My Future, My Voice

Written by Sam Rubin

This Friday, April 15, I went to Congress to be heard. I went to Congress to sing. I went to Congress to speak truth to power. I entered the visitor’s gallery of the House of Representatives with eight others, and one after another, we rose in song.

We sang a modified version of the Star Spangled Banner:

Oh Why can’t you see It’s my life that’s at stake
When you sell out our earth
You are stealing my future
Can you look in my eyes
As you Gamble our lives
When will you stop the lies
So that we can survive?
If you represent me
Not the fossil fuel industry
You must stop wasting time
Chasing your dollar signs
Oh, say will you listen to Our Generation
If you refuse to hear us now
Then we have to shut you down

For the entire half hour it took us to file into the gallery and the five long minutes that I waited in my seat, my stomach was hollow and I was more nervous than I had ever been. But once we were all in the gallery, I did rise and speak my truth.

In many ways, my political awakening came with the election Barack Obama in 2008. In Obama I did see a hope for the future. I saw the possibility that, with him, we could change the way that our government worked. We could start to change the ways of corporate influence over our democracy and, in that, begin to address climate change. This was, needless to say, a faith that was highly misplaced.

My roll, as nothing more than a canvasser a few times, had caused a need for action, and for change in the world to bloom. In the Fall of 2009, this manifested in my working on a campaign that sought for 100% clean electricity by 2020, in Massachusetts – a goal that was realistic and within the requirements of scientific research. I dedicated myself whole-heartedly to this campaign, and between myself and all the others working toward this goal, we spent thousands of long hours calling, writing letters, and visiting our Representatives. But it didn’t work. After all our work lobbing for a necessary and scientifically grounded bill, it languished in committee.

They don’t listen to our pleas as their constituents or as the children. They don’t listen to our scientists or our doctors. They don’t listen to our priests or our parents. We lost.

In the wake of that loss, I was forced to reevaluate the political system in America, and how that effects the climate movement. It was then that I realized that something more is demanded of us. If we actually believe in what we are fighting for- justice, the planet, and perhaps most importantly, each other- then we must hold ourselves accountable to do what is necessary.

So, what does that mean? What’s actually necessary? To be honest, I don’t know. It was in this state that I sat paralyzed. The more I understood how convoluted our current system is with climate change (simply writing this blog post is putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) the less sure I was what to do and the less certain I was what is right. But at some point, I realized, you just have to do something. You don’t have to know what is the perfect thing to do, because there is no silver bullet. You just have to step up and do something.

I have been contemplating this as Power Shift has drawn closer. This weekend, 10,000
youth have gathered in Washington D.C. for a climate conference. We’ve gathered together before, but now the movement has become even more urgent. The US government has expressed over and over that it will not do anything about climate change – from the failure of Waxman-Markey to continuation of fossil fuel subsidies and the gross subservience to corporations. Right now our elected officials are acting in a gross dereliction of their sacred duty. I firmly believe that our government is not simply just not acting, they are part of the problem – they are the not the leaders that they have promised. We must become those. And to do that, I had to begin to find my voice. The voice that is inside me that refuses to stay silent. The voice that demands that I speak, and that I act.

Despite my nervousness, and the uncertainty of organizing something that I had no idea how it would turn out, and moments when I was certain that it was all going to fall apart, I somehow managed to act. I somehow managed to step up and do what I thought needed to be done. And that experience has been incredible: the realization that there is nothing holding me back except myself has been astounding, and support I’ve found from the community has been amazing.

Perhaps the most inspiring thing that drove me to this action was a question that my friend asked me. She said, “If not now, when?” And that truly is something that I had no answer for, when? Now is the only answer I could formulate.

And right now I am not free. I stood up and disrupted Congress because I do not have a voice in my own future. My future which if I were to remain on the sidelines would not exist. I stood up to sing because I will be silent no more forever.

Filed under: global warming It’s Getting Hot in Here is the voice of a growing movement. A community media project, it features the student and youth leaders from the movement to stop global warming and to build a more just and sustainable future.

Read more at ItsGettingHotInHere.org