All News Feeds

Britain’s flawed dialogue with Sudan regime | Letters

The Guardian | Protest -

The UK should call for an immediate political transition to end nearly 30 years of repressive rule, say eight signatories including Lutz Oette

We wholeheartedly agree with your editorial (7 March) stating that the demonstrators in Sudan calling daily for freedom and the rule of law “do not want a different version of this regime, or more conflict”. The problem is indeed the regime, not just a president indicted for genocide by the international criminal court and for whom, despite their public claims to support the ICC, many external actors seek a “soft landing” in the name of stability. Sudan is not stable for the Sudanese people.

Nevertheless, Britain has engaged in a flawed strategic dialogue with the regime. It has spearheaded the Khartoum process, a supposed partnership with the brutal and corrupt Sudanese regime to “manage” (in other words, to stem) migration to Europe. That process relies on the notorious rapid support forces, mainly former Janjaweed, which the ICC has implicated in war crimes in Darfur. Most Sudanese migrants are in any case refugees fleeing their repressive regime, including the very forces now tasked with capturing them.

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Rowan Williams says pupils are right to protest over climate

The Guardian | Protest -

Former archbishop of Canterbury uses video message to support non-violent civil disobedience

The former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has backed pupils who have been taking part in school strikes to protest over climate change and who are planning to join a “climate rebellion” next month, warning that the ecological crisis means “the future of the human race is now at stake”.

Williams, whose stark comments come amid a growing wave of protests over the scale of the ecological crisis, said non-violent civil disobedience should have “wide and deep” support from the public.

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Extinction Rebellion activists throw 'blood' outside Downing Street

The Guardian | Protest -

Protesters use red paint to symbolise climate deaths, day after sit-in at Scottish oil event

Extinction Rebellion activists have thrown buckets of “blood” outside Downing Street to call for greater action on climate change. About 400 demonstrators, including families with children, spilled more than 200 litres of red paint to make the severity of climate change “viscerally clear”.

The blood was meant to symbolise “the death of our children” and the hellish future young people faced, the group said in a statement.

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International Women's Day marked across the world

The Guardian | Protest -

Protesters call for an end to domestic violence, sexual attacks and pay discrimination – except in Russia

Protests and celebrations were staged across the world to mark International Women’s Day as issues of gender equality and gender violence were highlighted in myriad ways.

In Spain, an estimated six million – reportedly including nuns – took part in a mass two-hour walkout to demand equal pay and rights for women, according to UGT, one of the country’s largest unions. Thousands of women flooded the streets and squares of Madrid carrying placards saying, “Liberty, Equality, Friendship” and “The way I dress does not change the respect I deserve.”

Related: Gender equality is not a ‘women’s issue’ – it’s good for men too | Julia Gillard

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School pupils can make their climate change strike hurt | Letters

The Guardian | Protest -

Rachel Savage has an idea for young activists and Hannah Morrow wants a front-page reminder every day

A lot of officious adults have been saying that there’s little point in school pupils striking in protest at the lack of action on climate change, as it will have no economic effect. They have a point, and so I would like to put forward a suggestion that may work better.

Schoolchildren have no voice at the ballot box or wealth-creating labour to withdraw, but the pounds in their pockets weigh as heavily in the till as anybody else’s. We are at the beginning of Lent, when Christians traditionally deny themselves the good things in life in order to achieve a higher goal: why don’t our children hold a consumer-spending strike for this period? Buy – or have others buy for you – only life’s essentials: no sweets, makeup, computer games, sparkly unicorn poo slime, cinema tickets; buy clothes and books only if compulsory for school; if you usually buy a pasty or a sandwich at lunchtime, sign up for school dinners instead (I know, I know, but it will be a conspicuous sacrifice…).

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​'​My hand​ was​ ​hanging from my wrist​'​:​ Gilet jaunes protesters mutilated by police weapons

The Guardian | Protest -

Antoine lost his hand during a gilets jaunes or yellow vest protest in Bordeaux. On the same day Patrice lost the sight in his right eye in Paris. They share their stories as the French police come under scrutiny for using explosive weapons against protesters

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Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany): Mozart3 and Klara17 squats evicted!

House Occupation News -

Since the early morning hours the police have been clearing the two occupations at Mozartstraße 3 and Klarastraße 17. The fact that the owners, with the support of the police, are now putting an end to this is an expression of Freiburg’s misguided housing policy: the city supports profit-oriented companies in their activities, while the active design of open and free spaces and the use of empty buildings are criminalized.
Over the last few days, a free space has developed in both spaces which has been gratefully used by supporters, interested parties and the neighbourhood: Whether animated discussions, exciting lectures or simply coffee and cake, the programme was as varied as the people in it.
We feel that the fact that the owners are now putting an end to this with the support of the police is an expression of Freiburg’s misguided housing policy: profit-oriented companies are supported in their activities by the city, while the active use of open and free spaces and the use of empty buildings are criminalised.
We wish a broad public attention for both occupations during the eviction and refer here to the action “day X+2”, which will take place two days after the eviction. There we would like to make clear our support for Mozart3 and Klara17 and set a clear sign for affordable living space.

email: die-wg-presse [at] riseup [dot] net
telefon:+44 7734 544 820

Some squats in Germany: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/DE/type/squat
Groups (social center, collective, squat) in Germany: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/DE
Events in Germany: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/DE

Published by Enough is Enough
Complete communique in german

Women Fest founder plans training camp for climate rebels

The Guardian | Protest -

Spring Uprising festival in Bristol will feature bands and civil disobedience instruction

The woman behind the UK’s first female-only festival is setting up a climate activism training camp to instruct hundreds of young people in civil disobedience before a series of environmental protests planned for the coming weeks.

Tiana Jacout is putting on the Spring Uprising festival in Bristol this month for people taking part in the ongoing school strikes and the Extinction Rebellion protests planned for 15 April.

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How young activists turned the old idea of a Green New Deal into a powerful movement

Waging Nonviolence -

by Nick Engelfried

Destine Grigsby (center) of Sunrise Lousiville during a day of action at Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office in February. (Twitter/@sunrisemvmt)

Last week over 250 young people converged on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office in Washington, D.C. for a sit-in marking one of the latest escalations in the youth-led campaign for a Green New Deal. The action, led by youth from McConnell’s state of Kentucky, was planned in direct response to what they saw as his attempt to quash a Senate resolution on the Green New Deal by scheduling a premature vote.

“We’re here to demand Mitch McConnell look us in the eyes and tell us the $1.9 million he’s gotten from fossil fuel CEOs is more important than my generation’s future,” 17-year-old Destine Grigsby of Louisville said as the group arrived. “We’re here to share our stories and show him Kentucky needs a Green New Deal to ensure we have clean water, clean air, and stable jobs. This is the only solution we have for a livable future in Kentucky and throughout the world.”

The next day young activists descended on Senate district offices around the country. Just a couple days later, in a stunning sign of the movement’s effectiveness, McConnell announced he would postpone the Senate vote until much later this year.

The idea for a Green New Deal — a massive nationwide investment in jobs and infrastructure that would shift the United States to a clean energy economy while rapidly cutting carbon emissions — took off in November when hundreds of young activists held a sit-in at the office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi less than a week after the 2018 election. Fifty-one were arrested while calling on Pelosi and other Democrats to establish a Select Committee for a Green New Deal with power to advance legislation.

A few weeks later, on Dec. 10, over a thousand youth flooded the halls of Congress again. They lobbied over 50 Congressional offices and held sit-ins at the offices of Pelosi and other key Democratic leaders. A total of 143 were arrested.

Sunrise Movement flooded the halls of Congress on Dec. 10. (Twitter/@sunrisemvmt)

The leading force behind this wave of action is an organization called Sunrise Movement, which launched in 2016 with the immediate goal of making ambitious climate action a key issue in last year’s midterm elections. In the longer term, Sunrise seeks to use high-visibility actions that put pressure on candidates and elected officials as a strategy for building power and rallying public opinion behind a Green New Deal. After the election, Sunrise immediately began mobilizing to put Democratic leaders on the spot over years of failure to address the climate crisis.

With Democrats taking back the House of Representatives in November, some observers saw a chance to advance bold progressive policies. But when it came to climate change, Sunrise organizers worried Democrats would merely pursue the cautious strategy they have used in the past — most notably in 2009-2010, when a weak cap-and-trade bill riddled with corporate giveaways passed the House only to fail in the Senate.

Sure enough, Democratic leaders announced plans to resurrect a version of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which was first established in 2007 and has no authority to advance legislation. Sunrise, along with new members of Congress like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, advocated the alternative Select Committee for a Green New Deal.

While the Green New Deal Committee was never formed, from the perspective of advancing bold ideas about climate legislation this may not matter. Sunrise’s November and December protests accomplished their most important objective by popularizing the Green New Deal and putting both parties in Congress on notice that young activists will not be content with tepid action on climate change.

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On Feb. 7, Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts introduced identical resolutions in the House and Senate formally calling for a Green New Deal. The Senate version was quickly co-sponsored by most Democratic senators running for president. Thanks to Sunrise successfully pressuring McConnell to delay his rushed vote, both resolutions remain in play.

A moment long in the making

The concept of a Green New Deal isn’t new. According to Vox, the term was first used in 2007 and soon became part of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign platform. However, while some elements of the Green New Deal — like pairing clean energy with an economic stimulus — made modest progress during Obama’s presidency, the administration never seriously attempted the type of sweeping policies today’s Green New Deal advocates are demanding.

One reason for this lack of progress in the early Obama years was insufficient grassroots support. At the time, the climate movement just wasn’t large enough or politically savvy enough to create the type of massive grassroots mobilization that’s needed to transform bold ideas into policy. Today, that may have changed. From mass protests that stopped pipelines and closed coal plants to grassroots organizations advancing clean energy at the local level to a nationwide divestment campaign that galvanized students around energy justice — the climate movement has grown a lot in the last decade.

Many Sunrise Movement founders got their start organizing in one or another of the waves of climate activism that helped set the stage for a powerful Green New Deal movement. A recent story in the New Republic describes how young activists involved in campaigns like fossil fuel divestment came together to launch Sunrise. They united behind a vision for a slate of policies to dramatically cut carbon emissions, while creating millions of jobs, ensuring economic security for all and combating racial injustice.

Like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal is a bold progressive proposal with the potential to inspire the kind of mass support cautious Democrats in Congress have largely failed to attract for their ideas. However, in order to build that momentum Sunrise needed to grow from a small group of organizers — based mostly on the East Coast — into a true nationwide grassroots campaign.

Reaching coast to coast

The Green New Deal movement’s rapid growth over the last few months was made possible by the existing network of climate activist groups that formed across the United States over the past decade or so. One example is the Cascade Climate Network, or CCN, a regional organization that promotes climate justice on college campuses in Oregon and Washington. Last school year, CCN organized a conference that hosted a workshop by Sunrise Movement co-founder Victoria Hernandez. Hernandez invited students to sign up for Sunrise Semester, a fellowship that engaged young people in pressuring politicians to support Green New Deal policies in the months leading up to the 2018 elections.

Lisa Grimm, a 21-year-old student at University of Puget Sound in Washington, was among those who heeded the call. Becoming a Sunrise fellow last summer, she was sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she worked to pressure candidates running for office in a key swing state. Grimm also learned during the fellowship that Sunrise was launching decentralized hubs to continue organizing work in Congressional districts throughout the country. “When I got back to school in Washington, I really wanted to keep the momentum going and organize a hub here,” Grimm said. “I realized it made sense to build power locally.”

After Sunrise garnered national attention with its November and December actions on Capitol Hill, “interest in the Green New Deal really skyrocketed,” Grimm explained. So she put out a call to other youth activists in Washington State. Over a period of a couple months they launched local hubs in several Washington communities. Among the most active is Sunrise Seattle, which held a town hall on Feb. 22 to highlight public support for a Green New Deal.

Sunrise Seattle members prepare for their town hall on Feb. 22. (Sunrise Seattle/Braden Lawrence)

“It was really exciting for us,” said 22-year-old Harry Katz, one of the town hall organizers. “Thirty-six people, mostly young people, were able to get up in front of a full room and speak about why the Green New Deal matters to them. About half hadn’t come to previous meetings or events. These are young people getting involved in a progressive movement for the first time — I think because they admire Sunrise’s willingness to fight for a solution that would actually address both the climate crisis and the crisis of inequality.”

Seattle Sunrise’s co-coordinators include Katz, 23-year-old Lily Frenette, and 26-year-old Sam Farquharson. They held their town hall during a Congressional recess with the hope that Washington’s U.S. senators would attend. It was part of a series of actions across the country Sunrise organized after McConnell announced the hasty Senate vote on the Green New Deal resolution.

While Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell were both invited to the town hall, neither managed to attend or send staff. So Sunrise Seattle visited their district offices the following week and delivered recordings of the public testimony. The youth organizers spoke with office staff, but neither senator has yet taken a public position on the Green New Deal.

“They seem to hope their previous record voting for environmental policies will be enough,” Frenette said. “But our message is: While some of their past environmental votes may have been great, we need them to show they support a Green New Deal. Otherwise, they aren’t taking the concerns of constituents and scientists seriously.”

Over 120 Sunrise hubs have launched nationwide, from Alaska to Florida and from California to Maine. Their immediate priority has been organizing actions like the Seattle town hall and confronting members of Congress. In one of the most visible examples, video of a meeting between California middle school students and Sen. Diane Feinstein went viral when it showed Feinstein treating the students dismissively. After the incident drew nationwide public scrutiny, Feinstein backed away from plans to introduce a much weaker climate resolution that would have competed with the Green New Deal.

Sunrise Louisville during the sit-in of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office on Feb. 25. (Twitter/@sunrisemvmt)

McConnell abandoning the rushed Senate vote was the most important result of this wave of action, an outcome that seemed to take even Sunrise members by surprise.

“During our day of action almost 2,000 people around the country visited their senators demanding they co-sponsor the Green New Deal,” Katz said. “The fact that McConnell backed off shows he’s afraid of what our movement has accomplished.”

Youth leading the way

While Sunrise welcomes solidarity from older activists, the campaign is determined to remain youth-led. After all, young people will be dealing with the effects of climate change longer than anyone else alive today, so keeping their voices at the forefront makes sense. Like the early 20th century women’s suffrage movement — which decided not to include men in its pickets outside the White House — the modern Green New Deal movement is making strategic use of political theater to highlight a deadly serious injustice. By visibly pitting people with a unique stake in the climate fight against entrenched corporate and political interests, the movement is building a compelling public narrative.

Many young activists have already witnessed the effects of a changing climate for themselves. Grimm, for example, was visiting family in Japan last summer when she experienced firsthand some of the extreme weather gripping the country. A July heat wave killed at least 80 people and sent more than 35,000 to the hospital. That same month over 220 people died in record-setting floods. “It stuck with me all summer that this is real, weather exacerbated by climate change is hurting families around the world,” Grimm said.

Yet a common theme among Sunrise organizers talking about their experience is a feeling the Green New Deal has given them hope that the worst effects of climate change can be averted.
“It’s a vision for our future that can fight the climate crisis at the scale scientists say is necessary,” Farquharson said. “It’s more than incremental change, rhetoric, or any piece of legislation we’ve seen in the past. It gives me hope that if it gains enough momentum and eventually leads to legislation, we could actually see change that makes it possible for our kids and our kids’ kids to have a brighter future in this beautiful world we live in today.”

How young activists turned the old idea of a Green New Deal into a powerful movement

Waging Nonviolence -

Last week over 250 young people converged on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office in Washington, D.C. for a sit-in marking one of the latest escalations in the youth-led campaign for a Green New Deal. The action, led by youth from McConnell’s state of Kentucky, was planned in direct response to what they saw as his attempt to quash a Senate resolution on the Green New Deal by scheduling a premature vote.

“We’re here to demand Mitch McConnell look us in the eyes and tell us the $1.9 million he’s gotten from fossil fuel CEOs is more important than my generation’s future,” 17-year-old Destine Grigsby of Louisville said as the group arrived. “We’re here to share our stories and show him Kentucky needs a Green New Deal to ensure we have clean water, clean air, and stable jobs. This is the only solution we have for a livable future in Kentucky and throughout the world.”

The next day young activists descended on Senate district offices around the country. Just a couple days later, in a stunning sign of the movement’s effectiveness, McConnell announced he would postpone the Senate vote until much later this year.

The idea for a Green New Deal — a massive nationwide investment in jobs and infrastructure that would shift the United States to a clean energy economy while rapidly cutting carbon emissions — took off in November when hundreds of young activists held a sit-in at the office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi less than a week after the 2018 election. Fifty-one were arrested while calling on Pelosi and other Democrats to establish a Select Committee for a Green New Deal with power to advance legislation.

A few weeks later, on Dec. 10, over a thousand youth flooded the halls of Congress again. They lobbied over 50 Congressional offices and held sit-ins at the offices of Pelosi and other key Democratic leaders. A total of 143 were arrested.

Sunrise Movement flooded the halls of Congress on Dec. 10. (Twitter/@sunrisemvmt)

The leading force behind this wave of action is an organization called Sunrise Movement, which launched in 2016 with the immediate goal of making ambitious climate action a key issue in last year’s midterm elections. In the longer term, Sunrise seeks to use high-visibility actions that put pressure on candidates and elected officials as a strategy for building power and rallying public opinion behind a Green New Deal. After the election, Sunrise immediately began mobilizing to put Democratic leaders on the spot over years of failure to address the climate crisis.

With Democrats taking back the House of Representatives in November, some observers saw a chance to advance bold progressive policies. But when it came to climate change, Sunrise organizers worried Democrats would merely pursue the cautious strategy they have used in the past — most notably in 2009-2010, when a weak cap-and-trade bill riddled with corporate giveaways passed the House only to fail in the Senate.

Sure enough, Democratic leaders announced plans to resurrect a version of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which was first established in 2007 and has no authority to advance legislation. Sunrise, along with new members of Congress like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, advocated the alternative Select Committee for a Green New Deal.

While the Green New Deal Committee was never formed, from the perspective of advancing bold ideas about climate legislation this may not matter. Sunrise’s November and December protests accomplished their most important objective by popularizing the Green New Deal and putting both parties in Congress on notice that young activists will not be content with tepid action on climate change.

Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'tYTEwL8KQcREIUGP-npboA',sig:'eBZbDBpgWNT8GjwH-bdgRTmkJvM68wZUOR-DuQ0emgY=',w:'594px',h:'388px',items:'1094968522',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});

On Feb. 7, Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts introduced identical resolutions in the House and Senate formally calling for a Green New Deal. The Senate version was quickly co-sponsored by most Democratic senators running for president. Thanks to Sunrise successfully pressuring McConnell to delay his rushed vote, both resolutions remain in play.

A moment long in the making

The concept of a Green New Deal isn’t new. According to Vox, the term was first used in 2007 and soon became part of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign platform. However, while some elements of the Green New Deal — like pairing clean energy with an economic stimulus — made modest progress during Obama’s presidency, the administration never seriously attempted the type of sweeping policies today’s Green New Deal advocates are demanding.

One reason for this lack of progress in the early Obama years was insufficient grassroots support. At the time, the climate movement just wasn’t large enough or politically savvy enough to create the type of massive grassroots mobilization that’s needed to transform bold ideas into policy. Today, that may have changed. From mass protests that stopped pipelines and closed coal plants to grassroots organizations advancing clean energy at the local level to a nationwide divestment campaign that galvanized students around energy justice — the climate movement has grown a lot in the last decade.

Many Sunrise Movement founders got their start organizing in one or another of the waves of climate activism that helped set the stage for a powerful Green New Deal movement. A recent story in the New Republic describes how young activists involved in campaigns like fossil fuel divestment came together to launch Sunrise. They united behind a vision for a slate of policies to dramatically cut carbon emissions, while creating millions of jobs, ensuring economic security for all and combating racial injustice.

Like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal is a bold progressive proposal with the potential to inspire the kind of mass support cautious Democrats in Congress have largely failed to attract for their ideas. However, in order to build that momentum Sunrise needed to grow from a small group of organizers — based mostly on the East Coast — into a true nationwide grassroots campaign.

Reaching coast to coast

The Green New Deal movement’s rapid growth over the last few months was made possible by the existing network of climate activist groups that formed across the United States over the past decade or so. One example is the Cascade Climate Network, or CCN, a regional organization that promotes climate justice on college campuses in Oregon and Washington. Last school year, CCN organized a conference that hosted a workshop by Sunrise Movement co-founder Victoria Fernandez, who invited students to sign up for Sunrise Semester — a fellowship that engaged young people in pressuring politicians to support Green New Deal policies in the months leading up to the 2018 elections.

Lisa Grimm, a 21-year-old student at University of Puget Sound in Washington, was among those who heeded the call. Becoming a Sunrise fellow last summer, she was sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she worked to pressure candidates running for office in a key swing state. Grimm also learned during the fellowship that Sunrise was launching decentralized hubs to continue organizing work in Congressional districts throughout the country. “When I got back to school in Washington, I really wanted to keep the momentum going and organize a hub here,” Grimm said. “I realized it made sense to build power locally.”

After Sunrise garnered national attention with its November and December actions on Capitol Hill, “interest in the Green New Deal really skyrocketed,” Grimm explained. So she put out a call to other youth activists in Washington State. Over a period of a couple months they launched local hubs in several Washington communities. Among the most active is Sunrise Seattle, which held a town hall on Feb. 22 to highlight public support for a Green New Deal.

Sunrise Seattle members prepare for their town hall on Feb. 22. (Sunrise Seattle/Braden Lawrence)

“It was really exciting for us,” said 22-year-old Harry Katz, one of the town hall organizers. “Thirty-six people, mostly young people, were able to get up in front of a full room and speak about why the Green New Deal matters to them. About half hadn’t come to previous meetings or events. These are young people getting involved in a progressive movement for the first time — I think because they admire Sunrise’s willingness to fight for a solution that would actually address both the climate crisis and the crisis of inequality.”

Seattle Sunrise’s co-coordinators include Katz, 23-year-old Lily Frenette, and 26-year-old Sam Farquharson. They held their town hall during a Congressional recess with the hope that Washington’s U.S. senators would attend. It was part of a series of actions across the country Sunrise organized after McConnell announced the hasty Senate vote on the Green New Deal resolution.

While Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell were both invited to the town hall, neither managed to attend or send staff. So Sunrise Seattle visited their district offices the following week and delivered recordings of the public testimony. The youth organizers spoke with office staff, but neither senator has yet taken a public position on the Green New Deal.

“They seem to hope their previous record voting for environmental policies will be enough,” Frenette said. “But our message is: While some of their past environmental votes may have been great, we need them to show they support a Green New Deal. Otherwise, they aren’t taking the concerns of constituents and scientists seriously.”

Over 120 Sunrise hubs have launched nationwide, from Alaska to Florida and from California to Maine. Their immediate priority has been organizing actions like the Seattle town hall and confronting members of Congress. In one of the most visible examples, video of a meeting between California middle school students and Sen. Diane Feinstein went viral when it showed Feinstein treating the students dismissively. After the incident drew nationwide public scrutiny, Feinstein backed away from plans to introduce a much weaker climate resolution that would have competed with the Green New Deal.

Sunrise Louisville during the sit-in of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office on Feb. 25. (Twitter/@sunrisemvmt)

McConnell abandoning the rushed Senate vote was the most important result of this wave of action, an outcome that seemed to take even Sunrise members by surprise.

“During our day of action almost 2,000 people around the country visited their senators demanding they co-sponsor the Green New Deal,” Katz said. “The fact that McConnell backed off shows he’s afraid of what our movement has accomplished.”

Youth leading the way

While Sunrise welcomes solidarity from older activists, the campaign is determined to remain youth-led. After all, young people will be dealing with the effects of climate change longer than anyone else alive today, so keeping their voices at the forefront makes sense. Like the early 20th century women’s suffrage movement — which decided not to include men in its pickets outside the White House — the modern Green New Deal movement is making strategic use of political theater to highlight a deadly serious injustice. By visibly pitting people with a unique stake in the climate fight against entrenched corporate and political interests, the movement is building a compelling public narrative.

Many young activists have already witnessed the effects of a changing climate for themselves. Grimm, for example, was visiting family in Japan last summer when she experienced firsthand some of the extreme weather gripping the country. A July heat wave killed at least 80 people and sent more than 35,000 to the hospital. That same month over 220 people died in record-setting floods. “It stuck with me all summer that this is real, weather exacerbated by climate change is hurting families around the world,” Grimm said.

Yet a common theme among Sunrise organizers talking about their experience is a feeling the Green New Deal has given them hope that the worst effects of climate change can be averted.

“It’s a vision for our future that can fight the climate crisis at the scale scientists say is necessary,” Farquharson said. “It’s more than incremental change, rhetoric, or any piece of legislation we’ve seen in the past. It gives me hope that if it gains enough momentum and eventually leads to legislation, we could actually see change that makes it possible for our kids and our kids’ kids to have a brighter future in this beautiful world we live in today.”

The post How young activists turned the old idea of a Green New Deal into a powerful movement appeared first on Waging Nonviolence.

Students: don't let rising rents drive you out of university

The Guardian | Protest -

University rent hikes are tuition fee rises in disguise. We demand that managements treat student tenants fairly

On 6 March, students from all over the UK have called a national day of action against the student housing crisis. We’re calling on students to join us at Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Goldsmiths, King’s College London, Liverpool, Oxford, Reading, Surrey, Sheffield, University College London and elsewhere, and take action against university management who treat us like tenants rather than students.

Matthew Lee and Clem Boucher are students and activists in Rent Strike, a national network of student housing campaigns.

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Adults failed to take climate action. Meet the young activists stepping up

The Guardian | Protest -

Some are calling climate change this generation’s civil rights movement. These are the young activists leading the charge

Despite being barely two years old, the Sunrise Movement has outpaced established environmental groups in the push to radically reshape the political landscape around climate change. Closely allied with new congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youth-led Sunrise Movement has helped set out a sweepingly ambitious plan to address climate change in the form of the Green New Deal.

The movement comprises a small core team of young organizers, supported by a larger group of several hundred volunteers. The group’s elevation of the Green New Deal has clearly riled Trump, who has falsely but repeatedly claimed that the plan would result in the banning of cars, air travel and even cows.

Interviews as told to Adrian Horton, Dream McClinton and Lauren Aratani

Photograph by Charlotte Kesl/The Guardian

Related: Could 'climate delayer' become the political epithet of our times?

Photograph by Alex Welsh/The Guardian

Doing nothing is a death sentence to my generation

Photograph by Gabriel Scarlett/The Guardian

Photograph by Jared Soares/The Guardian

We’re telling them to go, go, go because we don’t have time to do it any other way

Photograph by Tony Luong/The Guardian

Related: 'We're the ones affected': teen climate activist on her viral clash with US senator

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Algerian president announces departure plans after mass protests

The Guardian | Protest -

Spokesman for ailing Abdelaziz Bouteflika says he will stand down after next election

Algeria’s ailing president has promised to step down after the next election and enact reforms, as the nation’s elite moved to consolidate its power in the face of historic mass protests.

“I’ve heard the heartfelt cry of the protesters,” said Abdelaziz Bouteflika in a letter read out on national television on Sunday night. Addressing the uprising against his rule for the first time, he promised that, if re-elected in April, he would hold a national conference to implement political reforms and set a date for a second election where he would not be a candidate.

Related: Algerian police fire teargas as tens of thousands protest against president

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Civil rights legend George Lakey: ‘This is a bigger opportunity than the 60s’

The Guardian | Protest -

Lakey was involved in some of the greatest protests of the 20th century. Now, he says, there is a chance to reverse the right’s decades-long power grab

It’s heavy out there. Neo-nazism is on the rise. The gap between rich and poor grows ever larger. Protections for women, people of colour, LGBTQ people and immigrants are under attack. Meanwhile, the planet is simultaneously freezing and burning. Yet George Lakey couldn’t be more optimistic.

The civil rights legend bounces around his kitchen in suburban Philadelphia as the icy winds whistle outside. “It’s a huge opportunity. Huge,” he grins, waving his long arms inside his cosy cardigan. “I am grateful that, at age 81, I am around and vigorous enough to be able to participate in the political process because this is, in my judgment, the biggest opportunity for major change, in my country, in my lifetime. A bigger opportunity than the 60s and 70s.”

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Stephon Clark: police officers who shot man eight times will not be charged

The Guardian | Protest -

  • District attorney says officers justified in using lethal force
  • Protests expected over decision on March 2018 shooting

The police officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark will not be charged by the Sacramento county district attorney’s office.

Related: Stephon Clark was facing away from police when they shot him, lawyer says

Related: 'They executed him': police killing of Stephon Clark leaves family shattered

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Oakland teachers reach tentative deal to end week-long strike

The Guardian | Protest -

The city’s 3,000 teachers walked off the job to demand higher pay, smaller classes and more school resources

Striking teachers in Oakland, California, reached a contract agreement Friday with district officials to end a week-long walkout.

The Oakland Education Association, which represents the city’s 3,000 teachers, said that union leaders reached a four-year agreement that calls for teachers to receive an 11% salary increase and one-time 3% bonus. The deal also requires the district to reduce class sizes and hire more student support staff, including special education teachers and counselors, the union said in a statement.

Related: Low pay, large classes, funding cuts: behind new wave of US teachers' strikes

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Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at four school strikes in a week – video

The Guardian | Protest -

Sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg has criss-crossed the continent speaking at rallies in four countries in just eight days in a bid to spur politicians into action. She also made a brief stop at the European parliament in Brussels to address EU leaders. The Swede has become a social media sensation this year with her campaign of school strikes sweeping across dozens of countries and tens of thousands of teenagers participating

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Youth climate strikers: 'We are going to change the fate of humanity'

The Guardian | Protest -

Exclusive: Students issue an open letter ahead of global day of action on 15 March, when young people are expected to strike across 50 nations

Read the climate strikers’ letter

The students striking from schools around the world to demand action on climate change have issued an uncompromising open letter stating: “We are going to change the fate of humanity, whether you like it or not.”

The letter, published by the Guardian, says: “United we will rise on 15 March and many times after until we see climate justice. We demand the world’s decision makers take responsibility and solve this crisis. You have failed us in the past. [But] the youth of this world has started to move and we will not rest again.”

Related: 'Our leaders are like children,' school strike founder tells climate summit

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Climate crisis and a betrayed generation

The Guardian | Protest -

Activists behind recent youth-led climate protests say their views are being ignored in the debate about global warming

We, the young, are deeply concerned about our future. Humanity is currently causing the sixth mass extinction of species and the global climate system is at the brink of a catastrophic crisis. Its devastating impacts are already felt by millions of people around the globe. Yet we are far from reaching the goals of the Paris agreement.

Young people make up more than half of the global population. Our generation grew up with the climate crisis and we will have to deal with it for the rest of our lives. Despite that fact, most of us are not included in the local and global decision-making process. We are the voiceless future of humanity.

Related: My generation trashed the planet. So I salute the children striking back | George Monbiot

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