Hello,
Welcome to the Ecology Democracy Network website. My name is Ken Pentel.
For the last 26 years I have mostly volunteered and worked in
Minnesota for Greenpeace and the Green Party as an all-purpose
organizer. I was also a three-time Green Party of Minnesota endorsed
candidate for Governor in 1998, 2002 and 2006. In 2010 I was the
endorsed candidate for Governor for the Ecology Democracy Party
(kenpentel.org). I love Minnesota, the surrounding bio-region and
biosphere, and it sickens me how our culture has rationalized the
destruction of our beautiful home.
One of my frustrations with organizing over the last 26 years
has been the lack of discipline among the movements and organizations I
have worked with. Even though we have had some crumbs of success, the
goals for ecological healing, which includes all creatures of the Earth
(humans included), have fallen tragically short. We need to develop a
strategy that will demand greater commitments and higher expectations
in our organizing formula if we want to achieve the necessary
structural change.
As long as we tolerate the growth economic model on a finite
resource base, accept the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an economic
indicator, and allow short-term thinking by way of quarterly balance
sheets and yearly returns to measure success, we will fail. As long as
we accept single member, winner-take-all election systems, we will
fail. As long as we accept big money running/ruining our planet, we
will fail. And even though many people know this they are content to
tinker with the existing rotting economic and political systems.
It is time to try a new path – a path that is more defined and disciplined.
This new organizing experiment will develop the Ecology Democracy
Network. The Network is a shift from a human-centered to an
ecological-centered view of the world. I believe that our health,
strength, and endurance is dependent on the health, strength, and
endurance of the non-human world.
Through an ecology-based economy and a more honest form of governance
the Network is attempting to find the people in Minnesota who are
seeking to liberate themselves, the culture, and our species from the
dysfunctional patterns that have allowed all genetic history to be put
at risk.
There are two developing pathways for transformation through the Network: (1) Education, and (2) A party-starter kit.
If you like what you read and the goals are relevant to you, then
please help me in educating the people and redirecting the politics of
Minnesota, so our healing energy literally leaves a healthier place for
all.
As we develop the organizing formula for the Network it will
require patience and persistence to see how this experiment works.
Please call or email me with any questions you may have. I hope you can
be part of this exciting new endeavor!
Sole proprietor of the Ecology Democracy Network,
Ken Pentel