Started in Florida, here is their Mission Statement:
To organize a national movement to oppose offshore oil drilling and champion clean energy and renewables. These gatherings will bring thousands of American citizens to our beaches and cities and will draw metaphorical and actual lines in the sand; human lines in the sand against the threat oil drilling poses to America’s coastal economies and marine environment.
To convince our State Legislators, Governors, Congress and President Obama to stop the expansion of offshore oil drilling and to adopt policies encouraging clean and renewable energy sources. America needs legislation that creates tax incentives and subsidies to encourage the growth of clean energy and renewable industries for America’s future.
The scene today on Moonstone Beach.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtIH0e2BsDQ
http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id312.htm
ReplyDeleteThanks Ken for that link to a walk down memory lane. I was there in the 80's, and for some reason still remember it.
ReplyDeleteI took a walk from my apartment in Fullerton with my girlfriend. It was only about a block to Harbor Blvd. where we merged into the line. Aside from the fact that it was to raise funds for homeless and other causes and didn't deliver much in the way of help at the other end, it was an awakening. I held hands with tens of thousands of people at the same time. It was a real sense of community in a megalopolis that I had never before or since experienced. For mental health reasons alone, I thought that Hands Across America was a good thing for the people that lived in the more populated concrete jungles of our country.
This event was more of a protest and less of a fund raiser. I can't see how anyone made a cent of of the local Hands Across the Sand events. It still had a bit of that sense of community and the right thing to do attitude that seemed to make it a worth while couple of hours on an oil less beach on a Saturday afternoon in June.
The world didn't change because of people holding hands. People changed because of the world holding hands. We don't have the answers to plugging the hole in the gulf that continuously spills oil. Neither do the so called experts. We do know that many of us held hands on beaches that were not covered in oil and that we would like to keep it that way.
Our oceans are being spoiled by a corporate felon named BP and they don't have a problem with paying fines more than twice a day for safety violations in order to expedite profits while on probation. 760 OSHA fines in one year and then 11 people die because of their anti safety policy. If we can't put these people in jail we need to increase the fines. If congress can't do that, we need a new congress.
If corporations are "people" with inalienable rights shouldn't Nature also have the same rights, at least... if not more. We have been know to survive without corporations but not without the earth...
ReplyDeleteNature and real people should have more rights than a made up corporation.
ReplyDelete