An Open Letter to the Wall Street Protesters (with a global shout out!)

Dear protesters,

Sending love and light, kudos and applause, good energy and huzzahs!  God bless!  All the best! Don’t stop!  As a humble admirer, I offer a few brief sound bite ideas for your consideration.  I applaud your attempts to move the public discourse beyond the usual snippets of drivel and into serious discussion, but sadly we are a sound bite society, and it seems that the message gets lost in the media.

So, in the spirit of clear communication, I suggest that we all coalesce around the following three simple points:

1) Revoke corporate personhood.

2) Stop the massive flow of cash and power to the 1%.

3) The needs of the Earth are primary.

Okay. There are your bumperstickers.  To elaborate a bit on points 1 and 2:  since the 80s, the powers that be in the US have systematically dismantled the legal structures that reined in the worst of capitalism’s excesses.  Without checks and balances (such as a robust estate tax and financial regulation), the system has run amok, and the politicians of both parties have become corporate shills.  We must revoke corporate personhood, restore checks and balances, and never again fall for the lie of “trickle down” prosperity.

Now, to number 3. And this is the global one. We are fast bumping into the absolute ecological limits of the planet that sustains us in the most literal way.   This is science, folks, not politics. Even if you don’t “believe” in it, it is reality. A few hundred years ago, many people didn’t “believe” that the Earth circled the sun, either…but that didn’t change the reality. But, I digress.  We must place the restoration of the Earth and its systems at the absolute center of all that we do, at all levels (personal, local, national, global…).  All the protesting and legal restructuring in the world won’t be worth a penny in the end if we utterly destroy our home.

There. That’s brief enough for our collective short attention span…I hope.

Again, kudos, applause and best wishes!  Go for it! We are with you.

Love,

Rebecca

p.s.  And one more thing… pass this one around! I usually don’t ask readers to do this, but maybe if you do, it will reach someone in the protests.  Thank you!!