ACTIVIST IMPRISONED

[Guest guest]

I hope that some of you will feel like dropping Josh a note of thanks.

- - -

Feb. 15, 2005

 

Hi friends,

 

Today I was sentenced to serve 30 days in the Green County Prison in

southwestern Pennsylvania for an action I was a part of last summer. My

co-defendants all received sentences of 5 days in jail. On June 23rd six

of us climbed a 700 foot smokestack at the Hatsfield Ferry Power Station,

one of the dirtiest coal fired power plants in the country. We hung a 120

foot tall banner declaring “The Bush Energy Plan Kills, Clean Energy Now.”

(Link to photo of banner

(http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/features/details?item_id=521350) Within 24

hours of touching the ground we had both state and federal charges -

including a charge amended under the USAPATRIOT ACT-which all added up to

about 90 years in prison.

 

Over the past few months we had some of the state felonies thrown out, and

the federal charges are dismissed “pending resolution of the state case.”

We were unable to plea bargain down to only misdemeanors, and after

Allegheny Power, who owns the plant where we hung the banner approached

us, we entered into a deal with them. We, as individuals, and Greenpeace

USA agreed to stay off their property for five years in exchange for the

remaining felony being dismissed. Our lawyers were confident that we could

easily be convicted of all charges, including the felony, and that due to

my record I would serve a lengthy prison sentence if we went to trial. The

decision to agree to this deal was a painful one, made with a heavy heart

on my part, but it is the decision we all came to in the face of an unjust

felony charge and an overzealous prosecutor.

 

I will likely serve out this imprisonment in the Green County Prison

(http://www.county.greenepa.net/secured/gc/depts/lo/comm/gcp/index.htm),

in Waynesburg PA. Letters can be sent to me at:

 

Josh Raisler Cohn

Green County Prison

855 Rolling Meadows Road

Waynesburg, PA 15370

 

Below is my sentencing statement to the court.

 

Know that you are all an inspiration to me.

 

Love and Struggle,

Josh

 

Sentencing Statement, Greene Country Courthouse. Feb 15, 2005

Josh Raisler Cohn

 

I would like to acknowledge that whatever happens to us here in court

today is slight compared to the impact on citizens of Greene and nearby

counties who live in the shadow of these toxic, poisonous coal power

plants. In 2002, according to energy policy analysts who contracted for

the Bush Administration, the pollution from the Hatsfield Ferry power

plant caused 237 deaths. Along with shortened lives these power plants

also cause asthma, heart disease, cancer and other serious illness.

 

The impacts do not stop at humans. Every lake, river and stream in the

state of Pennsylvania has a mercury advisory on it, which impacts people

here, as well as everyone downstream. Acid rain contributes to

deforestation from here to the Great Smokey Mountains, and eastward to the

Atlantic. With deforestation comes a loss of habitat for all of the

wildlife and flora that rely on intact ecosystems to survive. But the

dirty coal industry, from mountaintop removal mines to pollution from the

stacks is ripping out the very life support system of the planet.

 

I believe this is unacceptable.

 

I believe that we all have a right to clean water and clean air.

 

I believe that we have the right to live in communities free from toxic

pollution.

 

I believe that corporations should not be able to profit from poisoning us.

 

I believe that people should be allowed to determine for themselves the

conditions of their lives.

 

I believe in political protest and direct action. For me direct action is

an expression of hope and love, a call for us all to move towards a more

just, egalitarian and sustainable world. Growing up I learned about direct

action as a core component of the history of this country, from a

rebellion against unjust taxation to enslaved Africans escaping bondage in

a bid for self-determination, to Black Americans and White Women putting

their bodies on the line for equal rights and fair treatment. Many things

we take for granted were won through direct action. The right to vote was

not given freely to many people in this country. The 8 hour work day and

child labor laws were not gifts from a benevolent boss. These are things

that were fought for and died for by the people, for the people. Direct

action is an American tradition and it deserves to be treated as such.

 

We all share some level of responsibility for the problems in society.

When we know that people are dying from environmental pollution, if we

don’t do something about it, we are letting it happen. Of course there is

a difference between the people who are deciding not to clean up the

emission from Hatsfield Ferry and people who simply do nothing about it

because they don’t see the effects. But by not acting, we allow the

problems to continue. Complicity is a heavy burden, and in my life that

burden is lightened by acting, breaking a cycle of complicity and silence

by saying “no more.”

 

Any sentence that you impose today will do nothing to change the

conditions that got us in “trouble” with laws and government in the first

place. It will not solve the problems that come from environmental

pollution and human illness caused by Hatsfield Ferry and other plants

like it. It will not solve the economic injustice which allows people with

more money move out from the shadows of these plants, while leaving poorer

people no option but to continue living in a place where the air is

darkened by toxic clouds. It will not solve the problem that companies

like Allegheny Power turn a profit while jeopardizing our health and well

being.

 

We live in a country where the profit margin of a company is prioritized

over the health of a family or the purity of a mountain stream. Power

companies pay fines for violating environmental regulations instead of

cleaning up their emissions to increase their profit margins. They are

never around to pay though when that next bill comes in for an inhaler, a

round of chemotherapy, or for a coffin.

 

Economic indicators, like the GDP, go up every time someone is diagnosed

with cancer, every time the top of a mountain is blown off to gut the coal

from deep below. We as citizens participating in a democratic process for

change are criminalized for boldly and dramatically petitioning the

government for a redress of grievances. We hung a banner. That’s it. We

are criminalized by the judicial process while the Bush Administration

weakened the Clean Air Act so plants like Hatsfield Ferry can continue to

pollute.

 

One charge we are pleading guilty to is recklessly endangering another

person. We were meticulous in our preparations and during the

demonstration as well. We took great care to make sure that no one would

be hurt, that there would be no interruption of service, and that banner

could not billow out very far. Between 2000 and 2002 Hatsfield Ferry

knowingly, recklessly released over 500,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 70,000

tons of nitrogen oxides, and 1,500 pounds of mercury - a dangerous

neurotoxin. Who is reckless, and who is in danger?

 

In the 1300’s in Ireland, there was an interesting way that people worked

to resolve disputes. If someone felt they were wronged they could go to

the home of the person who they were upset with and sit on that person’s

doorstep and refuse to eat. They would not eat until the person offered

them food, an act which was some acknowledgment of the problem, and an

offer to move forward. I learned this history from the writings of

imprisoned suffragists, who often declared hunger strikes after being

imprisoned for holding banners in front of the white house during WWI in

their efforts to win white women the right to vote. As long as I am

imprisoned, and there is no prosecution of Allegheny power for the deaths,

illness and ecological destruction it has caused, I will not eat.

 

But I offer to the court, and to Ms. Fox, what you are welcome to join us

in this struggle for justice, and a good first step could be to start

investigating and prosecuting Hatsfield Ferry for it’s violations of the

law.

 

 

 

http://www.blueaction.org

" Better to have one freedom too many than to have one freedom too few. "

http://www.sharedvoice.org/unamerican/