N. California Climate Rally
2014Jeff Mackler 2014-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 11 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 11
cils, United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), Bay Area System Change Not Climate Change, some 15 Bay Area peace and justice centers, and a pected. We want to show the world that the climate crisis can no longer for New York, many of us will gather in support in Oakland. Oakland and ping coal through the Port of Oakland, health and safety problems with dirtier oil at Chevron in Richmond and the other four Bay Area refineries, hauling flammable crude oil by rail through East Bay communities—and overall, working to build a clean energy economy with 100% renewable Some 100 Northern California environmental, peace and social justice, and faith-based organizations have set Sept. 21 for a mass People’s Cli mate Rally at Oakland’s Lake Merritt Park Amphitheater, 2-5 p.m. Thou sands are expected to join this action in solidarity with the 350.org na tional mobilization set for New York City on the same date.
Major Northern California demands include:
• For a world with an economy that works for people and the planet • For a world safe from the ravages of climate change • For a world with good jobs, clean air and water, peace and justice, and healthy communities.
The broad range of endorsing and sponsoring organizations include 350 Bay Area, Sierra Club, the San Francisco and Alameda Labor Coun dozen socialist organizations—including Socialist Action.
Expectations here are extremely low that the UN Climate Summit of world corporate leaders, and polluting nations, set to meet two days be fore the Sept. 21 mass march in New York City, will end with any signifi cant agreements.
The main flyer distributed in the tens of thousands in Northern Cali fornia states, “Tragically, more inaction or inadequate action can be ex be ignored, that the planet earth is burning, and that massive and un precedented measures must be taken now to assure humanity’s future.”
The flyer continues, “While people all over the country are mobilizing the East Bay are the site of many battles against carbon pollution—ship energy.”
Similar Sept. 21 actions are set for Los Angeles and San Diego. n Jeff Mackler is a leader of the Northern California People’s Climate Rally Outreach and Publicity Committee and a member of the coalition’s Steer ing Committee.
... Michael (continued from page 12: “Michael Brown lives on in the movement”) ment spending/budget by ½ by 2016, and invest that money into Black communities most devastated by poverty in order to create jobs, housing, and schools.” This is a demand that directly attacks the premise that our youth are better served by hypersurveillance, harassment, and brutality rather than investing in the community.
Another popular demand has been to demilitarize the police, and this is included in the demands released by #BlackLivesMat ter as well. CNN quoted author and former Marine logistics officer Jeff Clement as say ing, “Our [Rules of Engagement] regarding who we could point weapons at in Afghani stan was more restrictive than cops in Mis souri.” The scenes of police that looked like soldiers, pointing laser-beamed weapons at unarmed protesters in Ferguson made the powers that be very distraught about the image of the U.S.
Already, and as a result of events in Fergu son, the San Jose, Calif., police department has made plans to get rid of armored ve hicles made to withstand roadside bombs (which were given to them for free from the U.S. Department of Defense), while the Davis, Calif., and Albuquerque, N.M., police departments are reviewing possibly giving them back.
Demilitarizing the police is an important demand, and links should be made be tween the militarization that people are subjected to in the United States and what the U.S. military subjects people to abroad. But let’s be clear that even without military equipment, the police forces of the U.S. will still be committing abuses.
We also have to point out that this prob lem is deeper than a few bad cops. This is a systemic problem, an institutionalized problem; it is not a problem that can be solved by removing one officer, or even one local department, as some believe.
Al Sharpton said at the Eric Garner pro test in Staten Island, “Don’t act like we are here against police. We’re for police! But let me tell you something, you have a bag of apples, and there’s a rotten apple in the bag, the only way to protect the good ap ples is to take the bad apple out.”
But the level of violence against Black, Brown, and even white people by police is beyond a few bad apples. While there truly are a few bad apples, and Darren Wilson most definitely is one, policing a popula tion that is institutionally and purposefully held down will never look pretty. It will be brutal; it will be murderous. Until wide spread racial and economic inequality is addressed, brutality and murder will be a common occurrence when “enforcing law and order.”
We cannot accept the “bad apple” theory of police brutality; the statistics and the re ality force us to move beyond this simplis tic explanation. The problem is systemic, not personal. The apple is rotten, the bar rel is rotten, and the whole ship the barrel is sailing in is rotten.
Seize the moment! There is a Michael Brown in every city in this country! Double your efforts to mobilize people at this spe cial moment! End police brutality! End the New Jim Crow! No Justice, No Peace! n SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2014 11
Scan page 12
SOCIALIST ACTION Tony Savino / Socialist Action