Re: [Marxism] Question about People's Climate March
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The march is definitely going to be huge. I'm basing that on the mobilizing meeting I attended and on discussions and announcements of it, and of particular contingents, on many sites and lists. I concur with Joe and Patrick about the event's politics, both the vapidity of the official program, but also the openings for raising more advanced politics (and in that regard the efforts in the last couple years of revolutionaries united in the System Change Not Climate Change coalition are to be lauded). On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 7:01 PM, Patrick Bond via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == These are good observations, i.e. that there is a tendency to a vapid 'climate action' approach which puts people in the streets with no message, no coherent demands, no final rally. The organizers of this march have succumbed to this tendency. Maybe the worst of these is the NYC subway advert from Avaaz: What puts hipsters and bankers in the same boat? (where boat is x-ed out and replaced by 'march') Yikes, the tragedy of the banker 'solution' to climate in the Kyoto Protocol (thanks especially to Al Gore), carbon trading, continues. But the alternative - 'climate justice' - is well advanced, albeit going through a relative lull at global scale after peaking five years ago in Copenhagen. The Friday-Saturday events with more serious political critique will include a great new book about climate and capitalism - http://thischangeseverything.org/ - from Naomi Klein and many other speakers at http://convergeforclimate.org/ (if you come, please say hi on the 20th all afternoon at Graffiti Church, 205 E 7th St where I'll be with several African comrades). If you have time next Thursday, The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice is co-convening a Public Forum featuring Southern Voices on Climate Justice, 2:30 to 5:00 pm at the YMCA Vanderbilt. Then I gather the following Monday-Tuesday will include direct action, including on Wall Street, as well as excellent Global South activists from the US claiming Our Power: http://www.ourpowercampaign. org/peoples-climate-justice-summit/ See you there! Patrick Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/ options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Question about People's Climate March
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was on a call about the PCM a month or so ago that included one of the organizers and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Lots of talk about how great it was that the opportunity to have a demonstration before a UN conference on climate change was being taken, but almost no details about the march itself or what they intended to accomplish. Maybe things have changed since then but at that time they didn't even have a route approved! Once it came time for QA there was very little in the way of clarification about the event. Most of the people asking questions were concerned with whether there would be coordinated events elsewhere in the country and nobody who organized the call had any idea. T-shirts will be available was the response. Then I had a chance to ask a question; given that climate change is a global issue and that this event is planned to coincide with a meeting at the UN, what are you doing to facilitate international participation in NYC? The response was a long, awkward silence followed by an ataboy for asking a good question. Nobody had thought that international participation might be important or worthwhile to cultivate, though there are similar marches planned in Manchester and London now. When I poked around the website after the call my questions were left unanswered. I have see very little reason to believe that much will come of it, but could be surprised. I am *highly* sceptical that hundreds of thousands of marchers will turn out, as the organizer seemed to suggest on that call. The PCM strikes me as an action looking for a cause. No clear aims and no plan for the next step. On Sep 10, 2014 10:56 PM, Glenn Kissack via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I’ll be joining other members of my faculty union on Sunday, September 21 for the People’s Climate March, during the UN conference on climate change. It should be very large, with people coming from all over the country. 70 unions and 1000 organizations have endorsed the march. Many tens of thousands — maybe more — will be there. http://peoplesclimate.org/march/ Yet I know very little about the leadership of the march, what its demands are, or what its analysis is of the ecological crisis we face. I’ve been told that Bill McKibben and his 350.org initiated the event, but others are now involved. As for demands, there don’t seem to be any. And for analysis, I couldn’t find anything at the website. I was wondering if members of this list had thoughts about PCM — its leadership, politics, future. Thanks, Glenn Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/micklane.jl%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Question about People's Climate March
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Having followed the preparations absentmindedly, it strikes me as something akin to the anti-summit protests a little over a decade ago, or perhaps Occupy, with too many people and organizations to form any coherent agenda. Which is not a bad thing, of course. (It's not a good thing either, but it's all we'll get this year or the next.) In the best case scenario, a number of different groups will use the energy of the mobilization to push forward in more concrete ways, as happened when protesters went their own ways, many forming or revitalizing hundreds of different organizations, after the summit protests fizzled. Right now, we simply can't expect sustained, coherent efforts, in any sort of radical direction, from presently-existing bodies capable of getting hundreds of thousands onto the streets. C'est la vie. Make the most of what limited mass struggle exists, with an eye towards how you'll keep the best part of it going into the future. On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 5:55 AM, Glenn Kissack via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: I was wondering if members of this list had thoughts about PCM — its leadership, politics, future. -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
