Delaying a decision on Keystone XL doesn’t redeem Obama’s failure to take advantage of his opportunity to turn the tide of climate change.Photo: The White House

But this is actually about the third option, playing dirty, and it’s intended for those of you who intend to vote next year. I know lots of smart, engaged people who don’t participate in politics because they don’t want to play dirty. I understand their position as a sensible one. What I don’t understand is the large percentage of liberals who avidly engage with the political system but refuse to win.

It has become quite clear over the last few years that the climate movement does not have any real political power. That sad reality has been revealed by the Waxman-Markey bill, Copenhagen, and the complete lack of policy response to Upper Big Branch, Deepwater Horizon, and Fukushima. Kicking the Keystone can down the road does not redeem Obama’s failure to take advantage of his unprecedented opportunity and responsibility to turn the tide of climate change. Take a look at Rolling Stone‘s recent article about 10 things Obama can do for the climate. If you really expect him to do many of those things, here’s some cat videos while you wait. The question is: How does the movement gain power?

Special interest groups don’t have political power because of their nice personalities and good looks. Groups with power got it by demonstrating they were willing to take politicians out of office. That’s why Barack Obama needs to lose in 2012, and he needs to know that it was our fault.

The refrain from Democratic apologists is, “What are you gonna do? Vote Republican? They would be even worse.” Imagine this kind of reasoning being used on the other side. Let’s say Texas Republican Joe Barton allows a meager $10-per-ton tax on carbon, then tries to explain it to Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson by saying, “But Rex, if there was a Democrat in my place, it would have been $50 a ton.” It’s unthinkable. Even though Barton has light crude flowing through his veins, Tillerson would Temple-Of-Doom-punch Barton’s oily heart right out of his chest and nail it to the office door of his Democratic replacement as a warning to others. People like Tillerson know there are no friends in politics, only those who fear you enough to do what you want.

A good first step toward gaining political power for the climate movement would be to primary a few fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic representatives. With just three primary challenges and hopefully one victory, the climate movement could establish itself as a serious force. (It’s not too late and you’re not too unprepared. In November 2009, a few activists who knew nothing about elections decided to challenge Blue Dog Jim Matheson using a Criagslist help wanted ad. We split the delegate vote and forced a runoff primary that cost Matheson $1.2 million.) While we tend to focus a lot of attention on Obama’s failures on climate change, congressional Democrats have been equally pathetic in their failure to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, especially when they controlled the majority in the House.

The climate movement could also rock the boat by campaigning for Jon Huntsman right now. Aside from playing dirty, I genuinely believe that Jon Huntsman would make a better president than Obama. While Huntsman was my governor, I saw him show integrity in the face of a Utah state legislature that makes the U.S. House look sane. Huntsman took very public steps to address climate change even while the legislature passed a bill that literally said the science of climate change was a U.N. conspiracy to limit human population. He has guts, which is more than anyone can say for Obama, who has demonstrated the wisdom of Edward Abbey’s words, “Without courage, all other virtues are worthless.” If Huntsman wanted an endorsement from a lefty activist felon in prison, he would have it.

Of course Huntsman can’t win his party’s batshit crazy primary. But building political power is all about looking beyond the next election. Very public support for Huntsman from the climate movement could create some interesting public discussion about how the Dems have failed to address the climate crisis. Campaigning for Huntsman might also scare Obama enough that he takes some steps over the next year to try to win us back.

But come 2012, the climate movement will still face that arrogant taunt, “Whaddaya gonna do? Let a Republican win?” If this movement is ever going to get serious political power, the answer needs to be yes. This is where things get dirty. Like any abusive relationship, this movement will always be taken for granted if it’s not willing to turn its back on Obama. He needs to lose, and everyone needs to know it was us. Instead of making phone calls for Obama, those who helped him get elected should make phone calls to Obama explaining why they turned. Much of the youth climate movement has already announced that it won’t actively campaign for Obama as it did in 2008, and logically this is no different than voting for his opponent. By not knocking on doors anymore, each activist affects dozens of votes, whereas voting for someone else is just one vote. But emotionally it feels like a much bigger leap. It almost feels dirty. 

Perhaps that’s part of why so many people are in the streets, not trying to sway politicians, but to overthrow them. To step into the current political arena, we have to play dirty if we’re going to make any progress. Then again, there’s always cat videos.

If I had ever doubted the power of words, Judge Benson made their importance all too clear at my sentencing last month. When he sentenced me to two years in prison plus three years probation, he admitted my offense “wasn’t too bad.” The problem, Judge Benson insisted, was my “continuing trail of statements” and my lack of regret. Apparently, all he really wanted was an apology, and for that, two years in prison could have been avoided. In fact, Judge Benson said that had it not been for the political statements I made in public, I would have avoided prosecution entirely. As is generally the case with civil disobedience, it was extremely important to the government that I come before the majesty of the court with my head bowed and express regret. So important, in fact, that an apology with proper genuflection is currently fair trade for a couple years in prison. Perhaps that’s why most activist cases end in a plea bargain.

Since that seems like such a good deal, some people are asking why I wasn’t willing to shut my mouth and take it. But perhaps we should be asking why the government is willing to make such a deal. The most recent plea bargain they offered me was for as little as 30 days in jail. (I’m writing this on my 28th day.) So if they wanted to lock me up for two years, why would they let me walk for an apology and keeping my mouth shut for a while? On the other hand, if they wanted to sweep this under the rug, why would they cause such a stir by locking me up? Why do my words make that much of a difference?

With all criminal cases, of which 85 percent end in a plea bargain, the government has a strong incentive to avoid a trial: In addition to cutting the expense of a trial, a plea bargain helps concentrate power in the hands of government officials.

The revolutionaries who founded this country were deeply distrustful of a concentration of power, so among other precautions, they established citizen juries as the most important part of our legal system and insisted upon constitutional right to a jury trial. To avoid this inconvenience, those seeking concentrated power free from revolutionaries have minimized the role of citizens in our legal system. They have accomplished this by restricting what juries can hear, what they can decide upon, and most importantly, by avoiding jury trials all together. It is now accepted as a basic fact of our criminal justice system that a defendant who exercises his or her right to a jury trial will be punished at sentencing for doing so. Transferring power from citizens to government happens when the role of citizens gets eliminated in the process.

With civil disobedience cases, however, the government puts an extra value on an apology. By its very nature, civil disobedience is an act whose message is that the government and its laws are not the sole voice of moral authority. It is a statement that we the citizens recognize a higher moral code to which the law is no longer aligned, and we invite our fellow citizens to recognize the difference. A government truly of the people, for the people, and by the people is not threatened by citizens issuing such a challenge. But government whose authority depends on an ignorant or apathetic citizenry is threatened by every act of open civil disobedience, no matter how small. To regain that tiny piece of authority, the government either has to respond to the activist’s demands, or get the activist to back down with a public statement of regret. Otherwise, those little challenges to the moral authority of government start to add up.

Over the last couple hundred years of quelling dissent, the government has learned a few things about maintaining power. Sometimes it seems that the government has learned more from our social movement history than we as activists have. Their willingness to let a direct action off with a slap on the wrist while handing out two years for political statements comes from their understanding of the power of an individual. They know that one person, or even a small group, cannot have enough of a direct impact on our corporate giants to really alter things in our economy. They know that a single person can’t have a meaningful direct impact on our political system. But our modern government is dismantling the First Amendment because they understand the very same thing our founding fathers did when they wrote it: What one person can do is to plant the seeds of love and outrage in the hearts of a movement. And if those hearts are fertile ground, those seeds of love and outrage will grow into a revolution.

Photo: 350.Before

Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the court. When I first met Mr. Manross, the sentencing officer who prepared the presentence report, he explained that it was essentially his job to “get to know me.” He said he had to get to know who I really was and why I did what I did in order to decide what kind of sentence was appropriate. I was struck by the fact that he was the first person in this courthouse to call me by my first name, or even really look me in the eye. I appreciate this opportunity to speak openly to you for the first time. I’m not here asking for your mercy, but I am here asking that you know me.

Mr. Huber has leveled a lot of character attacks at me, many of which are contrary to Mr. Manross’s report. While reading Mr. Huber’s critiques of my character and my integrity, as well as his assumptions about my motivations, I was reminded that Mr. Huber and I have never had a conversation. Over the two and half years of this prosecution, he has never asked me any of the questions that he makes assumptions about in the government’s report. Apparently, Mr. Huber has never considered it his job to get to know me, and yet he is quite willing to disregard the opinions of the one person who does see that as his job.

There are alternating characterizations that Mr. Huber would like you to believe about me. In one paragraph, the government claims I “played out the parts of accuser, jury, and judge as he determined the fate of the oil and gas lease auction and its intended participants that day.” In the very next paragraph, they claim, “It was not the defendant’s crimes that effected such a change.” Mr. Huber would lead you to believe that I’m either a dangerous criminal who holds the oil and gas industry in the palm of my hand, or I’m just an incompetent child who didn’t affect the outcome of anything. As evidenced by the continued back and forth of contradictory arguments in the government’s memorandum, they’re not quite sure which of those extreme caricatures I am, but they are certain that I am nothing in between. Rather than the job of getting to know me, it seems Mr. Huber prefers the job of fitting me into whatever extreme characterization is most politically expedient at the moment.

In nearly every paragraph, the government’s memorandum uses the words lie, lied, lying, liar. It makes me want to thank whatever clerk edited out the words “pants on fire.” Their report doesn’t mention the fact that at the auction in question, the first person who asked me what I was doing there was Agent Dan Love. And I told him very clearly that I was there to stand in the way of an illegitimate auction that threatened my future. I proceeded to answer all of his questions openly and honestly, and have done so to this day when speaking about that auction in any forum, including this courtroom. The entire basis for the false statements charge that I was convicted of was the fact that I wrote my real name and address on a form that included the words “bona fide bidder.” When I sat there on the witness stand, Mr. Romney asked me if I ever had any intention of being a bona fide bidder. I responded by asking Mr. Romney to clarify what “bona fide bidder” meant in this context. Mr. Romney then withdrew the question and moved on to the next subject. On that right there is the entire basis for the government’s repeated attacks on my integrity. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, your honor.

Mr. Huber also makes grand assumptions about my level of respect for the rule of law. The government claims a long prison sentence is necessary to counteract the political statements I’ve made and promote a respect for the law. The only evidence provided for my lack of respect for the law is political statements that I’ve made in public forums. Again, the government doesn’t mention my actions in regard to the drastic restrictions that were put upon my defense in this courtroom. My political disagreements with the court about the proper role of a jury in the legal system are probably well known. I’ve given several public speeches and interviews about how the jury system was established and how it has evolved to its current state. Outside of this courtroom, I’ve made my views clear that I agree with the founding fathers that juries should be the conscience of the community and a defense against legislative tyranny. I even went so far as to organize a book study group that read about the history of jury nullification. Some of the participants in that book group later began passing out leaflets to the public about jury rights, as is their right. Mr. Huber was apparently so outraged by this that he made the slanderous accusations that I tried to taint the jury. He didn’t specify the extra number of months that I should spend in prison for the heinous activity of holding a book group at the Unitarian Church and quoting Thomas Jefferson in public, but he says you should have “little tolerance for this behavior.”

But here is the important point that Mr. Huber would rather ignore. Despite my strong disagreements with the court about the Constitutional basis for the limits on my defense, while I was in this courtroom I respected the authority of the court. Whether I agreed with them or not, I abided by the restrictions that you put on me and my legal team. I never attempted to “taint” the jury, as Mr. Huber claimed, by sharing any of the relevant facts about the auction in question that the court had decided were off limits. I didn’t burst out and tell the jury that I successfully raised the down payment and offered it to the BLM. I didn’t let the jury know that the auction was later reversed because it was illegitimate in the first place. To this day I still think I should have had the right to do so, but disagreement with the law should not be confused with disrespect for the law.

My public statements about jury nullification were not the only political statements that Mr. Huber thinks I should be punished for. As the government’s memorandum points out, I have also made public statements about the value of civil disobedience in bringing the rule of law closer to our shared sense of justice. In fact, I have openly and explicitly called for nonviolent civil disobedience against mountaintop removal coal mining in my home state of West Virginia. Mountaintop removal is itself an illegal activity, which has always been in violation of the Clean Water Act, and it is an illegal activity that kills people. A West Virginia state investigation found that Massey Energy had been cited with 62,923 violations of the law in the ten years preceding the disaster that killed 29 people last year. The investigation also revealed that Massey paid for almost none of those violations because the company provided millions of dollars worth of campaign contributions that elected most of the appeals court judges in the state. When I was growing up in West Virginia, my mother was one of many who pursued every legal avenue for making the coal industry follow the law. She commented at hearings, wrote petitions and filed lawsuits, and many have continued to do ever since, to no avail. I actually have great respect for the rule of law, because I see what happens when it doesn’t exist, as is the case with the fossil-fuel industry. Those crimes committed by Massey Energy led not only to the deaths of their own workers, but to the deaths of countless local residents, such as Joshua Mc
Cormick, who died of kidney cancer at age 22 because he was unlucky enough to live downstream from a coal mine. When a corrupted government is no longer willing to uphold the rule of law, I advocate that citizens step up to that responsibility.

This is really the heart of what this case is about. The rule of law is dependent upon a government that is willing to abide by the law. Disrespect for the rule of law begins when the government believes itself and its corporate sponsors to be above the law.

Mr. Huber claims that the seriousness of my offense was that I “obstructed lawful government proceedings.” But the auction in question was not a lawful proceeding. I know you’ve heard another case about some of the irregularities for which the auction was overturned. But that case did not involve the BLM’s blatant violation of Secretarial Order 3226, which was a law that went into effect in 2001 and required the BLM to weigh the impacts on climate change for all its major decisions, particularly resource development. A federal judge in Montana ruled last year that the BLM was in constant violation of this law throughout the Bush administration. In all the proceedings and debates about this auction, no apologist for the government or the BLM has ever even tried to claim that the BLM followed this law. In both the December 2008 auction and the creation of the Resource Management Plan on which this auction was based, the BLM did not even attempt to follow this law.

And this law is not a trivial regulation about crossing t’s or dotting i’s to make some government accountant’s job easier. This law was put into effect to mitigate the impacts of catastrophic climate change and defend a livable future on this planet. This law was about protecting the survival of young generations. That’s kind of a big deal. It’s a very big deal to me. If the government is going to refuse to step up to that responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and other citizens. My future, and the future of everyone I care about, is being traded for short term profits. I take that very personally. Until our leaders take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I will continue this fight.

The government has made the claim that there were legal alternatives to standing in the way of this auction. Particularly, I could have filed a written protest against certain parcels. The government does not mention, however, that two months prior to this auction, in October 2008, a Congressional report was released that looked into those protests. The report, by the House committee on public lands, stated that it had become common practice for the BLM to take volunteers from the oil and gas industry to process those permits. The oil industry was paying people specifically to volunteer for the industry that was supposed to be regulating it, and it was to those industry staff that I would have been appealing. Moreover, this auction was just three months after The New York Times reported on a major scandal involving Department of the Interior regulators who were taking bribes of sex and drugs from the oil companies that they were supposed to be regulating. In 2008, this was the condition of the rule of law, for which Mr Huber says I lacked respect. Just as the legal avenues which people in West Virginia have been pursuing for 30 years, the legal avenues in this case were constructed precisely to protect the corporations who control the government.

The reality is not that I lack respect for the law; it’s that I have greater respect for justice. Where there is a conflict between the law and the higher moral code that we all share, my loyalty is to that higher moral code. I know Mr. Huber disagrees with me on this. He wrote that “the rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience’ committed in the name of the cause of the day.” That’s an especially ironic statement when he is representing the United States of America, a place where the rule of law was created through acts of civil disobedience. Since those bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice. The authority of the government exists to the degree that the rule of law reflects the higher moral code of the citizens, and throughout American history, it has been civil disobedience that has bound them together.

This philosophical difference is serious enough that Mr. Huber thinks I should be imprisoned to discourage the spread of this idea. Much of the government’s memorandum focuses on the political statements that I’ve made in public. But it hasn’t always been this way. When Mr. Huber was arguing that my defense should be limited, he addressed my views this way: “The public square is the proper stage for the defendant’s message, not criminal proceedings in federal court.” But now that the jury is gone, Mr. Huber wants to take my message from the public square and make it a central part of these federal court proceedings. I have no problem with that. I’m just as willing to have those views on display as I’ve ever been.

The government’s memorandum states, “As opposed to preventing this particular defendant from committing further crimes, the sentence should be crafted ‘to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct’ by others.” Their concern is not the danger that I present, but the danger presented by my ideas and words that might lead others to action. Perhaps Mr. Huber is right to be concerned. He represents the United States Government. His job is to protect those currently in power, and by extension, their corporate sponsors. After months of no action after the auction, the way I found out about my indictment was the day before it happened, Pat Shea got a call from an Associated Press reporter who said, “I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow Tim is going to be indicted, and this is what the charges are going to be.” That reporter had gotten that information two weeks earlier from an oil industry lobbyist. Our request for disclosure of what role that lobbyist played in the U.S. Attorney’s office was denied, but we know that she apparently holds sway and that the government feels the need to protect the industry’s interests.

The things that I’ve been publicly saying may indeed be threatening to that power structure. There have been several references to the speech I gave after the conviction, but I’ve only ever seen half of one sentence of that speech quoted. In the government’s report, they actually had to add their own words to that one sentence to make it sound more threatening. But the speech was about empowerment. It was about recognizing our interconnectedness rather than viewing ourselves as isolated individuals. The message of the speech was that when people stand together, they no longer have to be exploited by powerful corporations. Alienation is perhaps the most effective tool of control in America, and every reminder of our real connectedness weakens that tool.

But the sentencing guidelines don’t mention the need to protect corporations or politicians from ideas that threaten their control. The guidelines say “protect the public.” The question is whether the public is helped or harmed by my actions. The easiest way to answer that question is with the direct impacts of my action. As the oil executive stated in his testimony, the parcels I didn’t bid on averaged $12 per acre, but the ones I did bid on averaged $125. Those are the prices paid for public property to the public trust. The industry admits very openly that they were getting those parcels for an order of magnitude less than what they were worth. Not only did those oil companies drive up the prices to $125 during the bidding, they were then given an oppor
tunity to withdraw their bids once my actions were explained. They kept the parcels, presumably because they knew they were still a good deal at $125. The oil companies knew they were getting a steal from the American people, and now they’re crying because they had to pay a little closer to what those parcels were actually worth. The government claims I should be held accountable for the steal the oil companies didn’t get. The government’s report demands $600,000 worth of financial impacts for the amount which the oil industry wasn’t able to steal from the public.

That extra revenue for the public became almost irrelevant, though, once most of those parcels were revoked by Secretary Salazar. Most of the parcels I won were later deemed inappropriate for drilling. In other words, the highest and best value to the public for those particular lands was not for oil and gas drilling. Had the auction gone off without a hitch, it would have been a loss for the public. The fact that the auction was delayed, extra attention was brought to the process, and the parcels were ultimately revoked was a good thing for the public.

More generally, the question of whether civil disobedience is good for the public is a matter of perspective. Civil disobedience is inherently an attempt at change. Those in power, whom Mr. Huber represents, are those for whom the status quo is working, so they always see civil disobedience as a bad thing. The decision you are making today, your honor, is what segment of the public you are meant to protect. Mr. Huber clearly has cast his lot with that segment who wishes to preserve the status quo. But the majority of the public is exploited by the status quo far more than they are benefited by it. The young are the most obvious group who is exploited and condemned to an ugly future by letting the fossil fuel industry call the shots. There is an overwhelming amount of scientific research, some of which you received as part of our proffer on the necessity defense, that reveals the catastrophic consequences which the young will have to deal with over the coming decades.

But just as real is the exploitation of the communities where fossil fuels are extracted. As a native of West Virginia, I have seen from a young age that the exploitation of fossil fuels has always gone hand in hand with the exploitation of local people. In West Virginia, we’ve been extracting coal longer than anyone else. And after 150 years of making other people rich, West Virginia is almost dead last among the states in per capita income, education rates and life expectancy. And it’s not an anomaly. The areas with the richest fossil fuel resources, whether coal in West Virginia and Kentucky, or oil in Louisiana and Mississippi, are the areas with the lowest standards of living. In part, this is a necessity of the industry. The only way to convince someone to blow up their backyard or poison their water is to make sure they are so desperate that they have no other option. But it is also the nature of the economic model. Since fossil fuels are a limited resources, whoever controls access to that resource in the beginning gets to set all the terms. They set the terms for their workers, for the local communities, and apparently even for the regulatory agencies. A renewable energy economy is a threat to that model. Since no one can control access to the sun or the wind, the wealth is more likely to flow to whoever does the work of harnessing that energy, and therefore to create a more distributed economic system, which leads to a more distributed political system. It threatens the profits of the handful of corporations for whom the current system works, but our question is which segment of the public are you tasked with protecting. I am here today because I have chosen to protect the people locked out of the system over the profits of the corporations running the system. I say this not because I want your mercy, but because I want you to join me.

After this difference of political philosophies, the rest of the sentencing debate has been based on the financial loss from my actions. The government has suggested a variety of numbers loosely associated with my actions, but as of yet has yet to establish any causality between my actions and any of those figures. The most commonly discussed figure is perhaps the most easily debunked. This is the figure of roughly $140,000, which is the amount the BLM originally spent to hold the December 2008 auction. By definition, this number is the amount of money the BLM spent before I ever got involved. The relevant question is what the BLM spent because of my actions, but apparently that question has yet to be asked. The only logic that relates the $140,000 figure to my actions is if I caused the entire auction to be null and void and the BLM had to start from scratch to redo the entire auction. But that of course is not the case. First is the prosecution’s on-again-off-again argument that I didn’t have any impact on the auction being overturned. More importantly, the BLM never did redo the auction because it was decided that many of those parcels should never have been auctioned in the first place. Rather than this arbitrary figure of $140,000, it would have been easy to ask the BLM how much money they spent or will spend on redoing the auction. But the government never asked this question, probably because they knew they wouldn’t like the answer.

The other number suggested in the government’s memorandum is the $166,000 that was the total price of the three parcels I won which were not invalidated. Strangely, the government wants me to pay for these parcels, but has never offered to actually give them to me. When I offered the BLM the money a couple weeks after the auction, they refused to take it. Aside from that history, this figure is still not a valid financial loss from my actions. When we wrote there was no loss from my actions, we actually meant that rather literally. Those three parcels were not evaporated or blasted into space because of my actions, not was the oil underneath them sucked dry by my bid card. They’re still there, and in fact the BLM has already issued public notice of their intent to re-auction those parcels in February of 2012.

The final figure suggested as a financial loss is the $600,000 that the oil company wasn’t able to steal from the public. That completely unsubstantiated number is supposedly the extra amount the BLM received because of my actions. This is when things get tricky. The government’s report takes that $600,000 positive for the BLM and adds it to that roughly $300,000 negative for the BLM, and comes up with a $900,000 negative. With math like that, it’s obvious that Mr. Huber works for the federal government.

After most of those figures were disputed in the presentence report, the government claimed in their most recent objection that I should be punished according to the intended financial impact that I intended to cause. The government tries to assume my intentions and then claims, “This is consistent with the testimony that Mr. DeChristopher provided at trial, admitting that his intention was to cause financial harm to others with whom he disagreed.” Now I didn’t get to say a whole lot at the trial, so it was pretty easy to look back through the transcripts. The statement claimed by the government never happened. There was nothing even close enough to make their statement a paraphrase or artistic license. This statement in the government’s objection is a complete fiction. Mr. Huber’s inability to judge my intent is revealed in this case by the degree to which he underestimates my ambition. The truth is that my intention, then as now, was to expose, embarrass, and hold accountable the oil industry to the extent that it cuts into the $100 billion in annual profits that it makes through exploitation. I actually intended for my actions to play a role in the wide variety of actions that steer the country toward a clean energy economy
where those $100 billion in oil profits are completely eliminated. When I read Mr. Huber’s new logic, I was terrified to consider that my slightly unrealistic intention to have a $100 billion impact will fetch me several consecutive life sentences. Luckily, this reasoning is as unrealistic as it is silly.

A more serious look at my intentions is found in Mr. Huber’s attempt to find contradictions in my statements. Mr. Huber points out that in public I acted proud of my actions and treated it like a success, while in our sentencing memorandum we claimed that my actions led to “no loss.” On the one hand I think it was a success, and yet I claim it there was no loss. Success, but no loss. Mr. Huber presents these ideas as mutually contradictory and obvious proof that I was either dishonest or backing down from my convictions. But for success to be contradictory to no loss, there has to be another assumption. One has to assume that my intent was to cause a loss. But the only loss that I intended to cause was the loss of secrecy by which the government gave away public property for private profit. As I actually stated in the trial, my intent was to shine a light on a corrupt process and get the government to take a second look at how this auction was conducted. The success of that intent is not dependent on any loss. I knew that if I was completely off base, and the government took that second look and decided that nothing was wrong with that auction, the cost of my action would be another day’s salary for the auctioneer and some minor costs of re-auctioning the parcels. But if I was right about the irregularities of the auction, I knew that allowing the auction to proceed would mean the permanent loss of lands better suited for other purposes and the permanent loss of a safe climate. The intent was to prevent loss, but again that is a matter of perspective.

Mr. Huber wants you to weigh the loss for the corporations that expected to get public property for pennies on the dollar, but I believe the important factor is the loss to the public which I helped prevent. Again, we come back to this philosophical difference. From any perspective, this is a case about the right of citizens to challenge the government. The U.S. Attorney’s office makes clear that their interest is not only to punish me for doing so, but to discourage others from challenging the government, even when the government is acting inappropriately. Their memorandum states, “To be sure, a federal prison term here will deter others from entering a path of criminal behavior.” The certainty of this statement not only ignores the history of political prisoners, it ignores the severity of the present situation. Those who are inspired to follow my actions are those who understand that we are on a path toward catastrophic consequences of climate change. They know their future, and the future of their loved ones, is on the line. And they know were are running out of time to turn things around. The closer we get to that point where it’s too late, the less people have to lose by fighting back. The power of the Justice Department is based on its ability to take things away from people. The more that people feel that they have nothing to lose, the more that power begins to shrivel. The people who are committed to fighting for a livable future will not be discouraged or intimidated by anything that happens here today. And neither will I. I will continue to confront the system that threatens our future. Given the destruction of our democratic institutions that once gave citizens access to power, my future will likely involve civil disobedience. Nothing that happens here today will change that. I don’t mean that in any sort of disrespectful way at all, but you don’t have that authority. You have authority over my life, but not my principles. Those are mine alone.

I’m not saying any of this to ask you for mercy, but to ask you to join me. If you side with Mr. Huber and believe that your role is to discourage citizens from holding their government accountable, then you should follow his recommendations and lock me away. I certainly don’t want that. I have no desire to go to prison, and any assertion that I want to be even a temporary martyr is false. I want you to join me in standing up for the right and responsibility of citizens to challenge their government. I want you to join me in valuing this country’s rich history of nonviolent civil disobedience. If you share those values but think my tactics are mistaken, you have the power to redirect them. You can sentence me to a wide range of community service efforts that would point my commitment to a healthy and just world down a different path. You can have me work with troubled teens, as I spent most of my career doing. You can have me help disadvantaged communities or even just pull weeds for the BLM. You can steer that commitment if you agree with it, but you can’t kill it. This is not going away. At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow. The choice you are making today is what side are you on.

It’s not quite as elusive as the ivory-billed woodpecker, but in activism, an effective “inside-outside” strategy shares some of the same attributes as that storied bird: It’s highly sought after and much talked-about, but rarely seen.

First, some background. The basic idea of the inside-outside strategy for environmental reform is this: Some folks work inside legal channels, such as litigation or legislation, while other folks create outside public pressure through civil disobedience or protest. The outside folks bring attention and generate public interest, while the inside folks provide the means for lasting change (at least in theory).

I’m lucky enough to have unwittingly been a part of a successful inside-outside strategy. When I disrupted a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas auction in 2008, some environmental groups happened to have filed a lawsuit at the same time. My actions created some chaos, a delay, and a whole lot of attention. Their lawsuit translated that public awareness into the lasting impacts of a canceled auction and significant reforms in the onshore oil and gas auction process.

Unfortunately, such examples are rare because the inside groups often choose appeasement over reform, and the outside groups often fail to act strategically.

This month saw the launch of what has the potential to be a real, lasting inside-outside strategy. Free Speech for People and Appalachian Voices filed a request [PDF] for Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden to revoke the corporate charter of Massey Energy.

Grist readers probably already know that Massey Energy is one of the worst corporate criminals in the fossil fuel industry. The company’s most visible recent outrage was the disaster that killed 29 miners in the Upper Big Branch mine in April of 2010. The governor of West Virginia at the time, Joe Manchin, commissioned an independent investigative panel that found that Massey operates in a “profoundly reckless manner.”

The report to the governor [PDF] is well worth a read for anyone who thinks the phrase “corporate criminal” is mere hyperbole. The report chronicles not only the causes of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion, but also a pattern of lawlessness on the part of Massey. During the 10 years leading up to the disaster, 54 Massey miners died, and the company racked up 62,923 violations.

That death rate is more than 15 times the death rate of other coal companies, and it’s worth pointing out that 62,923 is just the number of times they’ve been caught (by an industry-friendly regulatory agency) breaking the law. Remember that limited liability and the other privileges of a corporate charter are conditioned on good behavior and serving the public interest. Not even the fossil fuel industry shills who troll Grist’s comment boards could define getting caught breaking the law 62,923 times in 10 years as “good behavior” and “public service.”

The report goes on to address Massey’s political activity, including massive campaign contributions to elect appeals judges who overturn Massey’s convictions.

And there’s plenty about Massey that’s not in the report — like how they blow up mountains, poison water, and destroy communities. Oh yeah, that.

Of course, there are already people fighting mountaintop-removal (MTR) coal mining, and some are focusing their efforts on Massey. Appalachian communities are increasingly turning toward civil disobedience in light of Massey’s obvious disregard for the law and the Democratic Party’s reluctance to take a stand. The last few years have seen mass civil disobedience actions like the recent March on Blair Mountain, as well as targeted, sustained resistance campaigns like tree sits on MTR sites. The next step is for those types of action to combine into large and sustained waves of resistance on MTR sites.

So here we have the makings of an honest-to-goodness inside-outside strategy.

Despite the clear and morally urgent case for revoking Massey’s corporate charter, the decision in the end will be a political one. Since Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden happens to be the son of Vice President Joe Biden, it is a political decision that reaches to the highest levels of government. Even though Massey more closely resembles an organized crime syndicate than it does a legitimate organization operating by the rules of its charter, revoking that charter would still be a bold and controversial move. Such an action would invite significant retribution, not just from the coal industry, but from corporate America in general. That means that for this important step to be taken, there would have to be an epic amount of political pressure.

That pressure might look something like waves of people walking onto Massey MTR mine sites every day. If 30 people or so walk onto a site, it temporarily shuts down the operation, costing the company a good deal of money; once those people are arrested, they begin to clog up the jails and the legal system. These things create a little tension and cause a minor problem for the power structure that promotes Massey. When it happens again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, the tension grows into a much larger problem for Massey and all the elected officials who are supposed to hold them accountable. As the waves of activists show no signs of stopping, the most visible of those officials are forced to choose a side.

Filling the jails of West Virginia with people struggling for clean water would be horribly unpopular for the Obama administration as it heads into a reelection campaign. Ditto for bringing in the National Guard to defend MTR sites. After a couple months of this, even the liberals who still support Obama will start to notice that he is not on the side of people who want clean air, clean water, intact mountains, and a safe climate.

Of course, no politician wants to directly give in to civil disobedience. They’d rather find an indirect solution that relieves the tension without making it clear that arrests get results. This is where inside-outside strat
egies often break down, because the easy out provided by mainstream groups is too easy and doesn’t actually make any difference. But in this case, revoking Massey’s corporate charter is a serious step that begins to undermine corporate power. (For more info on how that works, check out the FAQs [PDF] about this campaign.)

This would be a tough battle, but it’s one that we could win. It’s one of the best opportunities on the horizon for a real inside-outside strategy. We have a growing body of people around the country who want to take action in West Virginia, groups pursuing a strong inside strategy, and a president who desperately needs to start winning back some progressive support. It’s time to push.

Those making the March on Blair Mountain are part of a long history of activism.Photo: Cheshire Tongkat/March on Blair Mountain

In 1921, Blair Mountain, W. Va., was the site of a major milestone in the history of the labor movement when 15,000 union miners took a stand against the coal industry. This week, Blair Mountain may end up being a new milestone in the movement to abolish mountaintop-removal coal mining and perhaps the larger climate justice movement. Hundreds of activists are recreating the miners’ historic march from Marmet to Blair Mountain to try to protect the controversial historic site from being blown up for the thin seam of coal underneath.

This week’s March on Blair Mountain may be a turning point in its own right, by helping to dispel the mythical clash between jobs and the environment that exploitative corporations have been promoting for decades. The demands of the march include sustainable job creation in Appalachia and stronger labor rights. While the decision to reach out to rank and file union miners for this week’s march may have made some anti-MTR groups uncomfortable, it can help unify the focus on the real villains who have impoverished West Virginians for 150 years: the coal industry.

As the coal industry drastically cuts its workforce in the shift towards heavily mechanized mountaintop removal, it tries to lay the blame for those job cuts on the people fighting to protect their mountains. This is nothing new. When the mechanization of the timber industry in the Northwest allowed companies to lay off workers while increasing destruction of the forests, the blame fell squarely on those who wanted to protect the spotted owl. But the history of West Virginia demonstrates that exploiting the environment and exploiting workers usually goes hand in hand. After 150 years of making coal executives rich, West Virginia still ranks almost dead last in per capita income, education, and life expectancy.

Another valuable step the March on Blair Mountain brings to the movement is to focus our perspective on social movement history. We often spend a lot of time studying science and very little time studying history. The result is a movement that knows everything about the technical problems and nothing about how change happens in this country.

When people stand on the site of the historic Battle of Blair Mountain this Saturday, June 11, it should be a moment to remember the sacrifices made 90 years earlier. Nearly 100 people died there on their way to Mingo County to try to organize a union, and nearly 1,000 more were imprisoned. In this age of one-click-activism, it’s worth remembering that power yields nothing without a struggle. The climate movement has spent years begging at the feet of a power structure that has no reason to negotiate with us. We need a reminder that our role as a social movement is, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.“

Perhaps the most important reason that this week’s action at Blair Mountain could be a milestone is that it’s not safe. This week’s march and demonstration are organized by the same folks who put together the Appalachia Rising event in D.C. last fall. The night before that day of action at the White House, organizer Andrew Munn told the crowd, “This is going to be a safe and positive action.” In recent months, when I’ve asked the same organizers about the March on Blair Mountain, their response usually began with a nervous and excited laugh before saying something like, “Well, nobody really knows what’s gonna happen.”

Their nervousness is not without cause. The historic march route from Marmet to Blair follows winding country roads with no shoulder and dangerous coal trucks barreling past. Saturday’s action on Blair Mountain is likely to provoke strong counterprotests organized by the coal companies. With inflammatory misinformation and a disrespectful example, the leadership of Massey Energy has encouraged a culture of sometimes violent confrontation with activists. Considering the appalling incident that resulted from activist Larry Gibson hosting a picnic on his own land, there is significant risk in occupying a high-profile proposed mountaintop-removal site.

Of course, under West Virginia’s arcane judicial system, there’s always plenty of legal uncertainty as well with any civil disobedience. It was only last year that the state passed a law, which goes into effect in 2014, requiring county judges to have a college degree. (Admittedly, after experiencing how the law works in the criminal justice system, I’m not sure if a judge’s ignorance of the law would be a bad thing.)

It’s an important step in the climate justice movement that organizers are accepting that these risks are worth taking. Much of the movement is defined by being safe. Even the direct action wing of the movement generally substitutes perceived risk for actual risk. One cannot break new ground with a certainty of safety and security.

This is absolutely not to say that recklessness should be encouraged. The organizers of the March on Blair Mountain have taken every step to minimize the risks this week. But when risks remained, they have decided not to back down. This shows not just courage, but a more complete understanding of risk.

We are often taught to consider the consequences of our actions, but rarely reminded to weigh the consequences of inaction. In this case, the consequences of inaction are the obliteration of a historic landmark, the continued poisoning of water and air, the destruction of communities, and more deaths from coal. Those marching on Blair Mountain this week know that their action is risky, but they understand that the consequences of inaction are far greater. If the rest of the movement learns from their example, we will look back on this week as a big step forward in the struggle for a healthy and just world.

If you can’t go, but want to help here are some things you can do. Please spread this stuff around.

• They’ve organized this march and action on a shoestring and are now paying for everything out of their pockets. So please donate whatever you can.
• Follow and re-tweet the March on Twitter.
• Repost messages and articles on Facebook this week. You can see updates on the event here.