Following on Zohran Mamdani, we are thrilled at the wave of progressive grass roots wins in the current election. Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez and Brad Lander won congressional primaries in the face of vigorous opposition from establishment Democrats.
The Mamdani revolution is about affordability for people outside of the corporate system, which increasingly is not a good job economy. The obvious racial diversity of the Democratic Socailist candidates also stares down the conservative entrance ritual of old politics. I wake up this morning in Brooklyn with the prospect of a new congressperson, Brad Lander, who is both compassionate toward the Gazans and personally beaten up by ICE at the doorway to an immigration court room.
I am visiting “Delany Hall” today, the local ICE concentration camp in Newark, New Jersey. It is a 45 minute train and bus trip from Penn Station. This prison is full of people torn from their families, often by invaders of their homes, and many of these people have current documentation and no criminal record. This simply hate, hate writ large, hate as a kind of performance by and for haters.
I wouldn’t want to believe that it took the slaughter in Gaza and the fascism of ICE to persuade my local Brooklynites to vote for these progressive candidates. May this be the beginning of a great change for all politics. But the issue-by-issue, demographic by demographic approach to elections won’t change congress fast enough to stop a thousand data centers from being built. Even if the door to door people-powered revolution continues to pick up steam, and I hope it does, its time we talked about Earth Power.
The investor class is an unchecked wildfire right now. Certainly AI, the arrival of instantaneous information everywhere for a price… has not been voted on or even understood by enough of us. Nor has the destruction of neighborhoods by the property gobbling private equity firms. Nor has the go-ahead the wimpy government has given to serial poisoners like Bayer/Monsanto and 3M Company. The cancer epidemic rages and the corporate toxics are never under control.
Earth Power is a phrase that demands spirituality of the indigenous kind. Evidence suggests that our culture must undergo a transformative democracy, a radical change on the level of 250 years ago, or the abolition of slavery, or the rise of women. Earth Power means that the democracy includes all of life. The passionate opposition in some towns to the arrival of A1 is important. Siding with the Earth comes from members of no party and from both parties. Earth Power! Earthalujah!
The progressive people in this city where I’m writing, will be encouraged to let the Earth be our leader. But life is watching us. The Earth is here. Economic fairness and justice can come into our lives from the Earth. In 2026, the Earth is the best, clearest starting point for all campaigns for justice. What we have seen is that if you don’t take the Earth first, it goes to last. The Earth knows what we must do and we need to listen. The Earth is alive with languages and songs. Earth shares life with us and the Earth shows the way.
Rev. Billy