Striking for a People’s Green New Deal 

By Ragina Johnson and Brian Ward

Volume 23, number 2, People’s Green New Deal

Dina Gilio-Whitaker joined members of Science for the People Bay Area, The Red Nation, Sunrise Movement Bay Area Hub, and Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) at the Sixth Annual Howard Zinn Book Fair in San Francisco on December 8, 2019, to begin a discussion under the theme “Striking for a People’s Green New Deal.” Watch the full panel discussion at magazine.scienceforthepeople/org/vol23-2/indigenous-knowledge-land-pgnd-strike.

“We will fight for the redistribution of wealth stolen from us, whether it’s land, water, air, or labor. We will do this in such a way that adheres to the philosophies of abolition, decolonization, anti-capitalism. We must reclaim our collective power. When the state invests its greatest resources to contain the threat of mass mobilization, we must already be organized in those spaces and those communities. We must be one step ahead, ready to capture the momentum of the next rebellion and catapult it into a full-blown mass movement. Above all, we seek peace and right relations with all life. So please join us in this struggle.”

—Jennifer Marley, The Red Nation

“Thinking through the question of how we empower people to build the collective power of others, and not just see themselves as walled off individuals shouldering it alone, is really important. I think that hope is central to that.”

—Alex Morrison, Sunrise Movement

“One of the things we found in this coalition work is that concrete wins, even if they are small and specific . . . are often critical to people whose lives and survivorship depend on having a little more breathing space to work together towards the deeper systemic change that we want . . . what we’ve also learned is that the very process of working in coalition is what builds our collective muscle. It’s messy, it’s complicated, it’s hard. We have to talk and learn across cultures and languages and differences, but . . . working together is what I believe we, as a community, need to get through these challenging emergencies that we’re facing.”

—Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PANNA