TWO BRAVE YOUNG WOMEN TAKE ACTION AGAINST OIL

THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 

RESTS IN THE MORAL COURAGE OF THE FEW.

Two Iowa-based Catholic Worker activists revealed they secretly carried out multiple acts of sabotage and arson in order to stop construction of the controversial $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. We speak with Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya about how they set fire to heavy machinery being used to construct the pipeline. They say their actions were inspired by the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement which used nonviolent direct action to target nuclear warheads and military installations.

DEMOCRACY NOW

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Iowa, where two Catholic Workers have revealed they secretly carried out multiple acts of sabotage and arson in recent months in order to stop construction of the controversial $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya said that on Election Day last year they set fire to five pieces of heavy machinery being used to construct the pipeline. The two then taught themselves how to destroy empty pipeline valves, and moved up and down the pipeline's length, destroying the valves and delaying construction for weeks. They say their actions were inspired by the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement, which used nonviolent direct action to target nuclear warheads and military installations.

RUBY MONTOYA: Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken. We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation's water supply.

AMY GOODMAN: Jessica Reznicek, how did you know where this pipeline was?

JESSICA REZNICEK: Well, I knew exactly where this pipeline was, because it—it's not more than 15 miles from this studio. It runs right here through the county I was born in, Polk County, Iowa. I definitely took a lot of inspiration from what I saw up at Standing Rock. But Iowa is impacted greatly by this, and my home city's drinking water is to be destroyed when this pipeline breaks. And so it's not a matter of having to find it. It's right—it found me.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what Plowshares actions are, for those who don't know? You're both Catholic Workers, Jessica and Ruby, living at the Catholic Worker House in Des Moines. Can you explain what the Catholic Worker movement is all about?

JESSICA REZNICEK: We have a rich tradition, started by Dorothy Day in the 1930s. And we have a rich tradition both in assisting underprivileged people in our communities, via soup kitchens, hospitality, shelters for homeless people who we live with in our communities, and we also have—on the flipside of that, we also recognize the resistance that is needed to help bring underprivileged people back up to the same level as the people who are taking the money from them.

And so, in essence, Ruby and I focus on the resistance aspect here in the Des Moines Catholic Worker. And we have followed suit, and I believe that we are inspired by Mr. Phil Berrigan—the house that we live in is named after. And we do understand the need to dismantle infrastructure when it poses a threat to human life and liberty.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let me talk about and ask you about that tradition of the Berrigan brothers, of Father Dan Berrigan and Philip Berrigan, who helped launch the international anti-nuclear Plowshares movement. Father Dan and seven others poured blood and hammered on warheads at a GE nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, in 1980. I asked Father Dan Berrigan about this during an interview I did with him around, oh, a decade ago.

 

DANIEL BERRIGAN: We went in with the workers at the changing of the shift and found there was really no security worth talking about, a very easy entrance. In about three minutes, we were looking at doomsday. The weapon was before us. It was an unarmed warhead about to be shipped to Amarillo, Texas, for its payload. So it was a harmless weapon as of that moment. And we cracked the weapon. It was very fragile. It was made to withstand the heat of re-entry into the atmosphere from outer space, so it was like eggshell, really. And we had taken as our model the great statement of Isaiah 2: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares." So we did it, poured our blood around it and stood in a circle, I think, reciting the Lord's Prayer until Armageddon arrived, as we expected.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Father Dan Berrigan and his brother Philip Berrigan and others, the Catonsville Nine, in 1968, burned the draft files of people in Catonsville, Maryland, using napalm that was used in Vietnam. Do you consider this a Plowshares action?

JESSICA REZNICEK: It has been characterized by Ruby and I as what we call a rolling Plowshares, yes. An extended Plowshares action, yes.

Excerpts from Democracy Now - July 28, 2017
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/28/meet_the_two_catholic_workers_who

FR. DANIEL BERRIGAN
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2016/04/30/poet-and-prophet-peacemaking-legacy-daniel-berrigan-sj