Not so long ago, Americans witnessed the beginning of a mass democratic uprising. Thousands of average people, disgusted by greedy elites and corporate control of government, launched a movement that spread to almost every state in the nation. They did it to reject debt. They did it to fight foreclosures. They did it to topple a world where the 1 percent determined life for the other 99. And they did all of it against incredible odds, with a self-respect that stymied critics.

The year? 1877. The people? Dirt-poor farmers who would come to be known as Populists.

Now it’s 2011, and the People are stirring again. It’s been over two months since a few hundred dreamers pitched their tents in Zuccotti Park and stayed.

These people weren’t Populists, but they had the same complaints. They couldn’t make rent. They had no future. They lived in a nation with one price for the rich and another for the poor. And they knew that whatever anyone said that they didn’t have real democracy.

Okay, and so what? What do a bunch of century-dead farmers have to do with the Occupy movement? Well, quite a lot, actually.

You see, the Populists came within an inch of changing the entire corporate-capitalist system. They wanted a totally new world, and they had a plan to get it. But as you may have noticed, they didn’t. And now here we are, one hundred years later, occupying parks where fields once stood. We’re at a crucial phase in our movement, standing just now with the great Everything around us—everything to win or everything to lose. It’s our choice. And that’s good, because the choices we make next will echo, not just for scholars and bored kids in history class, but in the lives we do or don’t get to have. The good news is this: the Populists traveled in wagons and left us their wheels. We don’t have to reinvent them. We’re going in a new direction, but I have a feeling they can help us get there.

Occupy has done a lot of things right, and even more things beautifully. But strategy has not been our forte. That was okay at first, even good. We didn’t have one demand, because we wanted it all. So we let our anger grow, and our imagination with it. We were not partisan or monogamous to one creed. That ranging anger got 35,000 people on the Brooklyn Bridge after the Wall Street eviction, and hell if I’m not saying hallelujah. But winter is settling now, and cops are on the march. Each week we face new eviction orders, and wonder how to occupy limbo.

It’s time for a plan, then, some idea for going forward. This plan should in no way replace the rhizomatic-glorious, joyful-rip-roarious verve of the movement so far. It can occur in tandem. But we need a blueprint for the future, because strategy is the road resistance walks to freedom.

In that spirit, I sat down a few years ago and devoted myself to studying social movements of the past. I wanted to see what I could learn from them—where they went wrong, where they went right. I didn’t trust this exercise to random musings. No, like a good Type A kid, I made butcher paper lists of past movement features and mapped them onto current ones. I asked: What is the revolt of the guard for the climate movement? What’s the modern anti-corporate equivalent of the Boston Tea Party?

As I read, I learned a lot about the phases movements go through as they form, what common features they share, and what often breaks them apart.

I could name these phases myself, but it’s already been done. And no one has named them better than historian Lawrence Goodwyn, a thinking human if there ever was one and the author of The Populist Moment.

Goodwyn said that successful movements go through four stages:

1. First, the movement forms. This happens when people acknowledge oppression and defy it. They create physical and psychic spaces where they can cast off conventional modes of deferment, reject resignation and start acting with radical self-respect. This self-respect involves speaking with the tongue of truth, in the language of radical experience. Millions of people acting with self-respect become a body collective self-confidence, reordering what is politically possible.
2. Second, the movement recruits. It finds a way to attract masses of people while sharing its message of resistance. Radical recruitment is done systematically and strategically, and recruiters attract people in two ways: they promise tangible relief and provide a motive and blueprint for action.
3. Third, the movement educates. It articulates the ideology of the movement. It offers an analysis of power that liberates folks from past thinking patterns, renames what is possible, and unveils a plan to make the possible plausible. It names both the enemy in power and how to get power back. It’s a murder mystery: It gives folks a suspect, a motive, and a scheme for restoring justice.
4. Fourth, the movement politicizes. The movement politicizes when its alternative solutions run up against the powers that be. It admits that power must change for change to work, and it ousts old regimes through direct confrontations with power. Having created alternative economies, practices and paradigms, it creates an alternative political structure—laws, government, and process—to protect its brave new world.

Occupy Wall Street is by and large in phase one. Fair enough; it’s been only two months. Building a movement took the Populists ten or twenty years, so we could easily rest easily. But for most people I know, there is a deep, darkening sense that we do not have that kind of time. We’ve got to change it all, and we’ve got to do it before the ice caps melt, before that python, global finance, dies and squeezes its victims one last and lethal time. We are on the edge of history. We are urgency embodied.

And so we learn from that history. We must. We’ve got to get serious, and fast. We’ve got to make a plan. This plan has to give masses of Americans new paradigms, concrete alternatives, something to join, a way to join it, and a political insurgency to protect it. Along the way, we’ll have to keep a grip on the slippery soul of democracy, practicing consensus and conversation while developing a system of internal communication.

So I’m here to publish my lists. In what remains of this essay, I’ll chart a sample way forward. I’ll take you through each phase of movement building, and make suggestions and critiques. I’ll show how the Populists approached the stage; I’ll say what Occupy’s done well; I’ll dig into dangerous attitudes we should avoid; and I’ll offer suggestions for effective actions. Finally, I’ll close with questions we must answer as a movement whatever methods we decide to use.

But first, let me tell you where I’m coming from. I am not a pure -ism or -ist, but a mutt: part anarchist, part green, part interim socialist. This is no screed for a certain sect, or the fancy footwork of a shill tripping on a movement I don’t move to. This is an essay written by me, a complicated person who desperately wants a complicated movement to succeed in desperate times. Because I care, I critique. A movement is always a bag of new thinking, old thinking, dangerous and helpful ideas. In this mix I am a free agent. I tell the truth as an act of love. This truth-telling should not be confused with the snark of the bourgeois press, who use condescension as credentials and write dismissive missives to fall asleep at night. There is no snark here. I am no reporter, except in the basic sense: I report what I see, what I observe. Call me an embedded editor-anthropologist—someone who tries to understand the culture of a big idea, then challenges it to be bigger, bolder, more beautiful. And of course, I speak as an occupier, not for the occupation. My observations come from my limited experience and my limitless desire to experience more. It’s in that spirit I write today, straight from the hum of perpetual noticing.

So let’s begin.

In the late 19^th century, farmers everywhere lived on the brink of total poverty. All across the South and West, furnishing merchants gave them credit in exchange for exorbitant interest rates and the claims to their cotton harvest. These farmers were the ultimate throwaway people: poor, uneducated, desperate. And yet they built a mass insurgency movement that nearly transformed the agrarian system into a series of cooperatives. They did this by forming the Farmer’s Alliance, an institution that functioned on the state, county and local levels to benefit, radicalize and defend the poor. The Alliance experience let farmers use their own language to throw down on corporations, capitalism and false democracy. Within a few years, these same farmers were calling for a whole new economy based on new ideas that they had developed themselves. And for a movement that began with poor white southerners, they were astoundingly democratic, defying social censure to include Blacks, women, and immigrant workers in the movement. What’s more, the Alliance had style and knew how to occupy. When they called for mass education or decision-making camps, alarmed townspeople reported wagon trains stretching as far as the eye could see, festooned with signs, banners and evergreen boughs.

On my second day at Occupy DC/Freedom Plaza, I looked around me and thought, “Someone needs to do more outreach.” And then it hit me:  Someone else didn’t have to. I did. All I had to do was form a committee and decide a time to meet. So I did. It felt so good to act, to move instead of freezing in despair, to be a real human solving real problems. When I left the Plaza, I was a different person, too. I picked up trash instead of balking at the Entire Trash Problem. I spoke to homeless folks instead of retreating in overwhelm. I was that buzziest of activist buzzwords: I was empowered. And I had discussions, too. I talked to a woman who’d walked hundreds of miles to be with us. I talked to a kid who’d walked out of his movie theater job and never looked back. Some of those conversations were gorgeous, and some were the goddamned hardest, most frustrating talks I’ve ever had. Some had me waving my ego like a badge until finally, hours or weeks later, I’d drop it. I realized I was not nearly as democratic as I thought. But it was good to come alive, to see myself as I actually was: a human being amongst human beings, all capable of great goodness and great failure. And I knew this was what corporate reporters could not understand. They wanted our demands. But our first demand was simple. We wanted to come alive. We were there to be somewhere fully, maybe for the first time ever. The media wanted headlines, but we were starting from our toes. What they could not see was this: the dark, fungal growth of decomposing, of old things dying to nourish a new world.

Aesthetic Anarchism/Damn the Plan. I am all for mass democratic, non-hierarchical movements. I am in favor of taking down the system. I want to work from an outsider position of independence and autonomy. But I have noticed in many occupations a pernicious spirit of aesthetic anarchism. When I say aesthetic, I’m not talking about looks. I’m talking about image. I’m talking about when the form of an idea replaces its substance, or when the rituals of belief replace the point of believing. Aesthetic attitudes prevail when our motive is not to change power, but to be right, fashionable, or cool—a perfect -ism. And since aesthetic beliefs are more about approval than victory, aesthetic believers spend very little time thinking about what victory means or requires. Every movement has its aesthetics (think hippies) and that would be fine if they didn’t disrupt the entire point, which is to win. Because in order to win, you need a plan, and to plan you must consider an array of ideas, challenging conventional wisdom to get at effective action. Radicals say: 6,000 people lost their homes to banks today. Did we help them? What would it take to help them? Then they go from there, letting the need dictate the action. Aesthetic anarchists, however, are content to wait for the word from their chosen Sinai, saying, “If New York does it, we do, too,” or “so sayeth the man in punk-rock black.” They are inheritors of a received culture of ideas—a splinter culture, but a shallow one nonetheless. Their goals are purity and counter-cultural conformity, a strange form of leftist fundamentalism. One of the worst forms of aesthetic anarchism confuses having a plan with being The Man. Aesthetic anarchists equate all structure and strategy with fascism, defining ‘true’ actions as spontaneous and random. Similarly, they see radicalism in terms of approved actions rather than methods. But this Ivory Gutter Attitude gets us nowhere. So let’s be clear, then. Having a plan is not being The Man. It’s not selling out. It’s not fascist. Having a plan means deciding how to engage with power, and how to make power engage with you. Going forward, let’s do less Damning the Plan and more Damning the Man. Let’s decide what we want and create a plan to get there, choosing our actions to fit the problem, not the fashion. So far our movement’s a radical noun; let’s strategize to make it a radical verb.

• Practice democracy fairly. Hold ongoing teach-ins on racism, classism, and patriarchy developed by those most oppressed and supported by their allies.
• Practice democracy fully. Most of us weren’t taught how to make decisions together, so we need to learn. Invite professional facilitators to dotrainings on true consensus. Pinpoint places where democracy is breaking down and find solutions.
• Know your neighbor. Set up a storytelling tent by the info booth. Talk to people about why they are here, what they’re angry about, who they are, what solutions they have. Record the sessions and screen them for the camp at night.
• Heal. We’re all coming to this with emotion and history. Some of us are new, and impatient. Some of us are old, and can’t bear to fail again. A lot of infighting is the result of unspoken despair and disillusionment. The ‘real’ world silences those emotions, but Occupy is an opportunity for voice. Have a therapist or healer lead the group through grief work—for example, Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects.
• Strategize. Take Goodwyn’s four phases of movement building and brainstorm ways to make them flourish. Challenge cavalier assumptions about what does and doesn’t work. Merge this into a multi-day, consensus-based visioning session and come up with concrete goals and strategies for your local Occupy.

What inherited cultural assumptions am I bringing to the Occupy movement? How do dominant societal narratives on race, class, gender, resistance and revolution impair my organizing? How do fashionable resistance models inform my work, and do they help or harm? And finally: How bad is x problem, how long do we have to fix it, and what would it take to win?

The Populists did not confuse action with aimlessness; they were radicals with a plan. Being destitute, they understood the need to create economic alternatives that immediately relieved other poor people and brought them into broader struggle. They began by identifying their central problem: They needed credit to get farming supplies, but the furnishing merchant controlled credit and exploited them. So they created the Farmers Alliance Exchange, a cotton co-op that pooled resources to buy equipment, market the harvest, and sell in bulk to foreign and domestic buyers. This system allowed the farmers to depend less on the merchant for credit and to sell their crops at better prices. It also served as a powerful recruitment tool: the co-op attracted recruits and showed them through their own experience how and why the dominant economic system failed them. Two millions farmers joined in a matter of three years, forming thousands of sub-alliances—each with their own cotton buying agent and farmer-lecturer. The Alliance would eventually mobilize this massive and structured base to break up farming monopolies, push for a new financial system, and create a formidable third party. Participating in the co-ops gave average farmers a sense of dignity, greater economic independence, class consciousness, and experience solving complicated problems together.

My first day at Freedom Plaza, I lost my wallet. The weird thing is, it didn’t matter. The communal kitchen gave me breakfast, lunch and dinner. Concerned people offered money. The after-dinner dance party and discussion were way better than seeing a movie, and if I’d needed it, there were blankets, sleeping bags and tents for those without. That’s when I realized it: Right there in the capitol of capital, I was in a money-free zone, in a community that met both my physical and emotional needs. When I met an exile from Katrina-era New Orleans, I could invite him to the plaza. He got some pasta and a rousing discussion on the Fed; we heard from him on FEMA, poverty and homelessness. Occupy’s genius is combining what is normally separate. We were meeting our immediate needs while preparing for long-term resistance. We created alternatives that got people involved, then involved ourselves in creating alternatives.

The Rhizome Religion. Biologically, rhizomatic organisms send out roots underground that pop up as random shoots above. Each root, if cut in pieces, can regenerate the whole plant. Politically, a rhizomatic movement has no leader, no main branch, and can reproduce anywhere. The good thing about rhizomes is they’re essentially unstoppable (when was the last time you fought an aspen grove and won?). The problem is they’re random—bad for recruitment. Right now, Occupy may represent the 99 percent, but in reality we’re our least favorite number: the 1 percent. To really get people involved, we can’t ask people to come to us. We have to come to them. We have to diligently and deliberately reach out to those most affected by our rapacious financial system: people of color, the poor, immigrants and women. And we should do this by working with established community groups and individuals, radically listening to what folks really want and need. Some Occupies have done a great job reaching out to unions, community groups and regular folks, and the rest of us are trying. But by and large we’ve been practicing the rhizome religion, believing that good ideas will spread spontaneously and recruits will pop up accordingly. In ten years of organizing, though, I have learned one thing for certain: recruitment is not an accident. It takes planning and dogged determination. It takes humility and a high tolerance for discomfort. And it takes realizing that most people are busy trying to survive and need solutions that will tangibly improve their lives. There is magic to any movement, yes—that soul that makes it sing—but in organizing no rabbits pop out of hats. If you want to reach the people, you have to reach out, one hand in welcome and the other in offering. You do this door by door, neighborhood by neighborhood, church by church, until you’ve not just imagined the 99 percent: you’ve met them.

Occupy (your) neighborhoods! Find out where people in your Occupy live. Form neighborhood councils in those communities. Go door to door, meeting people you live by and asking them how the economy’s treating them. Talk to them to learn what skills, needs and interests they have. Ask what organizations are helping already, and talk to those folks, too. From these discussions, create a People’s Map of needs and assets for each neighborhood in the city. Form a spokescouncil of neighborhood representatives to discuss the map, then use this information to keep organizing those communities. Each neighborhood starts creating alternatives that meet their specific needs and the needs of the whole city, growing food, making clothing, or building shelters. Teams of emergency responders could fight foreclosures and feed the hungry. There could be neighborhood-level, worker-owned co-ops and health care clinics. We could disappear from the corporate economy and make wealth where we live.

What are the most pressing needs in my community? What tangible solution would address them? Do I know my neighbors, and if not, why not? What groups are already working on these problems, and what do they need from me? If the economy tanked tomorrow, what would my community need to survive? How can we start to meet those needs? What assets do people on my block have? What assets do I have?

Ironically, it was the failure of the cotton cooperative, the Populists’ economic alternative, that pushed them toward their radical ideology. As brilliant as it was, the co-op effort stalled on bare fact: they needed money to function, the farmers had none, and bankers had lots but hated co-ops. So try as they might—and they tried, raising thousands of dollars from penniless farmers and swaying small landowners to co-sign loans with landless tenants—farmers could not get the credit they needed. But instead of letting that daunt them, they let it move them from economic cooperation to social and political insurgency. They used the co-op failure to teach people about power. If bankers had power, and their power was political, no alternative would be safe until the People got enough power to change the law. This cold truth led to a fiery ideology: a whole new Treasury and currency system tied to a radical third party that called for land reform, socialization of major industry, and better conditions for millions of industrial laborers. But by far the most impressive thing about the ideology was the way the Populists spread it. In less than two short years, they democratically developed their power analysis and relevant solutions, trained 40,000 uneducated farmers to convey the message, then sent them fanning out across the South and West. These lecturers helped start thousands of new sub-alliances and cooperatives, radicalized rural America economically and politically, and paved the way for coalitions with labor, urban immigrants, and Black sharecroppers. They also formed the Reform Press Association, a massive network of radical agrarian presses that challenged the corporate political perspective and disseminated declarations and agreements.

At every Occupy I’ve been to, I’ve seen folks in the grip of democratic discussion. In one corner, a vet teaches military counter-recruitment tactics. A suited woman talks foreclosures and how to fight them. Paul-ites speak of fiat currency while a mohawked kid hands out ‘zines. After a whole lifetime of trusting experts, people are waking up to the value of their own experience. They are starting to believe in what they know. And they are sharing it with each other. They didn’t get us into this mess, but hell if they don’t believe we can get ourselves out. It’s like a light went on in one person’s head, and then another and another. All these problems, all these intractable problems we’ve suffered so long—well, they aren’t intractable! Capitalism is not inevitable. Poverty is not inevitable. In other words, they’re fallible. They can be fought, resisted. In that sense, Occupy is not an occupation, but a giant exercise in decolonization. It’s a battle to oust the false masters of our minds.

Raising Awareness, not Rising Up. For the last decade, I’ve had my awareness raised so many times my brain should have popped. And when each successive awareness-raising moment ended, a bunch of newly brain-pained people asked what to do next. The answer? Raise more awareness. Of course, Occupy has done much more than raise awareness—we have taken the streets and stayed despite rain, snow and fatigue. But our default stance on ideology is still quite liberal: people talk and their minds change; changed minds change society. More important is the thorny issue of demands. In the beginning, we had none, which was cunning. But the persistent refusal to create any highlights a mistake that democratic movements often make: that forming clear analyses and demands and agitating around them is necessarily presumptuous, invasive, and authoritarian. That’s not true, though. An ideology is, at its most basic level, a description of power and a plan for fighting it. An ideology sets goals and decides how to engage with the enemy. Ideologies can be developed democratically, with input from all affected parties. They flag common mistakes and build cohesion. They are the basis for radical demands. Without ideology, you can be highly aware but have no plan for political action. In other words, you’re easily co-opted. A rigorous ideology guards against co-optation by showing people why they’re acting and what they’re acting for. That’s why radical ideology must lead to radical recruitment. This process is not accidental and doesn’t remotely resemble awareness-raising. Raising awareness is a piecemeal act that does not provide people with an analysis for action. To illustrate the difference: a lot of people who opposed neoliberal nation-building voted for Barack Obama in 2008, despite the fact that he fully intended to continue the same. This occurred not because these people were stupid or needed one more teach-in on Afghanistan; it happened because the left did not offer clear reasons and means to do anything else. The Occupy movement needs demands, especially now that many Occupies are facing eviction. It needs to spread them systematically, giving everyone who is discontented a mandate and method for change. This is not presumptuous if we do it together. If we do it together, it’s called democracy. Let’s not raise awareness. That gives us grief but nothing to do. Let’s educate toward action. Let’s rise up.

This one’s going to be hard, but worth it. Let’s use our General Assemblies to develop an ideology, then federate to hammer out demands. Each occupation takes the next month to democratically develop their top three grievances and demands. (There are many consensus models available for developing ideas and solutions that go beyond the scope and format of a General Assembly.) After they’re done, they send two delegates to an Occupy convention, where we’d come up with a declaration (our grievances) and a new constitution (our demands and solutions). The process of coming up with these documents would itself be revolutionary and would deepen our understanding of each other and our fight, and the finished product could be used to educate, agitate and get started on a new world.

Who are our friends? Who are enemies? What do we want? What is the main obstacle that keeps us from getting it? How have we tried to fight that problem before? Did it work? Why or why not? What would it take to be successful? Even with diverse opinions, what are a few things we agree on? What solutions already exist, and what solutions do we need to invent? What is uniquely ours to give in the long fight against elitism? What are our weaknesses and how might they be exploited? What education do we need to act successfully? How do we get it to them? How do we come up with demands, and how will we disseminate them?

The Populists made every attempt to create a new world through non-cooperation—functioning as if the State didn’t exist. But the State did exist, and it combined with corporations to control everything the Populists needed: credit, land, a fair currency. The Populists realized they had no choice. In order to operate their co-ops and implement their new Treasury program, they had to change the law. And to change the law, they had to confront power. So radicals within the movement pushed a new plan. They urged the agrarian movement to form a political third party, a militant coalition of rural and urban workers that sought to transform the very foundations of government. The bulk of the movement responded in kind, and farmers met en masse in 1892 to fashion the Omaha Demands—the foundation of The People’s Party. These demands called for the abolition of national banks, reclamation of corporate land for use by the People, a graduated income tax and the prohibition of agricultural speculation. Populists once again mobilized their massive, educated and organized base to run third party and fusion candidates for every level of office in the land. In states like Kansas, they won straight tickets. Railroad magnates wrote letters to colleagues, invoking God to spare them a Populist legislature. In other states, the party did not fare as well. Rampant election fraud and vigilante action stymied campaigns in the South; two-party emotional appeals leveled the rest. Despite its real success, the People’s Party imploded for several reasons. First, it didn’t organize urban-rural coalitions soon enough. Second, Alliance members split over the politics, many preferring alternatives to confrontation. And third, the movement’s failure to create co-ops in key states led to lack of organization, recruitment and radical education. This, in turn, produced the shallow analysis and lack of self-respect that make movements ripe for accommodation. Within four years, the movement caved to the comfort of received culture and nominated William Jennings Bryan—a Democrat—as their presidential candidate. With that move, America lost one of the most inspiring democratic movements it has ever seen.

We’ve rejected the two-party system and refused to pander to politicians. Screaming fire couldn’t clear an Occupy faster than a Democratic operative, and that’s good. This time around, we’re insisting on autonomy first and demands second. This is the opposite of 2008, when so many auctioned off autonomy to buy futures in the grossly inflated hope and change market. But that bubble crashed, too, and promises are no longer worth what we’ve got to pay for them. Now we’re wiser. Now we’re the ones making promises—this time to ourselves.

The Complicity Complex. The politicization of the Populist movement appears to be a simple moral tale: the Populists got political and so got coopted. The solution is, of course, to not engage in conventional politics. But the real lesson is actually double-edged. Because it is just as true that the Populists failed because they didn’t engage enough, believing they could do radical economics without radical politics. In reality, though, noncooperation can’t work without transforming power at the level of government. The Populists didn’t fail because they got political; they failed because they didn’t organize enough before they did. This statement will be controversial to some Occupiers, many of whom reject conventional politics because the system has failed. And they’re right. The two-party capitalist system has failed. I am not advocating a return. But consider this: If we don’t confront political power directly—replace it, dismantle it, infiltrate it, whatever—then we actually depend more on it than if we did. Up until now, the Occupy movement has focused on reclaiming space, direct action, and noncooperation. But that doesn’t mean we’re politically independent; it simply means we depend on politics indirectly. That is being co-opted by default. As my friend likes to say: “You may not believe in the State, but the State believes in you.” You can ignore it and avoid it, and for some goals, that works. But any successful alternative will fail precisely by being successful unless it finds a way to confront and change the law. If, on the other hand, you say what you want and how you want it, then form an autonomous group to get it—and if what you want scares the powerful and improves material realities for millions of people—that’s independence. Now, there are lots of ways to build political power besides running for office, some of which I will list below. But we shouldn’t confuse a slicked-out politico pawning our movement with creating populist political force. Remember: radical change is not action-specific. Actions are radical when they challenge the balance of power. A strike could be totally symbolic if it’s not well-planned, while a legal strategy that questions the legal structure can be quite radical indeed. In other words,  an action is radical if it shifts power to the oppressed. The question should not be what appears most radical; the question should be what works most radically in a given situation. If, for example, your goal was ensuring food justice for millions of people, you could grow a vast network of gardens without anyone’s say-so. But if you are trying to stop a foreign war, there aren’t a lot of alternatives available. In the former case, you drop out. In the latter, you engage. This engagement can take the form of direct action. It can take the form of a third party. It can take the form of people’s laws. What it can’t do is confuse confrontation with complicity, or else it will fail. If we want to win, we must find a way to challenge political power without compromise.

• Delegates return from the national convention and use the demands and grievances to start an Occupy Party. This party wouldn’t join power, but confront it. It would exist to change the system, but also to recruit masses of people to the Occupy movement and get working for a new world. The candidates would not be leaders but conduits, wearing Everyone masks and refusing to reveal their identity. They could literally change with every debate, every interview, physically embodying the diversity they represent. Yard signs wouldn’t have names but manifestos: “I Am Everyone and I Want ______.” And the name on the ballot? The 99 percent.
• Engage in massive, coordinated direct action. Delegates at the Occupy convention could also decide priority targets for direct action, then organize local Occupies to coordinate simultaneous actions. With only a few thousand people well-organized people we could shut down, say, the banking system in the United States. We just need to pick a goal and get the numbers. (Direct action is an especially good tactic for people who don’t like to mess with electoral politics. But if it’s to be effective, it has to be massive and it has to be coordinated. Creative actions get publicity, raise awareness, intimidate the powerful, and make people feel empowered and important. Mass action stops the machine.)
• Create People’s Laws. This could be coordinated on a national level or done to suit each particular Occupy, but the idea’s the same. Come up with a law that dramatically shifts power (for example abolishing corporate personhood) and run it as a ballot initiative—a form of direct democracy. Use the ensuing organizing drive to educate and recruit people into the movement, then fight like hell to pass the law. Remember, though: This is municipal civil disobedience, so prepare to escalate in court.

You might not agree with my suggestions, but you’ve got to answer my questions. First, what kind of government do I want? (Because a government is, at its core, a decision-making process and body. Everyone has a government. They just have to say what kind it is.) For the Occupy movement, this will probably involve describing both an interim government and an ultimate government. What do we want while the current system exists, and what do we want when we’ve won? Then ask: Do I want to replace, transform, infiltrate or abolish the government? If I do not want to engage in conventional politics, then what is my plan for confronting existing power?

First, Goodwyn names four movement phases, but he also names a movement necessity: internal communication. Successful movements, no matter how far-flung and rhizomatic, find ways to communicate their ideas, their methods, their models and their plans. Movements that don’t do this form pockets of intensity or slump into irrelevance. The genius of the Occupy movement is leaderless, local autonomy, but that genius is also a pitfall if we can’t find a way to coordinate efforts. So far, individual Occupies can throw out ideas or even call for actions, but it’s very difficult to organize around something massive or share crucial information. In a leaderless movement, it can be difficult to know where to go to share or get a question answered. It is good to keep in mind that democratic movements often require more structure than hierarchical ones, since in hierarchies you ask the person in charge and in democracies you ask the structure itself—a committee whose membership is always in flux. This makes it more important than ever to identify a clear process of getting information, making decisions, and federating to make large decisions. The Populists had a system of sub-alliances that each had their own flavor and attitudes, but they coordinated through a system of trained lecturers and annual convergences. In between big events, they communicated through their own Reform Press Association, a collection of local, regional and national papers that communicated key ideas, agreements and perspectives to farmers all over the country.  Occupy Nashville has met this need by reviving the Revolutionary-era Committees of Correspondence, using these working groups to communicate throughout the state. Others have startedOccupy collaboration sites or suggested a kind of informational Pony Express where appointed people travel to share critical information. Whatever the solutions are, Occupy must create a centralized virtual and physical space to share and plan together or we will fight too much alone.

Second, as I finished this essay, the evictions started. One by one, Occupies faced police in riot gear solving ‘public health threats’ with tear gas and pepper spray. Some of us held our ground, some were routed but regrouped and reclaimed, and others are in limbo, wondering what to do next. There are signs at most evictions that say something simple and profound: You can’t evict an idea. That’s true, and the idea of an occupation is capable of outlasting a centralized physical occupation, going forward to occupy homes against foreclosure, occupy classrooms, occupy elections, whatever. But this is an uncomfortable stage because the magic of Occupy has been the centralized physical occupation, a place where so much more happens than the tasks at hand. As my friend bemoaned: “I don’t want us to go back indoors to meetings only ten people attend, only to go back out and find all the people who gathered once but then dispersed.” And that is a real concern. On the other hand, occupations can become mired in problems of self-defense, and the occupation itself can supersede the work that needs doing. We need to regroup our local Occupies and ask ourselves some serious questions. First, what are the pros and cons of a centralized, physical occupation? What are the most pressing needs in our community and are they met better by one occupation, many small and targeted occupations, or another route altogether? If our occupations went dark or indoors, would we lose a certain magic and swagger that we need? If yes, how can we best defend or reclaim an occupy space, and what skills do we need to do that? How can we get those skills, and how can we divvy up our energies to meet both the needs of the occupation and its purposes? What are our goals and how do we meet them in the style and spirit of the Occupy movement? And finally, how do we keep the magic alive? That last question might sound silly, but it’s the most important. Because the Occupy movement didn’t invent the grievances its making or the problems it’s fighting. Most of these problems have existed for decades or even centuries, and have been fought for just as long by devoted dissidents. What Occupy has brought to this mix is radical hope and the magic of gathered imagination, gathered rage, gathered force. It’s brought possibilities so fast and thick they feel like the new texture of reality. And that’s what we cannot afford to lose.

…………………..

Those are my lists. I’m done, and we’re just starting. I have only one brain, and this is just one way forward. Probably there are as many ways as hearts, and we’ll need every beating one. But there are two things for sure: All the ways are steep, and some of them are worth it. There’s another side to this mountain, and it’s lovely and shot with light. Like the bear, we’re going over to see what we can see. We’ll know when we arrive, because we’ve carried the idea of this place for lifetimes, centuries. Sometimes it’s whispered and sometimes, shouted. It’s been killed and resurrected, celebrated and spurned. It’s suffered with aplomb, and so it’s ragged-beautiful. Sometimes it seemed so far, and we were in the dark. And other times we were sure it was just around the corner, right up against our skin. Always it’s been a world we made with voices, heads, and hands.

This wagon train is long, and it doesn’t stop. It loses people, wheels—re-finds them. We die on the march, mostly, and often the point is marching. But there is always the mountain, and still the other side. We are pulling toward it, all of us. And we are pulled by one great question: What would it look like to win?

This is the question you must ask. You ask it for yourself, and for your children. You ask it alone, and we answer it together. But you must ask it, and not let anything get in the way of the answer—not your ego, not your assumptions, not your weary, tired heart.

Because democracy is not an idea, a monument or a building. Democracy is nothing short of being fully alive and defending the fully living.

So write your lists and make your map. Have a plan and damn The Man. Because populism isn’t dead, you see: it’s marching.

Originally published as a zine, which you can download and print (6 double-sided sheets folded into a 24 half-page booklet). Cross-post freely.

The employee claims she found it in a briefcase that had been turned in to the lost-and-found desk at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort.  It is worth noting that the resort was the location of a retreat hosted by Charles and David Koch just one day prior to the briefcase being found. The letter includes no conclusive evidence that the letter was addressed to Charles and David Koch.  [I transcribed the letter below due to the difficulty of reading the handwriting. Notes added are in italics and bracketed. Links are included for background information.]

TRANSCRIPT:

Dear Charles and David,

Scanned image of the leaked "Chucky letter" Other pages are below transcript

[continued]

I was glad to get a letter from you. In the mail. You guys are great. Who sends letters anymore? And sealed with a wax stamp…ha ha, you creeps

Well, I have been thinking about the dilemmas you mentioned regarding global warming. And yes, of course I’m happy to offer some advice!

Let’s start with the facts, and don’t let them discourage you–we can beat these pencilnecks[sic]:

There is overwhelming. global, peer-reviewed, all that stuff, scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. All of the top um, scientific bodies around the world (even your friends at NAS) [National Academy of Sciences, presumably] are convinced. And you know how they are about things they are convinced of.

So.

You need an elaborate–I mean, Ocean’s 11, 12, 13 AND 14-style–elaborate–HOAX. You gotta do what it takes to keep the public guessing. Otherwise, they’re going to realize you’re boiling ‘em like frogs in a pot. As dumb as they are, those American Idol wannabe fatasses outnumber us, boys. Ha ha? No but seriously.

Here’s what you do:                    ran out of room–>[sic]

The IPCC is the UN‘s big gang of credible scientists that have the loudest voice in climate change findings. They issue statements and conclusions after they get together at a conference, right? Well, You can have a conference, too!

Call it something similar to the IPCC so it’s hard to tell yours apart from the real one. Call it… the International Conference on Climate Change. IPCC? ICCC?  ICUP? ;-p The media’ll never get the distinction across in one headline.

You won’t get many actual scientists to come to your conference, of course. So focus on inviting smart people who either look good on camera or don’t have any friends left in at their jobs. You know the type–insecure academics who’ll do anything to stand out in their field. Letters after their name is preferable–but not crucial. You can always just make something up.

Better yet–just promote them as scientists on your conference’s website. [This is happening now. Read about it.] It’s a free country, right? What they gonna do, take your birthdays away? (I’ve been to your parties, they couldn’t afford it.)

I did you the courtesy of sending along with this a list of ppl to invite. Ya, you owe me another elephant-shoot. Really. [List was not included. See link in previous paragraph]

(Sorry, this was the only other paper I could find. Just don’t lose this letter.) [letterhead at top of page reads: "Chamber of Commerce / United States of America]

Note: your companies can’t directly host the conference.  You need a wholesome-sounding name for a front group or two that you can control from behind the scenes. Call it the “American Dream Freedom Alliance”…no, no good…the “Institute of the Heartland”  yeah… almost…I’ll work on that one. OH! I got it: “Americans for Prosperity.” I’m on a roll. “What’s that, Dr. Scientist? I couldn’t hear all those numbers you were using in your argument because I was deafened by your HATRED for Americans AND Prosperity!”

That should keep them guessing for long enough to keep the UN from getting in your way. Gotta warn you, though. Your[sic] going into pretty public territory now, (and we’re talking about, like, the death of the planet and all, so be careful.)

Talk soon,

CHUCKY

P.S. And don’t overreact when knucklehead bloggers figure you out. No one reads them anyway.

Page 2

Page 3

For those that can’t take a joke: This is a spoof–a prank, a parody, a mockery–produced in the tradition of a political cartoon. It is designed to shine some light on the serious, deadly mockery of science that is being perpetrated at the ICCC. The sources linked to this article are real, consist of credible information, and their authors were not involved in the creation of the content here.

The one thing I do apologize for is the handwriting.

Please hit “thumbs up” below if you value the tradition of unconventional truth-telling. Thanks. – AA

By issuing another last-minute delay, Judge Dee Benson has made it clear that he is desperate to avoid public accountability for the persecution of peaceful climate justice activist  Tim DeChristopher.

The new date is July 26th at 3pm. However, nationwide solidarity actions will proceed on June 23th.

Late Wednesday night, after our last final, Jordan and I drove out to DC to make our court date Thursday morning. The commute is a hard one and my little PT Cruiser wasn’t much help, but we’ve sort have become pros at it- after all, we did the same exact thing a few weeks back when we decided to disrupt the House with a song. Thursday night, April 14th we headed out to DC to meet up with youth activists from all around the country who were ready to take a risk to inspire the 10,000 students attending Powershift that weekend. We sang an alternative version of the Star Spangled Banner, one that called for our congressmen to start standing up for our future- our right to clean air, water, and food- not big oil, gas, and coal. Disrupting congress is an arrestable action, something that we knew going in. But even though we were arrested and stayed in jail for over 6hrs, we had accomplished our goal. That Monday, hundreds of activists stormed the Department of the Interior and stayed despite the threat of arrest. 21 stayed for arrest even after being threatened with felony charges.

This past week, the nine of us who were arrested that friday all had to come back to DC for our arraignment. For some of us, that meant flying in from Utah, long train or bus rides from Massachusetts, Maine, etc. For Jordan and I it meant pulling another all-nighter to drive in from Michigan. At 8am, Thursday morning, we met with our lawyers and we ended the day with a drug test at around 3pm. This is the not-so-sexy side of civil disobedience, the part where sacrifice starts to kick in and we are forced to face financial, personal, and professional consequences for our action. But at the same time, these past couple of days have been the most encouraging for me.

I see the beginning of a culture within our movement that is willing to support those who decide to take action even at the expense of their own future. I am beginning to see a movement with people that can find it in their hearts to give the little that they have to support those who they can call allies. I’m beginning to see a movement that is becoming financially independent, and with financial independence comes true mobility. Is the movement strong enough to support one another? Is it capable of making things like money less of a concern when taking action? I think it is.

Going to court on Thursday wasn’t a walk in the park. I saw too many of my less fortunate black brothers and sisters in that room and too many people there for minor drug charges. The failure of our court system was hard to ignore- the true victims of our unjust society were criminalized while the true criminals were no where to be found. Yet there was still hope because in the middle of this scene was a row of individuals who were crazy enough to think that they could take on this institution…and there are hundreds who were starting to stand behind them and their action.

Even though Thursday I was surrounded by those who force their laws on us, It also wasn’t scary, nerve racking, or daunting- it was liberating. I am not alone. I have countless of people- some I don’t even know personally- who are there to back me up. I want to see more of those seats filled with activists standing up for what is right. I want them to feel the same sense of relief that, despite the outcome, there is a whole movement of like minded individuals ready to bring about support in any way that they can- whether it be with time, money, or just encouragement. I believe the nine of us and the 21 who got arrested in the department of Interior are continuing to play a part in inspiring others to join us in tactful civil disobedience. A movement that has learned how to sacrifice individually and for one another is powerful. It’s a force to be reckoned with!

This Friday, April 15, I went to Congress to be heard. I went to Congress to sing. I went to Congress to speak truth to power. I entered the visitor’s gallery of the House of Representatives with eight others, and one after another.

We sang a modified version of the Star Spangled Banner:

Oh, Why can’t you see It’s my life that’s at stake
When you sell out our earth
You are stealing my future
Can you look in my eyes
As you Gamble our lives
When will you stop the lies
So that we can survive?
If you represent me
Not the fossil fuel industry
You must stop wasting time
Chasing your dollar signs
Oh, say will you listen to Our Generation
If you refuse to hear us now
Then we have to shut you down

For the entire half hour it took us to file into the gallery and the five long minutes that I waited in my seat, my stomach was hollow and I was more nervous than I had ever been. But once we were all in the gallery, I did rise and sing. I was arrested by the capital police, and along with the others, was changed with Unlawful Conduct: Disrupting Congress. I have a court date on May 5.

In many ways, my political awakening came with the election of Barack Obama in 2008. In Obama I did see a hope for the future. I saw the possibility that, with him, we could change the way that our government worked. We could start to change the ways of corporate influence over our democracy and, in that, begin to address climate change. This was, needless to say, a faith that was highly misplaced.

My role in that campaign, as nothing more than a canvasser a few times, had caused a need for action, and a need for change in the world, to bloom. In the Fall of 2009, I worked on a campaign that sought for 100% clean electricity by 2020, in Massachusetts – a goal that was realistic and within the requirements of scientific research. I dedicated myself whole-heartedly to this campaign, called the Leadership Campaign, and between myself and all the others working toward this goal, we spent thousands of long hours calling, writing letters, and visiting our Representatives. But it didn’t work. After all the intense energy and dedication that all of us put into it, the legislature just ignored the bill and us.

They don’t listen to our pleas as their constituents or as their children. They don’t listen to our scientists or our doctors. They don’t listen to our priests or our parents. We lost.

In the wake of that loss, I was forced to reevaluate the political system in America, and how that effects the climate movement. It was then that I realized that something more is demanded of us. If we actually believe in what we are fighting for- justice, the planet, and perhaps most importantly, each other- then we must hold ourselves accountable to do what is necessary.

So, what does that mean? What is actually necessary? To be honest, I don’t know. It was in this state that I sat paralyzed. The more I understood how convoluted our current system is, horrifically intertwined with climate change (simply writing this blog post is putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere), the less sure I was what to do, and the less certain I was about what is right. But at some point, I realized, you just have to do something. You don’t have to know what is the perfect thing to do, because there is no silver bullet. You just have to step up and do something.

I have been contemplating this as Power Shift has drawn closer. This weekend, 10,000 youth have gathered in Washington D.C. for a climate conference. We’ve gathered together before, but now the movement has become even more urgent. The US government has expressed over and over that it will not do anything about climate change – from the failure of Waxman-Markey to continuation of fossil fuel subsidies and the gross subservience to corporations. Right now our elected officials are acting in a gross dereliction of their sacred duty. I firmly believe that our government is not simply just not acting, they are part of the problem – they are the not the leaders that they have promised. We must become those. And to do that, I had to begin to find my voice. The voice that is inside me that refuses to stay silent. The voice that demands that I speak, and that I act.

When I decided to organize this action, three weeks ago today, I had no idea what was going to happen. There were so many moments, especially right before we pulled it off, that it seemed that everything would fall apart, and that nothing would happen. There were a lot of points where I was about to fall apart, and during one of them, I realized that I have nothing left to lose. The things in my life that make me happy, my friends, my connections to other humans and the earth, are not things that can be given to me, they are things that I must make myself. And once I realized that — that I only have my own integrity and respect to gain, and nothing that I value to lose — I was able to do this. Perhaps the most inspiring thing that drove me to this action was a question that my friend asked me. She said, “If not now, when?” And that truly is something that I had no answer for, when? Now is the only answer I could formulate.

And right now I am not free. I stood up in Congress because that is where I have been told, over and over again, that I have no voice. That I have no voice in my future. My future, which if I  remain on the sidelines, will not exist. I stood up to sing because I will be silent no more forever.

The earth and democracy aren’t dying. They’re being killed—and the people killing them are next door to this hotel.

Know what’s funny? “Koch” is pronounced “Coke.” Know what isn’t funny?  Today, in Palm Springs, California, the Koch brothers are meeting in secret to plot the final stages of their wildly successful campaign to destroy representative democracy.

Oh, and the planet too.

I’m here with some other people and we are going to try to stop them. But we’ll need your help.

First you’ll need to know who the Kochs are, what their motives have been, and how they’ve gotten away with this for so long.

Then you need to tell everyone you know.

These men are highly effective sociopaths who have been on an unchecked spree for years. A description of their trail of carnage contains all the major elements of todays public discourse. Climate change has been made politically unaddressable by their meticulous misinformation campaign; they’ve divided (and effectively conquered) the American people through by creating the so-called Tea Party; and to secure their long-term profits they’ve even succeeded in legalizing unlimited corporate spending in elections.

There’s nothing unusual about billionaires messing around with politics. It’s been going since before billionaire became the new millionaire. But the Kochs are special. Professional nonpartisan watchdog Charles Lewis from the Center for Public Integrity, puts it this way: “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money…They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.” (Read the amazing New Yorker expose.)

Why has the public been slow to embrace the reality of the Koch stranglehold? How did Charles and David pull this off?

That’s where the climate comes in.

Koch Industries makes it’s billions, in large part, by putting carbon in the air. Charles and David, and the folks they meet with at conferences like the one up the street from this hotel, are smart businessmen, so one day, they looked ahead and said, “What could possibly stop us from putting carbon in the air?” And they played out some scenarios:

1) If the little people start listening to the top 80 scientific bodies in the world, which are warning them that the very livability of their planet is in serious danger, they’ll put their support behind climate legislation, which will cut into Koch Industries profits. Solution: Manufacture a debate. Dilute the public discourse with misinformation.  This seed of doubt will defeat US climate legislation for lack of broad support, thus sabotaging the United Nations attempts to agree on a course of action. UPDATE: This was easier than we thought!

2) When the little people figure out that we are killing them and lying to them for profit, they will get mad. They’ll start running candidates that promise to pass laws and regulations that will cut into Koch Industries’ profits. Solution use our money to defeat those candidates. Problem: It’s illegal. Solution: get the Supreme Court to make it legal. Create a group and call it “Citizens United.”  Argue that since corporations were declared “persons” in a clerical error a while back they should therefore be entitled to freedom of speech, which includes donating money to political campaigns. Note: It’s a bit of a stretch–so bring justices Scalia and Thomas to Palm Springs and treat ‘em right.  UPDATE: This was easier than we thought!

3) When the little people realize that prosperity for Koch Industries does not mean prosperity for them, they will point their rage against us and the pro-corporate representatives we’ve installed. If united against us, no amount of campaigning could overcome their sheer numerical superiority. Solution: co-opt populist outrage and turn them against each other. Organize disenfranchised republicans through front groups and call it the Tea Party. Overplay the conflict in the media. The Left will try to find “balance” and move more to the right. And build a higher fence around our resort in Palm Springs. UPDATE: They might be on to us.

It’s time to call it like it is. It’s time to admit that we are being attacked, that this is a pitched battle and we are losing.  Their team needs us to fight for the sides they’ve set up for us. But if you want to know what the real game is, look for the score: the richest 1% of our country own 70% of the wealth.

I have to run. The Uncloaking the Kochs and Quarantine the Kochs actions are about to start. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, let’s start shine some light on this. Share and repost.

Cada ser humano depende del medio ambiente. El sistema actual concentra la riqueza en las manos de una minoría empresarial y pone en peligro la salud y la seguridad de todos. Son los menos privilegiados y los más vulnerables los que sienten los primeros efectos de la crisis climática y los que más daño sufren.

Desde "Bangladesh faces climate refugee nightmare" (Reuters, 2008)

El movimiento climático no es el movimiento ecologista. Mientras el movimiento ecologista pretende proteger la rana de árbol en las amazonas y el oso polar en el ártico, el movimiento climático se preocupa por un futuro equitativo y seguro para los seres humanos.

A nivel mundial, la civilización requiere un medio ambiente habitable. El cambio climático causa sequías, inundaciones y una carencia de recursos, que conllevan la hambruna, disturbios civiles, conflictos armados, sufrimiento por para de los inocentes y la opresión de gobiernos.

El genosidio en Darfur fue comenzado por recursos menguandos

Conforme con el deterioro del medio ambiente, las familias, las comunidades y las vidas también deterioran.

La abogacía a favor del medio ambiente es a la vez la abogacía a favor de casi siete mil millones de seres humanos cuyas vidas dependen de un planeta sano. El medio ambiente global está interconectado entre si, tanto de manera ecologista como de manera social. Reponer un mundo interconectado supondrá movimientos interconectados: cualquier persona que cree que todos los seres humanos merecen los derechos básicos debería apreciar la crisis climática como una amenaza seria e inminente.

La crisis climática debe unirnos a todos en la lucha para el futuro de la humanidad.

By Tim DeChristopher, cross-posted from Peaceful Uprising

This post came from an email conversation with Post Carbon Institute‘s Strategist-Extraordinaire Tod Brilliant, who argued that we should recruit farmers and grandmothers since college-age protesters would get written off as “spoiled elites.” Tod has a totally reasonable view and might be right. In fact, it’s a very similar warning that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave to the Freedom Riders. They ignored his advice and went anyway, demonstrating that there is something strangely powerful about watching another person put themself in harms way.

I think college kids who protest and get a citation will definitely not get sympathy. Those who spend a night in jail probably won’t get much either. Those who get released from a night in jail to go straight back and repeat their action might start arousing some curiosity. Those who defy a judge’s strong warning that returning a third time will guarantee a year in prison will begin to actually move people. When college kids become former college kids who have been kicked out because of their activism, we’ll start making some progress. The “uppity brats” critique only sticks if anyone who wields it has ever sacrificed as much as the college kid is currently doing. I think where the direct action wing of the current movement has fallen short is that they have substituted perceived risk for actual risk, and it is not the same thing.

More than age, income, profession, or anything else, the one thing that matters about who we put out front is stubbornness.  I’ll trade all the strategy in the world for stubbornness…

I’d bet Peaceful Uprising has a longer list of committed grandmothers than any similar group in the country. They’re on board and ready to get arrested in part because they watched a college kid who reminds them of their sons and grandsons face 10 years in prison for defending his future. The advantage of sustained resistance is that it gives us the opportunity to bring more people on board, and it becomes less important who took the first step.

I think Climate Ground Zero is a decent example of what sustained resistance does to public opinion. When they arrived, they were attacked as outsiders and had a steady barrage of beer bottles flying at their house. After this year’s week long tree sit, 6 local security guards quit after being asked to harass the activists. Two showed up at the CGZ house and interviewed on film about how shitty Massey is.  After living there for almost two years, the beer bottles have stopped, a level of relative decency has been established, and a few locals are joining them.  While CGZ might be a negative example of the problems of alcoholism and poor self-care, they are a great positive example of the power of just not going away.

Violence did not deter the Freedom Riders. They signed their wills and pressed on. Shortly thereafter, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.

I’m not too worried about public opinion if we can mobilize a serious resistance movement. My bigger concern is whether or not we have a few hundred people in this country willing to make real sacrifices to turn things around. We just haven’t even scratched the surface of the level of commitment needed for a successful social movement. It’s late enough in the game that if we don’t find that kind of commitment, it doesn’t matter how effective our lobbyists are. When things get ugly, I will be less concerned about emission levels than apathy levels. I will be less concerned about the number of electric cars than the number of people willing to resist injustice. Now that it might be too late for a carbon tax to solve the problem, it really matters how we get that carbon tax.

If there’s one thing I hope liberals learn from the tea party, it’s that criticisms are only effective if the criticized care. We threw buckets of criticism, most of it legitimate, and they didn’t care and kept moving forward (well actually backward, but where they were headed anyway.)  They showed that resisting criticism is a lot more important than avoiding criticism.  What is it about liberals that they always back down in the face of criticism and name calling? Oh no, they called us treehugging communists, let’s back off and recruit some small business owners…

We’re trying to take power and profit away from some of the biggest and most ruthless corporations in the world. Whoever is carrying our message will be attacked. Every time a great strategist on our side comes up with a good framing, 50 professional spinsters paid 100 times as much as us will find a way to critique it. The movements that win are the ones that refuse to go away or back down.  More than age, income, profession, or anything else, the one thing that matters about who we put out front is stubbornness.  I’ll trade all the strategy in the world for stubbornness.

(I’ll be posting more details soon about what that sustained resistance movement might look like and how it can lead to substantive policy reforms like a carbon tax.)

• RLMiller’s diary :: ::

From the same company. In pretty much the same place. I ain’t making this up.

SLC Mayor Becker "We cannot trust Chevron"

Just under six months ago, Chevron squirted 33,000 gallons of its crude into a pristine creek above the city. The spill washed downstream to a large recreation pond in Salt Lake’s version of “Central Park;” then into the Jordan River and finally into a Great Salt Lake wildlife area. It’s still a disaster; the pond remains closed, and other cleanup and monitoring is ongoing.

Yesterday’s spill is estimated at around 100 barrels [UPDATE: Chevron has adjusted the estimate just a little bit: "up to 500 barrels"] and came within 50 feet of reaching the same creek. This happened only 500 feet from the location of the previous breach, and for different reasons, which remain unclear at this time. From what I’ve been able to piece together, the cause was something like…criminal neglect. [Still true 4 days later]

After I heard the news, I put some ice on my forehead, prepared some maps and rushed to a press conference at SLC Mayor Ralph Becker’s office. I didn’t know what to expect from the Mayor–sympathy for Chevron or something else–because just weeks ago I caught sight of a picture of Ralph smiling with other local officials and Chevron representatives at the dedication of the “Chevron Mile” along the Jordan River — the same river the corporation had befouled just two paragraphs ago.

Becker came into the room with a stern look, sat down, and made his position clear:

“I am outraged by the events that occurred this morning. […] At this point we can’t trust Chevron. The company has broken the trust we have in the work that has been done to give us a safe pipeline. I can’t help but be skeptical.”  When pressed about whether Chevron would be allowed to provide the data for an investigation, the soft-spoken Becker was unusually blunt: “We cannot trust Chevron.”

I could have told him that. (In fact, I think I did tell him.) The Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador (the ones that are still alive) could have told him that. I’m just glad this incident has brought the Mayor around to realizing what a lot of people already knew: oil spills suck a lot, but Chevron sucks more.

Becker then called for the indefinite shutdown of the pipe, which is another appreciably bold move. However, (apparently) only the Feds have the authority to keep it shut off.

More on that later. The questions now are: “Does Becker mean it?” and, “Can there be such a thing as a ‘safe’ oil pipeline in this earthquake-prone, creek-striped, house-encrusted valley?”

Only Ralph can answer the first question, and will do so through his actions. If he means it, he won’t make the same mistake this time; that is, to let Chevron provide the data by which the city’s “independent” investigation of the spill and safety assessment was based. (I know…but wait, there’s more) More: Even the federal pipeline overlords who had the final say took Chevron’s inspection reports at face value. Eventually, the city determined things were ship-shape again and issued Chevron a bill for the cleanup. The feds wrote Chevron a ticket for a few hundred K, gave the green light, and declared that the pipeline was now “safe.”

Who will oversee the upcoming investigation and safety inspection to assure that it is impartial? I’m willing to give the city one more chance, but only if Becker backs up his rhetoric with tangible actions. If he “cannot trust” Chevron, then by God, let’s fight the hell out of them, and out of any white-collar feds who try to let Chevron get back to making easy money off a serious public heath hazard.

What if they rebuild the whole stretch through town? Even then, can the pipeline ever be safe?

That brings me to the maps I mentioned earlier. I wanted to know the exact route the pipeline takes through the city. Pretty simple information, right? No. Seems someone doesn’t want Ash Q. Public knowing anything about oil pipelines, regardless of their proximity to his or her kids’ bedrooms.

Illustration 1

Now, since it seems that this particular pipeline can’t even stand up against the rigors of … sitting there, what will happen if … something happens?

Like an earthquake? Check this out: the pipeline runs across the Wasatch fault (very active by geologic standards and overdue for a Big One) at least three times as it makes its way through the most densely populated areas of Salt Lake City.  At one point, it follows the fault itself.

Witness more of my mad Microsoft Paint skillz:

You're doing it wrong

Since it’s too late at night to call an expert, I’ll ask my five-year-old nephew if he thinks that a pipeline full of oil is a good idea in an earthquake zone. … He says “it’s slippery.” I’ll choose to take that in whichever way supports my point.

The Mayor is right: we cannot trust Chevron, and Chevron owns this pipeline. If we cannot trust the pipeline, the pipeline needs to remain empty.  But the Mayor is going to need the people of Salt Lake, because the feds are going to cave in to Chevron. The multinational mega-conglomerate knows what it is doing. There must be a way for our city to stop Chevron from switching that rickety old serpent back on. We as Salt Lake City can back up our Mayor and find a way.  All legal means of keeping this thing shut down should be explored. There WILL be resistance, and it must include not only litigation, but action from the same citizens who are threatened by another spill.

Oh, and did I mention that this pipeline is supposed to carry oil from what would be the first tar sands mine in the US?

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