Category: RT Reportbacks

Report backs from actions and events that Rising Tide affiliates/allies organized. A reportback is almost never also an “announcement.”

Get Trained. Take the fight to Line 3.

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While Enbridge’s effort to build the Line 3 pipeline is beginning to resume, our resistance to this horrible project grows in size and militancy. Last week, water protectors in Minnesota took action to stop oil giant Enbridge’s assault on the regions waterways by disrupting another work site with direct action.

Enbridge is just weeks away from resuming large scale construction on 22 waterways, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River. And we need to meet it with mass direct action.

From June 5th-8th, we’ll be gathering in Minnesota for the Treaty People Gathering to rise for the treaties, the water and for one another.This means we need to organize, train and follow the Indigenous-led leadership on the ground in Minnesota.

This is an Indigenous-led movement and Rising Tide North America is following those leaders on the ground in Minnesota. 

Here’s a couple of places to plug in:

Line 3 is a proposed pipeline to bring nearly a million barrels of toxic tar sands per day from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin– through sacred wild rice beds, and the headwaters of the Mississippi. Grassroots resistance to the Line 3 pipeline has resulted in hundreds of actions across the country, and around the world.

Our goal is to stop it. To do that, we need you.

 

Water Protectors Blockade Line 3 Construction Ahead of Full-Scale Assault on Minnesota Waterways

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cross-posted from Giniw Collective

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 24, 2021
Contact: giniw@protonmail.com

(Crow Wing, MN) Today, water protectors locked to each other through the treads of excavators tearing through the Earth constructing the Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

Enbridge is just weeks away from resuming full-scale construction through Minnesota’s wetlands and drilling 22 rivers, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Biden’s administration has expressed deep concern at the growing resistance in Northern Minnesota. To date, over 250 Water Protectors, largely young people, have been arrested through Minnesota’s hard winter protecting the sacred.

One water protector said, “I’m taking action today to prevent our societies continual reliance on fossil fuels. The flow of oil in Line 3 affects the rising sea levels of my home in New York City and I am honored to be working with Anishinaabe leadership in our collective struggle.”

Water Protector Chris said, “Enbridge should not be allowed to continue to commit its crimes against humanity, against ecosystems, and its assault on Ojibwe bodies & terrritories. We must stop Line 3!”
Mathew of New Orleans said, “I am here because we are fighting this pipeline, but beacuse we are fighting all pipelines. We no longer need to expand our fossil fuel infrastructure, when we are already in a moment of global climate apartheid. ”

Another water protector from Austin, Texas, said, “If we allow this pipeline to be put in, water will be poisoned, and people will die. We need to take responsibility for our water and our friends. Together we can Stop Line 3!
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Rising Tide Chicago: Chase Bank Board Member Gets Climate Justice Wake Up Call

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cross-posted from Rising Tide Chicago

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 17, 2021
Contact: Cailie Kafura, she/her pronouns, organizer, Rising Tide Chicago, cailiekafura@gmail.com, 715-938-1563
The day before the JP Morgan Chase Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, Board Member James Crown awakens to activists calling him out for fossil fuel funding
CHICAGO, IL — Early this morning, activists from Rising Tide Chicago made a ruckus to awaken JPMorgan Chase Board member, James Crown, and neighbors, in their quiet Gold Coast neighborhood. James Crown is one of the bank’s executives responsible for allocating billions of dollars towards fossil fuel funding. This timely action comes one day prior to JPMorgan’s Annual Meeting for Shareholders. Activists unfurled a massive banner along the street in front of his home that stated, “James Crown Lets Chase Fund Climate Crisis”.
“The extractive industry is propped up by those who fund it, and those who fund it have names and addresses. Chase Bank’s executive James Crown has made the decision to invest in climate chaos and genocide, so we are making the decision to give him a wake up call.” – Cailie Kafura, organizer, Rising Tide Chicago (she/her pronouns)
The $317 billion Chase has poured into fossil fuels over the past four years has enabled pipeline construction that poisons Indigenous land and water, and increases sexual violence and murder of Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. Over the past decade, pipeline projects have been responsible for spilling 800,000 barrels of oil in the U.S., with more hazards anticipated in the future if these projects continue. Environmental and Indigenous groups have been protesting against pipeline projects for decades, raising concern for their impacts on communities, ecosystems, and the climate.
“Corporations, especially banks and the fossil fuel industry, have placed the majority of the burden on us to reduce our carbon footprint to help solve the climate crisis.  We are here today to hold these companies accountable and say no more. James Crown is in a position of power as a Chase board member and is therefore complicit in the destruction of our planet. We are here today to let him know that we are aware of his actions and to urge him to make future decisions based on planet over profit.” – Emily Murphy, organizer, Rising Tide Chicago (she/her pronouns)
Rising Tide Chicago uses direct action and education to confront the root causes of climate change, which include capitalism and white supremacy. Organizers target banks like Chase because without their funding, pipelines like Line 3 can’t be built. We urge readers to raise awareness and funds for the frontlines, and take action in solidarity with the Movement to Stop Line 3.

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Vancouver Island: Gate Locked as RCMP Ramps up to Attack Growing Logging Blockades

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photo: Fairy Creek Blockade

cross-posted from It’s Going Down

In so-called British Columbia, a campaign to stop the logging of old-growth forests has been building, with a network of active blockades forming a direct line of resistance to logging. According to the Fairy Creek Blockade on Instagram:

“Our movement is growing far beyond what anyone originally imagined. We are holding down a half dozen forest protection camps, and this fight is becoming about a lot more than just the forest. The time will soon come when the RCMP will show up in an attempt to break our movement. When they do we need you to be ready to spring into action and join us on the front lines.”

After over 285 days of direct resistance to the logging of old-growth forest, on May 17th, “they announced they will be setting up a checkpoint on McClure Road near the Caycuse Blockade, with arrests to follow.”

In a statement sent to It’s Going Down anonymously by anarchists involved in the blockade, forest defenders wrote:

“On May 17 2021, the same day RCMP scum began enforcing Teal Jones Group’s court injunction against long-term logging blockades in Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territory, we locked TJG’s gate on Grierson Main road.

This action happened inside the injunction zone, within a few hours of the pigs beginning their assault on the brave land defenders at Caycuse blockade.

This gate, one of many in the area installed by Teal Jones to restrict access to their operations, is so easily turned against them. It now obstructs them from further destroying the upper reaches of the already ravaged Camper Creek watershed.

Fuck the injunction. Fuck Teal Jones. FUCK the police. The land is too big for you to control.

And hey liberals, let’s get real. Defending the last 1% of old growth forests only, while actively promoting all other industrial logging in so called BC, is like trying to save a few wild animals in a tiny zoo, while promoting the factory farming of millions of others.

-Some anarchists.”

In a call for solidarity and support, the Fairy Creek Blockade wrote on Instagram:

“[L]and defenders have been preventing the clear cutting of old growth forest on Southern Vancouver Island for over 9 months, and now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are beginning to arrest protesters to clear the way for Industry to log some of our last old growth forests.

We need everyone to join us on the frontlines! Bring your friends and friends, bring your kids. Join us at Fairy Creek HQ. It’s on Google Maps and just a few hundred meters of pavement, from there you will be redeployed to where you are needed the most! There is room for both arrestable and non-arrestable positions at camp. Come self-sufficient.”

For updates, follow the Fairy Creek Blockade here.