by DGR News Service | Jul 22, 2019 | Repression at Home, The Solution: Resistance
Here at Deep Green Resistance, we are an “aboveground” organization with a firewall between us and underground action. That means that our primary work is legal (although this varies depending on national laws). Our members also take part in non-violent direct action of the sort common among aboveground movements.
This is in contrast with “underground” organizations that conduct clandestine, highly illegal activities. We advocate for this, as we think coordinated underground action is the best chance for saving the planet.
We do not plan or carry out underground actions. We do not even know about these activities, except when public communiques (see our underground action calendar for examples) are made. Our role is to be the public organization advocating for and explaining these actions.
The Firewall
We call this separation the firewall between aboveground and underground activities. Maintaining a firewall is essential for security and effectiveness.
Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party (an aboveground organization) and the Black Liberation Army (an underground organization). She was active in the early 1970s and was eventually arrested. She escaped prison in 1979 and went on the run, eventually reaching Cuba. In 1987 she published the excellent book Assata: An Autobiography, which contains the following quote on the importance of a firewall.
“One of the [Black Panther] party’s major weaknesses was the failure to clearly differentiate between aboveground political struggle and underground, clandestine military struggle. An aboveground political organization can’t wage guerilla war anymore than an underground army can do aboveground political work. Although the two must work together, the must have completely different structures.”
More information on the importance of a firewall and security culture can be found in the Deep Green Resistance book, available here. We will end with a quote from the DGR book.
There has to be a partition, a firewall, between aboveground and underground activities. Some historical aboveground groups have tried to sit on the fence and carry out illegal activities without full separation. Such groups worked in places or times with far less pervasive surveillance than any modern society. Their attempts to combine aboveground and underground characteristics sometimes resulted in their destruction, and severe consequences for their members.
In order to be as safe and effective as possible, every person in a resistance movement must decide for her- or himself whether to be aboveground or underground. It is essential that this decision be made; to attempt to straddle the line is unsafe for everyone.
by DGR News Service | Jun 29, 2019 | Obstruction & Occupation, Property & Material Destruction, Repression at Home, Worker Exploitation
By Black Ouioui, a French DGR sympathizer / Image: Norbu Gyachung, CC BY 4.0
The yellow vests movement has been struggling for six month now. Half a year. This is a record-breaking movement in France by its length. Commentators no longer refer to the May 1968 movement, but go back to several democratic protests that occurred during the 19th century. This movement is interesting for the ecological resistance, first because it gives an insight of what future social instability or chaos might look, like in phase 3 of the decisive ecological warfare (DEW), due to the grow of inequalities and ecological disruptions. It is also very interesting in a tactical point of view, because that kind of future mass movement could constitute strong levers (as only few people are part of the radical movement) to help the resistance, in an opportunistic way, to harry and destabilize civilization, with the unintentional help from people who are little concerned by ecological issues. The simplistic and anthropocentric yellow vests saying “end of the world, end of the month, same struggle” designed in order to reply to the unfair pseudo-ecological taxes, could, not for the reason they primarily think, have unexpected ecological benefits by disrupting the techno-industrial system. Then, the question to us is how can we support and strengthen these movements whenever they spontaneously emerge in order to achieve these benefits.
The yellow vests movement started in October 2017 on social networks with a great fed up against the president Emmanuel Macron’s policies. His policies are mainly in favor of the riches and the big companies, doing them one fiscal gifts after another, while the country middle class is becoming poorer and poorer. The movement was specifically triggered by the increase of the fuel tax, the hardening of mandatory vehicle safety inspections (with the unsaid goal, behind security and ecological arguments, to stimulate the growth of the cars sales) and the reduction of the speed limit from 90 to 80 km/h. The increase of this tax was part of a pack of so-called ecological measures of the “extreme centrist” and liberal government of Emmanuel Macron. The minister of ecology Nicolas Hulot, known for being anything but a radical ecologist, resigned a few weeks earlier in August 2018, denouncing his own powerlessness in this government and the impossibility for him to implement the ecological measures he aimed at. This man, quite popular in France, was only a store front for the government. Actually, the current trend in liberal politics is to make poor classes bear the weight of the pseudo-ecological transition, via guilt, individual change and taxes rather than global systemic changes, industry restriction and fair laws, that would, for instance, tax the airplanes fuel, which is « duty free » for the airlines, at the same level than people pay for everyday fuel.
In October-November 2018, people started to put a yellow vest on their car dashboard (a few years ago, it became mandatory to keep one in every car for security reasons), in order to show their disagreement with Macron. This was a huge success, with a majority of cars on the road displaying it. Then, it took the form, since the 17th November 2018, of huge protests every Saturday, not only in Paris but also all across the country. Other actions are also conducted during the week, including the permanent occupation of hundreds of traffic circles. It managed to cause millions of losses to businesses like supermarkets, multinationals, and, among others, luxury shops on the Champs Elysées.
The movement was first watched suspiciously by a part of the left-wing for several reasons, but mainly because they believed the mainstream media’s speech. First, it looked anti-ecological and formed of “rednecks”, many said. Cars, as everyone acknowledge now, are part of the ecological problem, and the movement started as a popular protest against the fuel tax (coined pejoratively by some as a « Jaquerie », a term that refer in France to Middle Age protests against taxes). Also, as a popular mass movement, very diverse political tendencies were represented. Nationalism and sovereignty, as cross-political tendencies (from left- and right-wing both), are quite common in the movement. The national flag, seldom used by the left (except by Jean-Luc Mélenchon who tried to bring it back into fashion to prevent from the extreme-right monopolizing it), is often present in the occupied places or during the protests. This made many think that the movement was led by extreme right-wing people, but later this turned out to be wrong. Along the same lines, the presence of racists and anti-Semitics have been over-emphasized since the beginning by the media in order to discredit the movement.
Actually, mostly, those taking part to the demonstrations were new to politics and militancy, and never formerly campaigned. Like vomiting, it was natural to them, everywhere in the country, to reject as a whole the current political system, all parties included, that was cooking them on a low heat. It was visceral. This led them to banish all party banners or distinctions. Many of these people are anarchists without even knowing it. All actions, blockading, occupations and protests are self-organized, principle deeply rooted into the movement.
Consistently, no official authorization requests, with some official leader that would be responsible for the protest, were sent to the administration, which is decreed by law in France. This is a natural consequence of the fact that the movement was spontaneously born on social networks, rejects the government rules of the game and is almost totally horizontal. People are very mistrustful to any representative, who could negotiate and betray his fellows by compromising with the authorities. Some people in the movement have more influence than other, but either they refuse to become representative of the others, because they don’t feel legitimate, either when they try to, they are immediately rejected by the majority of the others.
The movement also came quickly, due to police clampdown, to a high level of violence, with bloody police confrontations and devastated urban areas. The violence levels culminated the Saturday 6th of December 2018, when the people came in front of the Elysée, with a helicopter ready to extract Macron if by chance they succeeded to enter the palace (at this time a lot of people were burning or guillotining life-size Macron dolls across the country), and more recently the Saturday 23th March and the May Day 2019 with new hardcore clashes in Paris. A funny Saturday was, at the beginning of January, when people used a pallet truck to smash open the front door of the ministry of the government spokesperson Benjamin Grivaux.
Since the beginning, the only political answers to the movement are denial and frightening post-truth answers, which challenge the understanding of anyone with a minimum of intellectual honesty. The police clampdown worsens every week. Now, the yellow vests not only risk to loose a hand or an eye because of riot guns and grenades (with thousands of injured people, some of which victims of war wounds say the hospital staffs), but also risk suffocation. By their unheard amount, concentration and composition, the chemical weapons the police now use can no longer by called “tear gazes”. The gazes that are being used since the 13th of April cause suffocation, burns, non-stop vomiting, consciousness loss. Many kids or elders passing by are also hit.
All these things are quite new to French leftists, and far from the usual, almost traditional, protests the militants are used to, like trade-union-like ones or Occupy-Indignados-like ones. It is uneasy to protest side-by-side with persons that are sometimes politically or socially far from us. For these different reasons, unsurprisingly, the trade unions are very reluctant and, until very recently, seldom called to protest with the yellow vests or, at least, to a supporting strike.
Moreover, except the black bloc, this level of violence is completely unusual to most pacifist leftists and syndicalists, whose order service usually get along with police forces to supervise the protests (and, as I saw in December 2018, sometime block the tail of the procession to let free rein to the police for repressing the yellow vests that are at the front!). The trade-unions called to protest for May Day, but Philippe Martinez, the president of the CGT, had to sneak out because he was scared by the violence of the police clampdown!
Since the beginning of the movement, I finally observe the idea that pacific protests are ineffective gradually spreading in circles that I knew to be pacifists, with a higher violence level tolerance than before. The yellow vest sum it up in the saying: “no breakers, no 20h” (20h refers to the evening news in France). This shift is perceptible in a growing part of the population, despite the unanimous condemnation of violence in the media by the whole Paris intelligentsia (which is very annoyed by the Saturday chaos in its streets), main-stream personalities, journalists, and politics.
Happily, the few extreme right-wing people who took part to the first demonstrations either gradually stopped to mobilize or gradually tempered their opinions by an osmosis phenomenon that, fortunately, occurred in the company of people from other political sides. Very unlikely, according to the caricature the media tried to picture them, within a few weeks, the movement resulted in people to unite in favor of social justice, whatever their political background was, and for the introduction of direct democracy measures in the constitution like the unanimously claimed Citizens’ Initiative Referendum (RIC). Their first 42 claims of the beginning of December were enlightening. Weeks passing, as the goals of the movement got more clearly defined, left-wing militant started to join the popular movement. Interestingly, even if most of their claims are social justice ones, they still often refuse to be politically labeled as left-wing, in order to exclude nobody. The no banner principle is still strictly applied (except for the yellow ones, and the anarchist ones maybe).
The time many leftists and ecologists took to enter in motion (for those that did it) is at the same time wise, and an error. Of course, waiting and observing, when we face an uncertain situation, is wise. But this is also a strategic error, because timing is strategic. And I am the first to recognize my error. Opportunities do not necessarily occur twice. The repression arsenal of the power grows weekly bigger and bigger. Drones, new authoritarian laws, semi-lethal weapons, more powerful chemical weapons (forbidden by the Geneva convention, and used against our own population, what a joke!), urban tanks, chemical marking of the demonstrators with synthetic DNA in the water canon, automatic face recognition with AI, psychological techniques for terror, censorship and targeted arrests in collaboration with Facebook…
This is also an error because we let the others do the toughest job, in the darkest of the winter. And finally because when you miss the departure, it is difficult to catch-up the train. It would be a shame that the French left miss the revolution they have been expecting for ages, isn’t it?
I noticed something of interest for us, that was little commented (but fact-checked) among the huge feed of daily news. Among all the arbitrary arrests, the government targeted and sued ordinary people (who sometime got months of jail) who, in Facebook comments, naively encouraged or called to block refineries and (for a retired man) to blow them up if the government didn’t give in the people’s claims. This means the government is very afraid of that kind of blockage, which can paralyze the country within a few day. It can be quite fast, as we have only a few refineries in France.
About this, the government did a master stroke in Novembre 2018 just after the first protest. They postpone their new tax on heavy trucks to avoid the truck drivers to join the yellow vests. Indeed, the drivers know how much the country depends on them, and know how to block easily all the country’s large retailers and fuel supplies. Their protests are usually very efficient and listened to by the power.
Radical ecologist could strengthen movements like the yellow vests and use them as levers. If they do not directly serve the ecological movement, on one hand they serve social justice, with is always desirable, and on the other hand, they also destabilize the techno-industrial system by blocking supermarkets, breaking multinationals front stores, cutting roads and borders, or blocking oil refineries. In December 2018, the French power was surprised and destabilized by the breadth and the strength of this movement, and this is the kind of weakness we are looking for to generalize in the future.
While gentle ecologists pacifically parade in useless climate walks, at the same time, yellow vests are having violent assaults with the police in other areas of the city, breaking bones, loosing eyes, hands, and for some of them, dying. As radicalists, given the choice, we should know were the battle takes place and not to be late.
This is of course a brief and incomplete account of the yellow vest movement, whose forms are very diverse and shape-shifting.
by DGR News Service | Jun 14, 2019 | Strategy & Analysis
Editor’s Note: Revolutionaries must study each revolutionary tradition and learn from it. We don’t believe that PPW is a “magic bullet” for current pre-revolutionary conditions, but it is worth studying.
By JP
Protracted People’s War (PPW) is a military theory developed by Mao Zedong during the Chinese Civil War and the war against the Japanese in China. What Mao puts forward is that a guerrilla movement must be able to maintain the support of the people for long enough to wage a long war against an enemy, hence protracted. Mao said also that by moving into the countryside, the people’s army could stretch the supply-lines of the enemy thin and break their will to fight. This is a very broad definition and we will go into a more detailed one later on. PPW has moved beyond being a military theory for a revolution in China since Mao conceived of it. It’s principles have been used in numerous countries from Vietnam and Cuba to India and the Philippines today. It has also become a fundamental tenet of the modern ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism which proclaims its universality. There are also those who decry it as a theory solely for the conditions of China. Both of these claims are right and wrong in their own ways as they are both ideological arguments. They both ignore critical analysis of military theory and material conditions. One must remember that war is complex and different, especially in the context of revolutionary warfare. All military theories need to be analysed and adapted to material conditions or they cease to be effective. Warfare develops as fast as technology does and that sometimes makes it difficult to study. Keep this in mind.
What is Protracted People’s War?
As stated earlier, protracted people’s war is a theory of revolutionary warfare centred on the building up of popular support for a long and drawn out war against an enemy. It is, like most Marxist military theories, rooted in politics. That does not detract from it, however. In fact, it makes it a smarter theory in that it accounts for such things. Mao divided the protracted war into three basic stages:
- The Strategic Defensive
- The Strategic Stalemate
- The Strategic Offensive
During the strategic defensive, the army will go into the countryside with difficult terrain and establish revolutionary base areas. From these base areas, the army will carry out attacks on the enemy through guerilla means. This mostly includes attacking patrols, crippling supply lines, and destroying key military infrastructure. During this period the army also begins to gain strength from in and around the revolutionary base areas. Once enough strength is gained, the second stage can begin. In the strategic stalemate, the army begins to spread from its initial bases and establishes new ones. The army also begins to strategically engage the enemy in more conventional warfare. The assumption is that by this time the army is strong enough, and the enemy is weak enough to begin strategic confrontation on a larger scale. During this, the army gains a sizeable amount of territory but, the enemy does not lose much of value, hence a stalemate. Following another period of building strength, the army enters the third and final stage of the war; the strategic offensive. This is when the army goes into high gear against a weak and tired enemy. It first drives them out of the countryside and encircles the cities. From there is routs them and takes major population centres. It then proceeds to defeat the enemy obliterating the will of the enemy or destroying them. From there is victory for the army.
While it can be easy to describe this process in a relatively condensed manner, PPW is anything but short. It is a long and ruthless conflict. The amount of time an army spends in any of the stages depends on the conditions and ability of the army. Mao was aware of this and in his work “On Protracted War” (1938), gives a summation of the nature of protracted war:
“It is thus obvious that the war is protracted and consequently ruthless in nature. The enemy will not be able to gobble up the whole of China but will be able to occupy many places for a considerable time. China will not be able to oust the Japanese quickly, but the greater part of her territory will remain in her hands. Ultimately the enemy will lose and we will win, but we shall have a hard stretch of road to travel”.
PPW is a long-term affair and Mao developed many theories as to how each stage would be carried out, specific tactical objectives for each stage, and the discipline of the army as a whole. What ties these all together is the role of politics. PPW is not just a war against an enemy, but also a war for the hearts and spirits of the people. One of the key goals of the army in PPW is establishing a democratic order in the areas it occupies. In China, this was done via land reform and the establishment of peasant councils in the countryside. Political education is also a must of the army (PPW assumes the army has a political force behind it). Political education in the Chinese context was the promoting of Marxism-Leninism and anti-reactionary views among the Chinese people. Mao also was working with a united front against the Japanese and accounted for the politics of that situation into his theory. He maintained that only through the united front of anti-reactionary groups could the war succeed in its final victory. This was important because the main base that PPW relies on is popular support. Such a long conflict and process can only succeed if the people are on board and are able to unite. This is not just true of the army but of the nation as well. The people must be willing to live through struggle and destruction in order to obtain victory. In Mao’s case, he was right. The Chinese people persevered and won their victory; both against the Japanese and the Kuomintang. It was from this victory that people across the world would take inspiration.
PPW would be taken by others across the world and used to wage revolutionary conflicts. Although, none of them would be exactly the same; all would be similar situations. Vietnam and Cuba both took aspects of PPW but morphed them with more conventional tactics. For Vietnam specifically, Vo Nguyen Giap wrote a book titled “People’s Army, People’s War” which outlines much of the strategy used by the Viet Minh and Viet Cong. In Cuba aspects of PPW were fused with Foco Theory by Che Guevara. More Maoist oriented people’s wars would be carried out by guerrillas in Nepal, India, Peru, Turkey, and the Philippines. Of these Maoist-based PPWs, only Nepal was a complete success with the establishment of democracy in Nepal. The Shining Path in Peru failed due to their reliance on and cult of personality surrounding Abimael Guzman (Presidente Gonzalo). The failures of many people’s wars are due mainly to mistakes within guerrilla organisations and the will of the enemy to crush them. However, in India, Turkey, and the Philippines the conflicts are still ongoing so, it would be unfair to judge them. In all three of these, the groups have been progressive forces for revolutionary change against reactionary governments. The NPA in the Philippines is especially successful and constantly gaining support.
On the Universality of Protracted People’s War
One of the central tenets of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the universality of PPW, claiming that it can be applied everywhere and be successful. This claim is ideological and not driven by concrete analysis of material conditions or military theory in general. In military theory and Marxism in general, there is no universal plan that works 100% of the time. There are things that will probably work most of the time depending on the conditions. This is true of most methods. PPW works in places dominated by a non-urban population with military infrastructure based within population centres with minor bases outside of them to maintain a presence. In China and most places back in the 20th Century, this worked because that was how militaries operated. Today one would be hard pressed to find a military that operated in this way, even outside of the imperialist centres in the Third World. That is because governments have developed around the threat of insurgencies and accommodated themselves to them or in the case of countries like the United States, the military never operated that way.
While the argument can be made that PPW could work successfully in the Third World is legitimate (for now), the argument of complete universality falls apart when one looks at the United States or any other Western country. The United States runs the largest military in the world in terms of budget. This has led to a completely monstrous military with a large international presence. The US military is also political in that most soldiers are devoted volunteers, different from the forced conscripts of Chiang Kai-shek. Other aspects such as level of training and experience also do not look good when applying PPW to the United States. The one primary problem, however, is the way the military operates domestically. US military bases are everywhere in almost every state and region of the country. The only place they are not is where there are no people. Needless to say, the United States does not look ideal for the establishment of revolutionary base areas. One other key issue is that of technology. Modern armies are technologically equipped almost to the point where soldiers are not always necessary. Drones, missiles, aircraft, and explosives make modern warfare different from the warfare of the past century. Unless a people’s army could adapt to or obtain that technology, it is almost impossible to win.
Now those who support the argument of the complete universality of PPW have many responses to the situation of modern warfare. One of the most prevalent is the idea that the revolution will not start in the imperialist centres and that the effects of revolutions in the Third World on the economies of Western countries will weaken them, making revolution and PPW possible. This argument assumes too much and is too dependent on the success of Third World revolutions. Also, revolutionaries in the Third World would not just be fighting one enemy but, a multitude of enemies if there were any possibility of success. The US empire is global and can move on any threat to its hegemony or economic situation. While the best hope is in the Third World, one must not be so arrogant and confident in that all hopes lead to success. Another thing people often try to do is change PPW to fit modern conditions without actually doing a material analysis. One proposed change for PPW in the West is for it to stem from cities. This still suffers the same difficulties as regular PPW in that the army would still be subject to the same problems, just in a city. Cities are also easy to close off and prevent movement from if need be. This threatens the need for mobility in a guerrilla war. Not that urban guerrilla warfare cannot work, look at the IRA, but, urban PPW seems farfetched.
Finally, the largest argument often made in support of the complete universality of PPW is that if the people’s army maintains popular support, it cannot be defeated. This is correct depending on what they mean by never be defeated. Ideas and causes, such as that of the workers, can never be defeated by brute force. Armies can be defeated by brute force. An army can be completely routed and obliterated as long as their enemy has the will and the ability to do so. This strikes at the main problem with PPW; it assumes it cannot lose. It assumes that an army will always be unable to cope with the effects of guerrilla warfare. This is simply not true, especially today. People’s wars worked because of the enemy’s inability to cope with the conditions. The army made it so the enemy could not adapt easily and with the level of technology available then, it was much easier to do that. Today we have modern armies fully equipped with modern technology ready and willing to obliterate their enemies. The sheer size and protection given to military infrastructure today make it nearly impossible to sabotage the enemy to the level of weakness needed to wage an effective war. Also, people’s wars depended on the enemy not having the will and means to crush them. If there is an army with the will and means to snuff out an insurgency, it will and that is all it would take. If the enemy went to the base areas and drone struck them all, that is the end of the war. There is no assurance of victory in any military strategy or theory, all are subject to material conditions. People need to remember this.
Conclusion
This essay is not meant to be pessimistic or discouraging of revolutionary action, on the contrary, it is meant to try and get people to think more about how a revolution would be conducted in certain settings. This also is not meant to put down Protracted People’s War as a concept either. It is a genius concept and Mao is a genius for formulating it. People just need to accept that revolution is different everywhere and there is never a method that is always successful. All this being said, revolutionary tactics should not be the main focus in the present time. Much of the world still has a long way to go. That does not mean ignore them but, there are more pressing issues. Something key to PPW and any revolution is unity. Maybe start there.
Republished from https://redsuninthesky.com/ under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 27, 2018 | Repression at Home
by Jason Flores-Williams
Denver, CO–In an unprecedented and direct assault on First Amendment rights, Extraction Oil & Gas, the fracking corporation responsible for the massive Bella Wells extraction site–the largest fracking site next to a public school in the United States–filed suit on March 23, 2018 against Cullen Lobe in his personal capacity. Cullen Lobe is a Colorado State University student who participated in non-violent civil disobedience against Extraction Oil and Gas on March 9, 2018.
This appears to be a first, where energy corporations are now using their massive resource advantage to sue citizens in order to repress organized dissent. The lawsuit will enable the corporation–setting precedent for all corporations–to use the discovery process to retrieve information about any person who has shown interest in challenging environmental exploitation, then use that information to sue those persons in their individual capacities. (The suit is styled John Does 1-20, which is legalese to use discovery to see who attended meetings, signed attendance lists, helped plan, made coffee, painted a sign, in order to add those people to the law suit.) If this corporation prevails in this action, the mere act of attending a meeting could expose a person to civil liability.
When the government prosecutes an individual for crimes associated with civil disobedience, the government, as a state actor, is somewhat bound by the dictates of First Amendment Rights and Due Process. What makes this new corporate strategy especially disturbing is that corporations (which, as we know, are persons) are not bound by the same First Amendment and constitutional restrictions as the government. The scope of civil litigation is much greater than mere criminal prosecution, so successful corporations could now use their almost infinite resources to go after the very associations that give rise to community organization and resistance.
Here is the text of the complaint:
DISTRICT COURT, WELD COUNTY, COLORADO 901 9th Avenue Greeley, CO 80631 (970) 475-2400
PLAINTIFFS: Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. and 7N, LLC,
v.
DEFENDANTS: Cullen Lobe; John and Jane Does 1-20. Attorneys for Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. and 7N, LLC: Ghislaine G. Torres Bruner, #47619 Philip W. Bledsoe, #33606 Bennett L. Cohen, #26511 POLSINELLI PC 1401 Lawrence Street, Suite 2300 Denver, CO 80202 (303) 572-9300 Telephone (303) 572-7883 Facsimile gbruner@polsinelli.com pbledsoe@polsinelli.com bcohen@polsinelli.com
Case No. 2018CV____
Division/Courtroom:
COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
Plaintiffs Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. (“Extraction”) and 7N, LLC (“7N”) (collectively
“Plaintiffs”), through undersigned counsel, Polsinelli PC, complains and seeks injunctive
relief against Defendants, as follows.
I. PARTIES AND JURISDICTION
1. Plaintiff Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. is a Delaware Corporation authorized to
conduct business in the State of Colorado.
2. Plaintiff 7N, LLC is a Delaware limited liability corporation authorized to
conduct business in the state of Colorado. 7N is a wholly owned subsidiary of Extraction.
DATE FILED: March 9, 2018 3:49 PM FILING ID: 1A9126D86E201 CASE NUMBER: 2018CV30214
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62716095.4
3. Plaintiffs’ property (the “Property”) is located in the NW¼ of Section 15,
Township 5 North, Range 65 West, of 6th P.M., Weld County, Colorado.
4. Defendants Cullen Lobe and John and Jane Does 1-20, are, on information
and belief, residents of Colorado who are subject to the jurisdiction of this Court because
they reside in Colorado; or if they are not residents of Colorado are subject to the jurisdiction
of this Court because they have conducted business in and/or committing tortious acts in
Colorado. C.R.S. § 13-1-124.
5. Venue is proper in this Court under C.R.C.P. 98(a) and (c) because this action
seeks remedies for trespass to property located in Weld County.
II. FACTS
6. On March 8, 2018, Defendants, who are presumed to be members of an
unincorporated organization styling itself the Suede Light Brigade, entered upon real
property in Weld County, Colorado, where Extraction is developing oil and gas operations on
the Vetting 15-H Well Pad and facilities.
7. Plaintiffs are developing oil and gas resources on this Property pursuant to
Colorado law, law fully with approved local and state permits, among other law, and
including (but not limited to) the Weld County government and the Colorado Oil and Gas
Conservation Commission.
8. Defendants entered upon Plaintiffs’ Property for the apparent purpose of
staging a protest and disrupting Plaintiffs’ operations.
9. Some of the Defendants chained themselves to equipment on the Property
being used for Extraction’s operations.
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62716095.4
10. Defendants were met by officers of the Weld County Sheriff’s Department
and were asked to leave Plaintiffs’ Property.
11. Some Defendants were arrested and charged with criminal trespass and
criminal tampering.
12. Defendants took pictures and recorded video of their trespass which they
posted to a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/suedelightbrigade/ on March 8, 2018.
13. Defendants’ Facebook postings include pictures and videos showing one or
more of them chained to a bulldozer on Plaintiffs’ Property.
14. Defendants’ Facebook postings include videos showing them encountering
officers of the Weld County Sheriffs’ Department who directed Defendants to leave
Plaintiffs’ Property.
15. Captions to these Facebook pictures and videos state that Defendants received
citations from the Weld County “sherries” [sic Sheriff’s] Department for first degree criminal
tampering and second degree criminal trespass.
16. Defendants also maintain a GoFundMe page at www.gofundme.com/58t3148.
17. A picture on this GoFundMe page shows a young man chained to a Caterpillar
bulldozer, with the caption explaining that Defendants staged a demonstration to stop
Extraction’s operations, and that “Cullen was arrested and taken to the Greeley County Jail
and a number of others on site we’re [sic were] given citations for tampering and for
trespassing.”
18. The Suede Light Brigade maintains a website at http://suedelightbrigade.com/,
which contains further information regarding its activities opposing oil and gas development
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62716095.4
in Colorado.
COUNT 1 TRESPASS
19. Plaintiffs incorporate all prior paragraphs.
20. Plaintiffs are the owners of the Property.
21. Defendants intentionally entered upon Plaintiffs’ Property, without permission
or consent.
22. Defendants entered Plaintiffs’ Property for the admitted purpose of disrupting
Plaintiffs’ operations.
23. Defendants’ own social media postings, including the above Facebook and
GoFundMe pages, document and thereby admit Defendants’ intentional efforts to disrupt
Plaintiffs’ operations via unlawful trespass.
24. Defendants’ own social media postings, including the above Facebook and
GoFundMe pages, document and thereby admit that Defendants’ actions provided Weld
County law enforcement with probable cause to arrest them for criminal trespass and
criminal tampering.
25. Plaintiffs will establish their damages for this trespass at trial, and are entitled
to at least nominal damages.
COUNT 2 INTENTIONAL INTERFERENCE WITH CONTRACT
26. Plaintiffs incorporate all prior paragraphs.
27. Extraction has oil and gas leases and plans to develop mineral interests from
the Property, among other things.
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62716095.4
28. As evidenced by their own social media postings, Defendants knew that
Extraction is operating on the Property pursuant to oil and gas leases, local and state permits,
and other law.
29. As evidenced by their own social media postings (including the pictures and
videos showing some Defendants chaining themselves to a bulldozer), Defendants, by their
conduct, are interfering with or are attempting to interfere with Extraction’s performance of
its oil and gas contracts and interests.
30. Defendants’ conduct was improper.
31. Plaintiffs will establish their damages at trial, and are entitled to at least
nominal damages.
REQUEST FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
32. Plaintiffs incorporate all prior paragraphs.
33. Plaintiffs are entitled to preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.
34. A permanent injunction barring Defendants from trespassing upon the
Property, or any property owned by or in possession of Extraction, 7N, or their affiliates,
should be included in the Court’s judgment against Defendants.
35. A permanent injunction is warranted because Defendants, through their own
admissions in their social media postings, have confirmed their intent to continue trespassing
upon Plaintiffs’ Property for purposes of interfering with Plaintiffs’ operations, and
confirmed their willingness and capacity to engage in such tortious conduct.
36. Plaintiffs are also entitled to preliminary injunctive relief, including as
warranted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and/or preliminary injunction pursuant to
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C.R.C.P. 65.
37. A court should enter a TRO or preliminary injunction upon a showing of: (1) a
reasonable probability of success on the merits; (2) a danger of real, immediate, and
irreparable injury which may be prevented by injunctive relief; (3) that there is no plain,
speedy, and adequate remedy at law; (4) that the granting of a preliminary injunction will not
disserve the public interest; (5) that the balance of equities favors the injunction; and (6) that
the injunction will preserve the status quo pending a trial on the merits. C.R.C.P. 65; Rathke
v. MacFarlane, 648 P.2d 648, 653–54 (Colo. 1982); Briscoe v. Sebelius, 927 F. Supp. 2d
1109, 1114 (D.Colo. 2013) (noting that the requirements for issuing a temporary restraining
order mirror the requirements for issuing a preliminary injunction).
38. In this case, Plaintiffs satisfy the Rathke factors based entirely on Defendants’
own admissions through their social media postings, in which Defendants have (1) explained
their mission of opposing Plaintiffs’ operations by committing tortious and criminal conduct;
and (2) documented themselves committing such tortious and criminal conduct.
39. Reasonable probability of success on the merits. Defendants have admitted
to committing the civil torts of trespass and intentional interference with contract. These
admissions provide Plaintiffs with more than a reasonable probability of obtaining a
judgment against Defendants for these torts. Even if Defendants’ conduct has not (yet)
caused Plaintiffs substantial damages, Plaintiffs will be entitled to recover nominal damages.
Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits more than reasonably probable.
40. Danger of real, immediate, and irreparable injury which may be
prevented by injunctive relief. The Weld County Sheriff’s Department promptly removed
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Defendants, and arrested some of them as warranted, for their tortious and criminal conduct
on March 8, 2018, as detailed above. If Plaintiffs could be assured that the Weld County
Sheriff’s Department will always be able to immediately respond and achieve such results in
the event of similar conduct in the future, then injunctive relief might arguably not be
necessary. However, Defendants have demonstrated by their conduct that they are not
deterred by the prospect of criminal charges or arrest. Defendants have also indicated their
intent to continue trespassing Plaintiffs’ Property and interfering with its operations.
Defendants’ conduct includes acts which may cause Plaintiffs real, immediate and irreparable
injury. For example, chaining oneself to a bulldozer may result not only in interference with
Plaintiffs’ operations, but exposes both the protester and Plaintiffs’ personnel to very real risk
of severe physical injury. Only by issuing a TRO or preliminary injunction prohibiting
Defendants from engaging in such acts can the Court obtain the ability to restrain such
dangerous conduct.
41. No plain, speedy, and adequate remedy at law. Given Defendants’
admitted intent to trespass and interfere with Plaintiffs’ operations, and their demonstrated
willingness and capacity to do so, Plaintiffs do not have the luxury of waiting until they
obtain a final judgment against Defendants for permanent injunctive relief. Plaintiffs are
entitled to a TRO and/or preliminary injunction to stop Defendants’ conduct now, in order to
maintain their lawful operations and prevent physical injury to Defendants and others.
42. Public interest. Plaintiffs appreciate that Defendants style themselves as
protesters engaging in civil disobedience to oppose oil and gas development projects, and
Defendants will argue that the public interest is served by shutting down the project on
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Plaintiffs’ Property. Plaintiffs need not and will not engage Defendants in this debate at this
preliminary stage. Plaintiffs do not seek any type of injunctive relief that impacts
Defendants’ speech – only relief to prevent Defendants’ physical trespassing and interference
with Plaintiffs’ operations. Accordingly, at this stage, it is enough to note that Extraction is
operating in full compliance with Colorado law, and pursuant to permits issued by state and
local officials including (but not limited to) the Weld County government and the Colorado
Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. As a result, the public policy of Colorado that is
ascertainable at this preliminary stage squarely and exclusivelysupports Plaintiffs.
43. Balance of equities. Balancing equities here requires the Court to balance
Plaintiffs’ interest in unimpeded operations with Defendants’ political and environmental
activism. Critically, Defendants have ample avenues for engaging in their political and
environmental activism, as evidenced by their website and the many activities it records and
announces, their Facebook page, their GoFundMe page, etc. Plaintiffs do not seek to enjoin
Defendants’ speech. But Defendants have deliberately broken the law to further their point.
Balancing equities does not require a court to weigh the value of illegal or criminal conduct
because Defendants consider such criminal conduct valuable in the pursuit of their mission.
The equites thus favor Plaintiffs.
44. Preservation of the status quo. For purposes of an injunction, the status quo
is “the last uncontested status between the parties which preceded the controversy.”
Dominion Video Satellite Inc. v. Echostar Satellite Corp., 269 F.3d 1149, 1155 (10th Cir.
2001). Defendants obviously have no legal right to trespass upon Plaintiffs’ Property, and
Plaintiffs contest their trespass. The status quo that is properly preserved by a preliminary
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injunction is the one where Defendants are not trespassing on Plaintiffs’ Property and
chained to Plaintiffs’ heavy machinery.
45. Bond. Because Defendants have no right to commit physical trespass or
interference, they will not and indeed cannot be damaged by a preliminary injunction
prohibiting them from committing these illegal acts. A bond is therefore unnecessary. To
the extent the Court views some bond as required by Rule 65, Plaintiffs are willing to post a
nominal bond.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Extraction and 7N request:
1) that the Court award Plaintiffs judgment against Defendants for all available
damages, fees and costs, including at least nominal damages; and
2) that the Court enter preliminary and permanent injunctive relief against
Defendants and in favor of Plaintiffs to enjoin Defendants’ trespass and
interference with Plaintiffs’ operations; and
3) such further relief as the Court deems proper.
DATED: March 9, 2018. Respectfully submitted,
By: s/Ghislaine G. Torres Bruner Ghislaine G. Torres Bruner
Attorneys for Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. and 7N, LLC
Plaintiff’s address: Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. and 7N, LLC 370 17th St #5300 Denver, CO 80202
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 16, 2018 | Repression at Home
Featured image: Marielle Franco speaking at a campaign rally in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016. Photo: Mídia Ninja/Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0
by Fernanda Canofre / Global Voices
Less than two hours before she was murdered on the evening of March 14, Rio de Janeiro city councillor Marielle Franco was speaking at a roundtable of black women activists about “young black women moving the structures.”
As Franco was leaving the site, a car pulled up to the side of her own vehicle and fired nine shots into it. Franco and her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, were killed on the spot. The councillor’s press officer, who was in the backseat, was hit by glass fragments and injured but survived.
Bearing all the hallmarks of an execution, the attack has sent shockwaves through Brazil including social media. Nationwide protests have been scheduled for the next couple of days. More than 70,000 people and organisations have confirmed their presence in the demonstration in Rio de Janeiro.
Marielle Franco was elected with the leftist Socialist and Freedom Party (PSOL) in 2016 as the fifth most voted councillor in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city with a population of over six million.
As a young, black, favela-bred lesbian woman activist, she championed several underrepresented demographics in Brazil’s institutional politics and was beloved by activists across the country.
Remembering a fierce critic and activist
Marielle Franco was born and raised in the Maré favela, the largest complex in Rio and home to 130,000 people. In 2005, Franco’s best friend was killed there during a confrontation between police officers and drug dealers. That episode drove her into human rights advocacy and activism against police violence.
A fierce critic of Rio’s deadly police, she had been appointed in late February 2018 as the main rapporteur for the commission of Brazil’s municipal assembly to monitor the ongoing army intervention in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil’s army took over the city’s public security in early February in response to gang violence despite criticism from local non-governmental organizations and the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.
She had openly criticized the intervention and compared it to a similar operation in her native Maré favela during the 2014 World Cup.
Franco consistently spoke out, both from the pulpit and on her social media pages, against extrajudicial killings of Rio’s poor and mostly black favela residents.
Just this week, she made a series of posts on Facebook about the ongoing violence in the Acari favela:
This week, two young men were killed and dumped at a hole. Today, the police were walking through the streets threatening residents.
Franco called attention to a news story that reported five shoot-outs in the favela over the course of seven days:
Marielle last Facebook post was about the ongoing police violence in Acari favela. Photo: Screenshot/Facebook
Franco spoke out against Brazil’s lethal police
Police lethality in Brazil is staggering. In 2016, 920 killings by police were documented in Rio de Janeiro alone, up from 419 in 2012, according to Amnesty International. A report by Public Security Forum, a national research institution, counted 4,224 killings by police officers in the whole country in 2016, with 99 percent of them being men and 76 percent black. Many of those homicides may amount to extrajudicial killings, a crime under international law.
On social media, organisations, political parties and civil profiles used hashtags asking for a throughout the investigation of Franco’s murder.
The Feminist Network of Jurists stated on Facebook:
Her political importance goes beyond the direct actions to combat violence suffered by black people from Rio. Marielle, while a black woman, represented millions of women without a political voice within the State, breaking a pact of exclusion of black people crystalized by the history of segregation in Brazil, masked by the myth of racial democracy.
Amnesty International‘s Brazil chapter also demanded an investigation:
There should not be any doubts about the context, motivation, and authorship of Marielle Franco’s murder.
Her party PSOL issued an official statement saying that the hypothesis of a “political crime” could not be discarded, since “she had just denounced a brutal action” by the police.
Marielle Franco grew up at Maré Complex, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Mídia Ninja CC BY-SA 2.0
“We cannot wait another 10 years or think that I will be there for another 10”
Sociologist and public security specialist Luiz Eduardo Soares, a close friend to Franco, remembered how the attack echoes that of Judge Patricia Acioli, also killed in a drive-by shooting in 2011. Accioli had been overseeing a number of cases involving paramilitary groups (called ‘militias’ in Rio).
When, my god, will the people awake and understand that public unsafety starts at the most corrupt and brutal segments inside police forces, and that we cannot live with this haunting legacy from the dictatorship period anymore. Will we continue to talk about ‘individual misconduct’? What can we do now, besides crying?
During the black activists’ roundtable that Franco had joined hours before being killed, she said:
We have a movement pushing for more women in politics, in power positions, more women occupying decision making spots, because that is the only way of getting more qualified public policies.
Franco remembered two black women politicians who had come before her, ten years apart from each other, urging:
We cannot wait another 10 years or think that I will be there for another 10.
