Dear all,
Well, the big news is that spring is here—a great life-giving cause for celebration. Two deaths in my wide circle of loved ones have been hard, even as they remind me of the importance of tending our connections to the living. Similarly, amidst corrosive bad news in our country and the world, I am grateful for signs of new life—the Sunrise Movement (I just signed up to stay in touch at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-us-112?source=direct_link&), the Green New Deal, the growing interest in public management of our common wealth. I’m reminded of a song I love to sing, The World Is Always Turning Toward the Morning.
Love,
Pamela
Crossing borders
The trauma of border crossing has been much in the news—and in our hearts—as more and more people flee war, poverty and oppression, seeking safety and opportunity across national lines. Unexpectedly, I have found my attention drawn to the less discussed issue of crossing borders the other way—from places of more rank and privilege to less.
After our trip to Uganda this winter, I was asked a question whose essence was “How could I travel as a white person to Africa and not fall into the trap of perpetuating colonialism?”
I can’t say for sure that I haven’t, but I do know some of the signs. Years ago, a group of U.S. high schools found out about the school in Northern Uganda that a dear friend of ours had founded, and jumped in to provide scholarships. In their enthusiasm, they raised lots of money—and kept needing more and more from the school to support their help. No one doubted their good intentions, and the money was certainly welcome, but their growing feeling of ownership of the school began to be perceived by folks on the ground as problematic.
We watched with dismay. Our approach seemed so different. When Abitimo asked us to do something, we just did it. When she died a couple of years ago, not only did we grieve, but we were caught off balance. What should be our relationship to the school without her at the center? Fortunately, her son, whom we had known for decades as a lovely, quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of guy, stepped up—and we started following him.
We learned that many of the school’s systems, which this other group had complained about loudly before ultimately bailing out, were, indeed, badly in need of change. Yet, rather than making our own judgments, we followed our friend. When he decided there needed to be new school leadership, we backed him to make the hard calls. We listened and supported, took dictation, joined him in meetings, kept track of the things he said he needed to do, and rejoiced in his every success.
Considering what makes such border crossings go well for everybody, love is the best medium, and relationships are critical. When I’m approaching a border, if people who belong there can say “She’s with us”, a legitimate place is made for me. This is how we found ourselves invited, at home, and able to be of real use among a group of South Sudanese refugees in northwest Uganda; a series of loving friendships opened the way.
It also helps a lot if we are okay with who we are, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, class. If our interest in border crossing is to become somebody else, to have another’s identity rub off on us, something will always be a little off balance. We end up having neither who we are nor who we want to be.
Home from Africa, I read a book describing the joys of crossing a border that few of us ever contemplate—that of species. What would it mean to set aside our human assumptions and put energy into being fully present to the life and reality of a foreign-seeming species? There are big barriers to connection, and therefore perhaps to love, but the opportunities for wonder are great, and we can always stand in open-hearted respect.
We can also learn from all the mistakes humans make with other humans—our unaware assumptions about what’s “normal”, and all the ways we cast others in the role of lesser beings, from captivity, anthropological study and voyeurism to seeing others only in their relationship to us.
Our connections with others through our shared DNA and shared home are real, regardless of the borders of nation, ethnicity or species that separate us. The rewards of such border crossing are great. Is there anything more hopeful and reassuring than finding a bond of commonality across differences that may have seemed unbridgeable? By being willing to find our way across those borders, our own lives are immeasurably enriched.
Bookends
Winter morning
east to work
rising sun catches the trees from below
bathes them in a glow
of golden pink.
West that night
thinnest sliver of a crescent moon
breaks through the clouds
for a shining moment.
A day
framed in grace.
Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!
Indigenous Cooperative
The southern state of Puebla, Mexico, is home to a network of cooperatives, Tosepan Titataniske or “United We Will Overcome”, which has been working for 40 years to build up a parallel solidarity economy among largely Nahua and Tutunaku indigenous communities. It encompasses some 35,000 members across 430 villages in 29 municipalities.
Based on the premises of democracy, fair economic participation, self-reliance, autonomy, compromise, gender equality and cooperation, it aims to provide a healthy diet and profitable businesses while employing the community members, preserving culture, and working within a sustainable framework. Activities include: the creation of an eco-friendly hotel; organic pepper, coffee and honey production; a women’s livelihood association; education in marketable skills and local sociopolitical/ethnic/environmental issues.
https://library.iated.org/view/MORALESPAREDES2014TOS https://www.localfutures.org/tosepan-resistance-and-renewal-in-mexico/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The youth-led Sunrise Movement that is changing the conversation in the US on climate change (and I know and love some of them).
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/
A California federal judge who ruled to eliminate cash bail for those who are awaiting arraignment in San Francisco, finding that it is an unconstitutional "get out of jail" card for those who can afford it.
https://www.courttrax.com/cash-bail-system-ended-in-san-francisco-by-federal-judge/
The governor of a county in Kenya who refused to participate in the usual corruption, despite extreme pressure, and was able to use the unlooted funds to benefit the community.
http://davidzarembka.com/2019/02/28/541-ending-corruption-is-possible-a-positive-example/
A lobby day for public banking in Philadelphia, where City Council people were eager to support the idea of keeping our public money out of the big banks and under local control, to be invested and reinvested to meet common needs. https://www.facebook.com/PhiladelphiaPublicBankCoalition/ and www.publicbankinginstitute.org
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
#186 Reimagining men
Dear all,
I had an unexpected adventure this month, getting invited to attend a conference of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values in Vancouver—600 wonderful people from all over the world, working passionately to build and maintain financial institutions that serve people and the planet. It really required me to reassess my stereotypes about bankers (!), and I’m full of wondering about how we can work together toward a new monetary system where the creation and distribution of money is more aligned with the common good.
One of the things I love about February is our family tradition of reaching widely to loved ones with a Valentine letter. It always reminds me of how many loved ones I have! If you didn’t get a copy and would like one, just let me know.
Love,
Pamela
Reimagining men
There is a big soft spot in my heart for men. The warmth and welcome I received from some of the dads in my community growing up was like water in a parched land. The man who taught our Sunday School class when I was thirteen opened a rare and precious space by actually listening to what was on our hearts and minds. A male mentor saw what I was capable of as a young adult, and guided me toward a sense of self-worth and a life of meaning. I have an unfailingly loving and supportive partner and many dear male friends. I will never be confused about the goodness that can be found in men.
That said, it’s hard to see them so lost as a group—and to see so many men behaving so badly. It is heartbreaking to take in the damage that has been done in this world by men wielding power. As their right to behave badly is beginning to be called out, it is painful to watch the fear that such a challenge evokes.
The training in entitlement runs so deep. How many men believe that they have a right to have their way, and that behaving like jerks with women is the natural order of things? Their outrage at a challenge to the assumptions that are at the core of their very identity is understandable. Such men are facing the unimaginable prospect of losing the only world they know, the world that has always been theirs.
The latest challenges to men’s right to behave badly (the right of white men in positions of power most particularly) follow a whole series of attacks on their status. Their “natural right” to be in charge of our country is being attacked on all sides. Black people are just not staying down, despite the best efforts of Jim Crow and mass incarceration. The tide of immigrants of color is seemingly unstoppable. And now the women—including white women who “should” be standing at their sides—are starting to turn against them.
As their control is increasingly challenged, it’s not surprising that the response is to hold on more tightly. Don’t we all do that when we feel we might lose our grip? So we see men in positions of power and privilege sacrificing their brothers while trying desperately to hang on to every bit of control within their reach.
It’s not easy to see the good in such men. Yet it has to be true that there’s a place for every human being in the world we seek. We were all born good and innocent, openhearted and reaching for connection. Society has played a cruel trick on our men, training them in the ways of power while cutting off avenues for real closeness. It’s only within this context that we can begin to understand the little boy longings that get played out so disastrously in grown men—and the strength it takes to stay human in the face of that training.
I see an opportunity here for women to claim a much bigger power than we may ever have dreamed possible. We don’t want to set our sights too low, and see victory in breaking into traditionally male positions of power. How many women have felt compelled to take on male patterns of behavior in the name of liberation? Nobody will win by women following the men. We have to be in the lead. We have to see right through the entitlement, the quest for control, the reliance on violence, to the sweet little boys hidden deep inside. We have to stand to their bad behavior without ever being confused about their innate goodness—and expect them to change. In this scenario, everybody wins.
Laying claim
A winter of obstacles
dark mornings
cold and rain
trips away
big deadlines
a bout with pneumonia
so much catching up…
But now, this morning
I head out
in unexpected cold
marking my territory
sweet and familiar
like a dog.
My corner
my streets
my park
my neighbors
My birds that sing
my trees that will bud
my sky
my world, all of it.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Germany’s public development bank
Germany, the world leader in renewable energy, has a public-sector development bank called KfW which, along with Germany’s nonprofit Sparkassen banks, has largely funded the country’s green energy revolution. Initially funded by the United States through the Marshall Plan in 1948, KfW is now one of the world’s largest development banks, with more than $500 billion in assets.
Unlike private commercial banks, KfW does not have to focus on maximizing short-term profits for its shareholders while ignoring external costs. The bank has been free to support the energy revolution by funding major investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Its key role in the green energy revolution has been played within a public policy framework under Germany’s renewable energy legislation, including policy measures that have made investment in renewables commercially attractive.
Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind, solar and biomass. Renewables generated 41 percent of the country’s electricity in 2017, up from just 6 percent in 2000; and public banks provided over 72 percent of the financing for this transition. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-financial-secret-behind-germanys-green-energy-revolution/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
An African American Quaker elder who is making real a dream of medicinal herb production for marginalized members of the African diaspora.
https://www.quakerearthcare.org/sites/quakerearthcare.org/files/bfc/bfc3201_web.pdf (scroll to p.6)
All the bankers in the Global Alliance for Banking on Values who are dedicated to working for the common good.
http://www.gabv.org/about-us
The White Earth Band of Ojibwe’s adoption of a law recognizing the rights of wild rice, the first law to recognize the rights of a plant species.
https://celdf.org/2019/02/the-rights-of-wild-rice/
Sheila Watt-Clothier, and her depth of understanding of the importance to the rest of the world of the Arctic and the Inuit communities who call it home.
https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/sheila-watt-cloutier/
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
I had an unexpected adventure this month, getting invited to attend a conference of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values in Vancouver—600 wonderful people from all over the world, working passionately to build and maintain financial institutions that serve people and the planet. It really required me to reassess my stereotypes about bankers (!), and I’m full of wondering about how we can work together toward a new monetary system where the creation and distribution of money is more aligned with the common good.
One of the things I love about February is our family tradition of reaching widely to loved ones with a Valentine letter. It always reminds me of how many loved ones I have! If you didn’t get a copy and would like one, just let me know.
Love,
Pamela
Reimagining men
There is a big soft spot in my heart for men. The warmth and welcome I received from some of the dads in my community growing up was like water in a parched land. The man who taught our Sunday School class when I was thirteen opened a rare and precious space by actually listening to what was on our hearts and minds. A male mentor saw what I was capable of as a young adult, and guided me toward a sense of self-worth and a life of meaning. I have an unfailingly loving and supportive partner and many dear male friends. I will never be confused about the goodness that can be found in men.
That said, it’s hard to see them so lost as a group—and to see so many men behaving so badly. It is heartbreaking to take in the damage that has been done in this world by men wielding power. As their right to behave badly is beginning to be called out, it is painful to watch the fear that such a challenge evokes.
The training in entitlement runs so deep. How many men believe that they have a right to have their way, and that behaving like jerks with women is the natural order of things? Their outrage at a challenge to the assumptions that are at the core of their very identity is understandable. Such men are facing the unimaginable prospect of losing the only world they know, the world that has always been theirs.
The latest challenges to men’s right to behave badly (the right of white men in positions of power most particularly) follow a whole series of attacks on their status. Their “natural right” to be in charge of our country is being attacked on all sides. Black people are just not staying down, despite the best efforts of Jim Crow and mass incarceration. The tide of immigrants of color is seemingly unstoppable. And now the women—including white women who “should” be standing at their sides—are starting to turn against them.
As their control is increasingly challenged, it’s not surprising that the response is to hold on more tightly. Don’t we all do that when we feel we might lose our grip? So we see men in positions of power and privilege sacrificing their brothers while trying desperately to hang on to every bit of control within their reach.
It’s not easy to see the good in such men. Yet it has to be true that there’s a place for every human being in the world we seek. We were all born good and innocent, openhearted and reaching for connection. Society has played a cruel trick on our men, training them in the ways of power while cutting off avenues for real closeness. It’s only within this context that we can begin to understand the little boy longings that get played out so disastrously in grown men—and the strength it takes to stay human in the face of that training.
I see an opportunity here for women to claim a much bigger power than we may ever have dreamed possible. We don’t want to set our sights too low, and see victory in breaking into traditionally male positions of power. How many women have felt compelled to take on male patterns of behavior in the name of liberation? Nobody will win by women following the men. We have to be in the lead. We have to see right through the entitlement, the quest for control, the reliance on violence, to the sweet little boys hidden deep inside. We have to stand to their bad behavior without ever being confused about their innate goodness—and expect them to change. In this scenario, everybody wins.
Laying claim
A winter of obstacles
dark mornings
cold and rain
trips away
big deadlines
a bout with pneumonia
so much catching up…
But now, this morning
I head out
in unexpected cold
marking my territory
sweet and familiar
like a dog.
My corner
my streets
my park
my neighbors
My birds that sing
my trees that will bud
my sky
my world, all of it.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Germany’s public development bank
Germany, the world leader in renewable energy, has a public-sector development bank called KfW which, along with Germany’s nonprofit Sparkassen banks, has largely funded the country’s green energy revolution. Initially funded by the United States through the Marshall Plan in 1948, KfW is now one of the world’s largest development banks, with more than $500 billion in assets.
Unlike private commercial banks, KfW does not have to focus on maximizing short-term profits for its shareholders while ignoring external costs. The bank has been free to support the energy revolution by funding major investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Its key role in the green energy revolution has been played within a public policy framework under Germany’s renewable energy legislation, including policy measures that have made investment in renewables commercially attractive.
Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind, solar and biomass. Renewables generated 41 percent of the country’s electricity in 2017, up from just 6 percent in 2000; and public banks provided over 72 percent of the financing for this transition. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-financial-secret-behind-germanys-green-energy-revolution/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
An African American Quaker elder who is making real a dream of medicinal herb production for marginalized members of the African diaspora.
https://www.quakerearthcare.org/sites/quakerearthcare.org/files/bfc/bfc3201_web.pdf (scroll to p.6)
All the bankers in the Global Alliance for Banking on Values who are dedicated to working for the common good.
http://www.gabv.org/about-us
The White Earth Band of Ojibwe’s adoption of a law recognizing the rights of wild rice, the first law to recognize the rights of a plant species.
https://celdf.org/2019/02/the-rights-of-wild-rice/
Sheila Watt-Clothier, and her depth of understanding of the importance to the rest of the world of the Arctic and the Inuit communities who call it home.
https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/sheila-watt-cloutier/
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Monday, February 11, 2019
The Gift of Loving
A friend has asked me to re-post a piece I wrote in 2004, in celebration of Valentines Day. Here it is.
I’ve always known that the opportunity to love is a gift,
that loving unconditionally is the biggest perk of parenthood. I also know that it is easily obscured by
work and worry, by accumulated disappointments and assaults on our sense of
goodness. I’m seeing that gift these
days unadorned—stark in its power and beauty.
Some of you may remember Chino, the young man in Nicaragua
who claimed my son as a brother and me, by extension, sight unseen, as his
mother. I knew enough to take that claim
seriously, and when I met him he was not hard to love. I knew little about his home life—only that
it was not happy. Since our common
language was my limited Spanish, we couldn’t speak in detail. Intention, body language and tone of voice
were as important as words. I would sit
outside in the early mornings watching the world go by, he would come over from
down the street and I would welcome him to my side.
As I sit here thousands of miles away, remembering those
times, I think of how simple and profound a welcome can be—an open smile, open
heart, open arms. I hadn’t realized how
starved a life can be for such a welcome.
I hadn’t thought that I was giving a gift.
At the airport, as I was leaving Nicaragua, my attention was
mostly for my first born. He was lonely,
weighed down by responsibilities there, needing places to let down and
complain. I did my best to invite Chino
to that role, to be a resource for my loved one. His mind was on other things. He asked, rather wistfully, “Vas a
regalarme?”, literally, “Are you going to gift me?” I was a little taken aback. I’m not much into presents and I had nothing
there to give. When I asked if he wanted
anything in particular he mentioned a nose stud, something unavailable in
Nicaragua. So my first act as his mother
back home was to go the teen rebel part of town, find a body piercing store and
spend good money for strange adornment.
The alternative—not gifting him—seemed worse. I sent a loving postcard, included his gift
in a letter to my son, and wondered what else I could do. Though I didn’t forget, my life quickly
filled back up with all the responsibilities and relationships of home.
Finally a letter came.
With my poor Spanish and his poor handwriting and spelling, I wasn’t
sure I understood. But I was afraid I
did. He was not happy. He had been drinking, doing bad things. He wondered if his life was worth living. I was the only one he could tell. All of a sudden this situation was
transformed, from a sweet cross-cultural claim of connection to the real thing. This young man needed a mother now,
seriously, for real—and he had chosen me.
I got help confirming my fears of what his letter said, and
started wording Spanish phrases in my mind.
How could I use that blunt instrument—at a distance—in this time of
exquisitely fragile human need? It
helped enormously that he sent an e-mail soon after, both reassuring me that he
was doing a little better, and offering a more direct way to be in touch.
The only way I knew how to compensate for all the
inadequacies of the situation was to offer love without limit. I loved him more than anything in the world,
and with all my heart. When he thought
about drinking, could he think instead of drinking in my love? I stayed up late that night, forming my
sentences, trying to forge our connection and my love into something that could
work for him.
He was in my mind constantly the next day and the day
after. At breaks in a busy work week I
thought of other things I might say. I
invited him to rewrite history with me, to have me there in his memory, every
morning of his unloved childhood and every evening. I used the dictionary, started sentences over
when I ran into verb construction I couldn’t handle, prayed that my best would
be good enough.
He wrote back, full of love for his mama. Miraculously, something of what I intended
had gotten through. I wrote again,
profligate in my love, saying things I would never say to my birth children,
where a look or a touch would do, and anything more would be an embarrassment
to us both. This narrow window of contact required me to offer as big a love as
I knew how. Perhaps it was just as well
that I couldn’t be subtle in Spanish, and that in its unfamiliarity I could try
out a new, more extravagant persona.
We have been exchanging professions of undying love all
summer. He has stopped drinking. I feel like I’m living in the middle of a
miracle. Everything else is stripped
away to reveal the simple and stark truth--that my love matters.
Monday, January 21, 2019
#185 Balance
Dear all,
Thanks for all your well-wishes about my talk on money, debt and liberation. I think it went well, and it can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 (starting at minute 6.5). Looking farther back, Chuck and I and our son Tim’s family took a wonderful holiday road trip to be with our son Andrew and his family who are newly relocated in southern Ontario. The trip also provided lovely opportunities to visit with other family in New York and our indigenous friends in Ontario. So many riches of connection!
It was a blessing to finally come up for air after a very busy stretch, and have discretionary time this weekend to mend, write and read. And I’m trying to remember in everything I do that just who I am is exactly what the situation needs.
Love,
Pamela
Balance
We love watching people who can keep their balance in seemingly impossible situations. Think of gymnasts who do amazing feats on a balance bar, ice-skaters who leap and land with stunning grace, surfers who stay upright in the face of overwhelmingly giant waves.
So many forces in today’s world conspire to knock us off balance. The news seems designed to keep us in a constant state of upset. We reach frantically for some kind of mental/emotional equilibrium, get a precarious hold, then someone does or says the next unbelievably outrageous thing, and we’re off balance again.
It’s like being caught in the big waves at the beach. They knock you down and carry you crashing to the shore, leaving you battered, bruised and abraded. You get up, gather yourself together, determine to go back in, and are knocked down again by that overwhelming relentless force.
I remember how terrified I was of the waves when our family used to camp by the ocean when I was small. I would spend hours close by our tent, making designs in the sand with shells and rocks—small objects over which I had come control. It wasn’t until my twenties that I learned how to manage in those waves—going down under the water just as one was ready to crash, then coming up to calm on the other side.
What would it take for us to find a similar strategy with those relentless waves of bad news? What would it mean to stay in the water, but not take the full brunt of those breakers, not get continually body-slammed into the sand? (and not choose to play it safer and limit our news intake to the smaller, more manageable waves of sports, fashion or movies?) I actually wonder if the breakers are a distraction, and the bigger issues are to be found in deeper water. I think elements of such a strategy will include keeping a judicious distance from much of what is presented as “news” but is really just fear mongering, having places to take our outrage and heartbreak, and being very discriminating and proactive about how, when, from what sources, and in what dosages we take in the information we need in order to stay engaged. The world badly needs us upright, breathing, in touch with our love, and intact. Putting thought, time and energy into developing a practice and discipline around current events that works for us is a project well worth taking on. (Check out www.findingsteadyground.com for support.)
Then there is the question of how to handle the individuals who knock us off balance—the ones who are so clueless and say the most outrageous things; those who wield power at such high cost to others; the ones whose storms and personal drama engulf everyone in their orbit; those who have that uncanny capacity to leave us questioning our worth. We all have developed a variety of responses: fighting back with equal force; joining our outrage with others so we feel less alone; or just keeping our distance, as I did from the surf as a child.
But I think there’s a possible and much more powerful response here that’s similar to staying in the water and going under the waves in a high surf. A thought that a friend shared months ago continues to reverberate in my mind: If we can find a way to bring them deep inside us, into our hearts, they can’t knock us off balance. The physics is unassailable; you can’t be rocked from inside. The practice, however, is quite another thing. It seems like a super-human task to find our way to such a place.
Yet the need for keeping our balance in this world is compelling. And I think the gymnasts and skaters and surfers can point a way forward. None of them could stay balanced at the beginning. Their ability in the present is the result of a clear vision of a highly-prized goal, determination and tons of practice. They worked day in and day out to get to the point where they didn’t fall, where they didn’t get knocked off balance, where they could be and do what they held in their mind’s eye.
Intent
She towers head and shoulders over everyone—
among a class of eight year olds
at least thirteen.
They move in unison.
All her attention is on her moves
so she can be a credit to her class as they perform.
But when the need for concentration’s done
where does her mind turn? What story would she tell?
Child of a girl, who was kidnapped as a child herself
forced by rebels to the bush, to rape and servitude.
Only now, years after peace was signed
this girl has found her way to school, illiterate.
And so she learns with little children here.
Is she teased, looked down upon?
Looked up to, treated with respect?
Is she glad for this new chance? Hopeful for what might come?
Or just enduring one more trial?
All that shows is her intent
to do this one thing right.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
Spain's transition from coal
The Spanish government and unions have struck a deal that will close most coal mines and invest 250 million euros in mining regions over the next decade. The deal, which covers Spain’s privately-owned pits, mixes early retirement schemes for miners over 48 with environmental restoration work in pit communities and re-skilling schemes for cutting-edge green industries.
More than a thousand miners and subcontractors will lose their jobs when 10 pits close by the end of the year. Almost all of the sites were uneconomic concerns that the European commission had allowed Spain to temporarily keep open with a €2.1bn state aid plan. The agreement may be a model for other countries, showing that it’s possible to follow the Paris agreement without damage to people’s livelihoods.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/spain-to-close-most-coal-mines-after-striking-250m-deal
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
All the attention to the ideas of a Green New Deal, articulated by new Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with its four pillars of an economic bill of rights, a green transition, real financial reform, and a functioning democracy. http://www.gp.org/green_new_deal
All the people we met in East Africa who are excited about the prospect of bringing respect, attention and play to their interactions with children.
How a small religious Mexican border demonstration got picked up by news outlets across the country, highlighting basic humann values.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2018-12-10/border-patrol-handcuffs-demonstrators-supporting-migrants
How cities are taking the lead on many economic and environmental issues that affect their citizens, as can be seen in the passage in Philadelphia of Fair Work Week leglsation. https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-city-council-passes-fair-workweek-bill-15-minimum-wage-bump/
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Thanks for all your well-wishes about my talk on money, debt and liberation. I think it went well, and it can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 (starting at minute 6.5). Looking farther back, Chuck and I and our son Tim’s family took a wonderful holiday road trip to be with our son Andrew and his family who are newly relocated in southern Ontario. The trip also provided lovely opportunities to visit with other family in New York and our indigenous friends in Ontario. So many riches of connection!
It was a blessing to finally come up for air after a very busy stretch, and have discretionary time this weekend to mend, write and read. And I’m trying to remember in everything I do that just who I am is exactly what the situation needs.
Love,
Pamela
Balance
We love watching people who can keep their balance in seemingly impossible situations. Think of gymnasts who do amazing feats on a balance bar, ice-skaters who leap and land with stunning grace, surfers who stay upright in the face of overwhelmingly giant waves.
So many forces in today’s world conspire to knock us off balance. The news seems designed to keep us in a constant state of upset. We reach frantically for some kind of mental/emotional equilibrium, get a precarious hold, then someone does or says the next unbelievably outrageous thing, and we’re off balance again.
It’s like being caught in the big waves at the beach. They knock you down and carry you crashing to the shore, leaving you battered, bruised and abraded. You get up, gather yourself together, determine to go back in, and are knocked down again by that overwhelming relentless force.
I remember how terrified I was of the waves when our family used to camp by the ocean when I was small. I would spend hours close by our tent, making designs in the sand with shells and rocks—small objects over which I had come control. It wasn’t until my twenties that I learned how to manage in those waves—going down under the water just as one was ready to crash, then coming up to calm on the other side.
What would it take for us to find a similar strategy with those relentless waves of bad news? What would it mean to stay in the water, but not take the full brunt of those breakers, not get continually body-slammed into the sand? (and not choose to play it safer and limit our news intake to the smaller, more manageable waves of sports, fashion or movies?) I actually wonder if the breakers are a distraction, and the bigger issues are to be found in deeper water. I think elements of such a strategy will include keeping a judicious distance from much of what is presented as “news” but is really just fear mongering, having places to take our outrage and heartbreak, and being very discriminating and proactive about how, when, from what sources, and in what dosages we take in the information we need in order to stay engaged. The world badly needs us upright, breathing, in touch with our love, and intact. Putting thought, time and energy into developing a practice and discipline around current events that works for us is a project well worth taking on. (Check out www.findingsteadyground.com for support.)
Then there is the question of how to handle the individuals who knock us off balance—the ones who are so clueless and say the most outrageous things; those who wield power at such high cost to others; the ones whose storms and personal drama engulf everyone in their orbit; those who have that uncanny capacity to leave us questioning our worth. We all have developed a variety of responses: fighting back with equal force; joining our outrage with others so we feel less alone; or just keeping our distance, as I did from the surf as a child.
But I think there’s a possible and much more powerful response here that’s similar to staying in the water and going under the waves in a high surf. A thought that a friend shared months ago continues to reverberate in my mind: If we can find a way to bring them deep inside us, into our hearts, they can’t knock us off balance. The physics is unassailable; you can’t be rocked from inside. The practice, however, is quite another thing. It seems like a super-human task to find our way to such a place.
Yet the need for keeping our balance in this world is compelling. And I think the gymnasts and skaters and surfers can point a way forward. None of them could stay balanced at the beginning. Their ability in the present is the result of a clear vision of a highly-prized goal, determination and tons of practice. They worked day in and day out to get to the point where they didn’t fall, where they didn’t get knocked off balance, where they could be and do what they held in their mind’s eye.
Intent
She towers head and shoulders over everyone—
among a class of eight year olds
at least thirteen.
They move in unison.
All her attention is on her moves
so she can be a credit to her class as they perform.
But when the need for concentration’s done
where does her mind turn? What story would she tell?
Child of a girl, who was kidnapped as a child herself
forced by rebels to the bush, to rape and servitude.
Only now, years after peace was signed
this girl has found her way to school, illiterate.
And so she learns with little children here.
Is she teased, looked down upon?
Looked up to, treated with respect?
Is she glad for this new chance? Hopeful for what might come?
Or just enduring one more trial?
All that shows is her intent
to do this one thing right.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
Spain's transition from coal
The Spanish government and unions have struck a deal that will close most coal mines and invest 250 million euros in mining regions over the next decade. The deal, which covers Spain’s privately-owned pits, mixes early retirement schemes for miners over 48 with environmental restoration work in pit communities and re-skilling schemes for cutting-edge green industries.
More than a thousand miners and subcontractors will lose their jobs when 10 pits close by the end of the year. Almost all of the sites were uneconomic concerns that the European commission had allowed Spain to temporarily keep open with a €2.1bn state aid plan. The agreement may be a model for other countries, showing that it’s possible to follow the Paris agreement without damage to people’s livelihoods.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/spain-to-close-most-coal-mines-after-striking-250m-deal
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
All the attention to the ideas of a Green New Deal, articulated by new Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with its four pillars of an economic bill of rights, a green transition, real financial reform, and a functioning democracy. http://www.gp.org/green_new_deal
All the people we met in East Africa who are excited about the prospect of bringing respect, attention and play to their interactions with children.
How a small religious Mexican border demonstration got picked up by news outlets across the country, highlighting basic humann values.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2018-12-10/border-patrol-handcuffs-demonstrators-supporting-migrants
How cities are taking the lead on many economic and environmental issues that affect their citizens, as can be seen in the passage in Philadelphia of Fair Work Week leglsation. https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-city-council-passes-fair-workweek-bill-15-minimum-wage-bump/
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Thursday, December 20, 2018
#184 Listen and love
Dear all,
Well, we’re just back from three weeks in East Africa, mostly in Northern Uganda with a few days at the end in Tanzania. It’s always a wrenching process to come home—somehow we get a chance to love so deeply there. This month’s column tries to capture some of that experience.
On a different topic, if you’re in the Philadelphia area, consider coming to the talk that I’ll be doing on Monday evening, January 7 on Money, Debt and Liberation. It’s another big stretch for me. More information at https://pendlehill.org/events/money-debt-and-liberation/
I wish you well with all the joys and challenges of the holiday season.
Love,
Pamela
Listen and love
Over lunch at a workshop for families in Tanzania, we were talking about how to break the pattern of harsh treatment of children which has been so much a part of the culture there. One man asked a question about a specific issue with a specific child. Though I have a lot of experience working with families, of course I didn’t have an answer for him. It depended so much on their relationship, his intentions, and his ability to do things he had never experienced as a child himself. So I responded that a child who feels loved will forgive many mistakes, and that the solution lies within that parent. He just needs enough loving attention to help peel away all the layers of hurt that cover it up.
Somehow that interchange seemed to capture the heart of what I was about on this trip. Though we could offer new possibilities and invite people to imagine a new thing, there are so many answers we didn’t have, so many problems we couldn’t solve. But we could always love. Listen and love and back people to get the support they need to come up with the solutions that are in their hearts and within their reach.
Of course many are not within reach. Unmet material needs are enormous. While we can always think about ways to share our income, and invite others with excess to do the same, the change in political and economic systems that is required to really make a difference will only come from changed hearts and empowered communities—both in Africa and the West. And so we listen and we love, strengthening a network of connections and our common capacity to help each other peel away the layers of hurts that obscure our loving powerful selves and the solutions that lie within.
It was a blessing to have this time that offered such undistracted opportunities to love. My hope is that I can remember, amidst all the busyness of my days back home, that this is the heart of our work and our lives.
Reflections on wealth and need
Power
Great power lines are going up along the north-south road
to capture power from the rushing Nile.
Above lies poverty and need.
The lines run south—to markets far away.
Refugees
Our goal—a camp of refugees from South Sudan
and trauma healing work with families.
I picture children ragged in bare feet
crowded into dusty dismal camps,
the story of the north after the war.
They are, instead, well-pressed and clean
suffering indignity and yet intent
to use this time—thrust on them painfully—
to build resilience and capacity
for their return.
An urge to pity the unfortunate
has no place here.
Color
The ladies come to graduation in full flower.
Bright fabrics in traditional design
are everywhere. Last year there were a few.
Reaching for memory of those lean years after the war
color does not come to mind. I breathe
and take in all the beauty of the peace.
Buzz
The motorcycles swarm like bees,
the taxi service of this town.
Young men trade land for buzzing bikes
and hopes to get ahead in modern times,
so fast and cool.
And yet repairs, high price of fuel,
so many with the same big hopes
foretell adversity
cast somber shadows on their dreams.
Repair
The car he drives, though not his own
provides his livelihood.
He keeps it running, cleans it all the time
deals with broken doors as best he can.
Yet back-seat pockets flap, affront
with undone seams. A needle is required.
My tiny hotel sewing kit, once called to mind,
is put to work at once. He makes a neat repair,
and now the car reflects more perfectly his care.
Suburbs
Roads through the hills around the city
are so deeply rutted I tense up,
hold my breath, despair of getting through.
Then, bone-wrenched, we arrive:
gated compounds, well appointed houses
of the middle class.
Country
This house is full of luxury
soft furniture, flush toilets
running water (cold).
Yet many from our country would complain.
The power’s unreliable, to say the least.
The wood-fired kitchen is outside,
no fridge or packaged food in sight.
Clothes washed by hand are hung to dry.
Around the house grow millet, sorghum,
chickens, goats and vegetables.
The family’s head grows dizzy
with requests from those with less.
The question’s always there:
What constitutes enough?
Excess
This gathering for play is a rare thing.
A balloon is blown up for each child, and
laughter fills the room.
Balloons are everywhere. They play and play.
Then more are blown—
and now they fight to have the most.
Needing to protect their hoard, they cannot play.
The tone has shifted. Something has been lost.
Shirts
These men have sweated blood
studied for years to get their jobs.
They take such care with how they dress.
I long to help them with repairs—
such simple things—an extra button, matching thread.
The collar of one well-pressed shirt is deeply frayed.
I have the skill to turn that collar, hide the wear,
would take real pleasure in the task.
I may know him well enough one day
to make the offer—but not yet.
Weight
The water system many places
runs on yellow plastic jerry cans.
They cluster round the bore holes
move on bikes and people’s heads
so common I barely notice any more.
Our last day I face lifting one.
Struggling under unexpected weight,
I see all those water carriers
in a new light.
Life, not wild
An extra day in Tanzania—what to do?
Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti,
exotic wildlife close at hand.
We choose for homo sapiens instead.
Our hosts live modestly—they’ve squeezed us in.
We help prepare the family meal
eat together, sing, draw children in
trade stories with this Masai man,
who left his tribe for school
and now fights fiercely to protect their land.
We walk through a community
where people still remember socialism
working as a group to meet their common needs.
It’s hard to say goodbye.
We’ve caught a glimpse of life (not wild)
that fills our hearts.
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Well, we’re just back from three weeks in East Africa, mostly in Northern Uganda with a few days at the end in Tanzania. It’s always a wrenching process to come home—somehow we get a chance to love so deeply there. This month’s column tries to capture some of that experience.
On a different topic, if you’re in the Philadelphia area, consider coming to the talk that I’ll be doing on Monday evening, January 7 on Money, Debt and Liberation. It’s another big stretch for me. More information at https://pendlehill.org/events/money-debt-and-liberation/
I wish you well with all the joys and challenges of the holiday season.
Love,
Pamela
Listen and love
Over lunch at a workshop for families in Tanzania, we were talking about how to break the pattern of harsh treatment of children which has been so much a part of the culture there. One man asked a question about a specific issue with a specific child. Though I have a lot of experience working with families, of course I didn’t have an answer for him. It depended so much on their relationship, his intentions, and his ability to do things he had never experienced as a child himself. So I responded that a child who feels loved will forgive many mistakes, and that the solution lies within that parent. He just needs enough loving attention to help peel away all the layers of hurt that cover it up.
Somehow that interchange seemed to capture the heart of what I was about on this trip. Though we could offer new possibilities and invite people to imagine a new thing, there are so many answers we didn’t have, so many problems we couldn’t solve. But we could always love. Listen and love and back people to get the support they need to come up with the solutions that are in their hearts and within their reach.
Of course many are not within reach. Unmet material needs are enormous. While we can always think about ways to share our income, and invite others with excess to do the same, the change in political and economic systems that is required to really make a difference will only come from changed hearts and empowered communities—both in Africa and the West. And so we listen and we love, strengthening a network of connections and our common capacity to help each other peel away the layers of hurts that obscure our loving powerful selves and the solutions that lie within.
It was a blessing to have this time that offered such undistracted opportunities to love. My hope is that I can remember, amidst all the busyness of my days back home, that this is the heart of our work and our lives.
Reflections on wealth and need
Power
Great power lines are going up along the north-south road
to capture power from the rushing Nile.
Above lies poverty and need.
The lines run south—to markets far away.
Refugees
Our goal—a camp of refugees from South Sudan
and trauma healing work with families.
I picture children ragged in bare feet
crowded into dusty dismal camps,
the story of the north after the war.
They are, instead, well-pressed and clean
suffering indignity and yet intent
to use this time—thrust on them painfully—
to build resilience and capacity
for their return.
An urge to pity the unfortunate
has no place here.
Color
The ladies come to graduation in full flower.
Bright fabrics in traditional design
are everywhere. Last year there were a few.
Reaching for memory of those lean years after the war
color does not come to mind. I breathe
and take in all the beauty of the peace.
Buzz
The motorcycles swarm like bees,
the taxi service of this town.
Young men trade land for buzzing bikes
and hopes to get ahead in modern times,
so fast and cool.
And yet repairs, high price of fuel,
so many with the same big hopes
foretell adversity
cast somber shadows on their dreams.
Repair
The car he drives, though not his own
provides his livelihood.
He keeps it running, cleans it all the time
deals with broken doors as best he can.
Yet back-seat pockets flap, affront
with undone seams. A needle is required.
My tiny hotel sewing kit, once called to mind,
is put to work at once. He makes a neat repair,
and now the car reflects more perfectly his care.
Suburbs
Roads through the hills around the city
are so deeply rutted I tense up,
hold my breath, despair of getting through.
Then, bone-wrenched, we arrive:
gated compounds, well appointed houses
of the middle class.
Country
This house is full of luxury
soft furniture, flush toilets
running water (cold).
Yet many from our country would complain.
The power’s unreliable, to say the least.
The wood-fired kitchen is outside,
no fridge or packaged food in sight.
Clothes washed by hand are hung to dry.
Around the house grow millet, sorghum,
chickens, goats and vegetables.
The family’s head grows dizzy
with requests from those with less.
The question’s always there:
What constitutes enough?
Excess
This gathering for play is a rare thing.
A balloon is blown up for each child, and
laughter fills the room.
Balloons are everywhere. They play and play.
Then more are blown—
and now they fight to have the most.
Needing to protect their hoard, they cannot play.
The tone has shifted. Something has been lost.
Shirts
These men have sweated blood
studied for years to get their jobs.
They take such care with how they dress.
I long to help them with repairs—
such simple things—an extra button, matching thread.
The collar of one well-pressed shirt is deeply frayed.
I have the skill to turn that collar, hide the wear,
would take real pleasure in the task.
I may know him well enough one day
to make the offer—but not yet.
Weight
The water system many places
runs on yellow plastic jerry cans.
They cluster round the bore holes
move on bikes and people’s heads
so common I barely notice any more.
Our last day I face lifting one.
Struggling under unexpected weight,
I see all those water carriers
in a new light.
Life, not wild
An extra day in Tanzania—what to do?
Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti,
exotic wildlife close at hand.
We choose for homo sapiens instead.
Our hosts live modestly—they’ve squeezed us in.
We help prepare the family meal
eat together, sing, draw children in
trade stories with this Masai man,
who left his tribe for school
and now fights fiercely to protect their land.
We walk through a community
where people still remember socialism
working as a group to meet their common needs.
It’s hard to say goodbye.
We’ve caught a glimpse of life (not wild)
that fills our hearts.
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
#183 Indigenous diet
Dear all,
As a follow-up to my last post on money, I want to invite everyone in the Philadelphia area to a meeting I’m hosting this Sunday afternoon on public banking, to learn about the issue in general and an exciting local campaign in particular. (Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/1929190444043036/ for more information.)
I’m pacing myself to be ready to fly with Chuck to Uganda for three weeks on the Monday after Thanksgiving, trying to be diligent about my long to-do list, at the same time staying in the present—pulling the last carrots with a grandchild, watching the gingko leaves turn yellow and start to fall, being alert for things that give me hope in this troubled world.
Love
Pamela
For what we get
I’ve had no use for picky eaters
who ask for help on the street
and should be thankful
for what they get.
And then I got to know one—
moving from eye contact and smile
to the occasional dollar,
from introductions to chat.
(He remembered my birthday,
sang out on the street,
made my day.)
I learned his bagel of choice.
It is a small thing to buy
the ones he prefers
and make a sandwich
as I make my lunch.
Cinnamon raisin?
he asks hopefully
With cream cheese?
Of course, I say.
At least he gets his way
in one small thing.
Indigenous diet
By all rights, I should be a vegetarian. I never buy meat or cook with it (unless someone has left a chicken carcass that can be made into soup). The inhumanity of big meat and poultry operations sickens me, and I’m clear about the need to eat lower on the food chain for the sake of our future on this planet. I understand the health benefits of a vegetable-based diet, and prefer vegetarian dishes to ones with big chunks of meat. And I identify with the culture that enfolds vegetarianism in many ways.
Yet I’m not a vegetarian, and am uncomfortable when it is held out as the more righteous path. When the choice relates to individual purity, I struggle with solutions that have us focusing just on our own bodies, rather than out to the larger body of which we are all a part. Even when it is embedded in larger social justice goals that I share, I still can’t quite join in.
I haven’t had a name for the way I eat, though it’s modeled on diets in the Third World—vegetable-based, with meat as a flavor-enhancer or a treat for special occasions. With this choice linked to an intention to live in right relationship with the earth, I’m looking more and more for guidance from indigenous people. As I listen to what they have to say about eating, I’m not hearing much about being vegetarian.
On the one hand, a Native woman I know gets irritated and impatient when white/settler vegetarians suggest that gatherings of those who care about the environment should not include meat. “Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t eat”, she says. “If you really care about the future of the earth, go out and cut your consumption of everything in half.”
On the other hand, indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer challenges the distinction between animal and plant life. “We are all living beings,” she says. Humans don’t stand lonely at the top of the pyramid, with the animals just below and the plants far down at the bottom. Rather, we are part of a circular web of life, where every part is important and everything we eat is our living relative.
The plants are not just our relatives, but our teachers, she says, the only ones who can take sunlight and water and make food. Rather than saying that some living beings are okay to eat and others are not, she encourages us to focus on “the honorable harvest”. This involves cultivating an attitude of respect toward the life you intend to take, giving thanks, taking no more than you need, and leaving enough that its kind can continue to flourish. Animals who have a place of giving and receiving in a local ecosystem, and those living in areas that don’t support plant food, can be part of an honorable harvest that sustains the earth as well.
I see some big issues for us here. One is respect. What does it mean to be respectful of the food we put in our bodies, respectful of the role it plays in sustaining our lives and the life of others and of the role we are called to play in return? For those who eat meat, what would it require to give up factory and feedlot products, which are produced with such profound disrespect for the animals? What would it mean to give up the assumption that we are entitled to eat meat?
Another is humility. Since animals are more like us, it’s easier to think of them as relatively more special. How can we humble ourselves and acknowledge the plants as our relations as well?
A third is responsibility. Some of us refuse to eat meat to free ourselves from the responsibility of participating in the taking of another life. But this is a false freedom. Not only are the plants equally alive, but that attempt to hold ourselves separate and uninvolved obscures a reality that we avoid at our peril. We are part of this web of life, and we must learn to be responsible as fully-connected members, rather than as outside actors.
There is a growing interest in learning from indigenous wisdom as we struggle to change the habits and systems that are contributing to an untenable future on earth. I hope that we can learn to follow in this area as well.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
Electric Cars
While electric cars still make up only 1 percent of all vehicles on the road in the U.S. (compared with about 5 percent in China and 39 percent in Norway) that number is on the rise. Zero-emission vehicles make up almost 5 percent of the California market, and the West Coast Electric Highway now makes it possible to drove a zero emissions vehicle from Baja California to British Columbia, charging as needed at stations spaced every 25-50 miles along the highway.
In 2011, when the first charging station of the West Coast Electric Highway was installed, the Department of Energy counted 687 charging stations throughout the United States. As of July 1018, there are now about 52,000 public charging stations and outlets. To put it in perspective, that’s more than one-third the number of gasoline stations—about 150,000—in the entire country.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/the-west-coast-electric-highway-enables-zero-emission-road-trips-20180720?
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The 267,000 people in Los Angeles who voted to establish a public bank, in a dramatic paradigm shift in voter awareness and after a mere four months of grassroots effort.
http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/over_a_quarter_of_a_million_people_voted_yesonb_42_support_the_citys_measure_for_a_public_bank
The 1.5 million Floridians with past felony convictions who will once again have the right to vote, thanks to an impassioned grassroots referendum campaign,
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/audience/shannon-green/os-ae-desmond-meade-amendment-4-criminal-justice-20181107-story.html
30 young environmental leaders from all across Vietnam who were part of a leadership camp, the fourth in six years, to be trained to become climate organizers and campaigners in their country.
https://350.org/vietnamese-youths-who-rise-for-climate/?akid=51665.1048214.jiscm_&rd=1&t=17
The clarity and passion of a young black man speaking out on the need to stand with and for women.
https://www.facebook.com/adam.zwar/videos/178594569682973/UzpfSTcxOTkwNTY4NjoxMDE1NTg5NjM2MDEzNTY4Nw/?notif_id=1538869226291659¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
As a follow-up to my last post on money, I want to invite everyone in the Philadelphia area to a meeting I’m hosting this Sunday afternoon on public banking, to learn about the issue in general and an exciting local campaign in particular. (Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/1929190444043036/ for more information.)
I’m pacing myself to be ready to fly with Chuck to Uganda for three weeks on the Monday after Thanksgiving, trying to be diligent about my long to-do list, at the same time staying in the present—pulling the last carrots with a grandchild, watching the gingko leaves turn yellow and start to fall, being alert for things that give me hope in this troubled world.
Love
Pamela
For what we get
I’ve had no use for picky eaters
who ask for help on the street
and should be thankful
for what they get.
And then I got to know one—
moving from eye contact and smile
to the occasional dollar,
from introductions to chat.
(He remembered my birthday,
sang out on the street,
made my day.)
I learned his bagel of choice.
It is a small thing to buy
the ones he prefers
and make a sandwich
as I make my lunch.
Cinnamon raisin?
he asks hopefully
With cream cheese?
Of course, I say.
At least he gets his way
in one small thing.
Indigenous diet
By all rights, I should be a vegetarian. I never buy meat or cook with it (unless someone has left a chicken carcass that can be made into soup). The inhumanity of big meat and poultry operations sickens me, and I’m clear about the need to eat lower on the food chain for the sake of our future on this planet. I understand the health benefits of a vegetable-based diet, and prefer vegetarian dishes to ones with big chunks of meat. And I identify with the culture that enfolds vegetarianism in many ways.
Yet I’m not a vegetarian, and am uncomfortable when it is held out as the more righteous path. When the choice relates to individual purity, I struggle with solutions that have us focusing just on our own bodies, rather than out to the larger body of which we are all a part. Even when it is embedded in larger social justice goals that I share, I still can’t quite join in.
I haven’t had a name for the way I eat, though it’s modeled on diets in the Third World—vegetable-based, with meat as a flavor-enhancer or a treat for special occasions. With this choice linked to an intention to live in right relationship with the earth, I’m looking more and more for guidance from indigenous people. As I listen to what they have to say about eating, I’m not hearing much about being vegetarian.
On the one hand, a Native woman I know gets irritated and impatient when white/settler vegetarians suggest that gatherings of those who care about the environment should not include meat. “Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t eat”, she says. “If you really care about the future of the earth, go out and cut your consumption of everything in half.”
On the other hand, indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer challenges the distinction between animal and plant life. “We are all living beings,” she says. Humans don’t stand lonely at the top of the pyramid, with the animals just below and the plants far down at the bottom. Rather, we are part of a circular web of life, where every part is important and everything we eat is our living relative.
The plants are not just our relatives, but our teachers, she says, the only ones who can take sunlight and water and make food. Rather than saying that some living beings are okay to eat and others are not, she encourages us to focus on “the honorable harvest”. This involves cultivating an attitude of respect toward the life you intend to take, giving thanks, taking no more than you need, and leaving enough that its kind can continue to flourish. Animals who have a place of giving and receiving in a local ecosystem, and those living in areas that don’t support plant food, can be part of an honorable harvest that sustains the earth as well.
I see some big issues for us here. One is respect. What does it mean to be respectful of the food we put in our bodies, respectful of the role it plays in sustaining our lives and the life of others and of the role we are called to play in return? For those who eat meat, what would it require to give up factory and feedlot products, which are produced with such profound disrespect for the animals? What would it mean to give up the assumption that we are entitled to eat meat?
Another is humility. Since animals are more like us, it’s easier to think of them as relatively more special. How can we humble ourselves and acknowledge the plants as our relations as well?
A third is responsibility. Some of us refuse to eat meat to free ourselves from the responsibility of participating in the taking of another life. But this is a false freedom. Not only are the plants equally alive, but that attempt to hold ourselves separate and uninvolved obscures a reality that we avoid at our peril. We are part of this web of life, and we must learn to be responsible as fully-connected members, rather than as outside actors.
There is a growing interest in learning from indigenous wisdom as we struggle to change the habits and systems that are contributing to an untenable future on earth. I hope that we can learn to follow in this area as well.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
Electric Cars
While electric cars still make up only 1 percent of all vehicles on the road in the U.S. (compared with about 5 percent in China and 39 percent in Norway) that number is on the rise. Zero-emission vehicles make up almost 5 percent of the California market, and the West Coast Electric Highway now makes it possible to drove a zero emissions vehicle from Baja California to British Columbia, charging as needed at stations spaced every 25-50 miles along the highway.
In 2011, when the first charging station of the West Coast Electric Highway was installed, the Department of Energy counted 687 charging stations throughout the United States. As of July 1018, there are now about 52,000 public charging stations and outlets. To put it in perspective, that’s more than one-third the number of gasoline stations—about 150,000—in the entire country.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/the-west-coast-electric-highway-enables-zero-emission-road-trips-20180720?
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The 267,000 people in Los Angeles who voted to establish a public bank, in a dramatic paradigm shift in voter awareness and after a mere four months of grassroots effort.
http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/over_a_quarter_of_a_million_people_voted_yesonb_42_support_the_citys_measure_for_a_public_bank
The 1.5 million Floridians with past felony convictions who will once again have the right to vote, thanks to an impassioned grassroots referendum campaign,
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/audience/shannon-green/os-ae-desmond-meade-amendment-4-criminal-justice-20181107-story.html
30 young environmental leaders from all across Vietnam who were part of a leadership camp, the fourth in six years, to be trained to become climate organizers and campaigners in their country.
https://350.org/vietnamese-youths-who-rise-for-climate/?akid=51665.1048214.jiscm_&rd=1&t=17
The clarity and passion of a young black man speaking out on the need to stand with and for women.
https://www.facebook.com/adam.zwar/videos/178594569682973/UzpfSTcxOTkwNTY4NjoxMDE1NTg5NjM2MDEzNTY4Nw/?notif_id=1538869226291659¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Monday, October 22, 2018
#182 Public Utility
Dear all,
How to describe my life recently? It has to be a collage: great time with extended family at the beach; nasty extended cold; nastier scene around the Supreme Court; harvesting the makings of a great ratatouille; opportunities to offer decisive help to two wonderful women; so much rain; helping to midwife the public writing/speech/witness of friends.
As we enjoy fresh, clear autumn days (finally!), we get fresh clear warnings about the speed with which the tipping point on climate change is approaching. Thinking about the role that’s mine to play, I keep coming around to the issue of getting control of our public money.
So, what follows is a little longer than usual, but I hope you can find a way to take it in. I’ve tried hard to be very brief and clear on a subject that breeds long-winded complexity—and tends to put all but the most devoted to sleep! Please give it a try. This is a critical piece of our democracy and our future. If you have thoughts, reactions or questions, I’d love to hear them.
Love,
Pamela
Public utility
Our utilities aren’t sexy. But where would we be without them? Electricity, gas and oil (well, maybe we’d be better off without the latter). Phone and internet. Water. Money… Money?
To be able to wrap our minds around the concept of money as a public utility, it may help to reflect on a few common money myths.
Myth: Money is real.
There was a period of time in history when it was plausible to think of money as real. We were on the gold standard and the currency in our wallets was backed by government bullion. But money in the bank was not so secure, as countless local bank runs and the Crash of 1929 showed. Since 1971, when we went off the gold standard, all that secures the value of our money is our shared trust that the system will keep working.
Most of our individual financial dealings are with banks—private, for-profit institutions. Banks don’t rely on the value of deposits to make a loan. If they have reason to believe it will be returned with interest, a new set of numbers simply appear in our accounts and on their books. Money has been created.
The government still plays a role, as could be seen in the response to the crash of 2008. Where did all the billions to bail out the banks come from? The Treasury simply authorized the Fed to make credit available to the failing banks. New money appeared in their accounts and on the government books.
Money is not a thing. It is a social construct, an agreement about value and exchange that has shifted and changed over thousands of years. It is a public utility.
Myth: Debt is debt.
Individual and business debts are not a problem if they can be paid off. Paying a little interest to get access to money that will allow you to do better in the future can be beneficial to all parties. But getting caught in debt that has no hope of being repaid is different—particularly when the goal of the lender is to keep you in debt so they can profit off the interest.
Individuals are better off when their debts are repaid. Government, on the other hand, is less constrained by debt. A deficit can sit on government books with no negative consequences. Indeed, a legitimate role of government is to spend more than it takes in when the economy needs an infusion of resources—it was World War II government spending that got us finally out of the Depression. The problem with government debt is the interest that goes to the for-profit banks currently holding much of our Treasury bonds. Thus, as public debt goes up, more and more public revenues are diverted to paying interest to private banks.
Our current system was set up this way with the Federal Reserve in 1913. But it could be different. In Canada, for example, the central bank spent money directly into infrastructure, health and public works from 1938 to 1971, when a change in government policy resulted in a switch to borrowing from private banks. Since 1971, Canada has paid billions in interest to private banks, which could otherwise have been available to meet public needs.
Myth: Growth is good.
One of the reasons our economy is laser focused on growth is that paying back our debts with interest requires continuous expansion. Also, if the economy keeps growing, tough issues of inequality and maldistribution of wealth can be glossed over by a promise of more for everyone
When we think about it, though, we know that basing our well-being on endless growth is problematic. We don’t want our children to keep getting bigger all their lives. We certainly don’t want those cancer cells to grow. And we’re beginning to face up to the reality that the earth cannot absorb more of the impacts of economic growth and remain hospitable to species such as ours. Our GDP currently measures progress toward catastrophe. We would be smarter to measure not how much money is flowing through our economic system, but how well our people are thriving.
Myth: Finance is for experts
Traditional economics, as taught in college, is based on complex mathematical models. Developed to emulate the certainties of physics, it has never been a good match with reality, and many of its adherents seem more intent on protecting their expertise than engaging with the real world. Other economists name problems but not solutions, attempt a values-free description of current financial systems, or discuss debt in isolation from the impact of growth on the biosphere. Fortunately, a growing group are grappling with the whole picture—but they need our help.
Economics needs to reclaim its moral roots (literally, from the Greek, “the management of the home”) and address issues of common wealth. For this, ordinary people need to dare to step out into the murky territory of money, finance and banking, and start talking about what the public needs.
Promising directions
Here are a few things to keep an eye out for: Sovereign money—the idea that the government can create and spend money directly into the economy. Public banks—putting our municipal or state funds in a public institution which will keep both capital and interest in house, for use for the public good, as North Dakota does. Non-profit public banking for individuals—through Post Office banking, or individual accounts at the Federal Reserve. Preparedness—getting ready to use the next crash not to bail out, but to buy out banks (and fossil fuel industries while they’re at it) and run them in the public interest. Let’s imagine a new thing and start talking about money, not as a source of profit for some and debt for many, but as a public utility.
Scourge
As I wait to mail my package
the woman being served
mentions the new prison rules.
With books now barred
she now copies page
to send, like a letter,
to her friend.
The other one commiserates.
She knows how these things go.
Minutes later
at the window myself
I overhear
distress on the phone.
The ominous phrase
“Department of Corrections”
stands out.
This is not some abstract scourge.
It is here among us.
These are my neighbors
at the Post Office.
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
Doctors in Shetland, Scotland are now authorized to prescribe nature to their patients, with many delightful specific suggestions.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/doctors-in-scotland-can-now-prescribe-nature
Standard Chartered has become the first Asia-focused bank to rule out new coal development, which means that they will back out of three deals to finance coal power plants in Vietnam, the world’s third largest coal hotspot.
https://www.eco-business.com/news/standard-chartered-bank-quits-coal/
In a ceremony celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day, the city of Boulder, Colorado welcomed home the indigenous Arapaho, who are now displaced in Wyoming and Oklahoma; they are considering providing a recently purchased 110 acre property to the Arapaho to use when they travel through Colorado.
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_32190845/boulder-welcomes-arapaho-home-indigenous-peoples-day
Tucked into an omnibus bill passed by Congress this summer was help for retiring small business owners to sell their businesses to their employees, either as a worker cooperative or as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/a-boost-for-the-worker-owned-economy-20180925
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
How to describe my life recently? It has to be a collage: great time with extended family at the beach; nasty extended cold; nastier scene around the Supreme Court; harvesting the makings of a great ratatouille; opportunities to offer decisive help to two wonderful women; so much rain; helping to midwife the public writing/speech/witness of friends.
As we enjoy fresh, clear autumn days (finally!), we get fresh clear warnings about the speed with which the tipping point on climate change is approaching. Thinking about the role that’s mine to play, I keep coming around to the issue of getting control of our public money.
So, what follows is a little longer than usual, but I hope you can find a way to take it in. I’ve tried hard to be very brief and clear on a subject that breeds long-winded complexity—and tends to put all but the most devoted to sleep! Please give it a try. This is a critical piece of our democracy and our future. If you have thoughts, reactions or questions, I’d love to hear them.
Love,
Pamela
Public utility
Our utilities aren’t sexy. But where would we be without them? Electricity, gas and oil (well, maybe we’d be better off without the latter). Phone and internet. Water. Money… Money?
To be able to wrap our minds around the concept of money as a public utility, it may help to reflect on a few common money myths.
Myth: Money is real.
There was a period of time in history when it was plausible to think of money as real. We were on the gold standard and the currency in our wallets was backed by government bullion. But money in the bank was not so secure, as countless local bank runs and the Crash of 1929 showed. Since 1971, when we went off the gold standard, all that secures the value of our money is our shared trust that the system will keep working.
Most of our individual financial dealings are with banks—private, for-profit institutions. Banks don’t rely on the value of deposits to make a loan. If they have reason to believe it will be returned with interest, a new set of numbers simply appear in our accounts and on their books. Money has been created.
The government still plays a role, as could be seen in the response to the crash of 2008. Where did all the billions to bail out the banks come from? The Treasury simply authorized the Fed to make credit available to the failing banks. New money appeared in their accounts and on the government books.
Money is not a thing. It is a social construct, an agreement about value and exchange that has shifted and changed over thousands of years. It is a public utility.
Myth: Debt is debt.
Individual and business debts are not a problem if they can be paid off. Paying a little interest to get access to money that will allow you to do better in the future can be beneficial to all parties. But getting caught in debt that has no hope of being repaid is different—particularly when the goal of the lender is to keep you in debt so they can profit off the interest.
Individuals are better off when their debts are repaid. Government, on the other hand, is less constrained by debt. A deficit can sit on government books with no negative consequences. Indeed, a legitimate role of government is to spend more than it takes in when the economy needs an infusion of resources—it was World War II government spending that got us finally out of the Depression. The problem with government debt is the interest that goes to the for-profit banks currently holding much of our Treasury bonds. Thus, as public debt goes up, more and more public revenues are diverted to paying interest to private banks.
Our current system was set up this way with the Federal Reserve in 1913. But it could be different. In Canada, for example, the central bank spent money directly into infrastructure, health and public works from 1938 to 1971, when a change in government policy resulted in a switch to borrowing from private banks. Since 1971, Canada has paid billions in interest to private banks, which could otherwise have been available to meet public needs.
Myth: Growth is good.
One of the reasons our economy is laser focused on growth is that paying back our debts with interest requires continuous expansion. Also, if the economy keeps growing, tough issues of inequality and maldistribution of wealth can be glossed over by a promise of more for everyone
When we think about it, though, we know that basing our well-being on endless growth is problematic. We don’t want our children to keep getting bigger all their lives. We certainly don’t want those cancer cells to grow. And we’re beginning to face up to the reality that the earth cannot absorb more of the impacts of economic growth and remain hospitable to species such as ours. Our GDP currently measures progress toward catastrophe. We would be smarter to measure not how much money is flowing through our economic system, but how well our people are thriving.
Myth: Finance is for experts
Traditional economics, as taught in college, is based on complex mathematical models. Developed to emulate the certainties of physics, it has never been a good match with reality, and many of its adherents seem more intent on protecting their expertise than engaging with the real world. Other economists name problems but not solutions, attempt a values-free description of current financial systems, or discuss debt in isolation from the impact of growth on the biosphere. Fortunately, a growing group are grappling with the whole picture—but they need our help.
Economics needs to reclaim its moral roots (literally, from the Greek, “the management of the home”) and address issues of common wealth. For this, ordinary people need to dare to step out into the murky territory of money, finance and banking, and start talking about what the public needs.
Promising directions
Here are a few things to keep an eye out for: Sovereign money—the idea that the government can create and spend money directly into the economy. Public banks—putting our municipal or state funds in a public institution which will keep both capital and interest in house, for use for the public good, as North Dakota does. Non-profit public banking for individuals—through Post Office banking, or individual accounts at the Federal Reserve. Preparedness—getting ready to use the next crash not to bail out, but to buy out banks (and fossil fuel industries while they’re at it) and run them in the public interest. Let’s imagine a new thing and start talking about money, not as a source of profit for some and debt for many, but as a public utility.
Scourge
As I wait to mail my package
the woman being served
mentions the new prison rules.
With books now barred
she now copies page
to send, like a letter,
to her friend.
The other one commiserates.
She knows how these things go.
Minutes later
at the window myself
I overhear
distress on the phone.
The ominous phrase
“Department of Corrections”
stands out.
This is not some abstract scourge.
It is here among us.
These are my neighbors
at the Post Office.
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
Doctors in Shetland, Scotland are now authorized to prescribe nature to their patients, with many delightful specific suggestions.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/doctors-in-scotland-can-now-prescribe-nature
Standard Chartered has become the first Asia-focused bank to rule out new coal development, which means that they will back out of three deals to finance coal power plants in Vietnam, the world’s third largest coal hotspot.
https://www.eco-business.com/news/standard-chartered-bank-quits-coal/
In a ceremony celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day, the city of Boulder, Colorado welcomed home the indigenous Arapaho, who are now displaced in Wyoming and Oklahoma; they are considering providing a recently purchased 110 acre property to the Arapaho to use when they travel through Colorado.
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/boulder/ci_32190845/boulder-welcomes-arapaho-home-indigenous-peoples-day
Tucked into an omnibus bill passed by Congress this summer was help for retiring small business owners to sell their businesses to their employees, either as a worker cooperative or as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/a-boost-for-the-worker-owned-economy-20180925
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)