So at some point this year the President is going to ask us to step up to support his push to do something about climate DISRUPTION.  And we gotta be ready when that happens! 

Currently this movement follows only a couple leaders, and apparently  they don’t have the resources to drum up actions more than a couple times a year.  SO, we all need to use our own creativity, resources, and friends to step in and come up with our own Nonviolent Actions.   So you’re gonna need to know all the nonviolent weapons at your disposal!

In Gene Sharp’s book The Methods of Nonviolent Action, he outlines 198 different methods.
Here’s the list.  Good lord!  Those are just a bunch of words!  Just reading that list is kind of a useless exercise for nonviolent activists.

That’s why Sharp included 300 pages worth of examples of each and every one of them, which gives you a much more tangible feel of how these things work…and a lot of them could work for the climate movement!

Today, we’ll look at Method #1: Public Speeches.

Now, lots of times public speeches are lame!  The Serbian resistance movement Otpor decided right from the get-go that their movement wasn’t gonna do speeches! 

But they can work.  It depends on who’s giving the speech and when and where. 

For instance, if you stand on a street corner and give a speech about climate change, it’s not likely to be effective.

BUT, if you’re, President Obama, and you go on at length about climate change in your 2nd inauguration speech, that would qualify as surprising and therefore effective. 

I mean, everyone was like “Holy crap, he talked more about climate change than anything else!  My God, he really means to do something about it!”

It was also big news when mayor Bloomberg endorsed Obama after Hurricane Sandy hit his city.  It depended on the moment!

One of the guys Gene Sharp talks about was a Catholic Priest in Nazi Germany named Bernard Lictenberg who told his congregation that he wished to share the fate of the Jews who were being sent off to concentration camps.  That was brave.  And the Nazis did send him off to Dachau, and he did share their fate.  But thousands and thousands of people were dying, and he did the only thing he could.

Now, no minister in America is gonna get killed if they speak to their congregations for action on climate change, but a lot of people in those congregations do NOT believe in it and do NOT want to hear about it.  So it would be a great moral stand for a member of the clergy to do that.

Also, Republican politicians would be really brave and would have an eye-opening impact if they stood up in favor of action.  You know they can’t ALL believe climate change is just a hoax. 

I mean they got kids and grandkids and they need to do the right thing for them.  They don’t want those grandkids to one day say “Yeah, grampa was a senator but I don’t want to talk about him”
“Why not?”
“He was a climate denier dirtbag!” 
“Oh, that’s horrible!  Now America is a dried up wasteland”.
“I KNOW!  Stupid grandpa!”

Seriously that’s how they’re gonna be remembered.  (Polar bears already talk about ‘em like that.  It’s brutal!)

So public speeches can work depending on who gives the speech and when and where. 

Tomorrow we’ll talk about Method Number 2: Letters of Opposition or Support.

“Oh wow!  He’s gonna talk about correspondence!  Can’t wait!”

Well tune in anyway, we all need to learn all these methods.


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Pete Rates Movement Names Throughout History

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What to Think About While Organizing Organizations

           Day 9 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

I have some experience with both well-run and poorly run climate organizations.

A little more than a year ago I was working for a climate organization where nothing worked.  Meetings and conferences never went off as planned, nothing got done on time, and no one was in the loop about what the executive director’s agenda was.  I certainly wasn’t, and there weren’t that many of us.

On the other hand, in April of 2011 I attended the PowerShift conference in D.C.  It was the largest organizer training in history, and it was very well-organized.  Over the course of a weekend, people were able to meet other activists from their own regions, learn effective organizing techniques, brainstorm on solutions, and also have fun!  (The only thing they don’t do right is they don’t hold their conventions in election years, which would provide a great springboard for a summer of organizing and activism.  Instead, over a year passes between the conference and the next campaign season, by which time the conference is a distant memory and attendees have scattered to the winds.)

As PowerShift demonstrated, a good organization provides a framework to make people work more effectively.  Bad organization provides no framework and people end up leaving. 

Last Sunday 60 Minutes did an excellent segment on  IDEO’s David Kelly, who’s design company builds on the ideas of many people.  It could be a great model for a really powerful climate movement.  The movement needs to be creative and democratic, it needs to be outspoken and not secretive about it’s strategies, it needs to encourage initiative, and must have unwavering commitment to nonviolent principles.

That’s what PowerShift’s convention did.  Their framework created a place for ideas to form and grow.  Otpor did it in Serbia, allowing complete freedom for activists so long as they kept the focus on ending Milosevic’s reign and as long as it was nonviolent.  Earth Guardians is attempting to provide the creative structure for youth environmental activists in the U.S. and abroad.

But time and thought need to go into the organizational framework so that the organization will easily grow in the right direction.

In Waging Nonviolent Struggle, Sharp shows four categories where organization is necessary:

-       “The public: publicizing the facts and grievances; promoting sympathy; disseminating solid information about the nature and requirements of nonviolent struggle."

This is huge for us, not just publicizing how serious of a crisis climate change is, but also how effective nonviolent struggle can be!

-       "The volunteers: recruiting; training and incorporating participants into the movement; promoting commitment."

The CANVAS website gives more details on how to recruit and train.  Otpor had an action, recruit, train triangle, where street actions doubled as recruitment opportunities.  The new recruits would then be trained, and would often themselves be doing the next street actions.

-       "The leadership: preparing replacements for arrested leaders of the movement; setting the procedures for further selection of leadership; supplying information to the leaders."

Again, I personally think this movement would be stronger with many leaders empowered to lead fun groups in their towns.  It would make it very hard for the fossil fuel industry to effectively combat us.

-      "The movement in general: supporting morale and discipline; preparing participants to act without leaders in times of severe repression; maintaining communications.”

A big thing we need is simple morale, a belief that we can indeed save the day before it's too late.

In The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Sharp concludes: “Strong commitment of the volunteers to participation and adherence to the campaign’s plans and standards remain crucial...In preparing the volunteers and the general population for the struggle, extreme attention must be given to three closely related qualities of this technique: fearlessness, nonviolence, and…openness or nonsecrecy.”

CH   

Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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The Need for a Phased Strategy and Cause Consciousness

        Day 6 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “Nonviolent action…participants are able to advance their cause in proportion to the degree that the opponent’s desire and ability to maintain the objectionable policy are weakened, and that the nonviolent group is able to generate the will and power to give it the internal strength  to effect the change.  The skillful choice of the point of attack is important in this connection.”

         We Pissed-Off Polar Bears saw the 2012 election, on the heels of this disastrously hot summer, as a breathtaking opportunity to get a lot of people talking about climate change and demanding action.  We considered an international treaty to be the best, fastest framework for change (still do), so we wanted to elect as many climate-friendly senators as possible to ratify such a treaty.  The rest of the movement did not show up for the fall campaigns at all, so our strategic thinking was for naught.

         Bill McKibben, in fact, started his Do the Math campaign the day after the election.  As best as I can tell, the divestment campaign he’s calling for are designed to hurt industry’s bottom line (although some doubt that it will have that effect), and to attack a key fossil fuel weakness: they’re jeopardizing young people’s entire futures.  This could, in fact, weaken industry’s ability to maintain the objectionable policy by rousing a lot of protest on campuses across the country.

Sharp:  “The planners choose the point of attack…which symbolizes the “evil” which is least defensible by the opponent and which is capable of arousing the greatest strength against it.  Success in such limited campaigns will in turn increase the self-confidence of the actionists and their ability to move effectively toward the fuller achievement of their larger objectives as they gain experience.”

         We Pissed-Off Polar Bears had a “staged campaign” in mind, but we couldn’t get past the first hurdle, getting the movement on it’s feet, so we’re back to square one:  How to get a movement up and at ‘em.  Whether McKibben or Gore or any other organization in the movement has a staged campaign in mind is unknown to me.  It would actually help the movement quite a bit if they could come out with an overall plan.  I, for one, am not comfortable just assuming that they are with the fate of the world at stake.  They haven’t had one before now, why should we assume they’ve got one now?

Sharp:  “It is necessary to publicize the facts, the issues and the arguments advanced by the nonviolent group…The need for such a period of motivational preparation has been long recognized as important to a well-supported and sustained nonviolent movement.  For example, in 1769, in correspondence with George Washington…his neighbor James Mason argued it would be necessary to publish ‘something…to warn the people of the impending danger and to induce them to the more readily and cheerfully to concur in the proper measures to avert it.'”

         Here’s where Bill McKibben and Al Gore have done a better job than anyone else in the movement.  Still, though, as a society we’re a long way away from completely coming to grips with how bad climate change could be. It’s very important that this movement does a much better job of publicizing the worst-case scenarios, which most Americans are completely unaware of (because they get no air-play), and which happen to be highly plausible, by the way.

Sharp:  “Inform the public in general of the grievances, encouraging people to feel that nonviolent action is needed to correct them, and finally to enlisting participants for the coming struggle.  A very important part of this activity is aimed at arousing the feeling that something can and ought to be done.”

         People who think that the president will handle it don’t understand how little political will there is to implement something on a scale that will be necessary to really make a dent in the advance of climate change. Nonviolent action, in the streets on a massive scale, is the only thing that will create that kind of political will. 

Sharp:  “A properly conducted journal can be of immense help in such a campaign…’Cause consciousness’ must be placed on quality rather than speed or quantity, and strict efforts must be made to avoid exaggerations, distortions, or falsehoods.  Neither should feelings of hatred or intolerance be aroused…’Many people are only looking for an excuse not to support the movement.’”

         With the need for action on climate change being so urgent, it’s tempting not to put anything before speed, but nonviolent action is most effective because it can work so quickly.  Remember what Ivan Marovic of Otpor said, “If it is carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks”.  

CH   

Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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To Make the Climate Movement Great, We Need to Cast Off Our Fear

Day 2 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who wants to help save our life-support system. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “Nonviolent action is not a safe means of struggle; there is no such thing.   People are liable to be hurt and to suffer in various ways, including economic loss, physical injury, imprisonment, and even death….There are, of course, risks in passivity.”

         Like, for instance, having the world overheat to the point that rivers run dry and civilization can’t feed itself.

Sharp: “A high degree of courage is required of nonviolent actionists.”

         There are those in the movement who think we can win with “slacktivism”.  That somehow by clicking “like” on a facebook page people are doing their bit to help defeat the forces of industry.   These people are steeped in the old paradigms activists have been using, unsuccessfully, for the past thirty years.  Until people really start putting themselves on the line, this movement will continue to be ineffectual.

Sharp:  “The coward seeks to avoid the conflict and flees from danger, the nonviolent actionist faces the conflict and risks the dangers involved in pursuing it honorably.  ‘Cowardice is impotence worse than violence,’ concluded Gandhi.

“The nonviolent actionist must have confidence in the right and strength of his cause, in his principles, and in his technique of action.”

         That should not be hard, when you’re attempting to save the world.

Gandhi:  “The Government takes advantage of our fear of jails.”

         In America, businesses refrain from hiring people who have any kind of a criminal record.  Think of it, fighting to save the world can give you a “criminal” record.  We cannot be afraid of that! We can not let a system designed to do something else work against our saving the future for everyone, including the very businesses that supposedly won’t be hiring us. 

In his Do the Math tour, Bill McKibben correctly pointed out that older Americans, especially tenured professors, can be the first ones to be arrested, jail fodder, as it were.  But younger Americans can make a great statement by fearlessly being willing to risk jail.  During the Freedom Rides, Mississippi’s jails became flooded with idealistic young people from all over the country who flocked to the state to take on segregation laws, until Mississipi’s system couldn’t handle it anymore and the Freedom Riders won a change in the unjust laws.  During the Otpor struggle, it became a point of pride to be arrested, as it was in Montgomery, Alabama, during the bus boycotts.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom.”

We can’t be afraid of jail guys, just remember to be nice to the police, we’re fighting for their futures too.

Sharp:  “Gandhi repeatedly emphasized the importance of this inner psychological change from fear and submission to fearlessness and self-respect as a necessary prerequisite of real political freedom… Gandhi wrote: ‘We have to dispel fear from our hearts.’…Also, participation in nonviolent action often seems to lead to a loss of fear….

         “Courage in this technique is not simply a moral virtue; it is a practical requirement…Courage is required if the nonviolent struggle is to…lead to the increasing strength of the nonviolent group and an undermining of the opponent’s power.”

Rachel pointed out in her Save Face or Save the Planet post that the biggest roadblock we in the movement face is simply putting ourselves out there, for the world to see, as very visible activists.  That does take courage. Don’t hide behind “slacktivism”.  Get fearless and get active.

CH   

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action. You can order it HERE.

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If the Climate Movement isn't Going to Act with a Sense of Urgency, How can We Expect Anyone Else to?

It’s New Year’s Day, 2011 in Cairo.  President Hosni Mubarak awakens to a gorgeous dawn and another year of power, with no end in sight.  

Forty-one days later his 30 year reign is over and the Egyptian Revolution is complete.

Nonviolent movements can happen fast.

Memo to the climate movement: If you’re operating on a five-year plan: you’re doing it wrong. 

First of all, who says we have five years to spare?  The climate is unravelling fast, way ahead of even the worst projections (anyone remember when they said the polar ice cap would be gone by 2100?  Now they’re saying as early as 2020).  I know two leaders of the climate movement who have given up hope, despairing that it’s already too late to stop the natural feedback loops from kicking in.  The truth is no one knows, but it’s foolish to assume we can take our time here.

Second, if the climate movement isn’t going to act with any sense of urgency, how can we expect anyone else to?  I’m SO DISAPPOINTED that they didn’t show up en masse after the scorching summer to make the crisis a major issue in the elections.  It was ripe for the picking.  This is a failure of leadership.  Many people are desperate to do something about climate, but the leaders of the movement didn’t react to the situation staring them in the face to create action on the issue NOW.  They were too busy, no doubt, with their five-year plans.  The movement didn’t act with a sense of urgency, and – shocker! – no one else has.

Finally, nonviolent movements can happen fast.  First, though I know he wasn’t nonviolent, consider the words of The Art of War’s Sun Tzu, who wrote “Though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been associated with long delays”.  Now update that with these words of a co-leader from a nonviolent movement, Ivan Marovic of Serbia’s Otpor: “If it is carefully planned, by the time they start it is over in a matter of weeks.”

Americans are basically contented, and don't give a lot of thought to the climate tsunami racing toward us.  But if we don't act fast, the whole world is in for a world of hurt.

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My Favorite Movement – Part 1

At his Do the Math tour, Bill McKibben talks about how people need to engage in “the hard work” of organizing and that it will be "kind of a slog…the most important slog ever”.

Who wants to sign up for a slog?

Besides, we need to push governments to act on climate change as soon as possible, WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR A SLOG!

You want to build a real movement?  Look to Otpor, the Serbian movement that started with 8 students in a coffee shop and ended less than two years later with the ousting of a dictator.

They were “the only movement in Serbia that tried to make political activity light, hip and fun,,” writes Tina Rosenberg in her excellent book Join the Club.  Said Otpor activist Slobodan Homen “For us it was a great party all the time.”

Here’s a passage from Join the Club: 

“Otpor’s leaders realized that to keep volunteers happy, they needed to feel responsible and important, that their work and achievement really mattered.  They also needed to be constantly busy, not sitting around and waiting for instructions from above.  So while the central organization set overall strategy, each cluster decided how to carry it out and how to best use local talent.  Volunteers were trained in Otpor methods and the principles of nonviolent struggle and then set loose to be the movement in their towns or neighborhoods.  It was…an animal with no central brain; each finger contains the whole idea….

“Activists had to only follow two rules.  Every Otpor action had to be aimed at Milosevic.  And it had to be nonviolent….  Follow the two rules and anything was permissible….

“You could write your own script for street theater, create whatever props you needed, and stage any action, no matter how goofy.  You could design your own leaflet and propose designs for more expensive-to-print stickers and posters, which would receive serious consideration from the marketing team.  You could put up stickers and posters wherever you wanted.  You could recruit anyone you wanted and organize your high school the way you wanted.  ‘If you were anti-Milosevic and nonviolent, you could go naked with “Otpor’ painted on your chest and we wouldn’t denounce you, we wouldn’t say you weren’t Otpor.’ Said (co-leader) Milja Jovanovic.  ‘Our job was to say yes,’ said Stanko Lazendic, one of Otpor’s leaders in Novi Sad.

“If you wanted to, you could become a hero.  You could be an Otpor spokesperson and appear in all the opposition media, or you could…wallpaper your neighborhood and run from the police, heart pounding.  If you didn’t run fast enough, then you would be arrested – but when you finally got out of the police station late at night, a crowd of supporters would be cheering you and you could get your picture in the paper for all your friends to see the next day.

“You were never a part of anything, and you feel all of a sudden that you’re part of something.”

Slog schmog!  Let's make the Climate Movement a PARTY!


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Novel and Brilliant Street Theater Would Translate to Climate Protests PERFECTLY!

I love flashmobs and I love Improv Everywhere.  They flooded into a Manhattan Best Buy, 87 people wearing blue polo shirts and khaki pants, the standard outfit of Best Buy employees.  The store manager called the police but the cop said "I'm not going to arrest them for wearing blue shirts and khaki pants".  They also got 207 people to freeze in place in Grand Central Station for five full minutes, only to then causally unfreeze and go about their business.  As that was happening, a bystander speculated "I think it's a protest".

It wasn't but why not do protests that way?  We Pissed-Off Polar Bears conjured up our "Going Away Party for FLORIDA!" at the RNC and a "fully-catered" hunger strike at the DNC called "A Taste of Things to Come: Famine Practice!".  It ended up being just me and her at both events, but imagine how great it would have been if more activists had been willing to have more fun with their protesting?

When I first became a climate activist I was very big on creating autonomous "dens" all over the country, where activists could come up with their own ideas.  My climate partner at the time chafed at the idea, but I still think it's the right way to go.  Not all ideas out there will be great, but if more people are creating more ways to protest, we're bound to come up with some great stuff.  The Otpor movement in Serbia was big on this, people could do any protests they wanted as long as the protests were targeted at Slobodan Milosevic and as long as the protests were nonviolent.  We could do the same thing, requiring nonviolent actions, but substituting Milosevic with the fossil fuel industry and the climate deniers that keep them propped up.

You got an idea?  You don't think the climate movement is doing enough?  Come up with your own groups and your own actions and send us videotape so we can promote it.  Just be sure your actions are completely nonviolent, which includes not damaging property.  We'd also prefer if they were funny!  Our email is PeteThePissedOffPolarBear@gmail.com.

Climate Monday - The Need for an EVERY DAY Movement

In November of 2010, a climate ally of mine went to the fantastically-named (NOT!) "Pricing Carbon Conference" in Connecticut. The usual leaders of the climate movement were panelists, and over a long weekend conference-goers were continually hammered with just how bad this looming catastrophe will be.

On Sunday afternoon questions were opened to the audience, and a young woman got up and said "I get it!  I can see how serious this is!  I'm ready to do whatever it takes to stop this!  But what can I do?  Where can I go?  Where can I go MONDAY?"

The panelists had no answer.

This movement will never get anywhere unless people start devoting themselves to this FULL TIME.  Lots of people can--retirees, young people who haven't yet joined the workforce or who have parents who can support them (don't scoff, the 8 leaders of Serbia's Otpor, who led a movement that overthrew a dictator, were all twenty-somethings who were supported by their parents during the two-year struggle), unemployed and under-employed people, professionals who can take a sabbatical, etc.

Even if, like most people, you can't work on this full-time, you can devote evenings and weekends to the cause!

Nothing is more important, guys!  Let's not look back on this in the decades to come (which should be increasingly dire if the climate continues to precipitously unravel) and think "What was I thinking?!"

Otpor's leaders decided that they had to do this full-time.  They also quickly learned there always had to be something to do or people would stop showing up.  So as a movement we should appreciate what they were able to accomplish and learn from their success!

There's much to be done, of course, but it's all doable and there are templates out there (which I'll be sharing in future posts) that will help us pull this off.

But don't think you can just sit back and wait for President Obama or Bill McKibben to do this.  Part of why they're not pushing for immediate action is they require a vibrant and active movement to make change happen, and we haven't got that yet.  So YOU have to get serious and take matters into your own hands!  Open up your home, find a donated office space, join or create a MeetUp group, or whatever, to start a local nonviolent campaign where activists can create a kick-ass community where there's always something to do and people are always pushing nonviolently to save our futures.

So hopefully soon, when people ask "Where can I go and what can I do?", you can tell them "Come to our place, we have plenty of stuff to do!"


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Pete's 1st Podcast/Vlog: The Climate Movement Needs to Nut Up!

Pete the Pissed-Off Polar Bear's first message, about the climate movement and how it needs to change!

(Pete intends to do this every Sunday, and hopefully in the future with pictures, but the bottom line is to post something funny, even if it's just a video podcast!)

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Save Face or Save the Planet

Preventing the worst of climate change is urgent, but psychologically elusive.  Unless the flood, fire, or tsunami is right in your face, it’s almost surreal to consider dramatically altering your life to keep the polar ice caps from melting.  Still, it’s absurd to equate 98% of the world’s climate scientists with “Chicken Little”, and most of us “get it”.  Or do we?

If a “threat meter” were on the planet right now it would be a smoldering orangish red alert.  In contrast mankind is responding with a few scattered protests, mostly drowned out by the silence of CONSENT. 

That’s right CONSENT.  If you are not publicly making it known you are against the insane destruction of our shared life-support system (read: “ecosystems”), then you are CONSENTING to what is happening.  If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

How do you most effectively REMOVE CONSENT?  Stop saving face and start saving the planet.  I don’t think we can do both.  Here’s why.  We don’t have time for rational step-by-step plans; by the time we reason with the unreasonable it will be too late.  In fact it is totally irrational to try and reason with irrational people (read: “oil mafia who are killing off their own children’s habitat”).  

We must REMOVE OUR CONSENT by becoming irrational and yet stay sane.  How?  Comedy, hilarity, weirdness, surprise, silliness, pranks and shenanigans. These are the best weapons we have against corporate thugs. They have all the money and power in their favor, we have the one thing they don’t have…a sense of humor…edgy humor.

Although it is the most powerful non-violent weapon we have, being funny requires the ultimate sacrifice; the ego’s need to look good, be right and save face.  Media-penetrating humor requires us to be laughed at, risk mockery, and feel totally uncomfortable in public.  Without making our “news” entertaining, our protests will go unnoticed and our arrests ignored. 

Maybe our real enemy is our all-consuming need to save face.  If we conquer this inner tyrant, maybe we have a chance of freeing ourselves from the dynasties that are steering us into oblivion.  Will you sing provocative silly songs, do dance mobs and puppetry to save our planet?  Will you bring your kids, play beach ball hot potato and march to a band of kazoos?  It may be the only way to get mainstream media to actually report on our demonstrations. 

For example, we polar bears were the only climate activists that showed up at the Republican National Convention.  During our “Going Away Party for Florida”, we were repeatedly interviewed by the press.

At the Democratic National Convention, again PBS, Washington Post, etc. photographed and/or interviewed us during our “Hunger Strike Against Global Warming – A Taste of Things to Come”, but only Grist actually ran the story.

By the time we got to the first Presidential debate in Denver we nearly did back flips when we saw about 12 other climate activist there too!  Although we love that they came, their efforts went ignored by the media.  We three, silly polar bears, performing for the crowd, did make the Denver Post and the Santa Monica Breeze with this photo. 

There are more examples from our protests at the final two debates, but the point is we learned that looking foolish works better than standing around holding expensive signs looking smart.  Other benefits of buffoonery are; it kept us fresh and free from burn out, warded off helplessness and depression, and gave us boundless adrenaline.  I am asking you all to get over your resistance to joining us, and SAVE THE PLANET instead of your face.

--
Rachel Hope

One thing I'd like to add in support of what Rachel has written here.  Ivan Marovic of Serbia's Otpor movement, had a rule: "If you want to say something, you do something on the street, and when journalists show up, you can talk to them."  Otpor overthrew a dictator using, largely, humor.  When they did a street action, good pictures often made the front page.  "A hundred people doing something on the street is not news," Marovic said.  "but a hundred people doing something crazy is a picture". -- Curtis Hannum

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Let's Make the Climate Movement a Mighty Beast!

Rachel, Pete, and Curtis protesting outside the second presidential debate at Hempstead, NY

We're The Pissed-Off Polar Bears, and we intend to do everything imaginable to help the climate movement become a mighty beast that cannot be vanquished!

We were the ONLY climate protesters that were present at the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention, and all three presidential debates.  (Where WAS everybody?  For all the movement caterwauled about climate change not being mentioned in the debates--aside from us--only Whit Jones of the Energy Action Coalition showed up at multiple events!)  (Whit RULES!)

We spent the first half of this year reading up on successful nonviolent movements of the past, and are convinced that the political stranglehold of dirty energy will only be broken if the entire movement utilizes an aggressive and brilliant nonviolent strategy.  ("Nonviolent strategy", by the way, does not just mean being "peaceful", and "nice", and it certainly does not mean being "passive".  Nonviolence done right is provocative and fearless, and it requires intimate knowledge of the history, tactics, and principles of nonviolent struggle.  We will be posting continually about the indispensable lessons of nonviolent action.)

This is an entirely "winnable" contest!  The fossil fuel industry is putting every kid in the world at risk, including their own. They are basically destroying the planet for every other person, and every other business, in every nation on Earth.  And even their own employees will not be able to escape the catastrophe that's coming.  We intend to rally the entire business community, as well as dirty energy's own workforce, and their families, to take a stand to stop the insanity and save our life support system!

Finally, we intend to have a little fun, because, according to Otpor (the movement that overthrew a dictator in Serbia), humor is the ultimate weapon!  Our cohort Pete the Pissed-Off Polar Bear will give regular blogs, podcasts, and videos for you entertainment.

So let's take it to another level--WE'VE GOT A PLANET TO SAVE!

--Curtis Hannum


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Hello!

Hello!  We are The Pissed-Off Polar Bears, and we want to get everybody on our side to stop the man-made climate catastrophe before it's too late!  (in other words, NOW!)  

This might seem impossible because no one's been able to do anything about it, but after months of reading up on Gene Sharp's books about Nonviolent Struggle, we believe that with an effective nonviolent strategy massive shifts can be created in public opinion and that this can happen in a hurry!  

We're also committed to what Serbia's Otpor movement learned, that the most effective weapons are humor and enthusiasm.

We just got back from The Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, were we introduced Pete the Pissed-Off Polar Bear to people in the streets and did many actions, including The Going-Away Party for FLORIDA! and our 8 Day Hunger Strike Against Global Warming: A Taste of Things to Come: Famine Practice!  

Now we're focused on the American Political Campaigns, where we intend to help get as many candidates elected who understand the urgency of this crisis.  Our main focus is on electing a president who "gets it" (Obama) and electing Senate candidates who will ratify an international climate treaty.

We intend to use MeetUp.com and political rallies to recruit other activists.  

Much more to follow!  Join us!

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