First. I have two papers that were just published. The first is a chapter in a new book called Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century, edited by Chris Spannos. The anthology covers dozens of topics about visions for the future, revolutionary politics, and strategy to win a new world. Whether its what will replace capitalism, authoritarian government, racism, sexism, or ecological destruction, or what a transition to a good society would look like, Real Utopia is THE book to check out! My friend Pat Korte and I have a chapter in the book about theory, strategy, and the role of youth in a revolutionary movement. Pick up a copy today!

Second. After two years of organizing and building the new Students for a Democratic Society, my friend Joshua Kahn Russell and I have a paper in the new issue of Upping the Anti - a radical Canadian political journal. It took us a quarter of a year of thinking, reflecting, brainstorming, writing, and editing to finish it. Its a pretty good reflection on our first two years of organizing in SDS. A great read for youth organizers building national revolutionary organizations. Check it out!

Third. My brother Chris interviewed me on global warming, the war in Iraq, capitalist economics, and clean, green, and just alternatives. Also talked about is environmental activism and the Energy Action Coalition’s exciting 2008 campaign: PowerVote.org. You can listen to the audio here, or read the interview transcript:

Chris Kelly: What are you trying to do?

Brian Kelly: I want an end to poverty. I want an end to war. I want an ecologically sustainable society. I want a world where women and gender and sexual minorities aren’t looked down upon, exploited, or treated as second class citizens. I want to end racism in our society - I think people of color and immigrants will only be free when they are given full control over their economic, political, and social destinies. I want an economy and political system that is based on democracy, cooperation, and justice - instead of competition, greed, and tyranny.

I work every day to build organizations which are part of a growing, broad movement for human justice and emancipation. Specifically, I work with for an organization called the Student Environmental Action Coalition, and also for Students for a Democratic Society.

CK: How can we go about getting rid of dirty energy?

BK: We need green job programs which lift people out of poverty, and push them towards prosperity. We need to stop building coal plants and supermax prisons, and start building schools, parks, public transportation systems, and wind farms. We need to find ways for every American citizen to have a democratic say in how this clean economy is going to be built, and the building of a just economy needs to lift up those who most need lifting.

To be clear, we need to stop using fossil fuels. Coal, oil, gas, and nuclear energy have all got to go. The age of dirty energy is over. Humanity must quickly embrace solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen power sources. Clean, green and just energy sources are America’s future. We need to embrace the future and become world leaders in clean energy.

CK: What measures are necessary?

BK: Achieving the aims of real social justice will ultimately require dismantling many of the current institutions in society which maintain injustice and exploitation. This means that people need to take control of their workplaces, communities, and local governments.

Like the freedom fighters of the civil rights movement, women’s rights movement, labor movement, and environmental movement, our winning strategy will have to utilize a wide range of tactics. Education, protests, organizing meetings, films, books, news articles, new institutions, reform campaigns, and civil disobedience will all help us win a sustainable world. The key is to use methods which leverage the power of ordinary people fighting for changes in their lives. The key is to build popular power.

CK: How much will getting rid of dirty energy cost?

BK: How much will it cost if we don’t get rid of dirty energy? Imagine what our world will look like if superhurricanes like Katrina and Rita are happening multiple times a year. Imagine increased droughts and more forest fires. Imagine colder winters and hotter summers. In the past we’ve talked about species going extinct. Well, those species are part of ecosystems - imagine those ecosystems going extinct. Imagine billions of people becoming refugees - yes billions with a B. Imagine resource wars - like the current oil war in Iraq. How much will all of that cost?

Yes, it is true that transitioning to a green economy will cost billions of dollars. But we’ve spent $3 trillion dollars on an illegal occupation of Iraq. A few billion dollar investment in not only our survival - which should motivate anyone - but our economic and social prosperity! Who can argue with that?

CK: How many people must be educated for change to occur?

BK: Millions. Every American needs to know the benefits of green jobs, clean energy, and economic democracy. We need millions of youth climate leaders to join the green movement and organize for change.

CK: How long will it take to get rid of dirty energy?

BK: It’s going to take a lot. Young people need to step up. Al Gore put it well: “we need another hero generation”. We need a generation like the generation that fought the Nazis and fascism in Europe. We need a generation like those who fought Jim Crow segregation and racism in the 50’s and 60’s. We need a generation like the courageous Americans who brought an end to the Vietnam War. Americans need to demand accountability and bold action from their elected representatives, vote dirty politicians out of office, and take action against the corporations and politicians which are driving global warming. We need new ways of organizing our workplaces, communities, and government. Democracy and solidarity should replace competition and political tyranny. We need to take America into the future.

CK: In your opinion, if something doesn’t happen with pollution will there be a next generation?

BK: Writing in Science magazine, NASA’s top climatologist Jim Hansen, said the following: “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.”

In a recent article, Bill McKibben, who’s a scholar at Middlebury College, called “350″ the most important number that has ever existed. I’d have to agree with him. If humanity doesn’t take immediate, bold action, the systems on Earth which sustains life will slowly start to change, be disrupted, and die.

The ocean levels are going to rise, flooding most coastal areas. Most coastal cities, and places like Florida will all be under water. This will cause roughly 2 billion people to become refugees throughout the world. Weather patterns will become erratic and more intense. Storms and hurricanes will become more dangerous, more often. What you saw in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina will become common place.

Resource wars like the current oil war in Iraq will become increasingly necessary, as elites scramble for maintain their drive for profits and power. Other resources, like food and water, will become increasingly scarce. Wars for water will undoubtedly break out across the world.

Species will die out and go extinct at ever faster rates. Many ecosystems will die. Food shortages will occur more frequent. As habitats are destroyed, so will be possible cures for diseases, food sources, and many irreplaceable resources and natural wonders.

All this will radically alter the notion of being “alive” on Earth. If greenhouse gas emissions aren’t halted, there is a very good possibility that we are at risk of mass human, animal, and plant die-offs. Without a clean energy revolution, the survival of humanity on Earth is at risk.

CK: Wouldn’t it be effective for an oil company to invest in an alternative energy?

BK: It’s become quite fashionable for businesses to “go green” or run advertisements about how their company is promoting sustainability. Well - the world is still warming at ever faster rates. We call this green washing. Like white washing, but for the environment, green washing involves making the smallest of policy changes - or no changes at all -, advertising that your company is environmentally friendly, all while still practicing dirty, unsustainable, and unjust practices.

For years oil companies and dirty corporations have dragged their feet on environmental justice issues - it’s time that ordinary people benefit from the growing green economy. We need to cap greenhouse gas emissions, collect money from the polluters for the damage they’ve done, and invest in vulnerable communities who most need the green jobs that are being created.

CK: Moving on, was the war in Iraq necessary?

BK: Iraq had no connection to the horrific attacks on September 11th, 2001. Iraq posed no threat to the security of United States. Iraq neither had nor was developing chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons. Yet a government with a horrific record of human rights abuses and aggressive wars, a country which is actively developing and maintaining the world largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, and the only country which has ever used nuclear weapons against unarmed civilian populations - the U.S. government - had the nerve not only to lie about these matters, but to launch an invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation which ended up killing millions of Iraqi civilians and turning millions more into refugees.

No, the Iraq wasn’t a necessity by any means. It was a war of choice, built upon a foundation of lies and fabricated evidence, with the intent of helping to increase the wealth of U.S. defense contractors and oil corporations.

CK: How has this impacted the world? The U.S.?

BK: Over a million and a half Iraqis and more than 4,000 American soldiers have been killed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been wounded, as have tens of thousands of American soldiers. Several million Iraqis are now refugees.

While the U.S. economy is staggering, it is reported that the war will end up costing well over $3 trillion. This is money which could have been used to build a green economy, provide universal healthcare for all, rebuild our schools, provide millions of new jobs, strengthen social security and unemployment benefits, especially for veterans, the poor, and the elderly, and much, much more. The bipartisan war is a crime against the American people and humanity. Those that started it are criminals. If we are to move towards real peace, they must be brought to justice.

CK: Do you think if we pull out now we will be leaving Iraq unstable and terrorists will take over?

BK: Iraq is already unstable. It was the American Occupation that made it that way. Like all imperial occupations, those that are occupied nearly almost always resist. Suppose you live in New York City. Some country says you are stockpiling weapons of mass destruction - which you aren’t. You raise objections. You claim they are lying. You bring your concerns to the United Nations. But the tyrannical leaders of that country, despite the protest of millions of its citizens, and millions of other people through the world - being an illegal bombing campaign against New York City. They bomb the bridges. They bomb the power plants. They bomb the water filtration centers. They bomb major roads. They bomb apartment buildings. They call this shock and awe. They say that anyone who dressed or speaks like a New Yorker is a ‘terrorist’, a ‘traitor’, the “enemy’. President Push, of the United Stakes of Generica, his party and even their quote/unquote “political opposition“, declare a war without limits, and institute harsh new methods of repression.

People you’ve known all your life. Your teachers. Your neighbors. Your friends. Your family members. Local shopkeepers. Your hairdresser. Your girlfriend. Your mother. Your brother. Your sister. Your grandmother. They start being killed. One day it might be a bomb from your enemy’s bomber. The next day it might be a stray bullet from one of the occupier’s guns. Or they might just disappear - being taken to some secret prison camp, or to a more infamous one in Cuba. They might be tortured. They might be raped. They might be murdered.

But the central question is: would you fight back?

And more importantly: is there any justification at all for calling someone who fights a foreign aggressor, whatever their means, a “terrorist”?

For me at least, these people are freedom fighters - just like the American soldiers in Iraq Veterans Against the War who are speaking out against this illegal occupation, many even refusing to serve in an illegal war - refusing to break their oath to defend the United States Constitution.

Yes Iraq will be unstable for quite a long time after we leave. But we have no right to occupy a foreign country. It violated every international law of war and peace. It is a crime against humanity and against peace. We are committing the worst of war crimes in Iraq. The Nazis were hung at Nuremburg for the same exact crimes: waging wars of aggression.

If we were really interested in helping Iraq rebuild their country, we’d leave immediately, let them democratically decide what to do with own country, pay reparations for all Iraqis and other people who were harmed by this war, and turn the people who stated this war - both Republicans and Democrats - over to the International Criminal Court to be tried for High Crimes and Misdemeanors - namely crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

CK: Is this war still being fought for the same reasons as it was five years ago?

BK: Absolutely. It is being waged today, as it was the day it was declared in March of 2003, in the name of American corporations seeking control over the resources of Iraq and profits from the waging of war more generally. It has been and will always be: a war of the rich, upon the poor - poor American soldiers, poor Americans at home without social services, and poor Iraqi citizens suffering death, agony, poverty, and homelessness.

The official reasons coming out of the White House, Congress, and lobbyists of war corporations have changed, sure. But the reasons why elites promoted and continue to promote the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan remain the same: control of resources and maintenance of American power.

CK: What is wrong with corporations or capitalism in general?

BK: This is hard to answer in a short period of time, but, simply put, capitalism is a thug’s economy. Al Capone - the infamous murder and American gangster - used to say, ‘capitalism is the best of all economic systems: you can get what you can take’. Under market capitalism, roughly 1% of the population controls about 50% of the wealth. This is the owning class - they own the businesses and the corporations. They are the superrich. They are the masters of the universe. They sail on yachts, fly in jet planes, and drive fancy cars - while half the world’s population - nearly three billion people - live on less than two dollars a day.

Under these economic owners, these is another class of people - roughly 20% of the population - who manage and coordinate the economy, and have jobs which are relatively empowering and rewarding. They compete with both the owners and the workers who they manage. They tend to monopolize all of the empowering jobs at work, while workers do only shit work for less pay.

The bottom 80% of the population are ordinary working people. This bottom 80% holds just 6% of wealth in our country. They have no control over their work. They must submit to managers and owners at work or else face joblessness, homelessness, hunger, and poverty. They have no other option but to submit to the will of others. This is what politicians and corporate CEO’s call the “freedom”.

Instead of lifting people out of poverty, equalizing the distribution of wealth, democratizing our workplaces, and empowering all people at their jobs, capitalism does the opposite: it increases the gap between the superwealthy and the superpoor, it squashed democracy wherever it surfaces, and ensures that ordinary working people have no access to work that will make them feel good about themselves. Quote/unquote “free markets” promote competition between businesses who care nothing for each other, consumers, their workers, or society as a whole. They have one goal: maximizing profit and power. So long as they don’t lose power when they do something, they will do literally anything to maximize profit.

Since we are talking about global warming, it’s useful to talk about green house gas emissions. Corporations have absolutely no incentive to cut their global warming emissions or pollute less. In fact, if a corporation were to do so, they often go out of business. The only way a company can compete is by cutting costs. A common way for them to cut costs is to pass off the costs to others: consumers who have to deal with shitty products and higher prices, or the entire population who will suffer when the ocean levels seriously start to rise. Markets have no democratic planning behind them - they are based on chaos and greed. We can do better. Americans can democratically plan our economic futures, without markets based on greed or undemocratic workplaces. Economic justice and democracy is possible.

CK: How come people are blind to these reasons?

BK: I think most people see all the problems around them - they just think that either there’s no alternative, or that there’s nothing they can do about it. Luckily for our world, there are plenty of alternatives and plenty of ways to help build a better world.

Take Venezuela for example. The U.S. government and corporate media demonize Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez. Why is that? Well, the U.S. government operates on the principle that any progressive government, social movement, or leader must be stopped. They must be demonized, defamed, or assassinated. In fact, a good indication on where you should look if you are interested in seeing alternatives to the problems we have in America, are often the countries that the U.S. government demonizes or attacks.

President Chavez is bringing his country in a direction of liberation. Imagine this: your leader tells you that if you are poor and don’t own your home, go around your neighborhood and talk to 300 families around you. Get them all to form a council or local government. In this government, you will make all local decisions directly. The federal government won’t interfere. If you do this, the federal government will buy your homes - which you don’t currently own - and give them to you, free of charge. In other words, you start to make all the decisions which affect your lives collectively, not just about political decisions. This is what’s going on in Venezuela. They are moving away from reliance on corporations and capitalism, and towards an economic and political democracy which is directly run by the people, which will eventually replace all of the corporations and even the federal government. That’s why the U.S. demonizes Chavez and the Venezuelan government.

CK: How can we change this since no corporation is going to just give up?

BK: All institutions exist only because people let them exist. All policies occur only because people let them occur. If people say “we don’t want these dirty energy policies”; if they say “we don’t want corporations running our lives”; if they build a mass, highly organized movement to fight for reforms and eventually democratize the economy, then there is nothing that corporations will be able do to stop them. The key is to get millions of people organized for change. We need to make our demands and actions bold. We can’t just fight for friendlier capitalism, we have to revolutionize the economy, political system, and cultural and family relationships. The whole system needs to change. And people need to take action to do that.

If young people want to get involved this year, a major campaign they can join is Power Vote. Here’s what Power Vote is about:

“We are building a youth voter bloc 1 million strong to demand bold federal climate legislation, a moratorium on coal and other dirty energy, and to create millions of good, green jobs. Youth will start by signing our Power Vote pledge and then get plugged into the incredible youth climate movement sweeping the nation. We will not only elect people who support our position, but will hold them accountable to it.

Throughout the Fall, we will be elevating climate and clean, just energy as a national issue. Every time a candidate makes a public (and sometimes private) appearance we’ll be there with green hard hats on and no coal signs waving. Every time a bill is up or a council member is compromising our future, we’ll be there. You’ll see us at the conventions, at coal plants and oil refineries, and on major coordinated days of action. And you will see us at the polls. We will be impossible to ignore.

And all the while, we will be building the power and numbers of the youth climate movement. We’ll have more people fighting for campus clean energy policies, to break our addiction to oil, to get dirty (energy) money out of politics, and to stop dirty energy expansion dead in it’s tracks. On November 4, our work doesn’t end but ramps up to ensure that promises our kept in the first 100 days of new administration and that all our amazing new youth climate leaders have a clear plan for creating real, lasting change in their communities.”

It’s a unique opportunity for young people to be part of a growing generation of climate heroes who are working to save our planet and humanity. All young people should join up and fight back!

CK: Thank you.

=====

Chris Kelly is an 18 year old high school student in New York. He plans to attend school for film and media in the fall.

Brian Kelly is a 21 year old, revolutionary youth organizer, currently based out of New York, U.S.A. He studies how language, social networks, and communication affect political strategy, vision, and organizing. For the past two years, he has been an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society, and is also on the national council of the Student Environmental Action Coalition - both in the United States - addressing the War in Iraq, the environmental crisis, and youth and student rights and power. He runs a political strategy website - Diary of a Walking Butterfly (www.walkingbutterfly.org) - where he writes on topics of political strategy, social vision, youth organizing, social change, and how language and communication affect each of those topics. You can contact him at brian@walkingbutterfly.com or through AIM/GTalk at butterflywalking@gmail.om.

My friend Noah from Columbia University directed me to an article in today’s Los Angels Times:

“WASHINGTON — New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, campaigning for president in a neighborhood of Philadelphia so rough the mayor said, “Osama bin Laden wouldn’t last here,” pitched a $4-billion-a-year anti-crime package today that would put 100,000 new police officers on the streets and help stem the tide of repeat offenders back into the country’s prisons.”

A Surge didn’t work in Iraq. It won’t work in American cities.

Here’s what will: start addressing the roots of the problem, instead of putting band-aids on them. In his new slideshow presentation given at TED on the climate crisis and necessary urgency of addressing it (which is great by the way), Al Gore pointed out that when an addict’s veins collapse in their arms and other parts of their body, they finally start injecting themselves in their toes. The American economy and government, he posited, are at the point where we’re injecting ourselves in the toes - we are clinging to old ideas, old norms, and old frameworks. We’ve reached the end of the era where our innovation can actually lead to progress within existing frameworks of social organization.

We need new forms of social organization. The veins of society’s current institutions are collapsing - like the veins of a dying addict. The era of capitalism and its poverty, authoritarian government and its tyranny, and racial, sexism, and homophobia and their vast inequalities - economic, political, and social - are coming to an end.

Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, is well-known for infamous quote about global capitalism: “There is no alternative.”

If that were indeed true, I would have to admit that revolutionaries would do well in enjoying the rest of their lives, and doing something a little less stressful than trying to dismantle the dominant institutions of oppression.

But Thatcher’s claim doesn’t hold to more than a few minutes of careful and creative scrutiny.

We’ve seen that there are alternatives to market capitalism. The problem is that we just haven’t yet seen many good alternatives to it. So Thatcher’s claim that “there is no alternative” (TINA), was actually a claim of “there is no better alternative” (TINBA). While this seems small, it isn’t.

I re-posted Michael Albert’s essay “There Is An Alternative” a few days ago. If you want to see a (very) brief description of an alternative, just, democratic economy, I’d encourage you to read the post and explore more (it has links to where you can read more about participatory and democratic economics)s.

In term of poverty (and the “crime” poverty causes), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and many environmental justice groups propose, some variant of “green path ways from poverty to prosperity” (green pathways out of poverty, green pathways to prosperity, green collar-jobs, solar cells not jail cells, etc…). Here’s the idea: global climate destabilization and environmental crisis are a planetary problem that require planetary solutions. We need to embark on a generational quest to save humanity and the planet. As Al Gore said, “we need another hero generation.” So what can we do about it? Well, we need a green economic revolution. We need an Apollo Project or Manhattan Project scale program, and a Civil Rights Movement scale struggle to bring it about.

And we can learn from the past too. We can wage our struggles for a clean, green economy in such a way that it uplifts those currently under-served by our society. Green Pathways From Poverty to Prosperity can be the defining attitude of a new movement which is fighting for a new social contract, on our way to an entirely new society.

Finally, I should add one more point, that I haven’t said explicitly enough, often enough.

An environmentally-sustainable, participatory, democratic, just, and poverty-free economy, is a democratically-planned economy. Market competition discouraged the type and level of innovation (I’ll be elaborating on this more soon, but copyrights, patents, and trade-secrets are some of the most common “innovation spreads rapidly in a market economy” myth-debunkers) we need to bring about a sustainable society. And the drive to accumulate and make profit/power is directly at ends with the drive to protect humanity and the world we live in. A democratic economy is a planned economy.

From The Nation magazine: “Labor’s War on Global Warming” by Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello & Brendan Smith:

“Figuring out how to respond to global warming has been difficult for organized labor. The issue can pit union against union and unions against environmentalists. Now, however, a new alliance is developing around the idea of “green jobs”–the jobs that will be needed to rebuild our economy and drastically reduced greenhouse gasses.

Seemingly from nowhere, “green jobs” have emerged as a key issue in the presidential election. Barack Obama calls for a $150 billion investment in green-collar jobs. Hillary Clinton refers to renewable energy employment as “jobs of the future” that can create five million jobs. Even John McCain calls for research and development of green technology, calling it the “path to restore the strength of America’s economy.”

The stealth “green jobs” issue did not emerge from nowhere. Its prominence in the presidential debates results in good measure from the commitment of some, though by no means all, environmental and labor leaders to building an alliance for jobs that fight global warming.”

Green Jobs. Green Pathways Out of Poverty. Green Collar Jobs. A movement for a Green Economy. A Green Revolution. These terms are all starting to enter the corporate media - a very good sign. I can’t thing of anything more important or inspiring than what amounts to the growing foundations of a national anti-poverty movement.

How can this be pushed even further? Well, simple. What would a Clean, Green, and Democratically-Planned Economy look like? That’s the next series of questions progressives should bring to the movement debate. Americans will always love democracy and the democratic tradition. Using democratic language, and language of equality, liberty, human dignity, control of your own life, and justice will allow us to bring fundamentally transformational politics to the national scene. The sooner we begin the better.

Quote for Thought:

“For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Headlines for today:

1. Spain’s Socialists win election - Yep! That’s right. Here’s Al-Jazeera’s article on the subject. You can also check out the article at the Guardian and the article on BBC.

2. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP conservative party is trailing [the socialists] in the first round of French local elections - Damn straight. Sarkozy’s party is getting themselves handed to them. Check it out. Great developments in Western Europe!

3. Colombia: From insults to handshakes - The Real News Network reports: “At Rio Group summit an isolated Colombia backs down and apologizes for military raid into Ecuador.” Country after country in Latin America condemn Colombia’s illegal invasion of Ecuador’s sovereignty. President Uribe stands down and crosses room to shake hands with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. War is averted in Latin America.

4. Israel may reoccupy Gaza - The Real News Network reports about Israel’s possibl re-invasion and re-occupation of Gaza, after an escalation of Israeli violence in the region which reportedly killed over 120 people in the Gaza region of Palestine.

5. Climate change may spark conflict with Russia, EU told - Anyone up for yelling and screaming in deluded state-capitalist drum circles as the world burns down around us? I haven’t seen an article this ridiculous in a while. The world is falling apart, and the EU is threatening a conflict over materials in a part of the world that should be FROZEN. How about we talk about how to STOP it from MELTING! The wise Cree proverb is adept to describe this article: “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.”

AND

6. What is Revolutionary Democracy? - by X and Keith from New Brunswick. A great article and introduction into building revolutionary dual power and a popular movement for a new society.

The peace movement, which has largely convinced the entire population that the Iraq War is about oil, and the environmental movement, which has framed the debate that global warming is a clear and present danger, both don’t seem to be bridging the gaps between the two issues. I’d love to be proven wrong on this, but from what I’ve seen, most of the two sections of the progressive movement aren’t making the obvious connections.

Burning fossil fuels is driving global warming. The United States just spent almost $1 trillion (yes, trillion with a “T”) to ensure permanent access to Iraqi oil. In other words, money that could have gone to dozens of serious social programs - including funding a complete greening of the American economy - was instead funneled into an illegal, costly, and lethal global warming drilling expedition and nobody is talking about it.

The war, as the election season in the United States speeds up, is largely off the table. It’s gone off the media radar for election coverage, which isn’t surprising, though obviously quite frustrating. The environmental movement, which has been doing a phenomenal job linking solutions to global warming with solutions to poverty in America (i.e. “green pathways out of poverty”, “green collar jobs”, and “solar cells, not jail cells”), but doesn’t seem to be focusing in a large way on why our national spending priorities are what they are. How can we prompt a green economic revolution in our country if half of our budget is going to waging a bloody war for control of fossil fuel reserves!

The only folks I’ve seen actually trying to link the two issues are the “no war, no warming” folks. But the slogan just doesn’t cut it. All it says, all it invokes, is a group of people who happen to be against two things (key word: against). The direct linkage and correlation between the two issue’s aren’t highlighted when they are dichotomized in that way. We need to be more creative and thoughtful when linking the two - and we need to frame our message in positive language. People need to understand them as one concept. Much like messaging around “green collar jobs” invokes two issues with one conceptual frame.

The connections are clear. The public, soldiers, and veterans are all against the Iraq War in record numbers. Large portions of the population think we need to take action against climate destabilization too. Both global warming and the war are only getting worse. The U.S. Government and Corporate America just handed us these narratives. Let’s take them and roll with it!

Language is yet another field in which Progressives lag light-years behind the Right. It isn’t bad enough that our movements are hard to be apart of, are often alienating to outsiders, and ask too much, too quickly of their participants. We have to take it to the next step and talk to people like we are from a different planet. And when our language is accessible we are usually don’t understand how people are receiving what we are saying, nor do we grasp the full implications of the assumptions our language are creating or reinforcing.

Language matters. Progressives frequently enter a discussion, lose their temper or are annihilated by their opponents, and then can’t seem to fathom why they lost the debate. Even worse, some times they blame their loss on the audience – as if the public is the cause of our inability to effectively communicate our values and vision. What we almost never realize is that we regularly lose the debate before it has even starts.

The Language Around Global Warming

Take global warming. Open a copy of the New York Times and find an article about global warming. Take out a highlighter and highlight every form of the word “global warming” you see (“global warming”, “climate change”, “climate crisis”, etc…). Then tally up the number of times each term is used. There is a good chance that the most common term you will find, is “climate change”, often used 2 to 3 times as much as “global warming”. A few years ago, the term “climate change” didn’t exist in newspapers, and the term “global warming” was used every time the concept of environmental chaos was discussed. Today the opposite is true. Newspapers, television news outlets, and even progressive activists all regularly use the term “climate change”.

Well, as one might have guessed, this wasn’t an accident. A man by the name of Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and strategist, advised Republican politicians to use the term “climate change” instead of “global warming”. This effort by conservatives popularized the term and it is now a popular term. Why did he do that? Because the term “global warming”, as he put it, was “too hysterical”. The word caught on and is now part of the narrative that is told to the public and repeated by the public about global warming and environmental destruction. In a 16-page document entitled “The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America”, Luntz Research Companies advised conservative politicians on what language they could use to argue that there is “no consensus” on the issue of global warming. Hell, even Democratic Party leaders now regularly use the term.

As soon as we use the word “climate change” in front of an audience, we are triggering a whole slew of conservative stories and arguments that the right has built up around that term. And they do this for every issue!

Moral of the story: When we use their language, we lose.

How Language Traverses the Brain

But it goes deeper than that! It is telling to look at how the brain processes language and what that means for our political work.

A recent study by Sam Harris (author of Letter to a Christian Nation), Sameer Sheth, and Mark S. Cohen unearthed new evidence that shows how seriously language triggers deeply held opinions and assumptions. Their study, entitled “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty”, explores how the brain processes statements that of “belief”, “disbelief” and “uncertainty”.

What did they find? The study found that while a statement’s validity was processed in more advanced parts of the brain, it always passed through more primitive portions (the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior insula – portions of processing reward, emotion, pain perception, taste, and disgust) where it received a “final stamp” of “belief” or “disbelief”. If a participant thought a statement to be true, parts of their brain linked to reward, emotion and taste showed activity; statements which they perceived to be untrue activated sections of the brain linked with pain, disbelief, and taste.

If these findings are indeed true, what would that mean for the left? What would it mean for how we frame things, how we relate to people, and how we choose our words if the consequence of a poor or alienating word choice is that our statements actually make the public “feel” discomfort, bad taste, and disgust?

The study seems like it could help to explain a lot. It would help to partially explain things like “stubbornness”, and people voting “against their self-interests”, and many trends that progressives often display contempt for.

Perhaps that’s our primitive brain applying disgust to things we should have much more sympathy towards.

What we are up against

The republicans are often quite honest about their intentions. Take Gary Bauer for example. Bauer was a 2004 republican presidential hopeful. In describing politics, he said: “We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There’s a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody’s values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe.” I don’t see any reason to doubt the sincerity of their stated intentions. We should respond accordingly.

Even though we are young, are we going to sound like raging, angry lunatic? Or will we be the voice of reason that helps to guide people through the darkness and into the light.

Solutions

When a republican or evangelical gives a speech, they tell you what they think, what they want, and how they plan to get it. They are usually quite honest about their intentions. They use highly inspiring and hopeful language, talking about everyday people and popular themes (many of which they helped create). We need to be talking using the same type of inspirational language from a progressive perspective.

Luckily for us, there are already those in progressive circles working hard on figuring out new ways to communicate our values with the public. The smartMeme project (www.smartmeme.org) is one of the groups pioneering a field they call “story-based strategy”; an exciting initiative which challenges progressives to reframe the debate using alternative narratives to counter dominant myths around social programs.

Another small collective, Beyond the Choir (www.beyondthechoir.org), is also doing innovative work on how progressives can communicate our values using strategic and well-planned organizing, education, campaigns and actions.

George Lakoff’s Rockridge Institute (www.rockridgeinstitute.org) is also paving the way in taking back language from the rightwing.

While much more is needed, we should all challenge ourselves to begin a much needed dialog about how our words, our actions, and our attitudes are received by the American people. Our victory depends on it.

Recommended Links

Progressive:
George Lakoff – www.georgelakoff.com
Rockridge Institute – www.rockridgeinstitute.org
Beyond the Choir – www.beyondthechoir.org
smartMeme – www.smartmeme.org

Conservative:
Frank Luntz – www.luntz.com

Recommended Articles

• What Prevents Radicals from Acting Strategically by Beyond the Choir (Matthew Smucker in collaboration with Madeline Gardner) www.beyondthechoir.org
• Building a Successful Antiwar Movement by Beyond the Choir www.beyondthechoir.org

Recommended Books

Progressives Books:

• Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff
• Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff

Conservative Books: (note: Luntz is the same way, but from a conservative perspective. It is very interesting to read his stuff both for concepts and to learn how the other side thinks and is framing almost every issue.)

• Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Frank Luntz

Bibliography

Harris, Sam, Sameer A. Sheth, Md, Phd, and Mark S. Cohen, Phd. “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty.” Annals of Neurology (2007). Wiley InterScience. 28 Dec. 2007 <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/117858891/HTMLSTART>.