On Tuesday, November 1, speaking during an interview at the White House with a reporter from Omaha, Nebraska-based TV station KETV, President Obama himself said that he will be making the decision.

More than that, Obama gave the rhetorical back of his hand to the false argument of pipeline supporters that it is a big jobs creator:

I think folks in Nebraska, like all across the country, aren’t going to say to themselves, ‘We’ll take a few thousand jobs if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health,’ or [if] rich land that’s so important to agriculture in Nebraska [is] being adversely affected, because those create jobs, and you know when somebody gets sick that’s a cost that the society has to bear as well. So these are all things that you have to take a look at when you make these decisions.

What has gotten into the President? Are we seeing the reappearance of the person who campaigned in 2008 as a strong proponent of action to “end the tyranny of oil” and address climate change?

Perhaps.  And it is important to note that Obama made no mention of climate change in his TV interview. But the most important takeaway from this positive development for Mother Earth and all of its life forms is this: when people get organized, when they are willing to make sacrifices for the common good, when they are able to build broad-based alliances and when they are able, as a result, to break through into the national mass media, changes that once seemed impossible all of a sudden become possible.

These are all things that the movement to stop the Keystone XL pipeline has done and accomplished over the past four months. This movement has built upon the leadership given by Indigenous people, in particular, fighting for years against the exploitation of the tar sands in Alberta, Canada.

It’s like the Occupy movement. Less than two months ago, who would have thought that the national conversation as defined by the news media would now be on the issue of the 1% vs. the 99%? But because a relatively small group of young people were willing to take risks in the heart of the Wall Street financial district in New York City, getting pepper sprayed and arrested, it’s an entirely new political world in the USA.

This political sea change, however, is in no way a guarantee that we, the people are going to win on the pipeline issue, much less all of the many other issues around which we are organizing. It is essential, critical, that the upcoming November 6th surround-the-White-House action be even bigger than it would have been. We haven’t really won anything yet. Things are moving in the right direction, but make no mistake, Big Oil and the Chamber of Commerce, those leading representatives of the 1%, are going to bring every lever of pressure to bear that they can to get to Obama. We can’t let up for an instant.

It’s pedal to the metal time. All out to the White House on November 6th!

In negotiations with the police prior to the action that jumped off today, the police were very clear that what would happen after people were arrested is that the vast majority would get what’s called “post and forfeit,” where you put up $100, get released from jail after several hours and you don’t have to come back again. It’s basically like a traffic ticket.

But this is not what they did. Instead, after arresting the first day’s 70 people, they decided to hold most of them, all those not within a 25 mile radius of Washington, D.C., in jail until a Monday afternoon arraignment. This works out to 48 or more hours in jail before being released.

Why did they do this? One of the police officers told one of the action’s lead organizers that the decision to do this was made “at a much higher level than mine.” Four separate police officers told organizers that it was explicitly to discourage other people from taking part in actions going forward.

Personally, I believe this had the hand of the Obama Administration all over it. They want this action to fail to try to relieve the rapidly building pressure on them to do the right thing on the Keystone XL permit.

This police response today reminds me of what happened several days before the beginning of the March on Blair Mountain. All of a sudden, despite many weeks of communication between the MOBM organizers and various government officials, state, county and local, agreements to camp overnight were revoked, pressure was put on a state park to get them to deny us a place to camp, anonymous rumors emerged of a supposed plan to arrest marchers when we got out of Marmet on to rural roads, etc.

This didn’t deter the marchers or the march leadership. We pushed through our fears and concerns, we made tactical adjustments so we could keep the march going forward throughout the week on to Blair, and we made it. Indeed, the obstacles the march leadership and the marchers overcame made our successful action that much more of a success.

I hope and pray, and expect, that our movement will rise to this occasion the way we did in West Virginia two months ago. Let’s fill the D.C. jails to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and defend our right to a liveable and just future!

Go to Tar Sands Action to find out more information and to sign up to take part in this historic, critical action for the Indigenous people of Alberta province, for those along the route of the dirty oil Keystone XL pipeline, and for present and future generations who are counting on us to move forward into a renewable energy future, not backwards into extreme energy extraction and false, destructive non-solutions.

I’ve been personally involved in several mass movements over the course of my adult life: the draft resistance and anti-Vietnam war movements in the late 60s and early 70s; the very short, very small, but very successful mass movement to impeach/remove President Richard Nixon in 1973-74; the 1980’s Rainbow Coalition movement; the third party movement of the 90’s; the global justice movement in the first years of this century; the movement to end the Iraq war of the past decade; and the climate movement that has been building since about 2005.

Based on these experiences, these are what I would see as the essential components of a genuinely popular mass movement:

– an issue, or a set of issues, about which millions of people are deeply concerned;

– a consistently growing number of people stepping up to do all of the work necessary to translate those concerns into an overlapping, increasingly coherent network of organizations at local, state, regional and national levels;

– mechanisms of communication that link, educate and inspire both those who are consistently active and a critical mass of those who are concerned but are primarily supporters; and,

– visible, on-going, demonstrative actions that rally the troops, draw media attention, alert broader numbers of people to the existence and persistence of the movement, and exert pressure on corporate or government decision-makers that forces them to respond in some way to the demands of the movement.

What are the issues or constituency-based efforts of today, in the summer of 2011, that fit all of these criteria? There are not many. It is indeed sobering how few there are.

It’s not that there isn’t work going on around a whole broad mix of issues by lots of groups around the country: war and militarism, lgbt issues, police brutality, prisons/prisoner rights, women’s rights, labor rights, fair trade, green jobs, unemployment, poverty, mortgage foreclosures, housing, electoral reform, third party organizing, environmental issues, the schools, faith-based, health care, social security, immigrant rights and more. But as far as a mass movement, one that meets the four criteria laid out above, I can see only two-three: the labor movement (especially because of what happened in Madison, Wisconsin earlier this year); the climate movement (see more below) and, perhaps, the US social forum movement.

I say “perhaps” for the social forum movement because, although it pulled off two massive, important and successful national conventions in 2007 and 2010, and there is some on-going activity as far as People’s Movement Assemblies, there is little visible, demonstrative social forum-network organized action taking place in an on-going way.

The climate movement, it seems to me, has emerged over the last few years as a genuine mass popular movement that continues to grow and develop. Key to that emergence are groups such as the Energy Action Coalition (which organized a national conference of 10,000 young people this spring), 350.org (which organizes international, locally-based actions each fall; there were 7,200 last fall, 2,000 in the USA alone), and the Appalachian-based movement to end mountaintop removal (which pulled off a powerful March on Blair Mountain two months ago). These actions took place despite — or perhaps because of — the failure of the Democrats in 2009-2010, when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress by wide margins but were unable to pass any substantive climate legislation.

And that climate movement is about to shift into a higher gear. As I write, over 2,000 people have signed up to take part in nonviolent civil disobedience at the White House for 15 straight days, beginning Saturday, August 20th, to demand that President Obama refuse to allow a 1700-mile, Keystone XL pipeline from the dirty-oil tar sands in Alberta, Canada to be built across the middle of the U.S.

It may be that in one or more of the other issue areas conditions will ripen soon such that mass movements will emerge as major political players in the country. Or, hopefully, an independent and multi-issue movement will emerge in reaction to the abject failure of both political parties, in different ways, to respond to the myriad and deepening crises we are facing in the world today.

Those of us who are committed to social, economic, racial and gender justice, to the protection, care and revitalization of our wounded Mother Earth, to peace and nonviolent ways of resolving conflicts, to a very different future than the past we have inherited and the present we have no choice but to live in — all of us, whatever issue or issues we are working on, whatever the state of that work, however strong or weak the social forces behind it at present, must use our brains and our energies to help others come forward to join us. That is the only way lasting social change for the better takes place.

I am writing two days after the huge first step of the Egyptian democratic revolution, the driving out of Hosni Mubarak, the man about whom Vice President Joe Biden said, two weeks before his departure, “I would not refer to him as a dictator.”

Fortunately, the masses of the Egyptian people weren’t acting on behalf of the U.S. government, and they found the courage and the tactics to make history. February 11th, 2011 may end up being more important to world history than September 11th, 2001.

I know very little about the ins and outs of the groups which have been organizing for democracy and justice for decades in Egypt. But I do know enough about revolutions to know that without the work of those brave individuals and organizations, those “taken for fools, taken for being taken in,” those jailed, tortured, killed for risking those things, the successful uprising of the millions over the last three weeks would never have happened.

It is clear that in the new political situation with the military in formal control of the government, and with a protracted process taking place over many months to try to deepen the revolution and prevent cooptation or even a counter-revolution by pro-Mubarak elements, both the leaders and the masses will be repeatedly tested.

I fervently hope that this latest “laboratory of revolution” yields more positive results than what we have too often seen in the 20th century after the taking of power—which has not yet happened in Egypt—by the revolutionary forces. Given the positive interplay so far between the organized groups and the masses, there is reason to have hope.

This issue, the relationship between the organized, dedicated political forces working for fundamental change and the broad masses of the oppressed and disenfranchised, is the most decisive issue as far as the long-term success of efforts at social transformation.

There are at least two elements involved, one programmatic and the other process.

The programmatic element has to do with the policies advocated by the organized political forces. A truly democratic revolution, for example, would support an electoral system which was about proportional representation in government and which curtailed the ability of the rich to dominate it (neither of which are the case in the supposedly-democratic USA). It would be about a redistribution of economic resources from the obscene rich to low-income and working class people. It would support land reform, improved health care and education for all and the replacement of pro-Mubarak elements in the judiciary, the government, the police forces and elsewhere. It would consciously reject an approach of changing faces in high places with little of substance happening at the grassroots of society.

The process element has to do with HOW the advocacy for change and eventual implementation of it takes place. Structures and mechanisms need to be put in place that provide for accountability and meaningful input by the people into both the processes of determining the strategy and tactics of the revolution prior to the creation of a genuine popular democracy and the actions by a new government.

This is not a new idea. In both post-revolutionary Russia and Cuba, for example, conscious consideration and actual steps were taken toward this objective. In Russia, after Lenin died and Stalin rose to power, these beginning efforts were smashed. Cuba has had more success and continues to struggle with this issue.

What does all of this mean for those of us who are not in pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situations, who must slog along as best we can to keep the hope of positive social change alive and growing?

First, while we draw inspiration from the heroism and successes thus far in Egypt, we should look for articles, interviews and information that can help us better understand more objectively all that happened that led to the February 11th victory. We should continue to follow and learn from all that will be unfolding in coming weeks and months and provide support to on-going progressive and democratic efforts.

Secondly, the amazing, day-after-day, mass actions in Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere should strengthen our commitment to the kind of outreach and education among grassroots people that leads to more of them coming forward to become activists and organizers themselves in a constantly growing and widening circle.

Finally, we need to consider the mix of tactics in Cairo that worked to neutralize the armed forces and eventually forced them to move to push out Mubarak. It was more than mass action in the streets. It was mass action that attempted to be nonviolent, but people were prepared to defend themselves, to defend their right to demonstrate and demand change, to fight with stones against the pro-Mubarak thugs when they attacked. This mass movement could not be called pacifist, but it also could not be called adventuristic or violent. From what I saw, the movement as a whole was open to the possibility and made efforts to try to bring about a generally nonviolent revolution, without being rigidly locked in to that approach.

Power to the people.

Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.

— Bertolt Brecht

Several times in columns over the last year or so I have written about the need for a “third force,” a broad, independent and progressive united front.

Those people who know me might think this is nothing new. After all, for over 15 years I have been a leader of the Independent Progressive Politics Network, which has had unity-building for an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans as central to its mission. However, my conception of a 21st-century-second-decade “third force” has one major difference, which is:

What we need is an alliance which consciously incorporates elected Democrats as well as elected Greens and independents, as well as groups, or individual leaders and members of groups, like Progressive Democrats of America and the Green Party. More than that, this alliance eventually needs to support and work to elect candidates running both as Democrats and progressive independents, and maybe even an occasional Republican.

To sharpen the point even more: I am completely convinced after 36 years of being active in organizations trying to build a mass, progressive third party in the USA that such an approach ALONE will never, ever get us to the promised land. The huge, historically-based, structural obstacles in the way of the formation of a truly mass-based (tens of millions), new political party make it essential that a different approach be used.

A Green Party Leader’s Proposal

A progressive third party can be formed, and has been, the Green Party. Of all the various national efforts to form a third party alternative over the last 25 years, this is the one which has been most successful. But after all those years, it does not command the support of tens of millions, its growth has been at best incremental over the past decade, and there is no reason to believe that, alone, this will change substantially.

Some Greens, perhaps many, understand that something new is needed. Scott McLarty, media coordinator for the Green Party of the United States, wrote a piece just before Christmas calling for a “voters’ revolt.” McLarty’s piece was “not an exhortation for exclusively voting Green in every election. Greens are not on every ballot, nor would I advise voting according to party without regard for candidates’ qualifications. Rather, it’s an appeal for progressive, antiwar, pro-environmental groups and anyone who cares about America’s future to recognize the alternative party imperative, and to support that imperative however they can.”

McLarty goes on to clarify what he sees as the political vehicle for this “voters’ revolt:”

What we need, as a preliminary for the emergence of the Greens or any other alternative, is a popular voters’ revolt against the rule of the Titanic parties (a phrase coined by Laura Wells, Green candidate for governor of California in 2010). It should be led by a coalition of alternative parties that have found themselves virtually shut out of the political system and the media, including Greens, Socialists, Libertarians, independents and others, as well as Tea Partiers frustrated by their movement’s absorption into the GOP and sympathetic Democrats and Republicans.

Tactically, McLarty writes that “the first step for such a coalition would be a list of demands that presuppose no political ideology beyond a desire for clean and open elections.” He lists his thoughts on those ‘clean elections’ demands, including: debates that include all candidates, proportional representation, instant runoff voting, campaign finance reforms, tamper-proof and open-software computer voting machines, abolishment of ‘corporate personhood,’ and repeal of restrictive ballot access laws.

The successful development of this proposal would be a good thing. Without question, part of the overall platform of the progressive movement, of a new “third force,” should be these kinds of electoral reforms to open up our anachronistic political system. But as THE central strategic objective for progressives and revolutionaries, I don’t see it. And a coalition of the kind McLarty proposes is not a progressive coalition; it’s, in essence, a single-issue coalition, and that is not enough on the issue of clean elections, or health care, or the climate, or racial justice, or war and militarism, or anything else

What we need is a broadly-based alliance involving tens of thousands of organizers — once it gets off the ground — that can effectively put forward and organize around a multi-issue, consistently progressive program on how society can be rebuilt and reorganized for the benefit of the people and our severely threatened ecosystem. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties are doing this. Obama’s new chief of staff, William Daley, as well his old one, Rahm Emanuel, in no way have, or had, this as their agenda, in any way, shape or form.

Working Within the Democratic Party

Progressive Democrats and the organization Progressive Democrats of America, as well as many unions, reform groups and groups like the NY Working Families Party, have been fighting for years against this right-of-center direction that leading Democrats are taking the Democratic Party. The likelihood is high that this battle within the Democratic Party will become sharper in the next two years. Daley’s appointment is one of a number of signs that Obama will not be adjusting to Republican control of the House by mobilizing the grassroots or taking progressive positions on issues. Instead, on many issues he will be going out of his way to find common ground with Republicans.

Should the independent progressive movement take up this battle within the Democratic Party as its primary strategic task in the coming period? Given the deep-seated structural impediments to the formation of a mass third party, does it make sense that this is where we put our focus?

There is no question that a progressive united front would be involved with efforts to oppose Republican and Tea Party regressivism and Democratic capitulation to it or to the corporate and banking elite which dominates Washington. We should work with those Democrats (and Republicans) who support solidly progressive positions on issues, positions consistent with our own overall policy approaches. A key part of our work must be work on issues, not just by organizing around a longer-term agenda for what’s really needed — like universal single-payer health care or hundreds of billions of dollars in reductions in the Pentagon budget — but in the world of here-and-now where we’re not yet strong enough to enact those needed objectives. Indeed, much of that work over at least the next two years will be defensive, like defending Social Security and Medicare.

But this is not the same thing as a determination that, strategically, OUR MOVEMENT should prioritize day-to-day work within the Democratic Party. Some of those who must be part of a broad progressive third force are doing, and would continue to do, that. For the alliance movement as a whole, however, we must build the strength of independent political organizing — involving progressive Dems, Greens, other independents, unaffiliateds, soft Republicans and skeptics-of-elections — at the grassroots, statewide, regionally and nationally

Independent, Mass Movement Building

THIS must be our continually-affirmed and continually-assessed objective. Just as the decade of the 1930’s was the decade of resurgent labor, just as the decade of the 60’s was the decade of civil and human rights, just as the decade of the 80’s was the decade of a multi-cultural rainbow movement, the second decade of this century must be the decade of people’s power. We must be about inspiring, nurturing and organizing millions of people to assert and organize for their right to live decently and with dignity in a world with clean air, clean water, clean energy and in balance with our natural environment. Any of our tactics, including electoral tactics, must always be determined with this overriding objective in mind.

And we must go about this work crystal clear that what stands in the way of our achieving these objectives are the coal and oil companies, the for-profit health care industry, the too-big-to-fail greedy and criminal bankers, the military-industrial complex — in short, the powerful monied  interests who have hijacked our democracy and are pulling the strings behind the Tea Party, the Republican Party and powerful sections of the Democratic Party.

Just as our movement is multi-issue, so must be our tactics. Some of those who are part of the alliance may have little to do with elections. There are many excellent and dedicated organizers who are skeptical about relating to electoral politics. But the hard fact is that if we are talking about a mass movement of millions, tens of millions ultimately, the movement as a whole must intervene within an arena that, rightly or wrongly, a vast majority of people in this country see as the way to “do politics.” As we do that work, as we connect with more and more people, we can show by example that electoral politics is only one of a number of things that we need to do to be about social, economic and cultural transformation.

Many of us, those skeptical of elections and those who see it as a key arena for struggle, will continue their day-to-day grassroots organizing around the issues most important to the people in their workplace, community or mass organization, or by bringing the action campaigns of the broader movement to those people. Some will want to focus on the organization of “street heat,” mass demonstrations and civil disobedience. The third force must appreciate the lesson of history that mass movements, to be successful, must up the ante, push the envelope, risk arrest in order to underline the urgency and seriousness of the situation we are in.

Non-Sectarianism and a Healthy Style of Work

We need to firmly reject sectarian, narrow and divisive approaches when it comes to building our movement, while constructing a style of work which welcomes constructive criticism. Members of the alliance movement need a way of talking with one another and with those we are reaching out to which consciously looks for points of connection that are then built upon. We need a “we,” not “I” mindset. We need to become known for being good allies. Our organizing work should be about working with others in such a way that they grow from being new members of our movement to the point where they are able to give leadership and, indeed, become “leadership trainers” themselves. This is central, fundamental to our ability to build a people’s power movement that can grow strong enough to eventually win.

We need an alliance culture that is about respectful listening, cooperation and the common good (“an injury to one is an injury to all”), as distinct from the currently-dominant culture’s individualism, power-seeking and greed. Indeed, today’s right-wing culture has evolved into a mean-spirited, dishonest and violence-producing approach to politics that is a dangerous and very real threat to our common survival and progress. To the extent that we model a very different way of standing up for our beliefs in an organized way, to that extent will we win over large numbers of people and, over time, expose and isolate the ultra-rightists.

Critically, the movement’s leadership and many of its members must appreciate the need for an anti-oppression consciousness, one which opposes racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ageism, etc., if we are to build the unity required to take on our common enemies.

When it comes to making decisions we should use what I like to call a “striving for consensus” model. Such a model proceeds from an understanding that we should try to make decisions through the kind of dialogical process that involves a willingness to see more than one side of an issue before coming to a decision. At the same time, it understands that it is not always possible, or there is not enough time, to arrive at a full consensus and that sometimes a vote passed by a majority, or 2/3 or 3/4 of those voting on the issue at hand, is appropriate.

Platform/Program

What would be the range of positions on issues, an essential “glue” to this effort? Here are some general sketchy thoughts, admittedly incomplete:

Single-payer health care. Significant reductions in the bloated military budget. De-escalation of the war, ending the occupation of Afghanistan, and all troops and military contractors out of Iraq. Ending all fossil fuel subsidies and shifting them to renewables. Policies to reduce carbon emissions by half by 2020. Marriage equality and full civil and human rights for lbgt people. Government programs to create jobs and stop mortgage foreclosures. Labor law reform that protects workers in the workplace. Racial and gender justice. Major changes in our unjust and racially discriminatory “criminal justice” system. An end to Israel’s illegal occupation and support for Palestinian rights. Fair, non-racist immigration policies including an amnesty program. A wealth tax on the rich and progressive tax reform. Breaking up or taking over the “too big to fail” banks and investment houses like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Breaking up huge corporate industrial farms, land reform and support to sustainable and organic family farms and coops. Defense of women’s right to choose on abortion. Support for instant runoff voting, proportional representation, public financing of elections, an end to “corporate personhood” and other electoral reforms. And more.

Structure

Would the alliance be a coalition of organizations or an individual membership organization? Those specifics will be determined when the organizing process begins for this needed people’s power vehicle. Almost certainly, at first, it would likely be more of a network linking together those, whether organizational representatives or individuals, who come together to make it happen. Over time, especially as it involves itself in electoral activity, it would need to develop local and state organizational structures to decide democratically who, if anyone, should be supported.

The key at the beginning of the process is to allow for full discussion and back-and-forth over the basic idea of what a third force should look like, to allow the maximum input into the decision-making process. A national leadership to advance the alliance-building process and its program of activities would need to be created that is broadly representative of our country’s major constituencies, different parts of the country and the political tendencies within the alliance.

Possible First Action Campaign

One possibility for how to get this off the ground, once a critical mass of progressive leaders has come together, would be to organize throughout the country a series of meetings, hearings, conferences, street rallies and other ways to develop a “people’s program.” This campaign would have several purposes. One would be to identify those people prepared to work together in an alliance. Another would be to get lots of popular input into what should be the overall platform/program of the alliance. And a third might be to use the developed set of positions on issues in some way during the 2012 national elections.

Perhaps we could call it a 21s century bill of rights. It may be that, more than just a set of positions written down on paper or posted electronically, the process of constructing this bill of rights/program could be done in such a way that the involvement of people in different types of actions in support of the platform planks could be built into the process.

Conclusion

It could well be that there is a better way to proceed. Maybe it will take some time before a critical mass of progressive leaders with organized bases and constituencies comes together to move this proposal or something similar to it forward. I hope not too long.

There is an urgency to this project. Our country and our world are in deep, deep trouble. What we do here in the USA this decade will be decisive for those who come after us. Time is running out to reverse the many very real crises that are driving humanity and all life forms toward the abyss. History is calling upon us to step it up now.

Ultimately, many of the sentiments expressed by the tea partyers are deeply dishonest, deeply un-American. We need to keep them in their rightful place as a distinct, if sometimes loud, sometimes dangerous, political minority. We will do that to the extent that we out-organize them at the grassroots, engage in creative and significant mass action, and pressure the federal government to pass genuinely progressive legislation. That’s the way we’ll keep down the supporters of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

This is how I concluded a Future Hope column on September 12th of last year reporting on the first major demonstration of what has become the Tea Party. I spent several hours at this 2009 demonstration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., listening to the speakers, checking out the signs and feeling the crowd vibes. My overall assessment was that although the politics were very different, their action had a lot of similarities to the massive peace and justice demonstrations our side organized during the early years of the George W. Bush administration. These demonstrations, many of them much bigger than the one organized by the Tea Party, took place from 2002-2006, when the rightist-led Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Being out of power, we back then and the tea partyers in 2009 both felt the need to demonstrate in the streets.

But with the emergence of the electoral-oriented Tea Party this year, the neo-rightists showed a strategic and tactical sophistication that the progressive left did not. They have successfully transformed a 2009 protest movement into a movement serious about winning political power via the ballot box, combined with continuing mass action, as we saw at the Glenn Beck late August Lincoln Memorial rally.

And all indications are that they will win not just a number of internal Republican Party primaries but a number of actual Senate and House seats. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be successful in taking the country backwards in the ways they would like. That very much remains to be seen, to be fought out over the next two years and beyond, but there is no question that they have had a major impact upon the politics of the USA.

Why hasn’t the progressive left, those millions of people rooted in and, in some cases, leading a wide cross-section of local, state, regional and national progressive or liberal organizations and issue-oriented movements, done something similar? Why have the overwhelming majority of us seemingly gone along with two-party politics-as-usual? Why haven’t we organized ourselves into something like a left-wing Tea Party?

A good argument can be made that too many progressive leaders don’t have the guts to do what’s right. As Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, recently wrote:

Where they saw Republicans who were too wishy-washy or too compromised, they [the Tea Party] went after them and took them down, and ran the most avowedly ideological candidates they could find. They didn’t bother offending the party establishment. They went around the establishment.

And now they’re flexing their muscle and all but daring that establishment to stand in their way. As Sarah Palin said this week, ‘Some in the GOP — it’s their last shot. It’s their last chance.’ And she warned the establishment that if they don’t surrender, she can take the grassroots with her and start a third party. No major figure within the Democratic Party has had the guts to do this. And progressives have, by and large, found themselves paralyzed within the party. For far too many years, most progressives have played nice and played along.

There are exceptions: Ralph Nader, David Cobb, Cynthia McKinney, Progressive Democrats of America, progressives running as Greens, independents or in primary challenges to conservative or wishy-washy Dems. But these are exceptions to the dominant political and tactical dynamic within the progressive left.

Another reason for the Tea Party success is the huge sums of money provided to them by rightist millionaires and billionaires. Though there are left-wing millionaires and billionaires too, there aren’t as many, and there are proportionately fewer willing to buck the established ways that things have been done in the political arena for decades.

The rightist media: without question Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and all the other right-wing media have provided significant motivation and support for the Tea Party movement.

But in my opinion probably the most significant reason for our situation, the ruts of our own making that have allowed the corporate-supporting Republicans, Democrats and Tea Partyites to dominate U.S. politics, is our inability to bridge the divides between those who are working mainly in support of progressives within the Democratic Party, those who are organizing independent and outside of it in the Green Party or other independent parties, and those who are abstaining from any involvement in the electoral system at all.

As long as we are divided into our progressive Democrat, third party or abstentionist camps;

as long as we are unable to unite around a truly progressive agenda and build unity of action in support of it;

as long as we allow left sectarians or centrist sectarians to influence us and prevent us from building the working unity we need; and,

as long as we refuse to consider ways that we can forge a unified, activist alliance that will support both progressive Democratic and independent candidacies, with decisions as to who determined democratically—

that is how long we will remain in the political wilderness.

Perhaps there is some hope for change. It was a positive thing that the labor movement and the NAACP took the initiative to organize the One Nation Working Together demonstration in D.C. on October 2nd. Will that coalition, or significant sectors of it, see and act upon the need for something on-going after November 2nd?

There is talk within the climate movement about running/supporting candidates who prioritize the building of a clean energy economy. Given the energy and organization within that movement, as indicated by the 2,000 or so local actions on the same day that were organized for two consecutive years, perhaps it will play a leadership role in advancing what we need.

It is clear that just supporting whoever the Democrats come up with isn’t working. It’s time for a change we can believe in as far as how we do politics from the left in the USA.

What is the one thing most needed right now if we are to win this race? October 24th showed us: a visible, growing, mass movement in the streets.

There are some who believed, and still do, that the key to the needed clean energy revolution was the election of Barack Obama. Although it is important to have a President who understands that climate change is happening and that action is needed to address it, it has become very clear over the last nine months of his time in office that this is not enough.

We can see that when we look at what has been happening in Congress and in the international negotiations leading up to the December 7-18 United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In both cases, the results so far have been very problematic.

In Congress, despite Democratic Party control of the White House and the House and Senate, a very weak piece of climate legislation was passed by the House in late June that doesn’t come close to being what is needed, and it is very possible, if not likely, that when a bill eventually reaches the floor of the U.S. Senate it will be even worse. The target for greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions reductions over the next 10 years, an absolutely critical period of time if we are to have any hope of avoiding world-wide catastrophe, is way too weak, and it is questionable if even this weak target would be met. It contains a huge percentage of problematic “offsets” that will likely allow U.S. corporate polluters to avoid or minimize actual reductions of emissions from their dirty coal plants or oil refineries for 15-20 years or more. Only 15% of the permits to emit ghg’s are auctioned, half of them being given directly to the fossil fuel industry, despite Obama’s call for a 100% auction of permits while campaigning for President. It strips the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to regulate coal plants and other stationary sources of ghg’s. Its cap-and-trade framework allows Wall Street speculators to get into the huge new “carbon market” being created. It is nuclear power-friendly, and it projects giving the U.S. coal industry tens of billions of dollars for carbon capture and sequestration, an unsafe boondoggle that only dangerously postpones the critically-needed, dramatic shift to renewables, conservation and energy efficiency.

As far as the international negotiations, this is what Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, had to say about the most recent meetings in Bangkok, Thailand in early October: “Just two months before Copenhagen, the Bangkok climate negotiations did little to move the ball forward. Bold steps are clearly needed from the world’s leaders to break the deadlock in the negotiations, and time is running short. One key to a meaningful deal in Copenhagen is science-based emissions reduction commitments by industrialized countries… but the slow pace of climate and energy legislation in the Senate has left the United States unwilling to even get on the playing field. And the U.S. reluctance to accept legally binding emissions reduction commitments, together with a meaningful compliance regime, is threatening the entire negotiating process… The other key issue in these negotiations is greatly increasing funding for developing countries to deploy clean technologies, reduce deforestation, and adapt to the impacts of global warming. Here in Bangkok, the United States, European Union, Japan, and other industrialized countries once again failed to put forward a credible finance package. Most of the key developing countries have expressed willingness to take significant action to limit their emissions if such assistance is forthcoming, but they are not getting a serious response from the other side. If industrialized countries don’t start putting their climate finance cards on the table soon, there’s not going to be a card game in Copenhagen.”

Since 2002 I’ve been speaking, taking action and organizing in support of a clean energy revolution. During those seven years I’ve also been active with the peace movement in opposition to the Iraq war. I’ve been struck during that time by one major difference between these two movements when it comes to tactics.

The peace movement, up until the election of Obama, was repeatedly organizing mass demonstrations of tens or hundreds of thousands of people, in Washington, D.C. and many other places. In 2008, for example, 30,000 or so people demonstrated against the war in St. Paul, Minnesota on the day before the opening of the Republican Convention.

The vast majority of climate and environmental groups, on the other hand, have little experience with mass actions in the streets. This is especially true for the groups based in Washington, D.C. Instead, their work is all about lobbying members of Congress, trying to convince them of the correctness of their positions, developing position papers, getting their members around the country to send emails and make calls to Congressional offices, etc.

I do some of this myself. It’s not that these are bad things, when done in combination with a range of other tactics and activities. But when done in a way which deemphasizes grassroots organizing and “street heat,” it’s of very limited value. Indeed, it’s a waste of resources, because it’s just not going to get the job done.

Fortunately, there’s a new climate movement emerging that gets it when it comes to this issue of tactics. The 350.org network is a major component of it, as is the mushrooming anti-coal movement. In 2007 there were only eight anti-coal demonstrations and 33 people arrested in acts of civil disobedience, according to Source Watch, compared to 49 actions and 266 people arrested so far in 2009. There are the continuing, dramatic actions of Greenpeace and the actions organized by groups like Mountain Justice, Rising Tide, the Rainforest Action Network and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. There are the plans for another big international day of action on December 12th right in the middle of the Copenhagen conference, and some of the groups which mainly do lobbying are part of the coalitions calling for those actions.

Last Saturday, as I marched in the pouring rain with many hundreds of others down 16th St. to the White House, young people leading the march at one point began a chant I’ve heard at many other actions on other issues; “Ain’t no power like the power of the people, and the power of the people don’t stop!” Yes, and we can’t stop until we’ve forced, or changed, the governments of the world so that they act as is necessary if we’re to have a fighting chance for a future we can look forward to.

From December 7-18, in Copenhagen, Denmark, 190 or so nations will come together in for the annual U.N. Climate Conference, but this one is particularly important. One reason is that it will be the first one in eight years where the U.S. delegation will be led by people who believe that climate change is real, serious and that action is needed to address it. But much more significant is that this is the U.N. conference that was planned, two years ago at a UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, as the place and the time that the world had to come up with a much stronger international climate treaty than the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol became operative on February 16, 2005, and as of sometime in 2012 it will no longer be in effect. The countries which signed it and agreed to reduce their emissions by an average of 5% below 1990 levels have until then to do so. At that point, if there is no international treaty that has been negotiated, ratified by enough countries and gone into effect, there will be nothing that replaces the expired Kyoto treaty.

Since it is expected that it will take at least two years for enough countries to ratify a treaty, the Copenhagen conference has been seen as critical so that there’s no gap in between Kyoto and a new treaty. However, as we’re less than three months out from Copenhagen, with 15 actual negotiating days between now and the end of Copenhagen (including five days in Barcelona, Spain Nov. 2-6), and with a significant number of major issues unresolved and points of conflict, especially between the countries of the Global South (developing countries) and the Global North (developed), it is not looking hopeful for any kind of treaty, much less a good one, to be adopted and signed at Copenhagen.

In March, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and primary treaty negotiator, outlined his main priorities short of a finalized treaty. The talks, he said, needed to deliver clarity on near-term (by 2020) emissions cuts for both industrialized countries and developing countries, while industrialized countries needed to devote significant resources to help poorer nations invest in clean-energy tech and adapt to climate change. De Boer said if those things happened, “we have a robust architecture for a resounding response to climate change at the international level.”

The Major Issues

Over the last several months, the issue of climate justice obligations has become contentious and major. At the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh next week this issue is supposed to be worked on; Obama proposed that this be a central issue for this meeting at an earlier G20 meeting in July.

There are various projections for how much money is needed. The lowest figure by objective sources (not developing countries shirking their obligations) seems to be around $100 billion/year. Oxfam, the International Climate Action Network (CAN), the Alliance of Small Island Nations and African countries are calling for $150-160 billion/year. But a United Nations report that came out on September 1 said that the developing nations need a $500-600 billion/year “Marshall Plan” to tackle climate change. The World Economic and Social Survey called for a “Global Sustainable New Deal” to overcome the “woefully inadequate” estimate of 21 billion dollars annually currently set aside internationally to adapt to and cope with climate change.

$500-600 billion is 1% of world GDP. It’s also less than what the U.S. spends each year on its military budget.

It is not a good sign that, about a week ago, the European Union announced that they would contribute no more than $15 billion/year of direct assistance. Their proposal included language suggesting the EU could use part of the future development aid it has already promised for poor countries as part of its climate change contribution. An Oxfam leader said the proposal would “rob tomorrow’s hospitals and schools in developing countries to pay for them to tackle climate change now.”

The other major issue, of course, is how much the countries of the Global North will reduce their emissions. Related to this, for some countries, is how much the developing countries are willing to commit to doing—this is where the financing issue comes in very directly.

Things don’t look good as far as this issue. Obama’s current position is that it’s OK for the US to get back to or just above 1990 levels by 2020. The EU took a position many months ago that 20% below 1990 levels was what they were prepared to do. One recent positive development is that the newly-elected Japanese government has said they would aim for a 25% reduction by 2020.

At the 2007 Bali, Indonesia conference, there was agreement that 25-40% below 1990 levels is what was needed. Since then, International CAN, the Alliance of Small Island Nations, China and other countries have called for 40-45% cuts as the climate crisis has deepened.

Climate Movement Mobilizing Internationally

Fortunately, the growing, grassroots international climate movement is not sitting back and hoping for the best. There are several major mobilization efforts that have been developing for months.

The first, after the New York and Pittsburgh actions this week, is an International Day of Climate Action on October 24th taking place, as of right now, in 116 countries, and those numbers are steadily growing. Initiated by Bill McKibben and 350.org (www.350.org), this day promises to give a major push to the efforts for a treaty that is commensurate with the seriousness of the climate crisis.

The Mobilization for Climate Justice (MCJ) is a network of more radical and grassroots-based groups which is planning an international day of action on November 30th. In the US, CPR for the Planet, connected to the MCJ, is gathering up thousands of names of people willing to do nonviolent civil disobedience if 10,000 sign up. Some of these activists will be in Copenhagen where there will be efforts during the conference to engage in direct action to underline the urgency of the crisis.

During the Copenhagen conference, on December 12th, there will be a Global Day of Action being organized by the Global Climate Campaign, which has been steadily building up the international movement since 2005. This year the Global Campaign for Climate Action, with significant resources and organizational networks, has taken up the call for actions on December 12th, as well as the 350.org October 24th actions, which will make both of them more extensive and larger.

One other initiative, smaller but potentially of much significance, is a Climate Justice Fast, being organized to begin on November 2nd and continue, for six people as of now, until and through the Copenhagen conference. Others will be fasting for shorter periods of time. Begun by young people in Australia, there are currently people from a dozen countries part of this growing network.

For the core group of six and any others who join them before November 2, they will be eating nothing and drinking only water over the course of these 47 days. Some of them will be inside the Copenhagen conference, visible every day to delegates from around the world and the world’s press.

A Time of Testing

These next three months will be a serious reality check for those throughout the world who understand the seriousness of the climate crisis, and for those people of all political persuasions who see themselves as responsible human beings. Time is literally running out.

Those of us living now have an awesome responsibility. Our situation is not hopeless, but it is extremely urgent. We must force the governments of the world to take action ASAP if we are to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change. This fall is decisive.

As I circulated around and throughout the crowd for the next hour and a half, I heard someone say that CNN was giving a figure of 2 million. People were excited. Was this the beginning of the right-winger revolution?

That question remains to be answered—almost certainly it’s a “no”—but one thing is clear: there weren’t anywhere near 1 ½ or 2 million people at this coming together of the ideological super-rightists of the USA. When your crowd only goes from the West Capitol steps to 3rd St., 100 yards or so past the reflecting pool, not even on the mall, and with big holes in the ranks of Obama haters within that real estate, 100,000 is more like it, and that may be generous.

To compare, I checked out a picture of the 1995 Million Man March organized by the African American community. Estimates of that march ranged from a ridiculously low 400,000 by the National Park Service to a BBC estimate of 1.9 million. Here’s a link to a picture of that event. Note the reflecting pool in the front that the “taxpayers” today barely got past.

But hey, 100,000 people is nothing to sneeze at. I’d take a peace demonstration, or a climate, or a healthcare, or a jobs, or one linking all four issues right now that had that many people, hands down. That’d be a political jolt to the system that is very much needed.

Today, however, was the day of the right-wing tea baggers.

Here are some of the things that I was struck by as I observed the signs (mostly hand-made, it should be pointed out), heard the speeches and listened to the comments and discussion of those around me:

* Though the efforts in Congress to pass climate and health care legislation were put forward by the organizers as the two motivating issues, this was very much a “multi-issue” crowd. Indeed, more than those two issues, what seemed to be most dominant was overt hatred for Obama and the (currently liberal) government. There were signs with Obama with a Hitler mustache. “ObamaCare Makes Me Sick” was a popular one. Others included “Get the Dictators Out of the White House,” “No to Obama’s Radical Agenda,” “Worst Marxist President Ever,” “One Big Ass Mistake America (put together the first letters),” and the delusional “I’m More Afraid of Obama than Osama.”

* The anti-government ones included, “Kick Out Marxist Czars” (there was a lot of talk from the stage and lettering on the signs about “czars” in government, apparently the influence of radio-talk-hater-racist supreme Glenn Beck), “Free Markets Work, Big Government Doesn’t,” “No to Government Spending, Health Care, Interference,” and “Debt, Corruption, Loss of Freedom.”

* Other signs of note: “Freedom and Democracy, Not Socialism,” “Abolish ACORN” (there were a number of anti-ACORN signs), “Uphold the Constitution” (also repeated a number of times), “We Don’t Redistribute Wealth, We Earn It,” “Joe Wilson: A Politician with Courage,” and “Cap and Trade Congress.” There were relatively few signs about the cap and trade/climate issue, surprisingly.

* There was also a 100%, complete and total absence from either the stage or people’s signs of any negative words about banks and corporations. Given that the right wing historically is not generally a fan of bankers and monopolies, and given the widespread unpopularity of the recent multi-trillion dollar handouts to banks, this seemed significant. It may be that the hatred of our first African American President was so strong that it crowded out this “economic royalist” issue. Or maybe the well-connected organizers used their influence to prevent this issue from being raised.

* At one point a speaker from the stage led the crowd in a chant of “universal health care is a big fat no.” More often chanted, however, was the good old patriotic standby, “USA, USA, USA.”

* A person handing out small American flags got a lot of knowing smiles as he said that people should get them before they’re outlawed. Yeah, that’s really going to happen.

* For a city that is majority African American, this was an incredibly mono-chromatic demonstration. After seeing a black person about a half-hour after arriving, I began counting, one by one. I saw about a dozen over a period of 2 ½ hours. It was similar as far as people with Asian and Latin features.

* There were also relatively few young people, perhaps, at most, 5% of the crowd. It was a middle-aged and older crowd.

* Finally, there was a lot of anti-two-party sentiment expressed from the stage, not so much via the homemade signs, but when speakers castigated both Democrats and Republicans, they got a rousing response. One speaker said that the Republicans of today are like the Democrats of 20 years ago, and the Democrats of today want to “take over all of our lives.”

So is there political significance to today’s demonstration?

I’m not sure there is. What it felt to me was that it reflected, more than anything else, the current minority status of the Republicans in Congress and their loss of the White House. This was a delayed reaction to the results of the November, 2008 elections. It was the use of a tactic used repeatedly by the Left during the eight years of the Bush/Cheney gang because we had little governmental power and very limited options when it came to the federal government until 2006 when the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress. And we didn’t have too much then.

This reality of relative powerlessness is currently the situation of the right-wingers.

They’ve clearly gotten some political traction from the way that the Democrats handled the health care issue, at least up until Obama’s Wednesday evening speech, as well as from all of the angst about the House cap and trade bill. Whether they are able to continue to do so going forward from today’s action will to a large extent, short term, depend upon how the Democrats follow up from Obama’s speech, and beyond that how they handle the climate, Wall Street regulation and other issues.

There was one other political dynamic —speakers and signs about the U.S. as a “Christian nation.” One sign said, “Proud Christian American.” More than one speaker got a good response from the crowd by calling upon them to stand up for Christian values.

As we interact with this movement in the coming months and years, we need to call them out on this lie. It is not Christian to oppose universal health care as an objective, which these people do. It is not Christian to oppose all efforts to address the climate crisis, to deny that it exists. Talk about a “right to life” issue! It is not Christian to demonize low-income people from south of the U.S. border who come here to try to find work to keep themselves and their families alive, as speakers did from the stage.

Ultimately, many of the sentiments expressed by the tea-baggers are deeply dishonest, deeply un-American. We need to keep them in their rightful place as a distinct, if sometimes loud, sometimes dangerous, political minority. We will do that to the extent that we out-organize them at the grassroots, engage in creative and mass action, and pressure the federal government to pass genuinely progressive legislation. That’s the way we’ll keep down the supporters of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Those who do a coward’s toe dance through life may please the immediate audience, but history acclaims those who are willing to march for their beliefs, even though the terrain may be rough and there will be missteps.

There is no scarcity of people who are oppressed. There is only a scarcity of men and women with eyes clear enough to see and hearts big enough to act.
– Paul Simon, in Freedom’s Champion, Elijah Lovejoy

The very first national “movement” conference in Washington, D.C. that I ever went to was in the fall of 1968. It was a national conference of the peace movement against the Vietnam war. The one thing I remember about it is being in a workshop with Joan Baez and her then-husband, David Harris, a leader of the draft resistance movement.

Something they talked about has stuck with me ever since. It was that each one of us has only one life to live, one lifetime to do with as we will, one chance to have an impact upon other people and the world. Ultimately, that’s all any of us have.

I thought about this after reading a book, Freedom’s Champion, by the late, former U.S. Senator from Illinois, Paul Simon. The book is about someone who I previously knew nothing about, Elijah Lovejoy, the first white person in the USA, according to Simon, who was killed because of his public opposition to slavery. He was killed in the middle of the night on November 7th, 1837 while attempting to prevent a racist, pro-slavery mob from destroying the printing press on which he published the firmly anti-slavery Alton Observer in Alton, Illinois, across the river from St. Louis.

Lovejoy was a product of his times and his upbringing, and he was not without prejudices. He was a bigoted anti-Catholic. Up until the last year or so of his death at the age of 35, he was against slavery but saw the solution as the return of enslaved Africans to their home continent, not abolition, freedom and “40 acres and a mule.” However, he was a devout Christian minister who tried to live by his beliefs no matter what the cost.

As Simon reports, Lovejoy’s death had a tremendous national impact. “Those who killed Lovejoy and destroyed his printing press thought they were helping the cause of slavery, but they could not have helped the antislavery cause more. His death became one of the two greatest boosts the antislavery movement had from the day of independence to the outbreak of the Civil War, the other being the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin… Within weeks after Lovejoy’s death, membership in antislavery societies multiplied, and antislavery sentiment increased.”

At a meeting in Union, Ohio following the murder, John Brown made his public commitment to the antislavery cause, saying, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”

Following Lovejoy’s death, Wendell Phillips in Boston gave up his law practice to join William Lloyd Garrison’s group of abolitionists. Phillips became one of the most eloquent and consistent, national abolitionist leaders and a prominent labor movement supporter.

Simon cogently puts Lovejoy’s death in its proper context: “Most changes in history are not made by intellectual giants who sweep across the pages of our history books but rather by people who do not seem fitted to stand foremost in a great struggle; they simply have certain beliefs and are willing patiently but firmly and courageously to support them.”

A more recent example is Cameron Austin of Shelbyville, Illinois, who died after a years-long struggle with hepatitis a couple of months ago at the age of 54. In the words of rank-and-file labor leader Mike Griffin, Cameron was an autoworker who was “a devout member of United Auto Workers Local 751, representing workers at Caterpillar in Decatur, Il. During the labor wars in the nineties, as a rank and file member, Cameron became a leader and an international ambassador on behalf of his besieged local. He was instrumental in keeping top UAW officials from selling out the more than 150 illegally terminated strikers fired by Caterpillar in a ruthless assault on its employees nationwide … In the more than six years Local 751 worked without a contract, Cameron fought valiantly to bring justice to thousands of Caterpillar workers throughout the Cat chain.”

Griffin explains in his moving obituary that “in the Caterpillar plant, Cameron served as an employee assistance representative who worked tirelessly to lift his brothers and sisters from the trappings of alcoholism and drug abuse. There is no question that Cameron saved many fellow workers from losing their jobs and families, and was always available to counsel fellow union members discreetly and in confidence…

“In the end, when the physical heart failed Cameron, the heart that he gave to his precious union, to his fellow man, never wavered, and it was that heart that defined the existence of Cameron Austin.”

Follow your heart. That’s the way forward for us as individuals and as a progressive movement for fundamental, revolutionary change. Follow our hearts, live by love, work for a society and a world in which love is the motivating force guiding how we organize our economic, political, social and cultural life.

And act on your beliefs no matter what the cost. Let conscience be our guide. Build a supportive movement culture that enables more and more people to do this. These ways and these ways only keep us on the right road, allow each of us to use properly the one thing we are all given, our one life.

* Ted Glick is on the 83rd day of a Climate Emergency Fast.

I wasn’t able to speak to any policy people in Pelosi’s office but I was given a name and number to follow up, and I did so. The call last week was the most recent in a game of telephone tag.

Pelosi’s person, Lara, commented on the Speaker’s concern about my health and about her very strong commitment to taking action on global warming. She then proceeded to tell me that Pelosi’s plan is to come up with something “that George Bush can sign,” a direct quote. What she talked about was aspects of two different versions of an energy bill passed by the House and Senate this summer that will strengthen laws and regulations to make the U.S. economy more energy efficient. Period. Full stop.

So in the face of the greatest civilizational challenge humankind has ever faced, to paraphrase Bill McKibben, the best the Democratic leadership can do is to capitulate to George Bush?

Honestly, I’m not surprised, given what they’ve done and not done on the war and the snail-like pace of their efforts on global warming since they took office over nine months ago.

Their strong-statements-backed-up-by-weak-action only deepen my commitment to continue this climate fast and work hard in this last week to make the Monday, Oct. 22nd, No War No Warming nonviolent disruption of business as usual on Capitol Hill in D.C. as large and effective as possible.

I’m really looking forward to risking arrest as part of that stepping-it-up action, and I’m glad that there are at least hundreds of others doing the same. I hope many more will make their plans in this last week to join us.

“Action is the best antidote to despair.” I believe Joan Baez said that. It’s absolutely true. And it’s not just “action,” in general. It’s “action” appropriate to how you feel, to your past experiences in the world of activism and to the situation. For a lot of us, disrupting business as usual on Capitol Hill on a day, a Monday, that Congress is in session and doing their work sure seems very timely, very necessary.

I think back to other major mass movements in U.S. history over the past century. All the successful ones had an edge to them, people willing to occupy factories, in the case of the labor movement of the 30’s, people sitting in or directly confronting racist practices, in the case of the civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s, people burning their draft cards or going into draft boards to destroy Selective Service records, in the case of the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 60’s and 70’s, or the massive civil disobedience actions at planned and existing nuclear power sites in the ‘70’s and 80’s.

And this century, beginning with actions in D.C. in April, 2000 that themselves were a follow-up to the successful late November, 1999 actions in Seattle, the global justice movement put the IMF/World Bank/WTO very much on the defensive and concretely impacted their ability to advance their corporate globalization agenda.

I think of the famous statement of Mario Savio, leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in the mid-1960’s:

“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

It’s time for us to emulate those past movements as we build the 21st century movement to Fight Climate Change; No Wars for Oil!

These issues are connected, of course, by oil. Everyone who’s got their head screwed on straight knows that the reason for the invasion of Iraq was oil. The US government is occupying Iraq both for its oil and to try to turn it into a US-friendly military base from which it can better control the entire region.

Why? It’s not just because Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, Wolfowitz and the neo-cons are motivated by we’re-the-rulers-of-the-world ideology. There is actually a perverse logic to what they’re doing, particularly given their personal connections to the oil industry.

The US and the world are in a deepening energy crisis. Easily accessible oil and natural gas are getting hard to find even as the demand for and competition over energy throughout the world accelerates. There is agreement among those who study this issue that we are either right at or very soon will be at “peak oil,” a point where as much oil that is in the ground will have been found and used as there is oil still remaining. And the big problem is that those remaining reserves are getting harder and more expensive to bring out of the ground.

There is a common sense solution to this dilemma. Instead of war in Iraq escalating into war with Iran and who knows where else, the US could lead the world by using its technological know-how and resources to advance a worldwide clean energy revolution. We could rapidly undercut the appeal of Al-Qaeda by withdrawing our troops from the Middle East and promoting, instead, huge solar energy farms in this sun-drenched region of the world. We could help the formerly colonized countries of the Global South who are currently developing their economies by using greenhouse gas emitting coal or dangerous nuclear power. We could help them shift to renewable energy technology to obtain energy via solar panels, wind turbines, the tides or the earth (geo-thermal).

What kind of world do we face if we don’t stand up, if we don’t rise up to demand a serious course correction?

A report was put out this spring by the CNA Corporation, a national security think tank, written by six retired admirals and five retired generals, including the former Army chief of staff and George W. Bush’s former chief Middle East peace negotiator. In it, in the words of an Associated Press story, they “called upon the U.S. government to make major cuts in emissions of gases that cause global warming.”

“The report warned that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger, instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. ‘The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism,’ the 35-page report predicted.

“‘Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations,’ former US Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan told Associated Press Radio. . .

“In a veiled reference to Bush’s refusal to join an international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the report said the U.S. government ‘must become a more constructive partner’ with other nations to fight global warming and cope with its consequences.”

The options before us are crystal clear. Down one road, the one we’re now on, lies a cascading series of oil and water wars, climate disasters and ecological devastation. Down the other lies a turn toward peaceful resolution of conflicts, energy conservation, efficiency and a clean energy revolution, and social and economic justice.

Another world is possible, but for it come about another US is necessary, in the words of the recent US Social Forum. It’s a world worth fighting for, a world worth sacrificing for. Our children and their children are counting on us to do the right thing, and to do it now. The clock is ticking, and we need to act as if the future of human society depends upon what we do, because it really does.

It was in the summer of 1971. I was being held at Danbury federal prison, serving what turned out to be 11 months behind bars for my anti-Vietnam war, draft resistance activism as a member of the “Catholic Left,” or what J. Edgar Hoover called, in the words of Time magazine, a “terrorist ‘conspiracy’ involving radical Catholic priests and nuns.”

Two of the leaders of that “terrorist conspiracy,” Frs. Philip and Daniel Berrigan, were in prison with me, and they had just heard from the Federal Bureau of Prisons parole board that they had been denied parole and likely would have to serve out their entire six year sentence. They had received this sentence after burning pieces of paper, Selective Service draft files taken from a Catonsville, Md. draft board, with home made napalm just outside that draft board in the spring of 1968. They waited for the police to arrive, were arrested, tried and sentenced.

Phil was concerned about whether his brother would survive 3 ½ more years in prison. He also clearly saw the potential for a hunger strike, a fast, to contribute to the anti-war cause. And so, under his leadership, a group of eleven of us stopped eating on August 6th, the 26th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. There were three basic demands: a fair and reasonable review of the Berrigans’ parole turndown; various reforms in the way the parole board dealt with all prisoners; and a shutting down of the “tiger cage” prison on Con Son Island in what was then South Vietnam. Con Son Island prison was to Vietnam what Abu Ghraib prison is to Iraq.

Five of the 11 of us began the Danbury hunger strike by passing out leaflets on the 6th announcing it, and calling for other prisoners to engage in a work stoppage and hunger strike starting on August 9. We had surreptitiously printed up the leaflets on a mimeograph machine in the prison library. Within minutes we were arrested by the prison guards and put into solitary confinement, “the hole.”

When the remaining six of us passed out leaflets the morning of the 9th, almost the entire prisoner population stayed away from work for about a half an hour. Only 100 out of 800 prisoners ate lunch, and 40 were taken to the hole for refusing to go to work when the prison administration mobilized and threatened serious punishment for any who didn’t do so.

Two days later the 11 of us were whisked away from Danbury out to the federal prison in Springfield, Mo., one of the institutions where they send trouble makers. For 34 days, confined together apart from the other prisoners in one wing of the prison, we drank only water, juice and, mistakenly, milk before finally ending this fast. And it had results. There were, for a time, some changes in the way the parole board functioned, and Phil and Dan were released from prison about 16 months after our hunger strike ended.

I’ve fasted many times since. There have been two major ones. In the year following the Danbury action I was part of a 40-day, water-only fast calling for an end to the Vietnam War. And 15 years ago, at the age of 42, I participated in a 42-day, water-only fast organized by Brian Willson, Karen Fogliatti and Scott Rutherford at the time of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas. The purpose of that fast was to oppose the planned, official government celebrations of Columbus, to make a statement about the depth of the changes needed in this country and world to turn away from the many negative things that Columbus represented which were, and are, still very much at work.

Humankind’s relationship to our Mother Earth, the environment, is high up on the list of those negative things. And time is running out, without a doubt. The model of economic development built upon, dependent upon, coal, oil and natural gas, the carbon-emitting, greenhouse gases that trap the sun’s heat, is a model of economic development that is literally destroying our ecosystem. I am convinced based on study, observation and the opinions of independent scientists who know much more than I do, that the changes in our climate we are seeing all over the world are not temporary and will only get worse, potentially catastrophically worse, unless and until we take dramatic steps to enact a deep and wide, justice-based, clean energy revolution.

And I don’t think we can wait for our federal government to pass strong legislation toward this end until 2009.

Given the reality of who’s in the White House, it may be that we can’t get much of what is needed before then, but those of us who appreciate the urgency of the climate crisis cannot accept that.

I remember a discussion we had during the 40-day fast against the Vietnam War in 1972 about the Presidential elections. At the time Richard Nixon and George McGovern were campaigning for the Presidency. Dave Dellinger, one of the fasters, said that he wasn’t going to get involved with supporting McGovern, the peace candidate. Explaining himself further, he said that he had learned that whether a Democrat or a Republican is elected, what is most important is what happens independent of the government and the two dominant parties, the strength of movements for justice or people’s rights. And half a year later, surprisingly, following Nixon’s re-election and the shooting down of many planes by the Vietnamese during a Christmas U.S. bombing campaign, the Nixon administration said “uncle” and negotiated a withdrawal agreement.

Does this mean that it doesn’t make any difference who is in the White House come Jan. 20, 2009? No, I don’t believe that. There are differences between the two major parties, and among the candidates for President in each party, and certainly with the Green Party and other “minor” parties. But I’ve come to appreciate what I think Dave was getting at. I think what he meant was that if the bulk of the movement for peace and justice, for a clean energy revolution, gets caught up primarily in direct work supporting Democrats (or Republicans) and we don’t keep organizing independent of and outside of that corrupted political system, we will be weakened. Our movements will be less vital, less out there focusing on the issues, less about movement building, less about forcing candidates and elected officials to respond to and be accountable to us.

I don’t feel weak as I think about going for weeks without food again, although I know I’ll be physically weaker as it goes on. I’m feeling very strong, very gratified by the response to the call for this Climate Emergency Fast. It looks like there will be close to 1,000 people fasting for at least one day, possibly more, and close to 100 fasting for more than one day. As of today there are 45 states and eight countries where people will be taking part in this action, and those numbers will grow in the nine days left before September 4th. Even before it has begun, there is interest from several non-movement press outlets, a hopeful sign.

I think of the words of an Ojibway prayer I carry around in my wallet,

“Grandfather, look at our brokenness. We know that in all creation only the human family has strayed from the Sacred Way. We know that we are the ones who are divided, and we are the ones who must come back together to walk the Sacred Way. Grandfather, Sacred One, teach us love, compassion and honor, that we may heal the earth and heal each other.” Amen.

Given the urgency of the climate crisis, the 5.2% average reduction of emissions is nowhere near enough. There is also a problem because formerly colonized, now industrializing countries like China and India are not part of this first phase of carbon reductions. That is justifiable; it is the industrialized west that is responsible for the vast majority of the carbon that’s in the atmosphere now, and it is the industrialized west that needs to lead the turn away from its past and present dirty, polluting, energy production processes. But it is not a good thing at all that China and India are following in the west’s footsteps by building far too many polluting coal plants.

We need a much, much stronger international agreement to accelerate the critically-needed transition away from coal, oil and natural gas and toward a world economy that is energy efficient and based upon clean, renewable energy sources — the wind, the sun, the earth, the tides and currents and, for a transitional period, certain fairly-produced, energy-efficient bio-fuels.

It was a good thing that Al Gore included as point 1 of his Live Earth Pledge a “demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth.” The short two-year time frame is good, as is the objective of 90% cuts. It’s also good that, rather than projecting a 43-year time frame, to 2050, he articulates a time frame that is appropriate: “in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth.”

Unfortunately, powerful energy companies in the USA, supported by the AFL-CIO and other unions thinking extremely short-term and short-sightedly, have just joined with Democratic and Republican Senators to unveil a so-called

“Low Carbon Economy Act” which will have the “radical” goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to last year’s level by 2020.

That’s not a mistake. According to the July 11th N.Y. Times, this bill gives the energy companies 13 years to get emissions to the level they were at LAST YEAR!!!. By 2030 they would be at 1990 levels.

Outrageous, truly outrageous.

If the U.S. were to ratify and then implement the Kyoto Protocol, on the other hand, a truly revolutionary set of changes would have to take place if the USA were to meet its objectives. Because current carbon emissions are about 16% higher than they were in 1990, we would need to reduce emissions by about 23% by 2012 to meet the U.S.’s Kyoto-negotiated objective of 7% reductions.

Some local municipalities get it on the climate crisis and have been working to meet these objectives. There are now over 500 city, town and county governments representing over 50 million people that have signed onto the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. As explained on the website of Greg Nickels, the Seattle mayor who initiated this effort over two years ago:

“Under the Agreement, participating cities commit to take the following three actions:

Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;

Urge their state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol — 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and

Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.”

As is true for the nations that have signed the Kyoto Protocol, some of the cities and towns are on track to meet these reduction objectives, and others will probably not.

Meanwhile, while important action to reduce emissions is taking place on local levels, it remains to be seen what is going to happen with the sham “Low Carbon Economy Act.”

It is possible that some of the national environmental groups, particularly those who take corporate contributions to meet their budgets, will grudgingly go along with this, seeing it as better than nothing.

Most groups, I would expect, will respond in a way similar to that of Dan Becker of the Sierra Club, quoted in the July 11th Times story as saying, “It’s too weak. It would be better to wait until more members of Congress understand that the heat is on them to act, and that may have to wait until the next Congress and the next president.”

But there is another way to respond to this latest capitulation to the oil, coal, automobile and other corporate interests by Democrats, Republicans and groups which really should know better. That is to publicly, creatively and massively express our outrage and anger, our determination to stand up for our threatened ecosystem, its people, animals, plants and all life forms, by stepping up our movement for climate justice and a [take note, labor leaders] jobs-creating, clean energy revolution.

Becker may be right that it won’t be until 2009 that we can get what is needed out of Congress and the White House, but if we accept that, if we don’t bring maximum pressure to bear in support of what the science is telling us is needed now, our children and grandchildren might end up cursing us for our fear and “political realism.” A climate movement which is afraid to get out in the streets and up the ante, afraid to rock the boat, unwilling to speak truth to power, is a climate movement that could be defanged, unable to bring much pressure to bear in 2009, if we have to wait that long, for the kind of climate legislation needed, for the kind of widespread cultural and social change at the grassroots needed to push forward and accelerate the clean energy revolution.

In the words of martyred World War II German resistance fighter Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”

I was relieved to hear Cindy Sheehan say this morning on Democracy Now! that she does not plan to retire from the struggle for peace and justice. Instead, she will be taking a well-deserved and needed break to reconnect with her family, deal with serious economic and health issues and figure out how she can best utilize her skills and talents going forward.

She also made it very clear that she has had it with the two-party system, or “what some call a one-party system,” and she was crystal clear that it is corporate rule that is the ultimate root of the problems we face in the US and the world.

Thank you to Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! for this important interview.

Like many others, I have been concerned and confused for a couple of days. I was confused when on Memorial Day I saw first one and then another statement from this courageous and self-sacrificing woman, both circulated over the internet around the same time.

The first statement was entitled, “Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party.” It ended with a call for people to join with her in Philadelphia on July 4th “to try and figure out a way out of this ‘two’ party system that is bought and paid for by the war machine which has a stranglehold on every aspect of our lives. As for myself, I am leaving the Democratic Party. You have completely failed those who put you in power to change the direction our country is heading. We did not elect you to help sink our ship of state but to guide it to safe harbor. . . We gave you a chance, you betrayed us.”

Having been part of organizations working to build an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans for 32 years, this was good to see.

However, later on the same day came a second statement which was more disturbing. This is the one which received much wider circulation and which was picked up by the corporate media. That mass media portrayed Sheehan as announcing to the world that she had left the anti-war movement for good.

A close reading of the second letter, however, especially in the light of the Democracy Now interview, reveals a different story.

It is clear that Cindy Sheehan has been under tremendous pressure, and not just because of her constant traveling, speaking and organizing against the war. She refers to her “hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) [that] are in collection.” She explains that she has “spent every available cent I got from the money a ‘grateful’ country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then.”

Let me be among the first to volunteer to make a contribution to a “restore Cindy” fund to let her know that many of us are grateful for what she has done and want to help in a concrete way.

It is also clear that Cindy Sheehan, for hopefully a short period of time, has lost hope in the possibilities of change in the USA. She writes, in reference to the reality of US society, that it is “a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.” And the end of the letter concludes by saying, “Good-bye America. . . you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it. It’s up to you now.”

If I were a close friend of Cindy’s, this is what I would most want to talk with her about.

I appreciate her feelings; I have had them myself. There are days, or parts of days, where I keep going not because I feel like we have a chance of turning around this destructive “paradigm” but because I feel it’s my duty to keep plugging away. I know that I need to give as much as I can to the struggle for a new world. I believe, I deeply believe, that our purpose on this earth is to try to depart it having done as much as we could to make it a better and more hopeful place for those coming after us.

But it is just not accurate to believe that all is lost, that the country is not changing, that there is no hope. The unwillingness of the Democratic Party, once again, to stand up for what is right is in no way an accurate indicator of what is happening at the grassroots of U.S. society, all over the country, in every single state.

How could George Bush be at 30% in the polls if there was no change of substance in the country?

How could the Republicans have lost control of Congress six months ago?

And even this: how could the Democrats have gone through the motions of pretending to stand up to George Bush, forcing him to veto a very, very weak war appropriations bill, if it were not for polls showing that close to 2/3rds of the country wanted them to try to stop the war?

The problem is not the people. The problem is a corporate-dominated political and economic system that shuts us out and that tries to make us feel hopeless, unable to “fight City Hall” and win.

There’s no question that we are up against a formidable enemy, but there is also no question, history proves it without a doubt, that if we are organized and united, a powerful people’s movement can turn around our current reality, and a lot more quickly than we might think.

Not being “organized and united” — this was the other big issue Cindy raised in her letter. She referred to her “work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. . . It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.”

Yes, personal egos and divisions are within our movements. This is not a new problem. Many good and wonderful people have been lost to the progressive movement because they experienced just what Cindy has experienced. How can we say that we are about a new and different society and then interact with others also working for that new society in a way which is little different than the corporate, individualistic culture?

Eight years ago I wrote in my Future Hope book that a “cultural transformation process must be an integral part of a new political movement in this country.” I went on to say that “we need to learn how to work in a collective and cooperative way, a way which is distinctly different than the aggressive, me-first culture that is dominant in U.S. society today. We need to show by example, by the way the movement functions, that we have grown and learned beyond the old, destructive patterns of personal interaction. When one of us has a serious personal problem, an injury, an illness, a death in the family, or emotional distress, others must be there to provide support and assistance. We must be known not just for our good ideas about how to re-make society and our work on issues but by the way we interact with each other and with other people on personal levels.”

I hope that Cindy Sheehan’s “resignation as the ‘face’ of the American anti-war movement” will stir those of us who have been moved by her brave witness and leadership to appreciate and internalize her anguished cry for a new kind of movement. It is within our reach, I do believe. I see signs of it, despite the obstacles, with one of the best examples being the success of the organizing process for the U.S. Social Forum a month from now in Atlanta.

And Cindy, know that you are loved and appreciated. The progressive movement for justice and peace is not dependent upon you, but we want you back, when you are ready.

But it’s even worse when the corporate-owned media daily pushes a definition of “politics” as essentially a horse race, tracking which candidate is ahead in the polls a year and a half or more before the actual election. It severely distorts what politics at its best should be all about.

One example of the negative impact of this U.S. version of politics is what is now happening with some within the climate movement. Some of them have, for all intents and purposes, given up on the possibility that the Democratic-controlled Congress—one which many of them worked to elect in 2006–can be pushed from below to pass strong federal legislation to cap and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are dangerously heating up our planet.

I recently heard a top leader of one of the major environmental organizations speak publicly about how the oil, coal, gas and uranium interests continue to dominate Congress. He then went on to urge that we focus our attention on local and state governments. He as much as said that we should put little hope in this Democrat-controlled Congress even as the need for federal government action on this dangerously deepening crisis becomes more and more critical..

Some of our leaders don’t appreciate the power that we have, given the large majority of the population who want action now on the climate crisis before it is too late. They don’t appreciate the leverage we have coming from the weakness of the Republicans.

What would happen with the Republicans if the Democrats were forced by a massive, citizen’s political uprising to pass strong climate legislation? The Republicans would be in big political trouble if Bush vetoed that legislation. The Democrats would be in a strong political position to refuse to accept that veto, to keep passing and submitting climate legislation to Bush in the same way that they should be doing about the Iraq war, refusing to accept no for an answer.

Think about it: Republicans facing the prospect of going into the Congressional elections next year publicly exposed as enablers of the most unpopular and despised President in decades as he stiffs Congressional efforts to end the war and address the climate crisis . It’s enough to lead to a significant number of Republican defections from the party line.

Of course, the recent capitulation of the Democratic Congressional leadership on funding for the war only underlines how necessary it is that we step up our tactics.

Politics at its best is about struggle over issues. It’s about differing views on how a country should be organized and run. It’s about who should own the resources of a society and how they should be used, for whose benefit. And most fundamentally, it’s about the contention between different visions for the future.

Fortunately, there are some national initiatives underway which hold the promise of reminding the country as a whole, including its progressive movement, what is needed if we are to bring about the kinds of changes urgently needed.

One is the upcoming U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta, beginning a little more than a month from now. It is strengthening to see the way this multi-cultural, grassroots-based initiative is bringing together the kind of an alliance that has the potential to really shake up the supremely unjust status quo. Many thousands of people will be coming together June 27 to July 1 to take part in hundreds of workshops, debates, performances and presentations with spaces for dialogue and building community. All of this will help shape future organizing efforts around the country in the coming months and years. And it will help to push out key issues, the issues of low-income people, workers and communities of color in particular, into the political arena.

Another significant initiative is the No War, No Warming effort.

Just last week representatives from 30 organizations, peace/justice, climate, students, global justice, farmers and others, held a productive day-long meeting to discuss a proposal for a major “intervention” in Washington, D.C. this fall with our war- and fossil fuel-addicted federal government. “Intervention” as in nonviolent civil disobedience on a mass scale directed at Congress. “Intervention” as in we, the people, refusing to accept war without end that enriches the Halliburtons of the world, refusing to accept Exxon Mobil control over federal energy policy, refusing to accept the suffocation of our cities, towns and rural areas as needed resources are wasted in an illegal war of occupation that never should have happened.

There was a consensus among the organizations present that this kind of intervention was timely and appropriate. Follow-up is now taking place to move the organizing forward, to pin down the date, to involve additional groups and all the rest to make this be a large and significant event.

We need to make this fall politically impactful the way the fall of 2006 was when the Republicans lost control of Congress. But it is clear that we need much more than a change of people sitting in the Congressional chambers, much more than a change of which party is in control.

The fall of 2007 needs to be politically impactful in a way similar to the way that the heroic actions of thousands of young people in the fall of 1999 in Seattle impacted the World Trade Organization and the process of corporate globalization.

Politics without direct action for a clean energy revolution, for racial and economic justice and peace, is dead-end politics. It’s time to step it up.

I actively supported these actions. I was a leader of the N.J. Climate March April 13-16 which supported them. Bill McKibben and the young people from Middlebury College who called for and coordinated this campaign deserve tremendous praise.

However, I’ve been thinking all week about this fact: despite the tremendous upsurge in consciousness about and activism on the climate crisis over the past year and a half in the USA, those greenhouse gas emissions just keep going up. Despite everything that is being done by the tens of thousands of grassroots activists, many mayors and city councils, students and college administrators, businesses and state governments, famous politicians and movie stars, and individuals and families in their homes, when it comes to an actual capping of emissions and the beginnings of a downwards turn, it just isn’t happening.

This is not surprising, given the pervasiveness of fossil fuel use throughout the economies of the world, the maddening intransigence of the Republicans and the timidity until very recently of most national Democratic leaders. But it is not something to be sanguine about.

We don’t have the luxury of time on this issue. Scientists like James Hansen have said we have less than 10 years to fundamentally alter our energy policies, and that was a year and a half ago. A small number of scientists think we may have already reached the point of no return. Other scientists think that we are fast approaching it.

What is that “point of no return?” Climate scientists say that it’s when there is so much carbon and heat in the atmosphere that the world’s forests, oceans and soil — currently carbon “sinks,” absorbers and storers of carbon — are so saturated with it that they cannot absorb any more and become actual sources of carbon. There is a chance that this point will be reached when we get to 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We’re currently at 382, and each year brings an additional two and a half parts per million (ppm).

According to the Potsdam Institute, as reported in George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, with the “equivalent of 440 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is a 67% chance of holding the temperature rise” to a point which will avoid catastrophic climate change. And as Monbiot explains, when you add in the other greenhouse gases — methane, nitrous oxide, several fluorocarbons — we are right around that “equivalent of 440 ppm” right now.

As study of the earth’s climate history demonstrates, if we reach a point where the earth’s carbon sinks become sources of carbon, it is virtually certain that we will enter a period in the world’s history that can best be described as climate hell. James Hansen believes that, under these circumstances, eventual sea level rise of 80 feet is a distinct possibility, probably inevitable.

Each year that passes without action to seriously reduce carbon emissions is one more year that we are rolling the dice for ourselves, our children and future generations.

We need to do more. We as a country need to lead the world on this issue. We need to provide an example in action that we get it. We need to operate as if we were on a war footing, a nonviolent war against anything which prevents the rapid and urgent unfolding of a clean energy revolution.

Can we actually reverse course, undertake the social and economic transformations in enough time? Yes, we can make the necessary transformations. How do we know this? Because we’ve done it before! In his book, Plan B 2.0, author and visionary Lester Brown looks at what happened in the United States right after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack:

The year 1942 witnessed the greatest expansion of industrial output in the nation’s history. A sparkplug factory was among the first to switch to the production of machine guns. Soon a manufacturer of stoves was producing lifeboats. A merry-go-round factory was making gun mounts … The automobile industry was converted to such an extent that from 1942-1944, there were essentially no cars [for commercial sale] produced in the United States.

This mobilization of resources within a matter of months demonstrates that a country and, indeed, the world can restructure the economy quickly if it is convinced of the need to do so. In this mobilization, the scarcest resource of all is time. With climate change, for example, we are fast approaching the point of no return. We cannot reset the clock. Nature is the timekeeper.

But let’s get real. We know the Bush Administration will never lead this kind of campaign. And neither will the Democratic Congress, absent a continuing (after Step It Up) and escalating grassroots campaign that will not take no for an answer. A grassroots campaign that demands:

-A capping and mandatory reduction of carbon emissions, as fast and as deep as possible.

-A moratorium on any new coal plants. Coal is the worst of the fossil fuels. We need to get off it as quickly as possible.

-A mandated increase in fuel efficiency standards for all vehicles produced in the USA. Support to a crash program to increase the production of high miles-per-gallon hybrid cars, particularly plug-in hybrids that can dramatically decrease oil use.

-An immediate allocation of at least $25 billion, to be increased annually, to go towards effective energy efficiency programs and clean, safe renewable energy from the wind, the sun, the tides, the currents and the earth.

All of this is technically possible. The USA has the resources for it, especially if we end the war on Iraq and work collaboratively with the nations of the world in a campaign to rewire the world’s energy system. What is missing is the visible and nonviolently aggressive grassroots political movement that will refuse to take anything other than yes for an answer.

What is missing is people willing to sit in, to get arrested, to refuse to eat until action is taken, to spearhead and motivate the more traditional forms of political protest and pressure that will also need to be taken, but by many more people.

This is not a new issue for the climate movement. For the last two years I have been part of organized discussions with other leaders of that movement about either a long fast/hunger strike or a campaign of nonviolent direct action. Two years ago in July about 40 people did fast for three days across from the White House at the same time as a Group of 8 meeting in Scotland which had climate change at the top of the agenda. There was serious consideration of a two week fast prior to the December, 2005 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Montreal. In early 2006, there was serious consideration of a long fast during that summer’s G-8 summit. Neither of these long fasts materialized.

There have been a handful of small civil disobedience actions in the last year or so, at Penn State University, in a Montana U.S. Senator’s office, in the West Virginia coal fields, at the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in D.C. and, just recently, at a big car show in New York City.

This is not enough. Climate activists cannot be seduced into believing that the main thing they should be doing is to get the candidates running for President to speak out on this issue. That’s OK as a way to build up pressure, but we can’t accept that nothing of substance can come from the federal government until there’s a new President in the White House two years from now.

What are the political realities right now? We have a Congress controlled by Democrats, a majority of whom more-or-less get it on this issue, at least giving lip service to it. You have a seriously weakened Republican President and Vice-President and Republicans who are fearful that they could lose large numbers of seats in Congress in next year’s election if they’re on the wrong side of popular issues. And you have a large majority of the U.S. American people wanting action on the climate crisis.

The conditions are ripe for a political offensive directed at Congress on this issue, demanding that they move now, pass strong legislation and refuse to give in if Bush vetoes. We should make it clear to Congressional Democrats and Republicans who say they care about this issue that we expect them to “go to the mat” with Bush in defense of our ecosystem, our economy, our children and future generations.

I’m prepared for a long fast. I’m ready to get arrested, again. Is there anyone else who feels the same?