Announcements Announcements

Welcome to our site.

logoPlease note that this site is best viewed through the following or later versions of Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.0, Safari 1.0, Google Chrome, Opera 6.0 or Netscape 6.0. Please send any comments via our Contact form.

Broadcast-Quality MP3

Please select the "Current Broadcast MP3" item under the "For Stations" button in the Navigation Bar.


SPECIAL AUDIO RECORDING:
Bill McKibben, environmental activist and founder of 350.org talks about the next steps in the climate change campaign


An address by Bill McKibben, founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, upon receiving the annual Gandhi Peace Award from the New Haven-based group Promoting Enduring Peace on April 18 in Hamden, CT

Bill McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with "The End of Nature" in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. The group he founded, 350.org, has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. The Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was "probably the country’s most important environmentalist."


SPECIAL AUDIO RECORDING:
Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece's Left Party Coalition, on "Anti-Austerity Politics in Greece, Europe and Beyond"


A talk recorded on Jan. 25, 2013 at The City University of New York, in a program sponsored by CUNY's Center for the Study of Culture, Technology, and Work.

Alexis Tsipras, a member of the Hellenic parliament, president of the Synaspismos political party since 2008, head of the SYRIZA parliamentary group since 2009, and leader of the Opposition since June 2012. SYRIZA currently leads in Greek opinion polls. Listen to the audio here.


Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

Between The Lines Blog  BTL Blog

"Rand Paul: Making a Point," by Reginald Johnson, March 8, 2013

"The Bipartisan Gift: Budget Cuts," by Reginald Johnson, March 2, 2013

"Fighting for Gun Control," by Reginald Johnson, Feb. 18, 2013

"Tyranny of the Minority," by Reginald Johnson, Jan. 28, 2013

"Is President Obama About to Betray Those Who Re-elected Him Less than 2 Months Ago?" by Scott Harris, Dec. 21, 2012

"Will the Slaughter of the Innocents in Newtown Lead to Gun Law Reform in U.S.?" by Scott Harris and Anna Manzo, Dec. 16, 2012

"My Friend in Sandy Hook," by Doug Moss, posted by Scott Harris, Dec. 16, 2012

Special Programming Special Programming


MP3: Glenn Greenwald delivers a keynote address at "A Conference in Defense of Civil Liberties and to End Indefinite Detention" at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain on Dec. 8, 2012.

Glenn Greenwald is a columnist on civil liberties and US national security issues for the Guardian newspaper. He's a former constitutional lawyer, and until 2012 was a contributing writer at Salon.com. Greenwald is the author of "With Liberty and Justice For Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful."

Read his column at The Guardian (UK)
Between The Lines' executive producer Scott Harris conducted an interview with Glenn Greenwald at the conference, which will be featured in a BTL program to be released Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012.

Noam Chomsky is linguistics and philosophy professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Author of nearly 100 books, Chomsky is one of the world's most widely read progressive dissident intellectuals. He talks about his new book, "Occupy," about the Occupy Wall Street movement and the wider issues of class warfare in the America today.
Listen to this interview (June 6, 2011)
MP3: Nathan Schneider (www.wagingnonviolence.org) has been reporting on the OWS movement from its first days in August, 2011. In this April 3, 2012 interview, Richard Hill asks him to assess the on-going debate in the movement between those espousing a strict adherence to non-violence principles and practices and those advocating a 'diversity of tactics', Interview conducted by Richard Hill, WPKN

Recent BTL Interview Topics

Economy War health care

Environment  Human/Civil Rights U S Politics International Politics

Progressive Resources

A compilation of activist and news sites with a progressive point of view

Share this content:

|

Podcasts Subscribe to BTL

Podcasts:  direct  or  via iTunes

Subscribe to Program Summaries, Interview Transcripts or Counterpoint via email or RSS feed

If you have other questions regarding subscriptions, feeds or podcasts/mp3s go to our Audio Help page.

Between The Lines Blog

Stay connected to BTL

RSS feed  twitter  facebook

donate  Learn how to support our efforts!

shop  Online Store

newswire Newswire

U.S. Politics

Economy

Bush Accountability

International Affairs

"Postwar" Occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan

Civil Liberties/ Human Rights

Environment and Sustainability

Media Issues

Activism

Environmental Activist who Derailed Public Land Sale to Oil and Gas Developers Faces 10 Years in Prison

Posted March 9, 2011

Real Audio  Real Audio  podcast  MP3

Interview with Tim DeChristopher, environmental activist, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

dechristopher On March 3, Tim DeChristopher was convicted by a federal jury in Salt Lake City, Utah on two felony counts of interfering with a government auction and making false statements when he placed bids at the auction in December 2008. DeChristopher had the winning bid on several parcels of land comprising thousands of acres that were being opened for oil and gas drilling during the last days of the outgoing Bush administration. In his bid, he won the rights to 22,500 acres out of 116,000 acres up for auction.

DeChristopher said he took the more radical step of becoming a bidder rather than just protesting outside the auction because he wanted to make a stronger statement against the environmental destruction that would exacerbate climate change and be a byproduct of the extraction of oil and possibly natural gas from the desert, near priceless icons like Arches National Park. DeChristopher, 29, faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $750,000 at his June 23 sentencing. He hasn't decided yet whether to appeal.

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with DeChristopher about his nonviolent direct action and the organization he co-founded, Peaceful Uprising, to encourage others to take similar risks to combat the climate crisis and build a just, healthy world.

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: I was going in there with some kind of intention of waving a red flag about what was going on and try to delay the auction long enough that the new administration could reconsider and hopefully reverse the auction, which is eventually what happened. So I was just going in with that vague intention, not knowing what that might look like, if I was going to yell something, or make a speech, or something like that, and just when I walked in, they asked me if I wanted to be a bidder.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And you didn't have to meet any criteria or put down any money, or anything like that?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: No, all it took was a driver's license to sign up. It was just a simple form.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What happened next?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: They stopped the auction after I won about 12 parcels in a row. They stopped it and an agent came and asked me to step outside. And I told him exactly what I was doing and why. They took me into custody -- they didn't arrest me at the time, but they took me into custody and questioned me for a few hours before releasing me that afternoon.

BETWEEN THE LINES: When were you charged, then?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: I wasn't charged 'til almost four months later, I think in part because it took them a long time to figure out if I actually broke any laws. But it was actually after the auction was reversed that I was indicted.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Under the Obama administration, then?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: Right.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Was the auction reversed because it was tainted by your participation or because the Obama administration had decided they didn't want to be auctioning off the drilling rights?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: The latter. I mean, once they had taken a second look at the auction, the government admitted that they weren't following their own laws in the first place, and the auction itself was illegitimate to begin with.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So when that happened, did you feel like you were off the hook?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: I thought it was possible, but I also realized that in some ways it made it more likely for me to be indicted because when they took a second look, it did expose the illegitimacies of the auction, and they decided those parcels weren't appropriate for leasing, it actually kept those parcels out of the hands of the oil industry.

BETWEEN THE LINES: You had considered using the necessity defense, that is, that you took action to prevent a greater harm, the despoiling of these lands, but you weren't able to, right?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: In the trial, we weren't allowed to say anything that didn't happen on Dec. 19. We weren't allowed to let the jury know that the auction was overturned afterwards because the government admitted it was illegitimate. We weren't allowed to let them know that I did in fact raise the money in the weeks after the auction to make the initial payment, and I offered that to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), and they refused to take it. The jury never heard any of that info so the verdict was kind of a foregone conclusion by the time the trial happened.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Tell me again what exactly were the charges?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: It was one count of violating the federal on-shore oil and gas leasing reform act and one count of making false statements.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What were the false statements? You won the bids and you were going to pay for them.

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: Well, they said the false statement was that I signed the bidder registration form, which said that I was a bona fide bidder, and they said that at the time I signed it, I didn't have the intention to actually purchase and develop any of these oil leases. It was interesting in the trial during cross-examination when I was on the stand, the prosecutor asked if I was bidding in good faith. And I said, Could you define, "in good faith." And he said, "Well, it means you are a bona fide bidder." And I said, "Can you define bona fide in this application?" and he said, "I withdraw the question" and he changed the subject and talked about something else. They were never quite able to define what that meant, but they were pretty sure it wasn't me.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Is it possible that they'd be developing natural gas on these properties, or was it just oil?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: It was natural gas as well.

BETWEEN THE LINES: You co-founded a group called Peaceful Uprising, which is focused specifically around climate change. Can you explain its goals?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: It was something that was set up after the auction with a lot of folks that came together and had heard about what had happened and wanted to encourage similar actions.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Has that happened?

TIM DECHRISTOPHER: There certainly have been a lot of folks who have expressed their sentiments to me about how they've been affected by this story, and a lot of folks that have come together and built a really strong community of folks who all share that sentiment that we need to be taking stronger action to defend a livable future. And I think the trial and the events surrounding it really galvanized that community a lot. I think it was an important point for the folks in Peaceful Uprising to make that very public statement outside the courthouse, that whatever happens to me, they're going to respond with joy and resolve and they're going to keep fighting for a livable future and they're not going to back down in the face of this attempted intimidation.

For more information, visit Tim DeChristopher's group's website at www.peacefuluprising.org

Related links: