Author Archives: WIRT

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About WIRT

The WIRT collective is part of an international, grassroots network of groups and individuals who take direct action to confront the root causes of climate change and to promote local, community-based solutions to the climate crisis.

Global Warming Worth Going to Jail Over

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20-year climate activist and WIRT co-founder Rob Briggs

Rob Briggs, Pullman

Moscow-Pullman Daily News 9/2/11

Normally, I would feel mortified learning that my arrest and incarceration had made front-page news in my local paper (Daily News, August 23). But last Tuesday, I looked forward to telling my mother, who agrees that global warming is worth going to jail over.

My charge was failure to leave the “postcard area” in front of the White House until the Park Police agreed to arrest me. I was guilty as a dog and prepared to admit it. After two days in jail, I was released without charge. Continue reading →

ExxonMobil Megaload with Police and Tar Sand Protestors in Moscow, Idaho 8-31-11

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ImperialOil/ExxonMobil’s ninth megaload on Highway 95, the second largest shipment to date, measuring 24 feet wide, 14 feet high, and 193 feet long and weighing 323,000 pounds, rolled through Moscow around midnight.  But ensuing events were radically different from the previous protest on August 25-26, which resulted in six arrests.  Moscow police constrained expressions of free speech and assembly by not allowing protesters to step into the street and not giving any second warnings before making arrests for which they were over-prepared.

(Video and heavily edited text provided by a megaload proponent)

It’s Worth the Fight to Save the Planet

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Virginia Lohr, Pullman

Moscow-Pullman Daily News 8/31/11

I couldn’t disagree more with the weekend Daily Newseditorial (Opinion, Aug. 27 & 28). Megaload protesters are fighting the right fight. If global warming isn’t stopped, it’s the end of this planet as we know it.

The editorial board thinks the protests should move to D.C., but the deck is stacked against people working for positive change there, too. After a week of arrests, National Public Radio has yet to do a story on those peaceful protests, and the White House hasn’t commented on them either. Even if the D.C. action proves productive, most people can’t afford to go there or risk days in jail. Continue reading →

Superficial Editorial

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Joshua Yeidel, Viola

Moscow-Pullman Daily News 8/30/11

This weekend’s editorial (Daily News, Aug. 27 & 28) about the megaload protests in Moscow is amazingly superficial for professed journalists. By removing all context, you trivialize the protest as a futile attempt to stop an oil company truck.

Of course, the protest was much more than that. It was a signal to all those who are passionately concerned about the Earth, our only home, that they are not alone in their passion or their concern. And it was a signal to those who are unaware of the brutal rape of Alberta, giant tar sands exploitation, that they have something to learn (search “tar sands action” on Facebook or “tar sands invasion” on Google). Continue reading →

An ‘Asinine Exercise in Pure Stupidity’

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Henry D. Johnston

Moscow-Pullman Daily News 8/30/11

In my June 7 column I predicted Moscow’s hippies would dig out their
“leather vests, put on their Birkenstocks and re-adjust their graying
ponytails” in response to the movement of ExxonMobil’s megaloads up U.S.
Highway 95. Now, imagine the belly laugh I enjoyed when I woke up Friday
morning and saw on DNews.com a photo, taken by Daily News photographer Dean Hare, of my exact prophecy.

Continue reading →

Megaload Monitors Arrested Saturday for Obstruction Outside Coeur d’Alene

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Wild Idaho Rising Tide community organizer, fellow opposition member refused to give ID to state trooper

Two protesters of the Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil megaload that began its trip from Lewiston late Thursday were arrested outside Coeur d’Alene on U.S. Highway 95 while monitoring the shipment’s progress early Saturday morning.

Helen Yost said she and another woman had been part of a group that was monitoring the load early Saturday when they were arrested by an Idaho State Police trooper.

They were later charged with obstruction and failure to wear seatbelts. Continue reading →

Update: More Mega-Load Protesters Arrested

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UPDATED: Saturday, August 27, 5:00 pm Idaho State Police told Citydesk that two more mega-load protesters were arrested Saturday morning in Coeur d’Alene.  That brings to eight the number of persons taken into custody, expressing their displeasure of the oversized rigs heading for the Kearl Oil Sands Project in Alberta, Canada.

ORIGINAL POST: Friday, August 26 Six people were arrested early today, protesting mega-loads as the huge rigs rolled through their Latah County community.  The six, members of Wild Idaho Rising Tide, took part in a larger protest which saw several people lie down in the middle of Washington Street in Moscow, as scaled-down ExxonMobil mega-loads rolled on Highway 95 toward Coeur d’Alene before heading east on I-90 and north to the Kearl Oil Sands Project in Alberta, Canada.

Read more: Update: More Mega-Load Protesters Arrested

(By George Prentice, Boise Weekly)

Three More Megaload Protesters Arrested in Coeur d’Alene

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Three more protesters were arrested early Saturday in Coeur d’Alene as a megaload shipment of oil excavation equipment passed through the Lake City.

Law enforcement officers confirmed that the arrests were made by Idaho State Police, but the names were not released.

One woman taken into custody had refused to identify herself, officials said.

Read more: Three More Megaload Protesters Arrested in Coeur d’Alene

(By Mike Prager, The Spokesman-Review)

Six Arrested During Megaload Protest

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A member of the Moscow Police Department (left) and an Idaho State Police trooper arrest a protester Friday morning in Moscow.

They’ve already been released from jail

Six Moscow protestors were arrested after an Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil megaload was blocked early Friday at the intersection of U.S Highway 95/Washington Street and Third Street in Moscow.

Those arrested were Brett Haverstick, 38; Mitchell Day, 40; Vincent Murray, 61; David Willard, 52; Gregory Freistadt, 26; and William French, 55, said Capt. Lonnie Richardson, of the Idaho State Police in Lewiston.

All six face misdemeanor allegations of assembling to disturb the peace and refusal to disperse, Richardson said. Continue reading →

Six Residents Arrested during Megaloads Protest

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Protesters jailed following demonstration on Washington Street

There are 25 scheduled stops along U.S. Highway 95 for the Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil megaload shipment, but environmental activists created a noisy, lengthy unscheduled stop in downtown Moscow early Friday morning.

Idaho State Police troopers accompanying the 413,600-pound shipment from the Port of Lewiston were greeted by 50 to 200 protesters at the intersection of Third and Washington streets around 12:30 a.m., several sitting in the road with their signs and refusing to move. Continue reading →