{"id":2867,"date":"2021-08-04T14:21:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T18:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/?p=2867"},"modified":"2021-08-05T17:16:35","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T21:16:35","slug":"unsealing-the-echo-chamber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/unsealing-the-echo-chamber\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsealing the Echo Chamber"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"2867\" class=\"elementor elementor-2867\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-6b41138b elementor-section-height-min-height elementor-section-content-top elementor-section-stretched elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-items-middle\" data-id=\"6b41138b\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-settings=\"{"stretch_section":"section-stretched","background_background":"classic"}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-782e0c5a\" data-id=\"782e0c5a\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-853cac1 elementor-section-full_width elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"853cac1\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-no\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-3cb00c4\" data-id=\"3cb00c4\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1203a9bc elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"1203a9bc\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@olga_o\" target=\"_blank\">Photo: Olga Thelavart<\/a><\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-2c9291c9 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"2c9291c9\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-32b213b2\" data-id=\"32b213b2\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6f34f8f8 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"6f34f8f8\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 style=\"text-align: right;\">8. 4. 2021<\/h3><h1 style=\"text-align: left;\">Unsealing the Echo Chamber<\/h1><h3 style=\"text-align: right;\"><b><br \/><\/b><strong>Kate Klein<\/strong><\/h3><hr \/><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>Let me start with a story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2016, I walk into a plush room in a Toronto conference centre, just before the start of the annual general meeting of a large Canadian mining company \u2013 call them Rockpoint Resources. Hoping to give off an air of nonchalance, I wear a blazer covering my tattoos and carry a large bag concealing a collection plate borrowed from some radical minister friends. Although we pretend not to know each other, I\u2019m there with a handful of fellow activists to create a moment of disruption inside an otherwise slickly curated corporate performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My co-organizers and I plant ourselves in seats around the room, ignoring each other and trying to seem like business types. Looking around, I notice a number of signs notifying guests that video recording and photography by anybody except authorized personnel are strictly prohibited. The room is loaded with security staff, placed strategically up and down the aisles, monitoring the crowd. I see one guard photograph my friend on the other side of the room and then point at me. Almost instantaneously, another guard appears by my side, pretending not to watch me. They all seem nervous. I put my phone away and try not to seem nervous, too.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2016 marks six years since the beginning of a very costly criminal trial in Guatemalan courts against the former head of security at one of Rockpoint Resources\u2019s mines, a man accused of murder and other brutality. We\u2019ve been to many Rockpoint events before and know the company won\u2019t be discussing any of these realities without a little help. Our goal is to see how far we can pass a collection plate down the rows of attendees before it gets intercepted by security. The plate has a note on it, asking Rockpoint\u2019s shareholders to donate their dividends to cover legal fees for community members in Guatemala. A minor intervention, really.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When an opportune moment arises, I subtly lift the collection plate from my bag and pass it to a friend, who stands up and carries it to the end of the row. Predictably, nobody donates. Attendees look at the plate like we\u2019re trying to pass them a pile of garbage, and my friend is promptly ejected from the room. I try to look unfazed.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the scheduled Q&A, an audience member \u2013 not one of my co-organizers, but from a peer organization \u2013 requests the microphone to ask a question about Rockpoint Resources\u2019s stance on the court case in Guatemala. Adhering to the meeting\u2019s protocol, but pursuing the same goal as me and my friends: force the company to acknowledge what they\u2019re so desperately trying to gloss over. Despite this audience member being entitled as a shareholder to ask her question, the room fills with deep sighs and rolling eyes. A man behind me puts his head in his hands and massages his temples, as though deeply burdened by this momentary breach of typical shareholder meeting decorum. \u201cI imagine <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">she <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">will be swiftly escorted from the premises,\u201d tuts one older woman to another. As though on cue, I can hear another friend a couple of rows behind me get escorted out by security, who\u2019s caught them trying to video-record the company\u2019s response to the question. Rockpoint\u2019s president and CEO gestures to a security guard, who extracts the microphone from the question-asker\u2019s hand mid-sentence. \u201cCan I have the mic back?\u201d She cannot.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the meeting adjourns, I help myself to a bottle of cranberry juice. A man in a suit glares at me and mutters something about me being a freeloader. Outside, when I find my friend who was ejected for filming, they tell me they were tailed by security staff for blocks.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m a member of a grassroots activist group called the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN). Up until early last year, these kinds of strange, securitized interactions in mining industry spaces were typical for us. As with many contentious industries, Canada\u2019s mining sector pours vast resources into controlling and cleaning up its image. It\u2019s imperative that shareholder meetings, especially, remain positive and full of corporate self-praise, since investor confidence is so central to mining companies\u2019 bottom line. For MISN, a group that works in solidarity with mining-impacted communities around the world, it\u2019s always been important to make sure the most villainous companies headquartered in Toronto can<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> never <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">attempt to misrepresent their work to investors at those meetings without somebody standing up and saying, \u201cNo, you\u2019re lying. Here\u2019s the rest of the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It used to be that you could just pay a buck for a share in a company and gain easy entry into insider spaces typically shielded from outsider critique. This tactic allowed us to gather information withheld from impacted communities in the Global South, including land defenders with whom we are in ongoing relationship. It helped us cause some much-needed ruptures in rooms full of people who are very skilled at insulating themselves from challenges to their worldview. It let us expose shareholders to information about justice issues that are also financial concerns for them. And it created a particular kind of accountability mechanism, where companies could no longer claim that they \u201cjust didn\u2019t know\u201d about the suffering they leave in their wake \u2013 because we <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">told them<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in front of so many people, on this day and at this time.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">COVID changed all that.<\/span><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-2881\" src=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-41-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-41-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-41-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-41-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-41.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><h2>The digital filter<\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first sign that the pandemic would facilitate a new era of heightened control in mining industry spaces came with the release of a code of conduct before the 2021 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention, the world\u2019s largest mining conference, which takes place in Toronto every year. The new rules included bans on \u201cany action that will cause disruption to the event,\u201d \u201cuncooperative behaviour,\u201d disruptions during presentations \u201cincluding but not limited to off-topic communications and protests,\u201d and taking screenshots or audio\/video recordings of conference proceedings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the past, the public could attend two major parts of the convention: some workshops and panels; and the \u201cconvention floor,\u201d where you could interact with mining companies\u2019 representatives and others connected to the industry, at public-facing booths. My co-organizer who attended this year\u2019s virtual convention reports that many sessions consisted of pre-recorded speeches, offering little to no opportunity for audience participation. On a couple of occasions, attendees apparently hadn\u2019t been informed that a session wasn\u2019t live, and left questions in the chat for the absent speaker. These events all ended with zero response from the mining companies: the lights are on, but nobody\u2019s home. Other sessions were live, but presenters reviewed attendees\u2019 questions and chose which ones they wanted to respond to. Many questions went unanswered.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This year\u2019s PDAC conference contained more references than ever before to accountability, transparency, and what the industry calls ESG (environment, social, and governance) factors. Yet this rhetoric of openness is escalating at the same time as the mining industry expands what I have been calling a \u201cdigital filter\u201d against dissent. Even faithful believers in the industry are taking notice, with eyebrows raised; a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/business\/commentary\/article-silent-shareholders-at-virtual-agms-should-be-a-red-flag-for\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">recent article<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Globe and Mail<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> accuses mining annual general meetings of \u201cmuting\u201d shareholders, arguing that online AGMs \u201cappear to be limiting investor participation and shielding corporate boards and management teams from an appropriate level of shareholder scrutiny.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At in-person AGMs, if you raised your hand to ask a question and your hand got ignored, you had options \u2013 even if they were messy. You could loudly demand to speak. You could start a chant. You could be a human being in a space full of other humans, with all the accompanying awkwardness and discomfort. It wasn\u2019t much, but it was something.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curious to see for myself how things would be different in an online annual general meeting, I logged into Rockpoint Resource\u2019s virtual AGM this past spring. Because one of MISN\u2019s members owns a single share in the company, every year we\u2019re mailed instructions on how to attend the meeting, and this year was no different. Well, it was a little different. The document we received in the mail gave us something called a \u201ccontrol number\u201d; it wasn\u2019t until I scrolled down to page 91 of a vaguely titled information circular posted on Rockpoint\u2019s website that I found the convoluted login instructions. Five minutes before the start of the AGM, I clicked the link I was supposed to click, typed the numbers I was supposed to type, and\u2026\u201cIncorrect login or password.\u201d No suggestion of what could be wrong, or how to fix it. After trying many variations on the password with no success, I was forced to log in as a guest, which meant I could no longer vote in the meeting, ask a question, or see what questions were asked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jazzy elevator music was playing as I entered the meeting. There was no way of knowing who else was in the room. There was no chat. When the meeting began, it became clear to me that I wouldn\u2019t be seeing a single human face. The presentation was just the disembodied voices of the company\u2019s chairman and president speaking overtop of PowerPoint slides. It could have been pre-recorded, but I don\u2019t know. The business was brief, and there were no questions. No expressions of dissent. I left feeling even more numb than I usually feel walking out of mining industry spaces.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s so much easier to gatekeep digitally. MISN\u2019s Rockpoint Resources share is registered under the name of a well-known opponent of the company. Maybe the fact that I couldn\u2019t get into the AGM was just a glitch; maybe we missed a step in the new maze-like registration protocol; or maybe company staff saw that name appear on the registration list and said no thank you. These are companies that leave photos of known activists with front desk staff to prevent those activists from entering an in-person AGM: is it so hard to believe that a company staffer might see the name of a potential \u201cproblem guest\u201d from a \u201cproblem organization\u201d and conveniently overlook it?<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s not that AGMs were good before and bad now. They were bad before, and now they\u2019re worse. The virtualization of mining industry gatherings has created a more efficient way for mining companies to exclude opponents from their spaces and shield shareholders from the realities on the ground. More than ever, it\u2019s enabled them to get on with business as usual and face no opposition, no demands that they account for the harms they cause. Where once we had a slight opening that certain people could slip through, now there is a mirrored gate. The echo chamber has been sealed, and we don\u2019t know when or how it will open again. What will it take to find another sliver of access to a human encounter?<\/span><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-2880\" src=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-53-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-53-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-53-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-53-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-53.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><h2>Breaching the filter, or swerving around it<\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The mining industry has always been and will likely remain slippery. In response, the mining justice movement has learned to be creative and incredibly nimble. For example, after the first time a company we\u2019d been fighting for years got sold, renamed, and relocated, MISN pivoted away from solely targeting specific corporations or executives. We realized that we needed to prioritize fighting the drivers of the industry at large: corporate networks, extractivist ideology, major industry gatherings like PDAC. Still, the changes we have seen in the last year remind me how important it is to avoid becoming complacent or fetishizing specific resistance tactics. As maddening as it is to see a previous pathway to solidarity become unavailable to us, we can also treat this kind of obstacle as a chance to take a step back, reflect on our strategy, and reorient.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like many people\u2019s, my personal experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has involved a great deal of slowing down. In my first few years of mining justice organizing, spring was always MISN\u2019s busiest season. What we called \u201cshareholder season\u201d \u2013 that is, the period between May and July when all the Toronto-based mining companies tend to hold their annual general meetings \u2013 was a high-speed race to intervene in industry spaces as much as possible. It wasn\u2019t unusual for us to hold multiple actions in the span of a week, for a month straight; we would usually need to take August off to rest and recover. There was something exhilarating about this mode of organizing. Some of our most creative ideas emerged through adrenaline-fuelled brainstorming sessions in the lead-up to shareholder season. We never wanted to do the same thing twice. \u201cThis time, with helium balloons! This time, with Santa costumes! This time, with a giant 10-foot puppet of a mining exec with blood on his hands! Now with the sound of jackhammers drowning out the panel!\u201d But, in a way, we were staging the exact same kind of intervention again and again. We were operating on the mining industry\u2019s timeline, and it was burning us out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the pandemic, we haven\u2019t organized a single in-person action, but we\u2019ve still been busy. We\u2019ve been developing an app-based self-guided walking tour of Toronto\u2019s financial district, and curating an art project that gathers imaginings about a post-extractivist world. We\u2019ve been working in coalitions, and engaging in the slow, careful process of building new relationships of solidarity with mining-impacted communities. We\u2019ve spent a whole year researching a new campaign that we\u2019ve wanted to work on forever, but never thought we had time for. Working outside the mining industry\u2019s timeline has felt <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">good. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s made two dreams that I\u2019ve had for years about the future of this work feel more possible.<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I dream, first, of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">less corporate confrontation and more organized communities. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right now, for example, MISN is working on that new campaign I mentioned: a project supporting teachers and students to organize in service of mining justice. The campaign is focused on encouraging schools to divest from mining industry propaganda, and helping kids understand resource extraction in ways that centre environmental justice and Indigenous sovereignty. Schools can be sites of mining justice struggle as critical as AGMs, since the mining industry has put a great deal of resources into distributing pro-industry teaching and learning materials to schools across the country, through an organization called Mining Matters.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MISN can get a hundred people to come out to a hundred protests, and that\u2019s great. But if we can help a hundred networked communities get organized enough to take action in service of mining justice on their own terms, in their own spheres of influence\u2026that\u2019s transformation. This kind of activism doesn\u2019t involve interacting with the mining industry at all. Instead of looking mining executives in the face, the people we\u2019re looking at are each other.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mining companies headquartered in downtown Toronto drive ongoing colonization here in Canada and all over the world. In Toronto today, it\u2019s pretty much impossible to exist without in some way giving your money to mining. The industry is ingrained in almost every facet of life here, through investment in universities, hospitals, museums, pensions, banks, and more. One could see that as overwhelming, but <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/crimethinc.com\/tce\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as Crimethinc<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> says: \u201cTo change anything, start everywhere.\u201d Organizing teachers to push mining propaganda out of schools is one place to start. Organizing auto workers to reject the current greenwashing of the car industry under Canada\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/toxicnews.org\/2021\/04\/30\/critical-minerals-and-the-politics-of-refusal\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201ccritical minerals strategy\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is another. What if artists got organized and pressured arts institutions to divest from extractivism? What if University of Toronto students finally said enough is enough and went on strike until Peter Munk\u2019s name were removed from the School of Global Affairs? What could a movement of geology students for mining justice look like? What if the workers at every Ontario mining project followed the lead of workers at the Baffinland mine in Nunavut and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/north\/baffinland-protestors-open-letter-1.5910951\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">declared their solidarity<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with the rightful stewards of the land? All of this is possible. It\u2019s slow, deep work, and it\u2019s possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My other longtime dream that\u2019s felt more possible lately is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">an increased focus on stopping harm by directly intervening at its source.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> After years of disrupting the mining industry <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">narratively <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(by trying to interrupt lies and tell a different story that might influence shareholders), as well as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">legally <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(by attempting to change laws that support the impunity of these corporations), I believe the North America-based arm of the mining justice movement must get better at disrupting the industry <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">materially <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">through direct action. The meaning of the phrase \u201cdirect action\u201d has become a little fuzzy in recent years; often it\u2019s used as a catch-all to describe any sort of confrontational or law-breaking tactic. But I define direct action as anything we do that makes change happen <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ourselves, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rather than appealing to politicians or bosses or corporations to make change for us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many of the mining-impacted communities with whom we have relationships of solidarity use direct action as a central tool: they run longstanding blockades, maintain land reclamation sites, and launch mass uprisings. They are often severely punished for this activism, through militarized policing (backed by the Canadian government) and insidious threats. In MISN, we\u2019ve tended to think of the work we do in Toronto as supporting direct action that\u2019s happening elsewhere<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But lately I\u2019ve been wondering: what is the Toronto-side version of a mine site blockade? What might it look like for a movement to defend the land <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">both <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on the threatened territories <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the backyard of the enemy? What sorts of actions could we take that don\u2019t rely on CEOs or politicians having a change of heart, but instead make it impossible for them to carry out their agenda?<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I take inspiration from the recent re-popularization of supply chain disruption tactics, used notably in early 2020 by the movement in solidarity with the Wet\u2019suwet\u2019en First Nation\u2019s sovereignty struggle. As Indigenous people and settlers across the Canadian state blocked railroad tracks, more of the public seemed to discover that bodies placed strategically in physical space can have magnificent impacts. While these blockades had a broad range of motives and results, they were all fierce in their directness. These actions showed that we don\u2019t have to wait around for people in power to change their minds. These actions said: if politicians won\u2019t stop plans for this pipeline, the public will stop the pipeline infrastructure in its tracks. People have that power. I remember how <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">terrified<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Canadian government seemed about this awakening. 2021 has seen a spate of similar tactics: from the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/worldbeyondwar.org\/press-release-activists-block-trucks-at-company-transporting-weapons-to-saudi-arabia-demand-canada-stop-fuelling-war-in-yemen\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">truck blockade in Hamilton, Ontario<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, preventing weapons from being supplied to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/politics\/article-un-experts-report-on-yemen-war-names-canada-as-one-of-arms-suppliers\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Canadian-backed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> war on Yemen, to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/middle-east\/israel-palestine-arms-livorno-port-italy-b1848773.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">work refusals carried out by Italian port workers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> unwilling to be complicit in airstrikes on Gaza.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All of these actions are ways of asking: how do those of us who live in the commercial capitals of the Global North ensure that the tools of violence don\u2019t even get where they\u2019re going? And what does effective intervention look like when those tools are as abstract as futures trades on stock exchanges?\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deepening our capacity for direct action at these sites will require us to intensify solidarities across struggles locally, in order to enhance these actions\u2019 power and create more safety in numbers. It will demand that we knit together many of the communities I mentioned earlier \u2013 teachers, auto workers, artists, students, geologists, and more \u2013 to create a mass movement for mining justice in the streets below the boardrooms.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Multiplying the sites of our direct intervention will also involve building new skills, or connecting with allies (even unlikely ones) who have those skills already. We need people who know about finance to help us understand the factors that influence share prices. We need people with tech skills to help us navigate the digital filter. We need young people with wealthy parents to help us identify the social spaces that decision-makers move through. We need working-class industry insiders with no emotional attachment to mining (admin assistants, communications interns, co-op students) to feed us information and help us predict what\u2019s coming next. The motlier the crew, the better.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the help of these new allies, we also have to take our research skills to the next level. Mind-numbing corporate documents can help us predict a company\u2019s plans, offering us a more complex understanding of potential sites of intervention than we could ever gain from an AGM. In Canada, for industries like mining, there are many sequential steps a company must follow before it can render a project operational. Two layers of environmental assessment (federal and provincial\/territorial) must be conducted; access roads, mineral processing smelters, and other infrastructure may need to be built. The process can take years, and companies must retain shareholder confidence all the while. With so many steps along the way, the possibilities for intervention are countless \u2013 if we can learn to predict how a given company might navigate those steps.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, whatever new tactics we embrace, we must continue to foster deep relationships with activists organizing on the front lines of extraction around the world, and take our lead from them, so we remain in tune with their needs and goals. When the ferocity of movements in global mining finance hubs matches that of movements in regions threatened by mines, winning everywhere will feel much more possible.<\/span><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-2882\" src=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-30-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-30-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-30-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-30-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/PDAC2020-30.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><h2>A human scale, but scaled up<\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2017. I approach the booth of a small mining company at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention. An older white gentleman greets me warmly. \u201cOh, hi! How are you doing today?\u201d I ask. He tells me he\u2019s great. I flash him an innocent-young-white-lady smile and tell him I\u2019m glad he\u2019s great. I ask him about a legal case that\u2019s just entered Canadian courts: the company he works for is accused of profiting from forced labour, slavery, cruel and inhumane treatment of workers, and other crimes against humanity at one of its mines. He becomes increasingly flustered as he realizes that my questions don\u2019t match my friendly smile. The case hasn\u2019t yet gotten much media attention in Canada, and this man is not prepared. Eventually he just stops talking.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The next year, as those legal proceedings make their way to the Supreme Court of Canada, that company has no booth on the PDAC convention floor. When you know you don\u2019t have answers to people\u2019s questions, you try not to let them ask. This is what\u2019s happening in today\u2019s virtual annual general meetings.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is something deeply satisfying about looking a representative of an abusive corporation in the face and knowing that you are making an impact, even if that impact is just a slight emotional stirring. It\u2019s an opportunity many people resisting Canadian mining projects on the front lines never get. Knowing that you\u2019re being heard, that your emails are not going into a spam folder, that your questions aren\u2019t being digitally filtered, is powerful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think there\u2019s meaning in that feeling, and I wouldn\u2019t want to lose it. I\u2019m not suggesting that we stop seeking those human encounters entirely. But I also don\u2019t want to be seduced by them. If disturbing the people who run mining companies were a direct route to justice for communities, we would have won a long time ago. We can allow the digital filter to discourage us, and bemoan the further narrowing of already-narrow cracks in the echo chamber. Or we can ask ourselves what trying to slip through these cracks has cost us, and take this moment as a chance to develop a more multifaceted strategy. How much must we shrink to slip through a crack? How big must we become to win? Is it time to choose one over the other \u2013 shrink or grow? Or can we do both?<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-693c5f13 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"693c5f13\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-no\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-30306634\" data-id=\"30306634\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-25701862 elementor-widget-divider--view-line_icon elementor-view-default elementor-widget-divider--element-align-center elementor-widget elementor-widget-divider\" data-id=\"25701862\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"divider.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-divider\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"elementor-divider-separator\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-icon elementor-divider__element\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<i aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"fas fa-sun\"><\/i><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-6fc9bebb elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"6fc9bebb\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-1d0eed89\" data-id=\"1d0eed89\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-54c120fc elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"54c120fc\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Author\u2019s note: While I wrote this piece on my own behalf and it may not reflect the views of the entire MISN collective, my analysis is always deeply informed by my co-organizers\u2019 brilliance and our many years of thinking alongside each other. I\u2019d specifically like to acknowledge Merle, Erin, and Val\u2019s generous contributions to this piece.<\/span><\/i><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\">~~~<\/p><p>Kate Klein is a community-based facilitator, teacher, and activist. 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O\u2019Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, the authors of the new book Everything For Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072.<\/span><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/what-we-mean-by-community-is-our-yearning-for-communism\/\" class=\"crp_link post-7485\"><span class=\"crp_title\">What We Mean by Community is Our Yearning for Communism<\/span><\/a><span class=\"crp_excerpt\"> M.E. O\u2019Brien on family abolition and the communizing of care as political horizons worth fighting for. 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A personal and political reflection.<\/span><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"crp_clear\"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kate Klein on tactics and strategies for mining justice organizing in the COVID-19 era, when corporations are increasingly using digital technology to stifle dissent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[75,76,77],"class_list":["post-2867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-kate-klein","tag-mining-justice","tag-organizing-strategies","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Unsealing the Echo Chamber – Midnight Sun<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kate Klein on tactics and strategies for mining justice organizing in the COVID-19 era, when corporations are increasingly using digital technology to stifle 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