letter to the country whose Senate barbershop he once blew to bits was environmentalist Bill McKibben .
global reality; it’s a big lie covering aggression, invasion, and occupation.” Ayers’ dream for America, he then reveals, isn’t actually American at all, but universal: “for a world at peace and in balance, infused with joy and justice, and powered by love.” At that point, I nearly stopped reading. But then came the most appealing stretch of the sprawl: A paean to Chicago, from “the Chicago Cubs who teach us humility and perseverance,” to The Blues Brothers , Lake Michigan, and Bo Diddley. “Chicago is one of the things that’s so awesomely great about America,” he effuses. Further down the line, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden join that list. But then so do the Marx Brothers. And so – in a surprisingly sharp turn from wokeness – does Christopher Columbus and his crew: “We all know the story by heart, that foundational fable, and whatever else it represented, that exploit – part myth and part symbol – took a surplus of imagination and vision, resourcefulness and courage on the part of that wild and somewhat random crew.” Wild courage is what you need, Ayers eventually concludes, to love this country enough to plant explosives in its public buildings. The Environmentalist You’d Wanna Have a Beer With, and Other Burlingtonians Among the dozens of other activists Ayers name-checked in his long-winded love
McKibben teaches at Middlebury College, writes prolifically about climate change and its causes, leads protests and marches to save the planet, and is widely believed to be a top choice for Bernie Sanders’ presidential cabinet should the gravelly voiced Vermonter win the big cheese next fall. McKibben also let me know – at a more manageable length – what he loves most about America: Beer... He loves beer. “In 1979, America was down to 44 breweries, almost all of them producing the same swill,” McKibben answers, via e-mail: “Americans began fighting back, with the local spirit that has marked America since the battle of Lexington. Now there are more than 7,000 breweries, and while the market for big tasteless lagers keeps falling, the market for craft beers seems to keep expanding endlessly.” American beer is the best in the world, he adds, and his adoptive home state of Vermont boasts the best of the best: “Open a Heady Topper and then tell me I’m wrong,” he challenges, referring to Waterbury, Vermont’s cult-favorite craft brew. In craft beer, the men and women who make it, and the many more who consume it, McKibben sees a model for a brighter American future. “If only we could figure out how to do the same thing with every other crappy industry in America,” he concludes, “we’d be getting somewhere.” Burlington, Vermont’s long-serving former
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