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How to Change the World Overnight
How to Change the World Overnight
Making a Difference
Mark Twain said:
If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.
In other words, if the government is not trying to stop something, it must not be very important.
On the flip side of the coin, the great historian Howard Zinn noted:
Protest always looks futile at the time it takes place, but protest mounts up.
If they thought protest is futile they wouldn’t send the police out every time there’s a demonstration. [Examples of what Zinn is talking about here, here, andhere.]
You set up a picket line somewhere of 7 people, and 12 policemen show up. They must worry about protests. Because they know that small protests lead to large ones.
We noted in 2009:
As MSNBC news correspondent Jonathan Capehart tells Dylan Ratigan, the main problem is that people aren’t making enough noise. Capehart says that the people not only have to “burn up the phone lines to Congress”, but also to hit the streets and protest in D.C.
Even though most politicians are totally corrupt, if many millions of Americans poured into the streets of D.C., a critical mass would be reached, and the politicians would start changing things in a hurry.
As [liberal] PhD economist Dean Baker points out:
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination. More recently, the townhall meetings, dominated by people opposed to health care reform, have been a serious roadblock for those pushing reform….
A big turnout … can make a real difference.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Want to Change the Future? Pay Attention to the Past.
From Mandela to MLK to McKibben, history offers lessons aplenty for climate activists
We all know the plotline: Single-minded, passionate activists attempt to take on immense money and power, hidebound ideology and bureaucratic paralysis to turn the tide on the most important issue ever.
We could be talking about climate change. But we could also be talking about the abolition of slavery, marriage equality or countless other political struggles from history. Each of those other movements holds a bonanza of lessons for climate activists on how sweeping change succeeds or fails.
Abolition: Angels and Aloofness
No movement was ever more entitled to the moral high ground than abolitionism. What can climate activists learn from the anti-slavery movement?
First, being on the side of the angels may not matter. Abolitionists’ morality and common sense ran headlong into arguments of economic necessity and states’ rights in defense of slavery. Similarly, states’ rights and economic need are rhetorical refuges in climate debates today. So don’t wait for common sense to prevail. Abolitionists waited for decades, and it still took a catastrophic war to resolve things.
Second, smug aloofness doesn’t help. Abolitionists were viewed as effete and elite, eggheads and dilettantes. So much so that they even repelled one of their own. In his 1841 essay Self-Reliance, the existentialist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson called out abolitionist leaders for what he saw as their “incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off” while ignoring social ills in their own northern backyards.
If enviros made the rebirth of coal towns via renewable energy a priority, Appalachia’s coming Reconstruction Era could replace perpetual bitterness with prosperity.Today’s environmentalists are similarly perceived as being detached from the grim realities of coalfield towns, and that has opened up opportunities to blame green groups and regulators for the decades-long and inevitable market collapse of King Coal.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Thousands Crowd Brazil’s Streets: Demand Military Intervention & Rousseff Resignation, Impeachment
Thousands Crowd Brazil’s Streets: Demand Military Intervention & Rousseff Resignation, Impeachment
It appears the ‘people’ are growing more and more dissatisfied with their corrupt and greedy leaders across the world. As we noted recently, Brazil’s economy is imploding, consumer sentiment is at record lows, and with the Petrobras scandal providing a glimpse at just how deep the corruption might go, Brazilians are revolting. Hundreds of thousands are crowding the streets in several regional Brazilian capitals, dominated ironically by the middle and upper classes. Demands for “Dilma Out” and “Impeach Dilma” are also interspersed with calls for a quasi-coup and “military intervention.”
Hundreds of thousands of people protested today against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff , in Rio de Janeiro, within a day of demonstrations in dozens of cities across the country.The protest in Rio de Janeiro started at 9:30 local time (12:30 GMT) on the beach of Copacabana and far exceeded the expectations of the public of the organizers, which are groups of citizens without opposition political parties declared link.
The man ifestantes chanted slogans against Rousseff and the ruling Workers Party (PT) and rejection of corruption.
“Out PT”, “PT stole” and “PT anymore” were songs sung in repeatedly by the Cariocas protesters, who were dressed mostly in yellow and green colors of the Brazilian flag.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Fossil fuel divestment campaign grows as protesters target UK banks
With Britain’s big five banks investing £66bn in fossil fuel extraction, campaigners believe pressure is building on banks to sell off toxic assets
At least 1,400 UK customers are set to move their accounts in protest at their banks’ multibillion-pound funding of the fossil fuel industry. The campaign, mirrored by actions in Australia and South Africa, is part of a global day of actionby the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement.
The Go Fossil Free campaign has already persuaded 180 institutions, worth $50bn (£33bn) and including local authorities, universities and churches, to sell off their investments in coal, oil and gas. The campaign will stage a series of protests on Saturday, with hundreds other events planned in more than 50 countries.
A spokesman for the Move Your Money campaign, Fionn Travers-Smith, said: “Britain’s biggest banks have been using people’s money to fund fossil fuels and climate change for too long, and the public simply don’t want to support these socially and environmentally catastrophic industries.”
The divestment movement asks investors to commit to selling their investmentsin the biggest 200 fossil fuel companies over five years. A series of analyses have shown that there are already three times more fossil fuels in accessible reserves than can be burned if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided, as world leaders have pledged.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Kinder Morgan leaves Burnaby Mountain in win for pipeline protesters – Waging Nonviolence
Kinder Morgan leaves Burnaby Mountain in win for pipeline protesters – Waging Nonviolence.
On the morning of November 28, after weeks of sustained protest, energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan packed up the equipment it had planned to use in the construction of a new pipeline on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia, and left without finishing the job.
Weeks earlier, the company had legally declared a “no protest zone” — valid through December 1 — to keep protesters away from the mountainside construction sites on the grounds that their presence would present a safety hazard and undue expenses. When that wasn’t enough, they filed an application with the British Columbia Supreme Court to extend the injunction for another two weeks. But the court rejectedtheir application, when it was revealed that Kinder Morgan had provided the wrong GPS coordinates for the injunction zone. As a result, charges were also lifted from the over 100 people arrested for civil contempt due to a lack of clarity around where they could and could not be on the mountain.
Most importantly, the ruling means that Kinder Morgan can no longer continue construction on the site, as it has no legal grounds to do so. According to Reuters, the project would have more than tripled the volume of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, which transports an estimated 300,000 barrels of tar sands oil daily through Alberta and British Columbia.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Police arrest protesters as Ferguson awaits grand jury decision | Reuters
Police arrest protesters as Ferguson awaits grand jury decision | Reuters.
(Reuters) – Police arrested five people in Ferguson, Missouri, overnight after they tried to block a street in a protest calling for a grand jury to charge a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen in August.
A few dozen demonstrators, some chanting: “Indict that cop,” gathered outside the Ferguson police station late on Wednesday in sub-freezing temperatures.
They were faced by officers in riot gear. The arrests were the first in about a week.
The grand jury has been meeting for three months to determine whether police officer Darren Wilson broke the law when he shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in an incident that exposed long-simmering racial tensions in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Locals protest Santos Pillaga CSG expansion | Climate Citizen
Locals protest Santos Pillaga CSG expansion | Climate Citizen.
Something is happening in the Pillaga in western NSW. Coal Seam Gas exploration and drilling by Santos is under concerted attack. While the protests are not new, the profiles of those locking on or taking a stand are no longer the regular sterotype.
Yesterday a Coonabarabran mother of three young children, Nicole Hunter, locked on to a bulldozer for several hours. Mrs Hunter attached herself to a bulldozer to stop Santos clearing a patch of the forest for a new coal seam gas drill pad. She had a support crew from Coonabarabran. She was released after several hours without charge.
She is concerned about the industrialisation of the area and the impact on underground water, the mainstay of agriculture and important for recharging the Great Artesian basin. Read the story onCSG is risky business for aquifers.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The protests, occupations and uprisings changing our world | ROAR Magazine
The protests, occupations and uprisings changing our world | ROAR Magazine.
From the Battle of Seattle to Occupy Wall St, a new book revisits the major challenges that grassroots movements face in the pursuit of social change.
Flesher Fominaya, Cristina, Social Movements and Globalization. How Protests, Occupations and Uprisings are Changing the World. UK: Palgrave Macmillan (2014).
The outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 has been considered, by many, a turning point in the ways we come to understand our world. Established worldviews and fixed mindsets are confronted with the rapidly changing interrelations between the social, the political and the economic domain. These developments pose a challenge to our daily social experiences, as well as to academic social analysis, while at the same time giving birth to new opportunities for social change.
In thinking about these developments, the latest book by Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Social Movements and Globalization, comes as a careful dissection of some of the most intriguing concepts relevant to the economic and political processes of the last century and the enduring desire for social transformation. Flesher Fominaya provides us with a master compilation of all that catches our attention, grasps our interest and urges our understanding.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How you make big companies listen | Queen of Green | David Suzuki Foundation
How you make big companies listen | Queen of Green | David Suzuki Foundation.
Companies aren`t required to itemize specific fragrance ingredients, not even known allergens. But with your help we brought this message to the government and companies. (Credit: Lindsay Coulter)
I’m no doctor. But people often ask me, “What cream should I use or make for my rash?”
My advice: Stop using scented laundry soap, dryer sheets, lotions and home cleaners!
You already know scents can make you sick. Many of you have helped the David Suzuki Foundation combat potential allergens like “fragrance” and “parfum” (and other undesirables in household cleaners and cosmetics).
Over the years, we asked you to:
- Avoid the Dirty Dozen
- Write to cosmetics companies asking exactly what is meant by “parfum” or “fragrance” in their product ingredients
- Break up with toxic home cleaners, like Windex
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Roar II | The carbon pilgrim
In a nice bit of irony, the route of People’s Climate March cut through the gaudy heart of Times Square, placing protestors under the smoky gaze of two-story tall fashion models. The contrast was delicious – and intimidating. We had marched into one of the cultural epicenters of indifference toward the steep challenges of our times and the tall canyon walls all around us mocked our suddenly puny protest. Even the neon fashion models seemed to smirk. Then in a flash, the indifference was washed away by an unexpected and joyful incident involving a tour bus, of all things. It was an encounter that lifted my spirits again.
And made me think.
It happened at the intersection of 42nd street and 7th avenue where the police had temporarily halted the long line of marchers to let traffic cross. My son and I were standing near the head of the line when an open-topped, double-decker tour bus sailed into the intersection. Spying the protestors, a group of tourists in the open-top section spontaneously raised their hands and cheered a cheer of support. We cheered right back. Wow! Watching the progress of the bus, I dropped my gaze to look at a tough New York City police officer who was directing traffic. The cheering had made him smile.
…click on link above to read the rest of the article…
