The left loves political theater and judicial activism. So does WIRED magazine, apparently, given its promotion of “pipeline vandals” and other crimes committed in order to try to persuade a jury about climate change.
WIRED published “Pipeline Vandals are Reinventing Climate Activism” on Nov. 9, a glowing 4,483-word feature story promoting the criminal acts against oil companies, pipelines, oil trains, and more for the sake of climate change.
“Getting arrested was part of the plan,” Dean Kuipers wrote about the individuals involved with #ShutItDown crimes in October 2016. Kuipers’ Twitter account says he is a “blogger for Greenspace” at the Los Angeles Times, and recent tweets showed he also wrote “Three Ways to Combat Climate Change Through the Courts” for the left-wing Atlantic magazine on Oct. 30.
In WIRED, Kuipers referred to people breaking into oil pipeline facilities with bolt cutters, and turning off pipelines in the preferred, positive liberal terminology: “direct action.”
Kuipers wrote, “Across the country, the Valve Turners and their support teams had closed the valves in the hope of getting into court to present to a jury what is called a ‘necessity defense,’ arguing that their crime was an act of civil disobedience meant to prevent a greater harm—in this case, death by climate catastrophe. If the plan worked they would create a legal precedent that would put a powerful new tool in the hands of eco-warriors.”
He described Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein as “white, middle-aged. Law-abiding folks. Except when they’re mad” as if anger was a valid excuse for their trespassing and shutting down a pipeline.
The article hyped the “legal traction” Minnesota gave to the necessity defense, even though the judge ultimately decided there wasn’t enough “damage” and chose to acquit the activists before they got the desired opportunity to convince a jury that they needed to shut off the pipeline because of the dire threat of climate change.
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Kuipers seemed not to have no problem with the activists’ plan “to go right back to direct action.”
Klapstein admitted they would, saying: “The political system has been even further foreclosed. What does that leave ordinary citizens to do? It doesn’t mean stop trying legal means, but it does mean step up and put your body on the line too.”
Rather than challenge their aims or present critics of it, Kuipers concluded firmly on their side, mentioning other pending cases and writing, “Decisions in both cases are a few months off. By then, there will almost certainly be more such cases. The case for necessity is only growing stronger.”
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