Photo by Tushar Ranjan on Unsplash
Not so many years ago, I was a Progressive. I was registered as a Democrat and, although I thought the so-called “center” was a rubber-stamp for corporate America — similar to, but not as crazy as the GOP — I was hopeful that sane caring people could move the party to become its better self.
That ended when virtually the entire group of Democratic candidates running for president dropped out to endorse Biden — clearly to stop a surging Bernie Sanders. Of course this was legal. And supporters of this idea claimed this was necessary because Sanders was not electable.
But the bigger lesson was that, whatever the voters wanted, the Democratic party would NEVER allow those who oppose corporate power — that is, the wealthy donors — to win. When it came to siding with voters or corporate donors, the Democrats would always choose the donors.
Now, I know some readers will talk about how Biden stands up to the wealthy and to corporate power. But that’s nonsense. One can cite some small token actions — similar to Big Oil’s greenwashing — but in fact, like the GOP, the Democrats are all-out in protecting JP Morgan and ExxonMobil. When the real consequential decisions are made, the Democrats don’t care about you any more than Trump does.
From Bernie to Independent
I had been supporting Bernie. In fact, I had been a monthly donor to his campaign. His positions were largely my positions. In fact, a huge number of Democratic voters agreed with him. They voted for him.
That’s why everyone worked together to stop him. This wasn’t a battle between candidates. It was a battle between corporatism and representative government. Representative government lost. Corporations won. So, even though candidate Biden pledged that he wouldn’t approve new licenses for Big Oil to drill on public lands, a few weeks ago President Biden gave ConocoPhillips the okay to defile and destroy the largest remaining mass of protected wilderness in the country.
I did vote for Biden, which was like voting for Macron over LePen. As everyone can see, Macron doesn’t care about the people — he’s an investment banker, after all. He cares about money, especially rich people’s money. Working people? Not so much.
Ultimately, though Biden seems like a genuinely nice man, he governs the same way as Macron. He’s a “realist” who believes that more oil drilling — which is literally rendering the Earth uninhabitable, as 15,000 climate scientists have warned us — is the sensible path to take.
He’s choosing oblivion for our children — and his own. He thinks this is moderate or centrist or pragmatic. It is actually insanity, a trait he shares with the loony GOPers.
Ok. What Now?
I dropped parties and politics and took a fresh look. It was time for triage.
What were the real problems and the real opportunities? What NEEDED to be done? What were small issues and what were existential emergencies? What needs to be done and how can we ensure that it WILL be done?
Well, getting anything important done within the existing system — dominated by corporate money—is out of the question. And the biggest most far reaching crisis was and IS the climate. With decades of warnings, leaders across the globe failed consistently, year after year, to slash carbon emissions. Every day of failure brought us closer to climate collapse and a post-apocalyptic Earth.
Whether these leaders are unwilling to deal with the crisis or simply incompetent (I suspect both) does not matter. They cannot remain in charge. Sensible caring people must be in charge. I thought: what’s at stake? Who’s profiting and who’s suffering?
Well, the biggest “winners” are aging selfish ultra-wealthy adults who get to feed their greed and egos while stripping the biosphere to the skeleton. They will be conveniently dead by the time the planet is uninhabitable — at least they hope. The biggest losers are the children, who have no political power or influence and will bear the brunt of trying to survive on a ruined Earth.
That’s when I wrote the original version of A Climate Declaration. This document made the case that all leaders everywhere have failed completely and must step down or be removed. They lack the standing, the ability and the morals to be in charge of anything. And because the brunt of the (now inevitable) suffering will be born by today’s young, ONLY THE YOUNG have the moral standing to lead. So they, assisted by climate scientists and engineers, should be put in charge immediately to do whatever is possible to stabilize the climate and salvage some kind of survivable planet.
I have since revised the document suggesting that all sane caring people — of any age — should be in charge. In my heart, however, I still prefer that the young should lead.
From Ideology to Strategy and Action
Of course, writing something would never be enough. Something needed to be done. I’ve been amazed that there isn’t a much bigger and more aggressive climate movement. Although I’m a fan of those that exist — especially Fridays for Future, but also Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and others — I didn’t (and don’t) fully understand why there isn’t a HUGE worldwide movement. It seems that “leaders”, the well-dressed elite killers that meet in Davos, are continuing their crimes with no meaningful resistance.
Climate abusers everywhere — Middle East dictators, American corporatists, Chinese power mongers — are all continuing to strip the Earth of its life supporting resources. And although many of the groups are enemies of each other, they are united in their determination to extract and burn fossil fuels with impunity to support their continued hollow meaningless power.
Its obvious to me that most people worldwide DON’T WANT AN APOCALYPSE. Only leaders and authorities, hypnotized by systems that favor greed and selfishness and cruelty, promote this insanity.
But the people — billions of people — who care about human life, their children and the other species that share the Earth with us — feel powerless, defeated and despairing. They either ignore the crisis (what can they do?) or feel the despair but continue the day-to-day struggle that our ridiculous “civilization” has thrust upon them.
What they don’t do is fight the power. THAT is what needs to change.
Mobilizing a Latent Unstoppable Worldwide Climate Movement
Nobody knows how big the body of people who, given hope, would fight for a habitable Earth actually is. I have guessed that it is a small minority of people, maybe one in eight. That is, a mere ONE BILLION PEOPLE. Have you noticed that this tiny minority is also a very big number? Could a few thousand failed authorities really stop a billion people fighting for the lives of their children?
I don’t think so.
So, I’ve dedicated myself to “finding the others” and giving them hope and actions to take. We are developing and testing tactics to quickly build our movement. We want to supplement the existing activists, so that together WE CAN FORCE THE REQUIRED IMMEDIATE CHANGES.
This effort may fail or may take off at any moment. We won’t know what’s possible unless we make the effort. Some of us have started making the effort.
Won’t you consider joining us? Or at least reading about us? We are the EarthRebirth Team.
Thanks for reading.
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