Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Nonviolent Method #5 : Declarations of Indictment and Intention


When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to save EVERYONE from untoward catastrophe, it becomes incumbent upon us to form a more perfect movement!

Most of these examples in this book are things you never even heard of, right?  You know, like the Botswana Union of Ministers Rally for Independence, or whatever. 

But here, this is something everybody’s heard of:  The American Declaration of Independence, right?  “When in the course of human events”, baby!  That gives you an idea of just how powerful nonviolent actions can be, I mean, you know that catalyzed people.  It’s like “Wohh!  A Declaration of Independence, that’s heavy duty!”

In South Africa they did this thing called a Freedom Charter, right?  It was essentially a Declaration of Intention, and it talked about how apartheid had to be abolished and then they finished with “These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty.”

Wow!  I love that!  We’re gonna keep at this until we get it done!  And, you know, with climate change it’s not something where you can be like “Aw, fuck it.  I give up.  It’s not worth the effort”.  I mean you’re talkin’ about the destruction of the world, everything’s pretty much worth the effort!  Everything needs to be done, you can’t quit. 

Anyway we should have a Declaration of Intention like that, so you don’t settle with lame, weak solutions and we get the whole planet on board.  That’s how this is gonna work!  You really can’t solve climate change half-way it’s gotta be all the way.  Nature doesn’t care, they’re not gonna be like “Oh, well, you tried hard enough.  That’s fine."  You know, the pack ice won’t melt just because we made an effort.  Right?  The tundra won’t stop thawing just because some of us got it and were able to create modest emission reductions. 

You can’t reason with nature!  Right?  I mean that’s like when that tsunami hit Japan.  You know they built a sea wall that was 30 feet tall.  But they didn’t count on the whole coastline dropping 6 feet below sea level.  So the sea wall wasn’t tall enough!  But the sea didn’t care.  It just went over the wall and just destroyed everything.

That’s the thing about nature and science: it plays by hard, fast rules.  There’s no wiggle room.

So anyway, we need to make such a declaration.  Have it on my desk by Thursday morning.  Or at least, in the comments, post your suggestion of what it should be.

And let’s not forget about the Declarations of Indictment part of the equation.  I mean the fossil fuel industry and the think tanks that spew out all their misinformation, and the politicians that always vote against climate solutions – these guys are guilty of putting all of humanity at risk, right? 

These guys are putting their own ideology and personal wealth above common sense, a staggering amount of scientific evidence, and the well-being of everyone on the planet!  I mean a Declaration of Indictment of these guys is long overdue! 

Instead they get richer and richer and do everything they can to cloud the issue, make people think this isn’t such a big deal, I mean these are high crimes!  Everybody’s gonna look at them like the greatest villains that ever lived!  Climate change is gonna kill way more people than any war ever did.  They’re gonna make Stalin look like an underachiever. 

Anyway, I guess I just did my own Declaration of Indictment.  Dirtbags.

But, you know, since my pack ice is already melted it’s like I come from the future.  I know how bad this is gonna be.  I know who the bad guys are. 

And let’s not give the media a pass either, I mean they could stand a little Declaration of Indictment of their own. 

Future generations (if there are future generations) are gonna look back at today’s newscasts and think “They hardly ever talk about climate change!  What the hey?!”

I mean people tell me that reporters actually want to cover stories but it’s their editors who say “Oh, we did a story about that last year!”  So they continually ignore the biggest crisis in the history of humanity!  And, when they do talk about it, they talk about it like “It’s not gonna be that bad.  I mean, you know, maybe in a hundred years…Oh I’m sorry we have breaking news, there’s a hurricane coming our way. Not that that has anything to do with climate change.”  It’s ridiculous.  So, yeah, these guys deserve a Declaration of Indictment also. 

Students could do a Declaration of Indictment against their administrators saying “Why do you pretend to care about our futures when you’re not making any stand against the greatest threat to our futures?” 

Alright.  Clearly I could go on ad infinitum about this, but Declarations of Indictment and Intention can be effective, and should be considered. 

Alright, gotta go!


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