Donald Trump

By Steve Schwarze, Jennifer Peeples, Jen Schneider, and Pete Bsumek - The Conversation, January 8, 2017

If citizens have heard anything about the upheaval in the U.S. coal industry, it is probably the insistence that President Obama and the EPA have waged a “war on coal.” This phrase is written into President-elect Donald Trump’s energy platform, which promises to “end the war on coal.”

The often repeated slogan indexes a set of attitudes and assumptions about government regulation and environmentalism. The foremost if the belief that the (liberal, overreaching) federal government has it out for coal and the American way of life that coal supports.

If only the coal industry could get government and its regulations off their backs, the argument goes, thousands of jobs and our economy would come roaring back, a pledge Trump made during his campaign while touring Appalachian coal country. After the election, Trump doubled down on this rhetoric, saying that, “On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy – including shale energy and clean coal – creating many millions of high-paying jobs.”

Yet most analysts agree that the major front in the “war on coal” lies within the market itself. Natural gas production, experiencing explosive growth thanks to the rapid expansion of hydrofracturing, has dealt the biggest blow to King Coal and explains coal’s loss of market share for power generation.

Still, the “war on coal” rhetoric persists. But why? We investigated the public communication strategies used by the industry and found some consistent patterns.

By Patrick Bond - CounterPunch, January 19, 2017

The forces arrayed against Donald Trump’s presidency and neo-fascist movement range from the Central Intelligence Agency to oppressed minorities, and will soon encompass the whole world once his climate change threats are carried out. From above, conflicts will continue with moderate Republicans, Democratic Party elites, so-called Deep State opponents including neoconservative factions of the military, exporting companies concerned about protectionism, and deficit hawks worried about excess spending on filthy-Keynesian infrastructure.

But it’s likely that elite opposition will fade within weeks. Then what about resistance from below? Learning explicitly from apartheid’s defeat, it makes sense to prepare a global Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) strategy against Trump, his leading cronies and United States corporations more generally.

For human rights victims in the US, mutual aid commitments like the new United Resistance linking dozens of campaigning groups and a sanctuary movement (hated by the far right) offer close-to-home “social self-defence,” as activist Jeremy Brecher remarks in his survey of myriad anti-Trump struggles.

When it comes to raising the costs of Trump’s noxious politics internationally and preventing corporations from full cohesion to his program, the US oppressed still must take the lead. Evidence of this is already emerging, with Trump boycotts seeking to delegitimise his political agenda and companies that support it. Internationally, we can predict that when Rex Tillerson takes trips or Trump attends the Hamburg G20 in July, protesters will be out.

By Aaron Tanaka - Medium, January 15, 2017

Trump Repression, Regression and Response (11)

1. prepare for devastating regulatory and policy losses. resist implementation along the chain. become ungovernable through direct action, divestment, boycotts, strikes, mass CD, creative disruptions etc. raise up, resource and support action by those most targeted by Trump. call-in people with privilege to push beyond their comfort zones. direct action can still get (some) goods.
2. state persecution at mass scale requires participation and complicity from local and state police and other arms of local law enforcement. intensify local organizing around police accountability #blacklivesmatter — make participation in Trump’s new repressive programs politically infeasible for locally elected mayor’s, DA’s, sheriffs etc. prioritize policies envisioned for sanctuary cities and other forms of local governmental non-cooperation w Federal repression. give cover to local pols and officials that step out.
3. support our friends and family in rural and agricultural cities who face very different political conditions; national hate-mongering accentuates disparities across geography. a comrade in Jackson, MS reports a social volatility with growing white supremacist elements that advance physical threats (arson and worse) targeting Black movement spaces etc. invest and rally around Black and indigenous led resistance especially in the South and Midwest.
4. support rapid response networks (deportation resistance, hate crime response, safety walks, abortion facility protection, eviction blockades, copwatch etc.) and other mutual aid supports for targeted peoples. consider efforts growing community “first responders” — who intervene and help diffuse disputes — as an alternative to calling the police. help align these strategies to model and scale longterm community controlled security infrastructure.
5. invest in readiness training for environmental and political disaster, and view crisis related skill building as a political strategy. advance the localization and decentralization of food and energy production to build community resilience in the face of global economic and political volatility.
6. as assault on women and queer & trans people intensifies, develop strategies to better integrate womanist analysis and framework in our community and labor organizing. push mainline white feminist organizations to resource especially the leadership of low-income queer and trans women of color. seek to align political resistance against Trump with pro-feminist values, like promoting #ConsentCulture as contrast to Trump’s rhetoric and policies. #DemandConsent #NoTrump
7. educate our communities and networks around the functions of our surveillance state, the history of cointelpro and other domestic repression. reject the digital security divide, and seek equitable access to communications tools like encrypted texting, trainings in “security culture,” and infrastructure like the blockchain sector to anticipate repression and popularize resistant alternatives in technology. better integrate speech & privacy, and press & internet freedom fights into our movement discourse and strategies.
8. prepare for specific attacks on Left and nonprofit infrastructure by the federal government. expect efforts to freeze c3 & c4 funds. move assets to more secure legal and financial vehicles.
9. prepare to resist extreme privatization. find better ways to communicate about the commons, the public good, and the danger of the profit motive in essential public services. link to #flint and other animating impacts of profit creep or austerity within the public sector. attempt to leverage the debate on healthcare to articulate the nuances: attribute ObamaCare’s real challenges to the lack of a #PublicOption, and a dependence on market solutions that enriched private insurance & health companies. foster clear eyed discernment of #infrastructure scams and mass corporate subsidies, couched in universalist language.
10. support domestic community based organizing and the nonprofit sector to build internationalist analysis and narratives to compete with Trump’s nationalist panic. a popular front against militarization, trade aggression, migrant & refugee persecution, sex-trafficking, and climate change not only depends on resistance by US frontline communities, but also an emergent moral populism animated by a sense of global solidarity and empathy.
11. invest in and amplify cultural and narrative resistance strategies. our role is not to change his mind. rather, work to delegitimize him by exploiting contradictions within his already fractured coalition, while energizing our base. make #2FaceTrump the least popular president in modern American history.

By Dan Bacher - CounterPunch, January 16, 2017

By Andrew Simms - Red Pepper, January 6, 2017

What’s in a number? Quite a lot when the last time it prevailed in the sky above our heads was in the Pliocene period, between three and five million years ago, long before modern humans evolved. Last year, 2015, was the first since then that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the principal driver of man-made global warming, stayed above 400 parts per million (ppm). The higher it goes, the worse things get, and it is already a long way past the level considered necessary to stabilise our climate, 350ppm, the number taken for that reason by global climate campaign 350.org.

Nobody knows exactly where the line in the atmosphere lies beyond which the process of warming feeds off itself, inexorably moving beyond our ability to control climatic instability. It’s a game of chance and probability, and we are already playing climate roulette, in which current warming makes life difficult, and in some cases impossible, for many of the world’s most vulnerable people.

It does this in a range of ways, from the sheer impact of increasingly extreme weather events to effects on the price of food, forced displacement and movement of climate-borne diseases. A world of incipient warming is the enemy of everyone, but especially people with the least power, fewest assets, weakest support structures and inability to move. It is the enemy of every social ambition. Unless tackled, it spells out a great reversal of human progress. It is the one problem which, unless solved, unravels every other cause.

Our use of fossil fuel energy is the principal driver, if not the only one. The loss of natural habitats such as tropical and primary forests is another. A global climate agreement, the Paris Accord, has now entered into force. It has many flaws but includes a commitment to prevent warming of more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels, and an ambition to hold it to just 1.5 degrees. But add up all the current national commitments, and depending on whose modelling you look at, we’re either missing the two-degrees target by a little, or a lot. In either case only a small, or very small, fraction of the fossil fuels still left in the ground can be burned, even as major oil companies explore for new reserves.

Some argue that to dwell on this unambiguously dire situation leads only to paralysis. But unless we do take in the enormity of our predicament, it is unlikely that we will come up with responses that are remotely equal to the scale or immediacy of action required. As Thomas Hardy wrote, ‘If a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.’

And that action, straightforwardly, is the rapid transition of energy-intensive societies. It requires the illumination of more convivial, low-consumption economies that will allow everyone to lead good lives while operating within planetary boundaries.

By Sophie Yeo - Carbon Brief, January 4, 2017

Tackling climate change is good for the economy, good for business and good for people. This is the narrative often pushed out by campaigners, researchers and governments around the world.

But while measures to curb emissions and reduce the impacts of rising temperatures will be good for the many, the few who work in industries affected by climate policies risk losing their livelihoods as the economy leans increasingly upon renewable energy.

Around the world, there is a growing movement demanding a “just transition” for the workforce, so that workers are not left in the cold as fossil fuels become consigned to the past.

Peabody and the Navajo tribe

Arizona’s Navajo tribe is one example of a community already fighting for a just transition. This Native American group signed a lease in 1964 allowing Peabody Energy, America’s largest coal company, to mine for coal on reservation lands. Now, 50 years later, many are battling against the impacts of this deal.

When they signed the lease, the company agreed to “employ Navajo Indians when available in all positions for which…they are qualified”. Since then, Peabody has been a major employer of tribe members — 90% of the 430-person workforce of its Kayenta mine are native people.

Yet, while Peabody has provided jobs and money, poverty rates on the Navajo Nation Reservation are more than twice as high as the Arizona state average, and benefits have come at the expense of the local environment.

The Navajo tribe has seen their water sources dwindle as Peabody has used the reservation’s aquifer to turn coal into slurry and pump it down a pipeline. Coal plants surrounding the reservation have polluted the air, clouding the view of the nearby Grand Canyon and other national parks. It is also a source of CO2, the primary contributor of human-caused climate change.

Members of the Navajo tribe, alongside the Hopi tribe that also lives in the area, are calling for a “just transition” away from coal — one that will see old jobs tied to the polluting coal industry replaced with clean and profitable work.

One group, the Black Mesa Water Coalition, is trying to create economic opportunities that will help to release the community from its reliance on coal. For instance, they have tried to revive the traditional Navajo wool market, developing partnerships with wool buyers and organising an annual Wool Buy.

It has also started a solar project, which aims to install a series of 20MW to 200MW solar installations on abandoned coal mining land, transforming the reservation’s old role as an energy provider.

The idea has gone global. In Ghana, for instance, the government has developed a programme to plant more trees, simultaneously improving the landscape, providing jobs, and offering a diversified source of livelihoods for farmers. Peasant farmers and the rural unemployed were involved in planting species such as teak, eucalyptus, cassia and mahogany, generating 12,595 full-time jobs.

In Port Augusta, a town of 14,000 people in South Australia, there is a plan underway to install a solar thermal plant to replace the town’s coal industry. This became even more urgent after the Alinta power station announced that it would close, potentially putting 250 jobs at risk.

By Alameda County Central Labor Council - Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement, December 5, 2016

WHEREAS, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has sparked fear and anger in our community, especially among those most marginalized, including immigrants, Muslims, people of color, women, the disabled, and LGBTQ populations.

WHEREAS, the President Elect has publicly supported and endorsed anti-union policies including federal Right to Work laws and is considering appointing to his cabinet people with a track record of promoting such policies

WHEREAS, newly appointed Supreme Court Justices will swing the court to be more consistently anti-union

WHEREAS, the privatization of Social Security and Medicare is likely to be pushed early in the Trump administration

WHEREAS, the diverse membership of the working class and of our unions includes populations that candidate Trump threatened with bigoted policies and hateful rhetoric

WHEREAS, that hateful rhetoric has already been seen in the form of an increase of hate crimes and violence against marginalized communities which overlap with our membership

WHEREAS, it is the obligation of organized labor to defend our members from attacks and promote an elevated and equal quality of life for all workers

Whereas, spontaneous demonstrations have erupted across the country immediately following the election of Donald Trump.  Many organizations of students, labor, women, and various communities are continuing to plan massive protests including on Martin Luther King, Jr Day and culminating in action on the day of the inauguration of Donald Trump, January 20, 2017

WHEREAS, the day on which we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr who fought against racism and bigotry and championed the issues of the working class is just four days before the inauguration of Donald Trump.

WHEREAS, the power of organized labor is not reliant upon the occupant of any government office up to and including the office of President of the United States

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Alameda County Labor Council endorses and encourages all members to participate in the nationwide call for protest and actions beginning with those honoring and continuing the struggle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr on his day, Monday, January 16 and culminating in a national day of action and protest and a reassertion of the power of organized labor on Friday January, 20, the day of the Inauguration of President Donald Trump

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Alameda County Labor Council encourages each of its affiliates to use the day of action on Friday, January 20 to display our power, unity and solidarity by planning an action around an existing labor dispute and inviting all of its members to participate as well as support their members who want to participate in inauguration protests.

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that we urge all affiliates to pass similar resolutions.