Tuesday, March 16, 2010
DeChristopher and the Gandhi Defense
Posted By Eric S. Peterson on March 16, 2010, 10:50 AM
Tim “The Monkeywrencher” DeChristopher recently lost a bid to find out info about other bidders who may have skirted penalties for failing to pay for their oil and lease auction bids. With that move foiled, DeChristopher is quickly running out of grounds for defense. This in my mind means he’s got one long-ass-shot-hail-Mary left: The Gandhi Defense.---
Following in the sandals of a true rock star of civil disobedience, DeChristopher ought to adopt a strategy from the satyagraha playbook and change his plea to Guilty—and not only do that ask, nay beg, the judge for the maximum sentence. If the law is the law is the law is the law, then the only way to show how jacked everything is will be to demand the fullest extent of that law. That will force our culture to really see how much of a stomach we have for punishing an auction saboteur.
It’s just the wily kind of maneuver that may involve actual jail time for DeChristopher... but for the movement, holy shit, DeChristopher would be a legend. The heads of Texas oil billionaires would erupt like geysers, carrying their ten gallon hats off with a gusher of brain mud at the thought of all the bad press. They’d be on par with the British Magistrates that would jail Gandhi for being too much of a nice guy.
Just saying is all, but with the imminent-defense-of-earth defense long gone and the “I was-just-like-other-negligent-bidders” defense getting weaker and weaker, it’s looking more and more like it’s time for DeChrisopher to don the toga and get really real about this whole civil disobedience business
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