Sunrise and Extinction Rebellion had organized worldwide climate protests for this date. So I headed back to Code Pink House in DC for the 12/6 Firedrill Friday. The kids started the day at George Washington University at 7:30 AM with rolling blockades of streets in Washington to disrupt business as usual during the morning commute. They continued their blockades as they marched across the city to Franklin Park where the Firedrill Friday rally was taking place on this day. Paki and I and Karen Flaherty from New York went to the rally.
Jane Fonda again introduced everyone.
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| Jane in her trademark red coat. |
Several other Hollywood stars were there:
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| Kiera Sedgewick, actress and TV producer. |
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| Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black. |
The theme for this Friday was Climate Immigrants and Refugees. Many faith leaders who are committed to working for Immigrant Rights were also there:
After the rally, we marched to the intersection of 14th and New York Avenue where we occupied the entire intersection. On one corner was a Chase branch, another had Wells Fargo, and a building housing Black Rock -- all three are major financiers of fossil fuel infrastructure. Black Rock also finances every bad thing you can think of including detention centers. Larry Fink is their CEO.
Paki, Karen and I were part of the team organizing the blockade of the intersection, while Sunrise and Extinction had planned to block the doors of the three financers of fossil fuels. However, the police had already blocked access to the doors. Everyone rallied outside Blackrock, the worst offender, with banners across the others.
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| Blackrock has no sign on the outside of the building, but this is where their offices are. |
We held the intersection for an hour or so until some of the kids went around the corner to another Wells Fargo branch and were able to blockade the doors there. Everyone moved to that location to support them. Police quickly formed a barricade around the demonstrators.
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| I asked an officer who he was working for -- the corporations or the people? He said he was just "protecting the demonstrators" although there was no one to protect against -- supportive demonstrators were surrounding the area. |
Recently the Metro DC police have not been arresting demonstrators. Capitol police do. Not sure if the Metro police are just saving themselves the trouble, or if they want to avoid dramatic media coverage of demonstrators being dragged away. In any case, the standoff went on for a couple of hours.
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| The demonstrators had their arms chained together thru the white tubes. |
After a couple of hours, the demonstrators declared victory -- they had halted business as usual at that Wells Fargo for several hours -- unlocked themselves and everybody went home.
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| Climate heroes and sheroes. |
Paki, Karen and I had been on our feet for hours and by now it was mid-afternoon. We were happy to find a Panera, sit down and have lunch.
That night, we went to the Dorothy Day House which is a Catholic workers' house. There are a number of them in cities across the US dedicated to supporting social justice issues of all kinds from a radical and spiritual perspective.
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| Loved these posters on their walls. |
We saw a presentation by Nathan Albright, from the NYC Catholic Worker House, about the climate emergency. Although I have read and thought about this for a long time, he put it together in a way which made it unavoidable that we are already in the emergency, and without immediate action, our children and grandchildren will inherit a radically different and frightening world. The message came home to me in a new and stark way. I hope everyone is getting this message now. Certainly the kids are. Massive civil disobedience, like nothing we have seen so far, is called for.
There will be Firedrill Fridays through Jan 11th. Consider going there for one, or to demonstrations near you. You don't have to get arrested. Just stand up for our Mother Earth and all her children.
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