Echo Times

Issue date: 5/12/04 Section: A&E

Peter Coyote

Marin resident Peter Coyote has followed his interest in acting as passionately as he has followed his interest in environmentalism and social justice. You can see him currently in the film "Bon Voyage" alongside two tremendously celebrated French actors, Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Adjani. Coyote also hosts a political talk show called "The Active Opposition" on World Link TV, available through satellite networks such as DISH. As interesting as it would be to hear how he felt about having to speak French in "Bon Voyage" or working alongside Gerard Depardieu, I thought it would also be culturally profitable to listen to his challenging and provocative ideas about the environmental crisis that is undermining our collective well-being. The interview started with me making a general statement about his political activism.

Peter: Can I give you my first poop on the word "activism?"
Thom: Sure.
Peter: It's a word that was invented by our enemies so I never use it. If you want to isolate people from the mainstream of humanity you put an "ist" after them. I prefer people to use the word "engaged" because that's what you do. You are engaged with your life and you are engaged with things you think about.
Thom: What does that mean, to be engaged?
Peter: To be engaged means to follow issues that impact your life and to take the assumption that your efforts can impact them in some way and that you have some personal responsibility for trying to make things better.
Thom: What are the important issues that we need to be focusing on?
Peter: I think the most critical thing, because it is the biological common denominator for all life, is the environment. All human affairs take place in the environment. Business is a subset of the environment, not the other way around. You can't have a healthy economy, you can't have a healthy anything in a degraded environment.
The greatest threat to this is human affairs and human political affairs. Nothing that I care about politically will come to pass without campaign finance reform. Until the politicians are paid for by the people, they will serve the people who paid them. They will serve corporate masters.
Everyone knows that our current system is kind of like legalized prostitution. The corporate sector completely controls the civic sector.
Even over the environment, are nuclear issues. That's the mega threat to all living systems. There are still 18,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert on the planet. There are tons of waste dumps all over the United States. We are considering building new Bunker-Busters and low-yield nuclear weapons. We left 3,000 tons of depleted uranium weaponry in the Balkans and 3,000 or 4,000 in Iran and Afghanistan turning these places into sacrifice zones that will be irradiated forever.

Continued...

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