We Need Clean Air, Not Another Billionaire

The first time I heard the chant it was while helping to block the street in front of leading fossil fuel financer Black Rock in lower Manhattan last Wednesday the 13th: “We need clean air, not another billionaire!” The dozens of people I was taking action with also liked it, and we kept chanting loud and long while we watched the traffic back up and for when the police were going to move in on us.

Then there was the other one: “Tax the Rich, Tax the Mother-F — -ing Rich!”, also a big hit all throughout the week of actions in New York City. The most memorable time chanting it for me was on the morning of the 18th. I was with a group of 27 other people arrested, handcuffed and stuffed into an old police bus after blocking one of the entrances to the Federal Reserve bank in the Wall Street area. As the bus pulled away heading towards 1 Police Plaza and hours of processing, someone started up this chant. We must have chanted it for at least 5–6 minutes with no let up and loud-loud-loud as the bus traveled through the Wall Street area streets. And since our windows were partly open, there’s no question a lot of people heard us.

This was the spirit of the week of resistance to end fossil fuels and build another world, another world that looks much more possible now that we’ve shown each other just what we can do when we work hard together in a cooperative and respectful way.

It is just tremendous, a huge and very important thing that, according to mainstream media reports, 75,000 people took…