Organizing Lancaster County

WV shifted Republican in recent years for the first time. I think the coal industry saw an opportunity to stoke rural white folks' underlying racism, and seized the moment to create an anti-Obama, anti-EPA, anti-federal government backlash. In doing so they managed, by and large, to escape being targeted by their own constituency. And the UMWA, depressingly, went along with their narrative. The backlash to the federal government surely would have happened whether or not we had a black president, but I'm not sure I think it would have been as effective or as visceral.

Now that coal the industry is solidly in decline, and Obama's presidency is coming to an end, it's interesting to read a story like this. It's hard to tell how much support there actually is in rural WV for Sanders, but if support is growing, this is why I think it exists:

1. He's white & and from a rural state. 2. His populist, anti-corporate message resonates with working class people who've been screwed by the coal industry and now have no alternative to look to. 3. He has a track record of supporting unions.

Yesterday afternoon, I went on a victory hike up Trout Run to celebrate the Home Rule challenge getting thrown out. I thought I'd take a break, clear my head and root myself in the land we're all working hard to protect here in Lancaster County.

Half an hour into my hike, a Williams surveying chopper drowned out the sounds of the creek and shook the quiet out of my mind. I watched as it flew overhead, slowly and purposefully scouring the pipeline route through southern Lancaster County.

Even when I'm all alone, hiking up my favorite creek, with my phone off and laptop at home, it's not possible to escape this damn pipeline.

This morning, I went on another hike. I came home, turned my phone on, and found that Williams had filed with FERC. I spent this afternoon looking at maps of memories: creeks I've stomped, fields I've smelled, woods I've hiked through, roads I've driven. All with a pipeline bisecting them.

It's game on here in Lancaster County. This is a message to all my friends, family, acquaintances, high school friends, and neighbors who have been reading about the pipeline but haven't taken a stand. Our movement is rooted in the richest soil in the world. If they try to mow us down, we'll pop right back up again.

My people, in The Atlantic! I'm so incredibly proud of the Mennonite legacy - rooted deep in our collective core to this day - of standing up for our beliefs despite persecution from those in power. Our core beliefs: Anabaptism, community self-determination and pacifism have led us to oppose slavery and war, to support the separation of church and state, and to refuse to pledge allegiance to any government flag.

In response to our violent persecution, and in order to guarantee our survival, our people turned inward and formed strong, self-reliant & nearly impenetrable church communities and institutions.

Jamelle Bouie's article in Slate -  Why Democrats Can’t Win Over White Working-Class Voters - hit home with me today, when thinking about the organizing we're doing here in Lancaster County

Bouie writes:

The Democratic Party styles itself a fighter for the working class. But a substantial part of that class—the white part—wants nothing to do with it. If we count the white working class as whites without college degrees, then congressional Democrats lost them by 30 points in last week’s elections, contributing to losses in states as diverse as Iowa, Maine, Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida

And goes on to say:

Put another way, for a new rhetoric of populism to work—or at least, attract the winnable whites identified by Teixeira and Halpin—it needs to come with a commitment to universal policies that working-class whites like and support. (It’s no coincidence that the most liberal working-class whites belong to private and public sector unions.)

But the United States doesn’t have a political party to support that kind of social democracy. Instead, it has the Democratic Party, a collection of disparate interests which—at its best—is nervous about economic liberalism and hesitant to push anything outside the mainstream. And worse, it has a presidential frontrunner who—more than anyone else—is connected to the kinds of elites and the kinds of policies that would push the party away from the muscular liberalism it needs.

The Republican party takes advantage of white working class voters' very real fears of instability and hard times by fueling the fires of racism to alienate white people from other working people with whom they have the most in common.

Meanwhile, Democrats (& the left at large) dismiss white working class voters - either abandoning them outright as a lost cause & barrier to progress, or using classist language to shame them as uneducated, rednecks, hillbillies, or backwards. Thus leaving white working class folks all across America burning with resentment & fear, but without anyone articulating a way forward.

I believe rural anti-extraction movements - if positioned correctly - can have the power to build bridges across party lines, and bridge class & racial divides. The natural gas industry, in particular, is currently engaged in an unprecedented infrastructural expansion across the nation: building pipelines, power plants, export terminals and more through rural & urban working class communities.

Engagement in these struggles are avenues for white, working class Americans to express anger at an unjust system, and to develop trust, understanding, and compassion for all people who are engaged in struggle with them. 

In Lancaster County, the fight against a natural gas pipeline is uniting people across party lines.  Progressives & conservatives are engaged in common struggle.  

What if our Lancaster County no-pipeline movement were to next build alliances with the people living where this gas will end: at the urban refineries, power plants, and export terminals?  

What if we used populist, rights-based language that bridged the gap & spoke to a broad swath of people fighting against fossil fuel expansion, instead of just activists, environmentalists, or progressives?

To all the hardworking folks in the Lancaster movement to stop the pipeline:

I am awed by the tireless, thankless work being done by all of you.  So many of you are currently devoting hours, days, weeks or months of your lives to stopping the proposed Atlantic Sunrise pipeline through Lancaster County.  

I want to express my deepest gratitude, appreciation, and thanks to all of you.

Yes, all of us in this Lancaster County movement feel an obligation to protect our families & our communities from this pipeline.  It doesn't feel like we have a choice - we have to act.  But the truth is, any of us can choose to speak out or be silent.  We can choose to ignore injustice or fight to stop it.  Everyone working together in this movement has made the right choice, the difficult choice, the rare choice to fight for our communities, for our homes & neighbors, and for the future of Lancaster County.