This is a post from an activist working in the back country of East Texas in support of the Tar Sands Blockade.
UPDATE: Late last night, the Tar Sands Blockade erected a 30-foot free standing pole
with lifelong Texan Mary Germanati sitting atop it to stop
TransCanada’s heavy machinery who have been THREATENING the safety of
the tree-sitters for days now. As of this writing, Mary still sits atop
this free standing blockade.
I’m writing to ya’ll from a safe space nearby the Tar Sands Blockade
in rural east Texas. Early this week, heeding the call of friends and
comrades already on site, we assembled a crew of Earth First!ers from
the Northeast US and made the 30+ hour drive to the site to provide
crucial reinforcement. The tree village set up
on site is one of the most fantastic things we’ve ever seen, and the
emerging pictures on the internet do it no justice. Down below the pods,
hideous monsters in the form of massive feller bunchers
and dozers fill the air with the heinous sounds of corporate ecocide:
mechanical whirs, sawing, and worst of the all the sound of beautiful
trees hundreds of years old falling to their death, driving wildlife
from their homes.
Yesterday a feller buncher began clearing through a section of the
forest, rapidly advancing towards one of the tree sitters. Clearly
printed in large letters on the side of the death machine read a warning
to stay back at least 500 feet. A roving team on the ground that I was
part of began cat-and-mousing the feller buncher, trying to keep our
comrade in the tree safe. On the ground two TransCanada workers and one
local sheriff operating as an armed mercenary of the corporation
oversaw the operations, trying to move through the felled trees to push
back our crew from the clear cut site. We continued to advance,
determined not only to protect our comrade above in the canopy but to
push them back and show them that we are not scared and that we will
RESIST. At one point as we had just watched the feller buncher take
down an 80 foot water oak not 40 feet away from the sitter and we heard
our friend screaming from above pleading for the safety of their life, I
ran towards the machine about 25 feet away making eye contact with the
driver who continued to operate the machine and yelling to TransCanada
and their bought and paid sheriff that we would not stay back, that they
were going to kill our friend if they continued to advance and they
were required by law to stop the machine. The sheriff approached saying
that “they” (speaking as if they were actually part of TC) weren’t
coming any further at that point and they turned the machine around to
continue clear cutting. A crew of 7 of us held our ground and remained
in defense of the sitter on the opposite side of a creek where we were
forced to watch tree after tree fall. A dense part of the forest was
instantly turned in to a morose tree morgue.
Overcome with emotions, having never seen a clearcut myself and
certainly having never faced down a massive feller buncher, I moved back
through the clearcut, across the creek where our friend sat above us in
a tree. Feeling the energy coming from the mercilessly mauled fresh
tree stumps, I lay over a large one crying uncontrollably as I watched
the remaining few trees off in the distance be cut and wrestled out of
place. I angrily contemplated the enormity of the corporate state, the
cancer that is capitalism, and the injustice of the entire situation.
Comrades were there to comfort me and together we all walked away from
the horrible scene feeling renewed in our fight and certain in our
decision to come to Texas to fight this madness and call attention to
this scene.
As I write this now I’m receiving word from the site that they’re
cutting in from the south side, only 20 feet away from the sitter we
spent yesterday protecting. North from there at the wall that y’all
have seen photos of earlier this week, several of our friends’ lives are
at risk and trees are being cut dangerously close. TC is now clearing
from the west side of the site, attempting to box our site in and
presumably make way for cherry pickers and other extraction devices.
One of the locals who is currently resisting the Keystone XL pipeline
in solidarity with several local landowners shared stories with a few
of us. It is absolutely clear that TransCanada is paying off local law
enforcement officers. In addition TC is relentlessly trying to serve
people with lawsuits, putting gag orders on landowners who had
previously been strong allies, and buying off others. Yesterday one of
our key allies awoke to TC in their yard with a big feller buncher. TC
had promised them multiple times both verbally and in formally written
depositions that they would give “fair” notice before beginning to
destroy their land. It seems like TC knew that this area is quickly
receiving an influx of resisters and gave this landowner no warning,
knowing that we’d have certainly acted at that site.
Despite the situation we are keeping spirits high. Last night I came
out of the woods with three comrades to head to a safe space to write
this communique to y’all. We were excited to find that many new friends
and many familiar faces had arrived to reinforce the site. We’re here
for the long haul and are asking y’all to come down to help defend our
friends in the trees and stand up to TransCanada and their dirty
pipeline. What we’re doing is not enough, but there is strength in
numbers and with the aid of more friends we can turn up the heat on TC.
There are many opportunities to plug in in various ways here
and the pipeline is going in all across this region. There are many
allies and a supportive campaign. We sit here anxiously waiting to
re-join our comrades and worried for their safety, and eager to return
to the woods and keep up the fight. We hope to see you in the woods.
