Last week, we touched upon Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's support for the asinine government overhaul of the American economy known as the"Green New Deal." In what appeared to be spontaneous show of support, Ocasio-Cortez met with a group of environmentalists inside Nancy Pelosi's office and told the mostly young group of people just how proud of she was of them "for putting yourselves, and your bodies, and everything on the line to make sure that we save our planet, our generation, and our future." However, Ocasio-Cortez had actually delivered that same message a day before at a training session for the activists which inspired many of them to get arrested.
Take Emma Chinman-Hatton, a 21-year-old University of New Hampshire student for example. When Chinman-Hatton heard that Ocasio-Cortez encouraged this behavior, she simply had to get arrested to fully show support for the environmental movement.
According to Foster's Daily Democrat, Chinman-Hatton and New Hampshire Youth Movement were heading to Washington, DC and deliberating how far they wanted to take their protest.
"While driving to D.C., Chinman and New Hampshire Youth Movement members decided it would be too risky to make getting arrested part of their mission to demand action on climate change in a protest at the office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic U.S. House minority leader," Fosters reports.
But, "Chinman’s mind was changed after hearing inspirational words from Democratic Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York during a training session a day before the Nov. 13 protest, designed to push party leaders to take immediate legislative action."
Apparently, after learning more about the Green New Deal, the group was "split into two: people who wanted to be arrested and those who did not. Chinman and the rest of NHYM were still firm on the fact they’d be in the low-risk B group, which would go into the hallway outside Pelosi’s office but would not enter."
Then Ocasio-Cortez made an appearance at the training session on November 12 and told the group how more young people needed to put their bodies on the line to fight against climate change.
That is when Chinman said she decided she would move into Group A and plan to get arrested.
On the morning of November 13th, Congress-woman elect Rashida Talib met with the protesters and even gave them jolly ranchers for the sit-in.
Then during the sit-in, Chinman and her comrades sang songs, chanted, and demanded that Rep. Pelosi heed their requests.
But, "after three warnings from members of the Capitol Police Department, Chinman said, the 51 activists were arrested and taken to paddy wagons to be processed. Published reports on the incident state they were charged with unlawful demonstration after refusing to leave. Chinman said she and the others were fined $50 and released after five hours, adding they will not have to appear in court."
Chinman-Hatton has no regrets for her actions saying, "I’m really glad that I decided to do the action. Young people (must show they’re) going to inconvenience themselves and show that we’re going to put our bodies on the line, we’re going to inconvenience you if you aren’t taking climate change seriously. We’re going to continue to get arrested, continue to do actions and continue to protest."