My competitor cares so much about our urgent need to reduce the deficit he helped create during the Bush era (a direct result of ill-conceived wars, tax cuts, and a prescription drug bill) that he votes against extending unemployment for those affected by this economic crisis.  He also publically opposes and then does not vote for emergency aid to the states to help fund Medicaid and save the jobs of teachers like my campaign manager who lost his job this summer because of state funding cuts.

Peter Roskam is willing to make tough calls to cut the budget deficit, at least when it affects the middle class and the poor.  When it threatens to impact the wealth elite, however, he quickly moves in to protect them.

When the Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of this year, the President wants to renew all the tax cuts except those for the wealthiest 3% of Americans: individuals making more than $200,000 a year or households making more than $250,000 a year.  Peter Roskam states he and his fellow Republicans won’t let Democrats renew any of the tax breaks unless the wealthy 3% also get their tax breaks renewed as well.  And in the meantime, he claims that its the Democrats who are poised to bring us the largest tax hike in history.

This is wrong.  It is wrong to spread misleading and fear-based rhetoric.  Shame on us if we are fooled by it. It is wrong to abandon the poor while protecting the wealthy, especially in tough times like this.  Shame on us if we stay silent.  There is no justice here.  And being a democracy, it falls on us to hold incumbents like Peter Roskam accountable.   We must step up and take responsibility.  This is why I am running, and why I gave up my job to focus full-time on our grassroots campaign to help restore our moral compass to Congress.

[If Peter Roskam honestly cared about the deficit as much as his rhetoric suggests, then he would actually support letting the Bush tax cuts expire for everyone. This would be the consistent position.  According to Farreed Zakaria from the Washington Post:

“The "Bush tax cuts," passed in 2001 and 2003, remain the single largest cause of America's structural deficit -- that is, the deficit not caused by the collapse in tax revenue when the economy goes into recession. The Bush administration inherited budget surpluses from the Clinton administration. What turned these into deficits, even before the recession? There were three fundamental new costs: the tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug bill and post-9/11 security spending (including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Of these the tax cuts were by far the largest, adding up to $2.3 trillion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts.”

The rest of this good article is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/01/AR2010080103287.html ]

August 19, 2010

Dear President Obama,

I have  the highest regard for your legislative and political accomplishments since taking office:
- health care reform to provide affordable health care for more Americans, including those most at risk,
- massive economic stimulus to stave off a second Great Depression,
- financial reform to prevent another economic meltdown due to corporate greed,
- withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq …
This is an astounding record of achievement, one that does me proud to be a Democratic candidate for Congress.

Which is why I am all the more puzzled by your choice of family vacations.

This is no trivial matter.  Even if you pay your own personal expenses, there remains the enormous cost of a large security detail, and assorted other travel expenses, charged to the American taxpayer.  With all those American tax dollars going not to boost desperately needy areas within the U.S. — such as the Gulf resorts — but to a foreign country.

As a our leading public figure, yours is, for better or worse, not a private life, a private family, or a private vacation.  You are our role model.  We look to you to be not only our Commander-in-Chief, but also our Advocate-in-Chief.  So when your family takes a vacation in a 5-star resort overseas, or retreats from the struggling Gulf beach resorts for a vacation at a resort among the moneyed elite on Martha’s Vineyard, your constituents – my constituents – wonder whether you have lost touch with our painful struggles.

In the Chicago suburb where I have my office, roughly 25% of the shop fronts are shuttered.  As I walk the neighborhoods of District 06, I meet the hardworking unemployed.  I walk past empty homes, their owners victims of the foreclosure crisis devastating families across our country.  As I knock on doors, I meet people genuinely worried about the burgeoning federal deficit, and deeply concerned about the costs of the new legislative initiatives.  Given your years as a community organizer, I am sure that you remember the poignant struggles of tough people facing tough times.

Mr. President, we do not expect you to live our struggles.  We ask only that you live modestly out of respect for our struggles.

Sincerely,

Ben Lowe
Democratic Candidate for Congress
IL District 06

For those who were not able to join us, here is the text of the speech that I gave at the event:

A Different Kind of Politics

Welcome to our campaign headquarters and thank you for taking the time to be with us this evening.

We have come so far in the last eight months. As a grassroots campaign, we started with just a passion and a vision: to stand up for working families in our district and restore our moral compass to a corrupt and polarized Congress. That passion and vision remains unchanged today, while our capacity and supporters have grown by leaps and bounds.

This is what has struck me most as this campaign has progressed: the diversity of people who support and are part of us. This is exactly what our nation needs if we are going to surmount the common problems facing us all. And we are a living testimony that not only is it possible, it is good. In the words of another bi-racial community organizer from Chicago: “We cannot solve the challenges of today unless we solve them together.”

The beauty of this nation, is that with all of our diversity, what unites us is still greater than what divides. At least it would be, if political parties did not polarize voters in the effort to win election. And so I seek a new way of doing politics. A way of cooperation, not obstruction. A path of service, not self aggrandizement. Putting the welfare of the country ahead of scoring cheap political points. As an environmental activist, I had opportunity to work with conservative Christians, and with liberal environmentalists, and to be a bridge-builder drawing them into partnership for the common good.

This is the direction that our politics needs to head. Cooperation, not contention, is the attitude with which we must approach every issue.

And we face pressing issues.

The economy is, of course, our most urgent need. Unless our economy is strong and stable, we will lack the resources we need to address the other challenges facing us.

We also need to develop clean, renewable energy sources. Recent events drive this reality home: the catastrophic Gulf oil spill, the Massey mine tragedy in West Virginia, the devastating coal sludge spill in Tennessee, and above all, global climate change. How many more man-made disasters will it take before we prioritize clean, renewable energy? Beyond addressing our urgent energy needs, and reversing environmental degradation, clean renewable energy technology is the next expansive growth market for jobs and profits.

Something else ties together these environmental disasters, as well as the recent meltdown on Wall Street. Two things, in fact. Each of the industries involved in the disaster put corporate profits ahead of the common good. And in each case, government oversight was lax to the point of negligence, due in part to deregulation, and in part to corruption.

In an era of multi-national corporations maximizing profits, we have unmistakably seen the urgent need for competent, diligent government oversight.

We are not asking the government to take over the finance industry. Wall Street has demonstrated a fundamental inability to regulate itself, and imploded the entire American economy out of lust for windfall profits and obscene executive bonuses, even while driving their companies into the ground. We are asking government to provide competent, honest oversight that can hold corporate greed in check.

We are not asking the government to engage directly in the exploration or development of energy resources. But the energy industry has repeatedly demonstrated a total inability to regulate itself, a total inability to pursue practices which are both profitable and safe. So we need competent, honest oversight that can promote the shift to safe, clean, energy sources.

We obviously cannot ask the government and its politicians to police themselves. The corrupting influence of PACs and lobbies is out of control, and can only get worse, after the recent Supreme Court decision permitting unlimited corporate bribery of politicians, provided the bribes are paid in the form of legalized campaign contributions. Any member of congress that raises $1 million a year in campaign contributions owes 2 million favors once elected. And so we see lax oversight of critical industries, and deregulation of others, leading to a health care crisis, a financial crisis, and an environmental crisis.

Now I believe that we must, in the words of Jesus, take the log out of our own eye before the speck in our neighbor’s eye. Or in the words of Gandhi, we must be the change we want to see in the world. Which is why I am proud tonight, after consulting with many of you, to formally announce my commitment to being an independent democrat who, unlike Peter Roskam, will take no money from any PACs and corporations.

Growing up in Asia, I saw first-hand the crises that corruption fuels. Naively, I never thought I’d see corruption rife in America. The irony is that in Asia, corruption is illegal, under the table, case-by-case, and therefore cheaper. In America, it is legal, visible, systemic, and so hugely expensive. As long as congressional campaigns cost millions to wage, and candidates wrack up millions of debts to industry, lobbies, and PACs, government will never be by the people or for the people. It will be by the rich, and for the corporations. And disasters will recur with stunning regularity.

Finally, the reference to Asia reminds us of the 10 million or more undocumented immigrants in America today, not just from Asia, but also from Africa, and especially from Latin America. A shadow society, a secret world, a parallel universe, of low-skilled, low-wage workers, subject to exploitation and abuse. We need to address this problem in a way which does not discriminate against legal immigrants, or disenfranchise American citizens.

• Cooperation, not contention.

• Job creation and economic expansion WITH environmental protection.

• Clean, renewable energy.

• Accountability for the corporate world, and for government.

• Health care for all Americans.

• And immigration reform for those on their way to becoming Americans.

These are the urgent priorities facing us today. These are the priorities of this campaign.

Well, what about the other guy? The priorities of Roskam’s campaign are as clear as they are in contrast with mine. My competitor is a champion of the status quo. But it is a broken status quo and it falls on us to fix it.

Now is the time for a new generation of politics, that is about right vs. wrong instead of right vs. left. We need to restore America’s moral compass. And the only way to do that is to change the kind or people we send to Washington.

We need fresh minds.

We need honest voices.

We need a different kind of politics.

This is who we are. And this is why, together, we will take a stand and restore our moral compass in Congress.

Current policy is dysfunctional: ad hoc, incoherent, and unenforceable. Current practice is fundamentally inconsistent, and enforcement is notoriously arbitrary.

Pressure has reached the boiling point, especially in border states, as is evident in recent legislative initiatives in California and especially Arizona.

More is at stake, though, than just the pragmatic matters of policy coherence and enforceability, urgent though those are. Immigration policy and practice also includes fundamental moral dimensions.

The moral dimension that receives the most attention is the status of between 10-16 million undocumented immigrants who entered or overstayed illegally. Two other moral dimensions receive much less attention.

For one, our current immigration malaise owes much to lax enforcement, especially over the last two decades. Laxity in enforcement arises from big business with its unquenchable appetite for cheap labor, and from middle-class citizens with a desire for cheap goods and services. Businesses want to produce more and sell for less; consumers want cheap goods in large quantities: undocumented immigrants endure exploitation, long hours, and low wages without benefits.

We build our profits and our lifestyles on the backs of undocumented immigrants. Can they go home if they don’t like it here? Usually home is even worse, and many have incurred onerous debts to get here. Moreover, many have been here so long that they now have families, and other ties to America, including children who have never known any other country. Poverty at home, exploitation here: the immigrants’ economic dilemma is our national moral failure.

The other moral dimension to consider in the current immigration mess is its impact on low-wage American citizens, whether urban blacks, rural whites, or even first-generation documented immigrants. It is claimed that undocumented immigrants take jobs that Americans won’t do. Some experts have cautioned that the real situation may be more complicated than that. We need more research to determine whether and to what extent undocumented immigrants compete for jobs at lower pay than legal workers willingly accept.

Restoring our moral compass on immigration requires that we pay heed not only to pragmatics, but also to this moral dilemma: deporting more than 10 million illegal immigrants is not only pragmatically unrealistic, it is also morally repugnant; yet we must also justly support our citizens and documented immigrants who abide by the law and have trouble finding good work that pays a fair wage. Immigration reform must tackle both parts of this dilemma. I propose the following:

(1) More focused and consistent enforcement. Building a short wall along a long border is a dramatic but pointless gesture, expensive and virtually useless. Instead, enforcement more practically focuses on the point of infringement, with fines levied against employers of illegal workers. To accomplish this justly requires two prior steps:
(a) A social security card with security features to impede easy forgery. Currently, drivers’ licenses and passports have far more security features than social security cards (for that matter, even university student ID cards have more security features);
(b) An accurate national database of legal workers that employers can readily reference to verify the status of prospective employees.

(2) A path to citizenship for those illegal immigrants who are contributing members of society in good standing apart from their legal status, and gainfully employed. The right of citizenship should be extended to a spouse and dependent children as well, and the path would include paying a fine and undergoing a background check.

(3) Priority in legal immigration in fields of employment where such need exists, to advance the American economy. Quotas should not be permanently fixed, but should be reviewable, as needed.

Finally, I note that for me, this is not an abstract political issue. My mother is a first-generation immigrant, abiding within the limits I propose above. She personally experienced the often-convoluted process to becoming, first, a permanent resident, and then a naturalized citizen. All her adult siblings remain in their country of origin, where she can afford to return to see them only once each five years or so. Is her situation ideal? Perhaps not. But certainly its privileges outweigh its drawbacks.

We need a conscionable immigration policy, one which provides a path to citizenship to those long-term, hard-working residents who have contributed to the well-being of this country, and which does so without disenfranchising our hard-working, law-abiding citizens.

Perhaps they deserve to. After all, they pay enough for the privilege.

Last year the finance industry contributed $500 million to political campaigns: that’s $1.4 million dollars a day to grease the skids of American democracy; nearly $1 million per member of Congress.

For that kind of money, they not only run the place, they own it! Bought and paid for!

Have you ever known banks to be pointlessly generous? When was the last time that your bank gave you $100, let alone $1,000,000? (Or, if you are old enough to remember a more innocent time, even a toaster or an electric can opener?)

So what are the banks buying with such spectacular generosity?

What do you think?!

Deregulation.

Obscene profits.

Millions of dollars in executive compensation.

Credit card agreements so complicated and convoluted that you have no hope of reading them, let alone understanding what you read, along with late payment penalties and hidden fees.

The legal right to charge the poor interest at rates competitive with loan sharks (up to 1000% per year for ‘payday lenders,’ which loan to the desperate poor borrowing against upcoming paychecks).

The freedom to provide unsecured, predatory mortgages to people who have no hope of paying, first driving up the price you pay for your house, and then collapsing its value to the point that it makes financial sense just to walk way.

The opportunity to sell newly innovated, unregulated financial products to your pension fund, so that their profits and your losses destroy the nest egg which you depend on to support you in your old age.

And most of all, with their millions in political donations, the financial industry and Wall Street banks buy themselves an stupendous bailout, complete with a ‘get out of jail free’ card.

I don’t need to labor the point. You know what the banks bought with their bucks: they bought your members of Congress.

And they bought the right to squeeze you by the throat.

This is not an issue of blue vs. red or left vs. right; it is an issue of right vs. wrong. And many of our elected officials in Washington have lost their moral compass. Here is what we can do about it:

First, contact your Senators.

In December, the House voted 223-202, approving the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173), legislation opposed by the banking and finance lobby, but correcting many of the abuses which nearly imploded the U.S. economy in the fall of 2008. (Republican members of Congress – including my competitor, Peter Roskam – unanimously opposed the bill. We must not let such shameful behavior stand unchallenged.)

Now the Senate version – the Restoring American Financial Stability Act – is under debate on the Senate floor. It proposes to create a consumer financial protection agency to protect you from Wall Street speculation and deception, by overseeing the companies that provide credit cards, car loans, mortgages, and other financial products.

The banks and financial industry do not need to defeat the bill; all they need to do is to weaken its provisions. The most effective strategy is to offer an alternative, one that is all talk and no teeth, one with great safeguards but little authority to enforce them.

After the House vote, Edward Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association trade group, said: “Reform is needed, and ABA wants to work with the Congress and the Administration to enact that reform, but the House-passed bill contains provisions that have nothing to do with needed reform and which could make it very difficult for banks to effectively serve their consumer and business customers.” These are the same people who just raped the economy – who just got done sucking up your assets, home, and IRAs – for their company profits and their executive bonuses. And now they offer to write the necessary reforms to prevent them from raping you again. Yeah, right.

So contact your members of Congress, the Representatives who have already voted, and the Senators who are preparing to vote. Under the current electoral system, elected officials depend on two things to keep their jobs: your vote and corporate donations. Let them know that they can have only one. Let them choose which it will be. Over the next six months the banking and finance lobby will remember how they vote, and reward them accordingly. Let your Representative know that you too will remember how they vote, and will reward them accordingly. Let them have the bankers’ money, if that’s what they prefer; but don’t let them have the banks’ money and your vote.

Then, second, follow through on the threat, and vote. Vote out the corporate Representatives who vote for the banks. Support and vote for clean candidates who will protect America’s economy and your savings.

To those in or concerned about the 6th District: My campaign is doing everything we can to hold Peter Roskam accountable for his obstruction and opposition of the common good in favor of special interests. And instituting robust financial reform that will protect our communities and our future is a priority I am resolutely committed to. But we cannot succeed without you. Learn more about our grassroots campaign at www.loweforcongress.com and join us.

Together we can raise our voice to restore our moral compass to Congress and prevent these abuses from happening again.

Our group arrived in West Virginia on Friday and met with local residents around Kayford Mountain and Ansted to learn about what the coal industry is doing just up the street from the recent Massey Mine tragedy.

We passed a couple of these billboards while driving in:

Millions of dollars are being spent on these and television ads by the coal industry promoting themselves as Appalachia’s best friend.  The truth of course is that coal is NOT carbon neutral.  The billboard makes no sense because the simple reason coal used for energy generation is precisely because it is made out of carbon.  And burning it releases that carbon into the air as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Coal is not carbon neutral, its carbon intensive.

Here is the view that was waiting for us on top of Kayford Mountain:

There used to be a mountain top here…

The grass in the foreground was sprayed on once mining was completed to “reclaim” the land.  Sadly, however, the soil had been depleted of nutrients and heavily contaminated in many places, and will not recover in any of our lifetimes.  What was once one of the most diverse habitats for plants and animals that we have in the United States is gone from this and hundreds of other sites in Appalachia.

Is this really the inheritance we want to pass on to our children?

Coal is a bad short-term answer to a long-term problem, and the coal industry is destroying communities, polluting the environment, and making people sick across Appalachia.

Consider Larry Gibson, a local resident who lives on land at the top of Kayford Mountain that his family has owned for generations.  He has refused to sell his land to coal companies so they can remove what’s left of the coal underneath.  As a result he has come under intense pressure and intimidation, ranging from verbal threats to his life, to almost being run off the road multiple times and having his home vandalized and shot at (we saw the bullet holes).  His family has identified and reported some of the (often drunk) miners involved but he has little hope they will be successfully prosecuted due to local corruption.

I asked Larry how he keeps going on faithfully, even with so much discouragement over many years.  Here is his reply: “Many people ask me how I keep going for so long… well, because I’m right! And if you know you’re right you have to keep going. They call me all sorts of names, threaten me, vandalize my property, and we see little progress on our end. But I’m still right, and so I’ll still keep fighting.”

“Young man, I’m looking at you to change some things when you get into Congress.” Larry said to me as we parted. I told him that when I’m discouraged I often think of him and the other folks working so faithfully and diligently to bring justice and renewal to Appalachia.  I told him that I am committed to doing the same in my district.  And that, like him, I will not give up fighting for what is right.

Me with Allen Johnson from Christians for the Mountains (L) and local landowner Larry Gibson (R)

Also, here’s a short video I put up (on my personal account) of Katheryne, an Ansted resident and community leader who we met with after coming down from Kayford Mountain.  Katheryne has helped lead efforts to hold the coal industry accountable for their local abuses and she shared part of her story to us.

And here’s a link to a blog I wrote a while back challenging my competitor’s irresponsible letter to the EPA opposing regulations for toxic coal waste: http://www.loweforcongress.com/2010/03/03/shortsightedness-today-poisoning-our-children-tomorrow/

More soon!

But it is more than just our energy system that needs reform; it is our political system as well.

We have been warned for decades that dirty non-renewable energy sources like coal and oil are not good for us or the planet. We have known for years that we need to join the rest of the developed world, and many developing nations, in transitioning over to a clean renewable energy economy.

Aside from simply being the right thing to do, this is clearly the only way we as a nation and world will continue to flourish (both socially and economically) into the future. The reality is that we know our energy system needs to be fixed, we have much of the science and technology to fix it, and yet our politics has struggled to provide robust solutions.

This is why I am running to challenge the failing status quo and represent a new generation of politics that is about right vs. wrong instead of right vs. left, and about results over rhetoric.

This is also why I am taking time off from campaigning in the 6th District to visit with coal mining families in Appalachia and hear their stories. Tomorrow, I will join a small group that will start in West Virginia and walk over 300 miles through coal country, national forests, farmland, suburbs, and into Washington, DC, where we will hold a prayer rally on May 25th in front of the Capitol building.* Along the way we will stop in local communities and hear about their present challenges as well as their hopes and fears for the future.

For the sake of our common good, the time for stalling is over. We urgently need to address our national addiction to dirty energy, even though many of our elected officials in Washington appear out of touch with this reality.

I hope to come away from this journey with a deeper and more personal understanding of the impacts our current energy system has on our neighbors in Appalachia and beyond, and what a more hopeful clean energy future could look like for us all. And I invite you to join me as I tweet, blog, and post videos along the way.

*Due to previous commitments I will be on about half the walk. For more information about this event visit http://prayerforcreationcare.creationcare.org/

With I290 jammed with traffic due to construction, we turned off to Rt. 38 (Roosevelt Road) and continued towards the city. What ensued is a timely illustration of why – especially in light of the new Arizona immigration law – we need laws that are more just towards immigrants and minorities and law enforcement officers who are better trained to uphold them.

While driving along Rt. 38 we were pulled over by officers from the Cicero police department. They initially gave no reason for the traffic stop and ignored our requests to both show proper identification and give a reason for our detention. Instead, we were ordered out of our car without explanation, lined up against a police squad car, and searched. Our vehicle was searched as well. When nothing illegal was found, one of the officers explained that we were pulled over because we were “light skinned” and “could have been Hispanic”, and that there are problems with Hispanics trafficking drugs along that road.

They returned our licenses, thanked us for cooperating, and let us go. When I asked for some documentation of our innocence, in case word of the traffic stop and search got out and became political fodder against my campaign for Congress in IL-6, the officers said they would write our driver a ticket for the “probable cause” that justified the stop. Instead, they wrote out a ticket for “failure to wear seat belt required,” even though the driver and all of us had been wearing our seat belts.

The point of the incident is not the inconvenience and humiliation of a roadside stop and search of law-abiding citizens, engaged in no illicit activity, on what was meant to be a pleasant night-out. The point is also not to protest the minor injustice of a bogus traffic ticket.

The point is that even without harsh new Arizona-style legal reform (or is it, ‘deform’), ‘probable cause’ already provides police with excessive liberties to stop and search entirely law-abiding, legal citizens, without any evidence of wrong-doing, or even reasonable suspicion of illegal activity or intention. If suspicion fell on us simply because (a) we are light-skinned, and (b) we were driving through a predominately Hispanic neighborhood, consider the level of harassment that actual Hispanic-Americans must face, even if American-born and completely law-abiding! If we can be stopped and searched on no other grounds than baseless suspicion, who cannot be treated similarly?

Lest there be any doubt, I fully support our law-enforcement officers in their challenging and dangerous work of keeping our communities safe.

Nonetheless, if this sort of incident can occur under the restrictions of ‘probable cause’, we must not lower the legal standard further to ‘reasonable suspicion’, as Arizona has done. What sort of hell will anti-immigrant legislation devise for law-abiding American minorities, simply because of the color of their skin or the paranoia of an arresting officer?

In the aftermath of the shocking evil and unspeakable tragedy of 9/11, many feared a backlash against American minorities, tearing apart the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious tapestry which is the genius of our great nation. Against that backdrop, the Ad Council ran a simple, but incredibly moving, public service announcement entitled, ‘I am an American’ (http://www.adcouncil.org/default.aspx?id=141).

Over the next couple of decades, as our country moves from a Caucasian majority, to a truly heterogeneous, non-majority population, discomfort over the transition could pose a new threat to the character of our American community. Fear of change may produce a wave of new legislation, born less out of legitimate legalities and more of fear, fragmenting the unity-in-diversity which is our national treasure.

E Pluribus Unum; out of many, one. Though deriving from diverse ethnicities, races, skin colors, religions, countries of origin, classes, and orientations, we are one nation, one people.

My campaign is committed to immigration reform which provides justice for all Americans, without oppression of any, and which builds on our national heritage of ‘freedom and justice for all’. Please join us.

The week began with us volunteering at Wheaton’s recycling extravaganza – organized by the Environmental Improvement Commission – where we helped collect tons of electronic waste products from city residents.  We partnered with high school students and other workers to unload waste onto sorted pallets to be taken away for recycling and safe disposal.

Recycling electronics in Wheaton, IL

On April 21st, I was the keynote speaker at chapel in Chicago’s North Park University, which was heald in beautiful weather outside and followed by a tree-planting ceremony.

Students line up to add soil to a newly planted tree

On earth day itself I went around to public libraries in the 6th district and donated copies of my environmental book, Green Revolution.  I also participated in the Earth Day Celebration at the Glen Ellyn public library later that evening.

Going in to donate my book to the Poplar Creek Library

And finally, on Saturday April 24th, our campaign teamed up with a group of Wheaton College students to clean up the Great Western Trail from Pleasant Hill Ave to Gary in Carol Stream. Here, one of our volunteers demonstrates how the clean-up was done:

Step 1: Identify invasive trash

Step 2: Remove intruding trash

Step 3: Enjoy trash-less natural habitat

Beyond my career as a bridge-builder around environmental issues – bringing together the progressive environmental and conservative Christian communities to help protect the earth – I am a strong supporter of clean energy and green jobs.  I believe that stewardship of the earth is a serious yet joyful responsibility that all of us share, regardless of ideology or party affiliation.  Simply put, environmental stewardship is not a republican vs. democrat or left vs. right issue. It is a moral issue and a common challenge facing all of us. After all, what could be more in the interests of our common good than clean air, safe water, healthy food, and a sustainable environment for future generations?

There are those who make token efforts to look “green” now that it is becoming trendy. Such “green-washing” is part of the problem and not the solution. Instead, we need leaders who can understand that authentic sustainable lifestyle changes and robust clean energy and green jobs legislation enrich our lives and guide us towards a healthy and stable world for future generations. This is the kind of moral leadership we need to see more of from congress.

Trash collected from the Great Western Trail

p.s. Here’s a video of our trail cleanup on Saturday: http://www.youtube.com/user/loweforcongress