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Weekend Edition September 19-21, 2014<b><small><small><small><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/19/how-the-peoples-climate-march-became-a-corporate-pr-campaign/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/19/how-the-peoples-climate-march-became-a-corporate-pr-campaign/</a></small></small></small></b><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle">Business as Usual in Manhattan</div>
<h1 class="article-title">How the People’s Climate March Became a
Corporate PR Campaign</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by ARUN GUPTA</div>
<div class="main-text">
<p>I’ve never been to a protest march that advertised in the New
York City subway. That spent $220,000 on posters inviting Wall
Street bankers to join a march to save the planet, according
to one source. That claims you can change world history in an
afternoon after walking the dog and eating brunch.</p>
<p>Welcome to the “People’s Climate March” set for Sunday, Sept.
21 in New York City. It’s timed to take place before world
leaders hold a Climate Summit at the United Nations two days
later. Organizers are <a
href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/biggest-climate-change-demonstration-ever-un-new-york"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.motherjones.com']);">billing
it</a> as the “biggest climate change demonstration ever”
with similar marches around the world. <a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/181634/how-define-success-peoples-climate-march"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.thenation.com']);">The
Nation</a> describes the pre-organizing as following “a
participatory, open-source model that recalls the Occupy Wall
Street protests.” A leader of <a href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a>,
one of the main organizing groups, explained, “Anyone can
contribute, and many of our online organizing ‘hubs’ are led
by volunteers who are often coordinating hundreds of other
volunteers.”</p>
<p>I will join the march, as well as the Climate Convergence
starting Friday, and most important the “<a
href="http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/come-peoples-climate-march-stay-flood-wall-street/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://wagingnonviolence.org']);">Flood
Wall Street</a>” direct action on Monday, Sept. 22. I’ve had
conversations with more than a dozen organizers including
senior staff at the organizing groups. Many people are
genuinely excited about the Sunday demonstration. The movement
is radicalizing thousands of youth. Endorsers include some
labor unions and many people-of-color community organizations
that normally sit out environmental activism because the
mainstream green movement has often done a poor job of talking
about the impact on or solutions for workers and the Global
South.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, to quote Han Solo, “I’ve got a bad feeling about
this.”</p>
<p>Environmental activist <a
href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/13/1321335/-The-Need-for-Clear-Demands-at-the-Peoples-Climate-March"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.dailykos.com']);">Anne
Petermann </a>and writer <a
href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/26215-like-a-dull-knife-the-peoples-climate-farce"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://truth-out.org']);">Quincy
Saul</a> describe how the People’s Climate March has no
demands, no targets,and no enemy. Organizers admitted
encouraging bankers to march was like saying Blackwater
mercenaries should join an antiwar protest. There is no unity
other than money. One veteran activist who was involved in
Occupy Wall Street said it was made known there was plenty of
money to hire her and others. There is no sense of history:
decades of climate-justice activism are being erased by the
incessant invocation of the “biggest climate change
demonstration ever.” Investigative reporter <a
href="http://wrongkindofgreen.org/2014/09/15/this-changes-nothing-why-the-peoples-climate-march-guarantees-climate-catastrophe/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://wrongkindofgreen.org']);">Cory
Morningstar</a> has connected the dots between the
organizing groups, <a href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a> and
Avaaz, the global online activist outfit modeled on MoveOn,
and institutions like the World Bank and Clinton Global
Initiative. Morningstar claims the secret of Avaaz’s success
is its “expertise in behavioral change.”</p>
<p>That is what I find most troubling. Having worked on Madison
Avenue for nearly a decade, I can smell a P.R. and marketing
campaign a mile away. That’s what the People’s Climate March
looks to be. According to inside sources a push early on for a
Seattle-style event—organizing thousands of people to
nonviolently shut down the area around the United Nations—was
thwarted by paid staff with the organizing groups.</p>
<p>One participant in the organizing meetings said, “In the
beginning people were saying, ‘This is our Seattle,’”
referring to the 1999 World Trade Organization ministerial
that was derailed by direct action. But the paid staff got the
politics-free Climate March. Another source said, “You
wouldn’t see Avaaz promoting an occupy-style action. The
strategic decision was made to have a big march and get as
many mainstream groups on board as possible.”</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with that. Not every tactic should be based on
Occupy. But in an email about climate change that Avaaz sent
out last December, which apparently raked in <a
href="https://secure.avaaz.org/en/24_months_loc_donate/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://secure.avaaz.org']);">millions
of dollars</a>, it wrote, “It’s time for powerful, direct,
non-violent action, to capture imagination, convey moral
urgency, and inspire people to act. Think Occupy.”</p>
<p>Here’s what seems to be going on. Avaaz found a lucrative
revenue stream by warning about climate catastrophe that can
be solved with the click of a donate button. To convince
people to donate it says we need Occupy-style actions. When
the moment comes for such a protest, Avaaz and <a
href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a>blocked
it and then when it did get organized, they pushed it out of
sight. If you go to <a href="http://peoplesclimate.org/march/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://peoplesclimate.org']);">People’s
Climate March</a>, you won’t find any mention of the Flood
Wall Street action, which I fully support, but fear is being
organized with too little time and resources. Nor have I seen
it in an Avaaz email, nor has anyone else I’ve talked to. Bill
McKibben of <a href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a> began
promoting it this week, but that may be because there is
discontent in the activist ranks about the march, which
includes lots of Occupy Wall Street activists. One inside
source said, “It’s a branding decision not to promote the
Flood Wall Street action. These are not radical
organizations.”</p>
<p>Branding. That’s how the climate crisis is going to be
solved. We are in an era or postmodern social movements.</p>
<p>The image (not ideology) comes first and shapes the reality.
The P.R. and marketing determines the tactics, the messaging,
the organizing, and the strategy. Whether this can have a
positive effect is a different question, and it’s why I
encourage everyone to participate. The future is unknowable.
But left to their own devices the organizers will lead the
movement into the graveyard of the Democratic Party, just as
happened with the movement against the Iraq War a decade ago.
You remember that historic worldwide movement, right? It was
so profound the <i>New York Times</i> dubbed global public
opinion, “the second superpower.” Now Obama has launched an
eighth war and there is no antiwar movement to speak of.</p>
<p>Sources say Avaaz and <a href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a> is
footing most of the bill for the People’s Climate March with
millions of dollars spent. Avaaz is said to have committed a
dozen full-time staff, and hired dozens of other canvassers to
collect petition signatures and hand out flyers. Nearly all
of <a href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a>’s
staff is working on climate marches around the country and
there is an office in New York with thirty full-time workers
organizing the march. That takes a lot of cheddar. While the
grassroots are being mobilized, this is not a grassroots
movement. That’s why it’s a mistake to condemn it. People are
joining out of genuine concern and passion and hope for an
equitable, sustainable world, but the control is top down and
behind closed doors. Everyone I talked to described an
undemocratic process. Even staffers were not sure who was
making the decisions other than to tell me to follow the
money. It’s also facile to say all groups are alike. Avaaz is
more cautious than <a href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a>,
and apparently the New York chapter of <a
href="http://350.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://350.org']);">350.org</a>,
which is more radical, is at odds with the national.</p>
<p>But when the overriding demand is for numbers, which is about
visuals, which is about P.R. and marketing, everything becomes
lowest common denominator. The lack of politics is a political
decision. One insider admitted despite all the overheated
rhetoric about the future is on the line, “I don’t expect much
out of this U.N. process.” The source added this is “a media
moment, a mobilizing moment.” The goal is to have visuals of a
diverse crowd, hence the old saw about a “family-friendly”
march. Family friendly comes at a high cost, however.
Everything is decided by the need for visuals, which means
organizers will capitulate to anything the NYPD demands for
fear of violence. The march is on a Sunday morning when the
city is in hangover mode. The world leaders will not even be
at the United Nations, and they are just the hired guns of the
real climate criminals on Wall Street. The closest the march
comes to the United Nations is almost a mile away. The march
winds up on Eleventh Avenue, a no-man’s land far from subways.
There is no closing rally or speakers.</p>
<p>An insider says the real goal was to create space for
politicians: “If you can frame it as grandma and kids and
immigrants and labor you could make it safer for politicians
to come out and support. It’s all very liberal. I don’t have
much faith in it.”</p>
<p>When I asked what the metrics for success for, the insider
told me media coverage and long-term polling about public
opinion. I was dumbfounded. That’s the exact same tools we
would use in huge marketing campaigns. First we would estimate
and tally media “impressions” across all digital, print,
outdoor, and so on. Then a few months down the road we would
conduct surveys to see if we changed the consumer’s opinion of
the brand, their favorability, the qualities they associated
with it, the likelihood they would try. That’s the same tools
Avaaz is allegedly using.</p>
<p>Avaaz has pioneered clickbait activism. It gets people to
sign petitions about dramatic but ultimately minor issues
like, “Prevent the flogging of 15 year old rape victim in
Maldives.” The operating method of Avaaz, which was
established in 2007, is to create “actions” like these that
generate emails for its fundraising operation. In other words,
it’s a corporation with a business model to create products
(the actions), that help it increase market share (emails),
and ultimately revenue. The actions that get the most
attention are ones that get the most petition signers, the
most media coverage, and which help generate revenue.</p>
<p>Avaaz has turned social justice into a product to enhance the
liberal do-gooding lifestyle, and it’s set its sights on the
climate justice movement.</p>
<p>The more dramatic the emails the better the response. It’s
like the supermarket. The bags and boxes don’t say, “Not bad,”
or “kinda tasty.” They say “the cheesiest,” “the most
delicious,” “an avalanche of flavor,” “utterly irresistible.”
That’s why climate change polls so well for Avaaz. It’s really
fucking dramatic. But it’s still not dramatic enough for
marketing purposes.</p>
<p>One source said the December 2013 email from Avaaz Executive
Director Ricken Patel about climate change was a goldmine. It
was headlined, “24 Months to Save the World.” It begins, “This
may be the most important email I’ve ever written to you,” and
then says the climate crisis is “beyond our worst
expectations” with storms and temperatures “off the charts.”
Then comes the hook from Patel, “We CAN stop this, if we act
very fast, and all together. And out of this extinction
nightmare, we can pull one of the most inspiring futures for
our children and grandchildren. A clean, green future in
balance with the earth that gave birth to us.”</p>
<p>Telling people there is 24 months to save the world is
odious, as is implying an online donation to Avaaz can save
the planet.</p>
<p>The same overblown rhetoric is being used for the People’s
Climate March: It’s the biggest ever. There is “<a
href="http://peoplesclimate.org/march/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://peoplesclimate.org']);">unprecedented
collaboration</a>” with more than 1,400 “partner” groups in
New York City. Everything comes down to this one day with the
“future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a
stand to bend the course of history.”</p>
<p>Presumably the orderly marchers behind NYPD barricades will
convince the governments of the world that will meet for the
Climate Summit that won’t even meet for another two days that
they need to pass UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s
“ambitious global agreement to dramatically reduce global
warming pollution.”</p>
<p>Moon is now joining the march. But it’s hard to find details,
including on the <a
href="http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.un.org']);">Climate
Summit</a> website, as to what will actually be discussed
there. The best <a
href="http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/09/15/Another-Corporate-Climate-Summit/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://thetyee.ca']);">account</a> I
could find is by Canadian journalist Nick Fillmore. He claims
the main point will be a carbon pricing scheme. This is one of
those corporate-designed scams that in the past has rewarded
the worst polluters with the most credits to sell and creates
perverse incentives to pollute, because then they can earn
money to cut those emissions.</p>
<p>So we have a corporate-designed protest march to support a
corporate-dominated world body to implement a corporate policy
to counter climate change caused by the corporations of the
world, which are located just a few miles away but which will
never feel the wrath of the People’s Climate March.</p>
<p>Rather than moaning on the sidelines and venting on Facebook,
radicals need to be in the streets. Join the marches and more
important the direct actions. Radicals need to ask the
difficult questions as to why for the second time in fifteen
years has a militant uprising, first Seattle and then Occupy,
given way to liberal cooptation. What good is your radical
analysis if the NGO sector and Democratic Party fronts kept
out-organizing you?</p>
<p>Naomi Klein says we need to end business as usual because
climate change is going to change everything. She’s right.
Unfortunately the organizers of the People’s Climate March
didn’t get the memo. Because they are continuing on with
business as usual that won’t change anything.</p>
<p>One prominent environmental organizer says that after the
march ends, “The U.N. leaders are going to be in there Monday
and Tuesday and do whatever the fuck they want. And everyone
will go back to their lives, walking the dog and eating
brunch.”</p>
<p>The future is unwritten. It’s not about what happens on
Sunday. It’s what happens after that.</p>
<p><i><strong>Arun Gupta</strong> contributes to outlets
including Al Jazeera America, Vice, The Progressive, The
Guardian, and In These Times.</i></p>
</div>
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