Category: Front

Rest in Power, Herb Goodwin!

  By ,

cross-posted from Wild Idaho Rising Tide

REST IN POWER, HERB GOODWIN! As we learned from a Monday message, Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) lost a dear friend and one of our strongest, most supportive, core activists on Saturday, September 17: Herb Goodwin. He provided crucial research of fossil fuels industry corporations and often traveled with his partner Kathy Leathers 400 miles, plus many more monitoring and protesting miles, to WIRT’s north Idaho, western Montana, and eastern Washington actions against tar sands mining and refining megaloads and coal, oil, and tar sands trains and railroad infrastructure expansions. He also participated and was arrested a few times as a member of Occupy Bellingham in Washington, one of the Bellingham 6 who blockaded a coal train in December 2011, a Standing Rock Tribe accomplice against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota, who protested missing and murdered indigenous people in November 2016, and a kayaktivist who demonstrated against massive, Shell Oil, Arctic drilling and support vessels in Bellingham and Seattle, Washington. Even after several serious health conditions arose, he continued to fight the fossil fuels extraction and transportation projects that we all must reject, for the sake of a livable planet and next generations ravaged by polluted climate chaos.
PLEASE RESIST! Too few of your vigilant, valiant, but criminalized elders, peers, and youth struggle to uphold opposition to increasingly corrupt, resource-greedy, rights-violating corporations and the governments they dominate. PARTICIPATE in Panhandle Paddle railroad resistance talks, direct action training workshops, and kayaktivist activities this Thursday through Sunday, September 22 to 25, where we will honor Herb, who journeyed from the Washington westside to join three of six previous paddles. And/or attend a memorial for Herb in Bellingham, share your condolences with his partner Kathy Leathers, and get involved with another three events that WIRT with host by October 8. We are sorry for Herb’s loss and Kathy’s sorrow, during and after a few years of his illness, as we send our strongest love and prayers for his best passage and all of our transitions without him. (draft) ~Helen

Wild Idaho Rising Tide:September 22-25 Seventh Panhandle Paddle

  By ,

cross-posted from Wild Idaho Rising Tide

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 18, 2022

 

Media contact:

Helen Yost, Wild Idaho Rising Tide

wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com, 208-301-8039

 

September 22-25 Seventh Panhandle Paddle

Annual Event Offers Rail Bridge Talk, Action Training, & Lake Flotilla

Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and allied climate activists invite Northwest residents to participate in annual Seventh Panhandle Paddle activities in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Thursday through Sunday, September 22 to 25.  Grassroots organizers provide opportunities to discuss, train for, and participate in community resistance to the environmental pollution and public health and safety risks and impacts of regional coal, oil, tar sands, and hazardous materials trains, terminals, derailments, and rail bridge and track expansions across Lake Pend Oreille, Sand Creek, and downtown Sandpoint.  Ongoing, increasing fossil fuels railroad infrastructure and transportation recklessly jeopardize and degrade water, air, lands, lives, and global climate, evident in seven north Idaho and western Montana derailments and deadly collisions within 50 miles of Sandpoint, during 2017 through 2020.  These incidents include diesel locomotive, grain, and coal train wrecks beside and into the Clark Fork and Kootenai rivers and Lake Pend Oreille, less than one year after and before the disastrous oil train spills and fires in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Oregon, and the northwest Washington community of Custer.  For further background and event descriptions, see the attached flyer and linked WIRT website and facebook pages, and contact WIRT with questions and suggestions.

#No2ndBridge Talk

Thursday, September 22, 6 to 8 pm

Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint

At this informal presentation and public discussion, participants can exchange issue information and brainstorm creative opposition and regulatory and legal recourse to the myriad significant impacts of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway’s Sandpoint Junction Connector project and fossil fuels pipeline-on-rails across the Panhandle and almost one mile over Idaho’s largest, deepest lake, Pend Oreille.  Bring ideas about campaign organizing and railroad monitoring and protesting, and gather for conversations, snacks, and beverages.

 

Direct Action Training

Saturday, September 24, 2 to 5 pm

Gardenia Center, 400 Church Street, Sandpoint

Local and West Coast trainers will offer their expertise through interactive presentation and practice workshops on topics such as knowing your rights, strategizing, affinity group dynamics, target selection, scouting, action design and roles, media and police interactions, de-escalation, security, safety, self-defense, and jail solidarity.  RSVP to request particular, adapted sessions, and join WIRT and guests, to learn, share, and strengthen frontline skills, tactics, and insights.

 

Seventh Panhandle Paddle

Sunday, September 25, 10 am to 12 pm

City Beach & Dog Beach Parks, Sandpoint

Come to the south boat ramp at City Beach, for a flotilla demonstration around current and under-construction Sand Creek and Lake Pend Oreille railroad bridges, launching after participants arrive by land and water at 10 am.  Around 11 am, another rally will converge after paddlers reach Dog Beach Park, before their return voyage to City Beach.  Bring friends, family, kayaks, canoes, and other manual watercraft, and distantly visible banners and signs.  Respond to WIRT to reserve carpool spots, to help rent kayaks or paddleboards from downtown businesses, and to support and assist these free, collective events, as a volunteer and/or contributor.

 

Seventh Panhandle Paddle

https://wildidahorisingtide.org/2022/09/18/seventh-panhandle-paddle

https://www.facebook.com/events/1131165944447142

PODCAST: Dousing the BBC’s Fake News Before It Can “Burn Wild” w/ Daniel McGowan

  By ,

cross-posted from the Green and Red Podcast

The BBC has released a new podcast series called “Burn Wild.” It tells the story of radical environmental movements 20 years ago, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the subsequent “Green Scare.” There is much flawed analysis in the series to say the least. Other critiques include the juxtaposition of right-wing extremists and left-wing “extremism,” the imbalance of law enforcement and industry voices in the series and platforming ELF member turned snitch Chelsea Gerlach (without discussing her cooperation with the feds).

Listen in: https://apple.co/3RZTOHg

In our latest, we discuss the BBC’s series (or at least the first two episodes) with former ELF member, and return G&R guest, Daniel McGowan (@support_daniel). We discuss the series, how liberals make heroes of the FBI, the current media discuss around “climate sabotage and more.

About Daniel//
Daniel is an environmental and social justice activist from Queens, NY.
He was part of two ELF actions in 2001. And arrested as part of Operation Backfire. He was charged in 2005 with 15 counts of arson, property destruction and conspiracy, all related to two actions in Oregon in 2000, claimed by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). On June 4, 2007, McGowan was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.9 million in restitution. He served part of his time in a super secret prison unit called Communication Management Unit, or CMU.

Guardian: More than 50 Just Stop Oil protesters in UK sent to jail on one day

  By ,

cross-posted from the Guardian

Campaigners who blockaded Staffordshire oil terminal remanded for refusing to comply with court proceedings

More than 50 protesters who are demanding urgent action to address the climate crisis were sent to jail on one day this week after refusing to comply with court proceedings.

The campaigners, who were appearing before judges at two separate hearings in London and Birmingham, had broken an injunction to take part in a blockade of the Kingsbury oil terminal near Tamworth in Staffordshire on Wednesday.

But when they appeared at the Queen Elizabeth court in Birmingham and the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Thursday, they refused to comply, standing on chairs, turning their backs to the judge and reading out prepared statements about the scale of the crisis.

One of the defendants took off his shirt to reveal the words “Sham justice kills kids” written on his body, while another held up a copy of David Wallace-Wells’s book The Uninhabitable Earth and recommended it to the court.

Many of the protesters made it clear they would continue to take action at the Kingsbury terminal if they were released on bail, despite an injunction prohibiting protests at the site still being in force.

In response, 30 protesters in Birmingham and 21 in London were remanded in prison and are due to appear before the courts again next week, when activist group Just Stop Oil said they could face lengthy spells in prison.

In total there are now 54 Just Stop Oil protesters in prison and since April, when the group began blocking oil terminals, there have been more than 1,350 arrests.

In a statement, the group said: “As the government doubles down on fossil fuel energy by “ramping up supply” and breaks its manifesto commitment on fracking, Just Stop Oil supporters will continue to take nonviolent direct action to demand an end to this genocidal death project.

“We accept the consequences of our actions and we don’t need you to feel sorry for us, we need you to step up and join us.”