Legalizing Direct Action in Pennsylvania

Where the system is fixed, we are making civil disobedience legal. This is the audacious evolution of the grassroots effort of Grant Township in Pennsylvania. The community, facing the threat of injections wells for the disposal of fracking waste water, banned the activity only to be taken to court by the industry.

Faced with a full spectrum rejection of their right to defend their community the people enacted a law that legalized direct action against the injection wells. As we say in Colorado, when fracking and democracy cannot coexist, one of them must always go. And when the system is not broken, but fixed to produce the exact environmental destruction we are all now threatened by, it is time for a movement to challenge the system itself.

Grant Township has led the way with this groundbreaking effort, and hopefully many communities facing the same industrial threats will follow.

Cliff Willmeng is a registered nurse and leading environmentalist fighting oil and gas drilling in Colorado. He is currently running in the Green Party for US Congress in District 2. WillmengForCongress.org