One of "Us" is Running for U.S. Congress!
"Not Me, Us" is the theme of Bernie Sanders' Campaign: I am one of "us" — a fixed income 73-year old Vietnam Veteran senior with grandkids, fighting for our future, for our children and grandchildren and theirs. With a deep passion, I love our Mother Earth, which we have so damaged due to unconscious neglect, over population, over harvesting, pollution, materialist greed, wars and a corporate capitalist paradigm whose sole focus is growing more money for those who already own most of the money — the more the better, the faster the better — where, they argue, all good for society will drop out from that single myopic goal. Wrong! It never has trickled down.
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Root is running a low-budget climate insurgency campaign. On his recent Leading On Climate Tour throughout all 29 counties of Colorado's 3rd District, Root made this 1:47 minute greeting video.
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What Root is About as a Candidate
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Strategic Gateway Issues First: You will know exactly where I'm headed as your Congressional Representative
- Healthy Democracy:
HR1 For the People Act - addresses election corruption
- Healthy Population:
HR1384 Medicare For All - companion bill to Bernie's Senate MFA
- Healthy Environment:
HRes 109 Green New Deal
HR763 Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act
Protect Colorado's Public Lands and Environment
Rural Revitalization and Regenerative Agriculture
- Healthy Economy:
An economy that works for everyone; living wage; free public education at all levels and eliminate student debt; investment in infrastructure and the public good.
Public Bank for public projects.
The left image above is based on my campaign name-tag stickers (if you support me, please wear them at your Caucuses and Assemblies), which is a point-by-point encapsulated summary of what I'm about, what I stand for, and where I will lead as the Representative for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District — all of Western and Southwest Colorado. We are a largely rural district with an economy based on agriculture, recreation and tourism, and the extraction industries. Parts of our district used to support good union manufacturing jobs, such as steel production; but most of that is now gone. Yet, under the comprehensive Green New Deal opportunities will abound for a new future with millions of new good-paying union jobs across our country over time.
The right image links to a guest column I wrote about the transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to a carbon-free economy, its impacts and opportunities, and a just transition with compassionate policies for those affected. The global temperature graph shows the relentless warming of our planet due to accelerating Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, and its interaction with loss of reflective albedo from the increasingly rapid melting and loss of ice and disintegrating ice-shelves. The past five years are the five warmest years in recorded history. That is juxtaposed with an index graph (number of miners employed) demonstrating the decline of employment in the coal-based electricity generation sector. We need to drive carbon out of the economy as fast as possible; replaced with distributed clean energy innovation and choices. Fossil fuel jobs will be going away.
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Click on image for details.
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I have been slowly and methodically rolling out my low-budget 2020 Climate Insurgency Campaign for the 117th U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Colorado’s 3rd District (CD3), since this past April, 2019; after my brief 2-month run in the last election cycle from February-April, 2018.
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Let me be upfront by asking you again in this 2020 primary election cycle for your financial support through campaign donations. And, for you to become a district-level “Delegate for Root” at the April 17th CD3 District Assembly, to be held in Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, Ballroom 1, from 7:15-9:00 pm, in order to vote for me as your Congressional nominee. At a minimum, I need the support of delegates at your County Assemblies in order to make the 15% delegate vote threshold. Please see my website for details.
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Climate, Money and People
Climate change is the greatest market failure in history, and we are at the precipice of runaway heating. We are out of time. We must turn the corner now and act. That is why I'm running for Congress. We are in the fight of our lives for a viable future.
The Perils of a Corporate Capitalist Paradigm: A fraudulent lie to its core, this paradigm is a fundamental cause of the crisis we face. As Exxon and the entire fossil fuel industry has shown, it does not respond to the environmental costs it dumps onto society. We need to put a cost on carbon.
Business As Usual is Killing Us: Based on unfettered and unbounded growth, this paradigm has been perpetrated for decades by the neoliberal dogma of both Republicans and corporatist establishment Democrats, who continue to hold all the political power. It is the reason moderate centrists "status quo" Democrats, to say nothing of the far right Republicans, are not where to look for solutions. They don't understand the scale and urgency of the problem; and they have no idea how to address this strategic threat.
But, to give the people more power through democracy threatens this power structure; that's why we need the transformative movement Bernie Sanders' Presidential campaign is leading, for the people to have a say in the future of this planet. And the chickens are coming home to roost — Business As Usual (BAU) is killing us and all life on our beloved planet. We need a systemic understanding and approach to the future on the scale, magnitude and urgency of the challenges that face us. As a scientifically educated systems engineer and industrial consultant, I have a lifetime of experience addressing system problems.
Inequality is at its Core: Inequality sucks the life out of society and the power away from the people. Money is ever more concentrated into the fewer and fewer hands of a tiny oligarchy, which we refer to as "the one-percent", but more accurately by a tiny fraction of even that (see the graphs at links to p60-65, "Income Concentration: Who's Getting the Income" and "Wealth Concentration: Where does the Money Go?"). Their only focus is on making more and more money — not solving society-wide problems. Market fundamentalism seems to be their only mindset. All while everyone else in society suffers austerity, and our environment and planet suffer a growing catastrophe.
Values — Money-versus-Life: An effective change requires a transformational strategic vision for a viable American future that reframes our values worldview. We need to replace the “sacred money-and-markets story” with a “sacred life-and-living-Earth story”. We need to focus on strategic factors that affect the wellbeing of people, communities and society; instead of growing more money for oligarchs. Right now we have "socialism" for corporations and rich oligarchs; and the cruel brutality of "rugged capitalism" for ordinary working families. And our policies seem completely disconnected from a moral view of nature, its spiritual value, and its ecosystem services; let alone the ethics of its intrinsic natural value in its own right.
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A Just Transition: I love nature and all of life. I love the younger generation, I believe in them, and I want a better future for them. We must approach this perilous future with courage, wisdom, compassion and empathy for those who will inevitably be caught in the intersectional crossroads of a transition to a carbon-free economy. We need a democracy that works; healthcare as a human right; an economy that works for everyone with fair wages and free higher education for all; and a healthy environment. Can we do this?
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The Competition
Do your homework before you vote; compare out websites and public statements.
Republican 10-year incumbent Scott Tipton is on record as a climate change denier (see my website for details). He has no idea what to do about our climate emergency, because he doesn't believe it's caused by human activity. That is his strategic weakness and he is a soft target for someone who knows about climate dynamics, climate impacts and climate policy — candidate Root Routledge.
The other two Democratic candidates are a professional establishment politician, Diane Mitsch Bush, who as the CD3 nominee in 2018 brought in $1.9 million and lost to Republican Scott Tipton by a wide margin of eight points, missing the year of the "Blue Wave" Congress. Yet, she is offering nothing new and has no significant focus or background on the climate crisis.
And a corporate CEO, James Iacino, who recently moved from Denver to Montrose in CD3 to run in our district, and who flies his own airplane to events around the district, is the centrist establishment businessman candidate. Iacino also has no significant focus or background in climate; in fact you can't find the word "climate" anywhere on his website or his campaign materials. However, each of these establishment candidates has hundreds of thousands of dollars for this Primary Election and spend it on an entourage of staff and consultants.
The Primary and General Elections are two different games. My only needs, in this Primary Election, are for travel to get around to all of our 29 counties, and campaign material printing costs. I do all the rest myself, including my website, social media and quarterly FEC filings. That is how I can accomplish this with a low budget. Should I become the Democratic nominee, I will raise the money we need for the general election.
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