Events

Love Your Earth

Earth Peace
Listen to the sound of the earth turning
(Yoko Ono, Earth Day, April 22, 2015)

We’ve been promoting the hashtag, #EarthDayIsEveryDay because the impact on climate change is still grossly underestimated. It is one of our key issues because if we ruin our planet, our search for social and economic justice means little.

Pascal B. for technovore Flickr/creative commons

Pascal B. for technovore
Flickr/creative commons

Mass migrations caused by loss of groundwater due to rising seas, extreme weather and earthquake frequency, and loss of bio-diversity are just a few of the results. We can’t rely on mainstream media to inform us about the risks of climate change, and climate deniers cannot claim they are “skeptics” because that is a word connoting an open mind.

Here are some of the stories we are investigating today that we thought you should know about . . .

For more . . .
What do Sex and Gender have to do with Climate Change and Net Neutrality
Silencing Climate Change Deniers
Response to Climate Change Impossible Without a Revolution in Thinking

 

 

 

Op-Ed: The Inherent Corruption of US-Israel Relations

A complete political perversion of diplomacy is upon us that further illustrates the underlying illogic that cements US-Israel relations.

Photo by Michael Loadenthal Flickr/creative commons

Photo by Michael Loadenthal
Flickr/creative commons

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, conspired to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address both houses of Congress on March 3, just two weeks before the Israeli leader stands for re-election.

An invitation of this magnitude never goes, shouldn’t go, to a foreign leader hoping to make his bona fides for an upcoming election at home by addressing our Congress, in this case, allowing Netanyahu to undermine US leadership in nuclear disarmament talks with Iran, something Israel has objected to. Rightwing Israelis don’t want any talks about any subject between America and Iran which they view as threats to Israel’s security. And, Netanyahu at least doesn’t see the perversity of taking America’s chief podium to criticize a country where he is a guest.

House Speaker Boehner is knowingly usurping important presidential prerogatives and weakening the presidency (whomever that may be, now and the future) because foreign relations decisions (and invitations) are the exclusive purview of the executive branch, not the legislative branch, of our government. This makes Boehner (who you will remember is third in line for the presidency should anything happen to the current president and vice-president) particularly unsuited to serve our country. Boehner gives us so many self-repudiating examples of his sheer stupidity it’s hard to keep up, I know.

Jewish organizations and politicians and activists in this country have weighed in on Netanyahu’s planned address to Congress, some lobbying for a postponement to March 17, after Israeli elections, others mounting petitions to cancel it. Both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have refused to meet with Netanyahu during his US visit. Netanyahu’s opposing candidates back home in Israel have questioned even the legality of Netanyahu’s American address this close to the election, which is not guaranteed to go his way. A boycott by some or all members of Congress is being planned. No doubt plans are underway for March 3 street protests and other campaigns objecting to this ugly expression of the congenital dysfunction of US-Israel relations.

We have to understand history to fully comprehend how we’ve arrived at this awful point.

Once Israel and the US (and England) were able to finesse this blatant land grab based on questionable ancient principles of imminent domain and general guilt-tripping after World War II, the only hope, the only hope, for success in this region would have been the emergence of a western state that was totally dedicated to fostering regional and world peace, including the integration and uplifting of the existing population in Palestine. We all know that never happened. Instead, the superiority complex of early and current zionists has done nothing but challenge, irritate, and disappear anyone in the way of their complete domination of the region. With America and Britain’s blessing, Israel conquered Palestine, and the massacres and ethnic cleansing persist to this day.

We can’t fail to mention here that christian fundamentalists in and out of political power blindly call for the supremacy of Israel at all costs to preserve the landing strip for Jesus’s return to earth. This zealotry, on a par with zionist zealotry, undergirds America’s unquestioned love of Israel and support for its actions, no matter how heinous. The reality of the here and now and what’s best for the future are superseded by the politicization and prioritizing of these highly personal religious beliefs on the part of our elected leaders.

As we have written before, the jewish people worldwide, including Israel, and the American people, must take a step back and consider the roots of the Israel disaster and the hatred of Americans throughout Middle East it has engendered.

Yesterday, L. Michael Hager at Truthout, offered a thoughtful review of Alison Weir‘s new book, Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the US was used to create Israel (CreateSpace Publishing), shedding more light on just how deep this US-Israeli conspiracy to defraud the world goes. The full review and the book are both worth a full read, as is Ms. Weir’s website, If America Knew.

Zionist organizations established in the 1930s and ’40s lobbied President Harry Truman to recognize the state of Israel despite strong objections by Middle East experts. Loy Henderson of the State Department warned that the UN partition plan would “guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future.” Both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA echoed that view. (Hager on Weir, Truthout)

Did you know that Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter, two US Supreme Court Justices at the time of the formation of modern Israel after World War II, were secret zionist supporters who led the manipulation of American and British lawmakers to support their efforts? As activists and members of the public there can be no end to our excavation of US-Israel relations because they have upended and are upending half the world, presenting one of the greatest obstacles to world peace.

Today, the US funds the Israeli military with over $3 billion aimed at oppressing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is your tax dollars that support this aggression and the deaths of thousands. That’s on you. What are you going to do about it?

As citizens of our war-torn world we must reckon with how and why the world has been hurt by Israel’s actions and the continued culpability of America in destabilizing the region through its unwavering, and chronically unquestioning, support of Israel’s 60-year reign of terror.

When will we break this insane and self-destructive love affair with Israel, and stand up for the rights of Palestinians? Seek out websites and read books like Weir’s to educate yourself. Talk to your friends and families about this pressing issue. Join or otherwise support organizations who are working each day to accomplish this goal. Get the blood off your hands.

Related:
Israel’s Messy Package, Part 1 and Part 2
Professor Walt Helps Explain America’s Bankrupt Israeli Policy

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

 

 

TODAY: Take Action for Net Neutrality

Last night, President Obama, in his State of the Union speech, made clear that net neutrality is important to everyone throughout the world.

“I intend to protect a free and open internet, extend its reach to every classroom, and every community, and help folks build the fastest networks, so that the next generation of digital innovators and entrepreneurs have the platform to keep reshaping our world.”

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

We already know that if we don’t continue to have unfettered and free access to this most important utility, the voices of so many people will be unnecessarily silenced, bringing us further under the corporatized, enslaving stranglehold by a small group of elites who lack any empathy for the rest of us.

As the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) seems poised to put all (or at least some) protections of net neutrality in place, powerful lobbyists representing corporations who wish to exploit this utility for their own financial gain are gaming the U.S. Congress in an attempt to circumnavigate the FCC.

[This was Comcast’s big play all along] . . . if they lose the FCC, get Congress to do the dirty work. Now it’s happening. There are two fake net neutrality bills in motion that wouldn’t stop cable companies from discriminating against certain sites, but would block the FCC from enforcing real rules. — Holmes Wilson of  Fight for the Future

We can’t wait until President Obama has to veto attempts by Congress to do the dirty work of the corporatists, or for a possible Republican president in 2 years to allow this travesty. Click here to call the committee members, right now and tell them to stop standing in the way of real net neutrality. We need *everyone* to do this.

So take a few minutes now to call as many of them as you can.

How awesome would it be if while they’re at these bogus hearings, they get panicked texts from staff about the HUGE number of pro-net neutrality calls? 

Many of you have been active all year in making sure the FCC hears your voice. The FCC acknowledged the millions of calls and statements in favor of making the internet a public utility, like water, electricity, and your phone, as it should be. We were heard, and up until this unnecessary interference to neutralize the power of the FCC, it’s been looking good.

We can’t give up, we won’t give up. Make your voice heard, today especially.

 

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Dear Martin

Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968 by Caboindex Flickr/creative commons

Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929-1968
by Caboindex
Flickr/creative commons

Dear Martin . . . How happy I am today to see the next generation fully embrace the ideals that identified your short life: the end of poverty, racism, and war, precepts to which I have continued to dedicate my life.

With numerous conferences and forums throughout your birthday weekend, before and after, your mass of followers are playing an invigorating and crucial role right now in schooling the mass of newly minted young activists who are fully committed to ending the murder of young black people, and all attempts to erase an entire race through mass incarceration and domestic and foreign policies favoring whites. This new, gigantic effort is committed to non-violent means to solve these conflicts, a true testament to your life’s work.

As an idealistic teen growing up in post-war America, your ideals called to me as they still do. As a pre-teen I  came into contact with young freedom rider friends of my (Jewish) family who were helping black southerners register to vote, and challenge a rigged system (that is today being re-rigged, unfortunately). I became an activist working throughout the 1960s and 70s, putting more than just boots on the ground in protest of the Vietnam War. Your life and work were the keys that completed my full radicalization, and still motivate my activism today.

In our youth, you and I wrongly supposed that, “Oh, this is going to be solved next week because our arguments were so persuasive and the evidence so damning!” But it wasn’t solved in a week. Instead, it is being solved by the generation we gave birth to.

Today, more than ever before in history, legacy and new activists are working together, communicating through free mass communications, bringing about co-equal citizens of the world who fully envision that better and more humane future: a happy and healthy cohabitation of world citizens in place of the corporatized, enslaving stranglehold by a small number of elites (all old, white, men).

Your dream is becoming a reality, Martin. Your deep compassion for all of humanity is in full flower. It’s just taking this long because it turned out there was and is so much work to do. Nevertheless, we are reveling in this major step forward in out quest for Peace.

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Silencing Climate Change Deniers

According to a new study in the journal Science,”Four boundaries are assessed to have been crossed, placing humanity in a danger zone.”

 

The report defined climate change and loss of species as two core areas of concern. Each “has the potential on its own to drive the Earth System into a new state should they be substantially and persistently transgressed,” the authors wrote.

via Oxfam International Flickr/creative commons

via Oxfam International
Flickr/creative commons

It would almost seem absurd at this point to recognize anyone, high or low, who would argue that the human impacts on the environment have not already reached the “danger zone.” But it’s not absurd, it’s a very, very sad state of current reality.

Alas, we must continue equip ourselves to silence climate deniers by repudiating their arguments, whether a politician or your grumpy uncle Joe, through conversations, publishing, and activism. Quoting from studies or books, such as Naomi Klein’s  This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, may help but, unfortunately, these deniers are almost always so proud of their defiance in the face of irrefutable evidence that they refuse to take new information in. If you look closely, you will see that this resistance to new information is a character flaw that seeps into other areas of their thinking, and is therefore hard to overcome.

The cataclysmic results of climate change are already upon us, mass migrations, shrinking coastlines, salinization of drinking water, food scarcity, etc. Are we doomed to wait for the elite to start suffering??

We must keep the pressure on, especially leading up to the hopeful Paris climate summit (Conference of Parties or COP) in December 2015 that will be pushing for ambitious action before and after 2020. Start, if you haven’t already, by updating yourself and staying informed through websites such as the United Nations Climate Change Newsroom. We don’t have a moment to wait, literally.

 

How Days of Action Work in Addressing Police Bias and Anti-Transgender Violence

Today in hundreds of cities and towns across the world transgender and gender-nonconforming people and their allies pause to honor our fallen heroes. The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was founded in 1998 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith—a transgender graphic designer, columnist, and activist—to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts. It occurs annually on (or around) November 20, and its overarching goal is to bring attention to the continued violence endured by the transgender community with the hope that together we can end such violence and intolerance.

Not long ago, Washington, DC, found itself in the midst of an epidemic of violence and murders against transgender people. The rates had been steadily growing over 10 years and suddenly we suffered 4 murders in less than 3 months. (The increase in discrimination was perhaps due to a backlash against the migration of many transgender people to DC, from Virginia and elsewhere, wanting to live in a city that had, and still has, the country’s most comprehensive human rights protections for gender-nonconforming people.)

Transgender Day of Action  Washington, DC November 21, 2011

Transgender Day of Action
Washington, DC
November 21, 2011

Vigil followed vigil and soon it was time for our annual TDOR. But we decided to add on a more immediate and visible Transgender Day of Action to bring this outrageous state of affairs to the forefront of public consciousness and the media and put the police, city officials, and the U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, on notice.

In 2011, we started with just 5 people who met once or twice a week to hear directly from survivors of anti-trans violence and police harassment because any action to be effective would have to be grounded in real-world circumstances. We called ourselves the TLGB Police Watch, and eventually represented a coalition that included more than a dozen local organizations which turned these community concerns into goals, a set of demands, and a plan for a day of non-violence civil disobedience.

Within 24 hours after putting boots on the ground, at the Metropolitan Police Headquarters to City Hall and the offices of the U.S. Attorney of Washington, cold cases were reopened, the constitutionality of Prostitution Free Zones was questioned, police training efforts changed, and conference rooms once closed to transgender issues were opened wide.

At an international trans health conference the following spring, we reported out to trans activists from other cities, providing training and materials based on our success in effectively slowing the rates of violent incidents and murders.

Subsequent DC days of actions started popping up at other times during the year, fighting for healthcare access, employment opportunities, and housing nondiscrimination. The number of activists working directly on trans issues in DC right now includes more than 100 people and most of the organizations that were originally part of the TLGB Police Watch coalition.

The important take away is that days of action work and will continue work in visibly fighting this scourge of our community. It is an educational and effective way to make your demands heard and bring about change. The only requirement is your determination to organize across a spectrum of stakeholders, and then show up to do the work. Anyone who wants help in organizing a Transgender Day of Action in their community anytime of the year can tap into our resources and/or contact us for assistance and support.

DC was home city up until about 18 months ago, and tonight my heart and soul (and continuing support) are with all my friends there. Love is what it is all about because it has the power to extinguish hate in our world. Let’s work together to make world a place that is safe for everyone and human rights reign.

George Larcher image Flickr/creative commons

George Larcher image
Flickr/creative commons

 

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Before the American polls close, NON-republicans take heart

The far right believes they have a chance to remake the world into the christian, capitalist theocracy they have always wanted.

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

Even liberal media says, “If they win this election cycle they will do things that would reverse history for 75 years!”

But none of that’s going to happen.

There are only two possible outcomes. Either . . .

  • The non-republican ground game will send the right-wing nuts an important rebuke. Everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their particular brand of religious and capitalist lunacy are non-republicans, Democrats or not, including those that are conservatives but not crazy. This by far larger majority will hopefully reject the worst of the candidates. The non-republicans are and will be the alternative and more long-lasting just because they are not crazy, or at least less crazy.

Or . . .

  • The kin to Sharia law, especially with respect to the treatment of women, our home-grown religious terrorists will be given the numerical and ideological reins and have their greatest opportunity yet to self-repudiate their bankrupt ideas.

There is an acknowledgement that it’s too late for these old, white men. Their time has already passed. They may enjoy a few years of influence but all their bad ideas will not last long because they have no survival value. They are already on the ropes and going down. Their opinions are everyday more non-sensical towards the environment, human rights, women’s rights, income inequality, just about everything, and we, the non-republicans are not standing for it no matter what happens tonight.

 

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Working Towards a Clean Energy Economy

Flicker/creative commons

Flicker/creative commons

As we reported last week, tomorrow, November 1, kicks off “Beyond Extreme Energy Week of Action” in Washington, DC, and cities across the United States and abroad, and we hope you will somehow participate in or otherwise support these efforts.

Did you know that the U.S. government is the largest energy user at $25 billion per year? Perhaps by coincidence today, Performance.gov has released information on how 38 federal agencies plan to overcome their vulnerabilities to reduce their emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases, and implement other government-wide plans, to meet goals set by President Obama in 2010. It is currently on track to achieve the 28% reduction in 2020.

While the administration is working toward a clean energy economy, it is not doing enough to foster the switch to renewable energy. The Department of Energy is still focusing on curbing emissions rather than eradicating the special interests who maintain a stranglehold over dirty energy industries.

These vulnerabilities are stark, according to The Washington Post.

  • The Department of Health and Human Services cites “more frequent or worse extreme heat events” that it calls “the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S.”
  • The Department of Agriculture warns of a “100% increase in the number of acres burned” in wildfires by 2050, further draining its budget because of the added fire suppression expenditures.
  • NASA says about 66% of its assets are already within 16 feet of being lost to rising sea levels.

It’s doubtful Obama will ever get credit for being the first president to make climate action a top priority, but that shouldn’t stop his administration from doing more about the scourge of dirty energy, the overall enemy of climate protection.

Most important, stay informed and take action.

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A Week of Climate Action Starts On November 1!

Popular Resistance is driving escalated climate action by calling for a week of demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere around the country, starting on November 1.

Like  Naomi Klein‘s recent, trailblazing book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, Popular Resistance says the time for being tentative, simultaneously tapping the break and hitting the accelerator, is over. We are now speeding towards a climate catastrophe.

The November action targets the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), an independent agency whose powers were expanded by the government with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Before you get involved, update yourself on what the FERC actually does, such as licensing and inspecting (regulating) private, municipal, and state energy projects; and, what it does not do, like interfere with anything addressed through through other agencies, such as State Public Utility Commissions and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Nevertheless, FERC is an example of failed government policies because behind all their choices and decisions is a bank of corporate private energy interests, making FERC an excellent media symbol of everything that is wrong with how the U.S. and other countries are dealing with the urgency of climate change. FERC website’s crafty disclaimers aside, this commission’s power in representing special interests exposes in full the major impediment to the social changes that will be needed to meet the challenges of climate change. Simply put, greedy corporations are ruining our planet and must be stopped.

The planet’s life-threatening challenges have already exceeded predictions by shrinking our timeline, cutting it in half to one third of the time we originally believed. We have less time to actually be able to do something. That is why activists across the spectrum of causes have to also be doing something to protect our environment, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the shorelines we stand on. If not, ending racism and sexual oppression, ending war, solving immigration, equality, economic justice, etc., will never be realized. We will continue to make gains in all these areas but what if life ceases to exist in less than 50 years? Think about and let it chill you.

The well-written demands are attached below, and you can go to the Popular Resistance website for more information on how to get involved in the non-violent civil actions planned for this first week in November, in D.C., or in your own community. (Click here for the Schedule and Logistics, including how you can stay overnight in DC for $5/day.) By working together in larger and larger numbers can we can suppress all the greed-driven special interests, and wield the power we hold in our hands. Please don’t stand still.

WE call on our government to drop its “all of the above” energy strategy. Extreme energy extraction — fracking, tar sands, deep ocean drilling, Arctic drilling, and surface mining and undermining practices such as mountaintop removal and longwall coal mining — of the last fossil fuels condemns us to ravaged landscapes, poisoned water, and weather convulsions. And it ensures catastrophic global warming for future generations.

WE call on FERC to make decisions based on the well-being of current and future generations and the protection of our shared natural resources. Rubber stamping industry pipelines, compressor stations and export facilities contaminates the air, water, land and climate that support all life on Earth. Specifically, we call on FERC to reject the proposal to build a dangerous gas export facility at Cove Point and to place a moratorium on approvals of other export facilities.

WE can no longer allow our government to segment gas projects from all others, thereby hiding the full danger. We must look at the whole picture, evaluating what is happening downstream and upstream. Each export terminal creates hazards not only for the local community, but for communities where the shale gas will be extracted, for communities where pipelines and compressor stations are built to transport the gas, and for communities receiving the exported gas. We must also measure the release of climate-disrupting methane and other greenhouse gases during this whole process, from extraction, transport, export, and eventual burning in faraway communities.

WE call on the Obama administration and FERC to recognize the unfolding disaster guaranteed by fueling our economy from the last dregs of fossil fuels.

Nothing less will protect our communities, the climate and the Earth.

THE ACTION: During the week beginning November 1, our coalition will take to the streets of Washington to make these goals a reality

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE BEYOND EXTREME ENERGY ACTION

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See also: Response to Climate Change Impossible Without a Revolution in Thinking, and more, herehere, and here.

 

 

Edelman’s Lisa Manley, Climate Change Activist

Lisa Manley is a Corporate Social Responsibility Executive with Edelman, one of the largest Public Relations firms. She has 20 years of experience in global sustainability strategy and engagement, and recently offered “Five Observations from UN Climate Week.” It gives us a bird-eye view of the outcomes from a business point of view.

Manley was inspired by all the events that took place over a week ago, including the People’s Climate March that drew more than 300,000 environmental activists. She acknowledges how lackluster the outlook has been since 2009’s disappointing climate conference in Copenhagen but points out several take-aways from this year’s Summit in New York, suggesting high hopes for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris next year. “Optimism is on the rise,” is her perspective.

Hewlitt-Packard's Gabi Zedlmayer at "Leader's vision for a low carbon economy" NYC Climate Week 2014 Flickr/creative commons

Hewlitt-Packard’s Gabi Zedlmayer at “Leader’s vision for a low carbon economy” NYC Climate Week 2014
Flickr/creative commons

Manley asserts “partnership is the new leadership” by citing promising new collaborations of businesses and governments, such as We Mean Business and RE100, and The World Bank global efforts building a coalition among businesses and governments to support carbon pricing.

Manley goes on to say that “business has new and compelling voices in the dialogue” noting that 100 CEOs attended this year’s Summit. She highlights Apple’s Tim Cook who believes that innovation induces economic growth, particularly in the area of renewable energy.”

“Our cities are likely where the change happen fastest,” says Manley, believing that as we look forward to Paris’s UNFCCC next year the focus will shift from nation states to what can be accomplished by major cities.

The world’s architects are leading the way with impressive commitments to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) of urban areas by changing how buildings and cities are planned, designed and constructed. For instance, at the International Union of Architects (UIA) World Congress in August 2014, member organizations representing over 1.3 million architects in 124 countries unanimously adopted the 2050 Imperative — a declaration to eliminate CO2 emissions in the built environment by 2050. This is a significant commitment, considering urban areas generate 70 percent of all GHGe, mostly from buildings. Looking ahead to 2035 (and accounting for population growth and expected human migration), 75 percent of the built environment will be either new or renovated.

Manley concludes, “communication and engagement are critical as we continue to pave the path forward.” She brings to our attention an inspirational film shown to world leaders at the opening of the UN Summit, WHAT’S POSSIBLE, demonstrating that “climate change is solvable — but engagement and action are essential.” She notes that “two years ago, the NYC climate summit sparked 1 million social shares, last year it was 2 million and this year it was 83 million!

Continuous dialogue, commitments and follow-through will be crucial to motivate citizens and stakeholders as we build alignment by mid-century around paths for zero emissions. This week certainly provided a vital spark of optimism that we must maintain to achieve the success needed at climate summits in Lima, then in Paris and beyond. The impacts, challenges and opportunities of climate change are evolving in the hearts and minds of citizens around the world, opening doors of opportunity for continued communication and engagement.

Full article available here. Talk to your family and friends and the business you work for. Find out what you can do in your own community to make it greener. Redouble your efforts to reverse the destruction of planet earth. Okay?