OIL  (CONT)

didn't so much raise an army to fight the British as take command of an army that had already arisen to meet a public need.

Carbon dioxide/global warming. War, terror and torture. Oil depletion. Hunger, poverty, water scarcity, pollution. Environmental destruction and climate change are already here; hostilities have increased , and friendly relations - treaties, the Geneva conventions - have deteriorated. We have trouble even finding out about them, let alone addressing them.

These are serious challenges to humankind that we are unlikely to address until we tune out the farcical sit-coms produced by middle-aged men with good hair and tasteful neckties in Washington playing word-games, staging tantrums, pastposting their bets on Iraq, nuclear weapons, and free markets, and claiming Divine Privilege for their conceits and superstitions.

Recent articles in major newspapers suggest that the "American Dream" is largely dead for most Americans. Only powerful large corporations can dream, and their dreams are mostly: "All those lovely consumers, how can we make them buy what we sell?" And even more tellingly, "How can we make profits selling things people crucially need - like water, electricity, medical care, education, transportation?"

We environmentalists may well be deluded by notions of preserving the commons, beguiled by the romance of fuel cells, solar panels or windmills, or infatuated with biodiesel fuel or hybrid cars. We are probably naive about a few amateurs changing the world. But the environmentalist vision of renewable, sustainable, equitable and humane energy systems - in the hands of the people who use them - is certainly preferable to Cheney's calculated imperial algorithms of power, or the faith-based, strategic ignorance of our President.

Caroline Arnold served 12 years on the staff of Senator John Glenn and is now active with the Portage Democratic Coalition and Kent Environmental Council.

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