Contributors to this DK Greenroots thread seemingly share a passion for Earth's natural systems and a deep concern that human activities are compromising the very livability of our planet. So in our "spare time" we blog about it, hoping the words will reach the hearts and minds of enough people with sufficient impact to make a difference. Do they? It's hard to know.
Another way to express this shared concern is to take direct action, sometimes referred to as non-violent civil disobedience, or NVCD. Think of Rosa Parks, Ghandi, MLK, and Edward Abbey's classic, the Monkey Wrench Gang. Sometimes, the folks putting their bodies between right and wrong - e.g. between a fragile ecosystem and harms way - get arrested and sent to jail, perhaps for trespassing, loitering, gathering without a permit, destruction of property, or accosting a police officer. If covered in the media, the story is usually told poorly: the culprits are labeled as hippies or freaks, angry miscreants or social misfits, and the perpetrators of the moral crimes being opposed are presented as victims. This post suggests one elegantly simple way to shine a new light on these acts of courage and welcomes DK readers to consider an experimental new theme: Crime Scene? vs. Crime Scenery -- a poster show.
This idea started with one of the comments on my March 23 DK Greenroots post about the Reverend Billy and his choir's creative NVCD action calling attention to the atrocities being committed by coal mining companies in West Virginia engaged in "mountaintop removal" or MTR. The commenter borrowed my photo of a formerly grand but now denuded cluster of mountains, and used freebie software to convert it into a poster with the title, CRIME SCENERY. Like this:
Cool idea! It gets the message across that, indeed, blowing up mountain ranges to mine an ancient substance for energy that when burned emits greenhouse gases harmful to the planet should be a crime. I sent the photo-turned-poster to my old friend and colleague Joe Romm who had already decided to repost the article on Climate Progress, a popular blog with an extensive national and international readership. (A personal YAY!) Romm apparently liked it so much that he pasted it right at the top of the crosspost. Later in the day, I got a friendly note from the creative commenter who goes by "thatvisionthing" who wondered if the "crime scenery" theme was worth turning into a real PR campaign, a worthy communications project.
So.... could it?
What if these posters were used to show the stark contrast between the conventional notion of a "crime scene" -- e.g. of protesters committing small crimes such as littering or loitering -- and the high moral notion of "crime scenery" depicting crimes against Nature?
The way I see it, progressives are getting beat up pretty badly, if you label people who just want to live (and ensure their grandkids can too) as progressives. People fighting to better understand and thus protect Earth's complex and quirky climate system are being called criminals and liars, thieves and Chicken Littles. For sounding alarms commensurate with the growing threat of climate change we're labeled alarmists. For making an occasional but relatively rare mistake in interpreting data we're called cheats and deceivers -- but what about the computer hackers that broke into the emails of a prominent university?? Aren't they the real criminals here? Nevertheless, audiences perversely conditioned by the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh swallow the kool-aid and bingo, public opinion polls show a sharp drop in the level of public concern over global warming. A cooling of concern, if you will.
Arggghhh! It is so much easier to throw bricks than to lay them. So much easier to attack the messenger than to have to deal with the tough message. What are we to do? We need new ways of getting the word out in ways that are bullet-proof, compelling, and effective.
Many of us are feeling the need to take more direct action to make our point, the point being that humans are pooping in our own pot, wrecking our only home, Earth, for short-term gain and long-term greed. Some of us are moved to engage in NVCD, acts of protest, motivated by a sense of urgency and responsibility to stop the madness, before it stops us.
So you have Rev Billy taking a road trip to West Virginia to pick up dirt to deliver to the financiers of "strip mining on steroids" -- willing to commit a small crime to expose a much, much bigger one. So the twin poster opposing the CRIME SCENERY poster looks like this:
The narrative:
CRIME SCENE?: A pile of dirt placed intentionally on a bank floor to send a clear message of MTR disapproval to Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Is it a crime? The cops seem to be asking themselves that very question. It just might be, after all, protesters have been arrested just for hanging banners, something seemingly as innocent.
CRIME SCENARIO: A lovely little forested mountain range, home to dozens of species of fuzzy and furry little critters, interlaced by thriving cool water streams, raped and exploded and sterilized to get at enough coal to power a few more neighborhoods for a little while longer....at what cost to society? What about the folks who called that home, country roads and all?
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So... if this fun, thought-provoking exercise were to be replicated for other NVCD actions of a similar nature, you might have the following twin posters:
CRIME SCENE?: Prominent scientist Jim Hansen getting arrested with actress Daryl Hannah to protest the same damn thing: mountaintop removal!!! (photo source)
CRIME SCENERY: More denuded mountains.
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A note to my fellow greenie Kossacks, anyone want to join in? Make your own sets of twin posters? If so, here's the link to the cool little poster-making tool, with a tip-o-the-hat to thatvisionthing --
http://wigflip.com/...
... and if you're in need ideas for NVCD actions to highlight, feel free to get in touch. I might know some folks. :)