How To Engage

There seems to be a disconnect between the tiny fraction of a percent of our population who nominate our candidates for office and the desires and wishes of those who get to vote for them. In Taiwan, this has led to continuing protests because in their country, at least, they still believe in democracy. In our attempts to move public discussion forward, we need to grapple with the fact that smaller and smaller numbers of people are guiding the earliest steps in the process of elections and constraining the debate about issues that have very real impacts on our lives. Much time and effort has been focused on cultivating the idea that voting for the lesser of two evils is a valid approach to elections. A closer look at many of our current representatives proves that even a lesser evil is still evil. The phrase, "They are all crooks.", nearly forms itself in our minds, because the ground work for that concept has been so successfully laid in our minds. But this is not true. We still have a choice between betting on candidates that are well-funded enough to "win" and those who some say have no chance at all. This issue has come up more since the recent elections in my country than it did before them, but when the discussion occurs is not as important as the fact that it does. We have allowed our system of government to be hijacked by the slimmest 1% of 1% who have the least interest in the daily life of "We the People" and a pathological preoccupation with what they believe is "good for us". These idiosyncratic ideas are frequently based on what has worked in the past. As the rest of us see daily, things that were serviceable in the past are typically either woefully inadequate to deal with our current situation or create bigger problems in the future.

We often feel the need to grapple with dozens of issues that are fallout from failed ideas and policies, however, what is really needed is to find ways to clarify the fact that we are really only talking about one issue. The planet, which we inhabit, is sacred. The human beings and creatures that we share the planet with are sacred as well. The Mother Earth rapists, bigots, fascists, nationalists, oppressors, extractors, food and water poisoners and air polluters are criminals. Those who burn thousands of gallons of diesel to plow the fields of our nation are out of touch with the land, those who commute an hour each way to work burning thousands of gallons of fuel each year are driving us literally to a dismal future and guaranteeing that sickness and death will be stalking future generations. This is truly only one issue, but the media will never allow us to be told so. Inspiring as discussions about sustainability can be, many cannot hear them, because the terrain of public discussion has been hammered out so thinly and annealed by the false discussions of things like "environment versus jobs". I have worked for decades to change the fallacies behind this lie, but big money interests cannot allow the truth to be known about this issue. Every single time that we enact laws which protect the environment, jobs are created. We do not lack for inspired ideas, technologies or the ability to make positive change in the world, what we are lacking is the will to do what is necessary.

This is why so many billionaires are beginning to come around to doing positive things for the environment rather than destructive ones. However, they are still operating at the margins. This year, 1,645 people made it into the Billionaire class worldwide. Less than twenty of them have made a serious commitment to work toward ecological integrity. It is notable that this tiny fraction of the one percent are not the ones nominating our candidates either. What is truly needed is a method of getting the oligarchs to understand that the future necessarily has to look different than the past. The millions who stood in support of the workers this black Friday are part of the wake up call that has gone out to them and the millions who are standing against police brutality are also helping to start real discussions. The #occupy movement has been trying to get these ideas addressed for several years now, but the media has turned a blind eye to them, telling us that they are just spoiled rich kids or that their aims are anarchistic. As long as the vast majority of the population is bearing the brunt of the fallout from the frivolity of the billionaires, our climate will continue to become even more destabilized than it is today. A current interactive wind map, detailing high level flows of the jet stream will put to rest the idea that human beings are not having an effect on climate. It took all of us working together, guided by the uberwealthy to bifurcate the polar vortex, but we have done it. We have done it by burning about half of the fossil energy laid down over billions of years within a brief hundred and fifty. The writing is on the wall and we need to aggressively demonstrate to those who do make the decisions about which way our culture will take into the future, that we want to be on the side of cleaner air, fresh water, climate stabilization and healthy food for all of the inhabitants of the planet.

A single stitch, in time, saves nine. Bringing healthy soil into a neighborhood that is sick can be a first step in reclaiming the lives of those who live there. Heling the millions of "busts" that have come down to us through the "boom times" of the past will take time, but without a great deal of love and concerted efforts to unmask the big lie, nothing will change. Power to the people! Right on!

 

 

The photo above is from one of the many sites transformed this past Spring, in and around the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Green Bay Garden Blitz established over one hundred garden beds for local citizens. In very real ways, this has changed the community for the better and for good. The discussions and relationships built by this and other processes is palpable, but it cannot heal our culture overnight. Grassroots change can only occur with the continuing efforts of a few who start the discussion. The idea of each one teaching one takes time to gain momentum, but we are at or near the tipping point that will exponentially change the debate for ever. Dig in wherever you are, be willing to get your hands dirty and to share these ideas with others, it may be our only hope to save lives and the ability of our species to thrive. There was an attempt to get the photo of the Earth from the Moon into every classroom in the state of Wisconsin. For a time, it looked like that would come to pass, but sadly, we have fallen short and although the image forces all of humanity to see proof that we are all inhabiting a sacred blue bauble floating in space, the insidious "business as usual", aided by the "just business", crowd has subverted even this image to sell us more products that we do not need and whose production taints the very oceans and land that make our planet capable of supporting life. Making real, and lasting, change is not for the faint of heart. ECO-Tours of Wisconsin has helped continue this discussion through educational tours, ECO-education and the reclaiming of many hundreds of acres. If not us, who? If not now, when? Donations of time, seeds, trees and money are always graciously accepted and deeply appreciated. We will never give up, the sanctity of our planet and all her creatures are too important to allow the insanity to continue. We will talk to out neighbors, build awareness with each human contact we find and demonstrate ways to heal the threadbare fabric of life.