{"id":5475,"date":"2011-07-27T00:12:49","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T07:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5475"},"modified":"2011-07-27T00:12:49","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T07:12:49","slug":"hero-sentenced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/27\/hero-sentenced\/","title":{"rendered":"Hero Sentenced"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not often that we talk about a man on his way to prison as a hero, but I\u2019m talking about Tim DeChristopher, the man who protected thousands of acres of pristine wilderness from spoilage at the hands of the Bush Regime.  He committed an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, knowing that the likely cost was his own freedom.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"27Dechristopher\"A Utah man lionized by environmentalists for crashing a 2008 government auction of energy leases near two national parks was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $10,000 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Dee Benson in Salt Lake City ordered Tim DeChristopher taken into custody immediately.<\/p>\n

"I’m not saying there isn’t a place for civil disobedience," Benson said, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, "but it can’t be the order of the day."<\/p>\n

In March, a jury convicted DeChristopher, 29, of two felonies: making a false statement and violating laws on oil and gas leasing. He was not allowed to testify about his motivations for bidding<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

DeChristopher could have received up to 10 years in prison and a $1.5-million fine.<\/p>\n

Before his sentencing, dozens of supporters \u2014 including Peter Yarrow of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary \u2014 gathered near the federal courthouse, wearing orange sashes and waving puppets representing wildlife and "Big Oil." Yarrow led about 100 protesters in a singalong.<\/p>\n

Just before President George W. Bush left office, DeChristopher won bids on 22,000 acres in Utah’s red rock country, near Arches and Canyonlands national parks. Environmentalists had accused the Bush administration of trying to ram through the sale of the environmentally sensitive land before President Obama was sworn in<\/strong>\u2026  [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <LA Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Civil disobedience is a powerful form of protest, because the protestor knows in advance and accepts the potential consequences, but considers it worth it.  He deserves our gratitude and praise.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not often that we talk about a man on his way to prison as a hero, but I\u2019m talking about Tim DeChristopher, the man who protected thousands of acres of pristine wilderness from spoilage at the hands of the Bush Regime.  He committed an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, knowing that the likely cost […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}