Rising Tide Vermont Blocks Pipeline Land Appraisal

Submitted to It’s Going Down

On Friday January 29th Rising Tide Vermont along with local Vermonters in the rural town of Monkton, VT organized a human blockade to prevent a land appraiser from Vermont Gas Systems from coming onto the land. Rising Tide Vermont has been pushing for opponents of the fracked gas pipeline in Vermont to finally reject the bureaucratic Public Service Board’s process of fighting the pipeline and mobilize to stop the pipeline from being built through the use of direct action. This comes shortly after the PSB officially approved the permit for Vermont Gas Systems to construct their fracked gas pipeline showing us yet again that the state is on capital’s side, not ours. That afternoon about 70 people surrounded the entry point onto the land that was to be appraised and is currently lived on by an elderly woman who has faced consistent bullying and harassment from VGS. After about an hour of standing with linked arms, banners, and an orange construction fence to bolster the blockade, we received word that the land appraiser would not attempt to survey the land, claiming that the crowd was “too menacing”.

Capitalism cannot be combatted by so-called “green capitalism” such as that of the impotent reforms proposed by groups like 350.biz. Direct action must be taking place on all fronts if we are to continue escalating in the fight against the Vermont fracked gas pipeline and pipelines everywhere. Public disruptions are just one of the many tools available to anarchists in dismantling the physical infrastructure of industrial capitalism. We must be employing any and all means at our disposal to defend the land and ourselves from the ravages of the bosses and the state. Remember the cry of so many revolutionaries who have come before us: Land and Freedom!

In solidarity with the land defenders, union thugs, travelers, people’s militias, and uncontrollables.

– Wildcats of Vermont