RANT: "...WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD IS BURNING."

 

“But I think Jessica earned some peace by her actions. You know, I think we all, as people who are living in this time, carry a lot of grief with us because we see what’s going on with our planet, we see what’s going on with our society. We see people hurting and the planet hurting, and I think Jessica acted with a lot of love for all of us, and I think because of that has earned some peace, you know. And I think she is going to get out of prison hopefully sooner rather than later if we’re successful.

...I think getting the word out about Jessica’s case is important because what effects Jessica is going to affect anyone who thinks climate change is real and who thinks the climate crisis is here. Anyone who acts against climate change is going to come up against these “domestic terrorism” forces, these vocabularies that are increasing. And so, I think it’s really important to follow Jessica’s case.” (Monty Pinger, lead organizer for the “Free Jessica” campaign. Interview transcribed from a Redacted Tonight podcast with Lee Camp, Sept. 9/2021.)

 

    Ruby Montoya & Jessica Reznicek

IN 2019, IN THE UNITED STATES, JESSICA REZNICEK AND RUBY MONTOYA were charged with damaging pipelines and equipment belonging to the Dakota Access Pipeline Consortium* in 2016. In 2017 the two women came forward voluntarily, making a public confession explaining their actions and waited for authorities to act. Two years later, both were formally charged with several counts of vandalism which came with an additional federal domestic terrorism “enhancement” clause that could add decades to their sentences. As it stands, Jessica’s guilty plea has been accepted and she has been sentenced, in July of this year, to eight years in federal prison (which may be reduced for time served.) She’s lucky. In America, under domestic terrorism charges, she could have gotten up to 50 years in prison. So, there’s that.

Montoya’s case is more complex, as she recently withdrew the guilty plea she initially shared with Reznicek.

Rolling Stone magazine has an excellent, short history of Reznicek’s eco-activism here And the eco-news aggregate site, Unicorn Riot, follows the thread of Montoya’s case, here.

Interestingly, both women were involved with the local Des Moines, Iowa chapters of the Catholic Workers movement and the Ploughshares movement. They were arrested, in 2019, while in residence at a Catholic Workers House. 

    

I was curious about the “Ploughshares movement” and in researching it, I happened to google  Project Ploughshares (PP). PP is “the peace research institute of The Canadian Council of Churches that works with churches, governments, and civil society, in Canada and abroad, to advance policies and actions to prevent war and armed violence and build peace.” The mandate of PP comes from the Council, and takes seriously the biblical injunction:

 

“God shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.” Isaiah 2:4

 

Project Ploughshares produces reports, advocates, and co-ordinates with other like-minded organizations to promote peace, disarmament, and conflict resolution.

 

It’s interesting to note that the Ploughshares movement (perhaps best understood as a loose confederation of like-minded individuals), is “an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement that advocates active resistance to war.” (Wikipedia) It was started by the Berrigan brothers, Daniel and Phillip, former priests who were strongly influenced by the Catholic Workers movement.¹ They performed acts of non-violent civil disobedience and vandalism, most famously in 1980 at the General Electric assembly plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they damaged nuclear missile components with hammers. They and six others—the so-called “Ploughshares Eight”—were given prison sentences of several years. Individuals and groups over the years have performed similar acts of non-violent protest, under the rubric of the ploughshares movement, to advocate for a nuclear weapons-free world.

 

RETURNING TO Jessica Reznicek. With her concern for the environment and the looming threat of global warming, as an eco-activist, Jessica follows in the footsteps of the Berrigans and others who practice non-violent activism. She has done so by acting against what can only be described as ecocide on the part of the fossil fuel industry. In Iowa, she and Ruby Montoya damaged equipment and sections of an oil pipeline under construction using a blow torch because they believed the local environment was at risk with the pipeline’s deployment, and so too the global biosphere as tar sands oil is burned and used in transportation, fuel oils for heating, asphalt and road oil, and as a feed stock for chemicals, plastics, etc. She believes that climate change and rising global temperatures are caused primarily by emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, and that the only way for us to survive as a civilization, perhaps as a species, is to stop burning them.

 

BUT SHE WILL PAY A PRICE for her principled, non-violent activism.  As she said in an interview just before she was to begin her prison sentence: “I was indicted on malicious use of fire when the whole world is burning.” I can think of any number of individuals who deserve prison time far more than Jessica.

 

Cheers, Jake.

  

_______________________________________________________

 

*The company’s partners include Enbridge, the leading Canadian "energy delivery company" (read "oil pusher") which currently is embroiled in its own debate around the infamous “Line Three” pipeline being built to ship millions of barrels of Alberta tar sands oil (a heavier, more toxic brew of hydrocarbons) to American refineries that will cross fragile habitats, waterways, and indigenous lands on both sides of the border. Nice.

 

1. The Canadian politician and Medicare advocate Tommy Douglas was also someone who was influenced by the Catholic Workers movement.

 

[And for fans of drop-dead stupid irony: examine the results from the "Storax Sedan" explosion: a shallow underground nuclear test performed at the Yucca Flats, Nevada testing grounds on July 6, 1962. Its purpose was to see whether nuclear bombs could be used for mining, cratering and other civilian purposes. The explosion caused the largest man-made crater in the United States and was part of the test series: "Operation Ploughshares." Go figure. Nice job boys. You've managed to make a radioactive moon crater right here on earth.]