Month: April 2020
The seas are rising and so are we! A virtual climate rally.
I’ve been away from the blog for a bit because I’ve been helping my former employer, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, organize an online Virtual Climate Rally. In addition to learning and testing the online platform (Zoom … what else?), I’ve mostly had my head buried in Adobe Premiere editing the video you see above. It was worth the effort.
Friday, April 24 was originally set as the date for another round of global protests like the Global Climate Strike that took place last September. The virus dashed those plans.
As a result of going virtual, however, we’ve ended up with a film filled with inspiration. As the individual videos arrived from the student activists who had been invited to speak, I was touched time and again. Here they are facing two immense threats to their future — a global pandemic that is still burning out of control and the specter of climate change — yet each of them expressed determination and hope.
“Virtual” anything is a poor substitute for the real thing. But the dedication and commitment evinced by these young people is absolutely authentic.
In addition to the inspiration, the video features a moving musical interlude from blues man Kenny Neal and some fun video surprises engineered by editing wizard TD. After watching, please share far and wide!
Here’s the contact info for everybody appearing in the video.
Julia Zeitlin – Student and founder of Sunrise Movement Palo Alto Hub
https://www.facebook.com/SunrisePaloAlto/ or email sunrisemvmntpaloalto@gmail.com
Aria Luna – Young artist and climate activist Aria Luna, who showcases a short animation she created for this special event.
https://www.arialuna.com
Kristy Mualim – Kristy Mualim is formally trained as a computational geneticist at Stanford University, and is also part of the Sunrise Movement fighting for state-level Green New Deal policies. email sunrisemvmntpaloalto@gmail.com
Kenny Neal is known as a modern swamp-blues and multi-instrumentalist. His Grammy nominated songs draw from the sizzling sounds of his native Louisiana.
http://www.kennyneal.net/
Tahoe Roe – Student and member of the outreach team from Silicon Valley Youth Climate Strike
https://www.svyouthclimatestrike.org/
Priyanka Joshi – Student and member of the Mitty Advocacy Project
https://www.mitty.com/campus-ministry/social-justice-advocacy1
Maggie Dong – Maggie Dong is an outreach lead for the California Youth Climate Strike and the Silicon Valley Youth Climate Strike team.
https://www.svyouthclimatestrike.org/
Jamie Minden – Student and co-founder of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Strikes. Active member of the Sunrise Movement.
https://www.svyouthclimatestrike.org/
Chris Field – Professor and Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Former Chair, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
https://woods.stanford.edu/
Donald fears a WHO. Deflecting blame, yet again.
“Thousands of Americans would be alive today if President Trump had spent more time listening to the World Health Organization instead of trying to destroy it.”
Nicholas Kristof, Trump’s Deadly Search for a Scapegoat
NY Times 4/15/2020
In yet another pathetic effort to deflect blame from himself, the Mad Orange King has announced a suspension of US funding for the World Health Organization. In the midst of a global pandemic.
While the Mad Man-Child’s motive may be pathetic, the results will be tragically fatal. Congress must stop him. Now.
Continue reading “Donald fears a WHO. Deflecting blame, yet again.”Trump’s looming crisis: too much democracy!
Back in 1975, an influential think tank called the Trilateral Commission issued a report titled “The Crisis of Democracy.” The report gloomily described the problems of governance in the major western democracies. According to the report, the problems stemmed “from an excess of democracy” caused primarily by the “new activism” in the United States, especially the robust antiwar movement.
You read that right. Too much democracy was causing headaches for the ruling elite. Poor things.
Today, Trump and the morally bankrupt Republican Party are facing a similar crisis of too much democracy. This time the excess of democracy arises from the growing calls to have universal mail-in balloting for the November presidential elections. Mail-in voting is, in fact, the number one recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control for keeping voters safe in the age of coronavirus.
Continue reading “Trump’s looming crisis: too much democracy!”
My first protest march: 51 years ago
Although I had spent most of the previous year working for the Gene McCarthy for president campaign — the leading anti-Vietnam War candidate of the 1968 election — I didn’t get to personally participate in a mass anti-war demonstration until April 5, 1969, fifty-one years ago. As a 17-year-old, I was impressed.
The march was held in New York City. I and two friends drove up together from our New Jersey suburbs. We rented a double room at a YMCA (in or near Greenwich Village, as best as I recall). We managed to increase the sleeping capacity of the small room when we came upon another room that was in the middle of being cleaned. The door was wide open and the beds were stripped. Most importantly, no one was around. So we grabbed one of the mattresses and ran down the hall to our room. Voila! Accommodations for three.
On Saturday the 5th, we protesters gathered in Bryant Park and eventually marched up Sixth Avenue (the so-called Avenue of the Americas) to Central Park, where the rally was held. The march was kept to one side of Sixth Avenue so traffic could continue to flow. Every once in a while, police would hold up the march to allow crosstown traffic to cross the road. It was all very polite. Somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people participated.
I don’t recall any of the speeches or speakers. I don’t recall any of the musical performers, although I’d bet that there were some big names involved. It was New York City, after all, in 1969. What I do remember quite clearly is feeling something I’d never experienced before — the feeling of being part of a movement. A mass movement. It felt powerful. It was exhilarating. It was inspiring. I wanted more.
The arc of my life started taking shape in 1968 during the McCarthy campaign. The anti-war march in New York cemented it. I’ve been marching ever since. And when this coronavirus thing is finally over, we all better be marching again.