Yesterday Brant blogged about his run in with Toyota executive Bob Carter at the LA Auto Show and included a nice video of the encounter.

In the comments someone using the name “fugazi48″ wrote that “Toyota is a money grubbing company. Buy a car from them is like supporting the third reich as they try to overtake Europe.”

OK, so that’s not just extreme, but actually offensive.

My first guess about who wrote such a thing: a Toyota PR flack trying to make our supporters look like total extremists.

But no, it was written by someone on a General Motors-owned computer in Detroit.

See, thanks to the magic of the internet we can actually see when employees of big corporations use company computers to post on our blog. In this case, the post came straight from General Motors.

So my question: What’s stranger, GM employees using RAN’s blog to call Toyota Nazis or the fact that the person posting the comment seems to be a fugazi fan?

After the Sequoia was introduced Wednesday, an environmental activist with a video camera approached Toyota’s general manager for U.S. sales, Bob Carter, and asked why the company won’t withdraw from a lawsuit against California, which has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish tougher fuel economy rules.

Carter refused to answer and knocked the camera out of Brent Olson’s hands. Olson, of San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network, was eventually led away by two policemen.

Thanks Bob.

Here in LA, we’re slicing through the hype and keeping our eye on the prize. The automotive CEOs might be back at the podium making promises about sustainability, but on the streets of LA and throughout the country, hardly anything has changed in the past year:

• Fuel economy of the cars available to American drivers remains at the bottom of the barrel.
• Automakers are still fighting tooth and nail again fuel economy and tailpipe global warming laws.
• I still can’t walk into a show-room and buy a plug-in hybrid.

To kick off the week, we’re juxtaposing Ford, Toyota, and GM’s eco-promises with their continued participation in the lawsuit against California’s groundbreaking tailpipe global warming law. At this morning’s keynote speech to kick off the LA Auto Show, we put Ford CEO Allan Mulally in the hotseat by confronting him one-on-one and demanding he respond to a clever Freedom From Oil-produced USA Today front page wrap targeting Ford’s greenwashing.

Eco-cars (like the Cadillac Escalade hybrid, um what?) cannot just be an effort to deflect building criticism on the auto industries’ continued and stubborn reliance on gas guzzling, high global warming emissions vehicles. As I read the news this week and see extreme drought and wildfires in California, oil spills fouling the shores of San Francisco and the Black Sea, and oil prices approaching $100 a barrel, I’m more offended that usual (and that’s saying a lot) by the business as usual shenanigans of the automakers. It is high time for the automakers to stop saying what they can’t do and start giving American drivers the oil-free, zero-emissions vehicles we want and deserve.

Our showcase action of the week is going to do what non-violent direct action does best, “show not tell” the automakers what we want from them. On Thursday, while the automakers are inside the convention center making excuses and promoting concepts, we’ll be carrying out a high-speed one day conversion of a Prius hybrid to a plug-in hybrid (we’ll post more details on Thursday). With our action and our messaging, we’ll be asking the automakers what is taking them so long to get the cars America deserves on the road—if grassroots engineers can make a plug-in in a day, what’s holding back the auto industry?

UPDATE 1: Check out the photos on RAN’s Flickr site!

UPDATE 2: The AP wrote a great article about RAN confronting Toyota today!

Nick (Global Exchange) and I got to the dealership about an hour before the rally to set-up the balloon banner. We used the largest helium tank ever—291 cubic feet! It took the whole helium tank to fill up the balloon. Shortly after, our key organizers arrived—Linda Nichols Linda Nichols from Plug in America and Wendell Covalt Wendell Covalt , RAN LA coordinator. I heard a lot about these two and how supportive they have been of RAN, but it was really nice to finally take action with them.

After some time, we finally deployed the balloon banner “Toyota: Driving Global Warming One Lawsuit at a time”, right in front of the Toyota dealership. Once the banner was up, we looked around and their was about thirty people participating in the action. After trying to meet at RAN’s REVEL event, it was good to finally see Linda in action. She drove up to the dealership in the electric Toyota RAV4 and immediately became one of the key voices in the rally. While Linda was coordinating, Wendell picked up the bullhorn (his first time ever using it) and blasted Toyota for fooling America with building Priuses as they build more gas guzzling trucks and SUV’s. I looked at Nick and thought to myself, “I love it” when folks get organized and take action. This was surely an intergenerational event and everyone was skilled organizers. It wasn’t just a bunch of youngsters at this rally.

Momentarily, Mike Sandler who currently works with Interfaith Power & Light in LA and I chatted for awhile. I’ve known Mike ever since I’ve been at RAN (almost three years). He’s a good friend of Toben, RAN’s communication coordinator. We have emailed, chatted on the phone several times but never met face to face. Then out of the corner of my eye, appeared Hollywood actress and star in “Who Killed the Electric Car”, Alexandra Paul. She looked like she was in some kind of disguise with her California shades but she was so ready to take on Toyota.

Before the end of the rally, we had each corner of the intersection plastered with banners and signs while we passed out fliers. Cars of all sizes cruised by honking us on. By the end of the rally, we gave a huge round of applause for everyone’s participation and took a group photo. After the action was over, we went to deflate the large balloon and Wendell told me “this is one of the best actions I been too”. I guess we all did a great job.

While we were deflating the balloon, Linda and our new friend from LA Progressive Democratic Party member and actor Ricco Ross, went inside and had a candid conversation with the dealer owner. Ricco and Linda are two savvy negotiators and after a brief conversation they were in the dealership hammering it out with the manager. Sympathetic of our concerns of California emission standards, the dealer recommended that we take our concerns to Toyota’s corporate headquarters. This is such a familiar tactic used by dealerships management. Disappointed with the dealer response, Ricco recommended that we contact him for the next action. He said he could get as many as 300 people out to a rally. Talk about clout. Next steps in dealing with Toyota is to draft a letter with Plug In America and Global Exchange and send it to the dealership and corporate headquarters. Then we are going take action against our next mega dealer, Penske Automotive Group by targeting Longo Toyota, the world’s largest dealership in the world.

Big shout out to RAN LA, Global Exchange, Plug in America, Interfaith Power and Light, and everyone else for participating in the action. Stay tune for more RAN LA action next month!

The arrests are still being tallied, the YouTube videos posted, and cars returned from impound lots – all residuals of Monday’s No War, No Warming mobilization that sent ripples from Washington D.C. to Santa Monica. Peace and climate activists banded together on October 22 to engage in an historical act of nonviolent civil disobedience and creative demonstration against congressional and corporate inaction on the dual crises of war and global warming.

In D.C., approximately sixty people were arrested, a large number of them still cloaked in polar bear masks and furry jumpsuits. The protesters successfully blockaded four streets surrounding the Capitol despite a pre-emptive raid of the convergence center by police the night before in which a few were targeted as key organizers and arrested, and cars impounded to hassle mobilizers.

The following is a first-hand description of the day, written by Ted Glick of the Climate Crisis Coalition:

From 8 a.m. until 9:30 or 10, with action after action, we accomplished our objectives, which were to disrupt business as usual on Capitol Hill and send a message out nationally (and internationally) via the mass media that people are outraged that the U.S. Congress, almost one year after a (supposedly) new one was elected, has done nothing to end the war, pass strong global warming legislation or address the myriad of justice and survival issues facing the country that are worsening because of the war and the climate crisis.

It began with the 10-person polar bear contingent arriving like clockwork right on time at 8 a.m. at the New Jersey and Independence Avenue intersection where the mass media, following our outreach, were arriving, lots of TV cameras and still cameras and reporters. The polar bears moved to one of the main entrances to the Cannon House of Representatives office building and blockaded it. When forced to move by the police, they continued their demonstrative action, amplified by a portable sound system and creative raps and music.

Within minutes the Iraq vets group arrived to take the place of the polar bears blockading the same entrance. They refused to leave, and after 10-15 minutes arrests began.

While these actions were taking place, on the opposite side of the Cannon building, 25 people part of a “Separate Oil and State” action were blocking another main entrance and, in turn, being arrested for it.

Soon after the Iraq vets group were taken away, up came the Students for a Democratic Society contingent in their yellow Campus Climate Challenge t-shirts who immediately moved into the middle of Independence Avenue, a major through street on Capitol Hill, completely blocking traffic for what became 45 minutes. Chanting, “Resistance is Forming, No War, No Warming,” these 25 young people were a joy and an inspiration. The 100-150 or so people who were clustered along either side of the street began to chant, as the police moved in to start making arrests, “Arrest Bush, Not the Kids.”

After “the kids” were moved off of Independence and were slowly processed and loaded onto a waiting bus, and as traffic began to move again on Independence, all of a sudden a second wave of activists took over the street and again blocked traffic. I was part of this group, with six young people. We were all arrested within what seemed like no more than 10 minutes…

…And talk about inter-generational! A majority of those arrested were young people under 25, maybe under 22, while the grey head generation was respectably represented with other ages in between.

It was a joy to be part of this action, especially with the young people. In the words of Ella Baker, “Young people come first, they have the courage where we fail, and if we can just shed some light while they carry us through the gale, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”

DETROIT, MI

In Detroit, RAN and the Freedom from Oil team, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), students from Wayne State University and the Detroit Green Party teamed up to hold our own No War, No Warming action at a Penske-owned Toyota dealership. A 15-foot banner with the message, “Toyota: Driving War and Warming,” was dropped by Freedom from Oil’s very own Brandon Knight (Michigan-based Global Exchange organizer) and Aaron Petcoff (Detroit SDS) from the roof of the dealership. Down below, Oil Enforcement Agents ticketed gas-guzzlers such as the Toyota Tundra, “impounded” high-emitting vehicles, and performed drill routines.

Check out more pictures here!

The action culminated in yet another Oil Enforcement Agency mission accomplished, an act of solidarity with those arrested in Washington, D.C., a warning to mega-dealer, Penske Automotive Group, and a bold message to Toyota Motor Company that expanding into the truck market and suing states for regulating greenhouse gas emissions are not the actions of an environmental leader.

Toyota unveiled a plug-in Prius today and they’re going to start public road testing soon.

While I’m excited about the fact that Toyota is coming to its senses, I’ve even more excited because less than a month ago RAN launched an online petition asking Toyota to “add a plug to the Prius.”

I’m not saying that our petition was the sole cause of Toyota’s announcement, but I have to say that I’m feeling pretty good about seeing a big company take exactly the action that our supporters demanded.

My big hope here is that this is just the tip of the iceberg for both plug in hybrids and for RAN’s online activism.