Albany, NY Rally [View all]
I attended a rally at the UU Church in Albany yesterday. It featured an interesting range of grass roots activists' perspective on the issues involved in the fight against hydrofracking, from a human rights perspective. Taking place on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "A Time to Break Silence (Beyond Vietnam)" speech added to the atmosphere.
Ray Lewis, a retired Philadelphia Police Captain, opened the show. Ray has been a high-profile participant in the Occupy Movement. He spoke about the threats that energy corporations pose to democracy in this country.
Scientist and inventor Clark Rhodes provided an intense description of why hydrofracking is never "safe" in the context of the geology of the northeast. Rhodes has an uncanny talent for presenting information in a manner that the lay-person can easily understand.
Elliot Adams, past president of National Veterans for Peace and former mayor of Sharon Springs, spoke about how King's most prophetic speech influenced his life. Adams is a serious man: in one recent anti-war rally in Washington, he chained himself -- with a bike chain tightly around his neck -- to the fence at the White House.
Harry Davis, a veteran of civil disobedience actions with GreenPeace and with the Berringan Brothers, spoke about the growing need for people to confront the monstor that is our common foe. Davis formed the anti-hydrofracking group that hosted this rally.
Dr. Lisa Barr spoke about journalism and the grass roots movement in the time of "Top Secret America." She had recently sued a town board in Pennsylvania that had attempter to prevent any non-corporate media from covering their meetings on hydrofracking-related issues.
I closed the show with a talk about Onondage Chief Paul Waterman's efforts to form a grass roots confederacy of traditional Native Americans, environmentalists, and other people with social consciences.
For the past few weeks, a mutant space cat had been invested in disrupting the plans for the rally. Because of the nature of this threat, the leaders of the rally determined that friend Cindy Sheehan should not join us (this despite the cooperation of the Albany police to insure things went relatively smoothly).
After the rally, Harry Davis and I were invited to the "press wing" of the State Capital Building, tobe interviewed by newspapers, television, and radio journalists. It was a bit of a giggle when we encountered one of the gas industry's top attorneys at the radio station; initially, he was not friendly, but I was able to start a "friendly" discussion with him.
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