STEPS to SUCCESSFUL ACTIVISM

Being an activist, participant & supporter of many grassroots campaigns (successful & not), the blow of losing the #StopSiteCDam fight despite strong campaign & overwhelming support has weighed heavily. Time to step up my game --& that of fellow activists-- & prioritize WINNING causes/fights we believe in! Borrowing heavily from the huge volume of advice on the timely topic, i've started this Work In Progress - a 'must-do' list:

●(Feb.14) To offset Site C disappointment & celebrate a long-awaited victory re. Prosperity Mine's rejection (Article: Taseko Loses Court Battle Over New Prosperity Mine), I'm adding this one at the top of list:  PERSEVERANCE.. along with a link to my original letter to CEAA (ya it's good.. & long!) with strong arguments opposing Taseko's first bid for Prosperity Mine: Letter to CEAA: Prosperity Mine

●Face-to-face
You can write all the scathing tweets & heartfelt FB posts you want, but the truth is rhetoric rarely persuades. The way to change minds is through face-to-face engagement. This is what President Obama meant when he said he won Iowa in 2008 because he “spent 87 days going to every small town, fair, fish fry & VFW hall.” Similarly, progress on LGBT rights has not been made just because of eloquent arguments, but because of all the many personal interactions between straight people & their gay friends, neighbors & colleagues.

●Listen & Learn
Talk to those around you; actively hear their stories & learn how the issue affects their lives. By listening, you show the fight isn't just about you --  & you build relationships & trust.  History has shown lasting change is made collectively not individually, by groups/communities with a common belief at their core & a bond of trust among participants.

●Simplify
The more complicated a strategy or tactic, the harder it is to carry out, and the less likely it'll be successful. You can ask a few people to do a lot of things, particularly if they’re committed activists. If you want hundreds or thousands to participate in a campaign, you need to ask the majority of them to do just one thing @ a time, together.

●Common interest
Most people are motivated primarily by self-interest. As a creative community organizer, you must try to figure out people’s common self-interest, the glue that binds political organizations & movements. (Eg. Huge wave of support against our City Council's plan to shut down Insite is what kept Insite open in the end.)

●Create a clear goal
One of the greatest reasons for the DAP protesters’ success was the adherence to a clearly outlined goal & reasons for it:  ie. do not construct this pipeline, as it will infringe upon sacred sites & jeopardize Native Americans’ necessary water supplies

●Social media
Social media has expanded membership bases & enlarged participant pools by proving itself to be a constant means of spreading news & gaining supporters.

●Diversity
The key to any movement’s success is variety in its participants. Because DAP hosted everyone from Vietnam vets to Lissa Yellowbird-Chase (Murdoch-Crane’s guide through the encampment) to multiple sectors, it boasted the multiplicity in its membership that ensured success.

●Connect with other groups
While we usually notice successful movements after they have begun to attract large crowds & hold massive demonstrations, those are effects, not causes, of successful mobilization. It is when small groups connect --which has become exponentially easier in the digital age-- that they gain their power.

Letter to GovT: Please uphold the ban on Seal-Hunt products!

{i'm on a ROLL}  YOU oughta write one too -
Use this link:  HSI Letter  


                                                                (from Humane Society website)

This is what i added (inside HSI's intro & ending in blue):

SUBJECT:  Please withdraw Canada's WTO challenge

Dear Decision Maker,
I am writing to express my strong opposition to Canada's request for a dispute panel to be established at the World Trade Organization in response to the European Union ban on seal product trade.

After a decade of increasingly active campaigning opposing Canada's Commercial Seal Hunt, i have come close to despair at Government's strange refusal to even acknowledge its rising swell of opposition - despite record-breaking numbers joining in the rally to 'Stop the Seal Hunt!', via numerous petitions boasting 100's of 1,000's of signatures, global high-profile celebrity appeals & involvement by virtually all large animal-welfare non-profits besides HSI:  PETA, IFAW, WSPA & many others.  I've watched wistfully as other, smaller, campaigns achieve results... cheered when the EU seal-products ban was announced... & cried tears of joy when Putin banned all seal-hunt trade in Russia.  Yet --still-- we Canadians are forced to suffer the shame of seeing our public servants (INEXPLICABLY) dig in their heels, refuse to compromise & stubbornly support the Seal 'Hunt' using lies, misinformation & misnomers via mainstream media.

On video-streaming websites like YouTube, the general public can see exactly what this appalling event is about.  If you have never seen it (& it seems that is the case), i recommend you view for yourself exactly WHO & WHAT you are supporting using OUR tax dollars, against most Canadians' wishes.  You will see why much of this footage comes with warnings of its graphic nature 'not suitable for children'.  You will see that, contrary to what you may be told, there's NOTHING noble, 'traditional' --or even HONEST-- about this supposed 'way of life' (which First Nations don't even support).
Full info @ this link:  The Cdn. Seal Hunt

NOBODY I know (including me) WANTS to watch filmed footage of the Seal 'Hunt':  the most disturbing, sadistic display of cowardly violence i have ever had the misfortune to witness.  Even if the Seal 'Hunt' WERE economically sound, sustainable & humane (which it's clearly NOT), the extreme distress inflicted so brutally would, for most Canadians, cancel out any benefits.  As with other questionable stances taken by Govt. recently, it appears we're being led away from future self-sufficiency/ sustainability, against the wishes of 86% of citizens & against our constitution (which asks us to be 'wildlife stewards') while condoning abuse of young wild seals in their own native habitat (which our constitution says must be protected) in a remote community that becomes more of a burden/drain each year...
[WE MUST DEFEND OUR WILDLIFE, NOT KILL THEM!]

PM Harper's reckless WTO challenge to the EU ban would cost Canadian taxpayers an estimated $10 million --yet another subsidy to the sealing industry stolen from the overwhelming majority of Canadians who want it to end-- just as Canada attempts to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union reportedly worth $12 billion annually to our economy.   It seems incomprehensible to risk beneficial relations with our second largest trading partner (leaders in sustainable technologies as well as our key source of ecotourism) while rushing to push through a dodgy deal (FIPPA) with an undemocratic republic (China) whose environmental record is already the world's WORST! These are not the sound moves of a well-informed government.

I implore you to consider the many benefits of upholding/ respecting EU's ban - aside from purely economic ones, which are no-brainers. We must see this ban as a blessing, an opportunity to free Canada from unnecessary dependencies & thus pave the way for modern, streamlined, sustainable technologies that don't involve destroying crucial wildlife ecosystems, disrespecting other life forms or polluting our environment.

I am asking that you immediately withdraw the WTO challenge against the EU & do everything in your power to put a final end to 'Canada's Shame', the Commercial Seal Hunt.

Sincerely,
Sarah Chesterman
Vancouver, BC

Oppose SITE C DAM-age to BC {Part II}

Part I here:  Oppose SITE C DAM-age to BC {Part I}

As an addendum to my (April 5th) post on this crucial BC matter - to which all BCers would be unequivocably opposed if properly informed of Site C dam's repercussions, i.e. its resulting degradation of BC's air/ land/ water quality (eg. our precious natural resources, without which we have a 3rd-world future) - via the letter template found @ StopSiteC.org hsent to relevant government officials...

I am extremely concerned about Site C's effects on the following:

- Hundreds of productive working farms in this fertile region would literally be washed away by flooding, along with their invaluable, sustainable food-security benefits & services! To even contemplate such irreversible destruction of BCers' livelihoods & future self-sufficiency - which could not be mitigated - is a terrifying testament to BC's inept (if not willfully corrupt) business/government/utility leaders re. environmental/ resource mgmt. protection issues impacting this province.  NONE OF THESE ENTITIES have the constitutional right to green-light such misuse of our province's human/natural resources without due process comprising carefully considered analysis of any such project's effects.

- My fellow BC citizens operating viable agricultural outfits in the Peace River Valley - many for several generations - are naturally concerned that Site C Dam would forever RUIN not only their own livelihoods but those of BC's richly fertile agricultural industry as a whole & the Peace River Valley's prolific part in it.  Such a prospect is not merely conjecture but an inarguably predictive adjunct of Site C's development, which would turn longtime Peace River inhabitants out of their established farms/homes & render them refugees in their own province - as well as turning one of the world's richest agricultural oases into a derelict floodplain (i.e. adding to unsustainable waste production) NOT TO PROVIDE FOR BC'S ENERGY NEEDS BUT TO SERVE INCREASED FOSSIL-FUEL/ FRACKING/TARSANDS PRODUCTION FOR EXPORT TO CHINA, ALREADY THE WORLD'S WORST POLLUTER.  Thousands of BCers have expressed repeated opposition to this appalling direction & called for transition to clean, renewable energy production in the face of government's negligent disregard for its own citizens' futures.

I.E. Building Site C Dam would entail AN ENSUING DISASTER SITUATION OF CATASTROPHIC PROPORTIONS FOR BC'S LAND & PEOPLE. This is irresponsible, short-sighted & unacceptable...

- Further deleterious effects of Site C Dam include putting BC's indigenous wildlife species in peril, include destruction via flooding of already-diminished critical habitat which would further limit access to the ecosystems on which wild species such as Cariboo, Grizzly Bear, Coyotes, Wolves & many others depend for their survival.  Such serious threats to BC's healthy biodiversity (= also a measuring-tool of human health) are significant.  Yet Site C's proposal looms over this precarious balancing-act as a very real threat highlighting another foreboding aspect of governmental ignorance that would signal failure to meet their most basic pledges dedicating allegiance to BC's best interests - which includes protecting BC's precious wildlife species, along with their habitats & our province's healthy biodiversity in general.

- The above points do not even take into consideration  Site C Dam's necessary destruction (through flooding) of First Nations heritage sites, including burial grounds & places of cultural/spiritual significance along with their low-footprint way of life which they have sustained (& which have sustained BC's natural riches) for centuries.  Such disgraceful (mis)treatment of our native people ought to be deal-breaking grounds for refusal by ANY assessment panel. If Government were smart, & forward-thinking, our First Nations would rightfully hold top consulting positions in all land management matters & our required critical transition to clean-energy/sustainable technologies which need to take place NOW, as per global directives on climate-change & emissions reduction. THAT is the forward-thinking business of any modern government entity, in order to secure futures - the LEGACIES to which Ms. Clark referred so frequently in her recent electoral campaign.  If there are to be any 'legacies' for BCers then economic returns must be bolstered by smart, sustainable resource management - i.e. safeguarding our forests, lakes, mountains, rivers etc. from unsustainable development/ industry.  If we don't, pollution will poison our fresh-water sources & cripple any chances of providing legacies for future generations. Building Site C Dam would further contribute to environmental damage via rising carbon emissions, in polar opposition to NASA's warnings that these levels MUST decrease to reverse global warming trends...

- FOR ONCE let's be smart vis-a-vis conservation of BC's precious native fauna/ flora (= the bulwarks of future survival/ sustainability) & respect for our First Nations, without whose knowledgeable/ skillful preservation of its ongoing bounty/ renewal BC's valuable forests & natural resources would be non-existent today.  Building Site C Dam would degrade both, jeopardizing BC's health & the lives of future generations.

  

- The financial cost to B.C. taxpayers, who would have to shoulder this $8 billion megaproject - NOT for the purpose of domestic consumption but to facilitate further unsustainable fossil-fuel/operations & increased pollution - makes this proposed project that much more untenable to BC & our future as a thriving province.

Why is BC, apparently a wealthy part of the world (for many), so desperate to continue favouring big-money POLLUTERS??

STEP IT UP -- & STOP SITE C DAM, BC!!

(photo by Graham Osborne of WildernessCommittee.org)