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MY COMMENT, THAT LIKELY WON'T EVER BE SEEN:
Joe Romm is a nice man. I truly suspect that the same can be said of Nevile Chamberlain, Nero (tho I've studied him not at all)....
"Example is not the major thing in influencing people. It is the only thing," Albert Schweitzer. It is indisputable that 80% of communication is unverbal. Unviolent action, one of the only two ways to bring radical change, is quintessentially unverbal ACTION; life service, not lip service.
The problem is, Romm, in one of the most pivotal, responsible positions in world history, yes, is determined to have the answer to every political problem to be 'rhetoric.' Do women have the right to vote because of rhetoric? Is that how slavery was ended? Was the removal of Mubarak a rhetorical achievement? And civil rights, ending the Vietnam War, apartheid....?
I have nothing but affection for Joe Romm, but there could hardly be a better example of the old maxim - 'If your only tool is a hammer, then the solution to every problem is a nail,' or something like that. Joe likes to write. He is good at it. It is safe. You can do it from a comfortable office. You can make good money at it. But those who serve humanity don't start, or end with, 'what do I like to do,' they relentlessly hold themselves to the standard, what do these times demand of me? Of us? Period.
Joe is in a position of leadership on the most crucial issue ever to confront humanity, environmental Armageddon with just seconds left on the clock, and to be using his valuable time and ours, directed toward rhetoric, when the competition is not rhetoric, but, A. the most heavily financed army ever to be on earth, the fossil fuel industry after $20 to 80 trillion in revenues, and B. the catatonic penchant of US citizens, especially the 'let them eat cake' left, liberals, progressive-ino's... to be bystanders in what needs to be a participatory government, Democracy, unending unviolent war, is a miraculous feat of madness by the otherwise brilliant, nice, immensely informed bureacrat, writer, blogger, and so far totally unsuccessful for decades in achieving his aims, Mr. Romm.
I wish Joe well. But frankly, my concern is the next 200 billion of my children, and, well, 'Nero worked on his rhetoric, while Rome burned.'
'My problem is not the violent racists. My problem is the good people that will not stand and do what is necessary to win,' MLK Jr paraphrase. Funny, the world has scarcely ever seen a greater rhetorician than Dr. King, and yet, like Gandhi and the other great Unviolent Leaders, Dr. King exhorted people to put their bodies in the way, not their lips.
The inscription on Gandhi's statue, here in DC, 'My Life is my Message.' But hey, he didn't go to MIT. He isn't fawned over by the do nothing left. So, let's just go with Mr. Romm's absurdity, shall we? I mean, if the next 200 billion children that we will thereby condemn to planetary "Hell and High Water," don't have a sense of humor, well, what worth are they?
What a tragedy.
http://TrackingPlanB.blogspot.com http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com
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