INDEPENDENCE NOW! – July 4th, 2010

Our country – and the rest of the World for that matter – is under the thumb of an enemy a thousand times more vicious than the “Red Coats” ever were in 1776.

This enemy systematically destroys our rivers, our forests, our water tables, our oceans… even the sky over our heads and the air we breathe.   This enemy is taking our livelihood away by sending our jobs overseas while plunging every one of us in debts too huge to ever be paid back, hence the steady economic erosion we are now seeing.

We all know by now that  our future and our children’s future are more than compromised.

Who is the culprit ?   This enemy is everywhere; it is a vampire that has infiltrated itself into our very own blood stream and now controls almost all of our actions and decisions.   GREED !

Greed is this infectious disease that kills the goose that lays golden eggs: by wanting more and more and more of any and everything, we are all guilty of blowing up mountain tops, of drying up water tables that were keeping the land alive, of poisoning rivers and water supplies…  It is not BP that is now destroying the Gulf of Mexico, it is our relentless thirst for comfort and convenience much beyond what is needed to live a happy and productive life.   It is us turning on our AC when it is not absolutely necessary who are killing dolphins and sea turtles;  it is us by mindlessly speeding on the road who are destroying the livelihood of all the people who somehow make a living off the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico, and in many other places around the world that have similar problems we simply don’t talk about.

The time of short-sighted delusion is over.   The time of reckoning is now.

If cure starts with proper diagnostic, then it is time that we identify the real problem and the real solutions.   The problem is that we all ask too much of our only planet;  and a cure won’t come from dreaming about “magical alternate technologies” that will somehow be implemented by “someone else” and let us continue reveling in self indulgence.  The cure is a return to the values that had kept society together until the rise of universal greed:  RESPECT – COMMON SENSE – FORTITUDE – HUMILITY – SELF-SACRIFICE – GENEROSITY – RESPONSIBILITY…

These values plaid a critical role in founding this country; they will now have to play a critical role in restoring it, on the condition that we get off our butts and steadfastly declare INDEPENDENCE from this cancerous greed tumor.   The REVOLUTION that has to ensue now is one of true action and true transformed behaviors.

Gerard Ungerman
Documentary Filmmaker
Founder of Green Transition Chico