Having marched in the huge, peaceful and exuberant parade on Sunday, and then witnessed the militant action on Wall Street on Monday, I think that the two-day protest and the actions on the days proceeding and following Sunday's and Monday's action were, on balance, an historic moment for the movement to save the earth and humanity from climate disaster. Almost half a million Americans of all ages, races and classes came together in New York, and reportedly hundreds of thousands more at some 1500 other locations around the US and the world to demand real action to rein in carbon emissions. While the organizers of the big Sunday march tried their best to keep the rhetoric tame and unthreatening, Monday's protest in the financial district made it clear that in the end, the real enemy of the earth and of humanity at this point is capitalism and the unrestrained greed of the ruling elite.
As the sign carried by one young woman who opted to leave the street before the arrests began put it: "Protesting for Climate Action is Fertile."
I think she is right. I believe that this week's mass protests and civil disobedience actions are not an end, or that this was just something like Earth Day, destined to become another co-opted vehicle for corporate marketing. Rather, I think the past few days of protest signal the beginning of a mass movement to force a tectonic shift away from an era of unrestrained economic growth, environmental rape and the widening chasm between the rich and the rest of the world.
DAVE LINDORFF is a member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, uncompromised, four-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper. His work, and that of colleagues JOHN GRANT, GARY LINDORFF, ALFREDO LOPEZ, LORI SPENCER, LINN WASHINGTON, and the late CHARLES M. YOUNG, can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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