Six Days to the Great Climate March

This week, with a runner up of just six days to the Great Climate March of Sept. 20, I hope to stress that, while Capitalism, and the governing Capitalist notion of unlimited growth has gotten us where we find ourselves today, yet another thread of our emergency articulates itself in the mass migrations and wars we are seeing world-wide in both hemispheres where drought, and resulting food shortages, and starvation have forced people to violently oppose their governments—the self-immolation of Mohamed Boazizi which provoked the “Arab Spring,” the drought that provoked the war in Syria, 

Migration forced by drought

the hopelessness which prompts inflatable dingy after dingy to founder in the Mediterranean as migrants risk their lives fleeing drought-ridden Africa, and the pressures forcing migrations from Central America to risk the infamy of U.S. immigration policies of family separation and the removal of children, some of them infants, from their mother’s arms.

In the face of our new reality I want to interrogate the very concept of “borders” and the concept of “nations”: the world is no longer what it was; willingly or not, systems will have to change to reflect that fact. Borders, and the concept of borders can no longer apply in a world where in 2017  world estimates of migration reached 258 million. And, whereas U.S. immigration policy has always been deeply motivated by racism favoring immigrants from Northern Europe, with climate collapse such policies are obsolete.

 

Activism

This week I joined some 200 persons whose monthly vigil outside ICE headquarters was hosted by the Buddhist communities of The San Francisco Zen Center, and Green Gulch Center of Marin County. Its tone emphasized acknowledgement for the pain and dehumanization brought about by ICE policies both to all migrants, including children, and to ourselves. Its program states, “Our tradition teaches that no thing or person exists independently — that in every moment, all beings are supported by one another to live and thrive.”  As demonstrators were led in meditation, they chanted 

“May we be attentive and gentle towards our own discomfort and suffering, May we move towards the suffering of others with attentive compassion and confidence.”  Possibly it was that very same confidence that culminated in a walking meditation, a “circumambulation” that required participants to take over both intersections of Sansome Street at Washington  and Jackson Streets.

September 20 actions are planned throughout the United States.  Many more intersections need to be blocked. To become part of “one great wave throughout the world” (as St. John Perse wrote)  go to https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/us-climate-strikes?source=moveon&referrer=group-moveon

enter your zip code to find a climate action near you.

California outlaws private prisons including ICE facilities.

Highlighting number of years left to save Earth, Greta Thunberg joins 11 minute die-in outside White House.

Challenging Biden in Iraq War vote, Sanders denounces Bloated Trump Pentagon budget during Democratic “debate.”

California Public Banking Alliance announces the Public Banking Act has passed the California State legislature.

The Post 9-terrorism “watch list” of more than one million judged unconstitutional.

With Bolton gone, peace with North Korea may be possible.

Amazon workers plan to climate strike, calling for Amazon to commit to zero emissions by 2030, cancel the company’s custom contracts that accelerate gas and oil extraction, and cease funding climate-denying politicians and lobbyists.

 

After shutting down Houston Ship Channel to protest oil exports as Democratic candidate arrived for “debate,” Greenpeace Houston activists have been released from custody.