Wearing masks made from locally-grown hemp fibers, members of the Whitman Campus Climate Challenge stormed the administrative offices in Memorial Hall yesterday, defenestrating President Jorge Ponts and declaring the establishment of the People’s Divestocracy of Walla Walla.
“As of this morning, we secede from the United States and establish our own sovereign Divestocratic nation,” said newly-titled Divestista Duce Smitty Collins in a prepared statement. “The P-D-double-W will expand and engulf the fossil-fuel loving scum of the world. We’re super excited about its forward momentum.”
Following their seizure of Mem, the Divestistas separated into several breakout groups to spraypaint “Now Is The Time” on cars, encourage students to spy on their neighbors and report them for owning ExxonMobil stock, and organize a mandatory potluck for citizens of the PDWW. Collins helpfully reminded everyone that signing up to bring “a drink” is punishable by imprisonment without trial.
“We don’t want to scare anyone by making a bunch of huge changes around here,” said Duce Collins, as Divestistas behind him toppled the bust of Chester Maxey and replaced it with a life-size bronze of Bill McKibben triumphantly riding a cavalry horse. “You’ll be taking classes as usual, only now they’ll be more divestment-focused. For example, Physics will now be Divestment Physics. You’ll study how to model the forces that lead the money out of the accounts of dirty-energy fat-cat supervillains. There’s a lot of interesting scientific questions.”
“And divestment history,” he added. “Did you know the Guanche of the Canary Islands were the first historical people to divest? They removed all their money from Christopher Columbus’s merchant ships after he burned down their island.”
The coup originally took shape during a marathon brainstorming session at the GAC, when Collins and other Divestistas filled a whiteboard with publicity ideas including “documentary screening,” “block some stairs again,” and “secede from union.” Resistance by campus security was overcome with the help of CCC Weaponsmaster Al Henry.
“Yeah, man, I got some shit in here that makes C4 look like party poppers,” said Henry, speaking to the Pioneer from inside a tank. “Got this stuff from a crazy Kazakh fucker I met in prison. Swear to Jesus, only four words of English this dude knew were ‘blow you up nice.'”
The Divestistas wasted no time in stringing barbed wire around the tennis courts to create a re-education camp for their political enemies. This reporter managed to record an interrogation:
DIVESTISTA: What is the future of energy on Earth?
PRISONER 981: Shell…is leading the way…to new clean energy technologies…
DIVESTISTA: Wrong! (turns up shock machine)
PRISONER 981: Aaah! I’ll be sustainable! I’ll be sustainable!
As VIP hostages, members of the Board of Trustees were imprisoned in a spring afternoon lecture, where it is expected time will move so slowly as to render them effectively neutralized.
So far, student reactions to the PDWW have been mixed. Sophomore Katie Soapstone says she is most worried about whether her tuition costs will go up now that she is an international student.
“Also, the borders are closed to everything but bicycles and longboards, which means going home to New Hampshire for my cat’s graduation is gonna suck,” Soapstone said. “Plus I just came from my Divesting from the Gender Binary lecture, and I’m pretty sure Joan of Arc didn’t advocate divesting from England to win the Hundred Years War.”
“But who knows?” she added. “Bill McKibben is kinda quiet on the subject.”
