Diane Wilson, environmental and anti-war activist (co-founder CODEPINK)

(thanks to DU'er rwsanders for bringing this amazing woman to my attention)


Diane Wilson, An American Hero

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Diane Wilson is the author of An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas (Chelsea Green, 2005). It is a remarkable book, telling the story of Wilson's life as female shrimp boat captain and an environmental activist fighting devastating toxic pollution from chemical and plastics manufacturers on the Texas Gulf Coast.

But I have to confess, when the book was first recommended to me, I hesitated to read it. As an environmental activist, I have my own personal history of endless hours of research, boring meetings, scary confrontations, nasty intimidation and the infighting that goes along with these struggles, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear all the gritty details of someone else's pains and triumphs. Lois Gibbs, the courageous activist mother of Love Canal, said the same thing in her review of An Unreasonable Woman in Orion Magazine. But like Gibbs, I was hooked after the first page. For one thing, the Texas Gulf Coast seems to be unlike any other place on the planet.

Molly Ivins and others have called An Unreasonable Woman a masterpiece of American literature, and I agree. First, there is the poetry of Wilson's language. I can only compare her to fiction writers like Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx. She wraps her tender descriptions of her beloved Lavaca Bay around poignant inner reflections, while rendering the home-grown dialogue and emotionally tense social ecology of her community with complete authenticity.

Then there is the excitement and exhilaration of working-class feminism that permeates Wilson's life. The first-person feminist voices we usually hear are those of academic or professional women speaking of their battles in the bedroom, the boardroom and the halls of power. We don't hear much about a lone woman, the first woman in her community to run a shrimp boat, relying on herself for both aid and comfort, fixing a broken engine with bailing wire and tape, satisfied with her own company through the long night, trawling for shrimp under the stars.

. . . .

http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/61712:diane-wilson-an-american-hero


Diane Wilson

Diane Wilson is an American environmental activist, anti-war activist, and author. In 1989 she was a shrimp boat captain in Calhoun County, Texas, and she saw an Associated Press article saying that the county had the most toxic waste disposal of all counties in America.[1] Wilson began a campaign against Formosa Plastics, a Taiwanese chemical company then building a PVC (polyvinyl chloride) facility near her town, with tactics including several hunger strikes and sinking her own boat to draw attention to the matter.[1][2][3] In 1994 she won "zero discharge" agreements (meaning no liquid effluent discharge into the environment) from Formosa and Alcoa.[3] Wilson has also protested at meetings concerning the BP oil spill, as well as protesting in support of victims of the 1984 Bhopal, India, Union Carbide gas leak.[4][5]

She is a co-founder of the anti-war organization CODEPINK.[2] In 2005 a documentary was made about her, titled Texas Gold. [5][6][7] It won several awards, including "Best Documentary" at the New York City Short Film Festival.[8] She has received the "Hellraiser of the Month" award from Mother Jones magazine,[5] and a number of other awards, including National Fisherman Magazine Award, Louis Gibbs' Environmental Lifetime Award, Louisiana Environmental Action (LEAN) Environmental Award, Giraffe Project, Jenifer Altman Award and the Bioneers Award.[9]

In 2006, she was honored with the Blue Planet Award from Ethecon Foundation, one of the comparatively very few 'grass-root' foundations[10] for "more than 20 years of commitment to environmental issues, even putting her life at risk."[11]

In 2013, Wilson participated in the movement to close Guantanamo Bay, calling for Obama to release the prisoners that had been declared for release, give the men a fair trial, and end indefinite detention. Most notably, she stood in solidarity with the hunger strikers by fasting on salt and water for 58 days. Her fast ended on June 26, 2013 on International Day in Support of Victims of Torture after jumping the White House fence at a Close Guantanamo protest (with groups including Amnesty International, CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, and Witness Against Torture) in an attempt to deliver a letter to President Barack Obama.[12] Wilson was charged with unlawful entry and handed over to local authorities.[13]

. . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Wilson


Diane Wilson interview with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now


https://www.democracynow.org/2005/10/11/texan_environmental_activist_diane_wilson_why


http://www.bioneers.org/meet-diane-wilson-unreasonable-woman-help-us-get-bioneers-2014/