FRACK JOE MANCHIN THANK YOU MATTHEW!

 

This is Matthew. I am a 21-year-old bicycle-maker and a volunteer for Climate Defiance. We’re the new, youth-led, insurgent arm of the climate movement. If you’re just tuning in: we’re the group that goes hard. We blockaded the White House Correspondents Dinner and sowed CHAOS at the Congressional Softball Game. We’ve shut down keynotes and galas and luncheons honoring too many senators and cabinet members to count. We’re just one year old and we’ve already been profiled in the New Republic, the Guardian, the NYT, InsideClimateNews, and Rolling Stone.   I’m writing to let you know what I did last week. I stood face to face with Joe Manchin and let him know that he is a sick fuck. His Exxon lobbyist henchman threw me to the ground, but I got back up. I can promise you that as long as I am able to stand I will continue to get back up to fight those who have built their fortunes by destroying our futures. You can see it all unfold on CNN. When we walked into the Harvard campus I was nervous, but we had a mission. We navigated the maze of the building until we realized we were directly above the room where Joe Manchin was speaking off the record to a bunch of Harvard students. We silently coordinated and I led us down a staircase. We were prepared to be confronted by security; instead there was only a locked door in our way. When we knocked, the door was opened…and there was Joe Manchin - just five feet in front of me. While I told the whole room how Manchin has accepted more money from the Fossil Fuel Industry than anyone else in the Senate, my fellow disruptors slid in through the door. While shocked students looked on I called Joe Manchin what he is: A SICK FUCK! He squared up with me and for a moment I thought I was going to be punched by a U.S. Senator. Instead his former aid, now private sector fossil fuel lobbyist Johnathan Kott pushed me into the door and out the room. It didn’t matter though. I had gotten my point across. While I was keeping Kott and a Harvard Police Detective occupied outside the room, my friends were confronting Manchin about his forcing of the Mountain Valley Pipeline through West Virginia and sacred Indigenous burial grounds. The Mountain Valley pipeline will carry 2 billion cubic feet of fracked gas across more than a thousand streams and wetlands from Northwestern West Virginia to Southern Virginia unless WE stop it. Over 750 frontline communities and environmental justice organizations oppose its construction.This pipeline has a horrific safety track record. It has received 55 notices of violation – 46 of those were for violating water quality standards. They even got a $300,000 fine from the WV EPA for erosion and sedimentation. If built, it would endanger many of West Virginia’s most cherished rivers. When confronted with this, what did Manchin do? He doubled down on his support for the pipeline saying that West Virginians, which includes some of the most impoverished, exploited, and environmentally vulnerable communities in the US, should SUPPORT the pipeline. This is an outrage. Joe Manchin doesn’t represent West Virginians. He represents the fossil fuel industry. He knows it and we know it. Now the 5.7 million people who have seen the viral confrontation know it too. I wasn’t planning on participating in this action. I was scheduled to work that day and didn’t want to make the trip to Boston. But a week ago I was standing in a crowded home in Somerville and I listened to Representative Ayanna Preslley speak about the incredible effect the work of Climate Defiance has had, as well as the infuriating environmental injustices happening just a few miles from us. She invoked the words of Angela Davis: “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change, I am changing the things I cannot accept.” These words inspired me to make a commitment. I donated  $1000 to Climate Defiance and committed to attend this action to confront Manchin. Now I am bruised, and I am tired, but dammit I am satisfied because I know I did what is necessary and what is right. A study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health determined that 1 in 5 deaths are caused by pollution. I am committed to tracking down those who are responsible for this ecocide and letting the world know what they have done. But this is not free. Pulling off these actions cost real money. I personally donated $1000 because we need widespread, hard-hitting, frequent, disruptive direct action to turn this crisis around. Can you match my $1K gift? If you are not in a position to do so, can you give any amount that is meaningful to you? You can do so here. In Solidarity, Matthew

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