Rememeber when environmentalists cared about actual pollution?
Posted on 10/09/2011 2:18:32 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Occupy Wall Street may be "leaderless," but it's far from directionless.
Less than three weeks after the protest movement began on Sept. 17, its "We Are the 99 Percent" message has exploded into a national rallying cry, inspiring not only a bustling mini-city in New York's financial district, but also an overnight network of sympathizers from Seattle to Miami. According to the unofficial umbrella group Occupy Together, some 500 cities worldwide will see "Occupy" events this week.
And while the nebulous campaign is focused mainly on economic issues, it has also strived for inclusiveness, winning the support of diverse groups ranging from teachers and college students to nurses, bus drivers and construction workers. When its momentum coalesced Wednesday into the Occupy Wall Street March, it included some 5,000 people, many of them from organized labor.
But Wednesday's march was also buoyed by another group of rabble-rousing upstarts: environmentalists. Fresh off their own nonviolent stand outside the White House — where they spent two weeks protesting the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline — the re-energized U.S. environmental movement has now found an even bigger, broader stage. And like most factions of Occupy Wall Street, it seems perfectly happy to share that stage with other interests.
"For too long, Wall Street has been occupying the offices of our government, and the cloakrooms of our legislatures," wrote Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, in an email to supporters before the march. "They've been a constant presence, rewarded not with pepper spray in the face but with yet more loopholes and tax breaks and subsidies and contracts. You could even say Wall Street's been occupying our atmosphere, since any attempt to do anything about climate change always run afoul of the biggest corporations on the planet. So it's a damned good thing the tables have turned."
"A few hundred" climate activists joined Wednesday's march, according to 350.org communications coordinator Molly Haigh, who says the Keystone XL protests have revived a latent zeal in the U.S. environmental community that's now dovetailing with Occupy Wall Street. "I think it's been really huge, in terms of generating a feeling of affinity," Haigh tells MNN. "Obviously, 1,200 people were arrested as part of the Keystone XL protests, so for a lot of those people it's amazing to see this sort of awakening happening so soon afterward. And some of the same folks who were at those protests are coming back out, so it's really exciting."
One of those folks is Justin Haaheim, a lead organizer for 350.org in Connecticut who was arrested Aug. 31 during the Keystone XL protests and also attended the Wall Street march Wednesday. "It was one of the most inspiring things I've seen in a long time in terms of the environmental movement," Haaheim says of the march. "I was surprised by how much there was a really common message among all the protestors. It would be really easy for something like that to have a million different messages, but it was encouraging to see that the environmental message was very widespread and very meshed in with the broader Occupy Wall Street movement."
McKibben and 350.org now hope to conjure some of that mojo in Washington — which also held its own "Occupy D.C." march Thursday — for "Occupy State Department," a protest to stop lobbyists from dominating Friday's final public hearing on Keystone XL. The State Department will rule on the proposed pipeline by year's end, and critics have accused it of "bias and complicity" in favor of the project. On top of that, Haigh says, many hearings so far have suspiciously become pro-pipeline pep rallies. "At previous hearings, corporations have hired people to stand in line and save space for lobbyists, and the effect was that a lot of landowners and people who would be affected by the pipeline got blocked out from speaking," Haigh says. McKibben aims to make sure that doesn't happen at Friday's hearing, which Haigh says will be "pretty extreme."
(Update, 10/7: The final public hearing took place Friday, with spirited arguments from both sides. But the public comment period isn't over; you can still weigh in here.)
Afterward, Haigh adds, McKibben will head to New York and visit Zuccotti Park, home base for Occupy Wall Street. In addition to lending his star power to those protests, he'll likely also be drumming up support for a major Keystone XL protest planned for the White House on Nov. 6 — one year before Election Day 2012, a date meant to remind President Obama of his wavering support from environmentalists.
While Occupy Wall Street and the Keystone XL protests seem to now be merging, Haaheim says there has always been "a lot of solidarity between the two campaigns, and a lot of overlap." In fact, Occupy Wall Street's first "official" statement lists an array of grievances with corporate America, many of which are at least indirectly related to environmental and public health. Referring to corporations in the third person, some of its most clearly environmental grouses include:
* "They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization."
* "They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices."
* "They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit."
* "They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil."
* "They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit."
Of course, in the mashed-up spirit of Occupy Wall Street, these grievances aren't really meant to be split into separate issues. The five listed above are clearly born from frustration at environmental problems, but they're part of what many protestors see as one big, holistic problem. Whether it's the Wall Street bailouts or the BP oil spill, high unemployment or high CO2 emissions, Occupy Wall Street aims to defend what it considers a mistreated majority from a privileged minority.
"For me, there's a lot of continuity in all of it," Haaheim explains. "One of the central issues is that people need to be engaged, stand up and make their voices heard."
Well, YEAH. It's Obama's agenda and we all know the Occupy Wall Street crowd is the results of Obama's "take off your bedroom slippers and march".
They took off their slippers.
“It would be really easy for something like that to have a million different messages, but it was encouraging to see that the environmental message was very widespread and very meshed in with the broader Occupy Wall Street movement.”
This is hilarious. They are busy turning the park into a toxic waste dump. It’ll be a Super Fund site by the time this is over.
Environmentalists destroying the environment.
They should change their name to “Squirrels are Us”.
Green energy doesn’t work for Americans, it only works for Obama campaign contributions, money laundering, and creates a BIG WIND blowing from DC.
These OWS people can’t even claim what Obama supporters are nowadays, 30 percenters.
Keep up the demonstrations, you’re making the Tea Party look like Americans with a plan.
And it’s going to help him lose the election even more, so I say great! Keep on protesting! Let’s give them all the press they want! Let the nation see the filthy hippies, anarchists, wackos and loonies! This is what your President supports ladies and gentlemen!
it is not leaderless. It is led by the owner of Obama, George Soros.
General Assembly of New York, described as the central planning and organizing committee for the protest. His Facebook page reveals he is indeed connected to Occupy Wall Street.
The Adbusters Media Foundation describes itself as a non-profit “anti-consumerist” organization that functions as “a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.”
Like many so-called leftist non-profits, Adbusters is a creature of globalist foundations. According to research conducted by Activistcash.com, Adbusters takes money from a number of supposedly progressive foundations, including the big Kahuna of leftish foundations – the Tides Foundation and Tides Center. Between 1996 and 2003, Tides doled out $334,217.00 to Adbusters, by far the largest amount of eight foundations donating.
Steve Baldwin claims Tides received over $7 million from George Soros. Although the monetary connection between Tides’ founder Drummond Pike and the arch globalist Soros is somewhat murky, researcher Ron Arnold has mapped out numerous connections between the two so-called philanthropists. Under IRS rules, Drummond is not obliged to reveal who he receives money from to fund a large number of supposedly progressive organizations.
“The Tides Foundation is a pass-through for other foundations’ money,” writes Arnold. “Tides Foundation is a public charity, not a private foundation. Tides Foundation passes other foundations’ money to a spectrum of left-wing organizations which the original donors would not or could not support on their own… Because none of the more than 260 projects under the Tides umbrella files its own Form 990 with the IRS, their finances are totally secret and not available for public inspection, an issue that requires congressional remedy.”
The Dj Osiris blog adds further detail: “It would seem George Soros is connected to the U.S. Day of Rage aka Occupy Wall Street through The Ruckus Society. On the U.S. Day of Rage website. The Ruckus Society receives funding from the Tides Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Institute provides grants to Tides, including a mere $4.2 Million in 2008, the last year figures are available.”
I guess the “media” has given up on trying to convince America that the TEA Party has “embraced” these maggot-infested hippies. LOL! Somebody has to “embrace” the fleabaggers. I guess the envirowackos will have to do.
Well they are all growing mushrooms in their bodily crevices.
Remember when Indians were portrayed by Italian actors?
Tonto was a gweedo?
Reduce America’s carbon footprint, remove the occupiers.
The corporate Nike swoosh on its sneakers is kinda funny.
This thing is going to fall apart as soon as one “group” thinks another is getting more traction in this “movement “
This thing is going to fall apart as soon as one “group” thinks another is getting more traction in this “movement “
This thing is going to fall apart as soon as one “group” thinks another is getting more traction in this “movement “
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