What Kemmis, now head of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana, espouses is restoring power to the people and the places where they live. Over the years, the system has encouraged people to disengage themselves from the decision making, increasingly relying on their leaders to make the decisions for them. Then, when those decisions don't meet their needs and desires, the public's contempt for the system grows and they become even more disengaged. Agencies develop policies for governing, then invite the public to a hearing. Instead of a forum for reaching consensus, the public hearing has become a stage, a battlefield where competing interests are encouraged to fight for their positions.
Extremists bent on stopping their opponents are rewarded with gridlock.
In this environment, Americans have lost their own skills and desire to work with each other, Kemmis says. As a youth, Kemmis remembers going to barn raisings in eastern Montana, where families all came together as a community. Everyone was needed by everyone else in one capacity or another. It's hard to know humane instinct is alive and well. But Kemmis believes it is and he told them not to wait for someone else to protect the land they love.