it like 3 times. And then Erica said she was starving and Eileen had this great idea so we ordered a pizza and ate it sitting on the middle of the floor. When the guy finally finished processing our fines he said, "Are you all coming back for the John Stuart rally?" We shrugged and said, "No." He said, "Ya'll are no activists."
Some of the way back I drove because John, Scott an Eileen had to go all the way to Massachusetts. At a gas station Erica and I ran across a major highway to use the bathroom at a diner. I bought a muffin and a coffee. I could only drive until it got dark because of my terrible vision. As the sun set we listened to the Rev Billy Choir CD. They sang, "This Town Aint No Super Ma-ll." and he was like, "Where's Ginsberg and Coltrane?" and I said to Scott, "You ever read Ginsberg?" and he said, "Been meaning to," I said, "Man, you've got to read Ginsberg, like the poem America."
And I was in the middle and John was in the back and Kitty was driving and Eileen said, "Kitty, why do you have a book about reaching love's deepest bliss?" and she said, "Some woman at the party-" (Erica and I didn't feel like going) "-gave it to me and said I had to read it." Eileen read some passages which were both spiritual and sexual and it made everybody laugh, we passed the book around and I said we had to stop because it was disturbing me and we debated whether sex could be spiritual or not or whatever and then we debated whether casual sex was Sustainable. Eileen said that there are herbs that women can take for birth control that are Natural and her ancestors were burnt as witches for using that stuff. And soon we were talking about Gandhi and... as we went into the blazing lights of New York City John was talking about this philosophy about what is really Natural and what do we consider Natural and everybody was talking about this and the different ways they saw it and whether they would rather live in the country or what and soon we were in Midtown and John said, "The buildings are just so imposing," and they dropped Erica and me off and she said something similar like, when you live in the country it's so bizarre to be in Manhattan and I said I'm there everyday and I walked her to her bus and soon I was all alone on 42nd Street.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Appalachia Rising: Part 2
Ed & Russel, a new friend named Lexington and I wandered out from the CD discussion, into the night to catch the bus, debating whether or not each of us were still willing to get arrested. Lexington was just a freshman at some progressive school, and even went to a progressive high school where everyone walked out to protest the war. I said I only know one progressive person at my high school like that. Ed seemed to be unsure whether he was going to do it. Russel said his goal was to take pictures so if he had to cross police lines, he would risk arrest for good pictures.
We merged with a bigger crowd at the bus stop and Jassie was there. She wanted to sing songs with us so Lexington clanged on her jar full of tea. I took the cap off my water bottle and clanged that. One person played harmonica and there were some other noises. We had a good groove going at the bus stop. Then we crowded the bus. There I met this long haired dude from Knoxville, named Knox. Jassie had a Beehive Collective poster sticking out of her backpack.
Because Jassie had offered to keep my stuff safe in her jeep, she took it out for me when we got back and I sat on the steps in front of the church playing my guitar with two people I had met in New York, a couple that did some political theatre against Carbon Trading in the Financial District. They both had wild, black hair. I played for them a couple songs I had written. Then the one guy asked to play a song he wrote and it was so good and his girlfriend sang along. He wailed, singing in the night, and later someone said people were sleeping across the street.
A bunch of people crashed at the church because they had been locked out of this other place a few blocks away, including Knox. So I walked with them, just because I ended up with them, back to that place at 7AM. Still it was locked so I went to the store to get change and came back. Knox said he was going to walk with his friend. Only one other person was ready to take the bus so I took the bus with him, this blonde haired guy from I think Portland who lived in Kentucky doing some Sustainable Agriculture camp job or something. He said he'd never been to New York and we talked about how when you get off in the Village a sign says, "Welcome to the Gay and Lesbian Community," or other.
We did get to breakfast on time and someone was playing a song on, I think a cello and singing. He sung a song about wanting to change the world. When my friend left I found Knox. He said the walk felt good. I said I'd do it later. He said he was a Journalism major. He said his assignment was to report on some Republican speaker somewhere and he hated everything the guy said, so he wrote up the quotes that he found the most racist, classist, and backwards.
We weren't allowed to leave our stuff in the Church on Sunday so I had all my stuff. I left it against the wall in the lunch room except for my guitar and side-tote. At the opening plenary we watched Al's movie, and it made me cry. When the lights went on I saw some women crying. It probably didn't have that affect on me the first time. It was only maybe a 30 minute film. So then after some talks there were workshops and you stayed if you were going to be in the action the next day. Sam had to leave later that day but she said she wanted to stay in the room anyway. Maybe 500 or more people stayed in the room. We moved the chairs all to the side and made 4 long lines or 2 with partners. My partner was a skinny guy with glasses from Appalachia. The facilitators were the woman with the strait, gray hair and her friend with red hair, both in their 40s or so. They told us to reach across the gap and hold one hand with the other person. Our objective, they said, was going to be to switch sides with that person. When they said go we all struggled to pull the person across. My partner and I just didn't go anywhere. Then they had one partnernship demonstrate how they did it. They simply cooperated with each other and swung about. Then we broke into 4 big groups.
My new partner ended up being this big, friendly dude. He looked more like an athlete than an activist. First, I was role playing the activist and he a pro-Coal person on the offensive. He shouted stuff at me like, "You're trying to take our jobs away! Coal is my life! I'm an American!" I said, "I'm also an American and I believe in Sustainability." Later he said he thought that was a good point. Then I had to be a police officer and he an activist. So I said, "Those people have brainwashed you. They talked you into doing something you don't want to do." But he said stuff like, "MTR is killing the people in Appalachia."
Then our whole group had to be police guarding the White House while the some 4 or 5 hundred other people came marching at us with banners. They looked so peaceful it seemed crazy to arrest them but we did anyway. Then on the second go, they sat down before us, locked arms and legs. We simply couldn't pull them apart. Two cops would carry one person by all limbs. We hardly arrested anyone. Then the two women showed us some careful places where the police could easily knock us out like under our chins or on the sides of our knecks, just things good to know.
Before lunch I tried to fill out a jail support form, but I wasn't sure who to put down for an emergency contact. They said I had until 8:30PM to return the form. So I went with it to lunch, talking to someone about their 10/10/10 plan on the phone, not informing them about what was going on. I realized also, that on Tuesday, I was supposed to lead a discussion about Climate Justice somewhere at 6:30. The line for lunch went all the way through the lunch room, which was a school gym really, up the stairs, and around the corner of the school, which was a sort of arts elementary school. Ned was the last person on line. I asked him if he knew anyone in New York that could maybe lead the discussion for me. He gave me a number and I left a message with that person. Then I called this guy named R. Jeremy. He said he maybe could do it. Then I forgot about it for a while, made a friend named Jamie that lived in Mass, and we talked to this older guy from Northern West Virginia. He said, and I forget why but, "You never know who you're talking to."
Someone called a Northeat meet-up. There were about twenty of us, including Jassie. Going around everyone said their name, where they were from and their favorite part so far of the conference, but I just said my name, where I was from and that I that I felt we not only needed to be in Soidarity as the Northeast but more so as the Fracking Movement. I got everyone's contact to get them involved in Fracking. Some people also said they just learned about Fracking there and couldn't believe how bad it was. So afterwards a bunch of people wanted to talk to me about Fracking. I ended up missing something called, "Know Your Rights." Then I talked to this organizer for a while from Connecticut and we found Kitty in a Rising Tide group, planning another CD action. I wasn't interested in getting involved, it was getting too complex for me but I wanted to meet Rising Tide people. So I walked back with people from Rising Tide asking them a million questions.
Back at the conference center, I went to a room specifically for people risking arrest. Someone was explaining to Ed that the citation is like a speeding ticket, and that most likely the emergency contact won't be contacted. I called someone at WE ACT for Justice and left a message asking if they could do Tuesday. Then it started. There were a hundred people. They asked us what our concerns were. One person said their things. They said to leave all things with someone else or with them. If we weren't willing to let go of our cellphones, just take out numbers that we don't want called, or something like that. If we weren't willing to let go of our cameras, delete footage or organizers speaking at the summit. I think this was only in case of a worse case scenerio and there would be investigation. Someone said money, so they told us to raise our hands if we were still on the fence because of money. I raised my hand and so did fifty people. They said that it most likely would be a hundred dollars flat but they could fundraise to pay us back. One guy said that he worked with an organization that raised money for activists, that one they raised 300,000 in ten days or something, or ten hours, and he could probably raise 10,000. The woman with gray hair said, "So that's it. Money's not a problem." Someone asked about minors. She said, "If you are a minor, do it."
Then we broke into three groups. One was for people from Appalachia. The two others had decide if they wanted to be behind the Clean Water Now banner of Safe Jobs in Appalachia. I knew I should go to Water, since I'm in the Frack Movement, but I felt more inspired to go to Safe Jobs in Appalachia. There were thirty of us in the circle. We had to make decisions about things to bring to the larger group. We decided to sit, not stand on the sidewalk, after the time was right. We decided to lock arms in long lines, not make circles and lock legs. We decided to let the people from Appalachia decide if we'd go limp when arrested. We decided to maybe square dance, after considerable time. We decided only maybe 10 I think or more of us were willing to do Jail Solidarity, so we'd see how many more later. This didn't include me. So then the Water group made almost the exact same decisions and we left much up to the Appalachia group. They wanted us to basically not go limp and din't seem to have an opinion about square dancing after considerable time.
Back on the long line at dinner I called my friend Ojo in New York. He said I could put him down for an emergency contact. Talking it out, I realized I could put Betty, my Frack and Youth organizer friend in New York down for the second. I got off line and walked all the way back to give in my form. I came back and got some soup, and met a girl who was from the town next to mine on Long Island, only she lived in Florida. Seeds for Peace had to move the tables so I said I'd meet her outside and I sat on the concrete outside and she never found me. This girl from Appalachia said she wasn't totally against Coal all together because her father was a miner and he'd lose his job. I thought to myself, if I were her, I would just have very radical demands for Just Transition, but it occurred to me that only if I were her could I have such a Socialist view, which confused me.
Then I went back into the lunch room and sat on the floor for a discussion with Appalachia Rising's law expert person. There were really only 60 or us sitting around. Honestly, I don't remember anything that he said other than that he was an Anarchist, or at least I think he said that. He repeated things we heard, like don't touch a cop's horse. He explained the different sections of police in DC and we'd probably face the park police.
I ended up walking back with some guy I just met, all the way back. He worked in DC he said, he had just graduated. He said he put his father as an emergency contact. He said, "I'll just say, I'm twenty-three years old. I can make my own decisions." We stopped at an ATM to get extra cash even though I had exactly 100 bucks on me. His stop was much sooner and he said I didn't have to walk far, only I really did have to walk far. I talked to my friend Lin from NY and told her to send out a Fb blast to our EJ group saying to go to the meeting I might not make, and explained the CD thing. I got lost and she actually gave me directions. But still it was a long way and by the time I got there I felt extremely energized, as soon as I put my things down.
The night ended as I talked to two young girls from a school in Connecticut about Student Activism, talkig to your classes and how to get attention, how to message. People kept telling us to quite down because they were sleeping. We whispered in front of the stage. I told them the same thing I told Kristin, that we can't be fighting for Climate legislation just yet, not anymore. We have to fight for Environmental Justice, knocking out the worst of the worst, like Fracking, Offshore Drilling and MTR. We need to fight for Justice for people that live along the Gulf, who live in most toxic areas, like moving or shutting down the Incinerator in Detroit, for example. Maybe we can get legislation encompassing all of those things. But that's like kicking a monster in the knees, eventually the whole thing will fall down. But most importantly, we create a mental shift, so that in general consciousness, we're not fighting for our surroundings, we're fighting for the people, which is true, and people will be able to equate that with the severe destruction happening abroad, and then we'll win Climate Justice, by breaking the bridge. Their names were Ronda and Luisa. It turned out they were travelling with Ed & Russel and the political theatre couple. Ed said I could ride back with them and in the morning I could put my things in his car.
We merged with a bigger crowd at the bus stop and Jassie was there. She wanted to sing songs with us so Lexington clanged on her jar full of tea. I took the cap off my water bottle and clanged that. One person played harmonica and there were some other noises. We had a good groove going at the bus stop. Then we crowded the bus. There I met this long haired dude from Knoxville, named Knox. Jassie had a Beehive Collective poster sticking out of her backpack.
Because Jassie had offered to keep my stuff safe in her jeep, she took it out for me when we got back and I sat on the steps in front of the church playing my guitar with two people I had met in New York, a couple that did some political theatre against Carbon Trading in the Financial District. They both had wild, black hair. I played for them a couple songs I had written. Then the one guy asked to play a song he wrote and it was so good and his girlfriend sang along. He wailed, singing in the night, and later someone said people were sleeping across the street.
A bunch of people crashed at the church because they had been locked out of this other place a few blocks away, including Knox. So I walked with them, just because I ended up with them, back to that place at 7AM. Still it was locked so I went to the store to get change and came back. Knox said he was going to walk with his friend. Only one other person was ready to take the bus so I took the bus with him, this blonde haired guy from I think Portland who lived in Kentucky doing some Sustainable Agriculture camp job or something. He said he'd never been to New York and we talked about how when you get off in the Village a sign says, "Welcome to the Gay and Lesbian Community," or other.
We did get to breakfast on time and someone was playing a song on, I think a cello and singing. He sung a song about wanting to change the world. When my friend left I found Knox. He said the walk felt good. I said I'd do it later. He said he was a Journalism major. He said his assignment was to report on some Republican speaker somewhere and he hated everything the guy said, so he wrote up the quotes that he found the most racist, classist, and backwards.
We weren't allowed to leave our stuff in the Church on Sunday so I had all my stuff. I left it against the wall in the lunch room except for my guitar and side-tote. At the opening plenary we watched Al's movie, and it made me cry. When the lights went on I saw some women crying. It probably didn't have that affect on me the first time. It was only maybe a 30 minute film. So then after some talks there were workshops and you stayed if you were going to be in the action the next day. Sam had to leave later that day but she said she wanted to stay in the room anyway. Maybe 500 or more people stayed in the room. We moved the chairs all to the side and made 4 long lines or 2 with partners. My partner was a skinny guy with glasses from Appalachia. The facilitators were the woman with the strait, gray hair and her friend with red hair, both in their 40s or so. They told us to reach across the gap and hold one hand with the other person. Our objective, they said, was going to be to switch sides with that person. When they said go we all struggled to pull the person across. My partner and I just didn't go anywhere. Then they had one partnernship demonstrate how they did it. They simply cooperated with each other and swung about. Then we broke into 4 big groups.
My new partner ended up being this big, friendly dude. He looked more like an athlete than an activist. First, I was role playing the activist and he a pro-Coal person on the offensive. He shouted stuff at me like, "You're trying to take our jobs away! Coal is my life! I'm an American!" I said, "I'm also an American and I believe in Sustainability." Later he said he thought that was a good point. Then I had to be a police officer and he an activist. So I said, "Those people have brainwashed you. They talked you into doing something you don't want to do." But he said stuff like, "MTR is killing the people in Appalachia."
Then our whole group had to be police guarding the White House while the some 4 or 5 hundred other people came marching at us with banners. They looked so peaceful it seemed crazy to arrest them but we did anyway. Then on the second go, they sat down before us, locked arms and legs. We simply couldn't pull them apart. Two cops would carry one person by all limbs. We hardly arrested anyone. Then the two women showed us some careful places where the police could easily knock us out like under our chins or on the sides of our knecks, just things good to know.
Before lunch I tried to fill out a jail support form, but I wasn't sure who to put down for an emergency contact. They said I had until 8:30PM to return the form. So I went with it to lunch, talking to someone about their 10/10/10 plan on the phone, not informing them about what was going on. I realized also, that on Tuesday, I was supposed to lead a discussion about Climate Justice somewhere at 6:30. The line for lunch went all the way through the lunch room, which was a school gym really, up the stairs, and around the corner of the school, which was a sort of arts elementary school. Ned was the last person on line. I asked him if he knew anyone in New York that could maybe lead the discussion for me. He gave me a number and I left a message with that person. Then I called this guy named R. Jeremy. He said he maybe could do it. Then I forgot about it for a while, made a friend named Jamie that lived in Mass, and we talked to this older guy from Northern West Virginia. He said, and I forget why but, "You never know who you're talking to."
Someone called a Northeat meet-up. There were about twenty of us, including Jassie. Going around everyone said their name, where they were from and their favorite part so far of the conference, but I just said my name, where I was from and that I that I felt we not only needed to be in Soidarity as the Northeast but more so as the Fracking Movement. I got everyone's contact to get them involved in Fracking. Some people also said they just learned about Fracking there and couldn't believe how bad it was. So afterwards a bunch of people wanted to talk to me about Fracking. I ended up missing something called, "Know Your Rights." Then I talked to this organizer for a while from Connecticut and we found Kitty in a Rising Tide group, planning another CD action. I wasn't interested in getting involved, it was getting too complex for me but I wanted to meet Rising Tide people. So I walked back with people from Rising Tide asking them a million questions.
Back at the conference center, I went to a room specifically for people risking arrest. Someone was explaining to Ed that the citation is like a speeding ticket, and that most likely the emergency contact won't be contacted. I called someone at WE ACT for Justice and left a message asking if they could do Tuesday. Then it started. There were a hundred people. They asked us what our concerns were. One person said their things. They said to leave all things with someone else or with them. If we weren't willing to let go of our cellphones, just take out numbers that we don't want called, or something like that. If we weren't willing to let go of our cameras, delete footage or organizers speaking at the summit. I think this was only in case of a worse case scenerio and there would be investigation. Someone said money, so they told us to raise our hands if we were still on the fence because of money. I raised my hand and so did fifty people. They said that it most likely would be a hundred dollars flat but they could fundraise to pay us back. One guy said that he worked with an organization that raised money for activists, that one they raised 300,000 in ten days or something, or ten hours, and he could probably raise 10,000. The woman with gray hair said, "So that's it. Money's not a problem." Someone asked about minors. She said, "If you are a minor, do it."
Then we broke into three groups. One was for people from Appalachia. The two others had decide if they wanted to be behind the Clean Water Now banner of Safe Jobs in Appalachia. I knew I should go to Water, since I'm in the Frack Movement, but I felt more inspired to go to Safe Jobs in Appalachia. There were thirty of us in the circle. We had to make decisions about things to bring to the larger group. We decided to sit, not stand on the sidewalk, after the time was right. We decided to lock arms in long lines, not make circles and lock legs. We decided to let the people from Appalachia decide if we'd go limp when arrested. We decided to maybe square dance, after considerable time. We decided only maybe 10 I think or more of us were willing to do Jail Solidarity, so we'd see how many more later. This didn't include me. So then the Water group made almost the exact same decisions and we left much up to the Appalachia group. They wanted us to basically not go limp and din't seem to have an opinion about square dancing after considerable time.
Back on the long line at dinner I called my friend Ojo in New York. He said I could put him down for an emergency contact. Talking it out, I realized I could put Betty, my Frack and Youth organizer friend in New York down for the second. I got off line and walked all the way back to give in my form. I came back and got some soup, and met a girl who was from the town next to mine on Long Island, only she lived in Florida. Seeds for Peace had to move the tables so I said I'd meet her outside and I sat on the concrete outside and she never found me. This girl from Appalachia said she wasn't totally against Coal all together because her father was a miner and he'd lose his job. I thought to myself, if I were her, I would just have very radical demands for Just Transition, but it occurred to me that only if I were her could I have such a Socialist view, which confused me.
Then I went back into the lunch room and sat on the floor for a discussion with Appalachia Rising's law expert person. There were really only 60 or us sitting around. Honestly, I don't remember anything that he said other than that he was an Anarchist, or at least I think he said that. He repeated things we heard, like don't touch a cop's horse. He explained the different sections of police in DC and we'd probably face the park police.
I ended up walking back with some guy I just met, all the way back. He worked in DC he said, he had just graduated. He said he put his father as an emergency contact. He said, "I'll just say, I'm twenty-three years old. I can make my own decisions." We stopped at an ATM to get extra cash even though I had exactly 100 bucks on me. His stop was much sooner and he said I didn't have to walk far, only I really did have to walk far. I talked to my friend Lin from NY and told her to send out a Fb blast to our EJ group saying to go to the meeting I might not make, and explained the CD thing. I got lost and she actually gave me directions. But still it was a long way and by the time I got there I felt extremely energized, as soon as I put my things down.
The night ended as I talked to two young girls from a school in Connecticut about Student Activism, talkig to your classes and how to get attention, how to message. People kept telling us to quite down because they were sleeping. We whispered in front of the stage. I told them the same thing I told Kristin, that we can't be fighting for Climate legislation just yet, not anymore. We have to fight for Environmental Justice, knocking out the worst of the worst, like Fracking, Offshore Drilling and MTR. We need to fight for Justice for people that live along the Gulf, who live in most toxic areas, like moving or shutting down the Incinerator in Detroit, for example. Maybe we can get legislation encompassing all of those things. But that's like kicking a monster in the knees, eventually the whole thing will fall down. But most importantly, we create a mental shift, so that in general consciousness, we're not fighting for our surroundings, we're fighting for the people, which is true, and people will be able to equate that with the severe destruction happening abroad, and then we'll win Climate Justice, by breaking the bridge. Their names were Ronda and Luisa. It turned out they were travelling with Ed & Russel and the political theatre couple. Ed said I could ride back with them and in the morning I could put my things in his car.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Appalachia Rising: Part 1
Appalachia is rising, and has risen. I spent 4 nights and 4 days in DC.
It began in Brooklyn, where I met my ride from the ride-share online, on Atlantic Avenue. It turned out to just be one person, who was well older than me. Let's just say his oldest kid was applying to college. Me, I'm trying to get into graduate school.
He drove a hybrid, so we never stopped for gas. I had a guitar, a small gym bag, my side-tote, and a sleeping bag, just enough to be able to walk around covered in stuff. It turned out he was the filmmaker for a doc I saw on Mountaintop Removal over a year ago, some six months after I had heard about it at Power Shift. But he wasn't from Appalachia, he was from New York, and was into Climate Change, was shooting nature stuff at the time, came into the issue somehow. He told me about his experience at Klimaforum and how he is very conscious of the America that doesn't believe in Climate Change. He told me that a guy who would do a workshop with him was well known in the Movement for buying a huge amount of land in Utah at an auction so the Industry couldn't buy it for Tar Sands extraction. He fundraised the money. He was a hero, he said.
When we got to DC we stopped at his hotel to drop off his projector and camera gear. I stretched in the parking lot. Someone said my name with a question mark. It was Suzie T, who basically introduced me to Climate Justice and Climate Tax 12 to 18 months prior. She had moved from Harlem back to Ohio and rode in with "major figures" as Al, the filmmaker called them, of the MTR Movement. He introduced me to Jonas Larry, stout, older man who refused to sell his mountain.
Al went to do a radio show in the basement of a church where I signed in and made a name tag. There was a small table for people people willing to risk arrest. I signed my name there.
They directed me through the chapel, down a hallway to a room with a stage. A band played country music and twenty four people square danced and thirty watched.
Sam and Kitty, girls that I had just met in Manhattan at a Tar Sands protest with Friends of the Earth days prior, were dancing in a sweat. They took a break and sat down with me. They said they were staying at a friend's house. A rather non-feminine girl asked me to dance. We were couple 1 amongst 2, 3 & 4 in our group, meaning our backs were to the stage. It was a 15 minute dance. It was easy with my expert partner. Push ma, lose pa, fellow go around in the outside track.
2 dances later I was far from the stage and my new group talked while the instructor explained the new dance. So we were lost and pathetic. It kept going so we tried on, mainly because of Kristin who wouldn't give up, or stop laughing. But then we all tried again. We got it that time. What does it mean? It meant I felt closest to the group I struggled with. Then I talked to Kristin. She lived in DC. She suddenly seemed 5 years older while stationary. Her blonde hair rather poofed to the side. We talked about America. She said the Tea Party is not America. She said there's hope for Climate Legislation. It seemed we could have kept talking.
People slept throughout the church. A group from Upsate Ny came in. They said just one of them convinced them all to go and I talked to him about the Fracking Movement, and he wanted to get involved.
Then a group of 30 people came and crashed on the stage, mostly girls, one bearded, shirtless guy with long dreadlocks.
A friendly girl with braided blonde hair, a flowery shirt and overalls approached me with a smile. She said she loved how people with similar interests found each other, and I think she meant mystically. I thought she was from Appalachia, because of her friendliness, but she was from Rhode Island, and had moved down to Appalachia because she loved Nature. Her name was Jassie. We took the bus together at 7AM, just us. It was sunny. She never stopped smiling. She told me her story. We had to transfer and a woman on line at Starbucks actually broke my dollar. The fee was 1.70 & 1 for the Circulator. In George Town, Seeds for Peace served tofu, eggsalad and potato stuff. I had tofu and coffee. Jassie talked to an old Earth Firster.
I lost Jassie & met a guy I already met in the woods once. He was organizing against Fracking in Baltimore. He said there would be a week of action in early November in Baltimore.
People from App spoke at the plenary. In the hall were huge Beehive Collective posters, buttons, a paper called Tennessee Mountain Defender, which I took.
I went to MTR 101. Someone sang old Strip Mining protest songs and Sam & I passed a ball of thread around in a big circle connecting words like water, slurry, banks, hillbilly, and prisons.
At lunch I met 2 guys, Ed and Russel. They were at Connecticut schools. They had met at Power Shift. Russel wore a bike helmet and had a deep voice. Ed had red hair and a goatee. They said they worked with some prestigous school where the students were pushing for 450ppm. They thought it was funny how out of the loop they were.
Suddenly I was doing dishes in a small yard with ten people exchanging stories.
I went to a workshop on Economic Diversification. There were 70 people. In Coal Country in Appalachia, there is a Mono-Economy of Coal work. They had every person state their name and what their grandfather's occupation was. Maybe more than half said Coal Mining. Some people not from Appalachia said lawyer, doctor, the rail road, farmer, auto-factories. Many said military service. I was last. I said, "Some sort of textile designer and the other worked in factories and started a business in New York." I thought it was going to be awkward but I almost went off telling a whole story.
One guy explained how Industrial Agriculture put people more or less in the Coal Mines. We broke into groups to discuss diversificatin ideas. There were maybe 5 but I only remember Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture, which I was in. You have soil issues, mainly near MTR sites. It's not like in the city where easily you start group projects. Everyone is spread out. Yea so, I'm not sure we made too much progress. So need radical demands to bring Just Transition.
After dinner there was a concert with Reverand Billy & others but I went to a small discussion for those risking arrest. There were only 50 people. First I talked to this guy Ned who everyone knows for hanging a Green Jobs Now! banner in some official building, which he was arrested for. I also talked to a guy who I met at a 350.org workshop at the US Social Forum. He was like 5 years older than me, named Terry. He worked with the Tar Sands hero in Utah.
Then they told us what the plan was. We were going to remain stationary on the sidewalk in front of the White House, which is illegal, and refuse to move until they arrested us. Two older people from appalachia told us that they really admired the CD of the Civil Rights Movement, and wanted to show the people back at home something really dignified. This woman with strait, gray hair and a lot of energy, our expert on CD, explained that we could do Jail Solidarity, which is where everyone refuses to give their name or pay the fine. This jams up their system and keeps the drama going longer, possibly bringing more attention to us. This woman from Appalachia told us that there is a long history of Coal Country Civil Disobedience. It started with a woman called the Widow Combs, who with her two sons, sat in front of a bulldozer, launching the Strip Mining Resistance Movement. The woman said she had been waiting for this great day to come, and to not think of ourselves as outsiders.
It began in Brooklyn, where I met my ride from the ride-share online, on Atlantic Avenue. It turned out to just be one person, who was well older than me. Let's just say his oldest kid was applying to college. Me, I'm trying to get into graduate school.
He drove a hybrid, so we never stopped for gas. I had a guitar, a small gym bag, my side-tote, and a sleeping bag, just enough to be able to walk around covered in stuff. It turned out he was the filmmaker for a doc I saw on Mountaintop Removal over a year ago, some six months after I had heard about it at Power Shift. But he wasn't from Appalachia, he was from New York, and was into Climate Change, was shooting nature stuff at the time, came into the issue somehow. He told me about his experience at Klimaforum and how he is very conscious of the America that doesn't believe in Climate Change. He told me that a guy who would do a workshop with him was well known in the Movement for buying a huge amount of land in Utah at an auction so the Industry couldn't buy it for Tar Sands extraction. He fundraised the money. He was a hero, he said.
When we got to DC we stopped at his hotel to drop off his projector and camera gear. I stretched in the parking lot. Someone said my name with a question mark. It was Suzie T, who basically introduced me to Climate Justice and Climate Tax 12 to 18 months prior. She had moved from Harlem back to Ohio and rode in with "major figures" as Al, the filmmaker called them, of the MTR Movement. He introduced me to Jonas Larry, stout, older man who refused to sell his mountain.
Al went to do a radio show in the basement of a church where I signed in and made a name tag. There was a small table for people people willing to risk arrest. I signed my name there.
They directed me through the chapel, down a hallway to a room with a stage. A band played country music and twenty four people square danced and thirty watched.
Sam and Kitty, girls that I had just met in Manhattan at a Tar Sands protest with Friends of the Earth days prior, were dancing in a sweat. They took a break and sat down with me. They said they were staying at a friend's house. A rather non-feminine girl asked me to dance. We were couple 1 amongst 2, 3 & 4 in our group, meaning our backs were to the stage. It was a 15 minute dance. It was easy with my expert partner. Push ma, lose pa, fellow go around in the outside track.
2 dances later I was far from the stage and my new group talked while the instructor explained the new dance. So we were lost and pathetic. It kept going so we tried on, mainly because of Kristin who wouldn't give up, or stop laughing. But then we all tried again. We got it that time. What does it mean? It meant I felt closest to the group I struggled with. Then I talked to Kristin. She lived in DC. She suddenly seemed 5 years older while stationary. Her blonde hair rather poofed to the side. We talked about America. She said the Tea Party is not America. She said there's hope for Climate Legislation. It seemed we could have kept talking.
People slept throughout the church. A group from Upsate Ny came in. They said just one of them convinced them all to go and I talked to him about the Fracking Movement, and he wanted to get involved.
Then a group of 30 people came and crashed on the stage, mostly girls, one bearded, shirtless guy with long dreadlocks.
A friendly girl with braided blonde hair, a flowery shirt and overalls approached me with a smile. She said she loved how people with similar interests found each other, and I think she meant mystically. I thought she was from Appalachia, because of her friendliness, but she was from Rhode Island, and had moved down to Appalachia because she loved Nature. Her name was Jassie. We took the bus together at 7AM, just us. It was sunny. She never stopped smiling. She told me her story. We had to transfer and a woman on line at Starbucks actually broke my dollar. The fee was 1.70 & 1 for the Circulator. In George Town, Seeds for Peace served tofu, eggsalad and potato stuff. I had tofu and coffee. Jassie talked to an old Earth Firster.
I lost Jassie & met a guy I already met in the woods once. He was organizing against Fracking in Baltimore. He said there would be a week of action in early November in Baltimore.
People from App spoke at the plenary. In the hall were huge Beehive Collective posters, buttons, a paper called Tennessee Mountain Defender, which I took.
I went to MTR 101. Someone sang old Strip Mining protest songs and Sam & I passed a ball of thread around in a big circle connecting words like water, slurry, banks, hillbilly, and prisons.
At lunch I met 2 guys, Ed and Russel. They were at Connecticut schools. They had met at Power Shift. Russel wore a bike helmet and had a deep voice. Ed had red hair and a goatee. They said they worked with some prestigous school where the students were pushing for 450ppm. They thought it was funny how out of the loop they were.
Suddenly I was doing dishes in a small yard with ten people exchanging stories.
I went to a workshop on Economic Diversification. There were 70 people. In Coal Country in Appalachia, there is a Mono-Economy of Coal work. They had every person state their name and what their grandfather's occupation was. Maybe more than half said Coal Mining. Some people not from Appalachia said lawyer, doctor, the rail road, farmer, auto-factories. Many said military service. I was last. I said, "Some sort of textile designer and the other worked in factories and started a business in New York." I thought it was going to be awkward but I almost went off telling a whole story.
One guy explained how Industrial Agriculture put people more or less in the Coal Mines. We broke into groups to discuss diversificatin ideas. There were maybe 5 but I only remember Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture, which I was in. You have soil issues, mainly near MTR sites. It's not like in the city where easily you start group projects. Everyone is spread out. Yea so, I'm not sure we made too much progress. So need radical demands to bring Just Transition.
After dinner there was a concert with Reverand Billy & others but I went to a small discussion for those risking arrest. There were only 50 people. First I talked to this guy Ned who everyone knows for hanging a Green Jobs Now! banner in some official building, which he was arrested for. I also talked to a guy who I met at a 350.org workshop at the US Social Forum. He was like 5 years older than me, named Terry. He worked with the Tar Sands hero in Utah.
Then they told us what the plan was. We were going to remain stationary on the sidewalk in front of the White House, which is illegal, and refuse to move until they arrested us. Two older people from appalachia told us that they really admired the CD of the Civil Rights Movement, and wanted to show the people back at home something really dignified. This woman with strait, gray hair and a lot of energy, our expert on CD, explained that we could do Jail Solidarity, which is where everyone refuses to give their name or pay the fine. This jams up their system and keeps the drama going longer, possibly bringing more attention to us. This woman from Appalachia told us that there is a long history of Coal Country Civil Disobedience. It started with a woman called the Widow Combs, who with her two sons, sat in front of a bulldozer, launching the Strip Mining Resistance Movement. The woman said she had been waiting for this great day to come, and to not think of ourselves as outsiders.
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