Civil Disobedience as Law Enforcement: Holding Gov't Accountable re: Its Own Claims to Legitimacy
Civil Disobedience as Law Enforcement
by Jeremy Brecher * Wednesday, August 14, 2013 * Waging Nonviolence/Common Dreams
Two years ago I was among more than a thousand people who committed civil disobedience at the White House to oppose the building of the Keystone XL pipeline. Since then many more have been arrested around the country, often blocking the actual pathway along which the Keystone XL is being constructed. Nearly 70,000 people have vowed to risk arrest if the State Department recommends that the president approve the pipeline.
All along I believed that these actions were justified, even though they meant breaking the law. After all, leading NASA climate change specialist Jim Hansen says that the Alberta tar sands, which the pipeline will carry, “must be left in the ground” because “if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over” for a viable planet.
"Those who perpetrate climate change, and those who allow them to do so, should not be able to claim that the law is on their side."
Since being arrested at the White House, my perspective on the nature of such actions has changed. After learning about a fundamental principle of American law known as the public trust doctrine, I have come to believe that the U.S. government and other governments around the world are violating their own most fundamental responsibilities to their own people when they allow fossil fuel producers and users to devastate the earth’s atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
Governments will no doubt continue to treat protesters who block pipelines, coal mines and power plants as criminals. But such governments come into court with dirty hands, stained by their dereliction of the duty to protect the common inheritance of their own people.
MORE:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/14-6