Songstress Natalie Merchant initated the rally, before by a diverse crowd, with Guthries “This Land Is Your Land,” and other songs throughout the event. Sen. Tony Avella (D-Queens), actress Debra Winger, and Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Indian Nation were also in attendance.
At one point, crowd members raised their fists and pledged to “Resist Fracking in New York!”
While the pledge united those who signed and recited it in the resolve to perform nonviolent acts of civil disobedience as their own consciences saw fit, some in the movement are ready to do whatever it takes to stop fracking.
See also – Today’s Fracking Protest in Albany
From Metroland –
Arun Gandhi, grandson to iconic activist Mohandas Gandhi, spoke quietly but resolutely to the crowd. “I have been going to India, and studying this issue and I am surprised that uneducated women from the villages who’ve lived and grown up in poverty have been taught to make solar panels . . . and these women have gone out and electrified hundred of villages in India. . . . I don’t understand why the most powerful state in the United States and the most powerful country in the world . . . is unable to use solar energy to electrify in this country.”
He urged Gov. Cuomo to “take a lesson from these poor uneducated women in India.” As he closed his speech, his voice grew louder.
“This country has been hijacked. It’s no longer a democracy; it’s become a dollar-cracy. We have to take back our country. If we make a loud enough voice, that will happen.”
>> Read more at Metroland
