“We were literally fouling our nest. It was obvious to everyone—everyone except the elected members of our government. What could we do—we had to do something! We could have marched on the capitol, protested, held the Congress hostage, take up arms and . . . but that’s not who we were, the peaceful silent majority. So we quietly walked away, stepped out of our designer jeans and into overalls. We gardened organically, ate healthily and grew fit. We danced and sang and laughed. Happy? That doesn’t half describe it. What we felt was something strange and delicious. Gone were the stresses, the anxieties and fears that seemed to underpin our lives; that we weren’t acquiring enough, earning enough, being successful enough Our kids were not learning enough, our team wasn’t winning, our party wasn’t listening, the fruit and vegetables were shiny but tasteless, the meat needed lots of salt. We were free of all of it.” She smiled at the stands. “Free—are we not?”
Anne waited out the long tumult of applause.
“And in our place came another crowd, equally frustrated and angry. Different from us, they were armed. They demanded action,” and she looked down. “Threatened you and your colleagues with guns, guns you let them have. They threatened armed rebellion against a government that wouldn’t or couldn’t act.” Now in her old interrogation mode she set her gaze above them. “So, what did our long-serving politicians do in the face of rebellion? They called a recess, shut down and went home. The armed and angry folks, with no one to take to account, occupied the nearly-deserted cities, and there they remain.”
“Having abandoned those cities, we formed into tribes and elected councils which elected a chief councilor, and those chief councilors came together and elected a chairman of the First Country Congress. That man is Richard of Amwell.”
Sustained applause and stomping rose from the stands behind the delegates, most of whom turned around blankly. Anne smiled at the soldiers applauding. In their midst were Richard’s sons, bronzed and muscled. She caught their eyes, tears in them as they grinned and clapped, proud to be a part of their father’s vision.
The delegates were clearly befuddled. Who was this Richard of—what? Or where? Oh, it’s here, this is Amwell. Word was passed along, the delegates uncomfortable with this celebrity whom they were not aware existed. And they had quietly bristled under Anne’s scolding. The invitations had no mention of what the business was about, only that delegates were to be chosen, meaning government of some sort; in effect, power, to which they had gladly responded.
Replacing Anne, Richard said, “I won’t bore you with the details of our years of freedom and our march to Chicago, it was well-documented in the press and on television. As for Anne and I, we spent the days meeting with people, listening to stories, asking how they were managing. In turn, they wanted to know what would happen when we came up against a mighty army—our very own? And if we survived, what would happen then, and how would the things they fled from change for the better?
“I was expected to have answers. I spent sleepless nights searching for them, anything to give them a reason to go on. I had none. I was just one of the marchers, encouraging and, well, because there seemed to be nobody else, leading. What will we do? I asked Anne. Being a woman who knows so much more than a man, she told me.”
Anne was beside him now. “In the evenings, while we rested from the day’s progress, I told Richard to roam the city of tents and seek out those with special knowledge of the problems the planet faced and who might have solutions or at least ideas: scientists, engineers, psychologists, educators, native Americans, a former astronaut—they were all there with us, you see.”
Richard. “I did seek them out and they were only too eager to join me around a nightly campfire well distant from the tents. They, too, had sought to compel our government to act to save Planet Earth. Retired people from academia, business, politics, the services, and a lot of young, environmental scientists who’d collected degrees and found jobs in industry, hoping to make the world a healthier, safer place. Corporate industry, as we know, is interested in fresh ideas but only if they lead to profit. So they went back to teaching people who would go out and work for companies that cared only about profit. What did they do, finally? They abandoned their financially secure but otherwise insecure lives and joined us.
“I tickled their fertile minds to come up with anything that might heal the ailing planet and save its fragile atmosphere and its vast and varied species. For many weeks I listened. People had solutions for saving endangered species, of new ways of farming, producing natural goods, solar energy replacing coal, oil and nuclear fuel for our homes and cars, natural herbs instead of drugs, pesticides and so on.
At one point a man stood up and quietly castigated us. “We are all talking about saving ourselves and other species living on the planet but not a word about the planet itself.” I recognized him, a chief of the Ogunquit Tribe. He is here with us. And after he spoke, I ended the discussion. I told everyone to go home and to think of ways to save the planet, save the planet from ourselves. And when they returned, I said two words that would keep the discussion on point, for some of their ideas you wouldn’t believe, wonderful things like—sorry! Well, here’s what I said; two words. But before that I told them that each living thing, be it the tree, the blue whale, the insect, even the microbial organism, and of course each of us outsiders—we all existed under a single command: me first. Preservation of the self. I looked at each of the tired faces around the fire for their response to my wisdom. It was a rousing new word: duuhh!”
The laughter broke the tension. “For millions and millions of years, me first had little effect on the planet. The oceans were plentiful and cleansed themselves. The forests that covered much of the surface absorbed the toxic carbon dioxide. Even the far-flung indigenous species we call Earthen respected their environment, taking just what they needed to survive.
“Not us. From the moment we arrived we set about dominating whatever space we happened to occupy or decide to invade. Where was I? Oh, the two words. Amazingly, I’ve found, like most men, I most enjoy the sound of my own voice.”
Laughter again.
“Okay, here are my two words: earth. first. Immediately, I saw in my mixture of young science and mature experience frowns at its simplicity, and searching for larger, hidden meanings. I said it more loudly, ‘No more me first; earth first. Earth first.
“What did I get? Silence, except for the shuffling of feet to give these old and young gurus time to ponder the import and impact that would result from altering the time-honored, God given right, to rule over the planet. One by one they left the fire to wander away into the darkness. A few remained—the older fellows—and we talked about other things; sore feet, too much food, offered by farmers nearby. When I realized the rest had gone back to their tents, we oldsters followed suit.
Next evening they returned, yawning from lack of sleep, myself included. All night I worried that my simple but startling concept might be rejected, or worse, laughed away. A few of them, former military, business and politically conservative people, in fact did not return. The rest nodded and smiled. Earth first—yes. Oh my, I was so—I wept with relief and they did laugh at me.
“And every night, before the session began, they said—no, they shouted: ‘Earth first!’ It was our mantra. After more weeks of tossing out wild and wilder ideas, with me listening and an English lady recording, we - they mostly – arrived at solutions. Bold changes from our me-first way of thinking, living, to earth first. I thanked them, we celebrated, during which I am told I admitted drunkenly that if I thought in my wildest dreams these solutions were not only possible but necessary, I might never have started the whole business, turned the march around and gone home!
“Difficult, harsh, extreme, unfair, each of us was soberly aware. But if the earth was to heal itself and to thrive . . . if our children, their children were all to survive . . .?”
A clearing of throat behind Richard told him it was a good place to stop and he scooted back down. Anne at the podium said, “Now you know how we got here, and why we need you to direct the phasing out of our careless, selfish, destructive ways and begin the planet’s salvation.” Suddenly she found it difficult swallow. With Richard’s threat of closure, Anne had a daunting task: to see the first article, the harshest of all, passed.
“Now we shall deal with the Prime Directive, Earth First, which contains just nine Articles. I will submit them one at a time and we shall not go forward until each is approved unanimously.”
Hovering intensely over each word, Anne did not notice as Richard had, that a number of the delegates; older politicians, wearing sardonic expressions, were nodding to their neighbors. Was it the term ‘unanimously’ they liked? There had been many discussions before Anne had agreed to that. With any dissention whatsoever, competing factions would emerge. I wouldn’t have it.
“Article One: Habitation. Citizens of the American Society will live below ground in small communes or larger communities, protected by Geodesic domes. These will be constructed in areas not subject to extreme weather events.
“Now for your questions. Are we ready?” Soldiers were stationed around with portable mikes. “Yes, we are.”
A man stood up. You say we will all live underground. Well, see, I happen to own a house in Florida where my family winters. There are no basements in Florida ‘cuz the water table is too high. Where are we going to live, then?
Anne smiled to cover the painful alternative: “We will not occupy much of Florida for that very reason, sir, and hurricanes are one of those events.” Stifling her first thought—isn’t one home enough for you?—she went on. “These low-lying areas—the Mississippi delta, the Gulf coastline and much of the eastern seaboard have always presented problems for human habitation. Along the west coast are fault lines that have caused devastating earthquakes. The Earthen—native Americans—wisely stayed clear of them.”