Disobedient demonstrators arrested in a climate-change protest at the White House on Saturday were held in what one Vermont detainee called “deliberately harsh” conditions before being released without penalties on Monday afternoon.

Christopher Shaw, a 62-year-old Bristol resident, writer and Middlebury College lecturer, suggests that federal and District of Columbia police were trying to discourage activists from moving ahead with daily arrests planned for the next two weeks.

If that’s so, the authorities’ strategy is not proving successful. A total of 93 demonstrators were arrested at the White House on Sunday and Monday in addition to the 65 locked up on Saturday. Organizers of the effort to persuade President Obama to block a Canada-Texas oil pipeline say about 1500 people have pledged to join the civil-disobedience campaign scheduled to continue through September 3. A contingent of Vermonters plans to travel by bus from Burlington to Washington on August 28.

This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2009.

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Kevin J. Kelley is a contributing writer for Seven Days, Vermont Business Magazine and the daily Nation of Kenya.

3 replies on “Vermont Pipeline Protestor Arrested in D.C. Describes Experience”

  1. Now we have to either promote conservation to remove the other end of the equation: consumption.1. Take public transportation whenever feasible2. Drive safely, slower, cautiously3. Demand police enforce the speed laws4. Stop needless vehicular recreation…speed boats, racers, go carts, students using cars instead of buses5. Demand companies reclaim lost heat.6. Hang up your clothes on a clothesline whenever possible7. Use the cold air to keep food cold in cold rooms. Shut off your refrigerator whenever possible.8. Shut off lights when not in use.9. Demand complete power off electronics10. Create websites that stress conservation, recycling and ways to do it.Remember that we have the ability to do all things if we just do our part.

  2. Freedom is earned – you are free to change the way YOU consume. No one is making you waste precious resources. You are only doing what you are told – you are told to consume as much as you can. Don’t let the boob tube tell you that you MUST consume as much as possible. Make it OK to conserve. Otherwise you are a slave to the market.Be a patriotic consumer…give the message that we have the power to say NO. It is no longer patriotic to massacre, loot, and steal from other nations so we can have more, more, more.

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