When The People Lead, Leaders Will Follow

Mahatma Gandhi

“When the people lead, the leaders will follow.” Gandhi supposedly said that. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Senator Maria Cantwell and Representatives Rick Larsen and Suzan DelBene sort of said that at Monday’s event in Anacortes to celebrate the San Juan Islands National Monument.

Skagit Valley Herald reporter Kate Martin wrote:

“We had a choice,” (Senator Cantwell) said. “Do we want to toss it up for the future to see what this land might become or do we want to say it’s so special that it will be preserved? The community was loud and clear. They wanted the latter.”

Cantwell said designations like the San Juan Islands National Monument don’t happen overnight.

Cynthia Dilling, who has lived on Lopez Island for more than 35 years, said the effort to protect lands in the San Juan archipelago began in earnest in 1989, when a hiker noticed trees on the backside of Chadwick Hill were marked for logging. Supporters spent a week gathering 600 signatures to stop the logging operation.

But the group was told it had to create a larger vision, which has now been included with the 450 acres on Chadwick Hill. Dilling said the group realized about four years ago that the rest of the BLM land did not have any protection at all. The effort to create a national monument here came from that moment, she said.

“It may have started in a living room on Lopez Island,” Cantwell said. “But it traveled all the way to the Oval Office.”

( San Juans celebrated as new national monument )

I think everyone involved in this process is happy with the way it turned out. I also think it’s obvious that the proposal to protect these lands drew widespread support and very little substantive opposition. If this was an easy one, why did it take such a long time?

And if an ‘easy one’ like this is hard to get done, is there any wonder why hard policy decisions never get made?

And what does this say about the “leadership” leaders are supposed to demonstrate?

Permanent protection of these San Juan Islands lands took a long time because of a failure in leadership. Legislation creating a San Juan Islands National Conservation Area was introduced by Congressman Rick Larsen but never moved through the House of Representatives because of the failure of leadership demonstrated by Washington’s 4th Legislative District Congressman Doc Hastings(R-Yakima) who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee thanks to Republican control of the House.

(Electoral sidenote: In 1992, Jay Inslee defeated Hastings for the open 4th Congressional District seat; in 1994, Hastings defeated Inslee, who then moved west of the mountains to represent the 1st Congressional District before being elected governor.)

People can lead as much as they want; leaders like Doc Hastings will not follow.  ( Rep. Doc Hastings disputes San Juans, other national monuments )

So leaders had to make sure that a presidential declaration as a national monument was OK with “the people” if Congressional legislation as a National Conservation Area was a dead end because of Doc Hastings.

“The people” said “yes,” it was— but by then the president was in re-election mode and not available to provide leadership. The big anxiety throughout the summer and fall was what would happen to the national monument proposal under the leadership of a Republican president.

So, when the people lead, leaders will follow? Sort of.

But think about all the other decisions that leaders make on behalf of “the people” based on the input and influence of lobbyists and campaign contributors. Thinking too hard about that might make us cynics.

I’m glad we have a San Juan Islands National Monument. Now the real work begins to engage with the Bureau of Land Management in the management of these lands.

I’m hoping “the people” step up for that. Our leaders will have gone back to doing what they were doing before.

--Mike Sato

A True Legacy

Iceberg Point (Wikimedia)

On most days, real issues are painted in shades of gray and we need to tease out the surrounding facts and values in order to come to a clearer position. Some days, we’re blessed.

Today, President Obama will will designate the 1,000-plus acres in the San Juan Archipelago under the Bureau of Land Management as the San Juan Islands National Monument, the third in Washington state.

A lot of folks worked for a lot of years to bring the designation forward and, despite congressional barriers, have succeeded in establishing permanent protection via executive action.

There were never any serious objections to permanent protection of these lands. Some folks on principle didn’t want what they considered more federal government involvement, glossing over the fact that the lands were already under federal government administration. Some folks feared monument status would jeopardize the islands’ ambiance with more visitors, forgetting that innocence was lost many years ago with features in national and international publications and guide books.

A colleague said, “It’s great that he (the President) is doing this before something bad happened.” How often can we say that when talking about the issues we face in the Salish Sea?

Permanent protection of lands like the San Juan Islands National Monument is the true legacy we seek, a legacy in an every changing world rapidly shrinking in wildness. I won’t begrudge anyone’s efforts to push for a coal port or an oil pipeline or anyone’s belief that the few jobs that industrialization provides trumps the natural world— but I’ll fight those efforts and work to find other good jobs for folks because on a day like today, it’s clear that’s not the legacy I value.

I find it better to imagine the children of a future time visiting the lands of the San Juan Islands National Monument than standing in the shadows of a coal export facility.

Thank you, good citizens and President Obama, for establishing a true legacy.

(To add your name to say ‘Thank you’ in ads to run in local papers, send your name (and the name of your group or business you represent) to Islanders for the San Juan Islands National Monument.)

--Mike Sato

Governor Jay's Valentine's Day Note to President Barack

Back in December, Santa sent a message asking the President to give us a present by designating a National Monument in the San Juan Islands. Didn’t work then, so this Valentine’s Day, Governor Jay Inslee sent a message to the President with hopes that our wishes come true:


February 14, 2013

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to urge your support for the designation of a National Monument in Washington
State’s San Juan Islands. Such a designation enjoys overwhelming support from the local
community, and will afford important protections for these treasured natural resources.

While serving in the 112th Congress, I proudly co-sponsored legislation to permanently protect as
a National Conservation Area the lands in the San Juan Islands managed by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). The approximately 1,000 acres of BLM lands in the islands provide
important recreational opportunities, wildlife habitat and spectacular scenery to the residents of
those islands and to thousands of visitors each year.

Secretary of the Interior Salazar has been very helpful to the locally-driven effort to protect these
lands including a significant investment of his time and talents in two meetings with the local
community. That community, with the backing of the San Juan County Council, Senators
Cantwell and Murray, Representatives Larsen and DelBene, former Governor Christine
Gregoire, and over 150 local businesses, continues to drive this effort to protect these lands as a
National Conservation Area or, if congressional gridlock has obstructed that path, as a National
Monument.

I strongly support the permanent protection of these lands and urge you to consider using your
authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate a National Monument in the San Juan
Islands before Secretary Salazar leaves office.

Protecting these lands and involving the community in their management will be a lasting tribute
to Secretary Salazar’s work and will help preserve what makes the San Juan Islands a spectacular
part of our great state.

Your very truly,

Jay Inslee
Governor

You, too, can send your love note asking President Obama to designate a National Monument in the San Juan Islands before Secretary Salazar leaves office. Do it here: http://www.sanjuanislandsnca.org/act

Thank you, Mr. President. Now, Dear Congress:

I’m heartened that President Obama has maintained the urgency of dealing with the public health issue of gun violence by taking the executive actions within his presidential powers and by proposing that Congress pass legislation and fund closing background check loopholes, banning military-style assault weapons and sales of magazines of more than 10 rounds, increasing police protection at our schools and on our streets,  and increasing access to mental health services. These measures don’t infringe on rights afforded law-abiding gun owners; these measures balance those Second Amendment rights with our rights to life, liberty and happiness. I’m going to ask Washington senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and my Second Congressional District representative Rick Larsen to support the President on this public health and safety issue. Here’s what I’m writing to them (individually) today:

Dear Senator Patty Murray, Senator Maria Cantwell , Representative Rick Larsen :

Gun violence is a public health and safety concern that touches all our lives as community members, parents and grandparents. I support President Obama’s proposals for reducing gun violence by closing background check loopholes, banning military-style assault weapons and sales of magazines of more than 10 rounds, increasing police protection at our schools and on our streets, and increasing access to mental health services. These measures don’t infringe on rights afforded law-abiding gun owners; these measures balance those Second Amendment rights with our rights to life, liberty and happiness.

As a Washington state citizen and voter in the Second Congressional District, I ask that you give your full support and do all you can to assure House and Senate passage of the President’s proposals. Thank you. Mike Sato

There. Now, how about you writing?

--Mike Sato

Electing Obama, Saving Puget Sound

It might be instructive to take a look at the successful Obama campaign playbook when pondering how to build a constituency around restoring Puget Sound to health.

First of all, people have to know what’s at stake— and then need to know what they need to do to make a difference in what’s at stake. It took many millions of dollars to get that done in the presidential campaign.

And it was smart people spending money very smartly.

“It was called ‘the Optimizer,’ and, strategists for President Obama say it is how he beat a better-financed Republican opposition in the advertising war,” writes New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg in “How Obama Won.”

“Culling never-before-used data about viewing habits, and combining it with more personal information about the voters the campaign was trying to reach and persuade than was ever before available, the system allowed Mr. Obama’s team to direct advertising with a previously unheard-of level of efficiency, strategists from both sides agree.” 

“Through its vast array of information collected via its e-mail list, Facebook and millions of door-to-door discussions conducted by volunteers in swing states — and fed into the campaign database — the campaign devised a ranking scale for voters ranging from likeliest to support Mr. Obama to least likely.”

From those voter profiles and ratings, the campaign developed its advertising campaign targeting specific messages via specific media, timing and frequency in swing states. Combined with volunteers on the ground, they got enough people to recognize what was at stake— and to get them to act — vote -- to make a difference.

Washington wasn’t a swing state so most of the Obama campaigning came to me via email messages from Barack, Joe, Michelle, Jim and a host of others I came to know nearly every day on first-name basis, inviting me to enter drawings to have dinner with the president and to join him election night in Chicago. Nothing out of the ordinary for a small amount contributor.

But the Obama campaign’s use of data mining and using that data moves way beyond even the sometimes amusing promotions I get from Amazon based on past purchases and purchases made by others whom they think I resemble.

The Obama campaign makes the campaign to save Puget Sound— the polling, data collecting, profiling and segmenting-- comically anachronistic. For years, the Puget Sound Partnership has been laboring under early polling that nearly three-quarters of the population thinks Puget Sound is in OK shape. That’s led leaders to shy away from decisive actions until more people see Puget Sound’s health as a problem.

Efforts to change that awareness — if in fact it is so sanguine — have proceeded like a low-grade infection. So how do you strategically go about getting enough people to recognize what is at stake— and to get them to take actions that will make a difference?

We’ll continue to nibble around the edges of the problems in Puget Sound until we take real action.

It costs money but there are smart people who know how to spend money very smartly.

--Mike Sato

Mr. President, I Was Listening

PHOTO: USA Today

I listened to President Obama carefully last Thursday but it wasn’t until the end of his acceptance speech that I was moved the way I was moved four years ago.

I went back to the transcript to find what resonated so strongly:

“We, the people, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

“As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.

“So you see, the election four years ago wasn't about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens- you were the change.”

I’ve always believed that it is ‘we’ and not ‘me’ that forms the fabric of our lives, and four years ago I heard it clearly articulated as the vision of change. The conflicting visions of ‘we’ versus ‘me’ are what is at odds today, inflamed by political firebombing.

Mere rhetorical flourish? I think not. “When the people lead, leaders will follow,” Gandhi is quoted as saying.

So often, it turns out, the real victory in local conflicts come with winning hearts and minds, not territory.

How often has a cause or an idea, championed by a charismatic leader, fizzles away when the leader passes or the charisma fades? How often does a cause or an idea take on a life of its own and is then described as an idea, a cause ‘whose time has come’?

As an organizer, an activist and a communicator, I’ve spent most of my entire adult life working towards building constituencies around causes and ideas, to nurture and shepherd a culture of ‘we’ as opposed to ‘me.’

Folks who voted for the president four years ago and thought he’d take care of everything so they could go back to their lives are naturally disappointed. He never said he would or could.

Last Thursday, he threw us back upon ourselves: “So you see, the election four years ago wasn't about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens- you were the change.”

And the change was that ‘we’ are the vision that will guided our way forward. That’s what resonated with me four years ago and last Thursday resonated with me again.

To work to move forward with inclusiveness as a guiding principle is such a daunting task, so much harder a challenge than pitting me against you, us against them. But unless we figure out how to do it as ‘we,’ there will be no real change.

Thank you, Mr. President.

--Mike Sato

New Year’s Fireworks, Price of Ahi, Marine Reserves and Civil Unions

Happy New Year.


The President leaves today to go back to work. I'm here for a few more days.


This New Year’s Eve was the first celebrated with an island-wide ban on Oahu on personal aerial fireworks. None of those black-smoker sparklers either. Fewer permits were bought to pop firecrackers. Finally, after all the years of discussion and debate, rules were in place to keep the evening’s air cleaner and fires prevented.

Good to allow people to breathe on New Year’s eve, good to keep roofs and hillsides from burning, and good to make life bearable for the dogs, cats and birds that have had to suffer through the nights. How strange, having grown up with fireworks and coming "home" to Honolulu all these years for New Year’s celebrations, to see a tradition — controversial, no doubt — fade. There were still firecrackers popping as midnight approached and some personal aerials filled the skies but it was noticeably a much more subdued welcome for the new year. But I missed, on the morning after, seeing the ubiquitous flakes of red firecracker paper littering the streets and the powder burns streaked across the blacktop.

Another New Year’s tradition closely reported on is the price of ahi, or yellowtail tuna, eaten raw as sashimi on New Year’s Day. Ahi is prized for the day’s feast because, besides being tasty, it maintains its freshness and firmness on the serving plate. There will always be demand so supply determines the price of ahi by the day before New Year’s day. I think that the price topped $30 by New Year’s eve. Try that with Chinook or halibut one of these days.

Two other changes took place when the clock struck midnight and 2012 began in Hawaii.

In Honolulu, fishing opened in the Waikiki-Diamond Head Shoreline Fishing Management Areas bounded by the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium to the Diamond Head lighthouse. The area is closed in odd-numbered years to allow fish stocks to recover. The area of the Waikiki Marine Life Conservation District from the Natatorium to the Kapahulu sea wall remains closed to fishing.  (If you’ve been to Waikiki, you will understand that.) in any case, the signs along the shoreline make the demarcations and regulations clear.

And, as of the new year, civil unions are legal and recognized in Hawaii. Congratulations. Hauoli makahiki hou. Aloha.
 
--Mike Sato

Why I Will Work To Re-Elect Barack Obama in 2012

(PHOTO: Julie Denesha)

I read the speech President Obama delivered in Kansas this week.   I hope you will, too.

I’ve sometimes felt disappointed in the President in the past three years as the reality of governing overshadowed the momentum of the election. While I expect the political attacks from opponents to continue and intensify, I’m disturbed by some of my activist colleagues who talk of withholding support to accomplish policy aims. I don’t forget or forgive the “idealists” who did the same in supporting Ralph Nader and screwed the pooch in the 2000 election.

I told friends and family that I was finally proud to be an American when Mr. Obama was elected president. Not only because we both grew up in Hawaii where so many of the principles of community and caring for others are shared but also because, for the first time, my ideals of truth and justice seemed commensurate with that of the majority of this nation.

After reading his Kansas speech, I want to reaffirm those ideals of truth and justice despite the difficult times of economic decline and political stalemate.

The promise of moving forward to build a national consensus towards the kind of nation we wish to become seems further and further out of reach.

It would be understandable to call it quits.

For most of my professional life I have worked to communicate and to organize around environmental values. I have reveled in the glow of winning an issue that furthers environmental protections and felt the bitterness of defeat when decisions have gone the other way.

As climate change and global warming accelerate, as endangered species decline and go extinct, and as short-term profit taking lays waste to our limited natural resources, it’s sometimes hard to answer the honest question of why continue to get up in the morning to pursue a cause that seems to have such heavy odds against winning.

The answer is that it is not myself alone who believes in these ideals; the cause calls out for giving voice to many others who share the ideals but do not have a voice.

President Obama’s campaign to be elected to a second term is about giving a voice to the many Americans who still hold to the ideals and values so ably articulated in the first campaign— and in the speech given in Kansas. I believe that the ideal of a just and caring nation capable of conducting its business with civil discourse is shared by the majority of the American people.

That is the task before the Obama ’12 campaign—a task to which I will offer my skills, experience and passion.

--Mike Sato