81 year-old Roland Micklem released the following statement after his non-violent civil disobedience at Massey Energy’s Regional Headquarters on Wednesday, September 9.
The action went well. Police arrived on the scene shortly after we had formed our human chain across the road, cut us loose, and hauled us to the courthouse in Madison to be indicted. We appeared before the magistrate a few hours later and we were charged with trespass, conspiracy to commit a crime, and damage to private property. Bail was set at $5,000 apiece. As I write the rest of my fellow activists are being released on bail.
The language of the indictments may have made us sound like seasoned criminals, but as we are quick to point out, the real criminals are those in charge of the demolition operations that are wiping out such mammoth sections of Appalachia’s mountains. Among our charges was conspiracy. There’s is an ongoing conspiracy with their political hacks in Charleston and Washington which legalizes MTR (mountaintop removal), and they damage more property on any one of their sites than the combined efforts of all of the vandals in all of the major cities of the nation.
Many of us do not think of this campaign in terms of winning or losing. I, as many of my companions are here to make a statement with our lives; we are announcing to the world that we will no longer tolerate the business-as-usual policies of a power structure that are largely responsible for our economic, health, and environmental crises. The forces arrayed against us are powerful and perhaps overwhelming. But when I am called upon for an accounting of what I have done with my life, I want to be able to say that I have done everything humanly possible to implement my convictions.
This is the reason I’m prepared to carry on, regardless of the outcome.
In the below video and this open letter, he announced his intent to lead a 25 mile march of senior citizens in a protest against mountaintop removal. More information is available at this webpage.
Tags: civil disobedience, Roland Micklem
Perhaps Mr. Micklem has an extra $ 1,700.00 in disposable income to pay for Mr. Obama’s Cap & Trade, but most seniors do not.
[...] Source: Climate Ground Zero [...]
Just some info that might help. You may think about where you are marching to. I will just leave it at that. Anti-Mtr/coal you have all the answers so you should know what I am trying to relate to you. Right?