Category: Direct Action

USA Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline

Yesterday saw two very effective protest movements in the USA, one was in regards to SOPA/PIPA and the other saw the Obama administration reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

There are also concerns about carbon emissions from oil sands production in Alberta, a western Canadian province.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, a group that has protested the Keystone XL project, praised President Obama for taking a stand against the “fossil fuel lobby”.

“This isn’t just the right call, it’s the brave call,” Mr McKibben said in a statement.

The legislature of Nebraska passed a measure requiring state approval of any route before TransCanada could start construction.

The pipeline would also pass through the US states of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The White House had tried to postpone a final decision on the project until after the 2012 presidential election.

But during a congressional impasse on a payroll tax holiday in December, Republicans forced the Obama administration to agree to make a decision on the pipeline within two months.

Read more at the BBC

Greenpeace (amongst many others) is now asking Canadians to help them stop the next threatening pipeline the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Why We Went Down Yesterday

Yesterday you probably noticed that most of your favourite websites were down yesterday or had a notice up warning you about two bills in front of the American government. Those bills are SOPA and PIPA and essentially if these bills pass the internet would be all but dead to American citizens and beyond!

Here’s a video by the Kahn Academy explaining the bills:

So why is this on a website dedicated to good news? Here’s why:

Never forget that when people work together stupid policies and backwards thinking from old corporate powers (who are being replace by new and better technical solutions) can be stopped! Just look at how people also stopped the Keystone XL pipeline!

Occupy 2012 and Beyond

Megan Boler has an inspirational article on The Mark about the coming year in the Occupy Movement.

She did research into the Occupy Movement and interviewed many participants to see what some people are still wondering – what’s occupy all about? Well, Boler points out that at the core there is a commonality between all the occupiers: they want a fairer, more equitable, inclusive, and most of all a more respectful world.

Here’s one of Boler’s key points:

4. We are seeing an intergenerational and international social movement grounded in creative dialogue across diverse groups.

The diversity of age, social class, education, religion, and economic status found in protesters around the world (including within the Occupy movement) offers great hope. The global protests bring together the wisdom of veteran organizers and the energy and technological skills of the younger generation. At every Occupy site and march that I have attended, I have witnessed dialogue taking place between hundreds of unlikely conversants – homeless people talking to men in suits, black women conducting consciousness-raising workshops in the commons for diverse and rapt audiences, older people talking to the young – as people discuss solutions for a sustainable economy and environment. Occupy’s success in introducing new concepts – such as the “99%” and “economic justice” – into our political lexicon results directly from the public spaces of unprecedented dialogue. Reading online comments and Twitter feeds, one discovers thousands of strangers engaged in serious deliberation. The dream of a public commons where genuine democratic conversation takes place has, for many, come true.

Read the full article at The Mark.

Just Show Up

People often say to me “Why go to protests? They don’t change anything.” Usually my response relates to the necessity of an actively engaged population within a democracy. If we’re not on the streets asking for change then change won’t happen. The usually response to that is a lame excuse that we can’t change the institutionalized systems.
occupy
We can and we do.

If 2011 has taught us anything it’s that being on the streets matter. Talking politics matters. Talking about injustice matters. Telling friends why you’re protesting something matters. Voting matters. Writing politicians matters. It all matters.

Not going to protests and not talking about these things ensures that change will not happen. If anything, if people aren’t involved then the change that happens is usually the change that isn’t good for society.

So let’s change things for the better. Let’s do this because we can and because we need to.

Looking back on 2011 we have seen a near-global awakening of people-powered movements that come in a different form everywhere. We’ve heard a lot about Egypt and Libya in the west but there have been more. Some are still ongoing in Syria, Bahrain, and many other Middle Eastern countries. Closer to home in North America we have the Occupy Movement.

All of these movements have different concerns, different people, different reasons why they are on the street. They even have different goals.

There is one thing that they all have in common from Occupy Sydney to the oppressed people of Bahrain: to make the world a better place through democratic inclusion.

Who can’t get behind that?

For the upcoming year of 2012 I challenge every reader of Things Are Good to get out there and just show up at your local protest for positive change.

The Arab Spring initiated a jarring series of events in 2011 that illustrate the radical political possibilities of just being present. When the regime won’t listen, when being heard as an individual isn’t really a viable option, simply standing together and being seen can be profoundly political and empowering.

But will just “being there” really bring significant change?

Revolutions never happen overnight. They result from accumulations of dozens, even hundreds of moments, often stretching over a period of years, that make possible the ruptures that emerge when vast numbers of people begin to imagine, and then to demand, an alternative to their living conditions. We have been seeing these moments over the past year, first in the Middle East but then spreading to England, Brazil, Spain, Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere. In this sense, we are experiencing a revolutionary moment in which the popular perception of what is possible has indisputably shifted in a way unseen on a global scale since 1968.

The Radical Power of Just Showing Up.