Update: Blood on the floor of Citibank
Citi's HQ in lower Manhattan is a literal crime scene. And the climate activists are not the criminals.
Dear friends,
There was literally blood on the floor of the Citi lobby at its Greenwich Street headquarters in lower Manhattan on Wednesday, Aug. 14. Not a large amount, but enough to show that a nonviolent protester with the Summer of Heat campaign was assaulted and battered by a suit-clad Citi security operative.
There were bright crimson drops of blood on the white floor at our feet as eight of us, all nonviolent, stood in the Citi lobby handcuffed by NYPD officers, some of whom had watched the assault happen and did nothing to stop it—or to protect the other peaceful protesters from a large, snarling, out-of-control white man hellbent on violence. He walked free. In his business suit. After punching a peaceful protester in the face. (Watch the video, which has now been viewed more than 2.7 million times.) The victim, along with the rest of us, went to jail.
This Citibank goon threw a punch. All we did was walk unimpeded into Citi’s lobby during the morning rush, unfurl banners, chant about the bank’s complicity in climate crimes, and record video. (Here’s a good compilation video.)
It goes without saying that this was a relatively minor incident in the annals of violence against nonviolent protesters—many are murdered around the world every year. But make no mistake: it was a crime. Meanwhile, Citi has in recent weeks targeted Summer of Heat organizers with made-up assault charges and restraining orders to keep them away. The assault at Citi on Wednesday is not made up. You can see it for yourself. This violent man belongs in jail. Not his victim or any of us.
Yes, in the grand scheme of things this relatively minor incident in the annals of nonviolent protest may not amount to much. But it’s a teachable moment, as they say.
So, Citi, if you’re listening, allow me to instruct.
That suit-wearing security operative—who, by the way, also got in my face, shoved me, ripped my phone from my hands as I was trying to record video, and threw it to the floor, obviously trying to provoke a fight (he failed)—is only one individual out of the tens of thousands employed by Citigroup. But his actions—and his impunity—represent something far larger. In fact, you could say that he is the perfect corporate representative of Citigroup.
Because Citi—as the largest financier of fossil-fuel expansion since the Paris Agreement, based on this report—is engaged in violence on a global scale. This is indisputable, if you accept the scientific consensus of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the analysis of the International Energy Agency (IEA). Both of these bodies conclude that the expansion of fossil-fuel production and infrastructure must end—now—if the Paris Agreement goals are to mean anything. That is, if the threat of runaway climate catastrophe in coming decades is to be defused. Catastrophe that is already underway, most brutally in the developing-world countries of the Global South, where the poorest and most defenseless people on the planet live.
This has been the scientific consensus for a long time. Back in 2011, the IEA reported that new investments in fossil-fuel infrastructure globally would need to end by 2017 if warming was to be stopped short of 2 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average—beyond which, we now know, all bets are off. Various irreversible earth-system tipping points may well kick in at 1.5 to 2C. Some already are. In case you missed it, earth’s average temperature has touched 1.5C in the past year.
Hundreds of millions of lives—entire countries and cultures—are at stake. To willfully and gainfully drive humanity toward such catastrophe—by the continuation of business-as-usual and the obstruction and delay of the emergency measures required to stop it—is tantamount to mass murder on an unprecedented scale. Something akin to global genocide. It's not just me saying this. Legal scholars are now looking at how to add ecocide and climate destruction to the list of crimes prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
What does this have to do with one red-faced, violent white dude?
Perhaps the reason this Citi security operative feels empowered to assault a peaceful protester, leaving blood on the floor for all to see, is that he knows his boss and his boss’s boss—right on up the chain of command to CEO Jane Fraser and the Citigroup board of directors—simply do not give a fuck.
That’s why they hired him. He’s one of them. Violent criminals.
Or as an old comrade once said to me, referring to the likes of Citi and fossil-fuel execs: “evil motherfuckers.” (That comrade was Naomi Klein, God bless her.)
Today, as I’m writing this back in Boston, the Summer of Heat campaign is marching in Manhattan, shoulder to shoulder with migrants from around the world who have been displaced by climate impacts.
This global mass movement to save lives from the mass murderers Citi finances only grows. It’s a different movement than when I first got started with this stuff in 2010. Most importantly, it’s much broader now. No longer just “the environmentalists,” it now encompasses a wide cross-section of the left as a whole. That’s good, because that’s exactly what’s required—not just a cross-section, but a broad-based Popular Front across the entire left—if there’s any chance of avoiding the worst, environmentally and socially and politically.
Climate-justice activists can’t do this alone. Not when you recognize the kind of people we’re up against.
Onward.
-Wen
I suppose the extreme response to this summer of activism is a sign that it is working. It's still really outrageous.
On an everyday personal level I think we're probably all dealing with people who seemed just like everybody else years ago, in terms of compassion or empathy, who joined the Trump cult to some degree and now are, at least verbally, perpetually angry and violently inclined. These people will cheer this incident and rave about woke people and say climate change is a lie. I'm trying to get a handle on HOW in the world we can reach these neighbors and relatives so they'll stop enabling these evils!!