On the Occasion of George Washington's 276th Birthday

As I reflect on the 276th birthday of George Washington, I wonder if, back in that time, we would have asked the question: What planet is he on? (See the previous post "What Planet Is He On?" below.)

On the one hand, why would we? Washington was clearly not so far removed from the hard realities of tyranny, war, and the difficult struggle experienced by most people of his time to eke a meager living from the land. For most of his compatriots, the difference between prosperity and starvation depended on the vagaries of the weather and the strength of your back. Though he lived a life of privilege and wealth, he did not live in as thick a cocoon as presidents live in today. He witnessed and experienced the struggles and the suffering of his world first hand. This shaped who he was as a president.

On the other hand, Washington was a slave owner and an Indian fighter. Although Washington, his slaves, and the Indians walked the same ground, their worlds were light years apart. This, too, shaped who he was as a president.

By Washington's time, many Quakers had already started the long struggle for the abolition of slavery and for living in just and respectful relationship with the Indians. It was (and remains) no easy thing to open the eyes of the oppressors to the worlds of the oppressed.

Is this the nature of our challenge today in the struggle to halt extreme, dangerous climate change? Just as the economy of George Washington's time was built upon the immoral foundation of slavery, today's economy is driving the immoral destruction of the Earth's capacity to sustain life.

Powerful, vested economic interests of that time could not or did not want to imagine an economy without slavery. Similarly today, powerful, vested economic interests cannot or do not want to imagine an economy without greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels, rampant global deforestation, and ever-rising levels of material consumption.

How can we open the eyes of our neighbors, policy makers, and George Bush to the worlds of those suffering today from the harmful effects of climate change and to the world our grandchildren will inherit if we do not quickly and dramatically change the way we are living today? Is preventing extreme, dangerous climate change the abolition movement of our time?