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Rise Up for Climate, Jobs and Justice in SF Has Overbearing Organizers
350.org, the major organizers of this event, made it very slick; it was a little TOO slick. There are reports surfacing that people were told to abandon certain signs and that they could only perform "pre-approved" songs and chants in both Sacramento and San Francisco. The more radical elements we are used to seeing in a San Francisco demonstration were lacking.
Event organizer, 350.org, was enthusiastic but overly controlling of who, what, when and how the march for climate jobs and justice should transpire. Ergo, there was not the usual feeling of a San Francisco demo with all the spontaneity and creativity that goes with it. Other than Refuse Fascism and PSL.org, there was a clear lack of the more radical element typical of a San Francisco event. Fewer of the home made type signs that carry creative messages than usual were to be seen. Music was restricted to predesignated, preapproved locations. Some groups were told NOT to carry their banners.
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San Mateo Peace Action said it was asked to take their event down from the website for this world-wide action. They were told it was "too close" to the SF event, and that the organizers wanted everyone to go to the city. This large march in SF was over managed.
The march was organized organized by the Peoples Climate Movement which organized the NYC climate march in 2014 & the DC march in 2017. These marches were the anchor events with satellite marches around the world, same as the 2018 march in SF. The leadership team for the SF march was a coalition of Bay Area climate, justice & EJ groups including Idle No More SF Bay and Indian People Organizing for Change plus many others, and large organizations including 350.org and the Sierra Club. Idle No More SF Bay is an all volunteer group of Native Americans and our allies without staff or office. The leadership team made the decision about music, not to have a rally at the end, how the march ended, and a zillion other decisions. It was a year long project with many hours of hard, time consuming work. 350.org did an excellent job providing staff, funds, and helping organizers around the world create successful actions on and around Sept 8th. It was a lot of work and was pretty successful. I hope that it and the actions that followed during GCAS brought more people into the climate justice movement. It is a critical time and all of us are needed. There was bound to be some glitches, but as a member of the leadership team I am surprised by your reporting about people censoring messaging during the march. I can only wonder what the messenging was. Do you know?
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