Birth Of A Movement?

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sat Dec 01, 2007 at 08:00

"Birth of a movement" is probably overstating it.  Movements don't really work like that. They come into being gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, and then go through succession of defining moments, not just one.  But sometimes there comes a moment when those who have been acting separately in far-flung corners of the country come together, and know that from that point onward, they will never be that separate again.  And that is not the birth a movement, it is, at least, the birth of a movement's national identity.  And that is what is happening in Carson, California, this Friday and Saturday: the joining together of activists from across the country fighting to defend their communities against the destructive side of global trade in perhaps its most concrete form-the destruction due to the physical movement of goods.

There were also some world-class health and environmental scientists on hand.  You know.  Reality-based community types.  The usual suspects.

Modestly billed as "a conference on healthy solutions for communities impacted by trade, ports and goods movement," the "Moving Forward" conference brought people from communities as far away as Maine-and even Barcelona-to the shadow of the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, which claims more than a thousand lives a year due to premature deaths from the pollution generated by the flow of goods pouring through it.  Although the vast majority of participants came from different parts of California, others came not only from Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico ports, but also from "inland ports" in places as unlikely as rural Kansas, where Eric Kirkendall found himself threatened with being surrounded by a massive, multi-acre, diesel-pollution-belching warehouse complex. And they came not so much for raw information-readily available in today's online age-but for the chance to simply gather together, share their stories, gain inspiration, make connections, and forge the framework for a movement that still does not even have a simple name.