The Wild Reed: Steven Donziger’s Shout-Out to “One of the Most Courageous and Effective Political Leaders in the United States”

Wednesday, May 06, 2026

Steven Donziger’s Shout-Out to “One of the Most Courageous and Effective Political Leaders in the United States”

I want to give a shout-out to the one and only Chris Smalls, one of the most courageous and effective political leaders in the United States and a person whom I deeply admire. I believe If we had a non-rigged electoral system, Chris would be a viable candidate for President. Why not?

I’m writing two days after New York City police brutally arrested Chris as he tried to crash the very gross Met Gala in New York that was sponsored by Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, using funds extracted from the hard labor of people like Chris.

Chris spent years working his fingers to the bone for a pittance as an Amazon warehouse supervisor on Staten Island. After Amazon fired Chris in 2020 for protesting working conditions, he organized the first union of Amazon warehouse workers at his former workplace. He’s been haunting Bezos ever since, including calling out Amazon’s complicity with Israel’s government as it commits war crimes. Bezos hired the same law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher to try to defame Chris that Chevron had hired to defame me after I helped Amazon rainforest communities win the landmark Ecuador pollution case in 2013.

An Amazon manager – in wholly racist fashion – once described Chris as “not articulate” when in fact he is one of the most brilliant speakers in the world with a huge platform on all the key issues of the day, including Gaza and worker rights and affordability.

The [first] picture above was taken in April 2022 in my then detention cell at home. That was the night Chris came to meet me with only 12 days left of my 993-day incarceration on a baseless Chevron-orchestrated contempt of court charge. We talked for hours. We realized we came from very different backgrounds, but were in the exact same place: targeted by powerful corporations trying to destroy us for exposing their abuses.

The second picture is Chris being arrested Monday [May 4]; the third picture [below] is Chris speaking at the rally outside my apartment the day I was freed; the others were taken two nights later at the Brooklyn club Baby’s All Right where we shared our stories with a sold-out audience.

Love how Chris uplifts people and takes a nice bite out of the oligarchy’s ass while doing so. 👊👊🔥🔥