Building a Social Movement to Rescue a Nation and Heal the Earth

Address delivered by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
Westminster Town Hall Forum, Minneapolis, Sept. 25, 2008
(An audio of this speech is at Minnesota Public Radio.)

1. I want to thank the Westminster Town Hall Forum for the opportunity to address the topic: “Building a Social Movement to Rescue a Nation and Heal the Earth.”

2. Whatever criticism I receive today will likely NOT be that I shied away from big problems.

3. I want to highlight five critical challenges.

• First, we have only a few years to address climate change and build a sustainable economy.
• Second, in order to do so we must redefine security and fundamentally change U.S. foreign policies.
• Third, the central focus of U.S. domestic and foreign policies must be to meet essential needs and enhance the quality of life while respecting the needs of future generations and the earth itself.
• Fourth, to meet these challenges we must build a social movement with sufficient power to revitalize our democracy that at present is compromised by moneyed interests and corporate power.
• Finally, because many people feel powerless, we must face these challenges with courage and hope.
  

4. One clarification: I chose a title which included “to rescue a nation” several months ago. I have been warning for years that the United States was headed for a fiscal train wreck. Evidence of a looming crisis abounded.

• Wages were falling or stagnant;
• Deceptive lending practices and sub-prime loans created trillions of dollars of paper profits, a housing bubble, and the illusion of expanded home-ownership. President Bush’s “ownership” society turned out to be a debt-peonage society built on Wall Street Ponzi schemes;
• Millions of Americans survived or temporarily maintained living standards with credit card debt or by selling off their homes through home-equity loans;
• Health care costs soared and the number of people with no or inadequate health-insurance rose steadily.
• Basic infrastructure was allowed to deteriorate—from schools to the electric grid to roads and bridges. When a bridge collapsed we felt the tragedy but missed the larger significance;
• War and war profiteering spiraled out of control. We had too long ignored General Eisenhower’s wise counsel that every gun or warship made was a theft from the poor and his warning of the “disastrous rise of…the military industrial complex.”
• Trade and budget deficits, already massive, skyrocketed. Before the recent meltdown, the Bush Administration added $4 trillion to the national debt and the nation was running $850 billion annual trade deficits.
• Trillions of dollars recycled from oil states and China passed into Wall Street where casino-like investment houses created (in the words of one astute observer—Harold Meyerson) “ever more dubious credit instruments, which yielded massive profits for Wall Streeters and their highflying investors” at the expense of the American people and the US economy.
• Wealth disparities and income inequalities rose to levels not seen since the Gilded Age before the Great Depression. In 1980 the pay gap separating CEO’s from average workers was 42 to 1. In 2007 it was 344 to 1. In 2007 the top 50 private equity and hedge fund managers earned on average 19,000 times as much as the average worker.

In short, although I believed an economic train wreck was coming, I didn’t know the derailment would precede my talk. So when I speak today of rescuing the nation, my thoughts include but extend beyond the present economic crisis.

5. I come before you today with a commitment to honesty, a profound sense of urgency, and, a fragile but enduring sense of hope.

6. We are living in what I call the most important decade. We didn’t choose this but our past choices have led to this critical juncture. As Yogi Berra said: When you come to a fork in the road take it.

7. In a nutshell our dilemma, our great challenge, our responsibility is this: The decisions we make in the next few years will determine the quality of life for all future generations. This is the unwanted, unheeded message of the climate scientists.

8. Two years ago, James Hansen, lead environmental scientist at NASA, warned:

“We have at most ten years…[to make fundamental changes…] If human beings follow a business-as-usual course…life will survive, but it will do so on a transformed planet. For all foreseeable human generations, it will be a far more desolate world…”

8. Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute and winner of the United Nations Environmental Prize, writes similarly:

"It is hard to find words to convey the gravity of our situation and the momentous nature of the decision we are about to make. How can we convey the urgency of this moment in history? Will tomorrow be too late?...Will someone one day erect a tombstone for our civilization? If so, what will it read? It cannot say we did not understand. We do understand. It cannot say we did not have the resources. We do have the resources. It can only say we were too slow to respond to the forces undermining our civilization. Time ran out…."

9. There is a huge and growing body of evidence that says we must act decisively NOW to avoid multiple climate-change-induced disasters. Threats include:

• melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and coastal flooding that could trigger hundreds of millions of climate refugees;
• hunger, famine and prolonged droughts with devastating crop losses;
• expanding deserts;
• disappearing coral reefs;
• heat waves and destructive wild fires;
• powerful hurricanes, flooding and bizarre rainfall patterns;
• shortages of clean water;
• spreading diseases;
• resource wars; and,
• extinction of 50% of species.

10. Critical thresholds have been crossed. The situation is urgent but not hopeless.

• Hansen says, [A positive] outcome is still feasible…but just barely.”
• The chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Rajendra Pachauri), says, “If there’s no action by 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

11. The enormity of the climate crisis forces an important question upon us: How do we live responsibly with what we know?

12. This question can only be answered with integrity if we have a deep desire to learn and a willingness to change our lives in light of our knowledge.

13. This may be what Jesus had in mind when he said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

14. Some news is hard to receive as blessing. I ride an emotional roller coaster as I try to come to terms with the implications of climate change.

• I’m sad that our children’s future is threatened.
• I’m motivated because of the love I feel for children, including my daughters—Hannah, Audrey and Naomi.
• I resent the scientists who tell us the future is grim unless we change course now.
• I am grateful that scientists alert us and call us to action.
• I’m mad at myself and others for not acting sooner.
• I’m inspired by growing citizen activism.
• I begrudge living in the most important decade. Why me? Why now?
• I’m glad to be alive at this critical moment. We have a chance to make a difference.
• I feel trapped in a web of destructive systems that limit my choices.
• I’m hopeful because I know that better public policies will make it easier for me and for others to act responsibly.
• I am frustrated that my nation obstructs international efforts to address climate change and by the timid voices of many politicians.
• I am encouraged by the growing chorus of voices demanding real change.
• I feel overwhelmed.
• I am determined because hope is often found amidst profound challenges that tempt us to despair.

15. Will Steger notes that in the United States “some people still don’t believe” [global warming] is happening” and that an “even greater danger is that some people think we can’t do anything about it.”

• The public’s confusion isn’t accidental. Exxon Mobil, which set records for profits by a US corporation the past two years, distributed millions of dollars to dozens of groups to discredit the science behind global warming.
• The Bush administration both distorted the science and silenced credible scientists.

16. The good news is that we can address climate change and build a sustainable economy in time to heal the earth. It won’t be easy but it’s possible.

Lester Brown by way of example lays out a practical agenda by which carbon emissions can be reduced by 80% and a sustainable economy built by 2020. Central features of his plan include:

• Conservation.
• Raising energy efficiency throughout the economy.
• Phasing out coal and nuclear power plants.
• Developing renewable energy resources.
• Electric plug-in hybrid cars, high speed electric rail, urban mass transit systems—all powered by wind.
• And Planting billions of trees to sequester carbon.

Brown also recognizes, as we must, that global warming is part of a broader crisis in which ecological needs clash with present economic practices and population growth trends.

This means developed countries must rapidly deploy renewable energy technologies and make them available to developing nations and also assist in efforts to end poverty, empower women, and restore broader ecological systems.

Our world is threatened by climate changes caused by burning fossil fuels. It is also fracturing and the earth’s ecosystems are faltering under the weight of present inequalities.

• Nearly half the world’s people live on less than $2 a day.
• The 3 richest people have assets greater than the combined gross domestic products of the 48 poorest countries.
• Global population, currently at 6.8 billion will soar to over 9 billion by 2050 without a concerted effort to end poverty, restore the environment, and slow birth rates.

Brown lays out an “Eradicating Poverty Initiative” (similar to the UN’s millennium development goals). It would promote or provide:

• Universal primary education and health care;
• Adult literacy;
• School lunch programs, and assistance to preschool children and pregnant women; and
• Reproductive health and family planning.

He also describes “earth restoration goals” that include:

• Reforesting the earth,
• Revitalizing local and regional agricultural systems;
• Protecting topsoil and biodiversity,
• Restoring rangelands and ocean fisheries, and,
• Stabilizing water tables.

Eradicating poverty and restoring ecological systems are inspiring goals that can unite diverse peoples and governments throughout the world.

I BELIEVE THESE GOALS SHOULD BE AT THE HEART OF A NEW AND CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE FOR OUR COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, a role many of us long for.

The price tag is modest, $161 billion a year.

• This cost, which could be borne by many nations, is about a fourth of projected U.S. military spending in 2008.
• It is less than two-thirds of the annual worldwide subsidies given to fossil fuel industries, [estimated to be $210 billion].

Although it is important that we stop being manipulated by a politics of fear, it is imperative that we fully grasp the urgent need to act to heal the earth. What is needed, according to Brown, is:

“[A] wholesale restructuring of the world energy economy with a wartime sense of urgency, much as the U.S. restructured its industrial economy in a matter of months at the beginning of World War II. The stakes in World War II were high, but they are far higher today. What is at issue now is whether we can mobilize fast enough to save our global civilization.” (p.67)

It is a hopeful sign that hundreds of cities and many states are moving forward to address climate change.

• Minnesota adopted the best renewable energy standard in the country last year.
• Many young people and communities of faith are organizing around this important issue.
• Millions of Americans are changing light bulbs, driving less and walking, biking and using public transit more.
• Even many reluctant politicians in Washington are now talking about global warming.

We must be careful, however, not to confuse their words--or the modest efforts taken so far by individuals, cities and states--with effective action.

17. Present responses to climate change are woefully inadequate. For example:

• 80% reductions in carbon emissions by 2050 are too little too late;
• The promise of “clean coal” is more illusion than reality.
• Drilling more oil will reinforce our dependency not end it (As Thomas Friedman wrote recently—shouting “Drill, Drill” is the equivalent to yelling “Typewriter, typewriter.”
• Nuclear power is an expensive, dangerous technology driven by corporate profiteers dressed green;
• Corn-based ethanol is causing a myriad of problems as is Europe’s promotion of biofuel production based on Palm oil; and
• Cap-and-trade systems that give permits to polluting corporations stifle rather than encourage technological innovation.

18. What many of these “non-solution” solutions or “partial solutions” have in common is they offer false hope that we can solve the climate crisis without us having to change.

19. They also tend to blind us to another fundamental problem: Serious efforts to address climate change and other pressing problems will inevitably be placed on back burners in a nation addicted to war.

WE MUST UNITE TO INSIST THAT THE BASIC NEEDS OF PEOPLE TODAY, THE ECOLOGICAL HEALTH OF THE EARTH, AND THE WELL-BEING OF FUTURE GENERATIONS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS FOR THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND UNREGULATED INVESTMENT HOUSES.

20. Those who say we can’t afford to address climate change, eradicate poverty, restore the earth’s ecological systems, or provide decent education and health care must explain:

• Why it was so easy to launch and sustain a catastrophic and illegal war in Iraq that will end up costing a minimum of $2 trillion and to propose a trillion dollar bail out for irresponsible investment banks.
• Why last year in a world threatened by catastrophic climate changes the United States spent 88 times more on war and war preparation than on addressing global warming.
• Why last year the entire U.S. annual budget to help poor nations adapt to climate changes was less than 12 hours of Iraq War spending.
• Why last year Congress approved $75 billion in R & D funds for new weapons systems and $3 billion for alternative energy.
• Why last year Congress gave 58 cents of every dollar in the discretionary budget to war or national security and 4 cents to education, and 2 cents to the environment.
• Why yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives approved the largest Pentagon budget in history;
• Why in a world threatened by deepening poverty, despair and climate change the United States:

• Accounts for half of all world military spending and more than half of global weapons sales;
• Maintains more than 750 permanent military bases on foreign soil;
• Positions itself to fight an endless series of wars for oil; and
• Continues its disastrous occupation of Iraq, its ill-fated war in Afghanistan, and its fatally flawed and thoroughly counterproductive “wars against terrorism”.
  

21. The dilemma that lies at the heart of our challenge to rescue the nation is this: At the same time we must address an unprecedented climate crisis we are faced with an economic meltdown rooted in the distorted priorities of a militarized empire in serious decline.

22. Before someone walks out or turns off the radio because I used the word empire to describe the United States, let me clarify that I do so because the architects of our national tragedy these past eight years have used the word liberally, pridefully and arrogantly.

• Ron Suskind, former Wall Street Journal reporter described a scene in 2002 in which a White House official, widely presumed to be Karl Rove, bristled at the suggestion that the Administration’s soon to be launched war with Iraq would be a disaster. According to Suskind, the official told him:

“that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'….'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”

• In 2003, just months after the invasion of Iraq, Dick and Lynne Cheney’s Christmas card included the following quote based on distorting a story in which Jesus describes a loving God who cares about sparrows and therefore cares much more for human beings:

“And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His [God’s] Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without His aid.”

23. In my most recent book Saving Christianity from Empire I make what I think is a compelling case that:

• The people who led and lied us into war with Iraq had plans to do so before the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001;
• They actively cultivated a politics of fear in the aftermath to build public support for their preplanned war; and,
• The invasion of Iraq was linked to their much bigger agenda to unleash US military power to dominate the world.

24. I reached these conclusions after reading what the architects of the war with Iraq themselves had written. Two documents of special note:

• The 1992 Defense Policy Review written by (Sec of Defense Cheney and his assistant Paul Wolfowitz) concluded:

1) The Soviet Union no longer existed and therefore there was no one to stop us;
2) U.S. foreign policy should be aimed at preventing the rise of any power or group of nations that would be capable of challenging the United States; and
3) To achievethis goal required aggressive, unilateral use of US military power.

• The second document is the September 2000 report from the Project for the New American Century which laid out what Cheney, Wolfowitz and the other neocons called America’s Grand Strategy. Their goal was turn present military superiority into permanent global domination. They called for:
  

1) Dramatic increases in military spending.
2) Regime change in Iraq
3) Control of world oil supplies.
4) Significant expansion of U.S foreign military bases including permanent bases in the Middle East even though they understood this would fuel anti-American hatred and increase terror attacks.
5) Development a new generation of useable nukes.
6) Militarization of Space.
7) Deploying a missile defense shield.
8) Pulling out of international agreements that limited the unilateral use of US power.
9) Preventing formation or avoiding jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Writing a year before the terror attacks they noted that they would have a hard time convincing the US people to adopt this agenda “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”

25. Please, be furious at delusions of empire but don’t get mad at me for using the word.

26. The key point is that we have a realistic chance to rescue the nation and heal the earth. But, we can do so if and only if—I repeat—if and only if--we redefine security, reject empire, and help our nation become a good global partner.

27. Any realistic hope we have for a sustainable future depends on:

• Ending the Iraq occupation and Afghanistan war immediately.
• Reducing US military spending by 50% over the next few years;
• Making deeper cuts as part of broader international efforts to redirect military spending to address global warming and other problems;
• Converting war industries to production of wind mills, solar panels, electric rail systems, and other useful products; and
• Focusing public investments on meeting the education, health care and housing needs of our people.

28. Given all the problems and contradictions I’ve highlighted I may not need to convince you of the need for different priorities and policies. I may need to convince you that there are good reasons to get out of bed in the morning, good reasons to be hopeful.

29. So I return to the wisdom of Yogi Berra: When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

30. Wouldn’t it be nice if the next time you were lost and you came to a fork in the road there was one obvious choice?

• I believe that is the situation in which we find ourselves.
• Many of us feel lost, disoriented, and sometimes nearly hopeless. That makes sense. After all, we know our nation is like a car traveling 150 mph on a road that leads directly over a cliff, call it “cliff road.”
• We also know that most politicians don’t want to hurt their chances for election by talking about “cliff road” or asking too much from the public or by offending corporate donors who have made trillions of dollars building and maintaining “cliff road.”
• The best they seem to offer is to slow the car down to 100 mph.
• We know this solves nothing.
• And so we look into the eyes of a loved one and think about the future and feel sad, a bit despairing, and a little cynical.

HOW ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FEEL?

30. I want to suggest that this is also a time to feel and be hopeful.

• We have arrived at a fork in the road. One fork in essence means staying on “cliff road,” which is not a bridge to nowhere, but a road to predictable disasters.
• The good news is that we and millions of others know that “cliff road” is not a viable option.
• In my more than 30 years of public life I have never seen a time more ripe for building a social movement capable of moving our politics, our economy, and our nation in a hopeful direction.
• In my campaign seeking the DFL Party’s endorsement for U.S. Senate I encountered thousands of people hungry for a politics of hope rooted in:

1) An honest assessment of our problems;
2) Belief in the possibility of real change and meaningful alternatives; and a
3) Call to mutual responsibility and action.

31. More good news: The roadmaps that for decades have guided us along “cliff road” are now thoroughly discredited. The discredited roadmaps include:

• Militarization. There are no military solutions to most of the problems we face.
• Unregulated greed. It can destroy a country and precipitate a global economic meltdown.
• A politics of fear. Politics rooted in fear has led to unnecessary wars and systematic attacks on our decency and our democracy.
• Arrogant unilateralism and claims of American exceptionalism. It is now clear to many citizens that the United States has not “been chosen by God” to “lead the cause of freedom” or “rid the world of evil”, as President Bush claims; and the world also rejects a version of these claims offered by democrats, typified by Madeline Albright’s defense of unilateral US military action: “If we have to use force it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation.”
• Finally, the idea that we can pursue our well-being at the expense of the earth and others is discredited.

32. WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY! THE TIME IS RIGHT TO CHOOSE ANOTHER PATHWAY!

• Peaceful solutions NOT militarization.
• Common Good NOT unregulated Greed.
• An urgent politics of compassion NOT fear.
• Global partnerships and humility NOT unilateralism and American exceptionalism.
• Healing the Earth NOT impoverishing the earth and its people.

33. This urgent time can be a hopeful time if we face problems with honesty and courage. We need a movement building politics that empowers us to make vital social changes and to move candidates and elected officials to exercise the leadership we need.

We the people need to raise our voices and model alternatives in every appropriate setting—at home, at work, in our neighborhoods and faith communities, and within the body politic.

I hope that the ideas I have shared today, or something similar, will be widely discussed throughout this state as we forge solutions together.

Authentic hope requires honesty. The decisions we make in the next few years will determine the quality of life for generations to come. We cannot afford to live in denial.

• Our country is unraveling.
• Climate change does threaten.
• We are headed rapidly towards a cliff.
• Our democracy is in trouble.

But We cannot despair in the face of climate change or declining Empire.

• We cannot be prisoners to small ideas.
• We cannot live on false hope.
• We cannot wait for miracles.

If it is true that hope depends on honesty it is also true that honesty depends on hope.

• We will face problems and work to solve them when we are hopeful and have a vision for a better future.
• We will make sacrifices when we believe our actions make a difference.

Strengthened by each other I believe we can sustain one another in hope. To live responsibly in the most important decade we must choose hope!

• I’m not suggesting we look at the world through rose-colored glasses.
• I’m not talking about clinging to dishonest or irrational hope.
• I’m not promising rosy outcomes.
• I’m not saying that technology will save us.
• I’m not telling you don’t worry because God has a plan.

We need to be courageous if we are to build a sustainable society, challenge the military industrial complex and revitalize our democracy.

• I’m asking us to embrace our responsibilities in the most important decade.
• I’m asking us to free our imaginations, roll up our sleeves and keep working because the future is precarious but it isn’t fated.
  
• I’m asking us to give expression to authentic hope through inspiring words and determined, daily actions.

When we choose authentic hope we accept our responsibility to act on behalf of present and future generations. I’m asking us to make sacrifices because we believe a better future is possible for our children and for our world. Let us live responsibly in light of what we know.

• There are pathways forward.
• We can address climate change.
• We can build a renewable-energy economy.
• We can help our nation transition from militarized empire to good global partner.
• We can model sustainable lifestyles and build a sustainable economy.
• We can demonstrate to ourselves and to the world that it is possible for a wasteful, resource dependent, materialistic culture to become a just and sustainable society.
• We can help build a powerful social movement to revitalize our decaying democracy.

The first decade of the 21st century may well be remembered as the decade in which the United States denied the reality of global warming while pursuing the fantasies of empire.

It is up to each of us to insure that the second is known as the decade of global solutions because we the people believed in the possibility of change and found sufficient courage and hope to embrace the challenges of the most important decade.

Thank You.

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer teaches in the Justice and Peace Studies Department at the University of St. Thomas and recently ran as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. The author of twelve books, he has spent his life addressing the issues of poverty, racism, and war.