Citizens Defending Libraries: What Library Defenders Need To Know About The Imprisonment of Environmental Attorney Steve Donziger Because He Obtained a Judgment Against Chevron For Its Pollution of The Amazon

Images from a July 6th day 700 of house arrest Free Donziger rally and from October 1st the day environmental justice lawyer Donziger was sentenced to a six-month sentence to be served on top of 813 days of house arrest.

We’ll get to a fun part of this story because actress and activist Susan Sarandon and activist and Pink Floyd founder Rogers Waters want to make this story important so that you will pay attention to this story and do something about it. We’ll get to the part about what they said to Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White about where they get their news and information.

Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White at July Free Steven Donziger rally asking Susan Sarandon and Roger Water where they get their news. - Photo by Mitch Cohen

First let’s deal with the outrageous part.

One of the most truly ever outrageous things is happening, something so absurd and so unjust, that if people know about it is apt to turn almost anybody’s understanding of the world and the country we live in on its head. It’s forces you into knots wondering how it can be that all the most basic and fundamental rules we think we live by don’t apply– like where in God’s name did the basic principles of civilized society go?

That’s if you even know what’s happening. The next incredible thing is that so few people know that something so important is happening . . . such that it’s possible that maybe a lot of our NYC library defenders might never even have heard of what’s happening to Steve Donziger who lives in this city with us. . . even though it’s absolutely relevant to anyone who cares about the destruction of our libraries.

What’s happening?– Environmental justice lawyer Steve Donziger has been imprisoned, criminalized, for winning an environmental lawsuit against Chevron for its pollution of the Amazon and its poisoning of the people there. Sound utterly peculiar? An additional peculiarity: This has been done by letting Chevron’s own lawyers prosecute Donziger. . . . It's clearly outrageous. The U.N.’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called for his release. So has Amnesty International. Lawyers who are paying attention have also called for his immediate release.

Here is what our New York City library defenders will find especially valuable to know given the concerns we have confronted as our libraries are destroyed:

   1.   It’s about information control. The reason so many people don’t know what is happening to Donziger is because of the way that information is being controlled. It’s about what happens when most news and information comes to us from a few conglomerate, corporately owned sources. It's what happens when those outlets serve a corporate and elitist agenda without regard to what’s good for the general public. No major outlets are covering this major story. That includes the New York Times, which, as it turns out, is actually tied in through its lawyers with the Donziger prosecution. Shutting down, shrinking libraries, and removing books from the premises is not the only threat to an informed populace, the kind we need for a functioning democracy. There is another sense in which this is information controlled, parallel to the standard ‘kill the messenger’ ploy of information control with which this all began. Donziger’s winning of a $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron for deliberate pollution and poisoning in the Amazon told a story about oil company misconduct Chevron didn’t want told. It also told a story about how appropriate action could be taken to pursue justice after such misconduct. That is another story that Chevron, along with much of the corporate world, also doesn’t want told. So this began with the information control objective of targeting Donziger to kill and censor that story.
   2.   It’s about privatization.   This time, of all things, the privatization going on is the privatizing of our judicial system. We’ve almost grown used to struggling with having the idea foisted on us that out libraries could be controlled by a bunch of private interests, turning them into real estate deals and pursuing other agenda not in line with the public’s interest. .   but now, of all things, our judicial system is up for sale? Our judicial system can be put into private hands and privately operated? Even when that vast public power will be wielded in a biased fashion pursuing a pure conflict of interest agenda? Our own government attorneys were not willing to prosecute Donziger. It would have been ridiculous and a travesty of justice for them to do so. So instead Chevron’s private lawyers were somehow deputized by one of Donziger's judges to wield the public’s power of prosecution. And our public taxpayer monies, hundreds of thousands of dollars, are being used to pay Chevron’s private lawyers for that prosecution. That’s on top of vast sums, that Chevron has spent to persecute Donziger, reportedly more than a billion dollars, to send a message to hose who might ever step up to challenge the supremacy of corporate power. Where do we go, what are our freedoms when everything is privatized and the commons are subsumed by private acquisition, even now our judicial system? We are seeing the privatizing of our police (as corporations pay them to arrest and control those demonstrating about issues such as the environment), the privatizing of knowledge and information, the privatizing of our streets and infrastructure in general, malls, highways, bridges roadways, parks, the government is privatizing surveillance, we see privatized, for-hire military militias (like ancient Rome) when once upon a time the military needed for obvious reason to be accountable to government. . . we are seeking to privatize and replace the post office chartered to exist as a basic government service by our Constitution. . we are privatizing outer space and our space programs, privatizing water, privatizing the right to grow food. In essence, at the get go, the deliberate pollution of the Amazon and the poisoning the indigenous people who lived there was a form of privatization. When those destructive actions were taken (under the Texaco brand at the time) they were taken with a sense of entitlement, as if the oil company’s rights to possess and destroy nature erased everyone else's rights banishing all public rights out of existence.
   3.   It’s about the environment. It’s about what happens to the environment when companies act as if the world belongs to them, and can be used as their garbage can. It's what happens when others don’t have a right to clean water, and air and a healthy environment. We have pointed out already to the shut down of NYC’s only science library, SIBL, the central destination library at 34th that is being converted into a comic book museum and the elimination of science books is being done at exactly the wrong time when we need to deal with global warming, climate chaos and other environmental catastrophes.
   4.   It’s about inequality and racism. The people of Ecuador, the populations of the indigenous tribes whose homes are in Amazon, are not considered to have any real rights by corporations like Chevron. Racism has been an issue as we shut down and defund our libraries turning an oblivious eye to those that need them and how we need libraries and an informed public if there is going to be a semblance of equality in the democracy we aspire to in this country. To whom are we not going to give equal rights? It's a pattern, but we are fast reorganizing our country, shifting wealth and power to an ever more precious few. When it comes to our rights in the face of what corporations may seize from us (like our libraries), it's a `there but for the grace of God' proposition. Where will many of us find ourselves a few years from now? We are left to guess.
   5.   It’s about democracy. If none (or very few) of us have any real rights when dealing with corporations and corporate power, if there are no rules that protect us, only rules that protect corporations, then we don’t have democracy.
   6.   It’s about the heroism and effectiveness of activists. Donziger chose the perfect profession for anyone who wanted to be an effective activist to protect the environment and address the kind of social justice that arise in connection therewith when it's usually the least powerful people who suffer the most from damage done to the environment: He became an environmental lawyer. It’s about how being an activist you are inevitably confronting money and its crushing power along with some inherent societal rules that, if you are on the other side of money, you are really supposed to lose. It’s about how, in the face of that, it’s test of whether activists stick with their principles and whether they also remain loyal and committed to the other activists they align and fight with. Donziger has been under house arrest for 813 days and is now serving a six-month sentence for contempt because he refused to comply when he was ordered to turn over information about his clients and their legal strategies to collect their judgment. The court ordered him to take an action that would have severely damaged Donziger's villager clients and violated the sacred attorney client relationship he has with them. And it also all begins with a decision to be on the right side. Our library defenders may remember that library-selling Brooklyn Public Library president Linda Johnson also started out professionally as an environmental lawyer, but she chose to be on the other side, defending a water polluting company against the public interest group that was suing it for that pollution. . . That choice of sides by Ms. Johnson hardly seems like a coincidence.

As noted, the mainstream corporate media is vigorously ignoring the story of Chevron’s persecution of Donziger. Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White went to an event on July 6, 2021 outside the co-op building where Donziger and his family live. It was day 700 of Donziger’s house arrest. Susan Sarandon and Roger Waters were both there to contribute their fame as a tool help counter the way that the powerful have blanketed Donziger’s persecution with a stifling silence. Thank you Susan Sarandon and Roger Waters!

Mr. White asked both Roger Waters and Susan Sarandon where they get their news to learn about really important news that’s suppressed, like news about what is being done to Steve Donziger. The New York Times has not covered his case since 2013 and, as noted, one of the New York Times own lawyers (who also works fro CNN) is working for Chevron to prosecute Steve. Not surprisingly, both celebrities who were putting their reputations on the line in pursuit of justice told Mr. White that they get their news from independent, alternative media.

Mr. White is on the Local Station Board of WBAI radio. He talked to them about WBAI as being in the category of the alternative media from which they get their news (and how it is able to dodge internet censorship). Roger has been on WBAI programs a lot and had been on just before the 700 day event, on Randy Credico’s WBAI program (Live On The Fly, Wed, June 16, 2021) and also on a program broadcast on WBAI about the similar persecution of Julian Assange (Home Run for Assange, Hosted By: People's Forum, Stand with Assange NY, Assange Defense Committee, Thu, June 10, 2021), which Waters is also working to bring attention to and fight. Between them, Waters and Sarandon mentioned the Grayzone, and Abby Martin, Democracy Now (on WBAI which incubated it into existence), Counterpunch, podcasts and Instagram, and RT (Chris Hedges's RT “On Contact” show is on WBAI and has covered Steve Donziger’s case a couple of times- Chevron vs. Donziger, 9/5/2020 video, WBAI archive audio, 9/6/2020 and Corporate Tyranny & Steven Donziger 5/29/2021video, WBAI archive audio 5/30/2021). Ms. Sarandon said she really woke up and realized how important it was to go to independent, alternative media to know what was happening when Standing Rock was not being covered by the corporate press. Mr. Waters mentioned the pitfall of Big Tech's connection with the Pentagon. Mr. Waters also mentioned Wikileaks while bemoaning how the organization had been hamstrung by Assange's imprisonment, that they can't do the job that's so important for them to do.

Ms. Sarandon said "Where do you look?" that you can't blame the American people for making bad choices when they don't have good sources of information.

Here is audio of what they said: Where Susan Sarandon and Roger Waters Get Their News- Chat w/ MDDW.

Here is coverage of that a July 700 day of house arrest milestone event by Status Coup (which has had a lot more coverage of the Donziger case): LIVE: Susan Sarandon, Roger Waters Join NYC Steven Donziger Protest On Day 700 of House Arrest, Streamed live on July 6, 2021. The speeches from the evening you get to hear include speeches from Sarandon, Waters, villagers from the Amazon and Donziger himself. As part of the video, you can listen to Status Coup interview Michael White there that afternoon starting HERE.

More photos of events appear after the text of this article.

Much more recently, October 1, 2021 Roger Waters and Citizens Defending Libraries co-founder Michael D. D. White were both at the Steve Donziger sentencing rally and the press conference that followed his sentencing to six months in prison.

The following is video is Teed up to Mr. White’s interview at the rally with Status Coup (pre-sentence) where he talks about the prosecution of Donziger and also Julian Assange and they get into talking about the stories in the news about the plans that were revealed to kidnap and/or assassinate Julian Assange: BREAKING: Steven Donziger Sentenced to 6 Months in Prison, Status Coup News, Streamed live on Oct 1, 2021

If you go further into the video you'll hear Donziger, his lawyers and Roger Waters about the sentence from the "judge." Also very good at the end is the interview with investigative reporter Greg Palast.

In both his Status Coup Donziger event interviews Mr. White made the point that he is also a lawyer, and that he studied environmental law in law school and also studied that same body of law in Urban Planning school as well while working to obtain his Masters in Urban Planning. Consequently, he might well have gone into the practice of environmental law. Thus, he might then have been in the same position as Mr. Donziger had he decided that would be his area of practice and been successful in winning such a lawsuit. Because Chevron and these judges are obviously making an example of Mr. Donziger it means that any law student considering a career must consider these things. It will take great courage in their career decision making for our young crop of new lawyers to be not warded off from challenging such corporate power as Chevron wields. And, if they are warded off, there won’t be lawyers to protect us and the rest of society.

Does it seem possible that a two pronged strategy of information controls is now being followed?: 1.) while not yet cracking down in a broad based, across-the-board way, certain high profile individuals within professions are being targeted (including with character assassination) to make them examples to others within their profession about the potential price to be paid for disrupting official narratives with unpermitted messages (Julian Assange's persecution is a clear example to journalists in this regard, although the media does not cover his case-- And while the general public has not heard of Steve Donziger, no law student considering a career in environmental law will fail to hear of the example being made of him-- In fact, as sauce that might attract the delectation of legal afficionados, the sentencing judge has been employing the most subtly exquisite legal tricks to create the longest possible and unprecdented, almost three-year incarceration for Mr. Donziger, without trial by jury, for an alleged misdemeanor, which upon completion of appeal he may never even be convicted of ), and 2.) meanwhile, for the rest of us, we currently get a more gentle form of information control as things get censored from the internet at the same time the Big Tech's internet algorithms steer us to view corporate media stories cleansed of what we shouldn't see or think.

You probably already think that this whole Donziger story seems beyond belief, but with the Donziger saga there is always one thing more, a new level of preposterous to be reached. Several days after the sentencing hearing another unbelievable thing happened– it’s so absurd, you’ll have to read what happened TWICE to actually grasp what is being said: One of the Donziger Judges ordered the Amazon villagers harmed by Chevron to pay $395,000 to Chevron!

The reason you need to read it twice, and to sit with it a minute, is because your brain might get confused thinking it says the exact opposite.- . . . Yes, it actually says that Judge Kaplan, one of the two tag-team judges who have prosecuted environmental lawyer Steve Donziger for winning a lawsuit against Chevron for intentionally dumping harmful oil and waste in the Amazon is now ordering the indigenous Amazon villagers who were harmed and had their environment degraded to pay Chevron $395,000!

This Tweet by Donziger links to the Judge's order:

BREAKING: Judge Kaplan — the U.S. judge who charged me — ordered Amazon villagers to pay Chevron $395,000 for legal fees the day after I was sentenced. In Kaplan's world, Indigenous peoples now must pay Chevron's absurd fees after beating the company in court. Deeply abusive.

If you’ve ever made it to the Amazon for any brief time at all, you’ll realize that $395,000 is real money in the wilds of the Ecuadorean Amazon. However, it's nothing to Chevron that has so far spent an estimated $1 billion to prosecute and demonize Donziger.

Trust our government, or don't as you choose (especially whenever it comes to its relationships with powerful corporations), but it is definitely a lesson to remember that the court conducting this prosecution is part of our government, plus there are myriad actions the Biden administration, its Attorney General Merrick Garland, and other elected officials (among them NYS senators Schumer and Gillibrand) could immediately take to de-privatize this prosecution and end this beyond-belief and dangerous lunacy. And all the while, from the corporately owned press?- resounding silence!

For latest in terms of a good, well organized half hour summing of the Donziger case we can recommend this October 22, 2021 interview with Paul Paz y Miño, associate director of Amazon Watch, an episode of Counterspin a program that Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting broadcasts on WBAI (99.5 fm in NYC): Paul Paz y Miño on Chevron v. Steven Donziger.

Their program summary:
   This week on CounterSpin: When Steven Donziger and other attorneys sued Chevron for polluting the soil and water in Lago Agrio in Ecuador, Chevron moved to have the case held in Ecuador, where they don’t have jury trials. When that court ruled against them, they sued against the lawyers that won the verdict, and accused one, Steven Donziger, of corruption, including bribing the judge. When the judge later recanted his testimony, that was somehow not important, and Chevron moved the case back to the US, where they have not only managed to keep themselves from ever facing scrutiny for the original crime, which they don’t deny, but have ruined the personal and professional life of the lawyer who internal documents show they had an explicit plan to “demonize.”

   It sure sounds like a story reporters interested in David vs. Goliath or climate change or corporate power or the future of humanity would care about. But no, it looks more like a story of a case a major fossil fuel company wanted to see silenced that has in fact had that effect.

   We’ll talk about what media would really rather you not now about Steven Donziger and Chevron in Ecuador with Paul Paz y Miño, associate director of Amazon Watch.
Or another up-to-date report to check was also on WBAI, a Democracy Now interview with Steven Donziger the morning he reported to federal prison to serve his sentence to six months of additional incarceration. (Donziger who was deemed a “flight risk” in order to deny him bail, drove himself to prison that day.) Without bail, Donziger is being sent to prison for six months before his appeal is decided. Democracy Now: Lawyer Steven Donziger, Who Sued Chevron over “Amazon Chernobyl,” Ordered to Prison After House Arrest, October 27, 2021.

Paul Paz y Miño, of Amazon Watch, has made the following appeal:

   My friend, unjustly jailed human rights lawyer @SDonziger is being held in federal prison for his work to make Chevron clean up the Amazon. Pls send letters of support:

   Steven Donziger
   Register No: 87103-054
   Federal Correctional Institution
   Pembroke Station
   Danbury, CT 06811

Here is a link (and another) to where you can take other action to support and free Steven Donziger: Free Donziger.

It is not just about Donziger nor about the injured villagers in a 1500 square mile swath of the Amazon. Think of the action you take as doing something for Mother Earth, as Mother earth can certainly use some protection these days. If we can't protect Mother Earth's protectors when they are targeted, we can't protect Mother Earth.

PS: (added later)- See also: Michael D. D. White, Co-founder of CDL Talks With Glasgow Loves EU About Control of Information and Privatization of Everything- Libraries and Court Prosecution of Steve Donziger Included, Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Here are more pictures from the July and October events-

July 6, 2021-