In 1989 David Brower wrote to Doug Scott, Conservation Director of the Sierra Club, as follows:

"My thesis is that compromise is often necessary but that it ought not originate with the Sierra Club. We are to hold fast to what we believe is right, fight for it, and find allies and adduce all possible arguments for our cause. If we cannot find enough vigor in us or them to win, then let someone else produce the compromise. We thereupon work hard to coax it our way. We become a nucleus around which the strongest force can build and function .... The Club is so eager to appear reasonable that it goes soft, undercuts the strong grassroots efforts of chapters, groups, and other organizations -- as if the new professionalization and prioritization requires rampant tenderization. I go along with Ray Dasmann, when he speaks of those who want to appear reasonable to the Fortune 500 and allies, and who therefore go to lunches, or to other lengths, to demonstrate their credibility, access, insiderness, and reasonable strategy. Ray says it is a union between Bambi and Godzilla."

In 2000, Michael Frome wrote this:

"(Many) national environmental organizations, I fear, have grown away from the grassroots ... They seem to me to have turned tame ... compromising, (turning) into raging moderates replacing activism with pragmatic politics, and a willingness to settle for paper victories."

And in this year of blatant, lies, evasions and cowering rhetoric, let me add my bit.

The Art of the Politically Possible is a convenient excuse to "settle for paper victories." In all spheres of activism ... health care, racism, poverty, end to war, endangered species work, environment ... the trend is downward, a pathetic clinging to Art of the Politically Possible. Can’t we see that this is a shackle? How can we fight for real change on the ground, in people’s lives, when we ignore that heavy cramp of steel on our ankles? And that barbed wire fence we can’t get up the nerve to at least come close and peek over, to dwell on what we really want.

Let’s get down to one of the most shameful acts commited by our republic in 2007-08: the exclusion of Dennis Kucinich from TV, newsprint, discussion, debate. Some citizens of these United States have never heard of Kucinich. Michael Moore’s /Sicko/ is a best seller, but many citizens don’t know that Dennis Kucinich has a bill for universal health care, and a bill demanding impeachment of Dick Cheney, and that he says that if the decision were his, he would pull all troops out of Iraq, right away. His bills have been hidden away in the House of Representatives, by slick professional practitioneers of the Årt of the Politically Possible.

The media is totally complicit in this; they have turned the presidential contenders into race horses. Literally. Body shapes and sizes (Kucinich too short to be "presidential timber"), emotional stability, hair styles. The stable’s PROGRAMS, or avoidance of explicit programs, are not revealed. Are there any pains in the ankles of editors and reporters? I hope so. They too are victims, shackled.

On the endangered species front there is an equally transparent effort by the federal government to refuse a listing of the polar bear as endangered, even as sea ice melts faster than originally predicted, and tundra thaws too, releasing greenhouse gases. A vast leasing of arctic oil exploration and drilling is in the offing, under the aegis of Minerals Management Service, another bureau in the Dept. of Interior. Fish and Wildlife Service, another outfit in that Department, now admits that the polar bear is "likely to become endangered" in the future because of global warming. But Fish and Wildlife, faithful to its record throughout the Bush years, has not listed the bear. It turns out that the polar bear is a crucial animal, not only because its habitat is melting, and not only because oil extraction will further damage its homelands, but also because to list the bear as endangered would be to explicitly admit that climate change is a fact. This would have wide repercussions. Citizens will begin to shake their heads, ask questions. If we are all supposed to reduce our use of non-renewable energy, then why is our government in league with oil giants going after oil and methane, using the military for that purpose? Why do we kill people in Iraq? Why do we have nearly 4,000 wounded soldiers returned from war ? It must be all about oil, right? So, what the hell is going on?

What’s going on is a huge scam. I think most of us know that, but can’t quite believe that our own government could be so lowdown, to put it mildly. Can we do anything? Or is there no alternative? That is the question.

Let’s defy the pressures to be "realistic," and do some idealistic imagining. Suppose the nations of the world turned to reclamation instead of war, what marvels might unfold! It’s common sense to suppose that if we slow global warming by changes in our out-of-control consumerism and proceed to direct serious attention to the extreme hazards facing the human species, make real efforts, not just "paper victories, to reduce pollution of water and earth and air, wouldn’t we be happier, knowing that severe changes in life style were producing actual changes on a wide scale? We citizens can make ourselves over, become demanders and deciders. Another golden benefit: determined action can shed that great shadow, helplessness in the face of imperial power.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, it never will.

Frederick Douglass

It must be evident by now that tinkering with new technologies alongside business as usual will not do the job. Changes in habits will. Examples: wholesale shift to public transport; local agriculture instead of huge shipments from faraway places; bike paths on Interstates and city streets instead of upgrading to six lane super highways. That’s just a sampling.

Huge disruptions? Yes, not only here in the USA, but in other nations too, nations that depend on exports of coffee, bananas, palm oil, petroleum and other exports. And there will be strong kick-backs from our own corporate class who depend on low-cost labor and cheap imports from sub-sub-contracters. Could we deal with all of that ? If there is a will there often is a way.

Nature springs surprises, some of them huge and destructive. And there are others we haven’t yet discovered lurking in the complexities of ecological interactions as we continue to destroy land, water, air and other forms of life.

But, if we work toward revolutionary changes inside our minds that lead to actual changes on the ground, we might notice that some of the other species begin to thrive, even some that have been put on the doom list. We might even save the polar bear.

Here endeth the upbeat scenario.

We return now to where we are in the year 2008. Continuing on the course of using the precious reserves of coal and oil and methane for short-term profit and rampant consumption, the surprises that Nature is in the habit of springing will emerge. Then it will be too late. Humanity goes on the doom list, moves even more rapidly toward the cliff edge. Oh sure, there might be a few thousand, or even a few million, of us humans left alive, but how painful it will be for those survivors to look back. What have we done? Too late, we did it, went for more oil, more coal, more planes in the skies spewing carbon dioxide and other stuff, highways jammed, every river dammed, cropland turned into ethanol fodder, all in the blind faith that we know enough to withstand any surprises Nature throws at us. Wrong. We don’t know enough. Not nearly enough. Our leaders and their lap dogs will have stuck serenely to the Art of the Politically Possible, and we will have allowed them to do it..

Maybe I was being too optimistic. Could be that we humans will go totally extinct, no survivors at all. Consider world air currents carrying depleted uranium, radiation from old, and new, Chernobles, other spinoffs from our wasteful ways. Huge corporations are on a rampage. Free Market Rage. Governments fail to act except to make deals with their allies while we citizens are labelled "consumers" and fed evasions, lies and double-talk that form thick gumbo on our Republic.

Many of us are beginning to wake up.

You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.

Abe Lincoln.

Hey, let’s go for Art of the Impossible. Si, se puede.We can do that.

You probably know this: amphibians wordwide are in big trouble. Various theories have been offered, one of long standing is that frogs, toads, salamanders et al. have unprotected skin and so are susceptible to ultraviolet light damage. Recently other causes have been found: Herbicides, pesticides, a fungus disease known as Chytridiamycosis, predation, and the waters of the earth contaminated with a cocktail of poisons affecting fish, humans and amphibians.

But, take a look at the Endangered Species Act. It’s about saving lives, and offers us the gift of responsibility. A tale told in Jackson Hole is about ranchers feeding some of their winter hay to starving elk. I have often wondered if president Richard Nixon knew what he was signing.

Some say we have to face up to the fact that great numbers of amphibian species will become extinct; it’s already happening and the toll will continue. We are urged to accept that and get on with our lives. I say that the plight of amphibians offers us a grand opportunity to grapple with the Art of the Impossible, its wins and losses, its learnings from experience. We can demand measures to ensure survival of entire ecosystems. That will go far to protect us too. It’s an opportunity. Let’s take it!

We are not alone. An injury to one is an injury to all. Is that too idealistic for you ultra realists who might still be reading this rant? All I’m trying to say is that sharing habitats, promoting real health care, bringing the troops home and clearing air and earth and water of poisons are essentials for survival. Or, we can put it the other way around. When we pay serious attention to the welfare of other imperilled species we save our own. I’ve said it before, I say it again: We are not alone. All creatures suffer from ailments of the earth.

Taking stock: We have barely begun the arts of meaningful and determined struggle.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

I tend to think that learning to share is a big part of the Art of the Impossible. Imagine working for justice, fair play for all peoples. That would, of necessity include a drastic turn-around in our aims, our emotions, our very reason for being. It would get right down to the paved surface of the road to terror and extinction. We and countless other forms of life are on that road. That’s a fact to confront.

I’m not talking utopia. I am talking democracy with a small d. Of the people, by the people, for the people. That’s a wide net. It might save us as well as polar bears and red legged frogs, Wyoming toads, black-footed ferrets, even jaguars, those magnificent cats that the Bushites have totally abandoned.

By the way, Alison and I have a brand new website, www.packratnest.com. That title stems from Packrat Books, but the main aim is not book selling, it is to provide another sounding-off place for defenders of habitats for animals and plants and peoples of the world. Only one restriction: 800 words or less. Maybe a single sentence, an apt quote, or a rant, or a poem, a dream, a statement of principle. Whatever.

skerihog@westelcom.comOrdinary e-mail will do: skerihog@westelcom.com