Earth in the Balance: Elizabeth Warren 2020

Talk presented at the September 9, 2019,“Students for Elizabeth Warren Back to School Bash” rally in Columbia, South Carolina.

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A few weeks ago, on a blazing hot August morning, I found myself chauffeuring and chaperoning a tween and two teenage girls to an amusement park.

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“Amusement.” Consider the word—so carefree. So cheery.

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It was my birthday, and I was happy. My idea of the perfect birthday present for myself is taking my daughter and some of her friends somewhere where smiles and joy abound. Roller coasters and water slides, cotton candy and limitless pink lemonades, totally fits the bill.

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Best of all, I was prepared to enjoy a day completely devoid of politics. Not even Donald Trump and all his vicious narcissism could pop the bubble of tilt-a-whirls and wave pools.

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Which, of course, is a perfect setup for a superlative political enlightenment—even if entirely against my will.

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As we drove to Carowinds, my daughter and her two friends were flipping through a book of questions—a sort of conversation-starter book. Here was the question that ended up turning my world upside-down the past two months:

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“If you had the freedom to time travel, where would you go, and why?”

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What a question! Ancient history buff that I am, I started mulling the possibilities: O, to cross the Rubicon with Caesar; O, to behold Socrates’ apology; O, to be there upon the placement of the Great Pyramid of Egypt capstone.

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Leave it to the up-and-coming generation to screw my head on right.

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Here is the answer of my daughter’s friend:

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“I would travel 20 years into the future to see if there is anything left of our world.”

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Full. Stop.

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That should be it. That should be the RED ALERT environmental wakeup call that prompts every Voter, every global citizen, to all-out #Resistance activism.

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But then came my daughter’s answer.

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“Actually, I would travel just 10 years into the future to see if there is anything left of our world.”

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That answer hit me harder than Washington State Governor Jay Inslee’s podium waylay of Joe Biden during the July 31 Democratic Party presidential debate, just several days prior:

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“We cannot work this out! The time is up. The house is on fire!”

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Folks: Teenagers and Tweens GET IT. We don’t have 20 years. We don’t even have 10 years. Climate change IS. HERE. NOW.

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Don’t believe me?

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Then I invite you to move to the small island nation of Kiribati, or perhaps the former Fijian village of Vunidogoloa (VOON-DI-WA-LA), which now find themselves gradually underwater due to rising sea levels.

By the way, Pacific island nations now must spend countless tens of millions of dollars figuring out ways to move their drowning municipalities to higher land. As such, what do you think it’s going to cost New York City, Charleston and Houston in the near-future?

So, let’s be clear: 11 year olds and Pacific island nations equally know that the world is facing apocalyptic environmental catastrophe.

And, frankly, so do you. So do I.

The question is: what are you—what am I—going to do about it?

Thankfully, Elizabeth Warren has decided to go all-out and broaden her environmental policies to include the whole kit-and-kaboodle, Save-the-Planet plan of former presidential candidate Jay Inslee.

By the way, Mr. Inslee’s once-and-former campaign is precisely why sometimes you run for office even if you face imminent failure: you run to raise issues maximally. Back to that in a few.

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Everyone, take a big breath. This has been a lot of information to take in.

{pause}

I am 46 years old. My childhood was perhaps the last to experience nuclear warfare schoolroom drills that, for whatever absurd reason, forced children to hide underneath desks meaninglessly to stave off prospective atomic flames.

That fear-riddled era was based on the possibility that madmen might choose to push buttons to unleash hoary hell upon the world. It was a legitimate fear that was somewhat buffered by the reassurance—the hope—that The Kremlin and The White House would somehow talk warmongers down off the cliff in a worst-case scenario.

But here’s the reality: our current fears of a world being flushed down the toilet are based on hundreds of millions of people not paying the least bit of attention to how their actions are turning Planet Earth into a future planet incapable of sustaining humanity.

If you don’t believe me, let me direct you to the nearest Texas-sized Pacific Garbage Patch.

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Holy cow. We probably need to take another breather. The news isn’t good.

Everyone, take a deep breath.

{pause}

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Here’s the good news. It’s the bottom of the ninth. There are two outs. We’re down by a few runs. But we have runners on base and one at-bat left.

That bat is in your hands. It’s in your hands. And your hands. And your hands. And your hands.

It’s in my hands. My daughter’s hands. The hands of anyone willing to listen.

We still have a chance.

Back in 2016, I stood up to run for U.S. Congress against the most vile of U.S. Representatives, Joe “You Lie!” Wilson.

Joe Wilson is truly diabolical. He voted AGAINST the Violence Against Women Act, then had the immeasurable gall to lie about his vote during our SCETV public television debate.

I signed up to run for Congress the day before the filing deadline simply because … in a District of 700,000 individuals, no one else would—in the year that Donald Trump was on the ballot.

I took a David-versus-Goliath stance, simply because not one Democratic Party leader in my District would. Against immeasurable odds, I, a nobody public librarian, a single parent, a caretaker-of-a-chronically-ill mother said, “Yes, I’ll take a stand.”

Members of the DNC—one former head of the DNC—ultimately said they would rather the ballot be blank than I run.

I ran anyway.

I ran on a full-blown progressive agenda—despite being wholly ignored by the Bernie Sanders campaign. Even after I had coordinated the single largest event for Senator Sanders in South Carolina during the 2016 presidential primary. He 100% snubbed us. Epic fail, Bernie. Enough said.

Still, our campaign persisted.

As so did our activism in the months proceeding the 2016 campaign.

Many thousands showed up at South Carolina State House rallies which I co-organized, including the March for Science.

And so, here we find ourselves. Today. This day.

If this simple public librarian can manage to get more than 100,000 people to vote for him, and many thousands to show up for major protest events, then rest assured that you—yes, you—have the power to change the world.

Trust me, ELIZABETH WARREN is THE key to changing the world in 2020.

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I’ve spent many months considering my endorsement for President—considering where I’ll apply my energies for 2020—which, as we’ve noted, is the bottom of the ninth. With two outs.

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It’s our last at-bat to save humanity.

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Every single effort you contribute to Senator Warren’s campaign, every breath you take, matters in the coming months.

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Trust me. If you were to travel 20, even 10 years, into the future, you would realize that your every effort matters to this end.

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Future President Elizabeth Warren, and her amazing, positive agenda to solve environmental disaster and propel society forward, is the one, out-of-the-ballpark swing-for-the-bleachers last chance we have.

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SHE. HAS. A. PLAN. FOR. EARTH.

And I’m with her.

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Oh, and by the way, there was a third young woman in the car that day. She said that she’d like to travel back in time to view her own childhood.

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How innocent. A child. So fresh and open to being formed.

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Now ask yourself: Should this child be shaped by Deplorable Hatred, or by Openness, by Tolerance, by Understanding?

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The answer is obvious.

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Let us move forward in love. And Civilization.

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ELIZABETH WARREN. HAS. MY. VOTE. Let’s make sure she has the vote of everyone else.

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Here are ways you can support the Elizabeth Warren Campaign:

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Text “SC” to 24-477.

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Go to www.elizabethwarren.com and provide your name, number, and email to sign up generally.

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Go to www.elizabethwarren.com/events and select “SC” as the location to sign up for specific opportunities.

Follow the Warren Campaign on Twitter and Instagram ( @SCforWarren ) and Facebook to get updates on events and volunteer opportunities.

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