 Climate Strike Houston was promoted as a family-friendly event. One young activist pushed the envelope a bit. Well, we did the thing. In our own small-town-in-a-big-city way, we did the thing. More than a thousand of us, probably closer to two thousand, skipped school and work (which for many was closed due to the remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda) to gather at City Hall.
Imelda showed up too, about 45 minutes into the rally. By 1 pm, quite a few of us were soaked through, as if we had all cannonballed into the reflecting pool at Hermann Square without stripping down first. The young climate-strikers gave some speeches, ranging in quality from pretty good to excellent, on a barely adequate public address system. There were clever signs and lots of sincerity. After about an hour and a half, some young'ns started a slippery game of tag on the lawn. A few elected officials and candidates showed up, but they wisely did not try to hijack the proceedings from the young leaders. Through the downpour, there were chants of "We're Still Here!" As, indeed, we were.  Green Party candidates from Texas and across the country hold up their fists after speaking at a press conference at the Green Party Convention at the University of Houston Friday, August 5, 2016 in Houston. (Michael Ciaglo / Houston Chronicle) PDiddie's comment on the most recent entry alerted me to Marina Kormbaki's article in the Chronicle's online edition. (UPDATE: GPTX comrade Don Cook has informed us that the story is also in the print edition, on page A-3.) I had thought that the author would send me a message when it went to digital press; perhaps Janis Richards, Laura Palmer, and I will hear from her today.
As coverage of the Green Party in mainstream papers goes, Kormbaki's piece is above average. It contains no obvious factual errors and treats the Party as a legitimate political movement, not just a one-off human-interest story. It certainly doesn't hurt that Kormbaki works for a German news outlet aligned with the Social Democrats, a party whose role as leaders of the left is gradually shifting to the Greens, as is happening elsewhere in Europe. The photo selected to accompany the article features some Greenfolk I love and admire, such as the late Ashely "Flashe" Gordon (on the right end, partially obscured by a camera). This photo helps bust the persistent myth that the Green Party is just for old white recovering hippies. It is a microcosm of the convention delegates and the Party as a whole: diverse in ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and other dimensions. Too bad the headline couldn't be "dbc Interviewed for Job at Chronicle." But I can fantasize that my editorial skills are worthy of a position at the Chron.
Exchange journalist Marina Kormbaki, who also appears in this entry, interviewed me by phone today for about a half-hour. She also interviewed my Green comrade Laura Palmer and possibly some others. The interviews covered several overlapping topics, all having to do with the state of the Green Party in Texas and its positions on climate policy, in light of the Democrats' debate devoting all of five minutes to The Biggest Existential Threat Other Than Thermonuclear Annihilation last night. I'll let y'all know when Kormbaki's article appears in the print or online editions of the Chronicle.  Presidential candidate Howie Hawkins (third from left, in the Teamsters t-shirt) met with some Houston-area Greenies at the Palmers' residence. First, a disclaimer: I like and respect Howie Hawkins as a candidate for president, but I haven't entirely made up my mind whether I'll be a delegate for him at the Green Convention in Detroit next year. I also like and respect Dario Hunter, the other Green who has met the requirements for presidential candidacy thus far, but I have yet to meet him in person.
That said, after last night (see this hour-long video of last night if you're so inclined), if Hawkins does win the Green presidential nomination, I plan to campaign for him as hard as I did for Jill Stein in 2012 and 2016, and possibly as hard as I remember promoting Ralph Nader in 2000. This is especially true if the Democratic Party nominates yet another triangulating centrist. I am willing to overlook recent missteps in which Hawkins echoed the establishment narrative about Russia interfering with US elections, because no candidate is going to get everything right. Folks who accuse Greens of imposing "purity tests" on candidates because we can't abide voting for centrist Democrats can stick those accusations where the proverbial sun don't shine. More importantly, however, I have enormous respect for some of the progressive luminaries lining up to support him, including the late Bruce A. Dixon and 2016 VP nominee Ajamu Baraka of Black Agenda Report. Plus, yesterday former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, briefly a presidential candidate in this cycle, urged his supporters to back...no, not Bernie; no, not Tulsi; Howie. See the Activist Calendar for additional information, included street addresses.
In case you'd like to join in the fun:
It's no longer a secret that Extinction Rebellion now has a presence in Houston. What kind of presence, we won't know for a bit, at least not until 20 September. Even if I knew, I would not say.
I can tell you that some people who showed up at last night's XR HTX organization meeting will appear at the Climate Strike rally outside Houston's City Hall on that Friday afternoon, but I can't tell you who will show up or what (if anything) they will do there. |
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