OccupySacto.org

I attended the EGT port shutdown conference call on Sun 15th. The next one is on Wed 18th at 8:30 pm after our Wed GA. Many issues are coming up. The Longview Washington EGT event will happen in late Jan or early Feb and we'll be given 3-4 days notice. The site is OCCUPYTHEEGT.ORG. This is new stuff for me. However I previously contacted the Sacramento Labor Council about the May Day event, and of course SEIU is already helping us. So we need to think about how we work with Union Rank and File, Union Bureaucracy, the issues of labor-management and how businesses are run, and obviously, economics in general.

I guess Sacramento is conservative compared to Seattle San Francisco Longview Portland and Long Beach. What I hear before Wed I'll report at Wed's GA. Now that we have a "Strategy Building" discussion going on at OCCUPYSAC.COM/SPEAK/, can we broaden this discussion into the points above? SeanL is going to keep up on INTEROCCUPY.ORG and let us know what is happening, and not just with Unions. He's also holding economic Teach-Ins. These are highly volatile issues which, depending on how we handle them, will determine our success or failure.

I suggest people post to the "Strategy Building" discussion on general strategy things. I would like to request that any Union information be posted in this "Strategy Building: Unions" discussion. I will try to find some way to contact Unions in Sacramento, to get any feedback or help we can get. It seems that Union management does not always agree with Union Rank and File. The ILWU bureaucracy in Longview opposes the EGT action. However Union member Occupiers on the conference call said the workers generally support it. Teamsters Local 21 up there supports the ILWU workers in their fight against EGT and Bunge who won't use Union workers. But this is a big issue. Let's get educated on labor-management. The ship arriving in Longview is carrying grain. I think this widens our concern into how food is distributed and the question, "Why aren't some people being fed?"

Proposal from Julien Harrison <julienrharrison@gmail.com>

(All titles are tentative)
What and When: Occupy Earth Day Global Month of Action
March 23rd- Disrupt the business of pollution
March 24th- Rally for the 100% - Countdown to Occupy Earth Day

Where: Globally Coordinated actions by Occupy groups and ally organization- Connecting the dots between the 1% and the destruction of the planet

Call to Action: We are at a dangerous tipping point in history. The destruction of our planet and climate change are almost at a point of no return. Our mountains in Appalachia are blasted; our drinking water in the northeast threatened by fracking; our American heartland is charted for an oil pipeline; and our forests in the northwest targeted for further deforestation. Our climate and earth risk never returning to a balanced state.

At this crucial moment, a small group of polluting businesses financed by the 1% have hijacked our political system for their benefit. They’ve rigged the system by paying off politicians, who in turn give these companies taxpayer handouts to continue to destroy our planet and atmosphere.

While the a majority of American people call out for alternative energy sources, our government only responds the interests of these big polluters. The very corporations that lobby our government in order to pollute, publicly admit that climate change is an issue, but ignore it in favor of continued record profits for Wall Street.

Many around the country have taken steps to make our lives and communities more sustainable and resilient, but Congress has done nothing. We must to reclaim our democracy to protect our planet. We need to take action for 100% of the occupants of the planet.

We are calling on all Occupy groups and our ally organizations around the country and the world to join us for 2 days that will launch a month long campaign where actionable steps to stop business as usual and expose the corrupt alliance of the 1% and our democratically elected leaders.

Friday March 23rd- Disrupt the business of pollution : A day of global direct action to disrupt and expose the dirty business as usual and its political supporters. We will occupy corrupt polluters, politicians and front groups like Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, through a diversity of creative actions on a local level.

Saturday March 24th: Rally for the 100% - Countdown to Occupy Earthday 2012 : A day of global mass rallies where families, community groups and individuals from all backgrounds march in cities around the world to demand a livable planet for all.

Ongoing Campaign (March 24 to April 22nd): Countdown to Occupy Earthday 2012: Launch campaign to have individuals around globe to take measurable actions locally, nationally and globally to raise awareness and withdraw support from the polluters and their supporters. This will be in the vain of “Move your Money Day” and similar campaigns while leaving space for a diversity tactics.

Background
The fossil fuel industry is the most profitable enterprise in human history, and to defend those profits for a few more years the oil, coal, and gas companies are prepared to ignore clear scientific warning, and even the catastrophes already marking the early stages of climate change. Not only that, they’re prepared to use some of their money to warp the political process so that action never comes. We can’t outspend them, but we can use people power to fight back and disrupt the system.

There are a multitude of ways fossil fuel companies have infiltrated the political process to receive sweetheart deals and rote handouts. These include, but are not limited to:

* Tax breaks - Highly profitable utilities like Duke energy pay effective 0% tax rates due to state and federal incentives.

* Direct production subsidies - Certain utilities receive direct funding from DOE and other agencies to research and operationalize new fossil fuel extraction methods, including highly dangerous practices.

* Regulatory subsidies - The natural gas industry, for example, dumps toxic hydrofracking fluids into municipal wastewater treatment plants, and into the soil, for free, leaving taxpayers footing the cleanup bills, because those fluids are not regulated.

* Public land access - Big oil companies like Shell are given free or cheap access to oil in fragile ecosystems like the Artic, putting them at risk of spills.

Each year, the oil and gas industries get more than $4bn in subsidies and tax breaks.

Current members of Congress took over $25 million in campaign contributions from the oil, coal and gas industries in 2009-2010. This follows a decade-long trend of increasing contributions and influence. Since 1999, these Dirty Energy industries have shelled out over $137 million in contributions to members of Congress.

Sources: http://dirtyenergymoney.com

Notes from 1/22 call

Participants: Sea (Occupy Sac), Juliette (Davis), Steve Elias (Calaveras County), Alan Willard (Calaveras County, Occupy West Point), Randy Compton (Round Mountain, Occupy Redding), Julien (Occupy Eugene)

Proposal (s)
Alan introduced and distributed our proposal for a committee at the Occupy Sac GA. There were no "objections". Occupy Sac is loosely organized, so it was unclear if the proposal was formally adopted. The general sense was that the proposal needs to be followed up with specific actions i.e. teach-ins, a regular tabling presence, more specific targeted actions, etc.

Alan has been tabling with a number of flyers on resource extraction issues including clearcutting, mountain top coal removal, and tar sands. Would like a flyer on ocean extraction issues as well. Will share his flyers with the group.

Julien shared proposal (see below) for days of action on March 23 and 24, leading up to Earth Day, to bring a more radical focus to the environmental movement and to tie in election-year issues of corporate/"dirty $" influence. We all agreed it was a great idea and brainstormed a bit about "localizing" the proposal and picking a local target to highlight environmental destruction i.e. clearcutting, in our local context. The brainstorm included loss of biodiversity, confronting the govt. agencies that have been derelict in their duty to protect our natural systems, checking in with 350.org and other Earth Day organizers to find out their Earth Day plans, and targeting the timber-industry-dominated Board of Forestry. Steve will review the proposal and suggest next steps.

Scientific Information sharing
Randy reported that he had discovered a number of clearinghouse websites/ libraries of information on the environmental crisis i.e. on the mass extinction now underway. He will share a few links and would like feedback on the choosing the best sites. We would like to find a way to centralize this information on our website (under development) or a section of Occupy Sac's website. We need technical support for this.

Group coordination
We discussed the various names for our grow including Earth4the99%, OccupywisEarth, and Eco-occupy and settled on Eco-occupy as a suggested name for our work. Eco-Occuwise was also another idea. Juliette will look into setting up a Google Group using the EcoOccupy name.

Sea encouraged us all to post to a Occupy Sac forum discussion: Strategy Building Labor and the Environment. Check out occupysac.com/speak and also the Occupy Sac Facebook page
Sea has high hopes for this work and stressed the need for regular, daily presence to strengthen Occupy Sac. He recommended we attend the Urban Outreach Committee that meets on Thursdays at 6pm at SEIU offices, 1325 S St.

We agreed to schedule the next call for Sunday at 8pm. Please mark your calendars and plan to participate!

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