Subverting the machinery of death -- then and now

On May 17, 1968, nine Catholic activists appropriated 378 files about young, male, potential draftees from the Catonsville, Maryland draft board. They burned them in the parking lot and stood by until arrested. From jail, the group sent an apologetic letter and a basket of flowers to the clerk on duty at the office during the event. Found guilty of destruction of U.S. property, Mary Moylan, Philip Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan and George Mische failed to report for the beginning of their sentences. The men were eventually captured and served time; Moylan escaped the Feds until 1979 and then served one year. (Perhaps they had a hard time finding the girl?)

The Catonsville actions touched off many additional religiously rooted demonstrations of resistance to war among white dissidents, many involving property destruction and non-cooperation with authorities. At first these responded to the Vietnam War, later to nuclear weapons development and nuclear stockpiles. White, activist, Catholic religious witness for peace acquired a new foothold in the American religious miscellany.

At the time, the property destruction and non-cooperation were extremely controversial among more traditional peace activists. Catholic pacifist groups did not universally applaud the Catonsville actions. Dorothy Day at the Catholic Worker deplored property destruction and especially the resisters' failing to show up for imprisonment -- though of course she delightedly hosted Fr. Daniel Berrigan saying mass when he emerged from Danbury Federal Prison a couple of years later.

Quite properly, people who engage in serious nonviolent actions still ponder whether their tactics accord with their vision of a more peaceful world.

In the publication Waging Nonviolence, Phil Berrigan's daughter Frida, an activist in her own right, offers a fascinating review/discussion of a film dealing with these issues in our contemporary setting. The depredations of the fossil fuel industry attract activists who are willing to put their bodies on the line to interrupt the carnage being let loose on our one and only planet. Is there a way, both ethical and effective, to protest our own destruction?

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is a different kind of climate catastrophe movie. There is no zombie horde, no nuclear-infused, super-sized gorilla, no metaphorical asteroid standing in for the end of the world. ... In this film (and in our lives) the wasteland is here and now. It is killing some people and making life uncomfortable or unlivable for the protagonists and their families. One character, Theo, has a cancer that leaves her gaunt and coughing up blood. She can’t afford the medicine. In a telling moment, a few of the team are at Dwayne’s West Texas home looking over maps. His wife offers beer. Shawn asks for water instead, but she replies: “We’re out of water,” without sentiment or apology. “Beer it is, then.” It is just a fact. Like the exposure to chemical plants and constant truck exhaust responsible for the bloom of rare cancer in Theo, or the heat wave that killed Xochitl’s mother.             

These young people have had enough. They find one another and try to do something they hope will have an immediate and lasting impact on the companies that profit from polluting the planet. They are careful and methodical in their planning and take pains to avoid violence to human beings or more pollution to the Earth. The young people repeatedly put themselves in danger rather than risk others getting hurt. And they have all the discussions you’d expect a group of thoughtful, impassioned, young climate activists ...

... For my parents and their community of Plowshares activists, faith and friendship answered the questions and soothed the doubts. And I felt the absence of those two saving elements in this film. 

You want the recipe for risky property-damaging actions? In my experience, it is faith that your actions are a few stitches in a larger tapestry of change-making, as well as friendships that fill your commissary and mailbox and protect you from the kinds of nasty deals the FBI tries to exact. 

The closest to a real-life pipeline blower-upper I know is Jessica Reznicek, and she was sentenced to eight years in prison in June 2021. Once she’s done with that sentence, she will have to navigate three more years of probation and will owe more than $3 million in restitution to Energy Transfer LLC. She needs a lot of support to get through this next decade of prison and probation, and there is nothing in the film on how to do that. 

... I am going to take all the activist energy stirred up in me by “How To Blow Up A Pipeline” and put it toward writing [and supporting] to Jessica Reznicek.

I can't see myself searching out the movie. Not my idea of fun. But I do support Reznicek. More about her offense here. 

I am always stirred by encountering communities of resistance whose members question themselves as they search for ways to act for more justice and more peace.