Lloyd K. Marbet, a speech at Pioneer Square, Portland, Oregon, 5/5/12
It is an honor to stand before you today as part of a worldwide community effort to “Connect the Dots.” And what greater purpose is there for us now than to connect the dots.
Sadly, we live in a country where the highest priority has been to conduct business as usual:
a. Bail out the banks;
b. Fight the imperial wars of terrorism; and
c. Increase growth for the sake of growth.
We find ourselves upon an assembly line of destruction when what we really need to be doing is bailing out the planet.
We need to stop compromising Earth’s life support systems. We need to educate ourselves as world citizens, stand up to the environmental holocaust, and cast light upon the darkness and degradation. It ain’t over for us until the Earth throws us off, and the only way to keep the Earth from throwing us off is by stopping catastrophic climate change, living carbon free-nuclear free lives and becoming compassionate, non-violent human beings.
The real revolution is in “reverence for life.” It’s in taking back democracy and doing away with corporate personhood. It’s in stopping the Military Industrial Complex and its oil wars. It’s in making the immediate transition from fossil fuels, coal and liquid natural gas exports, and nuclear power, to conservation and renewable energy. It’s in stopping the insanity of growth for the sake of growth.
We are more than cancer cells on Planet Earth!
We are the stewards of a green revolution which is struggling to happen in our midst. It’s ecological stewardship is embodied in the choices that you and I are making every day in our lives. I am reminded of the words of Homer Lea:
To free a nation from error is to enlighten the individual and it is only to the degree that an individual is receptive of the truth that a nation can be free from that vanity which ends in national ruin.
We are incrementally suffering a living ecological ruin and you and I, while connecting the dots, are NOT going to let that happen. We are going to vote green in everything we do.
We are going to stop the ruin with every breath of our lives, with every hope of our hearts, and with every ounce of our creativity. We are going to change ourselves for the better and in doing so live within the means of our compassion.
I look forward to our future, and I thank you for your help in re-creating it, and for standing here in solidarity with the well being of Planet Earth and our healing upon it in peace.
I wish you all well in the journey.
