Antiwar protest at FERC headquarters

For five days, there were blockades at the Federal Energy Regulation Commission [FERC], organized by the Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) coalition of which Popular Resistance was a member, and each day the four entrances to FERC were blocked. The people impacted by FERC decisions and fracking were always front and center. The protests included massive photos of families impacted by fracking, a model of a town and the voices of frack-impacted people. People from fracked gas communities described getting notices that they could no longer drink their water or use it to wash dishes, clothes or take showers. They described farm animals with large tumors and hunters being unable to eat deer killed because of their tumors. They described illnesses and deaths from cancers.

On the fourth day of protests, November 6, BXErs participated in four actions that exemplified how all our issues are connected and how we need solidarity across issues if we are going to succeed. The day began with blockades of FERC, with the climate justice protesters focused on the connections between militarism and energy. It was the UN International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Ellen Barfield of Veterans for Peace took the lead in organizing the day. The police seemed unnerved by the silence of the blockaders who remained silent in memory of those killed in wars. A die-in highlighted the human casualties of war. Signs urged an end to the war on Mother Earth and pointed out how the Pentagon was the institution that emitted the largest amount of climate gases, how the US fights wars to dominate the planet and control the oil and gas supply, as well as how President Obama is using fracked gas as a weapon to weaken Russia, the source for Europe’s gas supply.

www.PopularResistance.org [info@popularresistance.org]

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs