October 28, 2014

Confronting the Dark

This is the first day in about a month that I've woken up at a reasonable hour and felt well rested.

This year I have lost two friends to the permanent dark. Losing friends to the void is terrifying, numbing, infuriating, and sad.

We all carry around darkness within us, but when we lose a friend/loved one to it, it is as though the ground yawns instantly open beneath them, exposing a terrible bottomless pit of existential void, burning with pain and loneliness, that swallows them, shattering our sense of reality. We are forced in that moment to look over the edge, into the endless well of darkness in another that we expend so much energy trying not to acknowledge in ourselves, and confront it.

I am only 31, and while I have lost several friends to the void, and I expect I will lose many more over the coming decades, it doesn't get any easier. I don't expect it will. Closure is healing, for that I am thankful at least, but there always lingers the question of what could have been done.

One cannot change past events. One can only continue to move forwards. Everybody remember to watch out for one another, to ask for help if you need it, and remember, above all else, be kind if you can help it, and forgive those who are not. You don't know what demons they are battling.

October 23, 2014

The Inextricable Link Between Social and Environmental Justice

Erica Violet Lee of Idle No More in conversation with Dennis Trainor, Jr. of Acronym TV on the eve of the largest Climate Justice march in history.



“It is important to acknowledge the Indigenous people who have been fighting this battle on the front lines for centuries,” says Lee. “The big marches and massive actions (like the People’s Climate March) serve as motivation. I take it back to my community (because) ultimately I think it is acts of everyday resistance that will change they way things are done.”

Erica speaks about the violence that goes hand in hand with Canada pushing through Keystone XL Pipeline, “pushing first nations people off their lands to get to resources on the lands. There is a lot of violence – especially towards Indigenous Women who are going missing and getting murdered in record numbers.”

“What we are trying to bring attention to,” says Lee “is that social justice and environmental Justice are inextricable linked.”

atv idle no more

Idle No More, Climate Change, Keystone XL, Pipeline, Peoples Climate March, Keystone XL Pipeline, 350, 350.org, Resistance, Erica Violet Lee, Fossil Fuels, Indigenous People, ATV, Acronym TV, Dennis Trainor Jr,

October 16, 2014

Our Culture is a Crime | Acronym TV 019



Originally posted at AcroynmTV



Episode Breakdown |

Spoken word from Immortal Technique and Erica Violet Lee of Idle No More, plus:

3 interviews looking at the climate crisis from 3 angles:
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink talks about the links between the peace movement and the climate justice movement – and how Code Pink started as an Environmental group-

Then Howie Hawkins, as his momentum in the New York gubernatorial race is ramping up, talks about Green justice in the electoral arena.
Also, Occupy Sandy organizer Nastaran Mohit talks about our need to face down white privilege within the movement, and step out of our comfort zones.

Finally, Jill Stein points out that we have critical mass and critical momentum to win the day.

TAGS
Poverty, Crime, Race, Class, Culture, Immortal Technique, Elections, Climate Change, Climate Crisis, Global Warming, System Change, Capitalism, Idle No More, Erica Violet Lee, Jill Stein, Global Climate Convergence, Howie Hawkins, Green Party, Occupy, Acronym TV,

October 8, 2014

Is Ferguson Is Just the First Wave of Escalating Riots and Police Repression?

Originally posted at AcronymTV

atv police state

The murder of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Office Darren Wilson set off and wave of protests, the majority of which were non violent. The militarized police response and the violent repression of peaceful protestors will only get worse if the economic conditions of this country do not change radically and quickly, says David DeGraw, author of the new book, The Economics of Revolt. “If you want to change things through non-violent methods, the window of opportunity is closing fast. Very fast,” says DeGraw.

October 7, 2014

We Would Have Revolution Overnight If People Understood This One Thing




Martin Luther King, Jr. was working towards a guaranteed basic income for all when he was killed. Wealth inequality, neoliberalism, the actions of the Federal Reserve, along with the greed and theft of the global elite have made the call for a guaranteed basic income for all even more urgent in 2014 than in the 1960s.

David DeGraw, interviewed here by Dennis Trainor, Jr. of Acronym TVclaims the alternative is a violent revolution.

In his new book, The Economics of Revolution, DeGraw writes:

“Having that much wealth consolidated within a mere 1% of the population, while a record number of people toil in poverty and debt, is a crime against humanity.  For example, it would only cost 0.5% of the 1%’s wealth to eliminate poverty nationwide.  Also consider that at least 40% of the 1%’s accounted for wealth is sitting idle. That’s an astonishing $13 trillion in wealth hoarded away, unused.”
In this clip from the full 30-minute interview, DeGraw points out that the Federal Reserve is already printing money and giving it away to the financial elite.

atv occupy supreme court




The Green Shock Doctrine: a Decade of False Climate Solutions

Originally posted at AcronymTV



Anne Petermann, has been banned from future U.N. Climate Conferances for her vocal activism. Here, she outlines the last decade of U.N. Climate Conference failures and false solutions.

About Anne Petermann |

Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project. She is also the Coordinator of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees; the North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition; and a member of the Board of Directors of the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture Series.

 

She has been involved in movements for forest protection and Indigenous rights since 1991, and the international and national climate justice movements since 2004. She co-founded the Eastern North American Resource Center of the Native Forest Network in 1993, and the STOP GE Trees Campaign in 2004. She also participated in the founding of the Durban Group for Climate Justice in 2004 and Climate Justice Now! in 2007 at the Bali UN Climate Conference. In 2008, Global Justice Ecology Project spearheaded the founding of the North American Mobilization for Climate Justice.

 

Anne speaks around the world about climate justice and against socially and environmentally destructive “false solutions” to climate change

 

In 2000 she received the Wild Nature Award for Activist of the year.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/punkpatriot/15286631658/player/

 

Ferguson Flash Mob! Requiem for Mike Brown Confronts White Privilege at St. Louis Symphony

Originally posted at AcronymTV




About 50 protesters seeking justice for Mike Brown delayed the start of the second act of Brahms requiem on Saturday night at the St. Louis Symphony in a brilliantly executed creative protest captured by Rebecca Rivas of the St. Louis American.
(read more: http://www.popularresistance.org/demonstrators-disrupt-st-louis-symphony-singing-a-requiem-for-mike-brown/)

white privilege woman

October 3, 2014

A Bold New Chapter in the Climate Justice Movement | Acronym TV 018

Originally posted at AcronymTV



Part 1: (00:59) A dispatch from The People's Climate March featuring interviews with 
Immortal Technique (Hip Hop legend) 
Kshama Sawant (Socialist City Council member
Jill Stein (for Green Party Presidential candidate),
Pat Scanlon (Vets for Peace)
 Art Shegonee (Federation of United Tribes), Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese (Popular Resistance)
and other artists, activist, children, and street revelers!

Part 2: (10:18) A dispatch from the Flood Wall Street day of action, featuring exclusive footage, analysis and interviews with Clayton Thomas-Muller (Idle No More), Tim DeChristopher (Peaceful Uprising), Andy Bichlbaum (The Yes Men), Arun Gupta (Counterpunch), and Flood Wall Street organizer Goldi Guerra.

Part 3: (20:04) Jill Stein Interview.

A day before the People’s Climate March drove 400,000 people into the streets of New York City, Jill Stein sat down with Dennis Trainor, Jr of Acronym TV and outlined what she sees as the coming green revolution.
“The U.N. has sold us out,” says Stein “The UN has become the apologists for false solutions (like) nuclear power, fracking, and so-called clean coal,” says Stein. “The U.N. has sold us out, and it is really important that we take a new direction, with a very clear goal (…) one which puts people, planet and peace over profit.”

atv climate march

October 1, 2014

Confronting White Privilege in the Climate Justice Movement 

Originally posted at AcronymTV



Speaking at the opening plenary of the New York City Global Climate Convergence in the days before the People’s Climate March, Nastaran Mohit told the assembled crowd that the revolution “and this (Climate Convergence) movement is not going to be spawned from the activist white community. It is going to be led front and center by marginalized and the most directly affected communities.”

Mohit, a New York City based labor organizer who was instrumental in the success of Occupy Sandy, went on:

“For these communities, Climate Change is not a far off thing, it is right at their backyard. For these communities it is an issue of survival. Climate organizing is not a privilege for them, it is a life and death matter.”

While Mohit characterized the People’s Climate March as an “epic event” that she was “proud to participate in” she was quick to balance that excitement with skepticism over the funding behind the march and “the lack of demands, the parade route” (the parade went no where near the U.N.).

“We also need to be very real when we talk about how scary it is for the big green groups (and) the big corporations for this movement to challenge Capitalism.”

Mohit sat down with Dennis Trainor, Jr. of Acronym TV to talk about her role as an Occupy Sandy organizer, and how she sees her work as a Labor organizer converging with her work in the Climate Justice movement.

This interview is part of Acronym TV’s expanded coverage of the NYC Global Climate Convergence.


"The Convergence calls for a solution as big as the crisis barreling down on us – an emergency green economic transformation, including full employment and living wages; 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2030; universal free health care and education; food and housing security; an end to deportations and mass incarceration; economic and political democracy; demilitarization; ecosystem restoration and support for the rights of Mother Earth; and more."

atv environmental racism

The environment, jobs, climate justice, Keystone XL Pipeline, Disaster relief, rebuild green, White Privilege, green jobs, green new deal, Occupy Sandy, Nastaran Mohit, Labor movement, Global Climate Convergence, Acronym TV, Dennis Trainor Jr, 2014 elections, Elections,