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Why I’ll Get Arrested To Stop the Burning of Coal
On March 2, environmentalist Bill McKibben will join demonstrators who plan to march on a coal-fired power plant in Washington D.C. In this article for Yale Environment 360, he explains why he’s ready to go to jail to protest the continued burning of coal.
It may seem odd timing that many of us are heading to the nation's capital early next month for a major act of civil disobedience at a coal-fired power plant, the first big protest of its kind against global warming in this country.
After all, Barack Obama's in power. He's appointed scientific advisers who actually believe in... science, and he's done more in a few weeks to deal with climate change than all the presidents of the last 20 years combined. Stalwarts like John Kerry, Henry Waxman, and Ed Markey are chairing the relevant congressional committees. The auto companies, humbled, are promising to build rational vehicles if only we give them some cash. What's to protest? Why not just give the good guys a break?
If you think about it a little longer, though, you realize this is just the moment to up the ante. For one thing, it would have done no good in the past: you think Dick Cheney was going to pay attention?
More importantly, we need a powerful and active movement not to force the administration and the Democrats in Congress to do something they don't want to, but to give them the political space they need to act on their convictions. Barack Obama was a community organizer - he understands that major change only comes when it's demanded, when there's some force noisy enough to drown out the eternal hum of business as usual, of vested interest, of inertia.
Consider what has to happen if we're going to deal with global warming in a real way. NASA climate scientist James Hansen - who has announced he plans to join us and get arrested for trespassing in the action we're planning for March 2 - has demonstrated two things in recent papers. One, that any concentration of carbon dioxide greater than 350 parts per million in the atmosphere is not compatible with the "planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." And two, that the world as a whole must stop burning coal by 2030 - and the developed world well before that - if we are to have any hope of ever getting the planet back down below that 350 number.
That should give you some sense of what Obama's up against. Coal provides 50 percent of our electricity. That juice comes from hundreds of expensive, enormous plants, each one of them owned by rich and powerful companies. Shutting these plants down - or getting the companies to install expensive equipment that might be able to separate carbon from the exhaust stream and sequester it safely in some mine somewhere - will be incredibly hard. Investors are planning on running those plants another half-century to make back their money - the sunk costs involved are probably on the scale of those lousy mortgages now bankrupting our economy.
And if you think it's tough for us, imagine the Chinese. They've been opening a coal-burning power plant a week. You want to tell them to start shutting them down when that coal-fired power represents the easiest way to pull people out of poverty across Asia?
The only hope of making the kind of change required is to really stick in people's minds a simple idea: Coal is bad. It's bad when you mine it, it's bad for the city where you burn it, and it's bad for the climate.
Happily, there's no place that makes that point much more easily than the power plant Congress owns not far from the U.S. Capitol building. It's antiquated (built today, it wouldn't meet the standards of the Clean Air Act). It's filthy - one study estimates that it and the other coal-fired power plants ringing the District of Columbia cause the deaths of at least 515 people a year. It's among the largest point sources of CO2 in the capital. It helps support the mining industry that is scalping the summits of neighboring West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky. Oh, and it would be easy enough to fix. In fact, the facility can already burn some natural gas instead, and a modest retrofit would let it convert away from coal entirely.
Not only that, but it's owned by Congress. They don't need to ask any utility executives. They could just have a vote and do it - as easy as you deciding to put a new, clean furnace in your basement. It would even stimulate the local economy.
All of which means it's the perfect target. Not because shutting it down would do much, except for the people who live right nearby. But because it's a way to get the conversation started. When civil disobedience works, it's because it demonstrates some willingness to bear a certain amount of pain for some larger end - a way to say, "Coal is bad enough that I'm willing to get arrested." Which is not the biggest deal on earth, but if you're going to be asking the Chinese, say, to start turning off their coal-fired plants, you can probably keep a straighter face if you've made at least a mild sacrifice yourself.
There are dangers in this kind of strategy too. It could turn people off, make them think that global warming protesters are crazy hippies harkening back to the '60s. I don't mind hippies in the slightest, but when the writer Wendell Berry and I sent out the original invitation to this action, we asked that those who wanted to be arrested wear their dress clothes. And not just because it's serious business - but also in hopes of discouraging the hardcore anarchists and troublemakers attracted to such events, sort of in the way that convenience stores play classical music to keep folks from loitering outside.
The other danger is that it might convince activists that this is the most important work to do, the main tool in the toolbox. That's almost certainly not true, which is why it's appropriate that Powershift, the huge gathering of young people the same weekend in D.C., will focus on lobbying on Capitol Hill that Monday morning of the protest. Lobbying first, sitting-in second. And third, and most important of all, the suddenly swelling movement toward symbolic action next fall on a global basis. 350.org, the campaign I helped found, is looking for new ways to make a point, with a global day of action on Oct. 24 that will link people up from high in the Himalayas to underwater on the Great Barrier Reef to... Your Town Here.
A little Facebook, a little Twitter, and a little sitting down in the street where the police don't want you. We've got to see what works!
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112 Comments so far
Show AllI plan to join the protest. Did you note Obama's speech last night again asserting "clean coal" in the State of the Union? We elected another anti-environmental president owned by the coal industry spouting on about something that does not exist. He is either becoming another great liar in the mold of Bush, or he is not as bright as he thinks he is. Either way, the Earth losses. Forgetting about Obama's marriage to coal, Bill, will not bring the change we both want to see. Do we have to cross the threshold of no return before you point this out publicly?
You may not have to protest about 'Clean Coal' for much longer. It turns out that US coal reserves were grossly over-estimated.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5122#more
So it would seem that 'Peak Coal' is arriving on the heels of Peak Oil... right about the time it was predicted.
Walk in peace.
There is a 1000 year global supply of coal, and much more oil than they tell us (read Thomas Gold). The reason is to justify high energy costs and to get people to accept reductions in living standards due to the alleged scarcity of resources, not to mention the other myth of mans CO2 turning earth into a green hell. Man, they all got you with so many myths to control you that if you opened your mind to the truth your head would spin.
Funny how people protest burning coal but wars of agression, bailouts to the banksters, not so much. That's because the protests are funded by environmental groups, who in turn funded by government and the tax free foundations who are behind the globalist agenda.
The data for your '1000 year supply' was fudged.
And I said the illegal wars of agression, bank bailouts and free pass to the corrupt officials of the US government would come back to haunt them.
But you didn't listen.
You were too busy drawing your CIA troll paycheque...
Walk in peace.
Haunt them? They are laughing all the way to the bank while corporate hacks they pay convince people they need to reduce living standards due to the myths of peak this and that and the myth that CO2 will cause a green hell on earth, some call it green terrorism.
You know you come close to the truth when people resort to ad hominem attacks.
And BTW, when they first announced that reserves were overstated, based on some computer model, the price of coal doubled. Who benefits? You got it, the coal industry. Who benefits from peak oil, you got it, Big Oil. Who benefits from Green terrorism, you got it, Big Banking, as they will control the carbon credits and trading. They also finance the alternative energy industries. Big Oil behind the scenes funds the environmental movement, along with Big Brother, since Big Oil, Big Banking and Big Brother are joined at the hip with interlocking directorships and ownership.
Big Banking is a walking corpse. As is the modern Western lifstyle it depends from.
Thats what they want you to think. They create the money, they own us, thats why we give them money we don't have and must borrow from them, money they lend us that is created out of thin air, and we pay them interest. The executives still got their bonuses and their mansions. Some corpse. We are the corpse.
I belive that is exactly what I said...
Walk in peace.
Uh yeah there were massive global protests against Iraq, and from my history classes I know there were some...minor disturbances, at least, during Vietnam. And the reaction against the bailout was huge...but whatever pressure Bush put on Congress worked.
"A little Facebook, a little Twitter, and a little sitting down in the street where the police don't want you. We've got to see what works!"
Aside from repeating a few well known talking points, this twit just oozes unctuous, self-inflated smarm.
McKibben further writes, "I don't mind hippies in the slightest, but when the writer Wendell Berry and I sent out the original invitation to this action, we asked that those who wanted to be arrested wear their dress clothes. And not just because it's serious business - but also in hopes of discouraging the hardcore anarchists and troublemakers attracted to such events."
I notice the article is copyrighted Yale University. So how about when the police move in, we all sing "boola boola, " the Yalie fight song. Or, on the other hand, we could recall Seattle '99, or any other very successful mass protest anywhere in the world in the last 40 years, and just say we don't mind if you wear whatever "serious" fucking costume you want to, Billy. I just hope that won't encourage the hardcore Ivy Leaguers who are attracted to these sort of events just to try to legitimize their leadership schtick to the corporate media.
Maybe the arresting cops will at least have the decency to slap punks like McKibben around a little bit.
Interesting.
Anything copyrighted by Yale (the home of Bush and Skull and Bones) is automatically suspect. Could this be an attempt to discredit demonstrations? e.g, Bill is arrested then let out the back door, while the real protesters get the dogs and rubber bullets?
I wonder.
On the other hand, If the very credible James Hansen gets arrested I would think that would be very big news. Coal dust fallout is killing all of us as we speak and he knows it. My doctor tells me to limit my intake of fish period because of the mercury present in all bodies of water now...
Thoughts?
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
It's too bad that Google has just supplied the authorities (Police, FBI, Homeland Security) with the new 'Latitude' application that allows you to track cell phone RFID chips in real time, thus preventing 'flash mobs' from forming, either by direct intimidation and force, or by blocking transit and street access.
And just because Google *says* it won't hand out your cell phone's location co-ordinates willy-nilly to who whoever wants it, do you think that will really stop them from rolling over like all the other telecoms who handed tens of thousands of citizens records over to those same agencies in the warrantless wiretap?Walk in peace.
Can that be prevented by removing the battery?
Yep. But then you have a paperweight, not a phone.
Walk in peace.
Good question.
My experience in programing says an NSA subroutine would continue to run in the background with the antenna logic (low microvoltage) passively powered by a previously charged nano-capacitor, keeping tabs on the track your body is taking. The second you re-introduce the battery it would recharge the nano-capacitor and upload your position and previous track. All speculation on my part. Solution? Go low tech. Leave your cellphones at home. Or hand them off like a football to someone going the other way right before critical mass! (Or wrap the damn thing in foil.)
It was only a few years ago I was arguing with friends who did not believe it was possible to have a GPS chip in their phone. Now it is common knowledge that GPS function only requires a power source and passive antenna. Both items that your cellphone already have. An active (powered) antenna is better but not necessary. Realize as well, that "hot mic-ing" (bugging) your phone or computer mic is child's play.
Solution? Stay away from the 1984 "telescreen" computer and cellphone when discussing sensitive matters.
Sounds crazy I know, but a little caution can go a long ways.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Thanks for the info. I have also heard that your phone can be turned into a listening device by remote if the battery is still in, even if it's turned off.
Again, yep.
As an aside, the Israelis have a neat trick where they swap a 'terrorists' cell phone with one wired to explode, then call him. When he answers, and they have confirmed voice recognition - *BOOM*
A neat trick, but, if they can find his cell phone, which is presumably always on or near his person why not just shoot the guy?
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Jesus,
This is a familiar feeling.
In...May, 1982? I was ready, affinity group and everything, to go to Seabrook, NH to help try to occupy the site of a nuclear power station. But I was team-teaching a bicycling and alternative energy course to a group of high school students, and the demonstration would have taken me away from the culmination--a 200-mile bike tour of owner-built solar homes and a local organic farm. That seemed a better use of my time and skills.
I was hoping to take the train to Washington this week but couldn't change arrangements already made to further wean myself from fossil and nuclear fuels--building a fence and house for some egg-laying ducks, and planting fruit trees, all arriving in the next week and a half, as well as work on my beehives and garden, etc.
Although I would have wanted to go anyway, one of the most attractive things to me was the request for us to look "serious".
PR matters. Making arguments and creating images that convince ourselves is important; preaching to the choir is how you get em to sing, as the saying goes. But far more important is making arguments, creating images and getting press that will convince others, and if there is a chance that more local TV news shows across the country will cover the event because of the novelty of well-dressed protestors, and a chance that people seeing that coverage will think something other than "damn dirty hippies…oughta geta job..." it is a great move.
It is impossible to know for sure, even after the fact, what strategy is best, but I have been in dozens of protests--against nuclear power in Harrisburg and Washington after Three Mile Island, against wars I can't even count anymore, against wilderness development, racial travesties and the perverse militarizing of society, energy and food production and life. I don’t regret a single one, but I can count the number of those campaigns we won on the fingers of half a hand--at least in the short term. And we (and they) have established a stereotype of who is against such things that can now be dismissed and ignored by the sleeping majority. It’s often not even covered on local news anymore. Although Seattle popularized and coalesced a young movement, it didn't by itself win anything, and probably turned millions of people away from the message and feelings the grunge punks and hippies were motivated by.
We need to call attention to what we value; we need to improve our tactics, our arguments and our image, and anything that helps with that--writings from Yale, suits, ducks, bicycles, windmills, lobbying, or the generous sacrifice of wise elders like Hansen and McKibben--must be used. Either get out of the circular squad or stop firing.
Sometime dress does matter. Maybe at this symbolic event it does but when tactics escalate perhaps it matters less?
Did Ghandi change his attire to fit in? Perhaps for his native Indian people.
I prefer to use this forum to create action, to inform, to strategize with others who have the capacity for effective change. I do not use Common Dreams to dis others, or discount their strategies unless I strongly disagree, or just plain rant my opinions.
We should be using Common Dreams and others sites like it to organize, not just to rant or show off our opinions or intellect.
Can you be part of this positive movement in your own neighborhood or city or county or state?
You don't have to travel across the continent to be effective.
PS What you say about Seattle/WTO is based on what you read somewhere or saw on TV or from something else?
Please explain.
Not sure if you're scolding me or talking over my head to others, but yeah, Gandhi sure did change his dress. A British educated lawyer who dressed the part, he worked to better the situation of Indians in S. Africa for 20 years before he went home and got involved in a campaign with the poorest of the rural poor. Moved by their misery, he gave up Western clothes and never went back to them. Appropriate for him, who was trying to reach people in dire poverty who dressed that way without choice. India had little middle class, no television, and his choice of clothing was not just a moral choice, but a tactical one, as everything he did was. So should our choice of clothes be.
I thought strategizing, informing, creating action... was what we were doing. I AM a part of this positive movement in my neighborhood, and my post was partly to inform, inspire and show how and what. And yes, I think sometimes you DO have to travel across the continent to be effective--and learn from each other, cross-pollinate with knowledge and inspiration. For another example, see: www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-01-22/article/28999?headline=First-Person-New-Hampshire-Diary
My impressions of Seattle are based on years of reading, radio-listening, talking (to people on both sides) and being deeply involved in a movement that barely articulated what it was about during the event, at least to anyone outside the movement. Even so, the movement has been oddly enthusiastic and self-congratulatory about it ever since. I get the enthusiasm; as I said I've been there. I just wish more reflection went into it.
For example: The Wobblies
Dude, you already seem to be doing more than your share to help out. Don't feel bad about not making it to the big events.
It seems quite evident that the burning of coal can be protested till the cows come home and unless a substitute power source for it is offered, the protesting will have no effect.
Why is no viable alternative offered if its believed we could stop burning coal? How about natural gas?
The problem none of the industries are willing to admit publicly is that of depletion. Oil, natural gas, and coal are all experiencing a sharp decline in production due to depletion.
And of the three, natural gas is the most vulnerable o depletion. Whena gas well plays out, there is next to no warning. It has pressure one day, none the next, meaning that well is no longer producing. And many of the natural gas wells in the US are hitting depletion. Why do you think plans were(prior to the econimic collapse) being rushed through for LNG shipping terminals?
We will very soon be looking for alternatives for heating and cooking. At at present population levels, switching to massive coal or wood burning will only greatly accelerate coal depletion and deforestation, which will lead to ever greater ecological catastrophies. If you doubt me, just look at the history of Iraq, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), or Germany's Black Forrest. The Italian penninsula was once covered in forests. All it has now is scrubby bushes. The forests were cut down to fuel the cooking fires of Rome.
The past is our future.
Walk in peace.
Galenwainwright...
"And many of the natural gas wells in the US are hitting depletion."
I was unaware of that. Texas has plenty of proven reserves, but I frankly hadn't paid too much attention to the rest of the NG reserves.
Most of the natual gas the US uses is shipped via pressurised pipeline from Canada. And has been since the 70's.
The US national reserves are running very low.
Walk in peace.
I had heard a huge field was discovered in Louisiana last year. But the point is, there are proven alternatives to fossil fuels, they're just not being built.
With the collapse of the world economy, even if there was a new supergiant field found, no companies are willing to risk what little remains of their capital or credit to install the equipment nessesary for extraction and processing.
Heres a little hint about how much the oil and gas companies have been hiding from the public: There have been no new large fields 'found' since the 60's. What few significant finds there have been are in diffuclt locations requiring expensive techniques to extract. No new refineries have been built anywhere in the world in more than 25 years. And why do you think so many oil rigs were left to the tender mercies of Hurricane Katrina?
The oil companies KNOW the jig is up. They have known it was up ever since M.K. Hubbart went public.
They are just cutting their losses.
Walk in peace.
There are two possible post-fossil/nuke energy scenarios:
1.) When fossil/nuke fuels run out the elites will shift their energy production to renewables and continue "business as usual", pushing the people to consume an ever-growing quantity of energy, and mowing down an ever-expanding area of virgin forests for renewable energy production. The renewable, zero-carbon sources will eliminate co2 emissions but the volume of production will not be sustainable even with renewable sources because those consume land, soil, and materials. A sustainable rate of energy production is 1/5 the current US per capita consumption rate but the elites will push the rate beyond ten times the sustainable rate, creating more of the various problems we're all only too familiar with: wild speculative rollercoaster price runs, never-ending resource wars, criminal destruction to our ecosystems, continued enslaving of the people to consumption, etc.
2.) The much preferred scenario is to take energy production out of the hands of the elites. Zero carbon renewable energy will be produced at a rate of 1/5th US per capita consumption for all earth's people, and this production will be owned and operated BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE in small enterprises of ten man-powers in size. In this scenario: no speculative price runs, no resource wars, no ecosystem damage, no slavery, but instead maximum benefits to all.
Being completely full of natural gas himself, McKibben was hoping someone would come up with that as an alternative without him having to toot his own horn.
TM,
read my post just above yours.
Too bad you've decided to associate yourself with Big Nuke Hansen, Bill.
Actually, Mckibben has decided to actively associate himself with Wendell Berry, who in addition to being a writer, is a tobacco farmer who co-wrote a whiney plea for government subsidies entitled "Why We Need the Tobacco Program."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n10_v62/ai_21200693
Do you have some personal problems with this author? Several bitter posts directed at someone actually doing something seems more than a bit unnecessary.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
There are thousands of effective organizers all over America and millions of effective protesters who may be serious or gleeful or who may affect nearly any mood or approach to voicing their concerns . Rarely, but on occasion, some narcissistic punk (decayed wood) comes along who's highest contribution would be to go contemplate his nipples. That's neither bitter nor unnecessary, it's observational.
Actually it is pointless and far too divisive...The guy is doing stuff, whether or not you agree with his methods or his actions seems secondary to that fact.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
It is the author who is trying to be divisive, but will fail because his manipulative, exclusive methods and glory-seeking actions are both transparent and ineffectual. McKibben's methods are to organize and control a businessy looking protest with a tobacco promoter and try to squelch the appearance of open collared flannel shirts, tattoos and Birkenstocks. Those means do not justify his end, which is for him to be anointed by the corporate media as a credible new movement leader. First, his means are a dead end, and second, the end itself is unjustifiable. Pointing that out can't be both pointless and divisive, because "pointless" and "divisive" are mutually exclusive. It could be pointless if everybody saw it as I do, or it could be divisive if everybody who posts here had originally sought unity behind McKibben, and yet I was increasingly successful in deprogramming them or sabotaging that unthinking alliance. Since it's obviously neither, but can't be both, you can pick one, or reassess your thinking altogether.
Every living being on the planet, conscious or asleep "is doing stuff." Challenging someone's repugnant methods and conspicuous motives in a public forum that advertises what they are doing isn't secondary to anything, not to mention secondary to the fact that they are doing "stuff."
Jesus,
You do seem bitter and angry, it does seem directed at these 2 people and several of us speak for those who don't understand why. Berry said "We are not arguing in defense of tobacco. The issue of tobacco and health is substantive and serious, we know...." He is concerned about farmers and communities he knows, and while we may disagree with some particular tactic, it is important to recognize the tremendous philosophical, rhetorical and practical contributions he and McKibben have made to this broad movement. They do need to be anointed leaders; they have both been leaders for decades.
If you don't like suits, don't go. Start your own protest at a local coal plant and ban suits. Ban everyone without at least one each, tattoo and piercing. I don't understand why you are attacking this tactic so viciously and relentlessly--unless you are just a troll trying to discredit leaders in our movement any way you can. If you're a troll, give it up; no one's buying it. If you are for real but don't know why you hate the wearing of suits so much, maybe you should take time and find out before you write more invective that projects all those negative feelings on people who don't deserve it.
Honestly now, shut up.
No one likes a bitter prig, least of all me.
We'll deal with 4th generation nuclear when we get there.
For now, let's shut down the 19th century technology that is coal.
To get there with carcinogenic nukes we have to start pouring money into the nuke industry now, meaning we have to deal with them now. Its no time to agree to the false "either coal or nuke" choices from deceptive nuke industry shills.
Some of us have been doing civil disobedient direct action for decades for the biosphere. The simple symbolic acts of crossing a line and getting a ticket may make one feel good and get some media. It is also a positive and necessary step towards escalating the tactics to apply pressure on policy makers and industry.
However it should only be seen as a first step. It is not nearly as effective politically or media wise as civil disobedient direct action like what was done in Seattle at the WTO meeting in 1999. Hundreds of us who PHYSICALLY blocked the streets and even parts of Interstate 5 with our bodies while being pepper sprayed, shot with rubber plugs, and tear gassed actually shut down and caused the cancelation of the whole damn meeting.
I could go through a dozen more successful campaigns I have been priviliged to be involved but not here or now.
So, I would say this symbolic arrest is a good first step towards our goals but actually stopping the destruction with civil disobedient direct action sends a message that this is a crisis like no other the human species has ever faced and that the continued destruction and inaction will no longer be tolerated.
Enjoy your first of many arrests to be, for us all (all species).
To Elohim.
Yes, he is either a great liar or just clueless.
While he was visiting Canada's great liar they both touted clean coal technology.
It's "change lite". It's like lite beer swill compared to a good microbrew.
Over priced advertising tried to tell you it taste good but it was just a facade. It doesn't taste like beer at all.
Is the Obama Administration the same? Just some good public relations advertising?
"we asked that those who wanted to be arrested wear their dress clothes. And not just because it's serious business - but also in hopes of discouraging the hardcore anarchists and troublemakers attracted to such events, sort of in the way that convenience stores play classical music to keep folks from loitering outside."
Considering that the direct actions you mention are the only ones which actually accomplished something in the past decade - I was shocked, Shocked to read this snub!
Revenge Girl,
You're angry about this; I get that. And anyone who knows what we know and understands the things we understand would BE angry. But that doesn't mean the expression of that anger is the best way to convince other people to learn what you know.*
McKibben didn't actually mention any actions by name. Seattle was mentioned in several comments, but what did that accomplish exactly? I agree (with what I think you're saying) (see my longer post above) that it was an important moment that brought in some who were on the fringes, but it didn't shut down the WTO or get NAFTA repealed or even amended, while one thing it surely did do was turn off millions of people to a message they might have agreed with if it were presented in a different way. We need to consider what other ways we might have brought even more people in, that wouldn't have resulted in a (predictable) orgy of police violence that was (inevitably) blamed on the protestors. Middle class and poor working people are our natural allies in this--we have to fing ways to bring them in, not drive them over to the other side.
And while I'm on the subject...I don't get why your'e using the Casablanca quote here,
and...you might want to rethink the nom d' eplume--not likely to convince the majority of people you know what's important. don't get me wrong; i love it. but others, maybe, not so much.
* for one thing, most people don't want to be angry or depressed and will avoid things that are likely to make them feel those--for example, things that make other people (like you) angry.
I make some snide comments, but since you are talking strategy I will be civil and try to converse. Sometimes the articles are infuriating and make CD readers "drive angry" but I am not angry about Bill Mc Kibben's article, I thought the statement about excluding hippies and anarchists unless they were appropriately dressed was silly. However I am very angry about the ecocide of planet Earth.
I mentioned Seattle 1999 because I was responding to this statement by clearcut-climate:
"Hundreds of us who PHYSICALLY blocked the streets and even parts of Interstate 5 with our bodies while being pepper sprayed, shot with rubber plugs, and tear gassed actually shut down and caused the cancelation of the whole damn meeting."
This is correct; The WTO meeting was successfully shut down by people blocking the delegates from the meeting with their bodies. This direct action was filmed by activists events unfolded like clearcut-climate states.
The WTO Meeting was shut down, not the entire operations of WTO (not yet).
I take issue with the way the corporate media has successfully brainwashed alot of people into believing that the "black clad anarchists" were the cause of all the problems. If you watch the video footage taken by activists instead of the corporate media, you will see activists, including anarchists peacefully sitting while police peppersprayed them directly in their eyes, and the police brutality preceeded the property damage by several hours. Cascadia Live Media has video of this.
In 1968, I was at an anti Vietnam war demonstration when I was 14 years old and the same thing happened to me. A cop sprayed mace directly into my eyes while I was peacefully walking to the bus station all by myself - I repeat I was 14 years old.
(He had a piece of tape over his ID number - it was the last thing I saw before I went blind). This happens all the time in America and then the corporate media reframes the event in terms of VIOLENT activists (14 year old girls walking to the bus station.) The orgy of police violence is ALWAYS blamed on the protestors in order to discredit the action.
Check out some of the WTO Seattle video shot by non-corporate media activists and compare the video in the corporate media from the same events and you will learn something you may not have known before. I think that strategy is very important but I took issue with McKibben excluding and belittling those who choose different tactics.
The Boston Tea Party used to be a textbook example of the Freedom Loving Americans fighting for their rights - Today similar actions have been termed "domestic terrorism". So, my comments are here in detail to make people question the way the corporate media and the government presents what actually occurs at demonstrations. The corporate media also routinely halves the crowd estimates, and generally tries to trivialize anything that might point out the contradictions in the system that oppresses us all.
I have lots of reasons for my nom de plume, but being taken seriously is not the most important one. Telling the truth is my way of fighting back, whether I am believed or not. As far as Casablanca, I just like the Captain Renault character because he has a change of heart in the end, and he's very sarcastic. Dripping sarcasm is my way of dealing with the fact that people have let the powers that be divide us further and people are mostly unconscious of this. My questionable sense of humor is an attempt to wake them up. In my opinion it's better to include the hippies, anarchists, homeless, and yes, even yuppies and church ladies. Include all those who are disenfranchised no matter how they are dressed. Maybe some of you who don't like the punks, scruffs and "self styled" ones could have a change of heart too like Captain Renault.
Here's some info about the corporate media you might find interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36A8DV3dk24
.....REVENGE GIRL: "Living well is the best Revenge"
>> This happens all the time in America and then the corporate media reframes the event in terms of VIOLENT activists (14 year old girls walking to the bus station.) The orgy of police violence is ALWAYS blamed on the protestors in order to discredit the action.
You are bang on 100 percent correct. It sickened me to watch as the news Media "reframed" what had been accomplished in Seattle as little more then a Riot by anarchists.
And the Police ARE out of control and too many people far too eager to take the Police side on any such event.
Recently it was revealed in Greece that many of the "anarchists" were in fact plainsclothes policemen. This has happned in virtually every one of our "Western Democracies"
They give us the right to assemby, infiltrate said groups with their own and then use THAT as an excuse to bring out the clubs and start whacking Civilians.
I remember it was later revealed that many of the worst WTO 'Battle in Seattle' 'anarchists' who caused the most damage were paid police informants and police agent provocatuers who were acting under orders to incite a harsh police responce.
This has since becoome the continent wide model for the government infiltration and subversion of citizens groups concerned about this planet and their individual countries.
And you thought we lived in a 'democracy'...
Walk in peace.
Yes, I know someone who organized several protests and demanded of everyone involved they be completely peaceful and nonviolent, but knew there were police informants in there...and privately told his more trusted people that if anyone at the protest tried to incite violence, they should kick the crap out of them, because they're police.
Yes, it is very typical and I'm glad I saw it first hand when I was so young.
People might want to look into the Tompkin's Square Riots that happened in the East Village in New York City in the late 80s. The police entered the park on mounted horse and beat up everyone who looked like a "hippie" or "anarchist", and of course all the homeless too. The local media framed it as an "unruly mob", but they didn't realize how many video artists lived in the neighborhood.
The video showed innocent people being harried by charging horses for no reason; People jumping up on cars and trucks to get away from the police and one videographer had footage of the police beating people's feet with their clubs. The official investigation was done behind closed doors and nothing came of it, except the whole neighborhood became gentrified shortly after.
Gentrifying the area was probably the plan all along.
The protest merely provided a conveinant pretext.
Much like the 2010 Winter Olympics is doing to the Down Town East Side (DTES) here in Vancouver.
Walk in peace.