Think Like A Fist

A federal jury in Salt Lake City has convicted environmental activist Tim DeChristopher of two felony counts for disrupting the auction of over 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling. DeChristopher was charged in December 2008 with infiltrating a public auction and disrupting the Bush administration’s last-minute move to auction off oil and gas exploration rights on vast swaths of federal land.

A student at the time, DeChristopher posed as a bidder and out bid energy company reps for 22,000 acres of land with no intention to pay in an attempt to save the property from drilling. The jury deliberated for nearly five hours on March 3, 2011 before reaching its decision. He now faces up to ten years in prison. After the verdict, DeChristopher emerged from the courthouse and addressed his supporters:

They tried to convince me that I was like a little finger out there on my own that can easily be broken. And all of you out here were the reminder for all of us that I wasn’t just a finger all alone in there, but that I was connected to a hand with many fingers that could unite as one fist and that that fist could not be broken by the power that they have in there.

That fist is not a symbol of violence. That fist is a symbol that we will not be misled into thinking we are alone. We will not be lied to and told we are weak. We will not be divided, and we will not back down. That fist is a symbol that we are connected and that we are powerful. It’s a symbol that we hold true to our vision of a healthy and just world, and we are building the self-empowering movement to make it happen. All those authorities in there wanted me to think like a finger. But our children are calling to us to think like a fist.

Consider that this passionate young man may serve 10 years in prison for "disruption" of an auction while the wealthy financial managers who undermined and ravaged the world economy and put millions of people out of work are allowed to continue earning million dollar salaries without even so much as being reprimanded. Just think about the kind of world we have to live in for this to be allowed to happen.

Watch news coverage of the ruling @ Democracy Now

Bill McKibben weighs in here: Taking a Leap and Pointing the Way