Blood and Guts on Wall Street, The Global Rebellion begins! Extinction Rebellion 🌎 ⏳ #xr #xrnyc #everybodynow #climaterebellion #climatestrike #climatecrisis

Wall Street is killing us! — at New York Stock Exchange.

Lisa Fithian arrested for using a bullhorn with XR! Speak truth to power Lisa! —  at Wall Street Stock Exchange.

Extinction Rebellion NYC

 · Climate Rebels are occupying the bull in the heart of NYC’s financial district

I arrive at Battery Park around 930 AM for the first  day of the Global  Rebellion, a week of festivities, trainings, activities, Nonviolent Direct actions, an ecological funeral procession, and an announcement of our DECLARATION OF REBELLION.

Dress creatively & appropriately, declared a flyer someone handed me during the climate strike two weeks prior.

Nonviolent Direct Actions starting in Battery Park at 9:30am on Monday, October 7, and continuing through the week at locations to be announced.

Rebel Fest in Washington Square Park, starting at 2pm on Monday, October 7, and continuing through the week from 9am–10pm.

WHY AND HOW?The
Decades of protests, petitions and donations to environmental groups have done
nothing to slow catastrophic change. Food and water shortages, resource wars,
economic breakdown, and millions of new climate refugees are on the horizon.
Human survival itself is at risk as temperatures continue to rise.
REBEL FEST
running all week, Washington Square Park will be a space for rebels and those
new to climate activism to gather in community, celebrate life, mourn, and take
part in regenerative, creative, and informative events. There will be music,
art-making, food, and activities for kids every day, as well as teach-ins,
workshops, and trainings. See the Rebel Fest schedule
for details.

collapse of climate and ecosystems is accelerating. We are nearly out of time.

I arrive at Battery Park around 930 AM for the first  day of the Global  Rebellion, a week of festivities, trainings, activities, Nonviolent Direct actions, an ecological funeral procession, and an announcement of our DECLARATION OF REBELLION.

Dress creatively & appropriately, declared a flyer someone handed me during the climate strike two weeks prior.

Nonviolent Direct Actions starting in Battery Park at 9:30am on Monday, October 7, and continuing through the week at locations to be announced.

Rebel Fest in Washington Square Park, starting at 2pm on Monday, October 7, and continuing through the week from 9am–10pm.

The collapse of climate and ecosystems is accelerating. We are nearly out of time. Decades of protests, petitions and donations to environmental groups have done nothing to slow catastrophic change. Food and water shortages, resource wars, economic breakdown, and millions of new climate refugees are on the horizon. Human survival itself is at risk as temperatures continue to rise.

The Global Extinction Rebellion will use nonviolent direct actions and peaceful civil disobedience to disrupt business-as-usual in order to compel governments to act now to save a livable climate. In New York, most arrests for such actions lead to simple court-appearance charges, and arrestees have been released from jail within four to 12 hours.

The more people who participate,

If you can’t or don’t choose to

Starting at 2pm on Monday and

Arriving  at Battery Park, uncertainty grasped me.

I’d spent the weekend thinking  about activism.

“The world  is waking up and change is coming whether you like it or not,” declared the sign in  front of Judson Church, quoting Greta Thunberg.

Some days, I have no idea what we are doing.

Doubt grasps at me. 

We envisioned a sustainable urbanism, using  all the ingredients we  have: 

Non-polluting transportation, gardens, solar, and renewables.

We fought for green spaces and bike lanes, opposing  fracking.

The climate conversation has changed everything.

But in some ways, not enough.

There are still too many people in cars.

The idea that we are going to change our means of production confronts a backlash every day, a well-funded, well-connected  opposition.

Still we have to get rid of cars, as we did on 14^th street this week.

Change cities.

Make them livable.

Grow more trees, to absorb carbon.

Ride more bikes to get around.

Grow farms.

Plant zillions of trees.

Raise awareness, change, hearts, minds and policies.

Use as many bodies as we can, nonviolently.

We’ve done it before with civil rights, women’s rights, and HIV/AIDS.

In some ways, this is a basic script. 

I am not about to sign off on our premature autopsies.

So I join the Extinction Rebellion. 

In Battery Park, someone hands me a copy of the Extinction  Rebellion  Rebel Agreement:

“All Rebels are asked to follow our basic agreement. It provides a basis for trust so we and the public know what we can expect of each other. 1. We show respect to everyone - to each other, the general public and to the government and police. 2. We engage in no violence, physical or verbal. 3. We carry no weapons and wear no masks - we hold ourselves accountable for our actions. 4. We bring no alcohol or illegal drugs. 5. We take responsibility for ourselves, we are all crew. We are here together until the Government acts on our three demands for necessary action on the climate and ecological crisis. This code enables us to attract the many people we need to make this possible. Anyone breaking these agreements will be asked to leave. Let’s get to it!”

How refreshing, we are going to show respect for each other,  we joke. 

And then I see some kids walk up with a sign that reads:

“Our Future!”

§  Call: If We Don’t Get It

§  Response: rebel for life

§  They scream, entering the park.

And I stop being snarky.

We need pallbearers to carry the coffins, says Tom.

Happy to join.

We practice screaming and wailing. 

And head out into the financial district with our New Orleans style funeral procession. 

Do we know where we are going, I ask the other pallbearers.

No.

Then we are in consensus.

The blind leading the naked.

At the Stock Exchange, we see bodies laid out in the street. 

Fake blood pouring from them,

The affect felt real.

The death toll for Hurricane Maria is 3000 people.

Blood pours down the cobblestones.

Plastic overtaking  oceans.

Every year is a new hottest year on record.

The Earth, the Earth, the Earth is on Fire!

We chant as the arrests began.

Police push us back.

Lisa Fithian is arrested for holding a bullhorn.

Howling and wailing, the crowd become more  and more noisy as the police drag away our friends.

More and  more people are joining us. 

Its not like we don’t agree with you, notes one of the cops.

Declaration  of Rebellion. This is our darkest hour.

§  Humanity finds itself embroiled in an event unprecedented in its history. One which, unless immediately addressed, will catapult us further into the destruction of all we hold dear: this nation, its peoples, our ecosystems and the future of generations to come.

§  The science is clear:- we are in the sixth mass extinction event and we will face catastrophe if we do not act swiftly and robustly.

§  Biodiversity is being annihilated around the world. Our seas are poisoned, acidic and rising. Flooding and desertification will render vast tracts of land uninhabitable and lead to mass migration.

§  Our air is so toxic that the United Kingdom is breaking the law. It harms the unborn whilst causing tens of thousands to die. The breakdown of our climate has begun. There will be more wildfires, unpredictable super storms, increasing famine and untold drought as food supplies and fresh water disappear.

§  The ecological crises that are impacting upon this nation, and indeed this planet and its wildlife can no longer be ignored, denied nor go unanswered by any beings of sound rational thought, ethical conscience, moral concern, or spiritual belief.

§  In accordance with these values, the virtues of truth and the weight of scientific evidence, we declare it our duty to act on behalf of the security and well-being of our children, our communities and the future of the planet itself.

§  We, in alignment with our consciences and our reasoning, declare ourselves in rebellion against our Government and the corrupted, inept institutions that threaten our future.

§  The wilful complicity displayed by our government has shattered meaningful democracy and cast aside the common interest in favour of short-term gain and private profits.

§  When Government and the law fail to provide any assurance of adequate protection, as well as security for its people’s well-being and the nation’s future, it becomes the right of its citizens to seek redress in order to restore dutiful democracy and to secure the solutions needed to avert catastrophe and protect the future. It becomes not only our right, it becomes our sacred duty to rebel.

§  We hereby declare the bonds of the social contract to be null and void, which the government has rendered invalid by its continuing failure to act appropriately. We call upon every principled and peaceful citizen to rise with us.

§  We demand to be heard, to apply informed solutions to these ecological crises and to create a national assembly by which to initiate those solutions needed to change our present cataclysmic course.

§  We refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now.

§  We act in peace, with ferocious love of these lands in our hearts. We act on behalf of life.