People gonna rise like the waters,
Gonna calm this crisis down,
I hear the voice of my great granddaughter
Saying keep it in the ground.
-sung for years at climate justice actions in the USA
32 years ago the phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid!,” was used by the Clinton for President operation as the primary message of that successful Presidential campaign. It seems to me that there are very good reasons why, in 2024, those of us who are working to defeat Trump, whether independent of or inside the Biden/Harris operation, and who are supporting genuinely progressive candidates otherwise, should be using and advocating for something else.
I believe it should be the phrase, “For Our Children and Grandchildren.”
The primary reason is because it is absolutely on point with our reality in 2024, particularly, but not only, because of the seriousness of the climate emergency. Human society is in a race to get off fossil fuels and onto wind, solar and other renewables before it is too late. We are literally in the make-or-break decade. It is so serious that three years ago the very establishment International Energy Agency called for an end to the buildout of any new fossil fuel infrastructure as of that year, 2021.
Unfortunately, particularly in the United States, that call has not been sufficiently heeded. The primary reason is the power of the oil and gas industry over almost all Republican and far too many Democratic politicians at both state and federal levels. Huge campaign donations and corporate support in other ways continue to have their corrupting, destructive impact.
As a progressive activist and organizer for a very long time, I’ve found that when I say we need to bring about major societal change because we need a better world for our children and grandchildren, it has an effect. The song quoted above is another example, a way of bringing into our present struggles the generations coming after us who we must be responsible to. Within many Indigenous cultures the concept of taking action with the seventh generation in mind is very strong and deeply rooted.
The idea of looking out for our children and grandchildren and those coming after us can connect people who otherwise would be on opposite sides of an issue. As one example, I increasingly find myself saying to police at demonstrations, including to some who are arresting me, that I and those with me are taking action for their children and grandchildren too, and I have seen on their faces, and sometimes heard in their words, that they relate to this idea. In their own ways they are worried about the state of the country and world and how their offspring will survive in it.
Just recently, during an action at the DC headquarters of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a Federal Protective Services higher-up in charge of policing us actually said to a group of us as we were leaving, unprompted, that “we appreciate what you are doing.”
This concept of the welfare of those coming after us as a primary motivation for our actions today is not just climate-related. It’s true for many issues. I’ve read of formerly enslaved Africans in the deep South explicitly referencing their children and grandchildren as the reason they were willing to risk their lives to end slavery. Today, the MAGA attacks on the rights of immigrants, women, people of color, lgbtq+ people and low-income, low-wealth families, are a huge threat to those coming atter us if Trump wins and Republicans do well in Congressional races. And clearly a Trump-led government would be a huge threat to US democracy, as flawed as it is, and a boost to neo-fascists worldwide.
11 years ago I took part in a Walk For Our Grandchildren and Mother Earth, a 100 mile walk of elders and others from Camp David to Harpers Ferry to the White House. The walk struck a chord and got national media coverage. Eight years later I was part of a similar walk in 2021 from Scranton, Pa. to Wilmington, De., ending up in Biden’s home town. In Wilmington we rallied close to Biden’s home and then concluded it with a civil disobedience action at the national headquarters of Chase Bank, one of the big banks funding oil, coal and gas corporations that are the main drivers of the climate chaos that is jeopardizing a livable future.
Our children and grandchildren must be openly and publicly at the center of what we do and why we do it.
Ted Glick has devoted his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism as a sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, he left college in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973, he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon and worked as a national coordinator on grassroots street actions around the country, keeping the heat on Nixon until his August 1974 resignation. Since late 2003, Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a renewable energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May 2006, he began working with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and was CCAN National Campaign Coordinator until his retirement in October 2015. He is a co-founder (2014) and one of the leaders of the group Beyond Extreme Energy. He is President of the group 350NJ/Rockland, on the steering committee of the DivestNJ Coalition and on the leadership group of the Climate Reality Check network.
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