Chris Hedges: Pray With Your Feet

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Pray With Your Feet

Posted on Nov 15, 2015
By Chris Hedges



[font size="1"]Bishop George Packard, right, holds a banner with fellow protesters as they block an entrance to a gas pipeline construction operation in Montrose, N.Y. The banner reads, “We Say No to Spectra’s Algonquin Pipeline Expansion.” The bishop and eight others were later arrested. (Erik McGregor)[/font]


MONTROSE, N.Y.—It was 6:30 in the morning and George Packard, dressed in a dark suit, a purple clerical bib and a clerical collar, was at church. Or, rather, at what has become church for the retired Episcopal bishop, activist and highly decorated Vietnam War veteran.

Packard stood with 20 other protesters on a chilly morning Nov. 9 to block two roads leading to the staging area for Texas-based Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline project. After an hour, he and eight other protesters were arrested by New York state police.

Carrying out sustained acts of civil disobedience is the only option left to defy the corporate state, says Packard, who over the years has been arrested at an Occupy Wall Street protest and other demonstrations. It will be a long, difficult and costly struggle. But there are moral and religious laws—laws that call on us to protect our neighbor, fight for justice and maintain systems of life—that must supersede the laws of the state. Fealty to these higher laws means we will make powerful enemies. It means we will endure discomfort, character assassination, state surveillance and repression. It means we will go to jail. But it is in the midst of this defiance that we will find purpose and, Packard argues, faith.

“This is the renewed presence of the church, people of spirit wandering around in the darkness trying to find each other,” Packard said to me before he was taken into custody by police during the Montrose protest. He stood holding one corner of a large banner reading, “We Say No to Spectra’s Algonquin Pipeline Expansion.” “When you find a cause that has spine, importance and potency you find the truth of the Scripture. You find it inside your gut. There is an ache in the culture.” Gesturing toward his fellow demonstrators, he added: “These are a few of the people who are speaking to it. This is what the church used to be. It used to be standing in conscience.”

The high-pressure, 42-inch-diameter pipeline, slated to run within 100 feet of critical structures of the Indian Point nuclear power plant and 400 feet of an elementary school, under major power lines, across a fault line, and below the Hudson River, would expose residents along the route to toxic emissions from compressor stations, along with the threat of ruptures, leakages and explosions. If an explosion caused a meltdown at Indian Point it would jeopardize the more than 21 million people living in and around New York City and the Hudson Valley. Pipelines are prone to leaks, breaks and explosions and are poorly monitored. On average in 2014, there was an accident involving a gas transmission pipeline every three days.

.....(snip).....

The refusal by the political, legislative and judicial system, along with regulatory agencies such as FERC, to respond to the concerns of those who live along pipeline routes leaves us with no other option than sustained civil disobedience. This sustained civil disobedience cannot be designed merely to send a statement. Statements are symbolic gestures in our corporate state. Day after day, acts of civil disobedience have to physically shut down the pipelines, rail lines and industries that are carrying out the assault on our communities and the planet. These actions must involve hundreds, even thousands, of people willing to be carted off to jail in rotation. They must successfully cripple the fossil fuel industry by making its work impossible. There is no other mechanism left.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/pray_with_your_feet_20151115

[reddread]

1. do people care about the environment?

some people dont.
this is what Americans have to do.
no excuses.