Radical Environmentalism Is Radical Libertarianism

[Dan Clore]

News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

[Summary: Texas LEOs act as (literal) company cops for a foreign
corporation taking land for private profit via abuse of eminent domain.
Tea Partiers, landowners, and environmentalists engage in nonviolent,
direct action protests. Corporation labels protestors "eco-terrorists";
cops torture Benjamin Franklin.--DC]

http://c4ss.org/content/13837
Tar Sands Blockade: Radical Environmentalism is Radical Libertarianism
by Abby Martin on Nov 3, 2012

As Charles Johnson notes in The Clean Water Act Vs. Clean Water, asking
the government for help is generally counterproductive, especially when
it comes to addressing ecological concerns. Unfortunately, Johnson is
also right in saying that market anarchists don’t talk about
environmental concerns as much as they should. Many libertarians are
right to see through the greenwashing propaganda used to support
government legislation and corporate marketing, but end up also ignoring
the real issues at hand. Free Market Environmentalism is certainly
accurate in its analysis that protecting property rights is a core
issue, as the violation of property rights contributes to most
environmental degradation around the world. My fear is that this
analysis is, more often than not, only used as a way to promote free
market claims instead of highlighting the major issue here:
environmentalism and property rights go hand and hand. Therefore every
libertarian who cares about property rights should also care about
environmental destruction, our increasing dependency on oil/fossil
fuels, etc.

Land theft continues to be an issue, and environmentally careless
corporations are seemingly above the law when it comes to property
rights. The government is useless, completely catering to corporate
interests—which is why libertarians should, once again, turn to
radicalism as a means of getting things done. Addressing environmental
concerns doesn’t mean advocacy for governmental policy—it means advocacy
for action! Civil disobedience, grass roots organizing, and nonviolent
direct action.

That’s exactly what’s happening in response to the southern extension of
the Keystone XL pipeline stretching from Oklahoma to the Texas gulf
coast. People around the country are quitting their jobs and moving to
east Texas, joining what many consider the most important environmental
campaign happening right now. Tar Sands Blockade, “a coalition of Texas
and Oklahoma landowners and organizers using nonviolent direct action to
physically stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline,” has effectively
delayed construction for over a month now, using a variety of tactics.

Stopping a multinational corporation from building a pipeline obviously
isn’t easy, but that’s not to say the campaign isn’t winnable.
TransCanada has reacted to the blockade with a “whatever it takes”
sentiment in continuing the construction, with typical carelessness
towards personal safety and legality. This has included employing
torture tactics on blockaders:

Two blockaders who locked themselves to construction equipment in East
Texas – Shannon Bebe and Benjamin Franklin – were subjected to pepper
spray, arm-twisting, chokeholds and multiple uses of tasers to get them
to unlock themselves.

The tree village where the main action is taking place currently is the
equivalent of a police state; the tree sitters are subjected to 24 hour
police surveillance by at least 5 to 7 officers at all times, with
bright flood lights facing them. This has made direct support extremely
difficult, and they’ve been denied food and water on several occasions.
Oh, and if you were wondering who’s paying the cops to be around day and
night, it isn’t the local sheriff’s department— it’s TransCanada! The
foreign company has actually hired off duty officers for $30 an hour to
police the tree village. Despite the emotional trauma the tree sitters
endure, they remain confident. Two have stated they will stay blockading
under these conditions “as long as it takes” and another jokingly,
“until I die”.

TransCanada acquired the land through threat of eminent domain, bullying
landowners into signing contractual agreements. They have also claimed
“common carrier” status, an interesting legal loophole:

Common carrier status is granted by the Texas Railroad Commission, and
allows corporations the power to seize private property by eminent
domain. But in Texas, all TransCanada had to do to apply as a common
carrier was simply fill out a government form for a permit, known as the
T-4 form, and check a box labeled “common carrier.”

This claim was disputed in court, which actually ruled against
TransCanada, concluding that the permit was not sufficient grounds for
eminent domain. They haven’t had to deal with this yet, however, since
most of the residents signed contracts. Now blockaders are trespassing
on “TransCanada’s property”, which they have used as grounds to file
several lawsuits. A recent legal suit used the term “eco-terrorists” to
describe the blockaders:

Under the auspices of nonviolent direct action, the Defendants, all of
whom are members of, affiliated with, or acting under the banner of the
Tar Sands Blockade group, have engaged in acts of eco-terrorism through
their coordinated, orchestrated and ongoing unlawful conduct and have
trespassed on Keystone’s property, have interfered with construction of
Keystone’s pipeline and/or threatened additional interference with
construction of Keystone’s pipeline in an attempt to deny Keystone use
of Keystone’s valid right of way.

Just to be clear, there is nothing good about this pipeline. This is a
foreign company building a for-profit export pipeline, exposing the
environment to the risk of water contamination, likely to destroy more
jobs than it creates, and is openly violating the rights of indigenous
peoples and American land owners. Not to mention the likelihood of a
spill is seemingly inevitable, “According to TransCanada the Keystone 1
pipeline was predicted to spill once every seven years. It spilled 12
times in its first year and it has spilled more than 30 times over its
lifetime.” Tar Sands has also been doing most of their own media
coverage because of the police state that surrounds the blockade, most
journalists are denied entry or arrested:

Allow us to paint the full picture of what’s happening here: we’ve got a
multi-national corporation that has come into Texas, expropriated
private land by eminent domain, and hired local law enforcement as a
private security force to set up an occupied police state at the tree
blockade. They’ve been employing torture tactics, charging peaceful
protestors with trumped up felonies, and have orders to handcuff anyone,
including New York Times journalists, who attempt to get close enough to
even cover the story.

The interesting thing about Tar Sands is it’s diverse group of
activists— from tea party conservatives defending property rights, to
ex-Obama supporters betrayed by the approval of the pipeline, and
radical environmentalists who more or less do these sorts of actions for
a living. As they approach nearly 40 days of resistance, the campaign
continues to grow in awareness and membership. In writing this article I
hope to at least make one thing clear to libertarians: we can and should
engage ourselves in the environmental movement. Environmentalism is
radicalizing in a libertarian way—more mainstream activists are
realizing the ineffectiveness of government and turning to direct
action. Both libertarians and environmentalists can agree on the
alternative solutions, like Johnson suggests, “stop caring so much about
what’s legal and what’s illegal, consider some countereconomic, direct
action alternatives to governmental politics, and perform some Guerrilla
Public Service.”

My support for this campaign brings to mind an inspiring Camus quote,
“If we are to fail, it is better, in any case, to have stood on the side
of those who choose life than on the side of those who are destroying.”
Win or lose, the Tar Sands campaign is part of something bigger. A tree
sitter’s report from day 37 captures this sentiment perfectly:

While I am confident that our new friends in the trees are well aware of
the situation they have put themselves into, I can’t in good conscious
let their sacrifice be taken for granted by those who haven’t
experienced state repression firsthand. In the coming weeks as we see
our friends in the trees facing extreme thirst, starvation, isolation,
and lawsuits at the hands of these police, it is my hope that we can
indeed unmask the state’s monopoly on violence against us and begin to
finally understand the scope of the power structures we are resisting so
that we may move forward towards a livable world. And perhaps then may
we learn what it means to fight for our lives.

Environmental action has never seemed as urgent or important to me
until the Tar Sands campaign, happening roughly two hours east of the
DFW metroplex where I live. Visiting once on a weekend between school
and helping with the blockade has been a truly humbling experience that
I wish everyone could be a part of. There are many ways to participate
in the blockade. Blockaders need the love and support of anarchists and
libertarians alike, they face horrible amounts of injustice at the hands
of the state for simply doing what’s right.

Abby Martin is a student at the University of North Texas studying
mathematics and economics. Sassy mutualist, S4SS UNT
contributer/founder, ALLy at DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left, and
core organizer with the Peaceful Streets Project DFW chapter. Activist
and cat lover.


--
Dan Clore

New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
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"Don't just question authority,
Don't forget to question me."
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