Wed Jun 19 2013

Local activist Chuck Lynd on techno-fixes, corporate power, and movement building
by Tom Over
September 29, 2011

Those in the peak oil, deep ecology and anarcho-primitivism movements say we can't use technology to solve our environmental crises. Local activist Chuck Lynd disagrees. “I believe in what E.F. Schumacher called ‘appropriate technology' ...That’s true in agriculture, in industry, and in high technology. We’re creative and innovative. We just need to apply it in healthy, sustainable ways.”

But the fossil and fissile fuel industry is getting in the way of that, said Lynd, during a protest against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project during Obama's visit to Columbus on Sept 12.

“We can move now to solar, wind, and geothermal energy. There are technologies that are just in the waiting. We just have policies that support and subsidize what Harvey Wasserman calls King CONG---coal, oil, nuclear, and (natural) gas.”

Lynd said Keystone XL --- like fracking--- is a rear-guard, desperate attempt to cling to an increasingly destructive energy regime based on nonrenewable resources. A plan as bad as Keystone is being put on the table in the first place because oil industry lobbyists pay politicians and “auction them off,” said Lynd.

He said Obama is not different in this respect.

“He gets money from these folks. So, we’re telling him, ‘no, if you want ordinary people to back you, then you got to live up to ordinary people’s needs and wants.’ If the majority of people want something, why don’t we have it ? Well, we got to have politicians that will listen to us.”

Lynd said politicians are not representing the people.

“The people want green energy. Polls show this over and over again. We need to get politicians in there who represent ordinary people, who want to move into the future w/out misinformation and disinformation.”

Lynd said one of the ways to make government more accountable to the will of the people is to do away w/ corporate personhood. Here is how we do that, according to Lynd.

“ We create a movement. We don’t stop. We keep building our numbers, just like any movement. It didn’t happen over night that we got women’s rights and civil rights. Labor unions will tell you the same thing, that people died for that. We have to be out here saying over and over again what the real people’s needs are. We’re fighting an uphill battle because of the mainstream media which are owned by the corporations.”

Lynd likes the work Van Jones is doing with Rebuild the American Dream. There is a conference in D.C. based on that starting this weekend.

“We want that dream to include policies that support a strong middle class through healthcare, Medicare, and Social Security. Let’s strengthen those things and have fairness through a progressive tax code, so that everybody pays their share. This idea of giving tax cuts to the rich obviously hasn’t worked. And as more people recognize this, more people will join this movement.”

In recent years, more people have joined the movement by forming ties such as the Blue-Green Alliance between United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club.

“Labor unions are recognizing they have to get the backs of the environmentalists. We recognize we have these common values, that we’re supporting and defending the middle class. That’s the key thing here. When the unions were attacked in the 80s and 90s, there was not a lot of noise. Now they’re attacking the teachers, firefighters, nurses and police. These are middle class people.”