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Youth Environmental Movement Frustrated With Obama: 'I Want The President I Campaigned For To Show Up'
WASHINGTON -- Ten thousand former Obama voters -- many of whom worked on his 2008 campaign -- will descend on Washington on Friday for a three-day climate summit. Events will culminate in a rally outside the White House, where thousands of young activists will gather on Monday, calling on the administration to think bigger on clean energy solutions.
Event organizers say that while they supported Obama during the 2008 presidential elections, they are still waiting for him to live up to promises he made on the campaign trail.
“I traveled to over six states for President Obama during the 2008 election," said Courtney Hight, former Obama campaign staffer and co-director of the Energy Action Coalition, the organization that is mobilizing this year's Power Shift conference. "I want the president that I campaigned for to show up. It’s time for the leader of the free world to stand up to big polluters and protect the public health of the American people."
The Power Shift conference, which takes place every other year, will open at the Washington Convention Center in the District on Friday, but this time, instead of supporting the president's energy policies, green advocates are striking a more ambivalent tone.
"We’re really glad we have Obama in office, but he’s not going to do what we want him to do unless we push him," said Maura Cowley, co-director of the EAC and a former Obama 2008 campaign staffer.
Organizers took issue with Obama's recent speech on energy security at Georgetown University, where he told his audience that oil drilling and clean coal are integral parts of America’s energy future.
Hight said that's not what she was lobbying for when she campaigned for Obama’s message of hope and change in 2008. Still, she hasn't given up on him.
"We like Barack Obama; we like that guy," said Hight. "It’s just more frustrating than anything ... We also know that it can’t just be him," she added, "which is why we’re so focused on movement building."
The biennial conference has a history of pushing Democratic leadership to embrace bolder environmental policies. Speaking at Power Shift in 2007, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) was shouted down before 6,000 fervent climate activists. “We want more! We want more!" they shouted. The young conference-goers demanded more drastic carbon-dioxide-emissions reductions. "80 by 2050! 80 by 2050!”
A weekend of canvassing, organizing, and speeches from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, will culminate in Monday's rally, after which, organizers have planned at least 200 visits to Congressional offices. The message for lawmakers, Hight says, will be to protect the Clean Air Act and stop taking money from corporate polluters.
Find out more about the event here and below:
20 Comments so far
Show AllThese people must be CLUELESS.
Unfortunately, sLiMsHaDy, that's how they appear to be, at least judging by this article. I hate to say that when people are motivated enough to take some action. Any action, really. But this lingering hope on what Obama can or would do is troubling. Anger and determination to demand action are the proper emotions here, not hope or wishful thinking.
Re-posting part of my comment on the Bill McKibben article today:
(For these people) it should have been clear ages ago that Obama didn't give much of a damn about climate change:
The COP15 meeting at Copenhagen in December 2009 was planned years before, where a more ambitious and comprehensive successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol was to be adopted. Obama had ***years*** to think and come up with an action plan to get the USA engaged in a meaningful manner. He still had a full year after having been elected president. What did he do? He sat back and watched the denial industry sabotage the outcome at Copenhagen, sat back and watched more people being misled and confused by the lies spread by the denial industry and said nothing. Just like Al Gore before him, he too never made an honest attempt to get a meaningful legislation passed. "Meaningful" is the key word here.
It's true that he is presiding over a corrupt and criminal system that doesn't give a damn about climate change, and therefore the blame should be shared by more people than just Obama. However, where was his fight? Has there been **one** speech by this master orator to indicate that he truly grasps the enormity of the situation? The US military is the biggest consumer of fossil fuel. Has there been even any talk of rolling back the empire, with all its military bases, something that will be required as part of any meaningful attempt to tackle climate change?
I'm reposting my comment on the war protest article. You are Right On, Alcyon
I think ending the war is the most important action anyone serious about fighting climate change could accomplish.
The US war industry is responsible for spewing the most greenhouse gases of any entity on earth --
Climate change will create such civil unrest as to keep the US war industry in business forever.
This, along with heinous contaminants that destroy the biota and gunning down innocents.
The war makes US "interests" subservient to those of the Oil industry -- making the US government's prime objective maintaining the polluting economy. If we count our military in with other give-aways BP gets from the government, ouch.
If anyone can tell me who is politically capable of ending these wars in the next term, I will devote my life to campaigning for (probably) him.
When Obama wasn't campaigning about the good war in Afghanistan, he was advocating clean coal, offshore drilling, and more nucleur generators. And of course his love of the "free market" , a romance which included all of the above.
Once in office he surrounded himself with the poisonous spiders of industry whos web threatens to snare the entire planet.
These are the people who not only voted for Obama, but they haven't even had the decency to scrape the bumper sticker off the car...
"'I Want The President I Campaigned For To Show Up' "
Ai-yi-yi!
Poor dears. Let me say this slowly and calmly; watch my lips.
The president you campaigned for was a mirage, an illusion, a chimera, a projection, a hypostasis, an artificial construct, a scam, a fake, a fraud, an ephemeron.
The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are more likely to show up singing in three-part harmony than "the president you campaigned for".
You can scream, holler, moan, whimper, and bleat all you like-- but what you think you campaigned for wasn't real and alive, and he's not going to become real and alive no matter how hard you clap.
This "Maura Cowley" person ought to be arrested and locked up for corrupting the morals of a minor if she's actually telling innocent Youth things like, "We’re really glad we have Obama in office, but he’s not going to do what we want him to do unless we push him."
Somebody needs to be pushed, all right-- pushed offstage, to offer one of the milder possibilities.
HaHaHa! Thanks for the laughs! These are dark times and we have to take our humor dark and strong. I nominate you to be the "Simon Cowell" of Common Dreams, telling young talent the hard truths!
You beat me to it, OS ... and with more colourful vocabulary. Nicely done.
Thanks, folks. I'm annoyed with myself for leaving out "hallucination", though.
Godsakes. Can someone please shake some sense into these people?
Are they aware Obama and the Dems just sold off his Wilderness Protection legislation to get the recent budget done? I wonder how much money that shaves off the phoney budget crisis? Not much I'm sure, but Wall St can't wait to get their greasy hands on every damn bit. They keep cutting everything that's good for the nation, yet now they gotta raise the debt ceiling so they can fork over more money to the banks. Now any multi national can drill for gas and oil, and blast for minerals in some of our most pristine spots like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the red rock areas of southern Utah.
Jeez, I hope their not holding the breath.
I'm so furious about the collapse of stalwart wilderness protection laws, the endangered species act, the BLM land give aways, Vilsack and Salazar greenlighting the end of wildlife in the United States and trying to impose it on other nations.
Get these merchants of death out.
And how many of them will "forget" and slip back into campaigning for his reelection next year? Between him and whoever the lame brain GOP nominee is next year, I will most certainly not bother picking between them. It is time for people of all ages to prepare to vote just like the Europeans, strong minds and powerful hearts. Please stop begging Obama to be "progressive" !
"I want the president i campaigned for to show up". Guess what kids. He did.
A "Power Shift" Convention seems to want to enable the Power Shaft.
Here is an impromptu whatever.
Power Shift, Power Shaft
I'm so, so serious
I'm so, so daft
If I go to the castle
if I speechify and moan
perhaps by will will and wheedle
we will reconfigure Rome.
Get a grip kids, make yourselves a far cheaper conference by coming to Wisconsin or Michigan...if you think you are going to get that sob to listen to you...he won't even talk to big shots who have something to say...why you?
Stop the idealism and become a walking time bomb for Obummer's reign. He's done, he needs to go back to the wood pile.
Fourteen comments is about right for this article. The president you voted for is the one you got. Before it was too late you should have looked into his background (or lack thereof) as well as who/what backed him; after it was too late, you should have looked at the cabinet he appointed.
He whining about the previous administration's decisions don't count anymore as he hasn't changed anything.
Look carefully next time you jump on any passing bandwagon that PROMISES
change.
I voted for Ralph Nader and I believe that most of us here also voted for Nader or Mckinney.
My partner and I voted for Nader, too...
Gosh, I want the nature kids to take action, but couldn't they learn some lessons from the Tim deChristopher morality tale?
The Obama justice system is hostilely persecuting effective environmental activists.
If Obama senses the hint of a push, his justice system will push back in ways hitherto unimaginable, thanks to the Patriot Act and his getting away with Bradley Manning's torture.