Rex Weyler An Inspiration

The Tyee just keeps getting scoop after scoop. Rex Weyler is one of the select 'true' co-founders of Greenpeace. There are only a very few people who had the privilege to be there. He was one of them.

And there were others who are still speaking out today. Like Paul Watson. Rod Marining. David Garrick aka Walrus. Paul Spong.

All of these courageous individuals, including Rex Weyler, stepped down from Greenpeace when it was (sadly) subverted by an economic structure that has sidelined many, many good initiatives.

It is clear that these economic & corporate structures are very hard to resist, are extremely compelling, but in the end, are totally destructive. For those of us who wish to protect the natural world and the people and animals who inhabit it, these structures are destroying our planet.

All of the original co-founders now agree; Greenpeace has turned into a multinational corporation. Full stop.

That doesn't mean individuals who work for Greenpeace can't make a difference. But the corporate structure that is replicating itself around the world is having a powerful and disturbing influence on many groups that seek change.

Note to self: changing the elite will never come from within. Historically, it ALWAYS comes from without. Only from without. We must remain outside the elite, and support the majority of people to effect change.

My favorite Rex Weyler piece is his magical book the History of Greenpeace (OK, and there is also his book about Paul Spong, The Song of the Whale). Both well worth reading. My other favorite is his article set out in the link below. Also well worth reading.

http://www.utne.com/archives/WavesofCompassion.aspx

"I found a job as reporter and photographer at the North Shore News community newspaper. While covering a local story, I met Bree Drummond who was sitting in a platform, high in a cottonwood tree to save it from being felled for a parking lot by North Vancouver maintenance crews. Her boyfriend, Rod Marining, was a wild Yippie environmentalist who had helped stop the construction of a Four Seasons Hotel at the entrance to Vancouver's magnificent Stanley Park by declaring the land 'All Season Park' and camping out on the site until the developers gave up. He also had sailed for the Aleutian Island of Amchitka to protest a U.S. atomic bomb test there as a member of the Don't Make A Wave Committee that had changed its name to the 'Greenpeace Foundation' that spring."

"Rod introduced me to Bob Hunter from Winnipeg, clearly the hippest young journalist in the city, writing a daily column in the Vancouver Sun in which he explained Gestalt Therapy, described peyote ceremonies, introduced edgy psychologists like R. D. Laing, and quoted famed ecologist Rachel Carson."

As always, a great piece from BC's best media: The Tyee.

hippest journalists

I am hoping a few (most?) of today's journalists will review their own "accomplishments"....will they stand the test of time and meet the values expected of the profession?

The "Elements of Journalism"-- by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

Journalism's first obligation is to the truth.

Its first loyalty is to citizens.

Its essence is a discipline of verification.

Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.

It must serve as an independent monitor of power.

It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.

It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.

It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.

Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

I would like to add another one.... "get of your a## and get out there to see for yourself what is happening".....one day I still hope to carry my sandwich board around universities and colleges protesting the lack of protesting.

Co-opting the Movement

I'm looking forward to the follow-up piece:

"Greenpeace Today: Co-opted, One Corporate Compromise at a Time"

Like the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3450

Greenpeace Today

alas....Deep Green speaks of today while I muse about yesteryear.....Ms. Berman has seen to that

These Crazy Times

yes...maybe she can sign another agreement with the forestry companies...to build deckchairs out of boreal timber for the titanic which Greenpiece could then pilot over Nigeria and get in bed with Shell and the other companies and then those poor MEND activists can retire and wait for the money to start rolling in because they just don't realize how effective cooperative market driven solutions can be

Jeffrey J

Note to self: changing the elite will never come from within. Historically, it ALWAYS comes from without. Only from without. We must remain outside the elite, and support the majority of people to effect change.

An aside, but how do you reconcile this with (provincial or national) voting?

humility 101

Perhaps one of the most important points.

"We did not set out to make Greenpeace famous, but to make ecology famous."

This mindset was and is critical. The purpose of protest is to raise consciousness and influence change. Period.

As I think back to those heady days in Vancouver, there were many people doing many things to further what we percieved to be movement towards a better world. Most remain anonymous to this day. Thank you all.

my experience and memories

I was just finishing high school in Richmond in the late 60's and where we were inviting some of the new movers and shakers in the region to come to our school and give talks. These were the days when SFU was considered "radical".

It's good to see the photo of Hunter in the article.

I remember the day Bob Hunter was invited by us to come to Steveston High to give a lunch time talk. He was living on River Road in Richmond, at the time.

He gave such a rousing talk that many of the students became dedicated to making change happen by being more active citizens.

I and some of my buds would meet with Bob at his home on weekends and sit on his porch discussing all sorts of interesting concepts and ideas. I was amazed that he had time to sit with us and thankful for hi part in our real education.

I got to meet some of the original members of The Don't Make a Wave Committee, Jim Bohlen, who I later learned how to make the peg and strut geodesic dome from, and Irving Stowe both very fine and generous men.

I remember the concert in 1970 with Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Phil Ochs. I and a few of the Steveston High buds were given comp tickets to the concert by Hunter. It was there I met Stowe and he was full of joy to see thousands in the audience. He invited me to sit on the side of stage where I was able to see these great artists perform.

It is something to not only hear them play but to get the full brunt of the audience's appreciation.

Mitchell was fantastic, modest, and shy. After each song the response from the audience was overwhelming, I could feel the sound of thousands clapping and cheering through the bones of my body.

I am glad to have great thoughtful mentors at such an early stage of life's learning and I am sure my contact with Hunter and Bohlen provided me with a strong foundation to critical thinking.

One thing I must mention was the amount of energy and joy these original activists had.

They knew there was another option to war, aggression and oppression.

Reply to ibgymac

Igmybac quotes the following:

"Note to self: changing the elite will never come from within. Historically, it ALWAYS comes from without. Only from without. We must remain outside the elite, and support the majority of people to effect change."

Ibymac then queries: "An aside, but how do you reconcile this with (provincial or national) voting?"

Short answer. A citizen can vote in an election, and also be a powerful force for change, all at that same time. Voting is participating from 'within', which by itself will lead to no 'real' change. 'Voting alone within the current structure however will not lead to structural change. Full stop.

But there are also serious external social organizations demanding real change that each voter can join. History has many examples: the CCF in the 1930's, the Communist Party of the US in the 1930's, Greenpeace in the 1970's, Sea Shepherd Society in the 2000's, the Animal Liberation Front of the 2000's... the list goes on.

Without the majority of people demanding change outside of 'sanctioned' 'legitimate' social structures, NOTHING would change. The elite would dictate policy over the rest of us. Oligarchs would rule with impunity. The majority of people would suffer. Forever.

But amazingly, the majority's desire for a voice, for recognition, for justice, always rises up, eventually drowning the minuscule number of elite ruling over the many. And then, like a dam bursting, the elite run away, and social change is allowed to fill the void.

This is how change occurs. From without. Never from within.

Great coverage.

We will then continue to disagree

or at least until you get your logical analysis in order, or you show me the error within my own. If your conclusion, with which I agree, is true,

Without the majority of people demanding change outside of 'sanctioned' 'legitimate' social structures, NOTHING would change.

then it subsumes that change within the system (i.e., voting), if left to its own devices, changes nothing. And that is precisely my point. Voting changes nothing, at least not in our system where counting the votes is mathematically gamed.

In fact, voting under our current system can be said to be contributing to the problems. It is at the very least a multi-purpose vote with one underlying, quiet objective being the endorsement of a broken political system. This argument is long standing but it tends to be dismissed by the establishment and our meme (with good reason from its vantage point).

Cheers.