Why aren't we using the same techniques to serve notice on Obama:
Mr. Obama,
Militarism, wars and this Military-Industrial Complex are the primary contributors to pollution, global warming and climate change.
End militarism!
End these dirty wars!
Shut down the Military-Industrial Complex!
It's time to cash in a Peace Dividend to pay for those things we really need.
This movement built up around this book was much further advanced than any of the environmental organizations today and both Senators Gaylord Nelson and Phil Hart not only encouraged, but actively sought out grassroots activists with diverse viewpoints to participate ranging from Socialists and Communists to Democrats and Republicans and everyone in between--- these teach-ins on the environment were very democratic in nature. I don't know of any viewpoint that was intentionally excluded if they indicated a desire to participate. This is what led to this movement being so massive and overwhelming that it scared the monopoly corporations.
Senator Hart personally called me to ask if I would speak at events in three different cities on April 22, 1970.
Today, such an event would be highly manipulated and controlled to only allow a very narrow grouping of views to be aired.
Just imagine how powerful such a grassroots environmental movement would become today if this same democratic approach was taken to grassroots activism; it would threaten the corporations, the politicians and the foundation-funded outfits like the Sierra Club and 350.org would lose total and complete control as masses of people would be demanding public ownership of the energy complex and making the connection that peace is a primary solution to global warming.
If we were to have an updated version of this kind of book available today to be used as a universal handbook knowing what we do today about ecosystems, global warming and the impact of pollution, chemicals, genetic modification, etc. we could build a very powerful movement.
To find solutions we don't need any kind of ideological unity because everything involved is science that is universally applicable to the point that massive grassroots unity around solutions is achievable.
People turned out in droves to win passage of the National Environmental Policy Act... no one asked one another if they were Democrats, Republicans, Socialists or Communists... we showed up at meetings, tabling, distributed leaflets, held huge demonstrations and pushed politicians of every persuasion to pass NEPA.
And a bastard like Nixon was forced to sign it. All because of the massive pressure created by citizen involvement leading up to the first Earth Day. Quite literally, you couldn't go to a grocery store or walk in a public park without finding citizen activists pushing for passage of NEPA.
For anyone to think that we can take on these huge multi-national conglomerates from the power generating, mining companies and other industries without creating this kind of momentum resulting from the involvement of citizen-activists is just too much to even believe and yet here we are with these foundation-funded environmental organizations who are actually trying to control involvement in a way that activism is restricted and doesn't reach such proportions capable of winning real change.
