This coming Sunday, July 29 through Tuesday July 31 Governor Peter Shumlin and Quebec Premier Jean Charest will be hosting the 36th Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Premiers in Burlington. While the political and economic elite of the Northeast sit down behind closed doors to map-out secret, profit-driven, greenwashed resolutions for trade, energy, climate change, transportation, and infastructure issues, hundreds or possibly thousands of people from across the region will be taking to the streets in Burlington to voice their opposition to the very nature of the Conference, as well as its neoliberal profit over people approach.
An ad hoc group of local activists and organizers, the Governor’s Conference Welcoming Committee, has set up a useful website with a schedule of events, some basic background information, resource guide, and more.
Beginning Saturday and lasting through Monday, a Welcome Center with more information about events, resources and the like will be set up from 9am to 9pm in a back building of the UU Church at the top of Church St. The main actions begin Sunday with a rally at noon in City Hall Park that will take to the streets on a spirited march to the Conference Center on the Burlington waterfront.
Untold numbers of people from #OWS, the indigenous Innu communities of Quebec, the Quebec student strike, and dozens of other social justice movements and organizations from throughout Vermont, New England and the Eastern Provinces will be descending on Burlington. A human oil spill, regional gathering of Occupy New England, and student bloc are just some of the displays of resistance being planned.
I’m putting this on my Facebook connections. Can’t go myself, but a friend of mine in Burlington, Mary, will probably be there. This is her kind of stuff.