Exercising “Our Power” : Cooperation Jackson joins the Climate Justice Alliances' Campaign of Communities United for a Just Transition

Cooperation Jackson is proud to become the newest Pilot Site in the Climate Justice Alliance’s (CJA) “Our Power Campaign: Communities United for a Just Transition”. Cooperation Jackson is honored to join the Black Mesa Water Coalition in Black Mesa, Arizona; the East Michigan Environmental Action Council in Detroit, Michigan; and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and Communities for a Better Environment as critical “Hot Spots” in the Campaign. 

The Our Power Campaign is a coordinated effort of grassroots organizations in oppressed and exploited communities throughout the United States to end the carnage of global capitalism and the threat of ecocide produced by the capitalist system. Why focus on these issues? The Our Power website explains the rational succinctly: 

The world is confronting two fundamentally interrelated crises today: economic and ecological. In the U.S. alone, over 17 million people are officially unemployed, and despite a recent measure of stability in the financial markets, economists across the political spectrum recognize that global capitalism is in a deep crisis. Meanwhile the most destructive impacts of climate change – such as extreme storms and the disappearance of water sources – are threatening communities worldwide (particularly Indigenous Peoples) who have the least responsibility for climate change and the least resources to adapt to and survive it. 

We believe that we can address the root causes of the climate crisis while creating meaningful work and livelihoods for a majority of the 17 million unemployed people in the US. This will require a radical transformation of the economy. AND communities are already beginning to implement real solutions to climate change that can chart a path towards a more democratic, ecologically rooted economies. The Our Power Campaign will harness and amplify these community led solutions while continuing to push for national leadership, especially in regions where “extreme energy” interest have disproportionately impacted communities as the crisis has continued to deepen. 

Cooperation Jackson joined the Our Power Campaign because we want and need to learn from and unite with other social justice organizations and movements throughout the United States that are developing innovative and multi-pronged fronts of struggle in the pursuit of justice and liberation. And because we believe that our model and experience emerging from the New Afrikan People’s Movement, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Jackson People’s Assembly, and the Mayoral administration of Chokwe Lumumba have a lot to offer to other social justice organizations and movements that will make us all stronger and better prepared to be transformative agents in the just transition of our economy and society. 

Cooperation Jackson aims to make Jackson, Mississippi a beacon of leadership in the joint struggles for a just transition to economic democracy and the creation of sustainable methods of production, distribution, and consumption of the essential goods and services needed by humanity to live in dignity without fear of want. It is essential that our means of social production and reproduction transform, and transform immediately, to enable our species to avert an apocalyptic collapse of the Earth’s life giving systems. We aim to make a contribution towards this end by creating a network of worker cooperatives that will perfect existing methods and innovate new methods of sustainable production, distribution, and consumption. 

These new methods will be compelled by radical systems of worker self-management and democratic governance that will better serve our communities’ long-term interests by preserving our environment and making the needs of capital subordinate to the needs of humanity. We are going to build a Sustainable Community that will serve our present and future interests. 

We look forward to a bright future as part of the Our Power Campaign and the Climate Justice Alliance, and we hope all who read this will join us in the struggle to save our ecosphere and create a Just Transition to a new, democratic economy. 

For more information on the Our Power Campaign visit http://www.ourpowercampaign.org/. 

Cooperation Jackson 

Monday, August 4, 2014