I watched "Crude" this past Tuesday--an excellent documentary of the  16 year old legal battle against Chevron-Texaco by the Indigenous Communities in the Ecuadorean Amazon. Learning about the struggle of indigenous communities against oil and their fight for self determination is what got me interested in the Climate Justice movement back in 2003.

As you know one of the first campaigns of the Labor/Community Strategy Center was to fight Texaco in Wilmington where the residents- overwhelmingly, if not all low-income Latino and Black communities - were being poisoned by the refineries. The fight here led the Center to connect with environmental justice groups like Acción Ecológica (featured in the film) that were fighting Texaco in Ecuador-you can see our documentary on our struggle in Wilmington and our visit to Ecuador, within our documentary film, "Voices from the Frontlines".

Today the center is continuing the struggle through the Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses Campaign to tackle global warming, and air pollution in Los Angeles by fighting for better bus transit and cutting number of automobiles in the auto capital of the world.

As shown by the film it takes a powerful social movement to challenge and defeat the destructive and genocidal dealings of oil corporations like Chevron Texaco (backed by the US government) who only fuel the greedy needs of countries like the U.S.

We in Los Angeles are fighting to stop the shady dealings of auto and highway lobby that continue to fuel US's addiction to auto/oil, are poisoning our communities and bankrupting our public transit system. I hope folks will see it, be moved, and join the movement for climate justice- the Clean Air Campaign is a great way to start, here in Los Angeles!

In solidarity and struggle,

Sunyoung Yang  
Clean Air Campaign Organizer

EVENT INFORMATION:

Showing in Laemmle Theaters Santa Monica 4-Plex playing until 10.01.09

L.A. Creek Freak review and New York Times Review of "CRUDE"

Voices from the Frontlines (1997)

(40 minutes) Written by Eric Mann

"Voices from the Frontlines is a powerful film about organizing, about movement building, about environmental justice - and yes, about fighting environmental racism.  Voices focuses on the work of Los Angeles' Labor/Community Strategy center and Bus Riders Union and will stimulate debate among organizers in every other city.  They are relentless, crystal clear on their worldview and their principles - and make no apologies.  As the country moves to the right, some groups are trying to pick smaller fights that they can win.  But the Strategy Center is drawing a line in the and and saying, "Sometimes you fight the big fights - with General Motors, with Texaco, with the Los Angeles transit authority - fights that have to be fought, regardless of the odds."
- Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta University