3.0
July 19, 2010

Big Problems that Yoga can’t fix. ~ Remy Chevalier

An Awesome, needed Rant via our friend and troublemaker of the first order, Remy Chevalier. ~ ed.

Everyone’s been talking about the movement.

A few years ago the environmental movement was declared dead, given its eulogy. Now the word movement is a buzz word again, it keeps popping up everywhere.

But it’s used loosely, by everyone…to mean anything and nothing. Nobody knows what it stands for, or who is leading it. Just means whatever you’re into. It’s vague, idealistic, demeaning of other people’s vision or priorities.

There’s a Tea Party movement, which is still nebulous to me. It seems flared up by folks who really don’t seem to have a firm grasp on the inner workings of government or the power structure. It’s just a pretext to go outside, relive the peace protest of the 60’s, for those either too young, or too right wing, not hippy enough to have enjoyed the chaos back then.

There’s a lot of movements. Most of them are bowel movements.

I thought I was leading a movement. I was under the grave delusion that people woke up to the dangers of nuclear power, understood the critical role it plays in the energy monopoly that suppresses alternatives. I spent four years networking every anti-nuclear group in the country, every solar company, LED company, electric vehicle company, green architect, sustainable fashion designer, eco-model and organic makeup artist.

I was encouraged to keep going, to keep working, to stay the course, to fight the good fight. So I invested in a big expensive room in Manhattan, invited as many people as I could, and…guess what, nobody came, making me look like a fool, leaving me flat broke and broken-hearted: the nuclear power plant we’re trying to close, still operating is still leaking, still ignored by New Yorkers.

So what is this movement everybody is talking about, if nobody shows up for events that are designed to integrate what the movement is supposed to represent? Are people so shallow that they’ll only spend their money on bands and bourbon? Quietly waiting for 2012, spending their time lying to themselves about how things are going to get worse before they get better. I’ll tell you, humans, Americans in particular, are cowards. They hide behind killer drones and spy satellites to do their dirty work for them. We are despicable creatures to the rest of the world.

The world outside our own little inner circle of yoga navel contemplation, doesn’t see our efforts to develop a high tech agrarian society, our eagerness to manage our businesses in the greenest way possible. All they see are the gas guzzlers, the jet planes, the billionaire’s yachts and our tabloids kicking one more celebrity when they’re down. We’re the laughing stock of this planet because we are too lazy to create media which will reach out to the billions and isn’t controlled by multinational corporations. We’re bullies, self-righteous, religiously fanatic and cruel.

The movement is a lot of things, but until we make up our minds what our movement is, who is leading it, who gets to be its face, who will stand up to scrutiny, who will be accepted, and I don’t mean loved, I mean respected, well we’re whistling Dixie. We elected a president who over and over has been caught in a lie with such ease, telling us what we want to hear. You want specifics? Ask me. Same is true of just about every government, they’re all bought and paid for by the Federal families, who formed their new world global order long ago, just didn’t bother to let us know.

There’s a passion play happening on the banks of the Hudson river, but reporters and journalists don’t exist anymore. All they do is tweak the press release and move on to the next. They don’t care about The People. They only quote from the official spokespeople, and some random passerby who happened to be there. The press ignores, by default, the leaders of grassroots efforts, God forbid they give them any credence so they might gain some traction. Last thing we want are new Abbie Hoffmans and Jerry Rubins running around loose, creating havoc on our institutions, who both died under mysterious circumstances.

We have some big problems, which can’t and won’t be solved by yoga class, or lounging at the eco spa, but require political intervention, activism, supporting direct action organizations who have the courage to go out there and protest. But bluebloods and socialites are not made of the same stuff as the aristocrats of the 60’s who were ready to ditch everything to join the merry pranksters.

Today, they just blow smoke up your ass because it’s easier than getting their hands dirty. The result is this movement everybody is talking about, it’s in their imagination, it doesn’t exist. This movement is made up of a handful of people, on many fronts, who can’t get their constituency to mix, because they know nothing about each other, even if they’ve been introduced on Facebook.

You see the movement is this: we’re being controlled, by wealthy individuals who think they have the solution to everything, but are simply waiting for humanity to implode before they implement their plan. They built the largest airport in the world in the Rocky Mountains, designed to land hundreds of planes at once, with an underground triage complex to make sure only the elected ones remain. It’s the plot of When World’s Collide, and nobody is playing attention. Not even Jesse Ventura, who counts the governor of California amongst his friends, could make a dent in the complacency of the American public.

We’ve stockpiled so much exotic weaponry on hundreds of secret military bases all over the world, even the founder of Skunkworks spilled the beans to a room full of UCLA students about the real state of our secret aircraft programs, astronauts keep telling us everyday  and nobody is listening, the media still makes fun and bankers don’t care, because they know we’re so dumbed down, we won’t rise up, we’re being amused to death by movies, TV and video games.

We’re zombies.

Heavy Metal and Punk used to be the voice of anger and dissent, but all such bands are doing now is making noise. They forgot what they were singing about. It’s all become pastiche, loud, but devoid of any real angst. It makes me mad, because these were my heroes, and they all let me down. Now I have to sit back and watch monsters destroy what’s left of my Mother Earth, because those I entrusted to be my heroes turned out to be puffs.

I want a revolution, a real revolution. I don’t care what John Lennon said, he was a junkie and a Manchurian candidate gunned him down in the streets. I tried to start one, a revolution. I thought I had people behind me. I was gravely deluded, lied to, made fun of, robbed, tricked, ridiculed and the loss is yours, people, because we had them in the palm of our hands, and you let it all slip away because you were too lazy to do your homework, too lazy to read a book, or ask the right questions of all the people I have spent years networking so the whole picture would come into focus.

So go back to your daily grind, your boring jobs,  you can’t even remember the plot of the Matrix, you can’t even see above the wall of all your contradictions. LA, New York, London, Paris, all these green benefits, billions to charity, Alexander McQueen satirized you, and he killed himself because he couldn’t stand the irony of being loved by the people he hated most. I would have opened the door so he could have walked out of the box of his own making. But he couldn’t see me. He was trapped in his own grandiosity.

Everything keeps getting worse, because you’re not getting at the root of the problem: energy. Where it comes from, how it’s made, by whom and to benefit who! We gave you a magical mystery car for Pete sake, the Tesla, the bastion of revolution, a Trojan horse which penetrates inside the homes of all the Internet billionaires. And yet, you still don’t get it. You don’t bother to find out who Tesla was…what he did, and how his inventions were all stolen and classified, turned into this horrible HAARP super weapon.

You can call yourselves green, and yet you won’t sit down and speak with the hundreds of inventors who have had their work stolen, sabotaged, destroyed, because it challenged the status quo. Look at the Universe around you, it’s alive, it’s teaming with intelligent life, and what does our Air Force do? It shoots missiles at them. When a craft parked itself 15 feet from the reactor 3 dome at Indian Point in 1984, a security guard pulled out his revolver and shot at it. Are we that moronic? No wonder they are just standing idly by watching us self destruct, good riddance I’d say, we’re reverting back to where we came from, monkeys with toys we don’t deserve.

I’m 56, been fighting all my life, I hate the rich because they stop growing. Their bliss becomes their raison d’etre. They make me sick. The only thing they care about is the diesel for their boat and the kerosene for their jets. Their kids want me to be sweetness and light, love everybody, be non-threatening, have fun at their charity balls. Well I can’t. I can’t love my neighbors in Fairfield County who all live in million dollar homes, with a trained police force to make sure the barbarians, that’s me, don’t invade their privacy. It’s changing, sure, victory gardens are back in style, their kids are starting to feel the pangs of guilt and shame that actually shift priorities in society. But they’ll go to their Ivy league schools, graduate after leaning the cutthroat rule: everybody for himself.

CNN reported we’re starting to lose our atmosphere. The last comfortable place left for the have-nots to spend a hot summer afternoon is browsing the aisles at Wal-Mart where it’s nice and cool. They’re even starting to carry green cosmetics. I saw Organic Wear and Eco Tools there, even an eco blow dryer. You see, it’s not too late, the poor will be able to afford LEDs pretty soon, and we might be able to reduce electrical consumption long enough so all the billionaires can move to Boulder, Denver and Aspen to look down on the dying, roasting masses, like the Gods of Olympus.

In the meantime, I’m sitting here, without AC, watching Cocteau’s The Beauty and the Beast, despairing no fairytale princess turned me into a prince.

Remy Chevalier founded Rock The Reactors in 2006 to shut down the Indian Point nuclear power plant with LEDs. He grew up in the editorial offices of ELLE magazine where his father, Jean Chevalier, was the founding photographer. In 1989 he created the Eco-Saloon at Wetlands Preserve, the environmental nightclub in Manhattan. He edits the website for Electrifying Times magazine and writes for many blogs. But he prefers pure investigative research and shares his discoveries with other journalists. He runs a think tank in Norwalk, Connecticut, called The Aquarium named after the book Inside The Aquarium, a classic cold war KGB title.

Read 29 Comments and Reply
X

Read 29 comments and reply

Reply to randolphr cancel

Top Contributors Latest

Elephant Journal  |  Contribution: 1,510,385