Yesterday, the tar sands industry met unexpected opposition.

The Salt Lake Tribune captured it best:

“A small Canadian company, in need of millions for its ambitious plans, also is facing stiff opposition from two Utah environmental groups that are trying to thwart its efforts to build one of the first commercial tar sand mines in the country.”

Photo credit: Sarah A. Miller/Deseret News

The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (DOGM), held a hearing on Canadian company Earth Energy Resources’ proposal to mine tar sands in Grand and Uintah Counties in Eastern Utah. Well over half of the people attending the hearing came to support Peaceful Uprising and Living Rivers in opposing the mine. John Baza, Director of the the Division noted that there were far more people than usually attend these hearings.

“This project has no real value or contribution to society,” said John Weisheit, Colorado Riverkeeper and Conservation Director of Living Rivers. “The total amount of oil produced by this mine over seven years of operation would cover just 4 hours of American oil demand – a tiny blip on the radar. However, it will take millennia to restore the watershed they are about to destroy.”

And for that small amount of oil, Earth Energy Resources and the State of Utah are willing to put the entire Colorado River watershed and the 30 million people it supports at risk. Here are a few of the concerns we brought up at the hearing:

• The oil produced by the mine would increase the amount of tar sands oil refined in the Salt Lake area by 13%. This places local communities at increased risk for contamination from arsenic, lead, mercury, nickel, cyanide and other toxic substance.
• The mine will generate significant amounts of dust, which contaminates local bodies of water and settles on snowpack, causing it to melt faster.
• Although tar sands produce on average three times the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional oil, the DOGM refuses to take climate change into account for the permitting of this mine.
• Earth Energy Resources already has a poor track record in preventing groundwater contamination. Their pilot mine was essentially abandoned, left unlined, unmonitored and untreated for years, available for wildlife and livestock to consume.
• The chemicals to be used by Earth Energy Resources have been untested as potential carcinogens, or reproductive and developmental risks, and are known to be endocrine disruptors.

Earth Energy Resources claims they will operate the mine with zero discharge, but there is no man-made technology that can guarantee zero leakage of contamination into our waters.

Steve Adler, an attorney with the Utah Energy Office, asserted that the DOGM was simply approving the permit according the requirements set by the State of Utah, and that DOGM wasn’t responsible for addressing many of the objections raised in the hearing, specifically climate change and water impacts. Baza will decide within a month whether or not to uphold the agency’s decision to approve the mine permit.

The biggest message that came out of this hearing is that no one is steering this ship. There is no single agency or government body evaluating whether tar sands development is actually a good idea for Utah. Instead, each agency simply approves rules and permits that were not designed for to regulate the tar sands industry. If Utah is going to consider opening up its lands and waters to tar sands, we should actually have that conversation about Utah’s energy future.

“This is only the beginning,” said Ashley Anderson, Coordinator of Peaceful Uprising. “Communities around the state and country are getting active in opposing the tar sands. We’ll be there fighting back every step of the way.”

Thank you to everyone who attended the hearing and everyone who has gotten involved in our work to stop the tar sands!

Today, the Obama Administration announced that they are opening 1.8 million in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas drilling.  Apparently, between the Bush and Obama Administrations not much has changed in the handouts our federal government gives to the oil and gas industries at the expense of Americans and future generations.  And of course we’ve seen how well drilling protects the environment.

Well, potential bidders, the auction closes August 11th.  Who will be the new Bidder 70?

Obama to open 1.8M Alaskan acres to drilling

07/09/2010

Patrick Reis, E&E reporter

The Interior Department today announced plans to open 1.8 million acres of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to new oil and gas drilling.

The Bureau of Land Management is selling leases on 190 tracts in the reserve. Bidding will close Aug. 11.

Nearly 1 million acres in and around the reserve’s Teshekpuk Lake were put off-limits to drilling to protect important habitat for migratory birds and the local caribou herd.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the lease sale balances a commitment to energy production with environmental protection.

“This sale reflects the Administration’s continuing efforts to encourage environmentally responsible development of domestic energy resources, including fossil fuels, to reduce our nation’s heavy dependence on imported oil,” Salazar said in a statement. “It also demonstrates our continuing commitment to protect and conserve wildlife and their habitat on sensitive public lands with exceptional ecological value.”

There are currently 310 authorized oil and gas leases on 3 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve, which sprawls across 23 million acres on the North Slope.

Tomorrow, July 2nd, is the deadline for public comments on the Keystone XL pipeline that could bring 900,000 barrels of tar sands to American refineries each day. Tar sands are the dirtiest fuel we use, creating 3 times the greenhouse gases as conventional oil, contaminating entire rivers and watersheds from leaking toxic tailings lakes and devastating an area of Canada the size of Florida.

Last August, the State Department approved the permit for the pipeline, but they opened up the process to receive comments from the public. From the perspective of the State Department, this pipeline is in the public interest, bringing in oil and jobs. However, they fail to fully account for the massive impact that tar sands oil has on the climate, the pollution created by refining tar sands into gasoline and the danger the pipeline poses to landowners and communities along the pipeline route.

The good news is that public opposition is rallying to stop the pipeline. A week ago, 50 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging the State Department not to rush the permit through. At a public hearing at the State Department on Tuesday, over 80 people showed up to provide comment. Although Brian Duggan, the moderator of the hearing, noted that “the oil industry got up real early this morning, so their names are the first 20 on my list,” he alternated between speakers from the oil industry and groups opposed to the pipeline.

According to Sarah Murphy, who attended the hearing, approximately two-thirds to three quarters of the people attending the hearing opposed the pipeline. “At one point lobbyist from a trucking group testified and in his eyes I saw nothing but giant dollar signs,” she said. “From what I witnessed at the hearing today, its obvious that the dirty energy lobbyists care about only one thing- money.”

Please take five minutes to submit a comment to the State Department, urging them to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. They are required to read every comment, and we need to show them that the American public opposes this project. For ideas on what to include in your comments check out dirtyoilsands.org and Pubic Citizen in Texas, where most of the refineries would be located.

Merriam-Webster defines opportunity as: a favorable juncture of circumstances; a good chance for advancement or progress.

Few things seem to be going right in the this country at the moment: the economy is still weak, the oil spill continues to devastate communities along the Gulf, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to drain our country’s resources without much progress, the social fabric of this country feels frayed and divided.  It would seem that our only shining bright moment was Landon Donovan’s goal in the World Cup yesterday.

It would seem that way if you simply focus on the headlines. Amidst the bad news is an underlying narrative that the current trajectory is not working.  And when something is not working, it is time for a change.

The pessimistic conventional wisdom would tell a story like this: Eventually the oil spill will be stopped, tighter safety regulation on the oil and coal industries may pass to appease public outrage, but we will continue to throw billions of dollars overseas each year for oil, we will continue to drill and mine and frack our communities for the energy beneath them, while energy companies continue to make record profits.   Superficial changes will be politically popular but will do little to change our dysfunctional energy system.  Then the next energy crisis will hit.

Here in Utah, it would seem that this story is playing out. In response to the Gulf oil catastrophe, Utah Governor Gary Herbert released an energy plan where he asked: “Why are we drilling in the middle of the ocean where there is extreme environmental risk when we could be meeting the demand for domestic production from on‐shore development in areas with minimal environmental risk such as Utah?”

Two days later, an oil spill in Salt Lake City dumped 33,000 gallons of oil into a creek that runs through neighborhoods, parks and eventually drains into the Great Salt Lake.

Further, Utah stands poised to adopt the injudicious honor of opening the first tar sands mine in the country.

But like the shining moment of Landon Donovan’s goal yesterday, our country has the opportunity to follow a different story. This year’s litany of coal mine disasters, natural gas explosions and oil spills are forcing Americans to face the question: how much longer are we willing to continue our dependence fossil fuels? As a result of these highly visible and truly unfortunate disasters, public opinion has shifted, recognizing that not only is offshore drilling unsafe but that we need to make the switch to cleaner, safer energy sources.

An opportunity is not a guarantee that change will happen.

Now is the time to call for bolder changes than we have before.  Now is the time to break the myth that drilling and mining and fracking are safe ways to get our energy.  Now is the time to stop the viral growth of tar sands extraction, here in Utah and around the country.  Now is the time to stop subsidizing these destructive industries and kickstart our economy again with investment in clean energy technologies.

As thousands gather on Saturday in Hands Across the Sand events across the country, it is critical that we not only call for an end to offshore drilling, but boldly tell the story of a country that can buck the corrupting stranglehold the fossil fuel industries hold on our nation and can build an economy that values innovation, community revitalization and a cleaner, brighter future.

We have an opportunity to redefine the narrative of this country.  Now is the time to do it.

Join the Move to Amend in Utah to restore democracy in America!

On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons,  and are thus entitled by the U.S. Constitution to fund campaigns without limit and, consequently, co-op our government. This decision surrenders many of the individual rights of Americans to Corporations.

Learn what you and your community can do to address this pressing issue. Do your part to reclaim people-power and abolish corporate “personhood” by attending this event with your neighbors, co-workers, and family, and friends.

WHERE: University of Utah, Union Theater [map]

WHAT: Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, (CA) will lead a community dialogue and strategy session.

Peaceful Uprising at the Capitol Climate Action - Using Direct Action to Shut Down Congress's Coal-Fired Power Plant

We pulled some of the best excerpts from a fantastic interview of columnist Johann Hari on Democracy Now! Johann explains how corporate funding from some of the world’s largest polluters has corrupted many of the largest environmental organizations from the inside out, including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and even the Sierra Club. This has manifested itself in a multitude of non-solutions being proposed as the only “politically feasible” ways of addressing the climate crisis. While the science clearly calls for a 40% cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2040, many of these organizations are lobbying for woefully inadequate cuts of less than 10%.

Johann argues that instead of relying on corrupt governments and corporations to solve the climate crisis, the people must take the matter into their own hands and demand change through direct action. For example, he explains how the UK’s Climate Camp has united people to put themselves on the line and directly block the construction of new coal power plants and airports, and have successfully shown how the power of the people can drastically change the definition of what is “politically feasible.”

You can view the full interview on democracynow.org

Jim Matheson’s most passionate opponents may be the Democrats he won’t face.

By Jesse Fruhwirth

Cover Story posted in Salt Lake City Weekly, March 2010 (View the Original)

Photo Credits: John Kilbourn

Wrapped in white sheets to memorialize the uninsured dead, a crowd of 150 gathered to wave protest signs demanding universal health care. Their “die-in,” staged in August 2009, attracted considerable media attention.

The protesters waited at the entrance of Millcreek Canyon hoping to seize a moment of time from their elusive 2nd District congressman, Rep. Jim Matheson, a Blue Dog Democrat who voted against health-care reform in committee and would also vote against it in the U.S. House of Representatives. The protesters had heard the congressman was on his way to Log Haven Restaurant for a fundraiser, and they thought they had a choke point. “We thought there was only one way in there,” activist Richard Lafon says.

But somehow Matheson slipped past them. “I don’t know if he ducked down in his seat,” Lafon says, “but he certainly didn’t engage us.”

While he has challengers to the political left and right in his 2010 race for reelection, Matheson is favored to win, perhaps proving that he can slip by progressives in the political sphere as easily as he did protesters in Millcreek Canyon.

After all, his approval ratings are as high as ever, and each time he’s reelected, it’s by a wider margin. Matheson supporters argue that that proves he’s doing his job: Utah’s 2nd District is conservative, and therefore Matheson needs be moderate, both to win re-election and represent his constituents. His moderate politics have turned Republican-leaning independents into Democrat-leaning independents and widened the Democratic Party’s appeal in Utah.

Despite frustration among progressives, many argue it’s bad strategy to purify the Democratic Party of moderates like Matheson. In Congress, shrinking or eliminating the party’s majority would hamper or end its ability to direct the agenda.

And on the local and state level, supporters credit his moderation with boosting the party’s victory tally.

Despite all that, an “anyone but Matheson” sentiment is brewing. Some progressives argue that if their chosen candidate can’t win the seat, perhaps even a Republican would be better.

Progressive Purgatory
It started in 2000. That year, Matheson—the son of the late and well-liked Democratic Gov. Scott M. Matheson—won the seat that had been held by Republican Merrill Cook. A divisive politician among Republicans, Cook had been trailing in the polls during the year leading up the election and was defeated in the Republican primary.

Salt Lake County progressives really met their fate the next year, however, when the Republican-dominated Legislature tried to solve the irksome 15 percent Matheson victory by changing the boundaries of the 2nd District. What had been a Salt Lake County-only district was changed to include many rural, conservative counties on the eastern side of the state. The district now stretches from the Avenues of Salt Lake City to San Juan County. Even the conservative editorial board at The Wall Street Journal called it gerrymandering.

According to Cook, who toyed with the idea of again seeking the congressional seat he once held but instead is running for the U.S. Senate, Salt Lake County remains “the heart” of the 2nd District. The redistricting, however, lessened the importance of urban voters, where Utah progressives are concentrated.

Zoom forward to 2006, after Matheson had barely won re-election both times in the new district. That year, some progressives, on the advice of then-Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, vowed to vote for a Green Party candidate to send a message to Matheson that it was time to move left. It was reported in Congressional Quarterly that year that Matheson had voted in favor of President Bush’s agenda 63 percent of the time, including a vote in favor of invading Iraq.

Next, zoom forward to 2009, when Democrats controlled Congress and the presidency. His same-old critics were further frustrated, but a whole new crop of Democrats started to get angry, too.

Local activists organized a phone tree in May to challenge Matheson when he strayed from progressive ideals on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade climate-change bill.

The phone tree was activated just once, but his office received 400 calls that demanded a change in his position.

“In response to that, [Matheson] went underground. He didn’t show up to the rest of the hearings, he skipped committee markup and never showed up during the floor debate,” says activist Tim DeChristopher, the so-called Bidder 70, so nicknamed for his role in fouling up a public lands mineral-lease auction in the waning days of the George W. Bush presidency.

“It was a difficult issue and [Matheson] was scared. That’s really what his M.O. is. He wants to hide.”

That was in May. The “no-show” Millcreek Canyon showdown happened in August, when some activists were already talking about recruiting a candidate to oppose Matheson, says “die-in” organizer Stephanie Bailey- Hatfield.

It happened again later in the year. In November, Lafon, a regional coordinator for MoveOn.org, organized a meeting at Matheson’s South Salt Lake office to discuss Matheson’s “no” vote on health-care reform. “They knew we were coming,” Lafon says. “It was 4:30 in the afternoon and what [Matheson’s staff] decided to do was back out the back door, turn out the lights and lock the door.”

People Power
The next day, DeChristopher anonymously posted a want ad on Craigslist seeking a progressive candidate with “a strong commitment to defending fundamental human rights over corporate profits.” The ad listed qualifications for Congress and the annual wage of $174,000. Links to the ad floated around Facebook and Twitter, although most interpreted it as a joke. “[The ad] was put up there partly out of frustration,” DeChristopher says. Lafon adds, “This was after we tried to get as many people as we could to run against Rep. Matheson.”

Not everyone thought it was a joke. Potentially viable candidates responded to the ad, including two University of Utah professors. About that time, a loose collection of about 10 progressive activists began organizing what would become the Citizens’ Candidate organization.

The next step was for the organization to choose a candidate. Their aim was to involve as many people as possible, so they asked every applicant to submit a 300-word statement of candidacy. “If people were with it enough to send that back to us, then we took a closer look at them,” says Ashley Anderson. The group then conducted a “speed-vetting” process where they whittled the field down to five finalists.

DeChristopher hit the phones, rounding up longtime progressive activists to help in choosing a candidate. It wasn’t hard to recruit them. “I don’t think I ever finished the pitch for anyone. Pretty much I would be midway through my first sentence, and people would say, ‘Yes, whatever it is, if it’s an effort to take out Jim Matheson, I’m in.’ ” The panelists included Brian Moench, a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists and founder of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment; Utah Coalition of La Raza president Archie Archuleta; and others. Equality Utah´s executive director Brandie Balken also participated but not as a representative of her organization, which doesn’t work on federal races.

On Jan. 30, the panelists and members of the public interviewed the finalists at the Salt Lake City Main Library. Around 100 people attended. Each resident of the 2nd District was allowed to vote in an instant-runoff election. The voters chose University of Utah professor of pathology John Weis, who argued Congress needs more scientists and engineers. Weis dropped out days later, stating he hadn’t expected to win and hadn’t adequately anticipated the time commitments.

Citizens' Candidate Claudia Wright

“If you want a citizen-based government and democracy, this is how you do it,” Wright says of the Citizens’ Candidate model. “If you want a plutocracy that is run by corporate interests, [contemporary party politics] is how you do it. Choose. Because that’s really what it’s going to come down to. … I think we are dominated by special interests and lobbyists, and that’s exactly what I’m calling Matheson out on.”

Wright is a strong supporter of single-payer universal health care, marriage equality for same-sex couples, a carbon tax and public financing of all elections. She says Matheson is a servant to his corporate donors who cares too much about being re-elected and not enough about progressive policies.

The Citizens’ Candidate activists serve as Wright’s energetic and unpaid campaign staff, now numbering almost 20 committed people. Ashley Anderson says, “We have more people offering to help than we know what to tell them to do.” There is plenty to do, however, and most of the Citizens’ Candidate activists are new to party politics, precincts, conventions and the like. “A lot of us don’t know what we’re doing,” Ashley Anderson says. “We’ve been seeking advice from a lot of people.”

The effort may be gaining momentum in political circles. Lafon says progressive heavyweight MoveOn. org—which Lafon says counts 23,000 members in Utah, including 14,000 in the 2nd District—have not officially endorsed or funded Citizens’ Candidate, but he’s hoping they will sign on. MoveOn has criticized Matheson in the past, running a radio-ad campaign during 2009 urging residents to call Matheson and ask him to change his stance on health-care reform.

Party Planning
Wright has the tactical instincts necessary to make Matheson anxious at convention—if anyone can. She heard from party insiders, for example, that San Juan County has never organized a mass meeting to elect delegates to the Democratic Party Convention. If she can round up just a handful of supporters in the county to host such a meeting, those votes could be a gimme. She knows it’s an uphill battle, though, and talks about matching tough strategy with passion.

What Wright doesn’t have, however, is much time, and it’ll take her roughly six hours by car just to cross into San Juan County lines from her home in Salt Lake City. Some political watchers say there just isn’t enough time left before the March caucus meetings to get anything out of the May Democratic Convention besides a speech, the party equivalent of a green participation ribbon.

Rocky Anderson, Matheson’s most prominent critic, supports the Citizens’ Candidate initiative “as a nice way to bring attention” to Matheson’s shortcomings but believes Wright should be running as an independent or a third-party candidate. His goal is to remove Matheson, whatever it takes. He thinks Wright and her inexperienced campaign volunteers have no chance of surviving the convention. The Citizens’ Candidate movement could have more impact, he says, by creating a spoiler effect that might force Matheson to move left to ensure he doesn’t lose too many progressive votes.

Republican Candidate Morgan Philpot

There are currently two declared Republican candidates for the party’s nomination to challenge Matheson: American Fork resident Morgan Philpot (left) and Neil Walter of St. George. Philpot, the former state party vice chair who served in the Legislature between 2000 and 2004, was skeptical that he’d correctly heard that the Citizens’ Candidate group was working inside the Democratic Party. “Is it true they’re running at the Democratic Convention?” asked the small-government, low-taxes, states-rights Republican. “Who talked them into that? They’re going to be led surely and quietly to their grave in this election by doing that. It doesn’t really help me because I know exactly where they’re going to be taken in the Democratic Party Convention: They’re going to be shown the door.”

Former Congressman Cook agrees that Utah Democrats might prefer Wright, but he says pragmatism will take over at convention. “The heart of the Democratic Party will probably be where [Wright] is, and yet the leadership and unions and people that provide the money and the establishment part of the Democratic Party will be holding tight to Matheson, I can assure you of that.”

Wright bristles at suggestions that her campaign will be squashed six months before the general election vote, or that an independent candidacy may be more effective. “I’m not going to run a write-in campaign; I’m not going to be an independent. … Democrats are a rare breed enough in this state. We do not need to kill off each other.”

She argues that the best way to neutralize Matheson’s corporate sponsors and strengthen the Democratic Party is to work precinct-by-precinct to grab delegates. “[The Citizens’ Candidate campaign] is only unrealistic to the political pundit who’s only done it one way. … In my voting district, usually when I go to the mass meeting there are seven to nine [party members], which makes five the majority. It only takes five of you to make a delegate in a lot of places in this city.”

She has until March 23 to convince voters to attend Democratic Party caucus meetings and become delegates pledged to her campaign.

Polished Pig
It’s not just Matheson’s 2009 votes on the Waxman- Markey climate-change bill and health-care reform that irk progressives. “Over the years, I keep saying, ‘This is the worst I’ve seen from him,’ and then it doesn’t take long before something else equally bad, if not worse, comes out of Jim Matheson,” says Rocky Anderson. The founder of High Road for Human Rights—who says he hopes to never run for Congress again—has a long list of Matheson votes and positions he finds deplorable.

Matheson voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. He voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act, a law the denied the right of habeas corpus to U.S. detainees. He voted in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which union activists complain sends American jobs to countries where workers are more easily exploited.

Matheson broke with his party and voted in favor of a $1.3 trillion Bush tax cut in 2001. Those tax cuts cost $400 billion more than the House health-care reform bill that Matheson voted against, citing a lack of reform measures that would curb costs. “I think putting 30 million additional people into a program that’s going to crash off a financial cliff is not responsible legislating,” Matheson said Feb. 12 on KCPW’s Politics Up Close. Matheson’s staff declined multiple requests from City Weekly to make him available for an interview.

Matheson has also had to dodge complaints since entering Congress that he won’t co-sponsor America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, which would provide wilderness designation to 9.4 million acres of public lands. The bill has 22 co-sponsors in the Senate and 157 in the House, but Matheson isn’t one of them. At an Oct. 1 subcommittee hearing on the bill, he complained that the 20-year-old proposal has not been collaborative enough or inclusive of all stakeholders.

And that’s just his voting record. During summer 2009’s contentious health-care debates, he held no town hall meetings where constituents could face him.

“Matheson won’t even hold public meetings with his constituents. It’s all done in conference call where they can simply, you know, go through and delete the people they don’t want to talk to. I’m not interested in that,” Wright says. “He knows he’s really ticked off his constituency. He knows people are really upset over this health-care thing, and he doesn’t want to deal with them in person.”

Philpot, who also ran for the seat in 2000 but lost in convention, was at a loss to list any policy positions of his that might appeal to Matheson’s Democratic detractors, but he promised to hold public meetings and to be accessible to all. “Here’s the difference. I won’t use them. They’re being used. They’re being asked to step up to the plate and vote for somebody they don’t like simply because they’re being told that if they don’t, they’re going to get something worse. That’s B.S.,” Philpot says. “They need to know that their representative, even if he’s not going to agree with them, is going to listen to them and be honest with them, and they don’t have that right now. They have somebody who’s playing them for the fool. That’s not fair.”

Democrats outside Salt Lake County, such as Carbon County Democratic Party Chair Ed Chavez, aren’t relegated to conference-call-only access. “Every time he comes to Carbon County, I’m able to meet face-to-face with him,” Chavez says. Matheson’s vote on health care was controversial in Chavez’s part of the state, he says, but the climate-change bill in coal-mining Carbon County? “Nobody’s talking about that down here.”

While Matheson remains popular with rural Democrats like Chavez—a January 2009 poll showed an astounding approval rating of 87 percent—those who oppose him do so with zeal.

“He’s worse than a Republican,” DeChristopher says. “The only thing worse than a wolf is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Some complain Matheson has a neutering effect on the state Democratic Party, which itself is often criticized by progressives for acquiescing to the Republican legislative agenda without adequate blood spilled or tears shed in fighting it.

Former state Democratic Party communications director Jeff Bell, now the host of Left of the Dial on KSL Radio and blogger on JMBell.org, says Matheson does have a moderating—and self-censoring—effect on state Democrats. “With Matheson being the highest-on-the-ticket elected Democrat in the state, he has a lot more influence when he or his people talk to the state party and say, ‘We want you to say this, do this, behave this way.’ … The reason is very simple. Jim can, especially when you look at his poll ratings and ever-increasing margins of victory, do a lot of good endorsing down-ticket candidates.”

Practically Perfect

Jim Matheson

For all the acrimony, many remain perfectly satisfied with Matheson, a Democrat in Utah who in recent years has been ranked more popular than anyone besides former Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. And while some complain that Matheson has defanged Democratic legislators who benefit from his continued success, others credit him with making the party more successful.

“We’re having more success in areas where Jim is above those candidates on the ballot. There’s no doubt about it that he has an effect,” Utah Democratic Party Chair Wayne Holland says. “Four [state Legislature] seats we took from Republicans [were] all in the 2nd District [since Matheson took office], and in one we held with a freshman against a viable Republican.”

Holland is a pragmatist. He self-identifies as a progressive, says he was in favor of health-care reform, but trusts Matheson’s judgment. While some complain that Matheson is a poll-watching politician without principles, Holland credits him for representing the will of his constituents. “The House of Representatives was designed to be close to the people,” he says.

Matheson’s opponents aren’t fairly assessing his voting record, Holland says. The party chair points to numerous legislative vote scorecards that distinguish Matheson as decidedly more liberal than his Republican counterparts, Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, who represent the 1st and 3rd Congressional districts in Utah, respectively.

That’s true. Scorecards from the American Civil Liberties Union; League of Conservation Voters; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (pdf); Christian Coalition; and Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law all reveal that Matheson is more liberal than Bishop or Chaffetz. Sure, Matheson voted to ban gay marriage in the U.S. Constitution, but he ticked off the Christian Coalition by voting to extend hate-crimes protection to gay and transgender Americans. Can you imagine a Utah Republican doing that?

Holland is also a strategist. He says liberals willing to purge Matheson over his vote on health care and climate change should consider whether those issues would even be debated in Congress if not for moderates like Matheson. “Health care wouldn’t even be an issue. There would be no votes if Democrats weren’t in control of the House and Senate. We have to have those [moderate] members in the caucuses in both houses that can be elected in states that are not like Massachusetts and California.”

He downplays the significance of the Citizens’ Candidate, saying both major parties have internal groups pushing for party purity. He accepts the Citizens’ Candidate group within the Democratic Party with the same warm embrace he gives to Matheson: “The party has to be a broad-based organization that can attract individuals to run as candidates and protect our incumbent.”

And while he would make no prediction about Wright’s chances at the Democratic Party convention, he says, “You don’t see Jim Matheson being challenged by people of stature the way [Utah Sen.] Bob Bennett is and that says to me the majority of our party understands we have to be pragmatic.”

Whose side are you on?

When a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

Do you believe that the United States government takes better care of corporations, or human beings?

I don’t know anyone who believes the United States government takes better care of human beings than it does corporations.

Do you believe that your vote counts as much as the votes of owners of transnational oil and gas corporations? Do you believe your vote counts as much as the money of owners of transnational oil and gas corporations?

The United States government is not a democracy. It is a plutocracy: government by, for, and of the wealthy.

It is a kleptocracy: government by, for, and of thieves. These thieves, these extremely wealthy thieves, these thieves who own corporations and the thieves who serve them in the U.S. government, steal communities, and they destroy the land. When they destroy the land, they steal not only the present but the future.

The purpose of a corporation is to amass wealth. That is its function. The function is not to protect communities, not to promote democracy, not to promote the health of the land. Corporations have no morals, and those who run them do not scruple at destroying life on this planet. Indeed, that is precisely what they are doing.

If aliens from outer space came to this planet and did the harm that oil and gas corporations are doing, we would stop them using any means necessary. If aliens from outer space were making it so there were carcinogens in every mother’s breast milk, we would stop them. If they were putting in oil and gas wells all over the planet, we would stop them. If they were changing the climate, we would stop them. If they were destroying landbase after landbase, we would stop them. And if they set up governments to “legalize” their sociopathological behavior, we would stop them.

When a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

When a government and corporations work together to destroy life on earth, it is the responsibility of the people to stop this using any means necessary.

In a sane culture, Tim DeChristopher would not be facing trial. He would be seen as the hero that he is. And the corporate executives who destroy landbases as surely as they destroy democracy would be on trial. And the federal land managers who put out illegal oil and gas leases, leases which violate law after law after law, would be on trial. And the police who arrest those who protest against these illegal gas leases would be on trial (do these individual police officers realize they are lending their talents to the destruction of the land and of democracy? They are to protect and to serve, but do they realize they are protecting and serving not the people, not their communities, but instead sociopathological corporations and the politicians who serve those corporations?).

Never forget that the atrocities committed by the Nazis were under their own laws legal. The Nazi government passed laws allowing them to legally commit atrocities. And they arrested those who opposed those laws. Never forget that the atrocities committed in apartheid South Africa were under their own laws legal. The South African government passed laws allowing them to legally commit atrocities. And they arrested those who opposed those laws. Never forget that the atrocities committed in Stalinist Soviet Union were legal. The Soviets put on show trials for many of those condemned under these laws. And the police arrested those who opposed these laws.

In all of these cases, including the current one, the question becomes, whose side are you on?

In the current case, Tim DeChristopher is on the side of communities, on the side of the land, on the side of democratic decision-making processes. He is standing against atrocities, and against a sociopathological kleptocracy.

Whose side are you on?

I’m on Tim DeChristopher’s side.

Never forget, when a government becomes destructive of life, community, and democracy, it is the responsibility of the people to alter or abolish it. If you do not, that government will destroy life, community, and democracy. As we see.

It is time we fulfilled our responsibility. The corporations would like us to believe that we can’t fight them. Timothy DeChristopher has single-handedly proved them wrong. Whether he is successful now depends on the broader environmental movement. Will we let Timothy’s act stand alone, as a symbolic protest that got a moment of press and then faded? Or will we join him in protecting the last scraps of wilderness, the final, fragile shreds of our planet? Will we let corporate power turn mountains into rubble and deserts into sludge? Or will we do what it takes to stop them? We have weapons, from protests and lawsuits to the time-honored American tradition of civil disobedience to the serious tactics that resistance movements have always used. Whatever weapons you choose, use them wisely and use them well, but use them.

With permission from the authors:

- Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith ❧

Of all the “green” films at Sundance, the most important film for the climate movement was the one that exposed what the greens lack: “Freedom Riders.”

In my eyes, “Freedom Riders” represents everything that the climate movement is missing: commitment, sacrifice, boldness and confrontation.  The facts of this film blow away a lot of the conventional wisdom that is holding our movement back from realizing its true potential.  This is a film that the entire climate movement needs to see.  There were more lessons in this film than I could process in one sitting, but here are some thoughts.

Motivation. We are always told that people need to feel personally threatened by the climate crisis in order to act. Some of the key figures in “Freedom Riders” were white students in Tennessee who were not threatened in any way by the status quo; yet they made a bold commitment to ride into certain danger in the deep South.  They dropped out of school during finals, and literally signed their last wills and testaments before they left.

Nonviolence. The film clarified a difference between nonviolence and avoidance of violence.  The Freedom Riders, who were committed to nonviolence, were also clearly and intentionally inciting violence against themselves. This they saw as necessary in order to escalate the situation to a point where it could no longer be ignored.

Politics. There were a lot of unintentional correlations between Obama and the Kennedys, who really didn’t want to have to deal with civil rights.  The activists involved knew they had to create enough social upheaval that Kennedy had to pick sides, which was a huge political risk.  Nothing about the political situation favored the Freedom Riders.

Sacrifice. This really puts our movement in perspective.  There is not one of us in this movement who have committed anything close to the level of sacrifice that the Freedom Riders did.

Numbers. The Freedom Riders were vastly outnumbered everywhere they went, even when they rallied the whole movement in Birmingham.  At the peak there were a few hundred Riders, but they achieved major national legal changes that ended formal segregation against immense political opposition. Their strength was never in numbers, but in their willingness to sacrifice. We have more than enough people in our movement to force the change we seek. A small group willing to throw themselves into the gears of the machine really can stop the machine.

These lessons are invaluable to our movement right now.  The most common question among climate activists since Copenhagen has been, “Where do we go from here?”  We know that what we have been doing hasn’t worked.  I suggest we learn from the social movements of the past and try something new for us and old for America: sacrifice, confrontation, boldness.

Urgent Update:

Tim’s Trial has been delayed for the fourth time: the new date is December 13. If you would like to receive the most up-to-date information, you can sign up for our Climate Trial Email Updates

Last year, University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher disrupted an oil and gas land auction in order to allay further climate change. Now he faces trial and ten years in prison. You can read more about it in this article from the New York Times.

It’s time for us to descend on Salt Lake and tell the world:

“Put the polluters on trial, not the planet!”

• Dr. James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, and who is regarded as the world’s leading climatologist
• Naomi Klein, author of #1 international bestseller The Shock Doctrine
• Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of The End Of Nature and Eaarth
• Robert Redford, actor, director, environmental activist, and founder of The Sundance Institute
• Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Open Space of Democracy

Dr. James Hansen

Naomi Klein

Bill McKibben

Robert Redford

Terry Tempest Williams