OC students protest around country

Oberlin students took action on issues that they feel strongly about over Fall Break, including "A Day Without the Pentagon" in Washington D.C., and a protest at the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania.

A protest took place on the morning of October 20 when 35 protesters arrived at Willamette Industries' Keystone Chipping mill outside of Kane, Pennsylvania. College senior Joshua Raisler-Cohn was an active participant in this protest. He said, "chip mills are destructive to the forest ecosystem." They can cut 18,000 acres per year but they employ only six people and can stay in an area for three to 10 years before chipping all available wood and moving on.

"It's a version of the boom and bust economy because they create almost no jobs and very little income while shipping the timber overseas," Raisler-Cohn said. "We wanted to let them know that we thought it was not okay,"

The protest received national media coverage. Raisler-Cohn said this allowed "more people (to) learn about resistance to chip mills."

The protesters created a 30-foot tripod over the entrance gate and Raisler Cohn climbed up to the top. Another protester chained herself to the leg of the tripod with a bike lock. The mill could not be operated without moving the tripod. "It was a relatively calm scene," he said.

A deal was reached with police that Raisler-Cohn would come down in exchange for receiving particular charges. He was arrested and charged with third degree misdemeanors of criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct and the second degree misdemeanor of failure to disperse. He spent the night in solitary confinement as did one other protester, and they were bailed out the next day at $2,500 each. They do not have a lawyer as of yet, partly because many law firms in the area are related financially to the timber industry.

An important concern of theirs is that a majority of the chip mill's timber comes from Allegheny National Forest. The wood is sold below market value because it comes from a National Forest which means that it is a cost to taxpayers. "Basically they take public-owned trees, chip them and sell them back to us, so they make money and we lose our forest," said Raisler-Cohn. Willamette gets at least 50 percent of its wood from national forests.

When arrested, Raisler-Cohn was wearing a t-shirt showing Smokey the Bear behind bars, with the slogan "Only you can prevent logging on public lands." The shirt was confiscated by the police.

Raisler-Cohn proposes the solution of stopping logging on public lands. The value of private timber would increase, and more money could be made while cutting down less trees. He said that stopping this would maintain a long term investment in standing trees thus an easier transition to sustainable forestry.

The War Resisters League also organized a protest outside of the Pentagon building on October 19. About 500 protesters, including 10 Oberlin students, marched from Arlington Cemetery to the Pentagon building and held a rally outside of the Chief of Staff's office.

"There was an incredible number of police, and they were in defense mode alpha," said college sophomore Laurel Paget-Seekins. The group had a permit for the action, but they could not get close to the Pentagon. About 20 people were arrested, some for trespassing and others for failing to disperse when ordered.

The police were a little bit violent with protesters at the beginning, "but then they figured out that this was not the best way to deal with us," Paget-Seekins said.

Protesters blocked several entrances as people were going to work that morning. Protesters who blocked the entrance to the Pentagon from the metro were arrested. At one entrance, a vigil was held and blood poured on the steps, "to symbolize the death and destruction brought by the Pentagon," Paget-Seekins said.