Hattie Nestel: Massachusetts Activists Mark MLK Day with Protest Against Planned NED Pipeline Massachusetts Fracked Gas Pipeline

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

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JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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Massachusetts Activists Mark MLK Holiday with 3-Day Walk Against Planned NED Fracked Gas Pipeline

Posted Jan. 20, 2016

Interview with Hattie Nestel, organizer of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Walk to Stop the NED Pipeline, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

When it comes to opposition to proposed fracked gas pipelines across the country, one of the best organized grassroots movements is based in the hill towns of rural northwest Massachusetts. For over a year, property owners, local officials, the president of the state senate, and major environmental groups have all intervened in the permitting process for a pipeline with the process of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Opponents maintain that the Tennessee Pipe Line Company's Northeast Energy Direct pipeline isn't needed nor wanted to bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania through New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which they say will be exported to Eastern Canada. In November, Kinder Morgan, Tennessee pipeline's parent company filed information with FERC indicating the company may want to use a substantial percentage of the gas to feed a massive gas-powered electric power plant that could be built somewhere along the pipeline's proposed route. More than 1,700 intervenors have filed their opposition to the pipeline with FERC, which may be the largest number for any proposed pipeline.

Hattie Nestel, who is 77 years old and an opponent of the pipeline, was struck with the idea of organizing a three-day walk over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend from the site of a proposed gas compressor station in the town of Northfield to the site of a planned pipe storage facility 34 miles away, in Plainfield. In less than a month – with no formal meetings or budget, and despite naysayers who doubted anyone would march for three days in mid-January's frigid temperatures – more than 100 people marched at least part of each day, from babies in strollers to octogenarians.

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus participated in the walk to learn firsthand from the mostly local residents about their concerns, and spoke with Hattie Nestel at the end of the second day of the walk. Here, Nestel explains why she took on the project and what defeating the pipeline will mean for residents and the environment of the area she calls home.

HATTIE NESTEL: It's relevant because if you really read and study Martin Luther King's life and his thinking and his commitments, he didn't always do what was popular; he didn't always do what people thought he should do; he did what some inner light guided him to do. He followed his inner light, and I just put this out to people, because my inner light said we should take this three-day walk to commemorate him and to fight the pipeline, and put the word out there about the pipeline. So, hundreds of people have been involved in this walk so far the first two days. Hundreds of people have walked, they've supported the walk, they've cooked for the walk. They're putting us up at night. Every need is met. It's just a beautiful explosion of people coming together - young children, young mothers, older people, whatever, to do this work to stop the pipeline. And I'm sure Martin Luther King's vision would have included the destruction of the earth as a real human rights violation and a lack of democracy, and those were things that were important to him.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So, this pipeline, just say a little bit about it. It's the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Just trace the path from where it enters Massachusetts and where it leaves and what people are doing to oppose it – and why.

HATTIE NESTEL: First of all, it comes up from the fracked fields of Pennsylvania, the Marcellus shale. The fracking process is very devastating to people, so that's part of the problem. It's devastating to the workers; they're inhaling all sorts of carcinogens and methane that's very bad for the environment. Wells have been destroyed; people are getting really sick in Pennsylvania, which is where I'm originally from. And then it goes up through New York by pipe, and they want to come through Massachusetts with a pipeload of this fracked gas. So, on many different levels, we don't want this fracked gas. We have all kinds of laws and constitutional amendments that say that protected land - conserved land - should be protected; it should not be destroyed. And this company is just in it for the profit. We'd have to pay for it, for the litigation, whatever was going on. Our housing values would be destroyed. But the worst thing is that species habitats would be destroyed; our waterways would be destroyed. Our forests would be cut down. We would no longer be the same pristine area we were if the pipeline were to come through.

And it's supposed to come through Hancock, go as far east as eight or ten towns and heading up into New Hampshire for something like nine towns through New Hampshire and back down to Dracut, Massachusetts, and go up for export to the Maritimes (Canada). So this wouldn't even be gas that we'd be needing or using, and it would push our prices up and take away our green energy jobs, and our Global Warming Solutions Act requires that we move forward with green energy and not with fossil fuels, so we really need to stop this pipeline; it's very clear.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So, you were walking the path of the pipeline. I know there were some issues with weather making it difficult to start at the starting point you had hoped, which is the proposed compressor station in Northfield. But the rest of the time, we've been following the path of the proposed pipeline. It's very rural. You were talking about conserved land. Apparently, the pipeline path goes right over, or right through, a lot of land that's in conservation, and that's illegal, right?

HATTIE NESTEL: Something like a thousand parcels would be impacted, and there's construction yards; there's the pipeline itself, which would have an easement of a 100 feet on either side of where they want to put the pipe in, and they would destroy everything. They would chemical it to kill the weeds; they'd cut down trees; all kinds of things. So we really want to stop the pipeline to avoid that kind of destruction. We value our lands, we value our quiet rural life. The compressor station would be very noisy, it would be lit up 24/7. If there was a fire there, there's nobody even there tending it. The medical people, the firefighters ... first of all, you can't put out a gas fire, you have to wait for it to die out. But they're not even prepared for that kind of fire, or an emergency. People are really very distraught over the idea that someone could have an easement through their property, very close to their house, their fields, their organic farms, their cow pastures, whatever. We also have a lot of legislators that are really with us. They live in these rural areas, several of them, and they listen to their constituents' concerns, and they're in there trying to stop it also. It's a very fraught process for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They have every right to just go right ahead and permit this application without a lot of information and a lot of specific information. They have a lot of outdated information; they submitted it with 30-year-old maps which don't apply to our communities anymore.

People are really upset about this, so there's a lot of activism in Massachusetts to stop this pipeline, and we might do it, we just might do it.

For more information on the pipeline protest, visit hattienestel.com; nofrackedgasinmass.org; Stop the Pipeline Interviews by Hattie Nestel at nofrackedgasinmass.org/stop-the-pipeline-interviews-by-hattie-nestel.