OntheWilderSide

Peter Yarrow’s article about Tim DeChristopher gets a lot right, and a lot wrong.   Yarrow rightly pins the blame squarely on President Bush for wrongly scheduling auctions to sell off mineral rights for protected land

Then Yarrow veers off track, both factually and morally.  His misdirection is based on his inability to  pin the blame squarely on President Obama for prosecuting DeChristopher.   DeChristopher’s acts should have been nullified when the auction was withdrawn.  There should have been no prosecution because, in essence, there was no auction. Yarrow goes on to  indict DeChristopher for not having the means to pay for the leases.  That was never tested.  DeChristopher never reached the point where payment was allowed.  Yes, he may not have had the funds when the bid was made, but he did when he would have been required to pay.  This is no different then how businessmen in this country commonly buy things they can’t afford, and only obtain the financing when the bill is due.

Lastly, Yarrow insists that DeChristopher has to go to jail since his actions were conceived as civil disobedience, Yarrow only quibbles with the number of years.  Prison is the risk of civil disobedience, not the automatic price. When government is forced to recognize the error of its ways by the civil disobedience, like it did here, then there is no reason for a jail term to be exacted.  Sadly, this prosecution is a hallmark of the Obama administration, not an aberration. The Obama administration has extended and reinforced the imperial presidency, including the continual prosecution of whistle-blowers.

from via Tim DeChristophers brave act of civil disobedience by Peter Yarrow

In March, Tim DeChristopher was convicted of two felony counts for a nonviolent act of civil disobedience. Acting out of his deepest convictions and his abiding concern for the survival of humankind, Tim bid on oil and gas leases on federal land that he didnt have the means to pay for. On Tuesday, he could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison for his actions.

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• Tim DeChristopher’s Court Speech: ‘This Is What Patriotism Looks Like’ (via Food Freedom) (www.onthewilderside.com)

Filed under: Action Alert!, activism, Barack Obama, Ecology, Environment, events, Global Warming Tagged: | auction, civil disobedience, corporate accountability, ecopolitics, George W. Bush, government accountability, Los Angeles Times, Obama, Peter Yarrow, prison, tim-dechristopher