I sat down for a great conversation the other day with some friends who work on sustainability issues.
One of the topics we kept circling back to was that there is no time.
It's 2009.
Our two last, best chances to steer a new course as a nation were the late 70's and the early 90's and, at neither point did we make the kind of wholesale changes that our growing ecological crisis demands.
We are likely now living at the last moment where people will see it as a luxury...or conversely merely as a matter of ideology...that we must change the way we live on our planet or face a cascading set of adverse consequences.
On the one hand, those consequences seem to already be upon us. On the other hand, there is the strong likelihood that the greatest challenges we have faced as a human family are very much yet to come...
What I'd like to write about tonight, then, is a very simple and direct reflection about how we do politics in this environment.
I'd like to ask you to think about a couple very simple questions.
Are you alive?
I'm assuming that your answer was yes.
Do you have more than one lifetime at your disposal?
I'm assuming your answer, like mine, was no. There's just one me. There's just one you. That's all any of us has had, or ever will have.
And that's the entire point of this diary.
Too many folks in politics fall for a politics of personalization, of personal destruction, of waging disagreement by destroying the other person's capacity to participate, by burning bridges, bearing grudges, assuming the worst, nitpicking allies over minor quibbles, making mountains out of ideological molehills, by raising the level of toxicity to the point where rational discourse is impossible and all parties either check out or put on armor thick enough to withstand the most nasty and degrading political attack.
Without going into the details, I can tell you that I've seen this firsthand. If you've even a passing acquaintance with politics you have too.
It's not pretty.
And, in large part, it's not going to stop.
Raw power politics, factionalism, gamesmanship, brinksmanship, battles over ideological purity and tactics, differences in personality and petty jealousies, differences fueled by grudges, ambition, sincere opposition and hardened partisan views are part of how our politics, and in particular, our American version of politics works.
And, given that reality, demonizers on the left and the right have learned that if you can take a person down. If you can tear off their armor and burn them to the core, if you can rip apart their ability to persuade and convince and propose, if you can activate enough bigotry and xenophobia and hate, if you can create enough of an outcry about someone that you drive the media to distraction, then you can win.
What was done to Van Jones was a shame.
What's being done to Acorn is a shame.
But that's not the sole point of my essay, and, despite the attacks, Van Jones and Acorn are here to stay.
You see. There is no time. There is only one planet. There is only one you. There is only one us.
None of us is perfect. And we are working in an environment, at a moment in history, where everyone is needed and there's no time to waste. We need to be able to disagree on tactics and strategy because...some paths will work better than others. We need to disagree about politics at times because that's how politics works.
Those who disagree will always have a disproportionate power to tear what we are building to the ground. It's always easier to tear things down than to build something new, and lasting, and good. That's as true for our planet as it is for politics.
Because of this reality we are not defined simply by the sphere of those who agree with us either on the left or the right. In fact, the exact opposite is true. In the face of an ecological crisis of our own making, we will be measured by our broad ability to persuade and to propose. We will leave our mark not as individuals, but in how we choose, collectively, to navigate this moment as one people.
Those of us who get this must build a new, pragmatic and rugged politics suited to our times.
We must be strong enough to stand unbowed at the harshest attack, and wise enough to short circuit politics as usual in a digital age. We must be rooted in the sense that in 2009 there is no time, and no luxury for indulging the tactics of a century now past. We must keep the wisdom of our forbears close to heart.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
In the face of a planet increasingly in peril, people will get this. People will understand.
We are strongest when we stand together. We are most powerful when we remain focused on the work we are doing without deferring initiative to those who oppose us at every step. We are wisest when we reach out to our brothers and sisters with an open hand. We are most persuasive when we listen as well as speak.
We must know that we are in this together.
There is only one you. There is only one us.
What we do with this moment is how we will be remembered.
It may well be that building a new way of working and debating and disagreeing and, ultimately, collaborating will be the most difficult and necessary challenge of our times.