another exciting day in activistland

I lost the cord for uploading photos from my camera to my computer. When I found it again, I thought about the idea that I might actually contribute something new to my blog, but of course I didn’t get around to it. My camera is bursting at the seems, and the photos from my work related parties and my trip to the Global March in Montreal will be posted in due time.

I’ve been feeling ill, overwhelmed, and disorganized lately, Overwhelmed by what, I have no idea, but it feels like there are a hundred things hanging over my head–a thousand loose ends ready to unravel. There’s moldy bread in my cupboard, and sour milk in my fridge. I managed to do an overdue load of laundry earlier. When I took it out of the dryer, I folded everything nicely, and put it in the laundry bag. Then I brought it into my room and dumped it in a messy pile on the floor. It’s still there.

Political involvement sometimes feels a bit like the much-maligned proverbial bus. You don't do anything for ages and then you end up doing three things in one week.Last Saturday I attended an excellent organised Campaign Against Climate Change. A national demo, part of an international day of action timed to coincide with the First "Meeting of Parties" to the Kyoto Protocol taking place in Montreal. Congratulations to those on organizing a very large demonstration of 6,000. It was impressive to say the least.

The focus of this march was to demand fair resettlement and rehabilitation of our dangerous climate. I think I've suggested before that I'm not all that keen on big demos. In fact I might have put it a little stronger than that. Reservations aside, I understand that they do have a role to play in putting pressure on our so-called leaders and in lieu of anything more useful to contribute to the cause I decided to saunter along and show my face. While I hadn't planned to meet anyone in particular, I had figured if I wandered around for long enough I'd run into somebody I knew. That wasn’t the case.

Unusually for me I managed to get there early. Over an hour before the demo was due to start in fact. Unsurprisingly, there weren't many people around at that point , although the paper sellers were already out in force. This was something of a surprise, while I was aware that various socialist groups were cognoscenti of the issue of climate change, I hadn't thought it was something they approached with a great deal of enthusiasm. All grist for the mill, I suppose.

We started off around a bunch of chanting. This presented us with an unexpected chance to gauge the state of civil liberties with megaphones of fury. To be honest, I don't like megaphones. The people who end up with them are generally those who need them least, but if I have to chose between them and the police, it's not something I need to think about for very long.

We worked to recognize and give a great deal of importance to the grave violations of human dignity and to the loss of life that these occupations entail. Global Warming is a major problem, and our response shows a lack of vision, analysis, and understanding of the political economy of the contemporary world. The more important issue at stake here is the fundamental lack of solidarity of the leadership of important sections of a peace and justice movement with billions of poor people worldwide, overwhelmingly of color.

It is imperative we recognize the damage before the country starves and exploits for the profit of multinational corporations. It is equally important that we recognize that exploitation extends to the environment, and that forests are clearcut, air and water polluted, and ecosystems destroyed every day to extend economic control. The economic control of the planet for corporate profit is a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy. A failure to recognize this reality is also a serious analytical failure on the part of the peace and justice movement. This lack of vision is also self-defeating.

If the U.S is serious about ending the occupation of Iraq (and of Afghanistan, Haiti, and Palestine), a movement needs to develop and internalize an understanding of the motivations for and the roots of war and occupation. The drive for imperial control of natural resources, cheap labor, and markets has been a key part of the motivation for U.S. wars and interventions for decades (some would argue, centuries), and a peace and justice movement that has a strategic goal of not merely ending this latest war but undermining the U.S. war machine in the longer term, needs to build this understanding into its actions.

These protests should not be expected, in that us locals do the "dirty work" of logistics without having a central role in shaping the political message. We end with the observation that it would be breathtakingly arrogant on the part of the "leadership" of so-called progressive organizations to imagine that "the masses" are not ready for a sophisticated and nuanced analysis, and can think only in soundbytes and bumper sticker slogans.

We talk to our neighbours, to people we meet in our jobs, to cashiers at our neighborhood grocery stores, to cab-drivers, and to other folks. Grassroots constituencies have a far greater degree of political sophistication than the so-called leaders of the progressive movement give them credit for.

"The people" are ready for a political message that links fundamental racial, economic, and gender inequalities with similar inequalities on a global scale, and the role of maintaining these inequalities. I think the people are ready for a political message that links economic deprivation and war with global climate change and environmental destruction. They are ready to question the role of the Canadian and U.S. political and economic system in creating and perpetuating these injustices. Particularly after Hurricane Katrina, people are eager for such a message.

Are the "leaders" listening? The Mobilization for these based groups that worked on issues of global economic and social justice and sustainability believe another world is possible and necessary. We envision a world free of corporate domination and crushing debt, particularly in communities of color. We act to expose and change the institutionalized violence wrought by international financial and trade institutions.

None of which is to say that there should not be a protest against climate change, the Iraq war, or genocide on the weekend. There should be protests against these illegitimacies 365 days of the year. We hope that our march (as it continues in branches) provokes the leadership of large national organizations to engage in some reflection about how not to sacrifice longer term goals to advance short term interests.

all in all, another exciting day in activist-land.