Forum on Grassroots Disaster Relief with Rebecca Solnit & scott crow

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. In New Orleans large portions of the city flooded. Thousands were stranded while the government ineptly attempted to control the situation. In response, activists from across the country and local community members founded Common Ground Relief to provide vital support to communities abandoned by official relief efforts. Many of these activists came from informal networks that had organized mass protests from forest defense in the Pacific Northwest
to the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle to the anti-Bush protests in New York at the Republican National Convention. They were able to quickly establish infrastructures that provided medical assistance, food distribution and other essential needs.

In late Oct., Hurricane Sandy battered the Atlantic seaboard from the Caribbean to New England. It took over 100 lives and cost tens of billions of dollars in damage. Millions were displaced and politicians scrambled for photo ops. Similar to New Orleans, activists associated with Occupy and other networks formed Occupy Sandy Relief to provide vital support to devastated towns and neighborhoods in New York and New Jersey.

Between these disasters and the subsequent relief efforts, resistance to the fossil fuel industry has escalated from Alaska to Appalachia to Texas. Like in New Orleans and the Northeast, using the principles of direct democracy and direct action, organizers have mobilized to fight the fossil fuel industry. And the battlefields are our lives and our homes.

Join writers, organizers and activists Rebecca Solnit and scott crow as they discuss their experiences in building radical movements and communities that provided relief in the face of natural and human-made disasters. As well as resisting the root causes of climate change.

WHERE: 518 Valencia, San Francisco, CA 94103
WHEN: Monday, Dec. 10. Doors open at 6:30pm, Program begins promptly at 7pm.
CONTACT: Scott, sparki [at] riseup.net 415-235-0596
DONATE: $5-20 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds.
RSVP:http://www.facebook.com/events/341882075910200/

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of thirteen books about ecology, environment, landscape, community, art, politics, hope, and memory, including A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West. She is a contributing editor to Harper's and Orion and regular contributor to the political site Tomdispatch.com. She works some with 350.org, among other groups.

scott crow is an Austin-based anarchist community organizer, writer, and trainer who began working on anti-apartheid, international political prisoner, and animal rights issues in the mid-1980s. He is the co-founder and co-organizer of several social justice groups and education projects throughout Texas and the South including Common Ground Collective in New Orleans with Malik Rahim), Radical Encuentro Camp, UPROAR (United People Resisting Oppression and Racism), Dirty South Earth First!, and North Texas Coalition for a Just Peace. He has trained and organized for Greenpeace, Ruckus Society, Rainforest Action Network, ACORN, Forest Ethics, and Ralph Nader, and many smaller grassroots groups. He is currently collaborating on long-term sustainable democratic economic mutual aid projects within Austin.

This event is a Rising Tide North America production.