Greenblade

The Occupy protests all around the country and the world are the first persistent, visible, determined protests I have seen in a very long time. Though the styles vary in different locations they all seem united by a boiling over of frustration against big corporations and a government that has been bought and paid for. In words that come from Occupy Oakland, their occupation is their demand. They are saying that the people need to take back public space as a visible sign that community belongs to everyone. We cannot wait for it to trickle down.

I am excited by this movement. It is messy and it does not follow prescribed rules but it is passionate and creative. It has a handle on what it means to decide things together, to teach, to learn, to know what democracy is supposed to mean. It flies in the face of the argument that a take-over of our lives by corporations is “inevitable.”

So I am continually surprised to be in conversations with people I am usually in conversations with – people who more or less see the world as I do – and watch them wince and say “They have to stay non-violent.” There is usually nothing more to their comments. They don’t express support or outrage at what is prompting these protests or sympathy in any other way. They just want the protests to stay non-violent.

Well, so would I. It would be great if change could happen without anyone on the protesters side breaking any rules or expressing rage. What are the chances?

Big corporations, banks, hidden power brokers have been wrecking havoc with the economy, the environment, the air, the water, the food supply for a long time now. What they have been and are doing is violent, sometimes quite directly so, but they have not been held to standards of decency. With the Occupy movements, people who have suffered from these practices have begun to find a voice, a path to action, and each other.

(And, by the way, it is useful to remember that the more power the Occupy movement gains, the more there will be efforts to discredit it. In the 60s we knew that in every rally a significant percentage of participants were outside agitators. This morning I saw a report that film showed “a protester” in Oakland throwing something at police. No one knows who that person was.)

Where should Greenblade be on all this? I hope that in some way each of us will take some kind of action. We do not need to camp. In fact, all the Occupy movements are going to have to come inside very soon now and they have to survive the winter. As individuals we can support in so many ways.

1. If you have your money in a big bank, move it to a local bank or credit union. Saturday, November 5th is the big day for that but any day will work.
2. Andrew has suggested that we host a benefit dinner for Healthy Food for All to help a family have access to clean, local produce.
3. I am going to D.C. for the Tar Sands Rally on Sunday.
4. Elizabeth will have any number of ideas for opposing hydrofracking.

There are myriad other ways to help change our economy. These ways will make a difference and they are non-violent. Lots of people are out there doing it. Let’s get involved!

In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now. – Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai died on Sunday. She was a tireless activist for environmental justice first in her native Kenya and then internationally. For her work drawing the connection between environmental devastation and poverty she was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Through her work we can see clearly both that environmental devastation leads to poverty and that economically vulnerable people are the usual targets of man-made environmental violence.

The economically vulnerable also tend to be socially vulnerable. They are farmers, immigrants, mountain people. They are the overt or silent victims of racism and classism. Too many people casually use the terms “redneck” and “hillbilly,” without even thinking what they are doing, as though they are entitled. But allowing people who live “somewhere else” to bear the brunt of hydrofracking or mountaintop removal is to be complicit in an unexamined war on them, on culture, on the earth itself.

A change in this thinking is happening – slowly, but it is happening. Today at a Natural Resources House Committee Hearing in Charleston, West Virginia, there was searing testimony about the unimaginable cost of mountain-top removal, testimony that directly addressed the “jobs” argument.

“How could anyone say that these temporary jobs is worth the permanent displacement of our people and the destruction of their waters, mountains and culture?”

“Jobs in surface mining are dependent on blowing up the next mountain and burying the next stream. When are we going to say enough is enough?”

“What about the jobs that will be lost if the strippers continue to ruin the tourist industry, wash away priceless topsoil, fill people’s yards with the black muck, which runs off from a strip mine, rip open the bellies of the hills and spill their guts in spoil-banks? This brutal and hideous contempt for valuable land is a far more serious threat to the economy than a few thousand jobs which are easily transferable into the construction industry, or to fill the sharp demand for workers in underground mines.”

The full story is here – Appalachian Coalfield Leaders Turn Tables at Congressional Hearing on Mountaintop Removal

We have been like the mongoose, paralyzed before the cobra. Those who believe that the earth is the Lord’s and all that is therein must not remain silent. The time is now.