In just a few short
months, we’ve witnessed people power in action. From the Middle East to the
Midwest, movements have risen up to overturn tired dogma and challenge
entrenched power. Many of us were inspired by these events. And many of us were
surprised. Perhaps we were growing skeptical that people power could still
work. Maybe we had forgotten a vital fact about our world: that bold citizens,
united around a common mission, can still come together to create major change
against enormous odds.

— 350.org

Even when people are willing to take action in concert to
redistribute the pie, whether by Gandhian mobilization or use of force, this may
resonate falsely, for the pie is disintegrating. Its recipe and ingredients are
obsolete. And freedom attained in harsh austerity, characterized by intense
competition for food, will be doubtful or of little comfort.

— Jan Lundberg, “Social Justice Activists
Must Take Into Account Ecological, Cultural, and Economic Transformation”

After seven generations of industrial Business as Usual – burning
up fossil fuels, waging war on nature and public health, and discharging
greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere like there’s no tomorrow – we’ve
peaked. Distracted by know-nothing climate change deniers and betrayed by
cowardly politicians, we’re suddenly face-to-face with the Xtremes: Peak Oil, relentless
heat, cold, droughts, blizzards, floods, pestilence, crop failures, and
evermore deadly “natural” catastrophes, including hurricanes, tornadoes, forest
fires, typhoons, and earthquakes. Held hostage by out-of-control energy
corporations, make-believe terrorist threats, and indentured politicians, we
lurch from disaster to disaster. Last year the BP oil spill, this year the
Fukushima meltdown.

Checking our gauges for oil, food, water, topsoil, clean
air, climate stability, ethical business practices, and democracy, we’re
running on empty. Economic depression, nuclear meltdown, extreme weather, catastrophic
oil spills, crop failures, contamination of aquifers through natural gas
fracking and oil sands extraction, dirty coal and mountaintop removal, genetically
engineered “Frankenfoods” and agrofuels, endless wars for oil and strategic
resources, and deteriorating public health – welcome to the New World Order of
2011. Bend down for the New Global Lords, our planetary Board of Directors: 1200
billionaires, 10 million millionaires, and 1000 giant multinational
corporations.

Out-of-control corporate globalization and hyper-consumerism
have pumped so much carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide into the
atmosphere (390 parts per million of CO

2; and 438 ppm of CO

2, CH

4, and N

20 combined) that we’re fast-tracked for
disaster. Melting glaciers and polar ice caps; thawing out the 1,600-gigaton permafrost
methane time bomb of the Far North; burning up the tropical forests of the
Global South, we are hell-bent for catastrophe. Leading climatologists such as
Dr. James Hansen and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have
delivered the final warning: either turn away from unsustainable energy
practices; drastically reduce fossil fuel use by 90% by 2050 (starting
immediately); and restore the natural greenhouse gas (GHG) sequestration
capacities of our soils, forests, farmlands, and pasturelands through
conversion to organic management practices – so as to safely bring CO

2 levels in the
atmosphere back down to 350 ppm and all combined GHG back down to 393ppm – or else
prepare to live in climate hell.

In the planetary past, when volcanic eruptions, meteorites, changes
in the Earth’s axis, or other mega-disasters oversaturated the atmosphere with
greenhouse gases (GHG), the oceans, living soils, plants, and forests were able
to sequester billions of tons of greenhouse gases and re-stabilize the climate.
Unfortunately these climate stabilizing carbon sinks or sequestration centers are
now being destroyed by the Business as Usual practices of the transnational
corporations and a crazed narcissistic culture of hyper-consumerism.

We are careening toward the final precipice. Either we join
the global grassroots uprising to overthrow the Global Lords and their Military-Industrial
Fossil Fuel Empire, either we downshift our energy-intensive culture and practices,
and re-localize our economy, or else…

Although billions are still asleep at the wheel or dozing in
front of their TVs…

Although the majority are still brainwashed or else mentally
and physically broken down, a critical mass of

enrages across the world are waking up and taking
action. A new Green Internationale is spreading its roots in local communities
and regions across the globe.

A growing corps of global citizens and organizations in
hundreds of thousands of communities are turning their attention and ire toward
the real source of the Crisis, the Corporate Elite and the National Security
State, and starting to work on building sustainable alternatives and resilient
communities that can survive the coming economic and energy collapse. The
outlines of this new decentralized Green Commonwealth are slowly but surely becoming
visible: community supported organic food and farming; open source media and
communications; holistic health care, alternative schools and education;
renewable energy, housing and transportation; relocalized commerce, bartering,
sustainable finance, and participatory decision-making.

Damage to the Body
Politic

A suicidal Business as Usual still predominates in much of the
developing world, and in the industrialized nations as well, because billions of
us, the Underclass, are struggling with the nearly impossible task of trying to
survive and support our families in a profoundly non-sustainable economy and
society, often deeply in debt, living on minimum or starvation wages. Other
would be rebels, indeed a large percentage of the world population, are held in
check by the understanding that, if they step too far out of line, they will be
brutally repressed. Another huge segment of the body politic are physically
ill, drug-addicted, malnourished, or psychologically incapacitated.

In the workaholic, media-saturated culture of the industrialized
nations, now spreading to the developing world, an army of lonely and alienated
couch potatoes remain distracted, drugged, or hypnotized by rampant
consumerism, political charlatans, and fake-Messiahs (such as Obama). Brainwashed
and programmed to believe you can’t “Fight City Hall” or the big corporations,
why not just jump in your car and go to the Mall, or sit down and turn on the
TV or the computer? Drink another beer, pop another prescription pill, stuff
your face with junk food, kill the pain?

Unfortunately as we move to confront the Xtremes, more often
than not, we find civil society divided and disempowered by single-issue silos
and tunnel-vision identity politics; or else mystified and mislead into
believing that everything will turn out all right, if we just nudge the
politicians and the corporations a little bit more.

Although it’s obvious that we will never have a sustainable
energy, housing, agriculture, health, or transportation system in the U.S. without
transferring hundreds of billions of dollars a year from military spending into
building a full employment green economy, the peace movement is over here,
while the alternative energy, climate, organic, and green jobs movements are
over there, each marginalized in their own respective corners or silos.

Similarly, we’ll never be able to fund a global green economy,
or provide universal healthcare, or offer a living wage for workers, until we
force the rich and the corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, democratize
the media, take away the legal fiction, so-called “rights of corporate
personhood,” and get special interest money out of politics. And yet we have a tax reform movement
over here, a single-payer healthcare reform movement over there, a media reform
movement in that corner, a union movement over there, and a vast array of
isolated local and state movements (Wisconsin, Michigan, California and a dozen
other states) trying to fight corporate-driven cutbacks and giveaways. And of course none of these life or
death reforms will be possible until we get over our fear of confronting and
taking down the 800 pound gorillas in the room: The Corporate Elite and the National
Security State.

It’s time to come together, unite our forces, and address
the fundamental root causes of the Crisis. It’s time to get over our fears of being
called radical or utopian and offer real solutions. It’s time to broaden the
discussion, link the issues, expand our coalitions, and fight the Xtremes.

The Global Uprising:
Is It Already Too Late?

People in increasing numbers are connecting the dots,
standing up and fighting for their rights and the rights of the future
generations. Many of us now realize that it is extremely unlikely that things
will ever return to “normal.” The energy, cultural, political, and socio-economic
System that we’ve grown accustomed to – based upon cheap fossil fuel energy and a
predictable stable climate, is headed for collapse. The urgent priority is to
channel this coming collapse (think of it, hopefully, in terms of a descending
stairway, rather than a plunge off a cliff) into a mass movement and a national
community building process. Before collapse metastasizes into panic and martial
law, we still have time to lay down the foundations for a new Commonwealth.

But before we can rise up as a subversive and creative force,
a critical mass needs to be prepared, both psychologically and politically.
Only individuals with deep self-respect and communities with profound self-confidence
will be able to move beyond halfway measures, so-called liberal, progressive,
or libertarian solutions, and address the radical root causes and solutions to
the Crisis. We must be strong enough and confident enough to face, with brutal
honesty, the current situation, and have the courage and fortitude to “tell it
like it is.” The irreplaceable prerequisite for a democratic revolution and a
sustainable society are healthy, resilient individuals with a high-degree of
consciousness and self-respect, and energized resilient communities with a high
degree of self-confidence and solidarity. 

No Pasarán (They
Shall Not Pass): Stand Up and Fight

Through decades of activism, extending from the anti-war and
counter-culture movement of the 1960s, to my current role as director of a
nationwide activist network, the Organic Consumers Association, and a national
campaign, called Millions Against Monsanto, I’ve been anxiously waiting for a
critical mass of Americans to stand up and fight. From Johnson to Nixon, Ford
and Carter, from Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. to Obama, along with
so many others, I’ve fought the good fight, participated in all the frontline
movements and protests, voted for the best candidates, greened up my lifestyle,
and never lost hope – even as powerful forces of evil hijacked democracy,
wrecked the environment, and destabilized the climate.

But

basta ya – enough
is enough. We have reached the outer limits of democracy, climate stability, energy
resources, and indeed human survival. It’s time to stand up, unite our forces,
and fight for power – or else surrender.

After decades
of sucking up to liberal foundations and funders and lesser of two evils
politicians who keep telling us to “tone it down,” and “stick to what’s
practical,” we stand on the crowded deck of the USA Titanic. Amid the bedlam,
and a growing sense of panic, our options are severely limited. We can keep
arguing among ourselves about how to arrange the deckchairs – whose issue is more
important, which magic bullet reform will save us, which candidate or
corporation is slightly better, or who is the most oppressed. We can make a run for the
lifeboats – even though most of us, especially our children and grandchildren,
won’t make it. Or we can unite our forces, storm the captain’s quarters, and
turn the ship away from the Xtremes.

I’m sick and
tired of a thousand different single-issue campaigns, identity politics, wimpy
liberals, progressive infighting, armchair philanthropists, and limited-focus
mobilizing. I’m terminally weary of just “fighting the good fight” against a
corporate Goliath who always seems to win, or voting for alternative candidates
who usually lose. I’m sick of lobbying hopelessly corrupt politicians to be a
little more humane, and pressuring corporate criminals to be a little less
greedy. And finally, I’m horrified to ponder the thought that my teenage son
may have to struggle for sheer survival in a brutal, ecologically devastated,
martial law state.

Minor political reforms and corporate “greenwashing” at this
stage of history are too little, too late. The lesser of indentured evils in
the White House is not going to save us. Increased market share for organic,
green, and Fair Trade products will amount to little or nothing in the closing
era of the Xtremes. What we need is a bold determination to carry out regime
change and build a new green and egalitarian society, inside the deteriorating
infrastructure of the old. What we need are supercharged and inspired “networks
of networks,” online and on the ground; mass-based multi-focus campaigns and
electoral insurgencies, led by Live Wire organizers who bring together and
frame the burning issues and popular passions of a critical mass of the majority
Underclass. What we need is a massive new synergy between strategic sectors of
the presently fragmented progressive/radical rainbow, supercharging a new wave
of positive solutions, structural reforms, community building, survival
planning, and electoral insurgency. On the personal level this means breaking
with deeply ingrained habits and ways of thinking, and integrating our daily
lives and practices into the building of a new transformative and revolutionary
Movement.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the relative
desperation of your situation, objective conditions for a grassroots global
uprising are quickly ripening. The current ruling junta has overextended
themselves, and a powerful conflagration of disasters is waking up a critical
mass of the global grassroots. We now have a political opening in the United
States that has not existed since the Watergate Era and the fall of Richard
Nixon in 1974. But time is of the essence.

At the risk of stating the obvious, let’s keep these basics
in mind:

* The Republican and Democratic parties are
both totally controlled by all-powerful corporations at the national levels
(if not yet always at the lower levels).

* The mainstream media is controlled by
corporations that suppress real information and cynically manipulate the
public.

*

U.S. elections are controlled by
corporations and rich donors (with
the direct support and involvement of the major parties) who buy the candidates
and restrict access to the press by new or upstart candidates. Electronic
voting machines and optical scanners (as opposed to hand-counted paper ballots)
enable elections to be stolen, on a regular basis, by hired hackers and Black
Box computer technicians.

*

The root causes of the Great Recession
are “free trade” globalization policies, tax evasion by corporations
and the rich, a trillion-dollar war machine, and the looting of the nation by
the big banks and Wall Street speculators.

*

Until we are willing to overthrow the
corporate and military-industrial dictatorship, we will not be able to deal
with the fundamental power imbalances, injustices, and crises of the nation.

*

Climate change is real and getting
worse. We are literally standing on the eve of destruction. Radical energy
conservation, reducing fossil fuel use by 90%, retrofitting the nation’s 50
million buildings; retooling our transportation system, rebuilding our
electrical grid to run on solar and wind, and restoring the carbon
sequestration capacity of our billion of acres of farmland, pasture, and
forests through organic land management, are absolute priorities.

* We need to create a framework for a massive
local to national alliance for survival that addresses the life-or-death issues
head-on and is open to all methods of action, from legislative insurgency, to
direct action, to civil disobedience.

*

Walk your talk.
Stop bowing down to business as usual and the dictates of the ruling class. Nurture
your health and self-respect and, at the same time, nurture the collective
self-confidence of all the rebels and visionaries in your circle of friends,
family, and community. Align yourself with people and organizations you can
trust and rely upon.

*

Stay informed. Open
your eyes to what’s going on. Stay in touch with the daily evidence circulating
on the Internet that a global grassroots revolution has begun. Pay attention to
the housing, transportation, health, and food and farming alternatives that are
already being built, even if many of our sustainable alternatives currently
exist only in embryonic form.

*

Keep in mind that
the Xtremes are likely to get worse, not better, and that most of our elected
public officials, especially on the federal level, are bought and sold by the
corporations, and therefore are hard-wired for destruction. Don’t hold your
breath for Obama, or any other national politician to change things. Go local
with an emphasis on community building and local public policy change. Focus on
building crash-resistant institutions: organic food and farming systems, re-localized
commerce, holistic and preventive health practices, and an urban and rural
green jobs infrastructure with a low carbon footprint.

*

Stay inspired. Stay
in touch with the fact that the technological, economic, political, and social
alternatives we need to survive and prosper are already being put into practice.
Find examples of these across the nation or the globe and in your local
community and join up.

Stay vigilant. Stay
positive. Stay strong. Prepare for the worst, as well as the best. Those
who hold the power are not going to give it up without a tremendous fight. The
fossil fuel System is going to collapse. Revolutions bear little resemblance to
polite disagreements at a dinner party. The mass media can and is being
manipulated. People’s fears and prejudices are being engineered. Elections
based upon “black box” computer-controlled electronic voting machines and
optical scanners can and are being stolen. The only elections that cannot be stolen
are those based upon hand-counted paper ballots, where the ballots are tallied at
the precinct level in clear public view immediately after the polls close.

http://www.votescam.org

*

Keep the faith.
Revolutions never seem possible until objective conditions ripen, until serious
splits develop among the ruling class, and until a critical mass of people
decide they won’t take it any more. Look at Egypt. Look at Tunisia, Look at
Yemen. Look at Wisconsin. Look in the mirror. Ready to lead the Uprising in
your local community? Send me an email at ronniecummins[a]gmail.com.

All Power to the People!