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TechnoratiCopenhagen: Seattle Grows Up
The other day I received a pre-publication copy of The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle, by David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit. It's set to come out ten years after a historic coalition of activists shut down the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, the spark that ignited a global anticorporate movement.
The book is a fascinating account of what really happened in Seattle, but when I spoke to David Solnit, the direct-action guru who helped engineer the shutdown, I found him less interested in reminiscing about 1999 than in talking about the upcoming United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen and the "climate justice" actions he is helping to organize across the United States on November 30. "This is definitely a Seattle-type moment," Solnit told me. "People are ready to throw down."
There is certainly a Seattle quality to the Copenhagen mobilization: the huge range of groups that will be there; the diverse tactics that will be on display; and the developing-country governments ready to bring activist demands into the summit. But Copenhagen is not merely a Seattle do-over. It feels, instead, as though the progressive tectonic plates are shifting, creating a movement that builds on the strengths of an earlier era but also learns from its mistakes.
The big criticism of the movement the media insisted on calling "antiglobalization" was always that it had a laundry list of grievances and few concrete alternatives. The movement converging on Copenhagen, in contrast, is about a single issue--climate change--but it weaves a coherent narrative about its cause, and its cures, that incorporates virtually every issue on the planet. In this narrative, our climate is changing not simply because of particular polluting practices but because of the underlying logic of capitalism, which values short-term profit and perpetual growth above all else. Our governments would have us believe that the same logic can now be harnessed to solve the climate crisis--by creating a tradable commodity called "carbon" and by transforming forests and farmland into "sinks" that will supposedly offset our runaway emissions.
Climate-justice activists in Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon-trading represents an unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere, and that offsets and sinks threaten to become a resource grab of colonial proportions. Not only will these "market-based solutions" fail to solve the climate crisis, but this failure will dramatically deepen poverty and inequality, because the poorest and most vulnerable people are the primary victims of climate change--as well as the primary guinea pigs for these emissions-trading schemes.
But activists in Copenhagen won't simply say no to all this. They will aggressively advance solutions that simultaneously reduce emissions and narrow inequality. Unlike at previous summits, where alternatives seemed like an afterthought, in Copenhagen the alternatives will take center stage. For instance, the direct-action coalition Climate Justice Action has called on activists to storm the conference center on December 16. Many will do this as part of the "bike bloc," riding together on an as yet unrevealed "irresistible new machine of resistance" made up of hundreds of old bicycles. The goal of the action is not to shut down the summit, Seattle-style, but to open it up, transforming it into "a space to talk about our agenda, an agenda from below, an agenda of climate justice, of real solutions against their false ones.... This day will be ours."
Some of the solutions on offer from the activist camp are the same ones the global justice movement has been championing for years: local, sustainable agriculture; smaller, decentralized power projects; respect for indigenous land rights; leaving fossil fuels in the ground; loosening protections on green technology; and paying for these transformations by taxing financial transactions and canceling foreign debts. Some solutions are new, like the mounting demand that rich countries pay "climate debt" reparations to the poor. These are tall orders, but we have all just seen the kind of resources our governments can marshal when it comes to saving the elites. As one pre-Copenhagen slogan puts it: "If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved"--not abandoned to the brutality of the market.
In addition to the coherent narrative and the focus on alternatives, there are plenty of other changes too: a more thoughtful approach to direct action, one that recognizes the urgency to do more than just talk but is determined not to play into the tired scripts of cops-versus-protesters. "Our action is one of civil disobedience," say the organizers of the December 16 action. "We will overcome any physical barriers that stand in our way--but we will not respond with violence if the police [try] to escalate the situation." (That said, there is no way the two-week summit will not include a few running battles between cops and kids in black; this is Europe, after all.)
A decade ago, in an op-ed in the New York Times published after Seattle was shut down, I wrote that a new movement advocating a radically different form of globalization "just had its coming-out party." What will be the significance of Copenhagen? I put that question to John Jordan, whose prediction of what eventually happened in Seattle I quoted in my book No Logo. He replied: "If Seattle was the movement of movements' coming-out party, then maybe Copenhagen will be a celebration of our coming of age."
He cautions, however, that growing up doesn't mean playing it safe, eschewing civil disobedience in favor of staid meetings. "I hope we have grown up to become much more disobedient," Jordan said, "because life on this world of ours may well be terminated because of too many acts of obedience."
An updated tenth-anniversary edition of Naomi Klein's No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies comes out in November.
42 Comments so far
Show AllWe, the non elites, must keep a close eye on all those corporations that will be trying to collapse the Copenhagen meeting and then...boycott, boycott, boycott them on a world-wide scale for as long as it takes - not just for a day or two. "Money" is the only international language understood by one and all.
my recurring dream...WE can have a huge impact on all corporations. IF every person (no matter their complaint or fear), banded together for JUST ONE specified day, every month,
NO ONE went to work (medical care providers excluded for obvious reasons). Just stayed at home & off the streets. No one
tear gassed, beaten, shot with rubber (or real) bullets. NO shopping, no theatrics.....just an enormous show of solidarity
against where those "proudly dimwitted" are "leading" our species & all others. Those who believe MONEY IS GOD, would have less and less of it as the months passed. How long would it take for them to see the error of their ways? To realize what a minority they really are, that WE CAN take them down with us (if that's the path they choose). It's the perfect non violent protest. And Mother Earth would be spared a day of destruction as well. ANYONE INTERESTED IN ORGANIZING & SETTING THE DATE???
Odd days and a phone/email tree might be even more effective -- that makes it harder to find scabs.
We do need more organizing training and leadership so people can step up to the role of organizing such efforts.
National Geographic published an article in July 2004 titled: "By 2050 Warming to Doom Million Species", according to a study published in the science journal Nature earlier that year, "doom" translating to "risk of extinction". The worst case estimate of temperature increase used in the study was four deg. F. by 2050. The study was conducted at the University of Leeds in the UK, in a global collaboration that was the largest of its type to date. Two scientists from Costa Rica wrote in the same issue of Nature that the estimate "might be optimistic". The UN's IIPC AR4's best estimate in 2007 of the stabilized greenhouse gas concentration that corresponds to four deg F is about 440 ppm CO2 equiv. It's already at 380 ppm and rising at about 2 ppm per year, so if that rate continues, it will be 460 ppm in 2050.
I've got mixed feelings about this topic. I read Klein religiously, but the whole protest/rebellion bent distracts from more productive outcomes. A pile of rubber bullets is great for dissent PR, but what damage does it do to emitters? What outcome can keep the wind project at Coal River Mountain alive, and Massey's hands off it?
Copenhagen is all nice'n'swell, but what does it mean here, right now? I'm in the Midwest where emissions are constantly growing. Protest won't result in getting off coal. Laws will, if enforced. Taxes on polluting energies will help; private investment more so.
All action is local, but we need to enforce new regulatory compliance. Time to get the US government to act has come.
The progressive/environmental movement is only relevant to the extent practical laws and regulations are implemented and enforced.
What if not protest will result in the laws you would pass?
Is the Midwestern US electing politicians who actively oppose new drilling, coal mining, environmentally and otherwise damaging military adventurism --- and the rest of it, to lay off before I bore everyone.
If "getting the US government to act" does not mean protest, I would love to hear what it does mean.
You obviously see through leaving all this to the corporations who profit from it. Does it not seem likely that they have purchased the representatives you hope will pass a decent bill? I'm all for voting them out; when was it their terms were up? Do we have candidates to oppose them, support for candidates, some way to get those candidates in front of broadcast media?
My cheers to the protesters and those in whatever media that help provide them that good publicity that may one day create a reasonable law.
Agreed. Even at the local level, if a law isn't enforced, it is merely words on paper. The New York Times has exposed the minimal regulatory compliance and enforcement of the Clean Water Act in their recent series on water contamination across the country.
Protests in general are aimed at changing laws and policies.
"JBPeebles"
Which midwester legislator can you name who is going to be able to push through a law like you propose?
There are maybe a handful in the whole of this corrupt, inebriated, proudly dimwitted, congress who would DARE to challenge their owners in the energy sector.
Your last sentence could have been written by a Coal company PR agency while they laugh until they piss themselves.
While I encourage the inventiveness and follow through involved in these protest plans, I come back again and again to question of why the focus is largely on actions at political forums filled with politicians when the difficulties related to being heard and taken seriously about a whole raft of global predicaments are problems substantially birthed, grown and cultivated by economic systems and their masters.
I suggest that, while these actions make us all feel useful and may even have some impact, if in no other way than to give support to the disenfranchised poorer developing world as it works to remain steadfast in efforts to break free from the neo-colonialist yoke of the West’s, China’s and India's market-driven hoarding, a sizable, constant and sustained effort against the lords and masters of the world's economic faux Olympus where they live might be more effective in the end, rather than staging and investing so much in huge actions during the sporadic conferences that bring together their political representatives in global forums that exclude anyone who is not a believer.
Actions modeled after those being undertaken by the Mobilization for Healthcare for All might be more effective. They are sustained, they don't rely on the carnival or pilgrimage aspect of these global forums on various things like Climate Change and World Economic Order to happen, and they occur where the problems originate and are fed.
Michael Moore is another good example of taking the protest directly to those who are at the root cause of the problem, as opposed to trying to communicate one's angst and righteous rage and alternative plans through the bought-and- paid-for intermediaries from our supposedly representative governments (and who do they really represent?)that attend and make lofty speeches to the world bodies that use up uncountable amounts of the carbon they supposedly want to turn into capital as they meet and dine and tour the sex districts of their host cities and decide and move on nothing.
Why would the very countries who originated ecological science, who make their plans according to best scientific advice be so slow to deal with the latest findings of the world's leading researchers? Surely the irrationality of a Beck or Palin doesn't reach into the highest levels of the Western powers? According to the most widespread faith today, global capitalism, market mechanisms should respond with solutions to a crisis of this magnitude. In fact, there is no real feedback mechanism that can be can check capitalism’s destruction of the biospheric conditions of civilization and most forms of life on this planet. On the contrary, whole new industries and markets aimed at profiting from planetary destruction are being opened up. Al Gore's status as the first carbon trading billionaire is a leading indicator for those who spy the next bubble.
The fundamental fact is that capitalism thrives on scarcity. Nothing dismays investment bankers more than the thought that we might create a planet where there would be abundant food, water and health for all. The loss of profit opportunities this would entail would be a genuine tragedy. What makes sense in a system like this are the waste and destruction of our natural resources. The costs of this destruction are externalized - assumed by the public, like the bank bailouts, and by nature as a whole, while yielding fat profits for the middle men.
The growth of natural scarcity is a golden opportunity to further privatize the world’s remaining accessible resources. Carefully study how the corporate media frames the water crisis. The solution invariably involves rapid privatization of fresh water, which has now become the new mega-market for entrepreneurs. It is precisely through the drying up and contamination of freshwater that these investment opportunities are created. In the words of Gérard Mestrallet, CEO of the global water giant Suez: "Water is an efficient product. It is a product which normally would be free, and our job is to sell it. But it is a product which is absolutely necessary for life...Where else [other than in the monopolization of increasingly scarce water resources for private gain] can you find a business that’s totally international, where the prices and volumes, unlike steel, rarely go down?" Where indeed? Wake up to the real enemy.
Here is something related I posted elsewhere.
I'm not sure I'm interested in any kind of exaggerated focus on only one particular part of the science of climate change... because I think the problem at its root is a multi-dimensional and very complicated issue. Perhaps, like you, I think it would be a mistake to try to resolve climate change by putting the majority of the effort into one basket. Especially a basket that plays into the hands of the “profit first, people later” ilk who cannot see value in anything unless it adds to their pile of hoarded capital and resources.
I have tremendous doubt about whether the capitalist system as it is, big money business as it is, can be counted on to do much more than take advantage of, for profit, any crises that emerge.
Capitalism untrammeled, pure market driven systems, do not have values, are amoral, beyond what is good for that market so are useless in many ways to any solution of what is largely, if not primarily, a morals, ethics and values driven concern, especially when what is needed is to devise and implement a plan of action that would work toward what is determined to be good for the planet and the species based on something other than how much money it makes.
I believe as well that there are forces and people who are unable to see that there is a difference: that the Venn diagram of what is good for people and the planet, and what is good for capital, are not entirely and synchronistically overlapping.
I have deep reservations about leaving it primarily up to the market to devise and implement solutions when it is the primary cause of why and how man-made climate change has been able to get this far without intervention based on what scientists have known for decades.
To use a bit of metaphoric hyperbole: Why would anyone trust a serial rapist to come up with a plan that would keep women safe from that serial rapist? Although this seems to be the neo capitalist forces’ action of choice in their efforts to manage not only climate change, but the banking/economic crisis as well as the US healthcare dilemma.
Thanks for your well-considered reply. I share your reservations, but go one step further to state not only that the capitalist system cannot be trusted to reverse the rape and plunder that it has perpetrated, but that plunder is part of the inherent nature of capitalism - that it can't be reformed away. If you wonder why there has been a decline in concern over global warming the past year, as reflected in polls, it is because powerful forces foresee huge profit potential in the scarcity of key resources. The death of hundreds of millions from food and water scarcity is meaningless to these forces.
The strategy of the global anti-climate change movement should not be to remain satisfied with the palliatives that capital will throw to us in order to continue the plunder, but to demand what seems impossible today - an end to capitalism. Anything less will simply set the conditions for the planned ecocide.
Agreed.
I tend to be a Menshevik about these issues in that I think violent or ill-conceived, passion-based, change has historically landed the race in the same mess that the action toward change was hoping to escape or remedy.
In addition I see positive impact in small scale capitalist endeavor and am quite sure that Mr. Adam Smith and his progeny did not imagine the kind of sick viral growth that has occurred or the kinds of actions that have been undertaken by what are in essence neo-feudalists masking as ideological capitalists. There is much to be said for small business competition and cooperation in communities.
The problem lies in some inherent, perhaps genetic predisposition of a species, humans, that has in its genetic history (and more recently than one might at first suppose, at least on evolutionary terms)routine experience with starvation, threats from climate and weather events and protracted periods of inclement weather that prevented population stabilization, much less growth. Hoarding, in those relatively recent times, was not hoarding at all, but storing. The difference between hoarding and storing being similar to the difference between an anxiety attack and the physiological response to an imminent attack by a sabre tooth tiger.
Stories from the world's holy texts are full of morality tales about what happened or did not happen if humans were not prepared for regular but unpredictable plagues and famines. Therefore, this proclivity for some portions of the population to feel fine and even encourage hoarding, even to the detriment of large "other" portions of the general population (and then de-humanizing them, making them the "other" tribe, the different undeserving tribe, in order to shed the responsibility and guilt for such careless and cruel collective behavior) can be in some way considered normal. I am sure you know of or have had elderly relatives who lived through the Great Depression whose stuffed and well organized larders and pantries are not complete unless they have the required five cans of Vienna sausage, regardless of the fact that they, and no one they know or have talked to in decades, eats the stuff.
Capitalism as a theory of collective function and way to provide the largest possible proportion of the species with less need to want for the basics of survival, came directly out of that collective experience of hunger, want, high infant/child mortality and the powerlessness experienced as whole communities and economies were left a shambles by these periodic devastating, but NORMAL, events.
We may now, in this particular window of our species development, be able for once to let go of this need to hoard, to victimize others of our species, as well as all the other mutually beneficial creatures and forms of life, so we can eat... in order that these "others" can have enough. But how to convince and compel those who have been the most "successful" hoarders?
Those who have learned this skill the best, have the highest hoarding IQ so to speak, have also, because of it, inherited the reigns of power that used to belong to the feudal lords, kings, czars, and caliphs. I am fearful that we will not be able to persuade them of the need to engage in a little, ongoing give-away... an ongoing Potlatch so to speak, just to save our species from devolving back into one that survives only by the narrow windows of the chances we are randomly given to stay alive as the weather and climate changes what our world looks like.
Can we evolve that quickly? Are there examples of other creatures that have been able to during similar radical changes in environment? And, more, can we compel these primary hoarders to care enough to be moved? And moved in the right direction?
My feeling is that by taking our concerns, in whatever way we do it, only to the primary hoarders' intermediaries, those who are considered to be representatives of the larger collective but who have allowed the feudal instincts and actions of the primary hoarders to purchase their constitutional integrity, we will continue to fail to plead our case successfully. It would be more effective to petition, directly, the perpetrators of this potential ruin. To, so to speak, hammer the theses of our rights to equal access to resources and cooperative livelihood in our world, to the doors of the cathedrals where they live.
In a very perverse and indirect way, perhaps, that is, in fact, what the actions against the World Trade Towers and Pentagon were. However, this was a disastrous approach in a language that was incoherent and lacked the heart and soul of the message that really must be conveyed. It was an action full of death instead of the demonstration of the collective desire to live. It could only bring about more of the same defensiveness from the Kings and Queens and Emperors, who, like all hoarders, become deeply terrified if they perceive their stores of hoardings are threatened. And we, the serfs and servants, are the ones most ill affected by it.
I strongly agree that the strategy of trying to appeal to the primary hoarder's intermediaries, i.e. the Obama administration, Congress, the European Union, etc. cannot possibly succeed. This is primarily because the mission of these intermediaries is to impose the dominance of the hoarders in a way that will not be too fiercely resisted. However, the idea of trying to tease a little compassion out of our masters I think misunderstands the nature of the system.
I don't believe that the primary hoarders act as they do due to evolutionary impulses inherent in human nature. The capitalist system is not simply a matter of the hoarding instinct run amok. Rather the system drives people to this type of behavior because it defines capital accumulation as success.
For those seeking new opportunities for accumulation, global warming and desertification are blessings in disguise. One particularly rich profit opportunity will be the cap and trade program which will allow companies to profit from their pollution capabilities. In Europe vast fortunes have been reaped from this system while emissions have not declined at all.
We are thus driven back to Lauderdale’s question: “What opinion,” he asked, “would be entertained of the understanding of a man, who, as the means of increasing the wealth of…a country should propose to create a scarcity of water, the abundance of which was deservedly considered one of the greatest blessings incident to the community? It is certain, however, that such a projector would, by this means, succeed in increasing the mass of individual riches.”41
One of the reasons capitalism has succeeded so well is because it externalizes the true costs of its profit. In other words, the bill for the waste and destruction caused by its productive methods has been transferred to the public and the natural environment rather than accepted by the corporations themselves. Profit on the destruction the planet has been part of capitalism since it's beginnings in the 15th century.
Ah yes! Great response!
Again I think we are in agreement... this is not about "teasing" compassion out of the primary hoarders, but demanding that they cede the share, our share and the shares of the designated "others", back to their rightful possessors because it is unethical and unwise, even self-destructive, to continue to do otherwise. Because as an organism the human race cannot continue to succeed with one part of its body denying the other parts so destructively.
If there is success in this demand, then the best of capitalism will remain but will otherwise be changed into something probably unrecognizable to what it is today.
This is, of course, a dangerous game, forasmuch as the act of nailing theses to doors of cathedrals may appear to be rather innocuous and done in the spirit of truth seeking and exchange, the truth in those theses and their irrevocable magnetic pull of attraction may have the power to pull the doors of the cathedral down and let in the "other" by the millions, metaphorically speaking.
And so the question for those who wrote and supported that initial act will be how to mitigate and stabilize the potential for a violent transition that has the power to destroy the initial urge and its outcome and deliver power back into the hands of a new set of, or the same, primary hoarders.... or transform the authors and initiators of the act into the thing they were trying to change. It is always easier for the river to go back to the old channel rather than carve a new one.
I do, by the way, think systems of economics, political systems, and the like, ie: our deep understanding of how our collective body functions in our world, are essentially a part of a collective genetic code and are expressed collectively as an indication of our biological necessity toward evolution. Such systems are ingrained in our synapses and in the transformational and convertible nature of our genes, individually and collectively.
I agree Bobv. Sustained protest at the grassroots level is key.
The media also need to cover these grassroots protests and the reason that people participate in them, discussing the policies behind them- not just report: "30 protesters caused a ruckus in front of the corporate headquarters of (fill in the company name here) today", which is the standard negligent reporting of most newspapers today.
We will have greater change when more people know and understand the reasons for our efforts.
The media don't have to cover anything that matters THE TRUTH.The majority of Americans seem to be in total apathy about serious issues.The media knows how to play them.
I say not to worry too much about what and how much the media covers these actions... just5 keep doing whatever you can do to move against the economic Kings and their politician handmaidens. Make the action the focus, not the media.
Two EPA lawyers from San Francisco have been outspoken against cap and trade and for an alternative known as carbon fees with rebates. Here is their story:
EPA Attorneys Speak Out Against Cap and Trade
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/12/defying_gag_order_epa_attorneys_speak
Carbon Fees
http://www.carbonfees.org/home/
You can cut and paste the link or simply go to www.democracynow.org and visit the November 12th story links.
Here is a much needed action to assure the rest of the world hears about the protests at Copenhagen: Call and write your regional newspapers and even the mainstream television stations. Tell them you want real coverage of these protests-that you want the story of WHY people are protesting.
We shouldn't let the media off the hook when they fail to report the reasons behind the ongoing protests around the country regarding domestic and foreign policies. They are supposed to be providing a service to their readers and listeners and we deserve the best product possible- honest and full reporting.
If you subscribe to a newspaper that blocks out the motivations for protests and does not discuss the policies being protested, call the editor and talk to him/her.
Cap and trade is a STUPID solution to a very real problem. It such an obviously stupid solution the fact it advanced as THE Solution even as stupid as it is demonstrates its ONLY purpose is to create another "Profit Generating Enterprise" for the speculators.
Not even a Politician can be stupid enough to believe this "Free market Solution" will work so it also apparent the Politicians that support such a system are bought and paid for by those same speculators.
One of the things Copenhagen activists must consider is an agenda for the vast majority of us who can't go there on 12/16. This should be a brief, bold action agenda focusing on only a few well-targeted and substantive actions, rather than symbolic actions or "educational" action designed to get media or community attention. I'm not an activist or a politico and I'm not savvy but the actions should include at least one form of targeted active refusal to participate in the world system of exploitation by ruling elites (call it the corporatocracy, if you want). I am not just talking about a boycott although that's a start.
I am talking about shutting down federal buildings and corporate offices; non-payment of energy bills or taxes, scheduled worldwide "sick-outs" or _"no-carbon" days, during which we don't work, don't drive and don't turn on the heater. I am talking about monkey-wrenching mountain top removers but not just one mountain in West VA, but 50 mountains all around the world all on the same day. Anything short of massive, focused coordinated action will have little or no effect. Yeah, we'd all get arrested and who knows what else, but what choice is there? Mr. Hope and Change isn't about to give us either.
A march on the Supreme Court to protest their opening the floodgates of corporate money to political campaigns.
Yes, it is unbelievable that the Supreme Court is considering weakening campaign finance laws. We need to STRENGTHEN campaign finance laws now.
Progressives should prioritize campaign finance and electoral reform.
The issue of "climate change", the PC term for global warming will never be adequately addressed... UNLESS... and its a BIG unless... the big corporations can figure a way to make huge PROFITS from such an effort. So, we have a slim chance. Otherwise, get ready for rising sea levels and level TEN hurricanes and constant tornadoes, crop failures and wars for clean water.
I think you misunderstand the article. Big corporations making huge profits is how we got to climate disruption (a more appropriate term than the other two). It is the "underlying logic of capitalism" that requires continuous growth on a finite planet.Capitalism cannot be both the source of the problem and the solution as you suggest.
I was in Seattle in 99 and thousands of peaceful people and their message about the WTO was never mentioned in the whore media.The very few that the press demonized as violent anarchists was shown non stop 24/7. Watch for the same thing to happen in Copenhagen as a red herring to distract from the real message. Like Naomi says, I hope Copenhagen learns from Seattle's mistakes and does not allow the message to be truncated.
I was there in Seattle too and your comments are so spot on. The only coverage was the breaking of Starbucks windows downtown and trash cans strewn all over. There has to be some change in the media moguls brainwaves - they are looking only for 'news' and their 'news' is not the message of corporate rape but of tabloidia. Just as with media's non coverage of Nader's messages, the Palestinian plight, lobbyist's unwielding hold on our 'democracy' and private financed elections, climate change is not a National Enquirer topic, or media 'news'.
I watch Chinese TV quite a bit and they are not covering Obomba .At least anytime today that I had it on ,there was no mention of him.
I was at the WTO protests in Seattle, too, and agree--the media did not report the issues, just concentrated on demonizing the "violent" anarchists.
I didn't see ANYONE who was violent, except the police. There were some kids who broke some store windows and lit fires in trash barrels, but they didn't hurt anybody.
The police, however, in their Darth Vader suits, went on a rampage, first panicking crowds into running by shooting tear gas into them, and then attacking the people as they tried to get away. I also saw cops spray pepper spray directly into the faces of nonviolent protestors who were sitting on the ground. And they shot dummy bullets at a teenager sitting harmlessly in a tree, making him fall to the ground. They didn't even check on him to see if he was okay, though blood was running down his face.
In the protests since, the cops nation-wide have shed even the few restraints that the cops in Seattle still observed in '99. I hope the police in Copenhagen are different.
Ms. Klein homers again. The argument against cap and trade that's the strongest is that it is being turned into a "commodification" of the environment. This will turn it into another potential speculative bubble that will potentially lead to more of the Milton Friedman oriented financial madness that has torched the world's economies. Matt Taibbi's recent articles in Rolling Stone about Goldman Sachs also captures the issue from the bankers' side. They are waiting in the wings for this. Sadly one of the primary players is Al Gore; who has already formed his own investment firm with....you've got it, people from Goldman Sachs.
"This will turn it into another potential speculative bubble that will potentially lead to more of the Milton Friedman oriented financial madness that has torched the world's economies".
You're absolutely right! And they're calling them Carbon Credit Derivatives.
Agreed: cap and trade will make for one speculative bubble and do nothing to solve the problem. Wonder how many carbon credits Canada will get for not cutting a forest? Or how many credits will go towards planting trees in a desert, trees certain to die? How much money will somebody get for not taking out a mountain in West Virginia? This is a new game of craps designed to create wealth for the few while taking from the many.
How about a carbon tax instead? You pollute, you pay. The recipients of the tax? The poor. With the tax money developing countries can set up wind and solar energy farms to foster their "development." Other recipients? How about people who can't afford their energy bills? Anything to punish the polluters and help the poor.
i applaud the anti-globalisation movement
it is a rejection of the psychopathic destruction of the nwo/capitolist cabal and may well be the best and last hope against totalitarianism for the planet
the history of the world in the last five hundred years can be simply summarized as follows: white people left europe and began an unrelenting campaign of theft and murder of the world everywhere they went
the us is a good case in point - the genocide against the first nations is a deep and unacknowledged crime against humanity that continues to this day - we have destroyed 90% of the first nation in a hateful genocide that would have made the nazi's toes tingle
ruthless and unapologetic we killed men and women, babies, children, and a whole way of life that was based on harmony and balance with nature
and respect for the earth
the western psychopathic culture views the world as a "thing" to be used up, bought and sold and wasted for a quick profit
a predatory and sociopathic mindset with a dash of unfounded paranoia ha marked us for who we truly are
and let's not forget the undending wars and unserviceable debt
our way of life has just about ruined the planet and it has brought the immenent collpase of the ecosystem in the realm of the possible if not inevitable
and for what
this psychopathic world view is solely aimed at securing the profits stolen by the corporations/nwo/rothschilds banking cartel
my hope is that copenhagen will be step one in the destruction of the whole control mechanism of debt and slavery that the nwo is trying to choke us into
the world needs another french revolution and some tumor removal surgery - and we need it bad...
I expect the authorities to use some of the new crowd control weaponry. How do street protesters deal with the microwave 'heat ray' wall of heat weapon and 'the shrieker' acoustic weapon? Any ideas?
deleted by author because there really is no freedom of speech in the usa
Get two dozen wrist rocket slingshots, four pounds of half inch ball bearings and twenty-three freedom fighters. I don't believe their device would survive a well aimed barrage. Physical barriers (foil blankets?) should block the microwaves and hearing protection can be purchased at worker's safety supply stores. (ear muffs and plugs)
How about flying a model aircraft into the device?
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
deleted by author because there really is no freedom of speech in the usa
I hope part of the preparations made by the Solnits was to find some friendly assets in our major media who are dedicated to presenting an accurate and complete accounting of the their efforts to the American people.
Otherwise the corporate media will easily turn the protesters into fools and clowns and edit them and their message out of the story.
All their efforts will be for naught if the great masses of this country aren't given a factual accounting of what's in play in Copenhagen.
I'm sure the propagandists at our major media organizations have been working on their slant and already have most of the Copenhagen story written which undoubtedly be in favor of maintaining the status-quo.
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Whoever controls the media controls the country. Period.
Yes but only in part. Media control is becoming less effective due the media continual loss of credibility. The fact is that the increasing impact of climate change is affecting everyone; as in the WHO's Tommy they can "see it... feel it... touch it...". More and more people are really getting scared, and in this situation what's going on spreads by word-of-mouth, email, facebook, etc. The official media will try to distort it all but the protesters' message will ring with a common sense gut feeling in the majority of the people.
Facebook, Twitter, Google, emails, etc. are already a big part of the MSM's/MIC arsenal of information and subversion. Dissecting and aggregating & constructing algorithms 24/7.
But of course, I could be wrong. :)
Copenhagen will be very interesting. Sounds like a good plan.