Floods, fires, ice caps melting, hurricanes—all attest to the violence of human-caused climate disruption. It’s undeniable and undeniably fatal, and the only question for historians will be not what mysterious “factors” prevented humans from responding, but which political structures prevented the humans that wanted to respond meaningfully from doing so. When those books are written, at least a chapter will be devoted to cases like that of Jessica Reznicek, the activist now facing eight years in federal prison for damaging equipment at the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa.
Jessica Reznicek (Rolling Stone, 5/26/21): “Property destruction, or as I prefer to call it, property improvement, is the only solution I foresee.”
In 2016, Reznicek, with fellow activist Ruby Montoya, set fire to heavy machinery, delaying construction for weeks on the pipeline that would move a half-million barrels of crude oil a day under the Missouri River and Lake Oahe, the reservoir that is the primary water source for the Standing Rock Reservation. Listeners will know of longstanding protests against the threats pipelines like Dakota Access present for water, land and communities—as well as the global climate. The pipeline violates Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights, and contributes to the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, exacerbated by the so-called “man camps” set up near pipeline projects.
Reznicek’s sentence was doubled by the labeling of her property damage as “terrorism,” and the Des Moines Register (7/22/21) contrasts her eight years to the three years and change given to an Iowa man who defrauded the government of more than $1.3 million in federal loans intended for Covid relief.
Years from now, corporate media may note that Reznicek’s imprisonment came the same week the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a new report that the planet faces climate catastrophe unless drastic efforts are made to reduce greenhouse gases. They will probably not note their own complicity in reporting on pipelines like Dakota Access as “controversial,” while silently abiding that only one side of the controversy is labeled “terrorist” and goes to prison.
Featured image: Jessica Reznicek (screengrab: Des Moines Register, 7/22/21)
Alas, then our fate is in the hands of the morons who govern our country.
Or, those of us who’s portfolios all paid handsomely, as kids got odd new cancers, a 63yr old teacher was thrown into solitary in PA, for protecting her farm, while a dying fracking brine victim was sued by his killers. And it’s ALL media and ALL lefty blogs banning dissent, or citing contradictory, substantiation of peer-reviewed, double blind mass studies documenting how our tag-team kleptocrats collude with oil, gas, coal & bitumen oilgarchs; while petit-bourgoise Liberals vote for monsters like Hillary, Kerry, Biden and Obama, who’ve done FAR more to bail-out their “bridge fuel” methane spewing extinction event, than Cheney or Poppy Bush? Now, with Afghanistan & essentials being fed to Delta & Lambda, by way of distraction; just watch how REAL Democrats, in Rust-belt and Marcellus cities are CRUSHED by (foreign funded) oil-gas billionaires, as we’ve just witnessed with Nina Turner? The revolution wasn’t just televised, it was live-blogged. We lost!
It’s WILD to watch intentionally blatant “rip & read” tropes, epithets spewed VERBATIM by Rachel AND Amy, WSJ and TruthOut or Gothamist, CommonDreams & well pretty much everyone, except Naked Capitalism, CounterPunch & Kaiser simply shutting down comments about mRNA breakthrough, .223 rounds in Kabul bomb victims, China’s trust-busting, Primary hijinx in CA, OH, NY… AND, of course: DNC™ elites’ shares in multinational extraction conglomerates; now unleashed, as CAP/ Bellingcat/ Atlantic Council… gavages Creative Class, yuppie boomers & white-flight suburbanite MAGA… what it is we believe? From fake Drs in AL to real Drs in TX; school kids in TN & NYC, uppity essentials’ strikes CRUSHED by their union & “our” party… as we’re labeled as “antivax,” “RooskiBots,” “looters, rioters, Luddites or TERRORISTS?”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/08/28/questions-after-new-reports-that-us-forces-gunned-down-civilians-after-kabul-blast/
https://mronline.org/2021/08/19/a-working-class-perspective-on-chinas-tech-regulations/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/27/the-phony-fda-imprimatur/
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/08/are-vaccines-becoming-less-effective-at-preventing-covid-infection.html
https://prospect.org/power/meet-the-consulting-firm-staffing-biden-administration-westexec/
“We the People of the United States in order to form a more Perfect Union….”
I had no idea until now that government and oil were so perfectly matched in Hell. The Hell that will be coming to all of We the Earthlings—-when we gather together saying,” I can’t breathe!”
“There’s a special place in HELL…” for those who fracked away our grandkids’ and poor folks’ kids’ futures… as hundreds-of-thousands of methane & ethane wells’ cement-jobs, annulars & casing all start failing, as Schlumberger warned would release run-away AGW (so ridiculous: geo-engineering, carbon sequestration, GE monoculture scams will be offered by our tech oilgarchs’ only choice. It’s ALREADY begun… oh, WELL.
https://www.desmog.com/2016/07/23/democratic-party-platform-committee-fracking/
https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/shale-reality-check-2019/
https://www.fractracker.org/2018/03/waiting-on-answers/