Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Earth Day and the Call to Peace

Everyday is Earth Day




So should it be anyway. And there can be little doubt that violence of war is a major contributor to ecological and climate destabilization, not to mention the human and social horror of war. The UN reported this week that in it's 70 years of existence it has never faced so many major (10) crises as it does now.

World on Fire: UN Helpless as Crises Rage in 10 Critical Hot Spots

"Historically, the United Nations has grappled with one or two crises at any given time. But handling 10 such crises at one and the same time, said UN Secretary General  Ban Ki-moon, was rare and unprecedented in the 70-year history of the United Nations."

Yes, we know there are alternatives to war and violence - see Jesus, Gandhi, King, Mandela, Day, etc. Yet we prepare constantly for war - see my blogs earlier this year, "Put Down the Guns", or "A Race With All Losers" seemingly oblivious to the alternatives.

As I prepare for the annual meeting of our local Peace Education Center this weekend I have been reflecting more and more on the absence of discussions of peace in the world outside of the few dedicated peacemakers I know. Last week, as is my lot in life I guess, I reviewed the new book shelves in the MSU Libraries to stumble upon Colman McCarthy's new Teaching Peace: Students Exchange Letters With Their Teacher (Vanderbilt University Press 2015)
title One reviewer found it "riveting and a real gem, filled with insights gleaned from the thousands of letters he's received from former students.In it he explains how and why he went about it, enduring skepticism and praise, criticism and admiration." (History News Network, 2-20-15)

Ralph Nader writes on the book jacket:

"Formerly a Washington Post columnist and editorial writer, Colman McCarthy is the leading teacher and promoter of peace studies in America, which is why few Americans have heard of him. But ten thousand high school and college students and prison inmates know him and will never forget the impact of his memorable exchanges over the historic morality and function of nonviolence to head off wars and other forms of violence. This book pulsates with thoughtful letters from his students and McCarthy's fascinating responses. Rush this book to your children's schools and raise a generation of Americans who are motivated to wage peace to resolve conflicts. This is a book like no other and, like words of wisdom and importance, it is graced with humor and wit and phrases you'll want to use with other human beings."

I've been mesmerized and challenged by it for the past week. It has stirred me, as much by the subject matter, as by the pedagogy McCarthy brings to the topic. To read these letters is to feel a connection with fellow searchers for a better world. All teachers, at any level, should delve into its pages. Not since I read  Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach, more than a decade ago has a book about learning touched me so deeply. It speaks to all of us who want to learn and to share knowledge and wisdom and make the world a better place.

Couple this with Peace Business: Humans and Nature Above Markets and Capital which I noted in a recent blog, and one can awaken to the possibility of a world without war and violence.
 Peace Business - Humans and Nature Above Markets and Capital Peace business starts from a different orientation - not solely on making a profit but on meeting basic human needs.
  
"These are human needs in their simplest and most universal form. The basic human needs of future generations are deemed as  important  as those of today's population. This is in contrast to the current business paradigm where profit is the determining factor in whether a good or a service is provided.
     The fundamental distinction between the current business paradigm and peace business is this difference in purpose - meeting basic human needs in a just and sustainable fashion, as distinct from profit. Rather than relying on first generating profit and then leaving it to government or the largess of businesses to redistribute the wealth in a fair manner, peace business sets out to meet basic human needs as its overriding priority."


Surely, ending war will not be easy. Others have been trying for centuries. But slavery took centuries to end, and women and people of color have more rights and power now than they had 100 years ago, while we still have much further to go. All of these efforts began with those who believed in the possibility of changing the status quo.

As McCarthy notes in one of his responses to a student, "When the 40-hour work week was first proposed by Eugene Debs, the five-time Socialist candidate for president from 1900 to 1920 - the idea was dismissed as lunacy. Debs went further. He called for paid vacation for the workers. More lunacy. Then he went too far and urged people to oppose US entry into the first World War.. He praised opponents of the draft. For that, he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison." (p.126)

We need resilience.
riveting and a real gem, filled with insights gleaned from the thousands of letters he’s received from former students. In it, he explains how and why he went about it, enduring skepticism and praise, criticism and admiration. - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158592#sthash.PXeCPjuG.dpuf
His new book, “Teaching Peace: Students Exchange Letters with Their Teacher,” is riveting and a real gem, filled with insights gleaned from the thousands of letters he’s received from former students. In it, he explains how and why he went about it, enduring skepticism and praise, criticism and admiration. - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158592#sthash.PXeCPjuG.dpuf
His new book, “Teaching Peace: Students Exchange Letters with Their Teacher,” is riveting and a real gem, filled with insights gleaned from the thousands of letters he’s received from former students. In it, he explains how and why he went about it, enduring skepticism and praise, criticism and admiration. - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158592#sthash.PXeCPjuG.dpuf
His new book, “Teaching Peace: Students Exchange Letters with Their Teacher,” is riveting and a real gem, filled with insights gleaned from the thousands of letters he’s received from former students. In it, he explains how and why he went about it, enduring skepticism and praise, criticism and admiration. - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158592#sthash.PXeCPjuG.dpuf

As I excerpted earlier this year in a brief discussion of Randall Amster's Peace Ecology,

 

     "War is a social, economic and ecological disaster. It is totally unsustainable and must be opposed by all who are concerned about meeting the real needs of all people and future generations. The effect of war is most immediate for those who are killed or maimed or made homeless, but the social and ecological consequences reverberate for generations. Among the children who survive, we still don't know the full extent of the psychic damage they have suffered or the degree to which their problems are transmitted to successive generations. War is the ultimate atrocity that dehumanizes victor and vanquished alike; divorcing children from parents, separating families, smashing communities, it deprives its victims of their basic need for love and security in the company of their fellow beings." [David Suzuki, quoted on page 4].


Perhaps we can begin to see the links between violence between humans and violence between humans and nature as two sides of the same coin. If we want to save the home we share with other beings, we must end war. We must. Starting Now. Colman McCarthy, Randall Amster, Johan Galtung, Jack Santa Barbara, Frederick Dubee have given us glimpses of possibilities. We must put our shoulders to the wheel.

Happy Earth Day



Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Enough Already

 How much is enough? What's sufficient? These are questions not much puzzled over in the media or amongst the policy makers, but are arguably at the heart of the two largest challenges facing the human family - growing income inequality and climate and ecological destabilization.

Wall Street Bonuses: A Bottom-Up Take From: Too Much, April  2015


Thanks largely to the Occupy movement and the great work of folks like Sam Pizzigatti at
Too Much

it is now permissible to discuss in public the growing inequality that has been let loose since the actor/governor turned president road into Washington to "drown government in the bathtub".

Excessive - more than normal or proper

Exorbitant - exceeding the appropriate limits

Extravagant - exceeding the limits of reason or necessity

 Any of these words can be easily used to describe the growth in personal wealth unleashed since the 1980s.

The data is now so common as to be known by most of those inhaling and exhaling on a regular basis amongst us. Even the acceptance of those facts seems to be widespread and recognized as undesirable. Yet the resistance to remedies persists. Part of this cognitive dissonance is the result of the ether of our popular culture that we inhale daily, that makes us think we can simply grow our way out of this, as if we live on an infinite planet with infinite resources. Clearly, I don't think a PhD or even an high school education is necessary to recognize that, those with great wealth have more power - not just economic power, but political as well as media power. See Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy if you doubt this for even a millisecond.
bookjacket

As I noted in a blog from last summer the highly recognized work by three leading political scientists provide 693 pages of evidence. Their evidence is compelling, but If that wouldn't provide sufficient research evidence try this.

"According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of – or even against – the will of the majority of voters. America’s political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites." So reports Ellen  Brown, founder of the Public Banking Institute in a recent post, "How America Became an Oligarchy"

http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/pbi/sites/1/meta_images/original/PBI-weblogo.jpg?1412977909

That this is true both within and beyond our nation's borders is also clear. If you've gotten this far and your not concerned, then read no further. But if like me you are concerned then consider some of the following possibilities.

1)  My first suggestion runs on sunlight. They say sunshine is the greatest disinfectant. So why not require every enterprise that employees humans to post annually the following information that we might all  see where the money goes:
  • Minimum salary for lowest paid full-time regular employee
  • Median income of all employees
  • Wage ratio from minimum regular full-time to highest paid employee
As citizens/consumers we could use that information in deciding whether to support the enterprise, with donations (nonprofits) or purchases (businesses) or votes (government).

2)    Restore the progressive tax system that was in place before the likes of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush opened the dikes for their financial supporters. If you want to be real progressive return rates to the Eisenhower days.

3)   Institute a Tobin type Tax on financial transactions. The tax should be regressive in relation to the time the money is held: the shorter the duration the higher the rate of tax. End the speculative instinct for frivolous profit.

4)  Provide incentives for for local purchasing from locally owned enterprises, especially those whose products are made locally and who are good community citizens.

5)   Make all donations to political activity transparent. No more hiding behind false fronts funded by anonymous benefactors.

Next time, an increasing list of "possibilities" for ending the obscene inequality that is destroying our democracy and the unraveling the ecological systems that provide the possibility of human life.

Yes Virginia, there are alternatives. And we've yet to tap the creative potential that lies dormant in the co-intelligence we share.

Monday, April 6, 2015

The Possibilities of Spring

 " Our debates, for the most part, are examples unworthy of a playground: name-calling, verbal slaps, gossip, giggles, all while the swings and slides of governance remain empty."

So notes beloved author, Toni Morrison in a recent piece for the 150th anniversary issue of The Nation.
This 260+ page collection of current and selected pieces from the past is available free at The Nation website. I can't recommend it enough. Of course the love of my life and I have been subscribers for about 35 of those 150m years years. Enjoying the writing, if not always agreeing with the authors, but challenged by their thoughtfulness and passion for justice, peace, equality. Morrison goes on in this short piece sharing her insight, compassion and gift of language as she struggles openly with repairing our society.




  "In this contemporary world of violent protests, internecine war, cries for food and peace, in which whole desert cities are thrown up to shelter the dispossessed, abandoned, terrified populations running for their lives and the breath of their children, what are we (the so-called civilized) to do?

     The solutions gravitate toward military intervention and/or internment—killing or jailing. Any gesture other than those two in this debased political climate is understood to be a sign of weakness. One wonders why the label “weak” has become the ultimate and unforgivable sin. Is it because we have become a nation so frightened of others, itself and its citizens that it does not recognize true weakness: the cowardice in the insistence on guns everywhere, war anywhere? How adult, how manly is it to shoot abortion doctors, schoolchildren, pedestrians, fleeing black teenagers? How strong, how powerful is the feeling of having a murderous weapon in the pocket, on the hip, in the glove compartment of your car? How leaderly is it to threaten war in foreign affairs simply out of habit, manufactured fear or national ego? And how pitiful? Pitiful because we must know, at some level of consciousness, that the source of and reason for our instilled aggression is not only fear. It is also money: the profit motive of the weapons industry, the financial support of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about."
                                    Toni Morrison, "No Place for Self-Pity" The Nation, 150th Anniversary issue

     In between reading many of the articles in this issue I've been moving through a 2009 little noted publication, Peace Business: Humans and Nature Above Markets and Capital (Johan Galtung, Jack Santa Barbara, and Frederick Dubee).
Peace Business - Humans and Nature Above Markets and Capital

 This little tome from Transcend University Press starts from the perspective of

      "a consideration of basic human needs. These are human needs in their simplest and most universal form. The basic human needs of future generations are deemed as  important  as those of today's population. This is in contrast to the current business paradigm where profit is the determining factor in whether a good or a service is provided.
     The fundamental distinction between the current business paradigm and peace business is this difference in purpose - meeting basic human needs in a just and sustainable fashion, as distinct from profit. Rather than relying on first generating profit and then leaving it to government or the largess of businesses to redistribute the wealth in a fair manner, peace business sets out to meet basic human needs as its overriding priority."

This fresh orientation aligns well with similar growing interest in what is more frequently referred to as "social enterprise" or "social entrepreneurship", or even more recently as B-Corps (social benefit corporations).
 

It is this emphasis on real "possibilities" that enthralls me in both of the items noted above as well as other essays in The Nation anniversary issue. Several more examples from this issue follow. Rebecca Solnit, whom I cite frequently in this blog writes in a piece, The Most Important Thing We Can Do To Fight Climate Change Is Try

     ...There are monumental changes under way that seem as if they will only continue: the decline of homophobia, the widening of rights and privileges from white Christian men to the rest of us, nonwhite and nonmale. But there are backlashes against these things as well, and the other way to call it unpredictable is to say that we can’t foresee which tendency will hold sway a century or more hence. Mostly, what we can learn by looking backward is that who and what we are now—sexually, socially, technologically, ecologically—was not only unpredictable but unimaginable a century or even a half-century ago. So is who and what we will be in another 100 years.
     
     History is rarely linear. The cast of characters is never announced in advance, and the storylines are full of left turns, plot twists, about-faces, surprising crossroads and unintended consequences...

     ...People imagine that the world doesn’t change (having forgotten how dramatically it has changed even in the last few decades), or that all its changes will be linear. Or they imagine that the only source of change is the most powerful institutions and individuals, forgetting how much change has been wrought of late by marginalized groups (queer rights), oppressed populations (the Arab Spring), relatively small activist movements (the climate movement) or surprise players (the hotel maid who brought down the head of the International Monetary Fund in 2011, for example). You have to believe in change; maybe you have to hope. Or at least be willing to gamble.
     You have to be willing to gamble on a world not dominated by fossil fuels and the power that fossil-fuel fortunes give to a handful of people and corporations. You have to be willing to imagine a world in which we recognize that what we’re called upon to do is not necessarily to sacrifice; instead, it’s often to abandon what impoverishes and trivializes our lives: the frenzy to produce and consume in a landscape of insecurity about our individual and collective futures. It also means appreciating the value of many other things—confidence in the future, a greatly reduced fear of contamination or poisoning, economic justice, local engagement, decentralization, democracy—in which we’ve been poor during the Age of Fossil Fuel. These are the things we stand to gain if we conquer the fossil-fuel industry and reinvent energy in our time.


(image from The Nation, 150th Anniversary Issue.)

The other pieces I have read in this section of the issue under the heading of  Radical Futures are just a glimpse of possibilities already imagined and yet to be built. They cover a wide gamut of arenas of modern life.

Dave Zirin: A World of Sports Worth Fighting For
Joel Rogers: Productive Democracy
Michael Massing: An Investigative Blueprint
John Nichols: Move to Amend
Jon Wiener: It’s Time to End Tuition at Public Universities—and Abolish Student Debt

These are a few of  more than a dozen such compelling possibilities from this stable of writers, thinkers, doers. As Solnit concludes in her moving essay the future is unknowable with any certainty. Therein should lie some hope.

     ...Our world is both better (more inclusive, less discriminatory) and worse (think corporate consolidation, ecological devastation, the surveillance state) than the world of fifty years ago. The ways in which it is better happened because people made demands and then acted to realize them. It was not inevitable that Native Americans, women, gays, lesbians, and transgender people would gain rights and respect. The better part of our present happened because of enormous efforts, sometimes over decades or, as with the vote for women, nearly a century of effort and social transformation.
     We don’t have a map for any of this, which is what all the confident prophecies of a predictable, linear future pretend to offer us. Instead, we have, along with the capacity for effort, a compass called hope: a past that we can see, that we can remember, that can guide us along the unpredictable route, along with our commitment to beings now living and yet to be born, that commitment called love.