He also went on to declare that the goal of the "green revolution" is "complete revolution" away from "gray capitalism."
One of the things that has happened too often to progressives is that we don’t understand the relationship between minimum goals and maximum goals. Right after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, if the civil rights leaders had jumped out and said okay, now we want reparation for slavery, we want redistribution of all wealth, and we want to legalize mixed marriages, that — they come out with a maximum program the very next day, they would have been laughed at.I'm pretty speechless, but what are your thoughts?
Instead they came out with a very minimum program. You know, we just want to integrate these buses. The students a few years later came out with a very minimum program: We just want to sit at the lunch counter. But, inside that minimum demand was a very radical kernel that eventually meant from 1964 to 1968 – you know – complete revolution was on the table for this country and I think that this green movement has to pursue those same steps and stages.
Right now, we’re saying we want to move from suicidal gray capitalism to some kind of eco-capitalism, we’re, you know, at least we’re not fast-tracking destruction of the whole planet. Will that be enough? No it won’t be enough.
We want to go beyond systems of exploitations and oppression all together. But that’s a process, and I think what’s great about the movement that is beginning to emerge is that the crisis is so severe in terms of joblessness, violence and now ecological threats, that people are willing to be both very pragmatic and very visionary. And – So the green economy will start off as a small subset and we are going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.
Complete revolution was on the table for this country, and I think that this green movement has to pursue those same steps and stages.