More green speeches & quotes…
Bobby Kennedy, jr. to the National Press Club (see
below)
Chief Sealth :
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is
strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and sparkle of the
water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every
shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every
clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.
The
sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.
The
white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among
the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of
the red man.
We are
part of the earth and it is part of us.
The
perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these
are our brothers.
The
rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and
man--all belong to the same family.
So,
when the Great Chief in
He
will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider your offer
to buy our land.
But it
will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.
This
shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the
blood of our ancestors.
If we
sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your
children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water
of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's
murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry
our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember,
and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you
must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of
land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the
night and takes from the land whatever he needs.
The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered
it, he moves on. He leaves his father's graves behind, and he does not care. He
kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father's grave, and his children's birthright, are forgotten. He
treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought,
plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads.
His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do
not know. Our ways are different from your ways.
The
sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because
the red man is a savage and does not understand.
There
is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of
leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings.
But
perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not
understand.
The
clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man
cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs
around a pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand.
The
Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and
the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a
The
air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath--the
beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same
breath.
The
white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes.
Like a
man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.
But if
we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our
grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.
And if
we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even
the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's
flowers.
So we
will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make
one condition: The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his
brothers.
I am a
savage and I do not understand any other way.
I've
seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who
shot them from a passing train.
I am a
savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important
than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.
What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a
great loneliness of spirit.
For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.
You
must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of
your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that
the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.
Teach
your children what we have taught our children, that
the earth is our mother.
Whatever
befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground,
they spit upon themselves.
This we know: The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the
earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one
family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons
of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever
he does to the web, he does to himself.
Even
the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot
be exempt from the common destiny.
We may
be brothers after all.
We
shall see.
One
thing we know, which the white man may one day discover, our God is the same
God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you
cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and
the white.
This
earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its
Creator.
The
whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your
bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
But in
your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of God who
brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over
this land and over the red man.
That
destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all
slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy
with scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking
wires.
Bobby Kennedy, jr. to the National Press Club
The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, but it also enriches us
aesthetically and recreationally and culturally, and historically and spiritually. And
we are human beings of other appetites besides money. And if we don't feed them, we're
not going to grow up, we're not going to become the kind of beings that our Creator
intended us to become.
When we destroy nature we diminish ourselves and we impoverish our children. We're not
protecting those ancient floors in the Pacific Northwest as Rush Limbaugh loves to say,
"for the sake of a spotted owl." We're protecting them because we believe the trees have
more value to humanity standing than they would have if we cut them down. And I'm not
fighting for the Hudson or for our other waterways for the sake of the shad or the sturgeon
or the striped bass and the salmon, but because I believe that my life will be richer and
my children and my community will be richer and my community will be richer and my nation
will be richer if we live in a world where there are shad and sturgeon and striped bass
in our rivers and our waterways and where there are fisherman who can make a living catch-
ing them and where there are people who can enrich their lives by going out and doing
recreational fishing and where we have not lost those things, and lost touch with the
seasons and the tides and the things that connect us to the 10,000 generations of human
beings that lived before there were laptops...and also lose touch with creation, which is
our best way to sense the divine.
And I don't believe that nature is God or that we ought to be worshipping it as God, but
I do believe that it's the way that God communicates to us more forcefully. God talks to
human beings through many vectors, through each other, through organized religion, through
wise people, from the great books of those religions, and through art and literature and
music and poetry, but nowhere with such clarity and texture and grace and joy as through
creation. And when we destroy those things, we're imposing a cost upon ourselves that I
don't think is prudent, and on our children, that I don't think we have a right to impose.
Thank you very much.