Members of a nationwide group pushing for The Green New Deal have planned rallies and demonstrations throughout the country for Wednesday, April 7.
The activists in this group, The Sunrise Movement, will hold one rally in Atlanta and another in Knoxville on Wednesday, according to its website.
“We’re in the most consequential legislative fight in our movement’s history. On Wednesday, Joe Biden proposed trillions of dollars in spending to help recover the economy and stop the climate crisis. Without a doubt it’s historic, and a testament to the power our movement has built over the past few years. And it’s still not enough. Our movement must hold two truths at once: Biden’s plan doesn’t meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis AND we must pass the most ambitious version of this plan immediately,” according to an email that Sunrise Movement members emailed Friday.
“This is our best shot at winning the first pillar of the Green New Deal. It’s up to us to ensure that this proposal becomes law and is the first of many pieces of legislation that will address the crises facing our generation. We must turn up the heat and force Biden and Congress to pass this historic legislation. We can’t let Biden off the hook, we can’t let moderate Democrats water it down and we can’t let Republicans stop it altogether. We need every member of Congress — Democrat or Republican — to feel the pressure. That’s why next Wednesday April 7th, while Congress is home for recess, we’re holding rallies and demonstrations to demand Congress act with the urgency this moment demands.”
Activists will meet at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park and also in downtown Knoxville.
Sunrise Movement activists have also scheduled rallies Wednesday for California, North Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
As The Tennessee Star reported in 2019, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) released the Green New Deal resolution that’s become a central part of the Democratic agenda. The Green New Deal resolution calls for “10-year national mobilizations” to fight global warming.
A separate fact-sheet claims the plan would “mobilize every aspect of American society on a scale not seen since World War II.” That includes getting all our energy needs from “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” by “dramatically expanding and upgrading existing renewable power sources.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s non-binding resolution calls for a variety of social justice and welfare state goals, including “a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security” and “high-quality health care” benefits for Americans. The resolution also calls for “repairing historic oppression” among certain groups, including minorities, immigrants, women, low-income workers, indigenous people and youth collectively called “frontline and vulnerable communities.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Sunrise Movement with AOC” by Sunrise Movement.
