Activists in the midwest will converge in St. Louis beginning this Friday to demand economic justice through direct action. Will you join our stuggle?
The article below is reprinted with permission of the author, Chris Singer.
So many of us in the Saint Louis community spend so much of our lives working towards a more just and sustainable city. Whether this is through fighting against the tide of what exists already that must be changed or stopped, or through creation of infrastructure and new spaces coming from a vision of the world in which you'd like to live.
The seemingly disparate issues we work across more often than not have a common thread that links us together: the sapping away of influence and means into the hands of a very privileged and powerful few. Among those elected to national office, concern for the public good either doesn't seem to exist, or is constricted to the point of being negligible. The interests of elected officials at every step of the ladder all the way up to the highest office in the land are more reflective of their corporate sponsors then their public constituencies.
Corporate influence is seen in the stripping away of union bargaining power, opening huge swaths of land for coal and natural gas extraction, picking a superstar monoculture of the year at the expense of actually growing real food, or bailing out the most concentrated and powerful financial institutions ever (while in the same breath blaming the victims of their practices for getting kicked out of their homes). This list can go on, but it's exasperating enough as it is.
All the while we’re told that this is in our best interests because it's just the way the world has to work and you’re either naive or just plain stupid if you think otherwise. And often it does feel inevitable, that this truly is the way things have to be. This is in fact how the world works and how could it be otherwise?
How do you expect to power everything? How do you expect to feed everyone? Who’s going to give you a loan when you need it? Who's going to arm your soldiers or build your drones to blow up enough terrorists so that you aren't constantly terrified? How are you going to bring light and hope to the impoverished of the world? How will you ever retain your freedoms?
Valid questions, for the most part, and all that have fabulously perfected answers right on the tip of many a CEO’s tongue. Such answers range from plausible at first glance to obviously catastrophic to anyone without a corporate jet to fly one away to safety. The answers from these corporations all boil down to basically one premise: get out of our way, you’re blocking the path to progress that we are bulldozing through this earth. Give us more of what we need and we’ll set things right, the way God intended. Nearly half the nationally elected officials in this, the most powerful country that has ever existed, absolutely agree. That’s the way things have to be so best to get used to it ...
... OR! You say to "hell with that!" Because you see how the world is functioning right now is crazy and it absolutely must stop. Because you realize that while the world may function in idiotic ways, it does not, in fact, have to. Because it hasn’t always worked this way, and the sooner it gets in line with some semblance of reality the better. Thankfully there are plenty of people like yourself who are either willing or are already working on either pushing back against the onslaught of corporate influence or creating things and spaces in such a way as to diminish the capacity for corporate influence altogether. Whether you're out there creating barter circles, starting bike co-ops, taking the fight to your capital building, taking the fight to the streets, growing your own food, creating community gardens and other community spaces ... these are all key pieces in developing a more just and sustainable world.
Of the many lessons to be learned from the recent Wisconsin protests, a really textbook example of the influence of corporate power and thought, is this: it was not enough. More people and more ideas are needed. This can come from working across our different issues to find the common causes within them. This can come from having a shared vision. We can't work in isolation in the sometimes narrow scope of our own work, important thought it may be. We can’t solar cell and wind-turbine our way into paradise and we most certainly won't be led there by any President whose first priority is to a system that places profit at the very heart of human existence and the grotesque financial system that keeps it afloat at whatever cost.
The Convergence is meant to bring all sorts of people together who see the value in uniting and better understanding how our struggles are not as disparate as they might seem. To understand what does a sustainable and just world look like and not just through one set of eyes. Environmental and social justice activists, low-income and workers rights advocates, immigrant and indigenous rights advocates ... all will be present because all have their experiences and visions for what we're working towards to share.
We will be looking at the intersections between oppression, economic and environmental justice, and the need for direct action and organizing to address these concerns. The Convergence will be 4 days of workshops, trainings, discussion, and direct action targeted at understanding and changing the institutions that threaten the future of the planet we live on. We hope to see you there!
For more information and ways to get involved see go the the conference website. The goals are described as:
During the heat of summer, 300 environmental justice and climate activists and 300 grassroots low income community members are converging in St. Louis for four action-packed days that could change the organizing equation in the Midwest. Climate justice and social justice activists are coming together to fight back against corporate power, engage in creative direct action, and envision a more sustainable world.
Objectives: It is important to realize that this convergence occupies a space that many people on the left identify the need for, but are unsure of how to approach. We identify our key objectives, why they are important, and how we seek to actualize them:
1. Creating a space that brings together different forces on the left: Economic justice and environmental movements have been separated from each other historically although both movements have common enemies. Because environmental movements have traditionally been disproportionately represented by white activists with class privilege, they have often failed to draw significant attention to the obvious connection between wide-scale exploitation of and disregard for natural resources and the exploitation and oppression of people. In order to begin to address privilege and oppression within our movements we will prioritize the voices and experiences of people of color and low-income people.
2. Developing a shared analysis of the moment and vision: Corporate interests and the right-wing agenda are on the attack and to imagine a movement powerful enough to reckon with these forces we must move beyond single-issue campaigns that are too easily framed as “special interests” and find a common ground that allows us isolate and call out corporate interests and develop a shared vision for a different world. Understanding the intersectionalities of our struggles allows us to build a more unified movement. We will both draw upon the knowledge of movement leaders and create together collective visions.
3. Grassroots organizing and base building training: Grassroots organizing and outreach are necessary for growing our movement and getting to the scale. We will engage in grassroots organizing trainings on 1-1s and door-knocking. In order to ground these trainings in work that is real, we will direct participants to plan out the 1-1s that will carry their group’s work forward and partner with a local community group to door-knock in targeted communities with a message that moves that group’s work forward.
4. Increased urgency and engagement in direct action: Direct action raises the level of urgency publicly and sows the seeds for the level of resistance it is going to take to see a movement take root, while directly challenging powers that be. We will conduct intensive trainings in direct action and root these in the actions we take together. MORE has organized direct action in St. Louis that targets big banks for more than a year, creating the public outrage that has led locally to dozens of individual homes being saved, increased willingness of banks to work with service agencies, and the drafting of local policy that would force hold banks to higher standard. Actions will advance this campaign and lay groundwork for local participation in national days of resistance planned for fall. Climate Action, a local group, and national groups like Rising Tide have been targeting coal companies for their role in climate change. Locally direct actions have focused on Peabody Coal. Headquartered in St. Louis, it is the world’s largest coal company. Locally we have been successful in pushing for $10 million in tax breaks to Peabody to be taken back, and see the possibility for actions that would further our local work and national campaigns against coal.
See you in St Louis!