Tribute page to the intrepid Granny D of New Hampshire  "There are no impossible causes." Click here for the speeches of Granny D The New England Reform School! Granny D's website Her often-quoted speech from Pecos, Texas on her long walk: "Never be discouraged from being an activist because people tell you that you'll not succeed. You have already succeeded if you're out there representing truth or justice or compassion or fairness or love. You already have your victory because you have changed the world; you have changed the status quo by you; you have changed the chemistry of things, and changes will spread from you, will be easier to happen again in others because of you, because, believe it or not, you are the center of the world. "There is a second thing you need to know about impossible causes and it is this: there are no impossible causes on this earth if they are good causes." Her recent remarks in Wisconsin: Thank you for that fine introduction.  It is a delight to be back in Wisconsin. We honor certain people in history not so much for what they did during their turbulent lives, but for what they inspire us to do after they are gone. Some heroes come back to us in our imagination, so that we might think about our present problems and get their good advice. So let us  bring Fighting Bob La Folette  back here  in this place, here and now. While we are sending out invitations, let us also ask  Martin Luther King, Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and maybe Sam Adams. He can bring the beverages.  Let Ben Franklin in, but watch out for him, ladies. Tecumseh, Black Elk, Chief Cornstalk, Chief Joseph, Welcome!  Cesar Chavez—let’s  invite them all back, and let Fighting Bob LaFolette lead them in. We can bring these great souls among us whenever we need them. If they were here in body, and if they asked us to update them on our political situation, what a meeting we would have!  Would they be angry with us for letting things go so far? So far that we now have elections as crooked as any back-country dictatorship? So far that our Congress no longer represents the people, but instead represents the corporations and the wealthy elite who fund their reelection campaigns and hire their spouses and friends? So far that the great middle class is dissolving, and the great divide between rich and poor once again grows and undermines all our progress and erodes the only firm soil democracy can ever stand upon? So far that the very natural order of the planet is damaged, and our coasts, our cities, our crops, our water and the living systems that we rely upon are at grave risk? So far that the scramble by corporations for resources, and the failure to develop sustainable systems, have set the people of the earth against each other in warfare in a time when weapons of mass killing may be obtained by nearly anyone? So far that our leaders have removed our very jobs and our livelihoods from our land, so that the wealthy may prosper further? So far that our newspapers are now owned by a few corporations, and so far that only millionaires have the ability to run for office--and, even then, the votes of the people are not fairly counted? So far that our culture has embraced cruelty as entertainment in countless television shows where real people are humiliated, and so far that our country now tortures people, and that this torture is orchestrated from the highest office in the land? Would the esteemed heroes of our past not be a little surprised that we have let things go so far?  That we have not called upon them sooner, before things got so out of hand? “You should have called,” Tom Paine might grouse. I can see Sam Adams squirming back there as we make our report. He  really was the guiding spirit of the American Revolution, you know, and I think he would wonder what kind of cowards we must be. He might offer to send us a copy of a document he thinks might be of interest to us. It was a declaration they drafted back in their day. Yes, we say, we have it in a safe room in Washington. We know it well.  “Really?” he might reply. “Have you read it lately? –particularly the second paragraph, that claims the right of the people to change governments when the old governments no longer represent them and protect their interests?” Yes, Sam, we have read it. It goes on to say that such changes should not be made lightly, that there is much to say for maintaining a settled order and its peace. It says that changes should only be made in extreme  instances, as when a long string of abuses makes clear that a change is unavoidable. But then, perhaps we have arrived at that point. My friends, look around. Think ahead. What are we leaving to our children and grandchildren?  A healthy democracy?  A strong and growing middle class?  Peace and justice in the world that make us safer every day?  A sustainable way of living that  protects the earth upon which our grandchildren must depend for every breath, every drink of water, every bit of food?  Can we rest comfortably that things are in order, we have done our jobs, we have engaged our courage and our intelligence to move America and the world in good directions? Or has our comfortable cowardice doomed our grandchildren to a world where they will suffer great catastrophes, and where the growing hunt for scapegoats launches endless witch hunts that torture the poor, those of certain religions, certain genders, certain sexual orientations?  Will they curse us as their great cities, their Venice, their Amsterdam, their Manhattan, are taken by the deluge we allowed? I have worked hard on some issues, most especially election reform—the removal of big money from campaigns. We have made some progress in a few states, and I will keep at it. But sometimes I see myself carving a useless canoe against the deluge. The forces rise up great against us now. So what will we do? There seems no time remaining for modest action. I can see Sam Adams get up and tell us that it is simple enough to set things straight. Organize, educate, prepare to create a new order based upon our higher principles. Someone among us informs him, however, that there may not be enough of us to do much; so many of the people are asleep, or caught up in angry lies sold to them, or too worried about surviving the month to think of the long future. We may not be many enough, we explain. There is an illness in the people, someone might add. Even if that were not so, how hard it would be for us to admit to ourselves that this great nation, this long experiment in human fairness and equality, had run its course, had come to its conclusion? Are we even capable of that hard thought? I can see the heroes of our history standing to inquire: “Is there not something you can do to preserve the nation we worked to hard to improve? Can it not be changed in ways, here and there, that will change its course back to a government of its people?” Can we see Mr. Lincoln, sad, but thinking hard for us?  His Civil War, if it was a struggle between those who would be free to exploit and those who would be free of exploitation, never quite ended, and he sees that now.  He sees that the rise of the corporations, which grew as his war organized the industrial muscle of the nation, became the monsters he worried they might. Restore the Republic; is it possible? Restore it not as it ever was, for it has always been motion itself, improvement itself, and imperfection itself. But restore the vision, the dream of the Republic--of how people might wisely govern themselves and provide for future generations. How might we do that? How might we buy time for the awakened generation now rising in this nation and the world? How might we avoid wrong steps that would only make things worse--or example, by moving with violence and anger instead of intelligence and love? I am happy to see that Martin Luther King, Jr. has brought his good friend with him to this room: Mr. Gandhi. They seem quite serene, compared to others who are understandably upset. I dare not put words in their mouths, but, just seeing them here reminds us of what they did and how they did it. Mr. Gandhi taught Reverend King that there are five steps to follow if we would change the order of things for the better. First, he said we must know the truth of a situation. Study it. Bring in the experts. Understand the problem. Well, we have done that. We know how Congress has turned against the people. We know what is being done to the planet. We know what is happening with our elections and our once-vigilant press. We have the facts. Second, he said we must make our reasonable demands to those who have the power to correct the problems.  We have done that. I have walked many miles myself in that work. We have all done much. Third, we must engage the consciousness and the conscience of the entire community, so that the struggle becomes a wide social discussion and concern, touching upon the higher values of civilization.  Have we done that? We are trying. God knows we send out enough e-mail—though most of it is to each othe. We have much to do to continue the awakening of the people. Fourth, we must demonstrate the moral importance of the issue by sacrificing our own comfort, safety and reputations. Gandhi suffered baton blows. King did, as well. They put themselves physically in the way of injustice, so that the moral bankruptcy of the old order would be plain for all to see.  King and Gandhi understood the fact that, if sufficient sacrifice is applied, defeat is impossible. That is why the fifth step is to accept victory graciously, allowing everyone to save face and continue as brothers and sisters. We are in the time of the fourth step. We are in a time when the Republic must be restored—not the past condition of the Republic, as I have said, but the path of the Republic, the common dream of the Republic that is the essence of America. We must restore honestly-counted elections, and do whatever in love and peace and sacrifice we must do for that. We must drag the moneychangers out of our election campaigns by instituting free advertising and public funding of our elections in every state and at the federal level. We must morally indict, quite publicly, all public officials who represent not those who elect them, but those who pay for their votes. This massive conflict of interest must cause us now to interrupt their slick speeches and slimy hearings with the dollar and cents facts of their conflicts. Call them out and be prepared to take the consequences. We must, with love, with non-violence and courage, stop the great polluters of our air and water so that solar and other sustainable sources of energy can become the least painful option for those who would operate and invest in power facilities. We must stand in the way of this abuse of our children’s future with our bodies. We must look at our own ways of living and understand that the larger problems of our age are but the concentrated effects of what we do individually. We must change. We must change. We need not move into a life of harsh simplicity, for the natural world and the local community and its economy can be a grander banquet than any provided ready-made by the corporations that now sell our lives to us ready-made, at a cost to the future we must no longer pay. Finally, we will need leadership. The heroes of our past we thank. They fade now from this place, and here we are, you and I. And among us we must find leaders, make leaders, follow leaders into this new and beautiful time. Don’t look to the e-mail generals and bloggers. Don’t look to the ego-driven political candidates; look to the real leaders: labor leaders, organizers of the poor, student movement leaders. In your work, in your organizing, help them help the poor to survive, to be respected, and they will help you to move the nation. What is our alternative? Are we fruit flies on the Titanic, powerless and doomed, but happy in the ship’s  table scraps? Or are we Americans?  Is Mr. Lincoln yet standing outside, not quite willing to go until he knows his Union is back on track, that it has found people of courage? It is time to restore the Republic--the dream--the future we must set back in motion for our children’s children, as our legacy to them. Are you brave enough for it?  Are your ready to make your meaningful contribution, your sacrifice? Are you thrilled to think that we are no less than the heroes whom we have summoned here for advice and courage, and that our adventure will require as much from us as theirs did of them? Move your concerns into action now. The time has come. Do it with love, with intelligence, with careful and, above all, wise leadership. But do not delay. Thank you.   Please see:  http://DirtyKilowatts.org