Sorry, but nonviolence has never functioned to protect people from COINTELPRO-style actions of the US or other countries’ secret police — as evidenced by the targeting of the nonviolent Latin America solidarity groups of the 80s and the French government’s murder of Fernando Perieira when they bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in 1985. Take a quick read through Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States” or Churchill and Vander Wall’s “Agents of Repression” for lots more examples.

The only way to totally avoid state violence is to not pose any threat to the current way of doing business — in other words, to be ineffective.

Since that’s not an option, we need to get ready for repression, accept that it will come, and prepare ourselves to deal with it as effectively as possible.

“Keep in mind, the more we escalate with people powered direct action, the more they will escalate with private and police surveillance and intimidation.”

I think sparki’s exactly right. We have to remember that the Civil Rights Movement didn’t win the Civil Rights Act without a number of Civil Rights Leaders giving their lives. There are deep differences between our organizing context and that of the CRM, but the history of the CRM demonstrates what it takes to produce social change on that scale. In some ways, our agenda is profoundly more ambitious than the progressive movements of the 60s. If we want to avoid that kind of security issue, in terms of spies and assassins from the other side, we have to stay committed to nonviolence and, considering the controversy of the UK Camp and the Rebel Raft Regatta, we may want to rethink our commitment to the rule of law. I think there’s a strong case to be made for the youth climate movement associating itself in the press with nonviolent civil disobedience events, but our direct action media teams can win points with newspapers if they contrast our “disturbance of the peace” with the dirty energy complex’s disturbance of the planet.

Activists Converge for Climate Convention
http://www.nbc29.com/Global/story.asp?S=8816015&nav=menu496_10

This one says “150 environmentalists” are “fighting for climate justice” and “seeking solutions—-from food preservation to government regulation–for what they call a climate crisis.”

I’ve yet to see an article in the US commercial press that acknowledges the existence of a nationwide youth climate movement. Individual conferences, protests, and camps get isolated coverage, but nobody in the big leagues is presenting the narrative that all of these are connected. When we speak to journalists, we have to emphasize that the event we’re at comes in the context of thousands of other related youth climate events that have been happening all over the country. The press has also yet to represent the dirty energy industries as a single unit, instead of showing us isolated energy companies and regulatory agencies.

But I guess you can’t expect that kind of metanarrative (the youth climate movement versus the dirty energy complex, or YCM vs. DEC) in evidence-based, same-day reporting. It’s not like the DEC has a central building we can all lock down to. Unless the next PowerShift is going to involve trespassing federal property under a YCM banner. That would, however, separate us from the non-US Convergences; and their seems to be a bit of tension between the Climate Convergence strategy and the Energy Action strategy, and EAC is more closely associated with the YCM concept. These news reports haven’t even mentioned that there were 6 other Climate Camps this summer–Newcastle, Hamburg, Eugene, High Falls, Kingsnorth, and Quebec.

Can anybody name me the seven cities and the seven companies that the seven camps slammed?

Keep in mind, the more we escalate with people powered direct action, the more they will escalate with private and police surveillance and intimidation. We’re in a long struggle for environmental justice and clean energy [amongst other things].

I’ve been checking the commercial media, and they seem to be having trouble coming up with the language to sum up all these protests:

50 protesters urge energy regulation
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-08-11-0215.html

The Richmond Times-Dispatch described the protesters as “a small crowd, armed with megaphones” and “advocating response to climate change and more control over energy producers.” How vague could they get?

This also raises the larger question of the youth climate movement’s relationship to the rule of law and the authority of government. Does the youth climate movement trust the State? We practice nonviolent civil disobedience, usually in the form of criminal trespassing, so there’s a clear tendency within the movement to break property laws. We also stop traffic, raid shipments, and generally create problems for local, state, and federal law enforcement. I remember the SECC2008 getting harassment from everyone from the county law to the FBI. Furthermore, Al Gore, a former Vice President, is calling on young people to get themselves arrested for the planet.

So it seems like the rule of law has become a chesspiece in the battle between climate criminals and climate activists. They break innumerable environmental and public health regulations with their waste and exploitation, and aside from being illegal, these business-as-usual practices have a severe human cost and put the entire planet in the crosshairs of environmental catastrophes. We’re guilty of misdemeanors, they’re guilty of crimes against humanity.

If we want the policymaking elite to listen to us, we don’t want to appear lawless. If we want to accurately represent the values and interests of the frontline communities who bear the most environmental burdens and risks, however, we don’t want to appear pro-government. Southerners tend to have what we call an “independent streak” that Yankee liberals and West Coast socialists don’t seem to understand. In addition to how we “appear” to the burdened, exploited, and at-risk communities, we as young people want to reduce our own future risks as much as possible, regardless of how we “appear” to pollution victims and energy lawmakers. The Climate Crisis is clear evidence that both the Market and the State have never cared about Our Future as the Youth, but the Rule of Law is still to the strategic advantage of a Nonviolent Environmental Justice Movement. Otherwise, things could go Lord of the Flies real quick.

I’ve been checking the commercial media, and they seem to be having trouble coming up with the language to sum up all these protests:

50 protesters urge energy regulation
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-08-11-0215.html

The Richmond Times-Dispatch described the protesters as “a small crowd, armed with megaphones” and “advocating response to climate change and more control over energy producers.” How vague could they get?

This also raises the larger question of the youth climate movement’s relationship to the rule of law and the authority of government. Does the youth climate movement trust the State? We practice nonviolent civil disobedience, usually in the form of criminal trespassing, so there’s a clear tendency within the movement to break property laws. We also stop traffic, raid shipments, and generally create problems for local, state, and federal law enforcement. I remember the SECC2008 getting harassment from everyone from the county law to the FBI. Furthermore, Al Gore, a former Vice President, is calling on young people to get themselves arrested for the planet.

So it seems like the rule of law has become a chesspiece in the battle between climate criminals and climate activists. They break innumerable environmental and public health regulations with their waste and exploitation, and aside from being illegal, these business-as-usual practices have a severe human cost and put the entire planet in the crosshairs of environmental catastrophes. We’re guilty of misdemeanors, they’re guilty of crimes against humanity.

If we want the policymaking elite to listen to us, we don’t want to appear lawless. If we want to accurately represent the values and interests of the frontline communities who bear the most environmental burdens and risks, however, we don’t want to appear pro-government. In addition to how we “appear” to the burdened, exploited, and at-risk communities, we as young people want to reduce our own future risks as much as possible. The Climate Crisis is clear evidence that both the Market and the State have never cared about Our Future, but the Rule of Law is still to the strategic advantage of a Nonviolent Environmental Justice Movement. Otherwise, things could go Lord of the Flies real quick.