AP Photo File
The NY Times reports that President Obama’s top climate and energy official says there is virtually no chance Congress will pass a climate and energy bill before the December Copenhagen climate treaty meetings.
I know, this is getting tedious but we've got to ask, "what was the change that we believed in?"
Is it all Obama's fault? I think not. Some politician famously said, "You've elected me because of my promises. Now, you've got to make me keep them." And that's the job of the WE who we also believed in.
Did we mistakenly believe that good things might happen just because we got rid of some of the bad? It's a common error to think that the positive will flow automatically. It's like thinking that peace can be created by being anti-war or that love can be nurtured by being against hate. It doesn't work. Indeed, the real work of manifesting the vision of change remains.
Today in representative democracies world-wide the stalemate occurs in the Congresses and Parliaments where the lobbyists have obtained a stranglehold on policy formation. There are broadly two alternative responses to such institutionalized inertia: 1) strengthen executive power with a Dictator of Good Stuff or 2) build WE networks that are capable of taking action without institutional permission.
Obviously, it's really not simply one or the other. Our challenge is about figuring out the mix.
And doing the work.
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