Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like

In the past six months, the ideas of Occupy and the 99% have revolutionized the social dialogue of the U.S. in a way that has enthralled, enraged, and emboldened. Massive marches, rallies, and protests have acted as giant mirrors in which we catch a glimpse at just how many of us are completely fed up with the corrupt exploitative politics of ‘business as usual.’

Occupy and the 99% has offered a refreshed language and analysis for how we understand power politics. We have focused on creating shared space both on and offline in which we can trace and resist a vast constellation of impacts suffered by the 99% due to corporate greed. While this movement continues to evolve strategy, tactics, consensus practices, and creative outreach, its’ impact is already clear.

Though it many not be possible to all agree on everything all the time, most of us agree that the interests of the 99% are not being effectively represented in Congress, the White House, or in the Supreme Court. This crippling problem is not divided along party lines, either. It is a deeper fissure between a) the entrenched corporate interests who have manipulated the political system for their profit, and b) the rest of us.

When we follow the money on the Congressional campaign trail, it’s easy to see a glaring example of how corporate money is drowning out the needs and interests of the 99%. The largest campaign contributions to Congressional candidates of both parties consistently come from the finance, insurance, and real estate industry (the F.I.R.E. sector, including big banks). Once in office, these bought-and-sold legislators support and approve corporate-drafted policies that whittle away at our country’s safety nets and vital programs and instead fund bailouts that end up in big boss bonuses. What public services do you think of when you justify paying your taxes each year? Which of those services has been slashed lately?

Photo: memegenerator.net

So, is voting for the lesser of two evils really going to fix this problem? I think not. As stated by Occupy activist Max Berger in today’s Huffington Post, “We won’t just win by getting new players — we need to change the game. The system is fundamentally incapable of healing itself.”

Occupy struck a chord perhaps specifically because it identified a more fundamental problem than what can be voted in or out in 4 years, and we should continue this much-needed critique. Many have made the case for Occupy becoming a “left wing tea party” but Occupy doesn’t need to be a left wing Tea Party in order to impact the election. The sheer magnitude of a cultural mic check from the far-ish left has turned heads of both voters and politicians.

Historically, large social movements inevitably enable reform simply by being what they are: a mass movement responding to the injustices of the status quo. But the 99% can’t and won’t stop there.

We need to immediately Occupy Our Elections in order to approach having the real ability to Elect Democracy. We should engage with and impact elections by providing systemic analysis and exposing the impact of corporate campaign contributions, big budget corporate lobbying, and general ALEC-type corruption and collusion. Meanwhile, we can also simultaneously be creating new methods of meeting the needs of the 99% that can help make this broken system obsolete (so plant a garden, start a community health clinic, or meet your neighbors, to start). But let’s check in with the reality that building a new system is um, going to take a while, so in the meantime, register your discontent and go vote about it.

If there was ever a time to flex our power, it’s now. For all the fire and fury, for all the marches and mic checks, we have not yet “won.” Corporations still write policy, bank executives still get bonuses, and the rest of us are still fighting to keep our homes, pay off debt, find a job, get citizenship, make our own choices, and keep our families safe and healthy. Many of us are struggling to stay afloat.

Some of us in the 99% have taken outrage and protest directly to banks and big business and we’ve have had some wins. Corporate campaigning is indeed effective, and we should keep doing what works. Meanwhile, we also must address our deflated government and stop it from enabling ever-worse forms of corporate exploitation to take hold- not only here in the U.S., but abroad.

While we have every right to be disillusioned and skeptical, we have to take responsibility for the fact that the U.S. is driving war and destruction around the world through military romps, oil addiction, and deranged obsession with free trade at all costs. It’s time to show the 1% what democracy really looks like.

How do we create a system where it actually matters who you vote for? 

There is a reason that around the world, people have fought and even died for the right to vote. If voting didn’t matter, there wouldn’t be ongoing U.S. voter suppression issues that continue to this very day. We should trust our great grandmothers that fought so hard for this right, and honor those around the world who are still fighting.

So, let’s go for it. Occupy Our Elections. Let’s mic check media-laden debates with some real talk when talking heads are speaking for corporate funders and not for the 99%. Let’s tell politicians to spend their time in office making good policies, not fundraising for their campaigns! It’s time to go all out to fumigate corruption, pull away the smoke screens of the F.I.R.E. sector, demand accountability, utilize  transparency, and seed new, practical, short and long-term solutions.

We’ll help. Global Exchange is working on creating a toolkit where anyone anywhere can easily look up the Congressional politicians and candidates in their district and also trace their voting records on key issues. We’re researching to create a report on the Foul Five (five candidates who are the poster children for the corruption of corporate campaign contributions) and also profiling the Fair Five who are working on accountability to their constituents by not accepting finance sector contributions. We’ll be bringing the heat to bank-backed candidates on the campaign trail, and we would love for you to join us.

What else do you think we can do to Elect Democracy this year?

Join us on the streets (or online) tomorrow and unite with thousands to demand an end to corporate greed, bank bailouts, the gross income disparity destroying this planet and a shift to new alternatives for a peaceful and just society. We are the 99% who say enough is enough.

We know the facts, but seeing them together is staggering:

• Unemployment is firmly mired in the double digits and growing, while the rich remain sheltered from paying their fair share of tax on earnings and capital gains;
• The climate crisis remains unaddressed by global leaders and the U.S. Congress while President Obama contemplates whether or not to green-light the devastating Keystone XL pipeline;
• We are heading into the 10^th year of war spending (at $3 billion a week!);
• Corporations fought hard and won Citizens United and the ‘right’ to spend unlimited funds to get candidates into office;
• The wealthy (such as the Koch brothers) encourage corrupt Governors to end worker protections;
• Banks and Wall Street continue getting huge bonuses (Wall Street bonuses were on average above $125,000 per person for 2010) and bailouts while the rest of us get sold out;
• Free Trade agreements, like NAFTA, have cost the U.S. manufacturing it’s base and good jobs while in Mexico millions have lost their livelihoods. Millions of Mexicans have migrated north, while thousands of economically desperate youth back home have become victims of violence in the drug war run by the drug cartels;
• Fewer and fewer students can afford to attend college (public university costs have risen over 8% in the last year alone), and those that do, face skyrocketing debts that would have seemed unimaginable just 15 years ago; upon graduation when they don’t see any openings in their field they head straight for a “McJob” or the unemployment line.

Enough is enough.
We support our local community.
We resist injustice everywhere.
We are the 99%.

On Wednesday, our staffed office in San Francisco will take to the streets in Oakland as thousands did during the General Strike of December 3, 1946. Our Fair Trade stores in Berkeley, San Francisco and DC will be open to support artisans in the majority world and 9.9% of store income for the day will be donated to #occupyoakland and #occupydc.

Keep up to date: We’ll be using our website, blog, twitter account and facebook as a hub of information and live updates, so check them throughout the day. The good folks at Movement Generation have a great list of events posted here.

Join us as we stand in solidarity with the 99% and demand justice, people power NOT corporate power and true democracy.

Show your support – “I AM 99%” stickers are now available. Click here to order sheets of 6, calling for: Public Health, Jobs & Justice, Tax the Billionaires, End the Wars, Public Schools and Green Jobs Now.

Catch up on movement news: At Global Exchange, we’ve been posting our observations as this movement grows, as well as blogging about our participation in various marches, rallies and our recent experience in New York at #OWS.

Here’s a list of our Occupy blog posts:

• A Day in the Life of Occupy Wall Street – the Community Rights Experience
• Community Rights goes to Occupy Wall Street
• “They know precisely what they want”
• ‘Cos the Power of the People Don’t Stop
• Signs of the San Francisco Occupation
• The 99% Say Enough is Enough
• Call to Action for 10 Year Anniversary of Invasion of Afghanistan
• The 99% Demand: Occupy Wall Street! Bring Our War $$ Home!

Get Occupy Updates Sent Direct to You: Subscribe to our People to People Blog here.

Just Added! Check out our photos from the Occupy Oakland General Strike/Day of Action!

Join the sit-in this Monday, October 26!

Update: Monday Sept 26 – over 180 people were arrested for trespassing on Parliament Hill this morning including Maude Barlow, national chairperson at the Council of Canadians, Dave Coles, President of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers union and CEP Executive Assistant, Fred Wilson, Graham Saul of Climate Action Network and Mikisew Cree George Poitras. Check here for photos: CEP’s flickr photostream and Council of Canadians photostream
Thank you everyone!

On Monday, Sept 26 hundreds will gather in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, to protest the building of the Keystone XL pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico.

On the heels of the massive Tar Sands Action at the White House at the end of August, the invitation to mirror the DC action was issued by the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace Canada and the Indigenous Environment Network with a long list of expert, celebrity, organization and activist endorsements. While we in the US work to show President Obama that he has the support to stand up to the oil and gas industry and say no to the pipeline (he’s scheduled to approve the application this year), our Canadian and First Nations friends will be pressuring Prime Minister Harper to stop this massive increase in tar sands exploitation.

In August, I posted a blog with a link to a short film I helped put together called The Oil Up There. It’s worth encouraging you and others to watch it again – and remind ourselves why an expansion of the tar sands is a disaster for both people and the planet.

Daily from August 20 – September 3, hundreds of people joined the Tar Sands Action in Washington DC, where more than 1200 people were arrested at the White House in what is being called the largest act of civil disobedience in defense of the environment in US history.

James Hansen's arrest. Photo credit: Ben Powless

The DC days of action were colourful and moving and folks from all across the continent stepped up. It’s been noted that a photo of the arrest of NASA scientist James Hansen sums up the dire and immediate situation if Keystone XL goes ahead. In 1988 he testified on climate change to congressional committees about global warming and the need to take action to limit climate change. Twenty-three years later that message needs to be heard louder than ever.

This week the Canadian Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) held a briefing with Members of Parliament, calling for a reversal of the Keystone XL permit and raised questions about the apparently expired certificate approval held by TransCanada Keystone Pipeline CP Ltd, and whether President Obama thus has the ability to approve an international pipeline with an expired certificate and required National Energy Board (NEB) approval. In a letter to the NEB dated September 23, they note:

“Condition #22 to that Certificate stipulated that:
Unless the Board otherwise directs prior to 11 March 2011, this Certificate shall expire on 11 March 2011 unless construction in respect of the Project has commenced by that date.
Our understanding is that the Board made no direction prior to March 11, 2011, and that no construction in respect of the Project had commenced by that date. Accordingly, OC-56 expired on March 11, 2011, and there is no current approval that would allow TCPL to proceed further with the Keystone XL pipeline.“

Stay tuned.

To my friends in Canada, I wish I could be there with you on Monday, and thank you/meegwetch!

For those of you in Canada, visit the Ottawa Tar Sands Action web page to find out how you can get involved. Read Council of Canadians campaigner, Andrea Harden-Donahue’s, thoughts before the protest, here.

 In the U.S., the actions against the Tar Sands have not slowed. According to 350.org, the State Department is holding a number of public hearings on the proposed pipeline, and community members are being asked to attend the meetings and testify.

Get involved from wherever you are and STOP KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE.

Dozens of activists including those from Angola, Nigeria, Canada, Alaska, and the U.S. Gulf Coast traveled to San Ramon, California to attend Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting to deliver a new report: The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report. This report includes accounts by more than 40 authors and records egregious corporate behavior in locations as diverse as California, Burma, Colombia, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Outside the Chevron AGM, activists joined together to fight back in protest against the dire impacts of Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits.

Two days before Chevron’s shareholder meeting, members of communities from around the world that have been impacted by Chevron’s reckless business operations participated in a True Cost of Chevron Teach-In.

To find out more about what happened during these events, here’s info on photos, videos and press clippings for you:

PHOTOS OF CHEVRON AGM PROTEST

Check them out here on Flickr.

MEDIA CLIPPINGS

• Women Demand Environmental Justice from Chevron /Ms Magazine
• Chevron under siege at shareholder meeting in San Ramon/Mercury News
• Activists’ ‘True Cost’ report takes on Chevron/SF Gate
• Chevron critics hold protest at shareholders meeting/San Ramon Express

For more press clippings, visit our Energy Program in the News web page.

VIDEO FROM OUTSIDE THE CHEVRON AGM

Watch Videos from outside the Chevron AGM here.

Here’s one of Global Exchange Energy Program Director Antonia Juhashz:

NOW IS STILL THE TIME TO TAKE ACTION!

Get your copy of The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report. Download the report or make a $15 contribution to Global Exchange to receive a hard copy of the book.

Sign on to the petition “Leave it in the Ground: Statement against Arctic Offshore Drilling”: Please take 30 seconds to sign the petition here.

Cover of True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report

Last night I participated in an incredible event. One dozen community leaders from areas harmed by Chevron’s operations and experts from leading advocacy organizations traveled from all corners of the globe to come together as The True Cost of Chevron Network.

We exposed not only Chevron’s abuses, but also the incredible and powerful united front formed to take on the oil giant. Audience members attending the True Cost of Chevron Public Teach-in were crying, cheering, listening intently and ready to take action.

One of the 2011 True Cost of Chevron Ads

Today, we all can learn more as Global Exchange and The True Cost of Chevron Network release our third annual True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report and tomorrow we can take action at Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting.

CEO John Watson opened Chevron’s 2010 Annual Report by telling the corporation’s stockholders that “2010 was an outstanding year for Chevron.”

The communities who bear the costs of Chevron’s operations do not agree.

These communities have seen Chevron continue its long history of human rights violations, ignore longstanding decisions of Indigenous communities, destroy livelihoods, and convert dollars into unjust political influence in the United States and around the world.

This is why dozens of activists, including those from Angola, Nigeria, Canada, Alaska, and the U.S. Gulf Coast have traveled to San Ramon, California to attend Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting to deliver this new report: The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report.

The report – being released to the public today – includes accounts by more than 40 authors and records egregious corporate behavior in locations as diverse as California, Burma, Colombia, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the U.S. Gulf Coast, including new sections detailing Chevron’s pursuit of ever-riskier and ever-deeper offshore projects in the South China Sea, the North Sea, and the Canadian Arctic and its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The report also profiles the historic victory and ongoing battle over Chevron’s crimes in Ecuador.

TAKE ACTION

Get your report today. Download the report, or make a $15 contribution to Global Exchange to receive a hard copy of the book.

In the Bay Area? Join the True Cost of Chevron Network to take on Chevron at their annual shareholder meeting tomorrow, May 25th. We will come together to fight back against the dire impacts of Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits. Join us for a colorful and fun rally outside Chevron’s headquarters in support of those dozens of community leaders who will go into the meeting to demand human rights, environmental, economic and climate justice, and more.

Can’t make it to the protest? Follow updates right here on our Chevron Program blog, the Chevron Program Facebook page, and on Twitter. Also see the 2011 True Cost of Chevron Ads.

Protesting Chevron Shareholder Meeting 2010 Photo Credit: The Campaign for Justice in Ecuador

On May 25th, two days after an illuminating and informative True Cost of Chevron Teach-in, people will travel from around the world to descend on San Ramon, CA to confront Chevron at its annual shareholder meeting. They’ll come from Angola, Alaska, Ecuador, Nigeria, Indonesia, Canada, Texas, California, and more. They will all have two things in common: they all come from communities that have suffered the dire impacts of Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits, and they’re all fighting back.

You’re welcome to join a rally outside Chevron’s headquarters in support of human rights, environmental, economic and climate justice, and more.

Across the globe, Chevron’s outdated practices are putting our climate and the health of communities at great risk. That’s why it’s the focus of a growing resistance movement. By expanding, strengthening, and highlighting this movement, we are building more allies and creating a powerful advocacy base for lasting change.

Chevron Protest Information

When: Wednesday, May 25 · 7:00am – 11:00am
Where: Chevron’s World Headquarters at 6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd San Ramon, California 94583

For more information: Check out the Facebook invite

Got questions about the protest? Check out the event on Facebook first, then contact Mike G. or Tonya Hennessey if you’ve still got questions.

Can’t make it to the protest? Follow updates on this blog, the Chevron Program Facebook page, and on Twitter.

Find out why Chevron’s shareholders should say NO to offshore drilling: Global Exchange Energy Program Director Antonia Juhasz’s Huffington Post article Chevron’s Shareholders Should Say No to Offshore Drilling spells it out for you.

P.S. The third annual True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report is coming out tomorrow! This report includes accounts by more than 40 authors – led by those on the front lines of Chevron’s operations — reporting egregious corporate behavior in locations around the world. To get your copy, check back here on our blog tomorrow for ordering info.

Today, a judge in the Ecuadorian Amazon ruled that Chevron was responsible for polluting the Ecuadorean jungle and ordered Chevron to pay more than $9 billion in damages.

This ruling is in favor of the residents of Ecuador’s Amazon region who have spent the last 18 years seeking damages for crude oil pollution. Chevron has denied the allegations of environmental damage.

From San Francisco to New York and the UK, news is spreading fast about this momentous verdict.

Our friends at Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network had this to say about the ruling in a joint statement released earlier today:

As of today, Chevron’s guilt for extensive oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest is official. It is time Chevron takes responsibility for these environmental and public health damages, which they have fought for the past 18 years.

Today’s ruling in Ecuador against Chevron proves overwhelmingly that the oil giant is responsible for billions (of) gallons of highly toxic waste sludge deliberately dumped into local streams and rivers, which thousands depend on for drinking, bathing, and fishing.

Chevron has spent the last 18 years waging unprecedented public relations and lobbying campaigns to avoid cleaning up the environmental and public health catastrophe it left in the Amazon rainforest. Today’s guilty verdict sends a loud and clear message: It is time Chevron clean up its disastrous mess in Ecuador.

Today’s case is historic and unprecedented. It is the first time Indigenous people have sued a multinational corporation in the country where the crime was committed and won.

Today’s historic ruling against Chevron is a testament to the strength of the Ecuadorian people who have spent 18 years bringing Chevron to justice while suffering the effects of the company’s extensive oil contamination.

Though this ruling is in favor of the residents of Ecuador’s Amazon region, those who have worked hard to get this verdict passed acknowledge that it’s not time to celebrate, but rather, it’s time to demand that Chevron pay up. There is more work to be done, and a long road lay ahead.

Rally Tomorrow at Chevron: Help Declare “Chevron’s guilty!” at Chevron’s headquarters

Global Exchange supports the following call to action from Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network:

If you’re in the California Bay Area, please join others on Tue Feb 15th to gather at Chevron’s headquarters and declare “Chevron’s guilty!”

When: Tuesday, February 15th 11:30am
6001 Bollinger Canyon Road
San Ramon, CA
Where: You can either meet there or join the brigade at 10:00am as it departs on a bio-diesel bus near Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco.
Contact: They have limited space on the bus, so if you’d like to join, call Maria at 202-257-8061.

Chevron announced on Friday that it will withdraw from all of its coal operations by the end of 2011.

This is a crucial victory.

We began exposing Chevron’s dirty coal secret in 2009 in our first True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report.

We then reached out to those communities on the front lines of Chevron’s current and planned coal operations, who told their own stories in our 2010 Alternative Annual Report.

John Kinney of Black Warrior Riverkeeper in Alabama described Chevron’s North River Coal Mine in Berry, and its constant toxic waste polluting local ground and surface waters.

Brad Mohrmann of Powder River Basin Sierra Club in Wyoming warned of Chevron’s plans to develop the first new coal mine in the Powder River Basin area in at least a decade. The mine would sit along the Tongue River, an area of both environmental and cultural importance to the Northern Cheyenne Native American community.

Chevron already operates the giant Kemmerer Coal Mine in Wyoming, named one of the most dangerous mines in the nation by Congressman George Miller. This mine was highlighted in our “Thank you, Chevron” Ad campaign by Underground Ads (pictured below.)

Elouise Brown of Dooda Desert Rock in New Mexico wrote of Chevron’s McKinley Mine near Window Rock, 60% of which sits on Navajo land. After 40 years of constant production, the mine is now just about tapped out and concerns now abound as to how the land will be made safe from the deadly contaminants that have been polluting the community for decades.

We made Chevron’s coal operations a central part of our messaging to the press, the public, activists, advocates, policy makers, and Chevron’s shareholders, its board members, and its executives last year, including at Chevron’s Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Together, we demanded that Chevron drop its dirty coal operations – and it did.

TAKE ACTION!

Contact Chevron. Thank the company for declaring its plans to sell its coal operations by the end of the year, tell them you’ll be watching to make sure that this pledge is fullfilled, and that the company should now spread this environmental and social commitment to all of its operations.

Contact the groups fighting Chevron’s coal operations in their own communities and offer your help and support (see links above).

Get Ready! The 2011 Alternative Annual Report is in the works as are plans for Chevron’s 2011 Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Stay connected and learn more about how you can contribute in the weeks to come. Here are a few ways to connect:

• Check our website for updates
• Follow our Energy Program on Twitter
• Follow our Energy Program on Facebook!

Visit the Code Pink website for info about the next Gaza march leaving at the end of this month, and Global Exchange Reality Tours for other travel opportunities to Palestine.

—

Around 1:00 on the last day of COP16, a dozen or so activists staged an action at the Moon Palace in Cancun to protest the silencing of civil society voices by the UNFCCC. Their mouths taped over with signs reading”UNFCCC,” they locked arms in front of the escalators leading to the closed chambers where high-level negotiations were taking place.

Wearing signs saying “Global South,” “Women,” “Indigenous,” “Youth,” “No REDD,” and “Cochabamba” – a reference to the Cochabamba Peoples Agreement that was unilaterally dropped from the UNFCCC negotiating text – the group stood their ground amid an onrush of security, as Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project, Deepak Rugani of Biofuelwatch and Global Forest Coalition, and Rebecca Leonard of Focus on the Global South shouted “The UN is silencing dissent!” and other pointed political messages.

“We took this action because the voices of indigenous peoples, of women, of small island countries, of the global south, must be heard!” they shouted, as police, media and a crowd of onlookers and supporters gathered.

Nicola Bullard of Focus on the Global South, who was standing by, said, “What we see here is a group of people representing the voices that are silenced in the U.N. process. In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen the exclusion of countries of the global south,  and their proposals ignored. We’ve seen activists and representatives from civil society excluded from the meetings and actually kicked out of the UNFCCC itself. This is a symbolic action to show the delegates here that we think this process is exclusionary, that there are voices that must be heard, that there are perspectives and ideas and demands that must be included in the debates being held in this building today. These decisions are far too important to be left to politicians. We need to open this up and hear the voices of the people and the voices of the South.”

After about fifteen minutes, the activists were led out of the building by security with their arms interlocked and put on a bus that took them to the Villa Climatica, outside the Moon Palace.

Stay tuned to this Climate Justice blog for updates from Cancun and COP16. If you’re on Twitter, follow @globalexchange for related COP16 updates from Global Exchange, and use hashtag #COP16 for general COP16 tweets.