This Thursday, I have an opportunity to stand before the U.S. Government, and call it out for stripping me and my neighbors of our Constitutional right of Due Process... for all the good it'll do.
You see, this week scoping hearings are being held in upstate NY by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on the "potential environmental impact" of the Northeast Energy Direct (NED) natural gas pipeline, a proposed line that would transport fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania, through New York State, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire to Boston, and thence to Nova Scotia for export. What's known as the "Supply Path" segment of the NED is slated to be 'co-located' beside the recently 'approved', but not yet 'permitted' Constitution pipeline (CP) through the Western Catskills of New York. Each of these pipelines will gouge a 150' gash through 1000's of acres of interior forest, involve hundreds of crossings of pristine mountain streams, and combined will claim a 300' swath of the 7.5 acre, 400' deep parcel that I now call 'home', on Dutch Hill.
Because, for those of us along the 'Supply Path', this is not our first rodeo, we know from first-hand experience that these scoping hearings are a meaningless charade, and the comments from the public will fall on the deaf ears of the corporate shills appointed as Commissioners to protect the interests of Big Oil & Gas. We've been here before.
Thursday night, Kinder-Morgan will ensure that dozens of union members will be bussed in to Oneonta, NY, donning their union-purchased (company-purchased?) orange t-shirts to speak out for their need to provide for their families, to be pitted, by design of the 1%, against the local farmers, parents, and retirees who will earnestly speak out for their need to protect their homes and families. The paid environmental activists will cry for the endangered snub-nosed bat, and the paid lobbyists will cry for the endangered Chamber of Commerce. And nobody will listen to a word that is said... least of all, the FERC commissioners and staff.
Meanwhile, in the second to the last row, 3-4 representatives of Kinder Morgan will sit silently, smugly, enjoying the show they've produced, and secure in the knowledge that the process is 100% fixed in their favor... FERC is brazenly and blatantly corrupt. This commission, like so many others in our government, repeatedly and regularly ignores Statute and the Constitution to attach their rubber stamp to the 1%'s plans.
But for 180 brief seconds, I will be handed the microphone Thursday night. What should I do with them? I need your ideas!
Please follow me below the fold (Trigger Warning)
Here's where I'm at in the face of this corrupt process:
On July 4th, I officially moved up to my 'Walden' on Dutch Hill in the town of Davenport, NY - now a 'Walden' to be violently and repeatedly penetrated with a fracked gas pipeline without consent. I purchased this property with a specific intent - to spend 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days living off grid in a 10x15' 'cabin', replicating Thoreau's experiment as I pursue a PhD in the Philosophy of Education with a focus on Deep Ecology and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. I'm obviously quite the fan of Thoreau...
As such, and in light of my experience thus far with this corrupt, illegitimate and unconstitutional process, not to mention my utter dismay at recent actions by the government (such as Citizens United, the bailouts of corporations, and and the utter inaction on climate change that has led us to the brink of mass extinction), I'm drawn to Thoreau's writing on 'Civil Disobedience'.
I have finally come to the conclusion, like him, that the government is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government, regardless of which party has the reigns, is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice - an agent of the 1%. Because of this, I'm called to refuse allegiance to a corrupt, unjust government.
I'm sure that many here would suggest that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political and legal processes to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed - just as many of my neighbors who are fighting these pipelines do, at least until now. But if the law and it's actual enforcement are clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then Thoreau says the law deserves no respect and it should be broken. And that's where I find myself today - at the ready to follow in the footsteps of Gandhi, Mandela, MLK Jr., Rosa Parks, the brave Occupiers of Zuccotti Park, and Thoreau himself. I am committed not to commit injustice, but I am ALSO committed to no longer give injustice (in the form of this sham process) my practical support, regardless of the government's attempts at retaliation.
That being said, should I even attend this sham of a hearing?
As a spiritual and experiential Deep Ecologist, it is not an accident that I have chosen to describe CP & NED's plans in my description of my Dutch Hill 'Walden' above with the exact language of the current legal definition of rape - violent and successive 'penetration (with a pipe, in this case) without consent'. I reject the Cartesian duality that has gotten humanity into the mess it is in, separating the individual from its community and the organism from its environment. I personally identify my 'Self' as the interconnected 'ecological Self' described by Arne Naess in his Ecosophy-T.
When the trenching equipment finally arrives on Dutch Hill, I don't see how, in good conscience, I can choose any other option than to resist this government sanctioned gang-rape, in 'Self'-defense, non-violently, persistently, and ferociously, come what may.
(I sincerely apologize if I offend or re-traumatize with this statement - thus my trigger warning before the squiggle - but spiritually, morally and ethically it is not, for me, an allegory, but a literal and transcendent understanding of this immoral and unjust act of violence and genocide being perpetrated across the nation and around the globe by Big Oil & Gas. I'll welcome criticism of my views, but I also stand ready to defend them.)
In the meantime, I believe that the upcoming sham of a hearing presents me with an opportunity to make some noise. I have an opportunity to point out to my neighbors that the Emperor has no clothes, to highlight the indecent exposure to toxins, environmental degradation, and trampling of our rights that this corrupt process and these pipelines represent.
I'm seeking ideas from those who've walked this path ahead of me, to take full advantage of this opportunity, not in the hopes of having any impact whatsoever on the corrupt regulators or the permitting process, but rather in the hopes of drawing the attention of the media and folks within and beyond our community who may not yet recognize or even be aware of this obscene exhibition of injustice, corruption and greed.
Being 'stripped' of my constitutional right to due process; the 'indecent exposure' of my neighbors and I to risks great and small, polluted air (from the compressor station to be sited down the road), degraded streams, denuded slopes, etc.; taking an opportunity to point out that the Emperor (the corrupt FERC and her masters, Big Oil & Gas) has 'no clothes'... I guess I could just stand up when it's my turn to speak and bare my soul - and my body... before being hauled away by the local cops to spend my night (or up to 14 nights, according to NYS law) in jail - but would it even make the papers?
So I turn to my DKos community, the Occupiers, the Activists, the Organizers, the Advisors - How might I have the greatest impact in the face of this injustice in three minutes? What ideas are out there to take advantage of the three minutes I've been given? Please share...
Or, in the end, would my three minutes just be better spent sitting in my forest, communing with my ecological Self, and writing in my journal - waiting for the trenching machines to show up to shove their pipe up my ass?