On December 5, 2013, about 5 groups united together to hold a nonviolent protest about the pivotal role of the Chamber of Commerce blocking progress addressing the climate crisis. For several years, I held an email dialogue with the director of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, Dave Hauser. This last summer several of us held a street theater event at the Eugene Saturday Market and together we nominated the local Chamber for a Golden Ostrich Award.

We used humor to point out that our local Chamber should join 56 other local Chambers that have said “No” to the horribly Earth-damaging U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. We gave the award plaque to our local Chamber just before weird lingering snowy weather in Eugene, which scientists predict will be an indicator of the climate crisis.

Below is a brief 5 minute video of our award presentation, in which I become a bit emotional. Below that is more info about our campaign.

Our Golden Ostrich Award to the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce because of the climate crisis.

Action you can take from anywhere in the world to help our campaign:

1. Please contact our local Chamber by email or phone (541-484-1314) with your peaceful, civil, but strong message. Your sample message: “Please say ‘No!’ to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is one of the main blockades to addressing the climate crisis.”

2. For extra credit, you may contact the Eugene Chamber Board: http://www.eugenechamber.com/contact/leadership.aspx

Amanda from the MFI office delivers the archives to OHSU.

I have good news to report: The big medical school in Portland, Oregon Health Sciences University, has taken the material from MindFreedom while I was director for twenty-five years. For many years I have encouraged archives for our movement, but there are very few.

We have compiled posters, newsletters, journals, letters, photos, etc. I would like to give a lot of credit to my mother Violet Oaks, who volunteered eight years in the office often three days a week. Mom must have gone through almost every piece of paper in the office applying her seventy-plus years of office experience and changing our messy office to one that had a very good filing system, thank you Mom! Mom is now 96 years old so she is working from home by doing thank you notes for gifts to my trust fund.

Updated: Monday Dec 2nd – See below for before or after gathering. Also see how you can help where ever you live.

Flash Gathering: Eugene Area Chamber of Climate Crisis

Tongue in Cheek Award Ceremony

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Contact: David Zupan
Phone: 541-484-9167

At 12:30 pm on December 5th, local citizens concerned about the global climate crisis will gather at the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, 1401 Willamette, to give them an award. The Golden Ostrich trophy will be presented to the Eugene Chamber because of their support for the US Chamber of Commerce and its blockade of progress on addressing The Climate Crisis.

Below is an announcement from wonderful supporters who are planning a national fundraiser about the same time and place as Alternatives 2013 Conference (totally separate, of course). Please spread the word, and if possible attend:

Support David Oaks’ Independent Living
Sponsored by Friends of David Oaks

The Friends of David Oaks Committee invites participants from Alternatives 2013 in Austin, Texas to a fundraiser dinner to support David to obtain a wheelchair accessible van. David Oaks is the former Director of MindFreedom International. He has given 30 years of his life to activism and fighting for human rights in the mental health system. Let’s give back to him in his time of need!

(For more info:)

There is a campaign to impact peacefully the US Chamber of Commerce by reaching the local chambers about the climate crisis. My friend David Zupan took a video of our street theater. Here is his blurb about our guerrilla theater:

Watch activist David Oaks in “How We Stop Worrying and Deny Climate Change,” a new 10 Min film now on vimeo at:

Street Theater Against Climate Crisis

In spite of a recent spinal cord injury, David leads friends to the Saturday Market in Eugene, Oregon to engage the public in playful but thoughtful dialogue about climate change. In the role of cheerful “climate change deniers,” they collect signatures in support of giving prizes like the Golden Ostrich award to the best deniers like the Chamber of Commerce.