…But I’m going to write it anyway.

As a young teenager protesting the Vietnam war, I had a huge poster in my room with a picture of a Vietnam-era peace demonstration and the quote,

It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.

—Abraham Lincoln

It is my duty to protest.

I am only one generation removed from the Holocaust, and I wonder how many millions of lives might have been saved if ordinary Germans and Italians had protested and organized in large numbers against the gradual encroachments on their liberty that provided the legal framework for Nazi and Fascist repression.

Earlier this week, while the rest of us were merrily celebrating the arrival of 2012, President Obama signed a truly wretched piece of legislation: The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In the words of one commentator whose post is entitled “R.I.P. Bill of Rights 1789 – 2011,” this law

grants the U.S. military the “legal” right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people, and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.

Signed into law by the same President Obama who, as a candidate, was the champion of liberty and “change” who would close the illegal prison at Guantanamo, rein in the torturers of Abu Ghraib, and quickly end the US presence in Iraq. The same Obama who had said he would veto this dreadful bill. (Yes, the soldiers have come home. But it took three years and we still have thousands of “advisors” there, along with a highly fortified embassy in Baghdad  that could easily be the nerve center for US command and control.) Guantanamo is still open, the climate of anti-Muslim racism persists, and the torturers at the highest levels (e.g., Cheney and Rumsfeld) have never been held to account.)

So I am protesting. Even though it puts my own liberty potentially at risk.

In his signing statement, Obama said he would…

interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that …upholds the values on which this country was founded.

Two problems with that. Number 1, he has not shown himself trustworthy in upholding those values in the past.

And second, there is no guarantee that the presidency won’t be delivered to a much more repressive figure with no such scruples. The contenders on the Republican side include several sworn enemies of freedom for those of us who don’t happen to be straight, conservative, and some repressive flavor of Christian: Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum (in alphabetical order).

This is merely the latest in a gradual erosion of our civil liberties committed during both Democratic and Republican governments; two other examples (among many) are the shift over the last two decades of ballot counting to insecure, easily manipulated, and highly suspect electronic counting devices that in some cases don’t even HAVE a paper trail (and that led directly to the disastrous worst-in-history administration of George W. Bush) and the citizens United Supreme Court decision that nakedly grants corporations the power to buy elections.

Yes I protest.

I have never forgiven myself for not doing enough to stop the coup that let Bush seize power in 2000—in part because I didn’t see Gore as any great champion of my values, in part because I could not foresee just how bad that eight years was going to be—but mostly because I was feeling too shut down and disempowered to help organize a movement like we saw in Mexico, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere.

I still don’t feel like I can personally organize a movement. But I can at least protest, and send some money to a civil liberties group.  I hope you will too.

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Someone just asked on a LinkedIn group who inspired group members to go green. I decidced my answer is worth sharing here:

For me it was a gradual process with many key moments. Here are a few:

  • Age three, realizing I had some power over my environment and didn’t have to tolerate cigarette smoke in my own house. I destroyed several packs of cigarettes at a party my parents threw–their guests had left the packs lying on the coffee table.
  • Age 12, feeling injustice in a much more personal and direct way: I had to pay adult price for a movie ticket but sit in the children’s section. I started a boycott of that theater, and have not been back in 42 years–even though it was my neighborhood theater until I went to college.
  • 1974, doing a research project on the pros and cons of nuclear power, I discovered that there were no pros but a lot of very serious cons–and recognized that I had to be actively involved in changing this country’s energy picture.
  • Beginning to read (in the late 1970s) sustainability thinkers like Amory Lovins, Hazel Henderson, Ralph Borsodi, Helen and Scott Nearing–and to learn via magazine articles some of the ugly history of car companies buying up and yanking out trolley tracks, etc.
  • 1981, having an 80-something woman demonstrate to me that we could wash dishes with about 5 percent of the water I’d been using, by turning the water off, soaping them all, and turning on a small stream to rinse.
  • In 1999, learning so much from my fellow organizers of Save the Mountain—and proving that we could in fact harness enough citizen energy to protect our endangered mountain range

There are many more, continuing to the present day. Going green is a process.

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I love hearing stories about old buildings, especially iconic and massive ones, getting a serious green makeover. The US Treasury Department HQ in Washington, which took 33 years to build (1836-1869), has just achieved gold-level LEED certification.

So now, if people say to you, “and what other historic large office buildings besides the Empire State Building have gone green?” you can cite this great example. (Via GreenBiz.com)

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