Sure, Why Not? A demo, passing out leaflets protesting mega power dam projects in Quebec. Even back then, a decade before 9/11, we had to go through border interrogation by worried officials. But it was a good day. An Inuit from the Canadian side was especially effective. He had the knack of getting people's attention without antagonizing them; he smiled, sometimes he laughed. He also listened. He was doing two-way talk, enjoying the challenges. Afterwards I couldn't help telling him that he seemed to be having fun. He said, "Sure, why not?"

Yes, why not? Why go around demonstrating and protesting and looking like the weight of the universe is on our shoulders? Why not lighten up, give ourselves a break? There is a catch, there always is. The catch is that happiness can't be put on like a new coat or a smart bumper sticker. Between the resolution and the act, as Hamlet mumbled to himself, is the Big Question. I

n my infantry company we made jokes about the Big Picture. We knew we didn’t see it; no one was bothering us rifle-toting units with such weighty matters. As time went by we knew the top brass didn't have that picture either. Does anybody have it?

Remember George Burns, honored at an Oscar blast a few years back? He, 100 years old, made it to the stage and said, "Now I’m going to do something very difficult. I’m going to sit down."

Let's do that. Now, let's try the REALLY difficult thing, a journey, a few minutes of quiet travelling away from our solitary selves, away from status, hates, frustrations, resentments, all that personal stuff. There, see it? The world of today and tomorrow: Wonderful, Tragic, Funny, Risky and headed for Hell. We see that we are losing our citizenship; we are allowing the drift of other species into the Dark Night; we are becoming consumers and we are treated that way ... consumer units ... by those in power. Our choices, if we pare them down to bare bones, are three: (1)Make resolutions and fail to act. (2) Straddle the fences. (3) Take the bull by the horns.

Varmentalists and other activists, now here, now there, are in exploratory mode, groping for that bull, looking for The Big Picture. To put it a tad less abstractly , we are beginning to examine much more closely the context in which we work, the relationship matrix in which our activist territory is situated, whether it be Lake Powell, or drought or global warming or a 120 acre patch of Old Growth in the Adirondacks, or Peace and Justice. Whatever the cause, once you start exploring you find tough strands of a world-wide net of power. Power of a kind that we activists do not have. You don't actually see the strands; you sense them, you know they are there, as real as their products: dozers, oil rigs, chain saws, trade agreements, SUVs, ORVs, WMDs, deaths and destructions worldwide. There's the Big Picture. Or is it?

Looks totally hopeless at times. There's the danger, those looks. We yield to temptation, join consensus groups dominated by power people; we indulge in the other small set of tactics employed by just about every activist outfit in our country and around the world. And it isn't enough. We burn out and go to the land of sophisticated despair. Lots of company there, you become thankful you escaped in time from romantic goals and pie-in-the-sky expectations. Free of delusions now, you lie back and live the life of hard realism. Is it a good life? Does it make up for what you threw away? I don’t think so.

Well, what do you know, disillusion is not the only show in town. Those romantic idealists, they've stumbled onto a new tactic. Reverse the formula, change Power People to People Power. Note: If you are a seasoned sophisticate and have gotten this far, I doubt that you will want to continue.

My particular obsession is the Red Desert of Wyoming and its adjacent mountains and high plains. Here is one of several e-mail invitations I’ve been receiving from Friends of the Red Desert.

Leave a Legacy Week Events:

Rock Springs: Red Desert Dance

Come out and celebrate the Red Desert through dancing, eating good food, and listening to locals share stories about this magical place. Music will be provided by the classic rock band 4th Rock. And, don’’t forget to wear RED.

Where: Santa Fe, Southwest Grill, 1635 Elk Street, Rock Springs When: Saturday, February 4, 7-11 p.m. Who: Co-sponsored by Friends of the Red Desert and the United Steel Workers of America Local 13214.

For More Information: Contact Marian Doane by phone at (307) 332-3608 or by email at marian@reddesert.org

And here is Marian Doane, organizer, speaking about Friends of the Red.

"Friends got its start from a few of us discussing how the folks in Wyoming don't have any groups that represent them in the political/environmental area. Many are not against development, logging and other environmental concerns and don't want to have anything to do with the popular Environmental groups in Wyoming or nationally. They don't know where to go to get support or how to participate in the public process.

"So it was decided that FRD would be a place for the so called ‘non-traditional’ guys and gals to come together, become informed and participate in all the issues surrounding them here on all the public lands within the Red Desert.

"Dan and Mac got the coalition together and asked if we were interested in becoming the Steering committee for this group and after a few years of struggling here we are. We only work on oil, gas and coal bed methane development and only on the Red Desert. We do not work on other issues like ORV traffic, Wild Horses or grazing. This way everyone that uses the area, Ranchers, Hunters and recreationalists, even drillers, can work together. If I have my way FRD would expand across Wyoming and, possibly the Rocky Mountain West, supporting and working with similar groups.

"FRD wants to see development done in the right place, at the right pace."

It looks like Friends of the Red are reaching to those left out by the political manipulators and ignored by so many varmentalists. No one of us can predict the future, whether we will prevail in time, but I want to put forward as a certitude that until a sizeable lot of those left out are heard from, our country, our civilization, our great traditions will continue on the path toward the fiery furnace. If this is true, there are many corollary outcomes, one of them is that an organization devoted exclusively to saving wilderness by government decree ... that is, by staying pristine and avoiding serious contact with other movements, other views, other activists, other dangers ... will make little real and lasting headway.

Actually, as in so many other citizenship struggles, such as betrayals of women's reproductive rights and abandonment of the Equal Rights Amendment, the privatization/commodification of public lands management intrudes relentlessly into every crack and corner of our public domain.

What to do? Let's return to the question, where is the Big Picture? Who has it? One of the interesting facts we learn in exploration of worldwide context is that the power people don’t have it. They think they do and they want us to think they have it, but they don't. Is there no such thing?

I offer, for discussion, that the Big Picture lies inside the work and discouragements and joys of people power. We can light out for that territory, the red heart of democracy. More than a New Year's Resolution, that democratic heart has to be kept beating, strong and steady.

Just last week I ran across some imaginative renderings of history by David Romtvedt, Wyoming’s poet laureate. Here’’s one I especially like:

"Even the rich and powerful wonder if what they've done is right. There's been a shattering of a world of false dreams, a world that for all but a very few people has been an eternal nightmare. All the lands are lands of dreamy dreams, and all the people are relearning how to make choices about which dreams they choose to live with. Soon people will not only know how to read and write, but how, as Black Elk remembered, to listen and speak." (1) Margot Ford McMillen sounds off on this matter:

"Becoming a citizen is a slow, painful process, but becoming a citizen brings power. Take it." (2)

I have to add that becoming a citizen can bring happiness along with the pain, and sometimes we rise to the occasion faster than any of us might have predicted. We are, after all, clever animals on the lookout. No armor, practically naked, we survived all those millenniums from the time when our ancesters decided to leave off being reptiles.

Come to think of it, People Power is not new. We aren't inventing it, we are discovering it. Look where we’ve been, we left out citizens, since Tom Paine wrote that eighteenth century best seller. Come on Varmentalists, let’’s come in from the cold and join the other left-outs. There is no power on earth we can hand the job to. It’s ours. It’s time.

March 19, 3rd anniversary of invasion of Iraq, Alison and I showed up at 12 on the dot at the usual demo place, where Elm meets East Main in Malone, New York, county seat of this sprawling half-wilderness county that borders Quebec on the north. A couple who had driven all the way from New York City that morning were there, waiting. So, right off the bat, four resisters.

Others came, with signs. A great spread of views on those signs, all home made. We had organized only by word of mouth and an ad in the Free Trader. Ours was one modest demo among many all over our nation, all over the world. As in many of those places, the weather was not kind. We had cold wind that brought a couple spells of blizzard, but we had a good time, waving at traffic, harvesting honks. I think the opportunity to put our bodies where our thoughts were was a good part of the fuel that kept us warm enough. Winter is long up here, March madness a possibility. So, why not get out in it, freeze your fingers a little, feel the winter bite across your shoulders, laugh at the little things that come along, talk and wave at fellow citizens.

A photographer from the local paper showed up, took a picture. It made a fine show on Monday’s front page: colorful people, everybody in a different winter outfit, and colorful signs. I’d say we were like early flowers coming out ahead of time. Is that fun? Yes.

(1) David Romtvedt, /Crossing Wyoming/, Fredonia, New York, White Pine Press, 1992. (2) Margot Ford McMillen, /Rural Routes. Time for Citizenship. Progresssive Populist/, March 15, 2006.