Tuesday, June 25, 2019

The bottom line in affecting change: Go for the money

by Rivera Sun

Activists tried to block one of Shell’s Arctic drill rigs from leaving Seattle in May 2015. (Daniella Beccaria, Flickr). 
It’s rare to hear business magazines admit the power of nonviolent action. As the editor of Nonviolence News, a service that collects and shares 30-50-plus stories of nonviolence in action each week, I often see business journals minimizing the effect of activism.

Usually, industry tries to conceal the impact nonviolent action has on their bottom line by chalking it up to market pressures — as with the case of Shell’s Arctic drilling rig. Business magazines credited falling fossil fuel prices with the decision to withdraw from drilling in the Arctic. Beneath that story, however, the reality was that hundreds of kayaktivists in the Shell No campaign blockaded the oil rig all the way from Portland, Ore. to Seattle, Wash. to Alaska, eventually succeeding in stopping the drilling project.

That’s why I was glad to see an honest admission of activists’ impact in Newsweek recently. An article blared the news that a first quarter securities filing from private prison company GEO Group warned their investors that activism poses a risk to their bottom line. Due to widespread resistance to mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline to nationwide outrage over family separation policies, private prisons and detention centers are facing the heat of a (rightfully) outraged public.

GEO Group’s admission offers an important reminder to activists: go for the money. Unlike politicians (whose risks are measured in two-four-six year election cycles), businesses measure their risks and profits every day, and report to financial committees every three months. The knowledge of how activists can impact industry is powerful, especially if used strategically. In Quebec, after learning how much money per day activists could cost a fracking company, an anti-fracking campaign drafted a plan of action, calculated the multi-million dollar price tag, and circulated that information to the press and shareholders. For years, the fracking industry stayed out of Quebec.
 
Shareholders and investors are particularly important targets for activist groups. Unlike industry professionals, their interest — and loyalty — lies with profit, not the industry itself.  Shareholders are fairly responsive to activist campaigns, voting to halt or change company policy to respond to the demands. An on-going, decades-long campaign against Monsanto has Bayer shareholders screaming over the “nightmare” of the Monsanto merger as 500 protesters showed up to demonstrate outside the meeting. Potential investors watch the risks posed by public dissent and often withdraw from a controversial and embattled industry

The Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline led directly to three major banks pulling out the project and triggered a global wave of fossil fuel related divestments.

Divestment campaigns are powerful. Organized among colleges and universities, retirement and public funds, and religious and faith institutions; divestment campaigns pressure organizations to withdraw their investment funds from certain industries (ideally moving the money into more ethical and just investments). In 2015, the Earth Quaker Action Team won a campaign to stop PNC Bank from bankrolling mountaintop removal, getting them to divest from coal mining.
 
Beyond shareholders and investors, industry also faces myriad pressures from concerned consumers, organized workers, and suppliers with ethical concerns. Italian dock workers refused to load a Saudi arms ship headed to Yemen, stating that they refused to be complicit in the conflict. Tech workers forced Google to drop a major military surveillance contract called Project Maven. Over 6,000 Amazon employees called on Jeff Bezos and the company’s board to adopt a climate plan that will transition the company to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. Across the United States, strikes are on the rise: 2018 was a record-breaking year and 2019 is on track to exceed those numbers.

These campaigns are changing the face of industry far more effectively — and swiftly — than government policy, legislative changes, or regulatory enforcement. Citizens are finding creative and powerful ways to pressure business, target destructive practices, and stop abuses. Using the tools of nonviolent action, people have hundreds of tactics at their disposal. More and more, we’re seeing people put these tools and tactics to use as they strive for real change in our world. The bottom line of all these stories is: go for the money. With divestment, strikes, boycotts, shareholder action, and more, find strategic and creative ways to pressure business into taking more ethical, just, peaceful, and sustainable practices.
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Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, has written numerous books, including “The Dandelion Insurrection.” She is the editor of Nonviolence News and a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent campaigns.

Thursday, June 6, 2019

Checking on the Trump SWOT -- The Mueller Report

In what seems like eons ago (but was just last March) I published my crack at a Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis for Donald Trump heading into the 2020 election. There are some interesting developments since then, especially in the Threat category, that point to advantages for Democratic hopefuls. The threats to Trump identified in the SWOT are listed below. We'll start with the Mueller Report. The other threats will be addressed in future posts.
  1. Mueller investigation shows collusion or obstruction
  2. SDNY indicts Trump
  3. Member of Trump family indicted (that idiot, Donald Jr!)
  4. House passes bill to force Trump to release tax returns
  5. Evidence arises showing Trump interfered in security clearance procedure
  6. Enough Republicans in Congress turn against Trump to make impeachment a possibility
  7. Russia does something stupid (e.g., invades Ukraine) and turns on Trump over sanctions
  8. DPRK begins nuclear weapons testing
  9. Market crash
  10. Environmental disaster
  11. Trump suffers serious health problem limiting ability to do rallies 
  12. Democratic Party unites behind strong candidate with wide appeal

Mueller Investigation
The Mueller Report was released to the public on April 18, 2019. Despite the Attorney General, William Barr, covering for the President in the form of a misleading 4-page summary of the 448-page report, followed by an equally misleading press conference the day the report was released, an actual reading of the report presents a damning picture of the President and his campaign.

We all know by now that the Special Counsel did not clear the President on obstruction of justice, and we know why the Special Counsel did not charge him. I think people are less clear about what the Special Counsel found regarding "collusion."

The Special Counsel treated the general idea of collusion as “conspiracy,” a legal concept the Counsel defined as, “An agreement-tacit or express-between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.” The Special Counsel’s report pointed out that, “this requires … two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests.” Proving without a doubt this sort of explicit coordination is difficult and while “the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.”

The investigation established that “several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.”

In addition, the Special Counsel’s report stated that:
  • Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination
  • Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete
  • Some individuals, including some associated with the Trump Campaign, deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.
So, the Special Counsel’s bottom line on collusion was more nuanced than Mr. Barr would have us believe. In fact, the Special Counsel wrote, “Given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.” 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's May 29th statement provides context for his report's conclusions. It is now up to the House and its Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to decide on where to go with Mueller's findings.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so."
Impeachment is a possibility being weighed as much by political as by symbolic considerations -- symbolic because of what George Will calls the "supine behavior of most congressional Republicans." Will's op-ed in the Washington Post is an excellent argument against impeachment. Will's acerbic conclusion is that, "Impeachment can be an instrument of civic hygiene. However, most of today’s Senate Republicans, scampering around the president’s ankles, are implausible hygienists."