Lissen up kids, this is how we did it
back in the 60's: no business as usual. Back then the issue was the
VietNam war.
Today someone is stealing your future, endangering your life - not just economically, but physically. Time to Man Up, or Human-Up,
It is time to stand up, shout out, and let them know. "Them" is anyone hurting you by their actions or their inaction. Ask, tell, demand a stop to this. Our degrading economy can be stopped - and our degrading climate can be slowed.
We faced down a war back then. We all felt the fear. We were disappearing into a foreign war - and we wanted it to stop. We disrupted everything, anything. We had teach-ins where we learned the issues. Some even marched into classrooms, interrupting the the Psych 101 lecturer saying "we should be talking about the war in Viet Nam - because men in this classroom are about to be drafted into a worthless war - your college education means nothing if you are going to die." And we listened. This happened to me at Boston University in 1968. All over the country too. Not just the draftable 1-A men, but girl-friends and mothers and fathers and professors. So we got radical.
Leaflets and alternative press just popped up everywhere. Groups like SNCC, The Mobe. Sometimes we hurriedly planned gatherings. We boycotted anything connected to the war (even today I cannot patronize Dow chemical - maker of napalm) Sometimes we wrote political graffiti. Rallied with bands and speakers and poets and actions on our own. Some late nights we would take to our bicycles and fire sling shots loaded with heavy glass marbles - smashing out windows of our draftboard. Back then we faced an illegal, undeclared war that was killing us. When facing death, any reaction is permitted.
We took a sheet and
painted it into the flag of North Viet Nam (which was banned, even though the war was still undeclared) and then we hoisted it up government
offices flag poles... (cut one rope and loop it into the other - so the flag goes up but cannot be pulled down.) so workers arriving in the morning would see a huge flag where the US flag should have been.
We were furious. So were the authorities. It took a fire dept hook and ladder truck to tear it down, calling more attention to the issue. Every young man faced the
draft and faced doom. Back then presenting yourself as gay would keep
you out of the army.
Friends fled to Canada and I never saw them again. Many were arrested. And many guys went into the army and I never saw them again. Many shot themselves in the foot. Fifty-five thousand American men died in a very stupid war. Two million Vietnamese. Many emerged from the war with vacant stares and souls that never saw again. And since then, more veterans have died from suicide than died in the war.
WE WERE young and FURIOUS. We faced a grim future. You might be furious now because you face a grim future worse than any war. Your future has been stolen from you. You have been robbed. You could study some economics and learn how your financial future has been robbed - maybe you can reclaim that. But study some science and learn how you have toxic pollution threatening your very lives. Inexorable global warming is dooming you to a horrible, terrible future. And if you have children, you will be bringing them into a chaotic world, churning with change and deprivation and a dimming future.
You already know something of global warming and climate destabilization, you just don't know how bad it will be. Nor just when it will be unfolding. Find out. We also used to say "Don't trust anyone over 30". Well the older generation in power and wealth today are not going to admit to wrong doing. Old folks want their short future to stay comfortable.
But your professors know. Ask them. Your Oceanography and Atmospheric sciences department know the answer. Ask them. They have stopped volunteering the news because it is so bad. They are shell shocked and silent and they will not speak of it unless you ask them directly : WHAT IS MY FUTURE? Ask. You will put them on the spot, because a university is supposed to be one the most hopeful places on earth. They may try to wangle and say "we are not sure" and "we need to study more" - and they may say "it is not really my department"... but none will deny there is horrible warming and a destabilized climate ahead filled with intense catastrophic weather events and a slowly changing world. And none can deny this means increasing disease, starvation, thirst, forced migrations.. ALL IN YOUR LIFETIME.
And far worse for your children. Right here on campus you will find scientists that helped model predictions for the year 2100. It is a nice target to aim for. And much research likes to point to the year 2100 - the choices are bad, worse and catastrophic. Not one sane, sober scientist can say everything will be OK. The ferocious arguments are about when and how bad, not about whether or if warming will happen. Predictions for 2100 are all based on the number of degrees in warming averaged globally - Right now at least 2.5 degrees C of warming are inevitable. But recently an MIT study predicted over 5 degrees of warming by 2100. And depending on how humans act, the climate models say more than 6 degrees of warming are possible. The year 2100 is when your children will be adult. And half-way - by 2050 you will be in the fullness of your life - half way to 2100 is half-bad, half-worse, half-a-catastrophe.
I am here to ask you to wake up and stop the silence. Man Up. Human Up
Back then I just tried to stay alive and keep out of a hopeless war, But today this is a physical dilemma, not a political one. No one failed to declare a war or started a draft. They just ignored the dangers and kept poisoning the atmosphere. Mostly by dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the by-product of all our cheap energy civilization and this CO2 is a known, proven, and well studied greenhouse gas. Ask around. It warms the atmosphere very slowly, so the destabilized and warmed climate today was triggered by CO2 emitted in the 1940's and 50's.
Your parents and my parents did it. We didn't know, and that changed into didn't care. Our ancestors just started pissing into the soup and we never stopped. And now it is your turn to be served. And no matter what we do now, much is too late. We could turn into Adam and Eve, the atmospheric sciences of C02 says warming will continue.
Time to man up. Human up. You are facing troubles that you did not ask for and you have every right to be furious.
You are starting to get it... March 26th video of a disruptive action at a coal board meeting. Coal is the very worst future killer - it spews the most CO2 and tons of other stuff. Coal is the perfect first target for our wrath. If we do nothing else - for yourself and your children - stop coal completely.
YouTube - Check it out.
Activists with DC Rising Tide interrupted a coal industry conference on March 26, 2009 to denounce coal.
This tactic is disruption. No business as usual. You got it. That was the furious demand we made in the 60's .. "no business as usual". If you are passive, then your are standing in line for your doom. Don't roll over and play dead, because we who are older and closer to death do not have to care, you have to care. stand up.
The minimal ask I have for you is to learn the facts of the science. I am not selling a political stance. Be warned there are those who promote deliberate falsehoods. I am pointing to a scientific unfolding. You can and should confirm this for yourself I invite you to react. Look at it yourself. You are in the best place to know and learn and prepare for your future.
Richard Pauli
March 2009
Richard Pauli is over 30 and not to be trusted. You better check all these facts for yourself.
Today someone is stealing your future, endangering your life - not just economically, but physically. Time to Man Up, or Human-Up,
It is time to stand up, shout out, and let them know. "Them" is anyone hurting you by their actions or their inaction. Ask, tell, demand a stop to this. Our degrading economy can be stopped - and our degrading climate can be slowed.
We faced down a war back then. We all felt the fear. We were disappearing into a foreign war - and we wanted it to stop. We disrupted everything, anything. We had teach-ins where we learned the issues. Some even marched into classrooms, interrupting the the Psych 101 lecturer saying "we should be talking about the war in Viet Nam - because men in this classroom are about to be drafted into a worthless war - your college education means nothing if you are going to die." And we listened. This happened to me at Boston University in 1968. All over the country too. Not just the draftable 1-A men, but girl-friends and mothers and fathers and professors. So we got radical.
Leaflets and alternative press just popped up everywhere. Groups like SNCC, The Mobe. Sometimes we hurriedly planned gatherings. We boycotted anything connected to the war (even today I cannot patronize Dow chemical - maker of napalm) Sometimes we wrote political graffiti. Rallied with bands and speakers and poets and actions on our own. Some late nights we would take to our bicycles and fire sling shots loaded with heavy glass marbles - smashing out windows of our draftboard. Back then we faced an illegal, undeclared war that was killing us. When facing death, any reaction is permitted.
We took a sheet and
painted it into the flag of North Viet Nam (which was banned, even though the war was still undeclared) and then we hoisted it up government
offices flag poles... (cut one rope and loop it into the other - so the flag goes up but cannot be pulled down.) so workers arriving in the morning would see a huge flag where the US flag should have been.
We were furious. So were the authorities. It took a fire dept hook and ladder truck to tear it down, calling more attention to the issue. Every young man faced the
draft and faced doom. Back then presenting yourself as gay would keep
you out of the army. Friends fled to Canada and I never saw them again. Many were arrested. And many guys went into the army and I never saw them again. Many shot themselves in the foot. Fifty-five thousand American men died in a very stupid war. Two million Vietnamese. Many emerged from the war with vacant stares and souls that never saw again. And since then, more veterans have died from suicide than died in the war.
WE WERE young and FURIOUS. We faced a grim future. You might be furious now because you face a grim future worse than any war. Your future has been stolen from you. You have been robbed. You could study some economics and learn how your financial future has been robbed - maybe you can reclaim that. But study some science and learn how you have toxic pollution threatening your very lives. Inexorable global warming is dooming you to a horrible, terrible future. And if you have children, you will be bringing them into a chaotic world, churning with change and deprivation and a dimming future.
You already know something of global warming and climate destabilization, you just don't know how bad it will be. Nor just when it will be unfolding. Find out. We also used to say "Don't trust anyone over 30". Well the older generation in power and wealth today are not going to admit to wrong doing. Old folks want their short future to stay comfortable.
But your professors know. Ask them. Your Oceanography and Atmospheric sciences department know the answer. Ask them. They have stopped volunteering the news because it is so bad. They are shell shocked and silent and they will not speak of it unless you ask them directly : WHAT IS MY FUTURE? Ask. You will put them on the spot, because a university is supposed to be one the most hopeful places on earth. They may try to wangle and say "we are not sure" and "we need to study more" - and they may say "it is not really my department"... but none will deny there is horrible warming and a destabilized climate ahead filled with intense catastrophic weather events and a slowly changing world. And none can deny this means increasing disease, starvation, thirst, forced migrations.. ALL IN YOUR LIFETIME.
And far worse for your children. Right here on campus you will find scientists that helped model predictions for the year 2100. It is a nice target to aim for. And much research likes to point to the year 2100 - the choices are bad, worse and catastrophic. Not one sane, sober scientist can say everything will be OK. The ferocious arguments are about when and how bad, not about whether or if warming will happen. Predictions for 2100 are all based on the number of degrees in warming averaged globally - Right now at least 2.5 degrees C of warming are inevitable. But recently an MIT study predicted over 5 degrees of warming by 2100. And depending on how humans act, the climate models say more than 6 degrees of warming are possible. The year 2100 is when your children will be adult. And half-way - by 2050 you will be in the fullness of your life - half way to 2100 is half-bad, half-worse, half-a-catastrophe.
I am here to ask you to wake up and stop the silence. Man Up. Human Up
Back then I just tried to stay alive and keep out of a hopeless war, But today this is a physical dilemma, not a political one. No one failed to declare a war or started a draft. They just ignored the dangers and kept poisoning the atmosphere. Mostly by dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the by-product of all our cheap energy civilization and this CO2 is a known, proven, and well studied greenhouse gas. Ask around. It warms the atmosphere very slowly, so the destabilized and warmed climate today was triggered by CO2 emitted in the 1940's and 50's.
Your parents and my parents did it. We didn't know, and that changed into didn't care. Our ancestors just started pissing into the soup and we never stopped. And now it is your turn to be served. And no matter what we do now, much is too late. We could turn into Adam and Eve, the atmospheric sciences of C02 says warming will continue.
Time to man up. Human up. You are facing troubles that you did not ask for and you have every right to be furious.
You are starting to get it... March 26th video of a disruptive action at a coal board meeting. Coal is the very worst future killer - it spews the most CO2 and tons of other stuff. Coal is the perfect first target for our wrath. If we do nothing else - for yourself and your children - stop coal completely.
YouTube - Check it out.
Activists with DC Rising Tide interrupted a coal industry conference on March 26, 2009 to denounce coal.
This tactic is disruption. No business as usual. You got it. That was the furious demand we made in the 60's .. "no business as usual". If you are passive, then your are standing in line for your doom. Don't roll over and play dead, because we who are older and closer to death do not have to care, you have to care. stand up.
The minimal ask I have for you is to learn the facts of the science. I am not selling a political stance. Be warned there are those who promote deliberate falsehoods. I am pointing to a scientific unfolding. You can and should confirm this for yourself I invite you to react. Look at it yourself. You are in the best place to know and learn and prepare for your future.
Richard Pauli
March 2009
Richard Pauli is over 30 and not to be trusted. You better check all these facts for yourself.
[edits: corrected numbers of war dead]
Addenda: Cultural commentator and renown cartoonist, Skip Williamson has a terrific description of his friend Abbie Hoffman. In his blog at Salon he captures the essence of that time.
Addenda: Cultural commentator and renown cartoonist, Skip Williamson has a terrific description of his friend Abbie Hoffman. In his blog at Salon he captures the essence of that time.
Culturally and politically 1968 was one of the most rambunctious years in American history. The War in Vietnam had become the longest conflict in U.S. History. And as American casualties passed 30,000 anti-war protesters spilled out larger, louder and angrier than ever in the streets and on campuses nationwide. The Tet Offensive caught U.S, troops by surprise as coordinated attacks by the Viet Cong peppered South Vietnam. At Columbia University students commandeered the University's president's office and held three hostages to protest the school's ties to the Department of Defense. Phil and Daniel Berrigan, two Jesuit priests, torched draft records with napalm at a Maryland Selective Service center. In March American troops slaughtered scores of civilians at My Lai.
and his article grimly concludes
It's been a long haul since the Sixties and lessons of History have not been learned. Liberals still show themselves to be weak-kneed, spineless wimps and compliant stooges of the Ruling Class. Conservatives are Draconian power brokers, corrupt, mean-spirited liars, as always. It all leads to the destruction of our Rights and Freedom. They'd have us believe that the price of Freedom is Freedom itself.http://open.salon.com/blog/snappy_sam/2009/03/29/abbie_hoffman
Abbie Hoffman committed suicide April 12, 1989. At least that's the official story. At the time he had been regularly lecturing audiences about the CIA's covert activities, including assassinations disguised as suicide. His final words: "It's too late. We can't win, they've gotten too powerful."
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