Editor’s note: large sections of this article are inspired by Without Rubber, the Machines Stop by Stop Fossil Fuels. Deep Green Resistance does not endorse their organization or their analysis but it’s worth reading.
by Liam Campbell
It’s easy to take rubber for granted. Without it, most of the world’s vehicles would literally grind to a halt, airplanes would eventually be grounded, and most of the world’s industrial factories would cease to be profitable. When someone mentions rubber people think of tires, but open up a car and you’ll find a staggering number of components require the substance: seals, hoses, shock absorbers, wiring, and interiors. If you swim farther down the supply chain you’ll discover that the manufacturing factories that create vehicles also need vast quantities of rubber to operate their own machinery; the same is true of the processing plants that refine raw materials for the factories, and so on all the way down the supply chain.
About half of all rubber comes from trees, and over 90% of natural rubber comes from Asia. The three largest producers are Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia; these few countries account for nearly 75% of all natural rubber production. The Americas used to be the world’s largest producer of rubber, until a highly resilient fungus called Microcyclus ulei annihilated the entire American industry.
In Never Out of Season: How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future, Rob Dunn explains:
“Leaf blight will arrive in Asia at some point. How will it come? The spores of the fungus are thin and so don’t do well on extended travel, such as on boats, but they’d do fine on a plane. […] As a 2012 study4 notes, ‘The pathogen can be easily isolated from infected rubber trees…and transported undetected across borders,’ which is to say that the intentional destruction of the majority of the world’s rubber supply would be easy […] It would be easy because the trees are planted densely; because most of the plantations are relatively close together; because the trees are genetically very similar to each other. It would be easy because the trees in Malaysia have not been selected for resistance; they have been selected for productivity. Planters chose trees with lots of latex, favoring short-term benefit over long-term security.
Scholars express concern about whether terrorists might have the technology necessary to spread leaf blight to Asia. Do they have the specialized knowledge necessary to transport and propagate fungal spores, the specialized knowledge necessary to destroy the world’s supply of rubber? Of course they do, because all it would really take is a pocket full of infected leaves.5″
In other words, a single person could severely cripple industrial civilization by simply booking a few flights, carrying a few infected leaves, and going for a walk in among the trees. Soon after, Asia’s rubber plantations would suffer the same fate as their counterparts in the Americas, the cost of rubber would skyrocket, and industrial civilization would be dealt a crippling blow.
The other half of global rubber is derived from petroleum, but synthetic rubber remains significantly inferior to natural rubber. The increased cost and reduced availability would seriously interfere with industrial activities making personal vehicles much more expensive, hindering airlines, and likely reducing global fossil fuel use. More critically, aircraft tires and heavy industrial vehicle tires require almost 100% natural rubber, meaning those vehicles would become extremely difficult to maintain if Microcyclus ulei found its way to Asia.
We are indoctrinated to believe that individuals are powerless, and that industrialized civilization is an invincible Goliath. None of that is true. When systems become large and complex, they also become fragile due to having so many interdependent systems; this makes them susceptible to cascading failures. The stunning reality is that a determined 80-year-old grandmother could take down vast amounts of industrialized civilization by simply booking a holiday that included stops in the Americas and Asia, and collecting a few leaves along the way.
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.
The woman places an arrow on her bow, draws to her cheek, and fires.
The arrow arcs over a high-voltage electrical transmission line, carrying a non-conductive rope. She jogs to her arrow, and begins to reel in the rope. As she pulls it over the lines, a conductive cable is revealed to be attached to its end. As the cable bridges the three-phase power lines, a short-circuit ripples down the lines. Miles away, an aluminum smelter grinds to a halt.
This is the opening of the new film Woman at War from director Benedikt Erlingsson. The film follows a one-woman ecosabotage campaign against the Icelandic aluminum industry.
Whenever I watch a film, especially a film grappling with the ecological crisis, I expect it to disappoint me. Ethan Hawke’s First Reformed, for example, started with a promising premise and then veered into self-flagellation and misogyny.
Woman at War, however, did not disappoint. Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir gives a masterful performance as Halla, a happy middle-aged woman who appears content with her life as a choir director in an Icelandic city. She moves about her life with grace and serenity, riding her bicycle through the streets, swimming in the ocean, and talking with her sister and other friends.
But Halla leads a double life. Her apparently tranquil existence hides her true mission, a campaign against heavy industry that is destroying Iceland. A portrait of Nelson Mandela hangs on her wall at home, a constant reminder that yesterday’s terrorists may become the freedom fighters of history. This is, no doubt, a reference to the ANC sabotage campaigns that Mandela helped to lead in Apartheid South Africa beginning in 1961.
In his testimony when he was sentenced, Mandela describes his reasoning: “I do not deny that I planned sabotage,” he said. “I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.”
The same reasoning is true for eco-saboteurs today. In the era of climate chaos and government inaction, “extreme” acts like ecosabotage are not extreme at all. They are, in fact, some of the most reasonable responses imaginable.
The argument for sabotage in Woman at War is as undeniably real as the industry it tackles. Iceland’s abundant geothermal energy and hydropower extraction give it very low electricity prices, and has made it a global hot spot for aluminum smelting. The three aluminum smelters in Iceland use a full 73 percent of all electricity generated in the country.
Their power is supplied by geothermal energy harvesting facilities as well as a highly controversial hydroelectric dam that was opposed by environmental and community groups in the courts, via protest, and with direct action and ecosabotage. The smelters themselves are major polluters linked to birth defects, cancer, and bone deformations in nearby communities.
In the film, Halla’s attacks are not spontaneous. Like Mandela, she has obviously conducted a rigorous assessment of the situation. Her actions are meticulously planned. She receives intelligence from a friend high in the Icelandic government. She operates carefully, intelligently, implementing reasonable security precautions while avoiding wholesale paranoia.
At one point, Halla evades her face being recorded by a drone by wearing a Nelson Mandela mask, in an echo of Mandela’s words in his book Long Walk to Freedom: “Living underground requires a seismic psychological shift,” Mandela wrote. “One has to plan every action, however small and seemingly insignificant. Nothing is innocent. Everything is questioned. You cannot be yourself; you must fully inhabit whatever role you have assumed… The key to being underground is to be invisible.”
Like any effective underground figure, she follows the maxim that “Clandestine operational activity must be compartment[aliz]ed, it must be planned, it must be short in duration, and it must be rehearsed (or at least, composed of habitual actions).”
Rebecca Solnit, who has written some wonderful things, critiquesWoman at War, writing that “our largest problems won’t be solved by heroes.” But Solnit then lauds Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, an organization which (like the entire American environmental movement) has failed to stop even the growth of fossil fuel burning. McKibben’s entire approach hinges on a transition to green technology that, as I explain in my forthcoming book Bright Green Lies, has thus far failed to reduce emissions even by a fraction.
In contrast, eco-sabotage groups like MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) have reduced oil output in Nigeria, Africa’s largest producer, by up to 40 percent on a sustained basis.
So which approach is really effective? Show me a country in which mass action has significantly reduced carbon emissions, and perhaps Solnit’s argument would hold more weight. Just two people conducting eco-sabotage against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) were nearly as effective in slowing the construction as tens of thousands were at Standing Rock. Imagine if a few more people had joined them. And a few more. And more.
As director Benedikt Erlingsson said of Halla in a recent interview, “She’s not a terrorist, she’s not creating terror, she’s not harming people. She’s only sabotaging structures. But she is doing what all fighters have been doing: for non-violent protest to work, it always needs to have an economic fist.”
Petitioning those in power to change things simply isn’t working. To have a chance of planetary survival, we need the most direct of direct actions.
Practically, there are a few lessons to be learned from Woman at War. For example, the film showcases perhaps the high end of effectiveness for a single saboteur. By acting in coordinated groups or securely linked cells, a larger number of people could be more effective. Additionally, the film shows the importance of building a culture of resistance. Halla is saved early on by a nearby farmer who detests the transmission lines and police crisscrossing the land his family has lived on for a thousand years. This element shows the importance of building a support network that can house, feed, transport, and otherwise support underground resistance—and won’t ask too many questions.
There is much to love about this film. Aesthetically, it is beautifully done. The music is superb. The Icelandic tundra, glaciers, rivers, hot springs, and stones are a presence all their own, and Halla inhabits this landscape throughout, repeatedly pressing her face into the thick moss as if into the embrace of a dear friend. She also demonstrates quite clearly that, in an asymmetric struggle, bushcrafts, physical fitness, and wilderness travel skills are a serious advantage for clandestine eco-resistance.
Woman at War bypasses American sexualization, casting a strong female lead acting on her own terms, without a hint of objectification. It even tackles prison well, showing that (to quote Mandela once again) “The challenge for every prisoner, particularly every political prisoner, is how to survive prison intact, how to emerge from prison undiminished, how to conserve and even replenish one’s beliefs.”
Ending a movie like this is hard. In reality, revolutionary work is likely to end with prison time, death, or international exile. But Woman at War closes deftly, in the same way it tackles tricky topics like morality, jobs, and family. Halla visits Ukraine to adopt a young girl, and on her return to the airport, is forced to carry her through a slowly-rising flood that has blocked the road. It is tranquil but daunting slow-moving emergency submerging the entire world. A fitting metaphor, then, for the theme of the entire film.
As I finish writing this review, spring is in full bloom. The birds are singing outside my small cabin in the Oregon woods. But I know that the slow-moving floods of climate change, species extinction, toxification, overpopulation, habitat destruction, and refugees are rising. Year by year, we are slipping into a nightmare. Woman at War is not exactly a template, but it is a great beginning point for a movement that could save us from the worst of what is coming, if only we are ready to listen.
—
Max Wilbert is a third-generation organizer who grew up in Seattle’s post-WTO anti-globalization and undoing racism movement. He is the author of two books.
Editor’s note: this is an anonymous communiqué previously published on Philly Anti-Capitalist. The featured image is unrelated to this action.
Early last week, we made the two tractors that Energy Transfer Partners was using to construct the Mariner East 2 pipeline near Exton, PA inoperative by cutting their hoses and electrical wires, cutting off valve stems to deflate the tires, introducing sand into their systems, putting potatoes in the exhaust pipes, using contact cement to close off the machines’ panels and fuel tanks, and a variety of other mischievous improvised sabotage techniques.
We feel called to fight for the natural world and would be lazy to submit to the demise of the earth, animal and self by not fighting against its destruction by machines and corporations who seek to kill it for capitalist growth. It was surprisingly easy and brought us so much joy. We’ve read since that ETP has had to acknowledge the damage, which they are usually careful to cover up, and see that this wreck of a project could be seriously compromised by the proliferation of more actions like these.
For those restless, angry warriors out there, we hope you find similar happiness in destroying little by little the tools of this capitalist settler-colonial nation. Death to colonization and capitalism… Shout out to everyone out there still attacking in spite of repression and grief.
Have you heard the incredible news about Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, two activists who sabotaged the Dakota Access Pipeline? In early August, the two women admitted to committing multiple acts of eco-sabotage against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). They made their statement on video in front of the Iowa Utilities Board, talking about what they had done, reading their press release, and then started to tear down the sign of the Utilities Board.
The two women were arrested for that action, then released on bail. Their home has since been raided by the FBI and materials have been confiscated in an ongoing investigation. I highly recommend you read their press release. It’s fascinating.
These two are likely to be charged with serious crimes, and we urge you to follow their case for ways that you can support them.
One of the things that’s most important about their press release is in reference to a specific act of sabotage the two women carried in May 2017. This action was hidden from the public. At the time of the event, Energy Transfer Partners described it as an accident. They covered up the fact that the delay was due to sabotage.
There are certain situations in which it’s in a corporation’s or government’s best interest to disclose that there has been sabotage to drum up public opposition and outrage, invoke terrorism or whatever the latest political specter is in order to make people afraid, boost budgets, and allow the further curtailment of civil liberties.
However, there are other situations in which it’s in their best interest to hide what is going on—to not tell people about these attacks. Obviously, this was one of those circumstances. The thought process of managers at Energy Transfer Partners must have been something like this: “We don’t want people doing copycat actions, we don’t want people understanding that these tactics can be effective, that sabotage can be effective at stopping this pipeline.”
Two people alone made a huge difference using these tactics. They delayed the pipeline for months. That’s something that tens of thousands of people involved in the public Standing Rock protests were barely able to match. While nobody was ultimately able to stop the pipeline, the fact that two women with no training and almost no money were able to seriously damage and delay the pipeline is a testament to how effective sabotage can be.
The reason Jessica and Ruby came forward is that they wanted the truth to be known. To me, that’s very important. It’s inspiring. It points to the fact that there are likely many more of these actions happening than we know about. It’s not in the corporations’ best interest to tell us, because these stories of resistance are inspiring and they know that. This is a dangerous thing, and they know that.
Jennifer Murnan and Max Wilbert of Deep Green Resistance interviewed Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek following their press release claiming responsibility for multiple incidents of sabotage of the Dakota Access Pipeline and construction equipment. Listen to the audio, or read the transcript:
Jennifer: First, thank you so much, Jessica and Ruby, for having this conversation today. Could you talk a little bit about who you are?
Ruby: My name’s Ruby. I’m 27 years old. I found out about DAPL when I was a pre-school teacher in Boulder, Colorado, and that motivated me to quit my job and go to Standing Rock. I was following the issue very closely. When I arrived at Standing Rock, I was really relieved and comforted to see so many people there willing to do whatever kind of work was needed.
I saw that Standing Rock was really taken care of, and I noticed that there were 1200 other miles of pipeline that had to be stopped. I saw a news article in a local Iowa paper about Jessica Reznicek starting an encampment by herself down at the Mississippi River, the largest waterway here in the United States in the northern continent. I went down there, to Mississippi Stand. I plugged in immediately, willing to do whatever.
I worked on media and participated in boycotts and marches and the whole traditional model of civil disobedience, and here I am today talking today to you.
Jessica: My name’s Jessica Reznicek, 36 years old. I really started delving into activism about six years ago during the Occupy Wall Street movement. I joined the Zuccotti movement in New York. When I learned that back in my home city of Des Moines, Iowa, there was a local Occupy movement occurring, I returned home and plugged in there. I began working tirelessly on the Occupy campaigns on a local level in Iowa, in the Iowa state capital, and around the caucuses.
Through that movement, I met Catholic Workers who were at the forefront here in the local struggle. For about six years I’ve been plugging in and working on resistance via the Des Moines Catholic Worker house, and have been engaged non-stop in various campaigns, everything from anti-war to saving the planet and trying to save the human race!
I met Ruby here in Iowa last summer. It’s been an incredible journey with the two of us together, and I’m eager to share that journey at this point.
Jennifer: When you met each other, did you find common ground in motivation and inspiration?
Jessica: I think that’s how Ruby and I ended up pairing off. The bottom line for both Ruby and me was to stop this pipeline and to do it peacefully and nonviolently, and to explore and exhaust what you might call traditional avenues. Hundreds of thousands of people resisted this pipeline, so by no means did only Ruby and I care so deeply about these issues—but we really hit it off. Our personalities hit it off.
We did a hunger strike at the Iowa Utilities Board over the winter, boycotts, marches, lockdowns. Mississippi Stand was notorious for lockdowns, and they were effective. I think that’s where we got a taste of it.
One of the lockdowns I did with another close friend of mine was on a construction site, the boring site under the Mississippi River on the Iowa side. We locked onto a backhoe, and stopped the construction at the boring site for about four hours.
Ruby and I had some great conversations after that ― it was great to shut down a construction site for four hours, but ultimately we need more. We need to delay construction not just for days, but for weeks and months for the ultimate purpose of shutting this pipeline down and having investors pull out. Ruby and I were in that vein together.
Jennifer: You’ve been very courageous. Where do you pull that well of courage?
Ruby: Directly from my heart. I’ve tried to stop caring about this, honestly, and I can’t. I’ve been involved with other campaigns since DAPL, and those are also courageous, but I just can’t let this go. All of this destruction needs to be stopped, absolutely. But I saw with Standing Rock that DAPL in particular was a turning point for a lot of things, and we have yet to win a victory.
For me and for a lot of people, the bottom line was to stop the pipeline. That is what motivated me to act the way I have, having exhausted every other tactic.
I was a preschool teacher and I love kids. [chokes up with grief] We’re not leaving them anything. It’s scary, it’s scary what everyone is going through, and I see a lot of fear preventing people from acting. I was afraid as well, but it had to be done. That’s why I’m here talking to you now, because these are the conversations that we need to be having, as a collective, as a whole. How do we effectively stop this desecration that continues day in and day out?
Jennifer: Those are the questions that we all have to ask ourselves, and I’m really glad that you’re raising those questions. Thank you.
Max: The question of how we actually stop them is critical. So is recognizing that when what we’re doing isn’t working, we have to do something else. What was your psychology as you moved toward taking the actions that you did, and what did you actually end up doing?
Ruby: Our lockdowns gave us a teaser for stopping construction. One day, after another pullback had occurred at the Skunk River, Jessica and I got together and had this idea to mess with the engines of these heavy machines.
We brainstormed back and forth all day . . . you know, what if we take the oil out of the thing . . . we really don’t know how to do that. So why don’t we just burn it? Okay, I know how to light a fire. You strike a match. Going and doing that action was really liberating and empowering and at the same time scary. Oh my gosh, I just committed arson. But it had to be done. That was the first night that I really felt empowered as an individual. I did actually make a difference and a concrete contribution by my standards as a person.
So the psychology of it is you’re battling with fear, because we’re all living in this oppressive system. That’s something we have to overcome. Otherwise we continue to allow this to go on, and we continue to be oppressed. We have to liberate ourselves through our own actions.
Jennifer: I appreciate that your statement distinguishes living beings from objects when discussing violence. You point out that destroying infrastructure isn’t violence.
Jessica: I’ve been trying to get this message out to the activist community here in Iowa and elsewhere. Our culture and our society and we as people put so much emphasis on property, but we have to start understanding that these machines are desecrating the earth and the people and all of the earth’s inhabitants. We need to get out of that paradigm where we place property on such a high pedestal, especially when that property is destroying every natural resource available to us and not leaving a future for the generations to come.
It’s really difficult for people to understand that Ruby and I were actually preventing destruction. I like to focus on the property improvement that we’ve made versus property destruction. At every turn, we were acting from our hearts and from our spirits and with all life on this planet in mind. Absolutely no life was in jeopardy while we were acting, and in fact our goal was to save lives.
Max: The methods that we’re taught are acceptable for changing the world usually aren’t very threatening to those in power. I don’t think it’s a mistake, for example, that we get taught the history of Martin Luther King in school but we don’t get taught about the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. We learn about the struggle against apartheid, but we don’t get taught that Nelson Mandela organized and committed sabotage and engaged in actions that caused him to be labeled as a terrorist by the U. S. and South African governments.
You have a history and a background as activists trying to do the right thing and make the world a better place. What’s your understanding of how your actions fit into the history of social movements and people who are called to do what’s right even though it may be illegal?
Ruby: I know a little bit about the Black Panthers. I know that narrative that the government hijacked everything, but I didn’t know that Nelson Mandela organized sabotage. That’s awesome.
It was a very personal thing for me. It’s the right thing to do. I live here, in the United States, in a country that perpetuates violence everywhere, including here. I saw that I had the opportunity to act in this way, and that’s what motivated me.
Jessica: We’re not taught these things, so Ruby and I feel isolated or alienated from the wider movement when we decide to take these actions. That’s really unfortunate, not to feel in solidarity with a historical narrative. A lot of our energy is expended, unfortunately, on defending ourselves to the movement, and you just wonder . . . it’s disheartening when I don’t know whether I’m going to be supported by anti-pipeline activists.
We do go back over these stories. Fortunately, I’ve been intimately engaged for six years in the Catholic Worker Movement, which has a rich history and tradition of property destruction via a Biblical narrative. I’ve embraced this tradition and found my little niche.
I live in a small intentional community here in Des Moines, and when when we released our press statement a few days ago, we were immediately supported by our close friends and family. Thank goodness. That’s basically due to an ongoing historical struggle created in the 1930s with Dorothy Day. It gives us something to which we can attach ourselves and find legitimacy, which we’re having a really hard time finding in other circles. That’s due to lack of information and lack of being taught these histories as children.
Jennifer: I’m part of the Political Prisoner Support Group in Deep Green Resistance. What do you need right now? What do you need into the future, and how can we be part of that?
Ruby and Jessica: First of all, thank you.
Jessica: Thank you so much. We love you. Thank you for asking. It’s been kind of a blur for the last couple of days. Ruby and I got out of jail yesterday morning on pre-trial release. We’re scrambling now to do a couple of things before . . . who knows? The feds could come knocking at our door at any moment.
One thing is to get a website set up where we can have postings such as joint statements that Ruby and I release, and also future hearings, court dates, solidarity actions, and support network information.
We’re representing ourselves, but do have a fantastic federal attorney, Bill Quigley, out of Loyola Law School down in New Orleans, as a stand-by counsel. He’s a great guy and available, but we’d really like to find someone here in the Midwest who would be more accessible and willing to at least assist us in filing motions or communicating with a prosecutor, and serve as a stand-by counsel here locally in the case that Ruby and I are incarcerated and facing serious charges. It’s really difficult to work from inside the oppressive prison system, so it’d be valuable to have a legal advocate here locally that we can work with.
Ruby: Yeah, just the offer of support is amazing. Thank you for doing what you’re doing. I’m sure I’ll have a request or two once I’m inside. As Jessica said, if you know anyone for defense in Iowa, that would be really helpful. We’re having a hard time trying to find a lawyer in Iowa, I think because this stuff doesn’t go on in Iowa.
Max: I don’t know anyone off the top of my head, but we do have some friends in the legal community, activist lawyers, who we can talk to. We’ll definitely be in touch with you two.
Oftentimes speaking out can be dangerous. They try to discourage people from building solidarity and speaking about what they did. They want to keep people isolated in the legal system and afraid. Why did you feel called to speak out about what you did, even to the point of saying that you hope other people consider these kinds of similar actions as a way to effectively defend the planet?
Ruby: Because really we’ve tried everything, hot dog under the sun, man. I’ve exhausted my creative possibilities. The No DAPL campaign fragmented pretty quickly, and we lost focus on stopping the pipeline. We were called by The Intercept about two weeks ago for interviews, so I had hope that the No DAPL issues could stay alive in the media. But The Intercept focused instead on the illegal surveillance of activists.
So after we got off the phone, we talked together, and it was like, “Fuck it, man, let’s claim it.” Because we didn’t stop the pipeline. We both feel personally responsible for that, and this is the last thing we can do. And you know what? People need to talk about it.
I remember trying to talk about it with people that I trusted. I’m pretty fresh on the activist scene and security culture, but it felt like I was encountering a fear-based immediate shut-down, do not talk. That sucks because we need to be doing these things. Apparently this is the only way they’re going to actually listen.
We anticipated the repercussions of every action that we took. Although I view these repercussions as unjust, we were fully prepared going into it, in that mental mind game of “I’m driving myself to jail right now.” So we’ve been prepared for jail for several months, and we still feel passionate about this — I still can’t let this go because this is still really flipping important — and we both have the mental fortitude to step forward. Well, let’s step forward then.
People need to have these conversations. It’s important for our own evolution as a people, as a whole, to take a step back, look at what’s going on, look at what we’re doing and whether it’s effective. We want to stop the pipeline, or we want to save the old-growth forests. We have so many battles. So let’s do it. If the methods that we’re using aren’t working, let’s change the methods. Let’s not get stuck in some ego, celebrity, whatever.
Max: Reading your press release, I was struck with, frankly, how easy it seemed to be to pull off some of the actions. I went to an event recently with the Valve Turners, the people who shut down the tar sands pipelines. They talked about how they actually had pretty bad security culture in planning of their action. They didn’t know how to use the encryption technology well. They didn’t do a super-secretive job, and they expected that maybe the cops would be there waiting for them when they showed up to carry out their action.
But the cops weren’t. The action was a total surprise to the authorities. Could you speak to how easy some of this stuff is and how maybe most of the barriers we actually face toward shutting this earth destruction down is more in our minds and our hearts than in actual danger?
Jessica: Absolutely. I could not agree with you more. I think we created this whole narrative in our minds that this oppressive state and industry were listening to everything we were doing, following us everywhere we went, and that we would inevitably be caught.
Ruby and I did a sloppy job so much of the time at many points. I mean you hate admitting it, but it’s just the truth. We went to these places with knowledge self-garnered within a matter of weeks and were effectively halting construction for weeks on end just via one fire or one valve piercing.
We built our confidence up each time. Like wow, this is really doable. It’s insulting on some level, but it needs to be cleared up. Ruby and I acted solely alone. Nobody else was involved in any of these actions. I think it’s hard for people to believe ― “How could these two women pull this off so easily?”
It’s a matter of determination. It’s a matter of breaking through your own fears and doubts and perceptions of this undefeatable empire. Really this is doable for lots of people. That’s one of the main reasons we wanted to come out and tell people ― because this is easy stuff to do. If Ruby and I had had a crew that had doubled or tripled or quadrupled our numbers, we really could have stopped this thing, I truly believe at the bottom of my heart, just via actions like we did.
Ruby: I think that narrative that’s in our head that they’re always watching us and blah blah blah, it’s oppression, dude. They come out with the NSA and blah blah blah and their television shows with forensic evidence and this is how they catch a criminal. It’s all crap. It’s all crap. They are incompetent.
Have you ever talked to a cop? They are instructed to just follow orders. They do not know how to think critically. And that continues to worsen.
If you’re acting with integrity and utilizing your own critical intelligence, you can do a lot of good. Recognize that fear as oppression. Liberate yourself!
Max: Inspiring words. Thank you so much.
Jennifer: Yeah, thank you so much. It has been really great to be here with you today.
Ruby: We really appreciate talking to you. It seems that you all have a strong network of solidarity. That is super-hopeful; we need that kind of communal infrastructure. So thank you all.
To Contact Jessica & Ruby’s Legal Support Team: Attorney Bill Quigley: 1-504-710-3074 AND quigley77@gmail.com
Editor’s note: Deep Green Resistance advocates a militant strategy for saving the planet: Decisive Ecological Warfare. We invite you to read this strategy, and to undertake a long and sober assessment of the situation we face. Time is short.
Note: Though the resistance movement will have different phases and parts, the Deep Green Resistance organization is, will always be, and is committed to only being an aboveground group.
