Dear all,
I am awed, once again, by the beauty of spring as it is beginning to unfold around us. The threat of global warming makes it feel more important than ever to delight in and value the earth that envelops us.
As a mother, I rejoiced in our son Tim's trip to Nicaragua with this three year old, who got to hang out with friends in his first language. I was glad to add a generous dose of help and love to our son Andrew's family out in British Columbia as they face Erin's multiple ankle surgeries, though sobered by the health ripples of childhood leukemia treatment of the 1990's.
As always, I am glad to be alive in this world amidst all its joys and challenges.
Love,
Pamela
Help and confidence
Something had happened to my computer, leaving me unable to get on the Internet. Nothing I tried made a difference, except possibly to make it worse. Nobody around me could help. The Apple Store seemed to offer the only hope.
I had never gotten tech help there, and couldn’t quite believe there wasn’t some catch. I’m generally suspicious of institutional bureaucracies, and of putting myself in the hands of people with power. I would rather stay away, but there seemed to be no alternative.
So I walk into the store with my unusable computer, my story, my need, and my suspicion. What I get is a revelation: pure help, served up with kindness on all sides. It takes two visits, but I leave with a system that is not only restored but improved, and a head swirling with new thoughts and images about help.
Why is this experience still reverberating after days? Well, help is something that I struggle with in general. I’m used to not asking for it, not getting it, assuming it’s not there, managing on my own. So this was a striking reminder that my habits and assumptions come from deep in the past and are neither the best fit for current reality nor the best prescription for my emotional well-being.
But there’s more. What was it that allowed all the staff in this store—and I interacted with many of them over those two days—to offer their help with such warmth and generosity? While good customer service training may play a role, I can’t believe it explains the whole. I think the key likes in the fact that they knew they could help. We were coming in with problems that had solutions; we didn’t have access to those solutions, but they did. They could afford to be kind, because they were confident. And they had each other. When one part of the puzzle I brought in was outside someone’s expertise, he was totally relaxed about letting me know that he needed to consult. He wasn’t worried about the outcome, or about his self-worth. He didn’t try to make what he knew be enough when it wasn’t. He didn’t need to defend his limitations or worry about them. He knew that together, they could do anything that was possible to be done.
I begin imagining other things that might be fixed in such an environment. Maybe children could bring their malfunctioning families to the store. They would describe the problem they were experiencing and an employee would say, “Oh yes, we can help you with this. We know what to do. We’ve seen this problem before. It may take a little while, but we can straighten it out.”
Or maybe people who are concerned about the climate could bring the planet to the store. They would explain what was broken, and an employee would say, “You’re right; this is a bad problem. I’ll have to call in all my colleagues—and actually there’s a role you’ll need to play here too. Let me explain the process. It will take quite a while, but don’t worry. We do know just what has to be done.”
As these scenarios were finding a home in my brain, I started wondering about the times that people come to me for help. Do they see me the way I saw that staff, as unwaveringly confident, kind and able? That’s a pretty humbling thought! While I do try to be kind, I often don’t feel all that confident, and there are lots of problems I can’t solve. But it reminds me of the importance of sharing every bit of real confidence I do have. And when I don’t, maybe that’s where my co-workers—my fellow human beings—come in. What would it mean, and what would it make possible, if we all could rest in the confidence that we have each other, and that together we can do anything that is possible to be done?
Lent
Invited to Lent
not my tradition but interesting.
What to give up?
Cookies?
Then a new invitation:
What would God
want you to give up?
Work as a to-do list
all production, no joy?
This pops into my head, unbidden.
I’m in.
The discipline and tradition surround me.
If others can do this
have done it for centuries
are doing it right now
then so can I.
I remember, repeatedly
that there is joy to be found
in any moment as I work
(I also forget).
The forty days
is somehow comforting.
I’m not stuck with this choice,
not trapped.
I can always go back to
work without joy
if that’s what I want.
It’s just for Lent.
Imagine - A new economy is possible!
Chippewa tribe bans fracking
Members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians banned fracking on their 77,000 acre reservation in 2011, one of the first such bans in North America. Some initially thought an oil and gas boom would be a good thing, but they learned that the frackers would drill right through their precious aquifer, risking contamination of their drinking water and lakes. They learned that at a nearby reservation in the heart of the Bakken oil fields, fallout from a fracking boom included a spike in violent crime, pollution from contaminated materials dumped on the reservation, damaged roads, and increased demand for social services.
Receiving this information, the Turtle Mountain tribal council unanimously voted to ban fracking. An impoverished tribe left millions of dollars on the table, saying “We all know that in the very near future, water will be more valuable than oil or gold or anything else.” The council has since adopted a water code that solidifies the tribe’s stance on fracking, and with the help of a Department of Energy grant, the tribe is moving into developing the abundant solar and wind energy resources of the reservation.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/in-north-dakotas-booming-oil-patch-one-tribe-beat-back-fracking-20160121
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The Moral Monday movement, started in North Carolina, that invites a grassroots fusion of economic and social justice issues within the framework of morality.
http://newsone.com/3345792/the-third-reconstruction-how-moral-mondays-fusion-politics-are-fueling-the-rise-of-a-new-justice-movement/
The new white working class mayor of Philadelphia who doesn’t seem to have trouble identifying with the strengths and needs of the minority community, and who is putting out a very progressive agenda for the city.
A small timber and mill town in southwest Washington with a desperate need for jobs, whose commissioners voted unanimously against a proposed $1.25 billion oil refinery and propane export terminal, on the basis of environmental and health concerns.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/how-a-small-town-won-an-unlikely-victory-against-big-oil-20160226
The comeback of the monarch butterfly in its winter sanctuary in Mexico, more than tripling the area they cover from last year.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/insects/monarch-butterfly-population-surges-in-mexico-160229.htm
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Pamela Haines
215-349-9428
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
#150 Loving Francis
Dear all,
What a rich winter holiday, with ALL our family--including four grandchildren four and under--gathered for over a week of visiting, playing, laughing, exploring, and taking turns. And now, with Chuck gone for three weeks in Australia, I have a very different rich opportunity--for quiet and self-direction. I'm grateful for both.
I bring other people's voices more than usual this month. My initial reflection is full of Pope Francis, and Instead of a poem I include a few thoughts from Robin Ward Kimmerer, a woman with Native American roots who knows and says things I would wish I could say myself.
With the buzz of festivities and hype of resolutions over, I wish you all a good start to a good new year.
Love,
Pamela
Loving Francis
When Pope Francis released his encyclical, Laudato Si, in the summer, I was delighted. I have since come to appreciate how the timing and content were planned strategically to have the greatest possible impact on the Paris climate talks. More recently, as part of sharing the encyclical with my faith community, I’ve had the opportunity to put that delight into words.
I love having a spiritual leader decide it was his place to speak out on matters that are usually seen as secular—and strongly defended as such. I love how he has mined the wealth of his spiritual understanding and tradition to bring such a fresh and powerful perspective to these big issues, in language that is accessible to everyone. I love having someone so wise to follow and be guided by—and I love it that such guidance is available outside of my (sometimes smug) Quaker tradition.
I love how he refuses to be put in a box. He’s not focusing just on personal morality or spirituality. He’s not focusing just on compassion for the poor. He’s not focusing just on stewardship of God’s earth. He’s focusing on how they are all part of one whole—and it is the connections among them that end up providing us with the most insight. What can we learn from his suggestion that “the human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together”?
I particularly love his emphasis on economics and technology. No part of our lives has been more fiercely walled off as secular territory or more fiercely protected against the “soft” and “unscientific” voices of ethics and religion. And Pope Francis just wades right in—totally and serenely confident in his right to be there!
He is eloquent on the dangers of compulsive consumerism, an issue dear to my heart. “Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products”, he says, “people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending. That paradigm leads people to believe that they are free as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume.” Freedom, indeed!
I love how clear he is about the limits of economic growth. We cannot grow our way into equality; indeed, without strong government intervention, economic growth has historically led to greater and greater disparities of wealth. “And the idea of infinite or unlimited growth…is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of earth’s goods.” I love someone who isn’t afraid to call out a lie.
He is also eloquent about the limits of technological solutions. While technology has remedied countless evils over the years, when it is “linked to business interests, and presented as the only way of solving these problems, it proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things, and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others”. Furthermore, “a technology severed from great ethical principles will not easily be able to limit its own power”. Now there’s a warning to ponder.
I love how he turns our ideas about debt upside down. While we tend to think of the Global South—the poor countries of the world—as being indebted to the Global North, he says no. Rather, we who have extracted their resources and used up way more than our share of the earth’s fossil fuels to power our industrialized lifestyles, it is we who owe them a very real debt.
We can’t just tinker with our current economic system, says Francis. “Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations?” Read that one again, slowly. If we are to survive, we have to transform our systems of providing for common well-being (and he uses that word “common” over and over again); we have to transform our relationships with each other; we have to transform our relationship to the earth.
He’s like the little boy who has called out the emperor with no clothes. I find that enormously hopeful, particularly because of the number of people who listen to him. With Pope Francis, I feel that we are on solid ground. The news is not good and the future is not secure. But we know what’s true, we know what’s important, we know how it’s all connected, and we know how to face as we move forward. Ultimately our lives will be better for grounding ourselves in truth, and acting from the basis of the love and connection that are at the center of his message.
Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest
Robin Ward Kimmerer
We are showered every day with the gifts of the Earth: air to breathe, fresh water, the companionship of geese and maples--and food. Since we lack the gift of photosynthesis, we animals are designed by biology to be utterly dependent upon the lives of others, the inherently generous, more-than human persons with whom we share the planet...
How can we reciprocate the gifts of the Earth? In gratitude, in ceremony, through acts of practical reverence and land stewardship, in fierce defense of the places we love, in art, in science, in song, in gardens, in children, in ballots, in stories of renewal, in creative resistance, in how we spend our money and our precious lives, by refusing to be complicit with the forces of ecological destruction. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and dance for the renewal of the world.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/good-health/the-honorable-harvest-lessons-from-an-indigenous-tradition-of-giving-thanks-20151126/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Boulder's Carbon tax
First approved by voters in 2006, Boulder’s Climate Action Plan levies a carbon tax on energy use and uses the proceeds to pay for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. In 2012, Boulder voters approved a five-year extension of CAP, which generates around $1.9 million for the city. The average annual cost is $21 to residents, $94 to businesses, and $9,600 to industrial customers. The tax pays for energy-efficiency and renewable-energy programs, including rebates, credits and "energy audits" for homeowners and businesses.
The city now mandates energy-efficiency standards for rental housing and uses CAP funds to provide rebates and incentives to help landlords reach those mandates. It also runs a pilot program to get businesses to track their energy use more, and may mandate that businesses reach certain energy-efficiency standards. By encouraging upgrades, CAP tax funds help Boulder continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_21941854/boulder-issue-2a-carbon-tax-appears-likely-be
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
How Muslims on a bus in Kenya saved Christians from a terrorist attack, and helped shift the conversation about Islam and terrorism in Kenya.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/12063208/Muslim-bus-passengers-save-Christian-brothers-and-sisters-during-Al-Shabaab-attack.html
How US presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders is helping to change the political conversation by focusing his campaign on the economic needs of the working poor and middle class and the moral crisis of extreme inequality.
How millions in China are using a new app that provides updates on air and water pollution to put pressure on violators.
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/millions-in-china-use-app-to-pressure-polluters-with-govt-help/
How Amsterdam in the Netherlands offers financing for local sustainability projects, available to start-ups, commercial ventures, and individual residents.
http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/media-centre/city-hall/press-releases/2014-press-room/amsterdam-sustainability-fund-award
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Pamela Haines
215-349-9428
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com
What a rich winter holiday, with ALL our family--including four grandchildren four and under--gathered for over a week of visiting, playing, laughing, exploring, and taking turns. And now, with Chuck gone for three weeks in Australia, I have a very different rich opportunity--for quiet and self-direction. I'm grateful for both.
I bring other people's voices more than usual this month. My initial reflection is full of Pope Francis, and Instead of a poem I include a few thoughts from Robin Ward Kimmerer, a woman with Native American roots who knows and says things I would wish I could say myself.
With the buzz of festivities and hype of resolutions over, I wish you all a good start to a good new year.
Love,
Pamela
Loving Francis
When Pope Francis released his encyclical, Laudato Si, in the summer, I was delighted. I have since come to appreciate how the timing and content were planned strategically to have the greatest possible impact on the Paris climate talks. More recently, as part of sharing the encyclical with my faith community, I’ve had the opportunity to put that delight into words.
I love having a spiritual leader decide it was his place to speak out on matters that are usually seen as secular—and strongly defended as such. I love how he has mined the wealth of his spiritual understanding and tradition to bring such a fresh and powerful perspective to these big issues, in language that is accessible to everyone. I love having someone so wise to follow and be guided by—and I love it that such guidance is available outside of my (sometimes smug) Quaker tradition.
I love how he refuses to be put in a box. He’s not focusing just on personal morality or spirituality. He’s not focusing just on compassion for the poor. He’s not focusing just on stewardship of God’s earth. He’s focusing on how they are all part of one whole—and it is the connections among them that end up providing us with the most insight. What can we learn from his suggestion that “the human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together”?
I particularly love his emphasis on economics and technology. No part of our lives has been more fiercely walled off as secular territory or more fiercely protected against the “soft” and “unscientific” voices of ethics and religion. And Pope Francis just wades right in—totally and serenely confident in his right to be there!
He is eloquent on the dangers of compulsive consumerism, an issue dear to my heart. “Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products”, he says, “people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending. That paradigm leads people to believe that they are free as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume.” Freedom, indeed!
I love how clear he is about the limits of economic growth. We cannot grow our way into equality; indeed, without strong government intervention, economic growth has historically led to greater and greater disparities of wealth. “And the idea of infinite or unlimited growth…is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of earth’s goods.” I love someone who isn’t afraid to call out a lie.
He is also eloquent about the limits of technological solutions. While technology has remedied countless evils over the years, when it is “linked to business interests, and presented as the only way of solving these problems, it proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things, and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others”. Furthermore, “a technology severed from great ethical principles will not easily be able to limit its own power”. Now there’s a warning to ponder.
I love how he turns our ideas about debt upside down. While we tend to think of the Global South—the poor countries of the world—as being indebted to the Global North, he says no. Rather, we who have extracted their resources and used up way more than our share of the earth’s fossil fuels to power our industrialized lifestyles, it is we who owe them a very real debt.
We can’t just tinker with our current economic system, says Francis. “Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations?” Read that one again, slowly. If we are to survive, we have to transform our systems of providing for common well-being (and he uses that word “common” over and over again); we have to transform our relationships with each other; we have to transform our relationship to the earth.
He’s like the little boy who has called out the emperor with no clothes. I find that enormously hopeful, particularly because of the number of people who listen to him. With Pope Francis, I feel that we are on solid ground. The news is not good and the future is not secure. But we know what’s true, we know what’s important, we know how it’s all connected, and we know how to face as we move forward. Ultimately our lives will be better for grounding ourselves in truth, and acting from the basis of the love and connection that are at the center of his message.
Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest
Robin Ward Kimmerer
We are showered every day with the gifts of the Earth: air to breathe, fresh water, the companionship of geese and maples--and food. Since we lack the gift of photosynthesis, we animals are designed by biology to be utterly dependent upon the lives of others, the inherently generous, more-than human persons with whom we share the planet...
How can we reciprocate the gifts of the Earth? In gratitude, in ceremony, through acts of practical reverence and land stewardship, in fierce defense of the places we love, in art, in science, in song, in gardens, in children, in ballots, in stories of renewal, in creative resistance, in how we spend our money and our precious lives, by refusing to be complicit with the forces of ecological destruction. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and dance for the renewal of the world.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/good-health/the-honorable-harvest-lessons-from-an-indigenous-tradition-of-giving-thanks-20151126/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Boulder's Carbon tax
First approved by voters in 2006, Boulder’s Climate Action Plan levies a carbon tax on energy use and uses the proceeds to pay for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. In 2012, Boulder voters approved a five-year extension of CAP, which generates around $1.9 million for the city. The average annual cost is $21 to residents, $94 to businesses, and $9,600 to industrial customers. The tax pays for energy-efficiency and renewable-energy programs, including rebates, credits and "energy audits" for homeowners and businesses.
The city now mandates energy-efficiency standards for rental housing and uses CAP funds to provide rebates and incentives to help landlords reach those mandates. It also runs a pilot program to get businesses to track their energy use more, and may mandate that businesses reach certain energy-efficiency standards. By encouraging upgrades, CAP tax funds help Boulder continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_21941854/boulder-issue-2a-carbon-tax-appears-likely-be
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
How Muslims on a bus in Kenya saved Christians from a terrorist attack, and helped shift the conversation about Islam and terrorism in Kenya.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/12063208/Muslim-bus-passengers-save-Christian-brothers-and-sisters-during-Al-Shabaab-attack.html
How US presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders is helping to change the political conversation by focusing his campaign on the economic needs of the working poor and middle class and the moral crisis of extreme inequality.
How millions in China are using a new app that provides updates on air and water pollution to put pressure on violators.
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/millions-in-china-use-app-to-pressure-polluters-with-govt-help/
How Amsterdam in the Netherlands offers financing for local sustainability projects, available to start-ups, commercial ventures, and individual residents.
http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/media-centre/city-hall/press-releases/2014-press-room/amsterdam-sustainability-fund-award
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Pamela Haines
215-349-9428
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com
Saturday, December 12, 2015
#149 Fine and well
Dear all,
An unexpected pleasure in November was taking advantage of the later sunrise and mild weather to get outside and greet the day, and get a more intimate sense of the varieties of early morning color and light. As we settle in, here in our part of the northern hemisphere, to await the shortest and darkest days of the year, i am reminded of all the different ways we have found to bring other kinds of light into the world.
In a holiday season that can be full of extra stress and expectation/disappointment, I wish you small joys of connection, perhaps in unexpected places.
Love,
Pamela
Fine and well
When I was growing up, everything was fine. That was the non-negotiable way of the world. I was fine. My family was fine. Life was fine. We were told that we were a big happy family and, with no hard evidence to disprove it—and much to support it—we accepted this worldview as truth.
Since I was fine and my life was fine, and my mother was very busy working to keep it that way, there seemed to be no place for complaints. So I never complained. I settled into the job of having a happy childhood, and more or less succeeded.
What a shock to discover as an adult that this wasn’t the whole story! My childhood hadn’t been as happy as I had been taught. It turned out that my father was harsh and judgmental, my mother was emotionally needy, and in a family that prized education I secretly (even to myself) hated school. All in all, it had been quite a chore to be the hard-working non-complaining responsible team member that my big happy family required.
It was a huge relief to realize that everything had NOT been fine. I took some time luxuriating in outrage at what I’d had to put up with, and the idea of complaining, while still seeming totally taboo, began to hold some attraction. Yet I was constrained by awareness of how relatively good my life had been. To increase my confusion, the life I was living in the present was markedly better than my childhood, and as my perspective on the world widened, my own little problems seemed more and more petty and insignificant. At the same time, I fought against being pushed back into that familiar position where the needs of the larger whole always and inevitably trumped mine.
Did I, or did I not, have a right to complain? I started experimenting: complain about this, complain about that. In a way it was a relief to be able to notice and say out loud that some things did not feel fine. But when I really got into it, I started to get confused about reality. Were my complaints real? Were they from the past or the present? Was I really not fine? I liked the possibility that there could be space in the world for my complaints, but did I want them to define my emotional state?
On the other hand, was the only alternative to be “fine”? I couldn’t buy that one either. Things had not been fine in my family, and they are certainly not fine in the world. The attempt to believe or pretend that they are requires walling off great pieces of reality and agreeing to a small and defended life. While I was born into relative comfort and have more than enough in the present, it’s not hard to notice that I’m in a minority. Our peoples and our planet are in great and growing distress, and I ignore that reality at peril to my soul.
In a real way, “fine” has no substance. Used as a response when people ask how you are, it’s clearly just code for “I’m choosing at this moment, for any number of reasons, not to complain.” It’s no more than an opaque brush-off.
I’m reaching for a response that captures more truth. Currently this is how it sounds. “I have a few complaints.” There is space in this world for me to experience life as I experience it, and things will not all be sunshine. “There is a lot to grieve and fear.” I am connected to the larger picture, and I would choose to engage with all that is not fine rather than turn away. And, finally, “I am well.” I have found my way to a life of connection, joy and meaning, even in the midst of great suffering, and will not be rocked from that place.
In my experience, being fine calls for a cover-up, as completely as possible, of all that is wrong, and a commitment to construct a life on top of that cover-up. Being well is the opposite—a commitment to connecting to the solid ground that lies underneath, and engaging with all that is wrong, and all that is right, from that place. I am happy to consign “fine” to the dustbin of history, and have great faith that “well” will see me forward.
Bathing in wood air
We all know that a walk in the woods refreshes--
great trees, bird calls and breezes
pungent scents of earth and pine.
Yet our senses fail to name the greater forces
here at work.
Mushroom threads—mycelia—
weave a network underground
sharing nutrients at the root
helping those great trees to thrive.
And all those trees give out
not just the oxygen
that we forget to thank them for
but other subtle essences
(named now by scientists, thus real)
that nourish us.
We are bathing in wood air
as they say in Japan
deep in the molecular life of the trees
breathing in the benefits of
living in an interspecies web.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Economic conversion
As we look for precedents for transitioning an economy away from fossil fuels, there's an obvious on in our country's recent history. During the Second World War, the U.S. government took strong measures to increase its control over the economy. The War Production Board, established by Roosevelt by executive order, converted and expanded peacetime industries to meet war needs, allocated scarce materials vital to war production, established priorities in the distribution of materials and services, and prohibited nonessential production. It rationed such things as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, paper, and plastics.
The auto industry, which had been producing three million cars a year, was turned to war production; from early 1942 through the end of 1944 essentially no cars were produced in the United States. In addition to the ban on the production and sale of cars for private use, residential and highway construction was halted, and driving for pleasure was banned. Strategic goods—including tires, gasoline, fuel oil, and sugar—were rationed. Reducing private consumption of these goods freed up material resources that were vital to the war effort.
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
If you liked--or missed--the film, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, here's a trailer about the upcoming sequel: Earth Island: Cuba, Community and Climate Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD4Eof3nfPs
The Sustaining All Life delegation at the Paris climate talks, how they harnessed the power of listening and weren't afraid to look at the hard issues at the root of climate injustice. www.facebook.com/SustainingAllLife
A project initiated by George Lakey at Swarthmore College, that has gathered hundreds of stories of successful nonviolent action from around the world. http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu
And have I mentioned Pope Francis recently? I find him an ongoing source of hope.
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Pamela Haines
215-349-9428
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com
An unexpected pleasure in November was taking advantage of the later sunrise and mild weather to get outside and greet the day, and get a more intimate sense of the varieties of early morning color and light. As we settle in, here in our part of the northern hemisphere, to await the shortest and darkest days of the year, i am reminded of all the different ways we have found to bring other kinds of light into the world.
In a holiday season that can be full of extra stress and expectation/disappointment, I wish you small joys of connection, perhaps in unexpected places.
Love,
Pamela
Fine and well
When I was growing up, everything was fine. That was the non-negotiable way of the world. I was fine. My family was fine. Life was fine. We were told that we were a big happy family and, with no hard evidence to disprove it—and much to support it—we accepted this worldview as truth.
Since I was fine and my life was fine, and my mother was very busy working to keep it that way, there seemed to be no place for complaints. So I never complained. I settled into the job of having a happy childhood, and more or less succeeded.
What a shock to discover as an adult that this wasn’t the whole story! My childhood hadn’t been as happy as I had been taught. It turned out that my father was harsh and judgmental, my mother was emotionally needy, and in a family that prized education I secretly (even to myself) hated school. All in all, it had been quite a chore to be the hard-working non-complaining responsible team member that my big happy family required.
It was a huge relief to realize that everything had NOT been fine. I took some time luxuriating in outrage at what I’d had to put up with, and the idea of complaining, while still seeming totally taboo, began to hold some attraction. Yet I was constrained by awareness of how relatively good my life had been. To increase my confusion, the life I was living in the present was markedly better than my childhood, and as my perspective on the world widened, my own little problems seemed more and more petty and insignificant. At the same time, I fought against being pushed back into that familiar position where the needs of the larger whole always and inevitably trumped mine.
Did I, or did I not, have a right to complain? I started experimenting: complain about this, complain about that. In a way it was a relief to be able to notice and say out loud that some things did not feel fine. But when I really got into it, I started to get confused about reality. Were my complaints real? Were they from the past or the present? Was I really not fine? I liked the possibility that there could be space in the world for my complaints, but did I want them to define my emotional state?
On the other hand, was the only alternative to be “fine”? I couldn’t buy that one either. Things had not been fine in my family, and they are certainly not fine in the world. The attempt to believe or pretend that they are requires walling off great pieces of reality and agreeing to a small and defended life. While I was born into relative comfort and have more than enough in the present, it’s not hard to notice that I’m in a minority. Our peoples and our planet are in great and growing distress, and I ignore that reality at peril to my soul.
In a real way, “fine” has no substance. Used as a response when people ask how you are, it’s clearly just code for “I’m choosing at this moment, for any number of reasons, not to complain.” It’s no more than an opaque brush-off.
I’m reaching for a response that captures more truth. Currently this is how it sounds. “I have a few complaints.” There is space in this world for me to experience life as I experience it, and things will not all be sunshine. “There is a lot to grieve and fear.” I am connected to the larger picture, and I would choose to engage with all that is not fine rather than turn away. And, finally, “I am well.” I have found my way to a life of connection, joy and meaning, even in the midst of great suffering, and will not be rocked from that place.
In my experience, being fine calls for a cover-up, as completely as possible, of all that is wrong, and a commitment to construct a life on top of that cover-up. Being well is the opposite—a commitment to connecting to the solid ground that lies underneath, and engaging with all that is wrong, and all that is right, from that place. I am happy to consign “fine” to the dustbin of history, and have great faith that “well” will see me forward.
Bathing in wood air
We all know that a walk in the woods refreshes--
great trees, bird calls and breezes
pungent scents of earth and pine.
Yet our senses fail to name the greater forces
here at work.
Mushroom threads—mycelia—
weave a network underground
sharing nutrients at the root
helping those great trees to thrive.
And all those trees give out
not just the oxygen
that we forget to thank them for
but other subtle essences
(named now by scientists, thus real)
that nourish us.
We are bathing in wood air
as they say in Japan
deep in the molecular life of the trees
breathing in the benefits of
living in an interspecies web.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Economic conversion
As we look for precedents for transitioning an economy away from fossil fuels, there's an obvious on in our country's recent history. During the Second World War, the U.S. government took strong measures to increase its control over the economy. The War Production Board, established by Roosevelt by executive order, converted and expanded peacetime industries to meet war needs, allocated scarce materials vital to war production, established priorities in the distribution of materials and services, and prohibited nonessential production. It rationed such things as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, paper, and plastics.
The auto industry, which had been producing three million cars a year, was turned to war production; from early 1942 through the end of 1944 essentially no cars were produced in the United States. In addition to the ban on the production and sale of cars for private use, residential and highway construction was halted, and driving for pleasure was banned. Strategic goods—including tires, gasoline, fuel oil, and sugar—were rationed. Reducing private consumption of these goods freed up material resources that were vital to the war effort.
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
If you liked--or missed--the film, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, here's a trailer about the upcoming sequel: Earth Island: Cuba, Community and Climate Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD4Eof3nfPs
The Sustaining All Life delegation at the Paris climate talks, how they harnessed the power of listening and weren't afraid to look at the hard issues at the root of climate injustice. www.facebook.com/SustainingAllLife
A project initiated by George Lakey at Swarthmore College, that has gathered hundreds of stories of successful nonviolent action from around the world. http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu
And have I mentioned Pope Francis recently? I find him an ongoing source of hope.
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Pamela Haines
215-349-9428
To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.
www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
#148 Risk management
Dear all,
The ripples from our trip to Africa continue to spread in my life and my mind, as can be seen in this month's post. I'll keep looking for more ways to share that experience.
An on-going joy at home is a near-by grandchild, who reminds us on a regular basis of the incredible buoyancy, keen observation and intelligence, flexibility and love of life that is our birthright. May we rejoice in it in others, and reclaim it more and more for ourselves!
Love,
Pamela
Risk management
As I was biking into a poorer neighborhood just west of mine to get to my local YMCA, I noticed how the number of bikers without helmets grew, and couldn’t help but think of my recent time in Africa, the tons of bike riders there, and the total non-existence of helmets. I think most of us would identify an arc of progress here: Africa in the rear, many in the US ahead of them, my helmet-conscious neighborhood in the vanguard.
There’s certainly logic in this line of reasoning. Historically, prosperity has created the conditions for risk mitigation, with generally good results. It’s great, for example, to ensure that water is safe to drink, require people to follow traffic laws, and encourage vaccination against deadly and contagious diseases.
As we extend beyond these overall public protections, however, there are some troubling trends. We seem to be focusing more and more on consumption of safety. In a society with great income inequality, such risk mitigation comes at a price that is often paid individually. The more affluent can drive the biggest and safest cars, consume the best health care, and buy protection from violence in gated communities. People with fewer resources have fewer options about the risks they are exposed to, from the environmental contaminants in their neighborhoods to the lack of spending money for “extras” like bike helmets.
We have identified many more things as risky than our parents or grandparents ever did, and prohibitions against individual behavior that is deemed risky are steadily growing. Yet, as we pour our resources and well-developed risk management capacity into a crusade to eliminate risk, the expense of additional protection yields less and less additional well-being. I would go farther, and suggest that we may have reached the point where our risk aversion is putting us in greater danger.
Childhood asthma, for example, has now been linked with the reduction in gut bacteria that comes with use of antibiotics in the first years of life. I have to wonder: are those parents who are trying hardest to protect their young children from bacterial infections actually putting them at greater risk? The early childhood education field struggles with a similar paradox. Regulations around sanitizing, that are getting increasingly stringent in an effort to create germ-free environments for our little ones, are creating their own unintentional hazards—both in the dangers of inhaling/ingesting the sanitizing agents, and in the decreased opportunities for children to acquire their own antibodies to fight off infection.
Shifting to look through the widest possible lens, by far the greatest risk we are facing as a species is the threat to life on earth that comes from global warming. From that perspective, our focus for risk mitigation is seriously misplaced. Those of us with the largest carbon footprint—driving cars, heating and cooling big houses, eating food that’s traveled thousands of miles, mindlessly consuming products that depend on scarce natural resources—are engaging in the most risky behavior of all. Riding without a bike helmet entails risk. Pursuing consumption and economic growth at the cost of the planet’s integrity, however, is risk of a whole different order.
I wonder if part of our obsession with fighting germs and pursuing bike safety is a manifestation of this paradox. In a world with enormous risks and dangers all around, we focus on the little ones that are at hand. While taking antibiotics and wearing bike helmets can’t protect us from climate change, at least it’s something that we as individuals can do to feel safer.
I’m not advocating that we stop taking basic safety precautions or that we intentionally put our loved ones in danger. But what if, whenever we spent time, attention, money or energy in order to feel safer ourselves, we committed to spending an equal amount of time, attention, money or energy to reduce the risk that our cumulative individual and societal decisions are bringing to others in distant places or future generations?
As I think about this whole issue, a couple of lessons stand out. First, it always helps to step back and take a look at the big picture. Second, when we think about risk management, it may be time to look beyond traditional technical, regulatory and product safety solutions—to mass movements for changed priorities, perhaps. Finally, a little humility may be in order. Those countries in Africa that have lots of helmet-less bike riders and few cars to hit them—that seem so backward to us—may be engaging in much less risky behavior overall than our own rich industrialized fossil-fueled hyper-risk-averse societies.
First light
First light, I learn
can give relief to those who struggle
with the darkness of the winter.
I choose first light of summer for the cool,
before it is a penance
not a joy
to work outside.
But I have marveled at
the beauty of the sky when day is new
and searched for words.
Soft? Delicate?
These only hint at what envelops me.
But now I know.
This light is new. Not settled yet
it fills the sky with possibility
and draws us in.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Eliminating homelessness
In the past nine years, Utah has decreased the number of homeless by 72 percent—largely by finding and building apartments where they can live, permanently, with no strings attached.
Nationwide, the chronically homeless fill up the shelters night after night and spend a lot of time in emergency rooms and jails. This is expensive—costing up to $50,000 per person per year according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Traditionally in social service sectors, homeless people are required to get a job, deal with substance abuse or treat mental health issues first before they can even be considered for housing. But in 2005, Utah adopted a policy called “Housing First” which calls for putting the homeless in housing before addressing the issues that caused their homelessness in the first place.
Nine years into the 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness, officials estimates that Utah's Housing First program cost between $10,000 and $12,000 per person, about half of the $20,000 it cost them to treat and care for homeless people on the street.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
An 84 year old Chinese woman who shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine for her discovery (in 1977) of the cure for malaria, based on a reference in a text from 400 A.D.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34451386
Brazil’s pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions 37% by 2025 from 2005 levels, the first major developing country to pledge an absolute reduction.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/546bf2c0c20d4a99adf59cf5321b3dd2/brazil-pledges-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions
The September win by California prisoners of an historic settlement ending long-term solitary confinement.
https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/ca-prisoners-win-historic-gains-with-settlement-against-solitary-confinement/
A summer ruling by the Hague District Court that the Dutch government must ensure that Dutch greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2020 be at least 25% lower than those in 1990—a precedent that could be used by courts in other countries.
http://www.calltothebar.org/court-orders-government-to-do-more-to-fight-climate-change/
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
The ripples from our trip to Africa continue to spread in my life and my mind, as can be seen in this month's post. I'll keep looking for more ways to share that experience.
An on-going joy at home is a near-by grandchild, who reminds us on a regular basis of the incredible buoyancy, keen observation and intelligence, flexibility and love of life that is our birthright. May we rejoice in it in others, and reclaim it more and more for ourselves!
Love,
Pamela
Risk management
As I was biking into a poorer neighborhood just west of mine to get to my local YMCA, I noticed how the number of bikers without helmets grew, and couldn’t help but think of my recent time in Africa, the tons of bike riders there, and the total non-existence of helmets. I think most of us would identify an arc of progress here: Africa in the rear, many in the US ahead of them, my helmet-conscious neighborhood in the vanguard.
There’s certainly logic in this line of reasoning. Historically, prosperity has created the conditions for risk mitigation, with generally good results. It’s great, for example, to ensure that water is safe to drink, require people to follow traffic laws, and encourage vaccination against deadly and contagious diseases.
As we extend beyond these overall public protections, however, there are some troubling trends. We seem to be focusing more and more on consumption of safety. In a society with great income inequality, such risk mitigation comes at a price that is often paid individually. The more affluent can drive the biggest and safest cars, consume the best health care, and buy protection from violence in gated communities. People with fewer resources have fewer options about the risks they are exposed to, from the environmental contaminants in their neighborhoods to the lack of spending money for “extras” like bike helmets.
We have identified many more things as risky than our parents or grandparents ever did, and prohibitions against individual behavior that is deemed risky are steadily growing. Yet, as we pour our resources and well-developed risk management capacity into a crusade to eliminate risk, the expense of additional protection yields less and less additional well-being. I would go farther, and suggest that we may have reached the point where our risk aversion is putting us in greater danger.
Childhood asthma, for example, has now been linked with the reduction in gut bacteria that comes with use of antibiotics in the first years of life. I have to wonder: are those parents who are trying hardest to protect their young children from bacterial infections actually putting them at greater risk? The early childhood education field struggles with a similar paradox. Regulations around sanitizing, that are getting increasingly stringent in an effort to create germ-free environments for our little ones, are creating their own unintentional hazards—both in the dangers of inhaling/ingesting the sanitizing agents, and in the decreased opportunities for children to acquire their own antibodies to fight off infection.
Shifting to look through the widest possible lens, by far the greatest risk we are facing as a species is the threat to life on earth that comes from global warming. From that perspective, our focus for risk mitigation is seriously misplaced. Those of us with the largest carbon footprint—driving cars, heating and cooling big houses, eating food that’s traveled thousands of miles, mindlessly consuming products that depend on scarce natural resources—are engaging in the most risky behavior of all. Riding without a bike helmet entails risk. Pursuing consumption and economic growth at the cost of the planet’s integrity, however, is risk of a whole different order.
I wonder if part of our obsession with fighting germs and pursuing bike safety is a manifestation of this paradox. In a world with enormous risks and dangers all around, we focus on the little ones that are at hand. While taking antibiotics and wearing bike helmets can’t protect us from climate change, at least it’s something that we as individuals can do to feel safer.
I’m not advocating that we stop taking basic safety precautions or that we intentionally put our loved ones in danger. But what if, whenever we spent time, attention, money or energy in order to feel safer ourselves, we committed to spending an equal amount of time, attention, money or energy to reduce the risk that our cumulative individual and societal decisions are bringing to others in distant places or future generations?
As I think about this whole issue, a couple of lessons stand out. First, it always helps to step back and take a look at the big picture. Second, when we think about risk management, it may be time to look beyond traditional technical, regulatory and product safety solutions—to mass movements for changed priorities, perhaps. Finally, a little humility may be in order. Those countries in Africa that have lots of helmet-less bike riders and few cars to hit them—that seem so backward to us—may be engaging in much less risky behavior overall than our own rich industrialized fossil-fueled hyper-risk-averse societies.
First light
First light, I learn
can give relief to those who struggle
with the darkness of the winter.
I choose first light of summer for the cool,
before it is a penance
not a joy
to work outside.
But I have marveled at
the beauty of the sky when day is new
and searched for words.
Soft? Delicate?
These only hint at what envelops me.
But now I know.
This light is new. Not settled yet
it fills the sky with possibility
and draws us in.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Eliminating homelessness
In the past nine years, Utah has decreased the number of homeless by 72 percent—largely by finding and building apartments where they can live, permanently, with no strings attached.
Nationwide, the chronically homeless fill up the shelters night after night and spend a lot of time in emergency rooms and jails. This is expensive—costing up to $50,000 per person per year according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Traditionally in social service sectors, homeless people are required to get a job, deal with substance abuse or treat mental health issues first before they can even be considered for housing. But in 2005, Utah adopted a policy called “Housing First” which calls for putting the homeless in housing before addressing the issues that caused their homelessness in the first place.
Nine years into the 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness, officials estimates that Utah's Housing First program cost between $10,000 and $12,000 per person, about half of the $20,000 it cost them to treat and care for homeless people on the street.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
An 84 year old Chinese woman who shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine for her discovery (in 1977) of the cure for malaria, based on a reference in a text from 400 A.D.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34451386
Brazil’s pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions 37% by 2025 from 2005 levels, the first major developing country to pledge an absolute reduction.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/546bf2c0c20d4a99adf59cf5321b3dd2/brazil-pledges-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions
The September win by California prisoners of an historic settlement ending long-term solitary confinement.
https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/ca-prisoners-win-historic-gains-with-settlement-against-solitary-confinement/
A summer ruling by the Hague District Court that the Dutch government must ensure that Dutch greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2020 be at least 25% lower than those in 1990—a precedent that could be used by courts in other countries.
http://www.calltothebar.org/court-orders-government-to-do-more-to-fight-climate-change/
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Monday, September 21, 2015
#147: The heart of the story
Dear all,
It's been a struggle to talk about my experience in Northern Uganda, because there is so much to say, and it's hard to even know where to start. I've tried to include the heart of the story below. If you would like to hear more, please let me know.
How strange to arrive back from worlds away, not only in a different time zone, but a different season. It's taken a while to get adjusted, but I'm getting back on my feet , picking up the threads of life at home, glad to be back to these loved ones, this work, these opportunities.
Love,
Pamela
The heart of the story
Our three weeks in Northern Uganda were full: we supported a dear friend and the large primary school that she runs, took her on a brief trip to a game park, led a five-day peer counseling workshop, and consulted widely about youth employment. Of course I’ve written tons in the process: twenty vignettes of people and situations I came across there, a whole series of Haiku on a trip through the countryside, interviews with ten people who were at our workshop, a concept for a new crafts/trade program at the school, reports on what we did. But what is the heart of my story?
This is a question that has particular resonance for me from our time in Africa. Many of the people we met were master storytellers. They could go on for a very long time describing the intricacies of a family conflict or a land dispute, and I would listen as best I could, all the while struggling, in the midst of all that vivid detail, to find the heart of the story. One of the themes of my workshop experience was helping people get to that heart.
As I reflect, I believe mine has to do with honoring human connection and resilience. I could tell stories of poverty and horror, but they are not at my story’s heart. I think of Charles, who is so kind and playful with the shy pre-teen girls even as he worries about school fees for his own; of the old guard at the school who borrowed my glasses to read his Bible; of Felix and his three boys, and how we played and laughed in a living room so small there was barely room for our legs between the couch and chair; of Robin, recently graduated and pursuing a dream of an NGO to support farmers; of Alfred and Naume and the beautiful duets they sang; of Omona, a young man with deep knowledge and pride in his clan’s stories and traditions; of how everyone knows the local tribal dances and loves the opportunity to dance them together.
I think of the quiet motorcycle taxi driver who turned out to know six languages; of Oloya who has been disappointed by people many times, but loves caring for the animals; of Christopher, burdened with tragedy but enormously kind, whose skills as a counselor grew so much in the course of a week; of Emmanuel, damaged as a child soldier, who is now planting flowers at the edge of his farm plots; of Jenefer, a feisty feminist and now young mother, who gathers groups to listen to each other wherever she goes; of shy little Sheila, and how she confided in me about her nightmares; of Agnes, who started a wedding and funeral catering business in her farmers cooperative; of Achen and her irrepressible spirit, undaunted by a hard new marriage; of Abitimo, getting the worried test-takers and their parents to laugh and relax a little.
The heart of my story also has to do with the advice of theologian Walter Wink: to attend to listening for what is ours to do in this world, then to do just that—no less and no more—and wait in modest confidence for a miracle.
The obstacles can seem insurmountable. What about privilege? How do you show yourself fully in a relationship where you carry all the privilege of wealth, power and opportunity without burdening the other person with the weight of your discomfort?
What about energy? I have grieved to see the tall bags of charcoal standing by the roadside waiting to be picked up and trucked south to the big city, knowing that with each bag of charcoal there are fewer trees. But when someone suggested that ethanol imported from Brazil to Kampala would be a cleaner fuel, I wondered at the cost/benefits, and grieved for the potential loss of livelihood in the north.
What about education? Trying to pay school fees, in a country where public education is so under-resourced as to be almost valueless, and where most people survive on subsistence agriculture and the informal economy, is a constant struggle. Worse, with so many people pinning their hopes for the future on education in a country with so few jobs, those degrees, which are won at such cost and sacrifice, keep declining in value.
Some problems are not mine to solve. I can’t fix the lives of other people or other countries. But I can do my share. I can grieve. I can love. I can pay attention, be as present as I know how, and be alert for my best role in each new moment—as both giver and receiver, in ways both large and small. When I do this, I can be sure that there will be ripples I won’t see, and I can steadfastly expect a miracle.
Somehow being in an environment so very different from where I usually spend my days helped me focus on this intention. Yet, as I reflect on it, this is the way I would choose to live all the time.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Control of corporate influence
In 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) passed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, commonly called the Tobacco Treaty. It is the first-ever public health and corporate accountability treaty. The treaty creates an internationally coordinated response to the tobacco epidemic, encouraging governments to raise taxes or prices to discourage tobacco use, put prominent warnings on tobacco packages, ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship and more.
Article 5.3 of the Tobacco Treaty enshrines in international law the principle that the tobacco industry has no role in public policy: “In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, [governments] shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.”
The article has allowed dozens of countries to implement much stricter policies than would have been possible with the presence of Big Tobacco in policy debates. Imagine if the international climate talks were able to take place without the heavy presence of fossil fuel corporations, or if health care policy could be created without Big Pharma.
www.who.int/fctc/guidelines/article_5_3.pdf
Some things that have made me hopeful recently (in addition to all the people we met in Northern Uganda):
A law passed this spring, requiring new buildings in the commercial zones of France to have either solar panels or green roofs. Similar green-roof bylaws exist in various cities around the world, including Tokyo, Toronto, Copenhagen, and Zurich. http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/france-green-roofs-law-solar-panels-20150819
The Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, which includes 28 U.S. cities, including Philadelphia Los Angeles and Houston, and is complemented at the international level by the Compact of Mayors, all committed to reducing local greenhouse gas emissions, and enhancing resilience to climate change. http://commongood.unitedforimpact.org/node/753
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
It's been a struggle to talk about my experience in Northern Uganda, because there is so much to say, and it's hard to even know where to start. I've tried to include the heart of the story below. If you would like to hear more, please let me know.
How strange to arrive back from worlds away, not only in a different time zone, but a different season. It's taken a while to get adjusted, but I'm getting back on my feet , picking up the threads of life at home, glad to be back to these loved ones, this work, these opportunities.
Love,
Pamela
The heart of the story
Our three weeks in Northern Uganda were full: we supported a dear friend and the large primary school that she runs, took her on a brief trip to a game park, led a five-day peer counseling workshop, and consulted widely about youth employment. Of course I’ve written tons in the process: twenty vignettes of people and situations I came across there, a whole series of Haiku on a trip through the countryside, interviews with ten people who were at our workshop, a concept for a new crafts/trade program at the school, reports on what we did. But what is the heart of my story?
This is a question that has particular resonance for me from our time in Africa. Many of the people we met were master storytellers. They could go on for a very long time describing the intricacies of a family conflict or a land dispute, and I would listen as best I could, all the while struggling, in the midst of all that vivid detail, to find the heart of the story. One of the themes of my workshop experience was helping people get to that heart.
As I reflect, I believe mine has to do with honoring human connection and resilience. I could tell stories of poverty and horror, but they are not at my story’s heart. I think of Charles, who is so kind and playful with the shy pre-teen girls even as he worries about school fees for his own; of the old guard at the school who borrowed my glasses to read his Bible; of Felix and his three boys, and how we played and laughed in a living room so small there was barely room for our legs between the couch and chair; of Robin, recently graduated and pursuing a dream of an NGO to support farmers; of Alfred and Naume and the beautiful duets they sang; of Omona, a young man with deep knowledge and pride in his clan’s stories and traditions; of how everyone knows the local tribal dances and loves the opportunity to dance them together.
I think of the quiet motorcycle taxi driver who turned out to know six languages; of Oloya who has been disappointed by people many times, but loves caring for the animals; of Christopher, burdened with tragedy but enormously kind, whose skills as a counselor grew so much in the course of a week; of Emmanuel, damaged as a child soldier, who is now planting flowers at the edge of his farm plots; of Jenefer, a feisty feminist and now young mother, who gathers groups to listen to each other wherever she goes; of shy little Sheila, and how she confided in me about her nightmares; of Agnes, who started a wedding and funeral catering business in her farmers cooperative; of Achen and her irrepressible spirit, undaunted by a hard new marriage; of Abitimo, getting the worried test-takers and their parents to laugh and relax a little.
The heart of my story also has to do with the advice of theologian Walter Wink: to attend to listening for what is ours to do in this world, then to do just that—no less and no more—and wait in modest confidence for a miracle.
The obstacles can seem insurmountable. What about privilege? How do you show yourself fully in a relationship where you carry all the privilege of wealth, power and opportunity without burdening the other person with the weight of your discomfort?
What about energy? I have grieved to see the tall bags of charcoal standing by the roadside waiting to be picked up and trucked south to the big city, knowing that with each bag of charcoal there are fewer trees. But when someone suggested that ethanol imported from Brazil to Kampala would be a cleaner fuel, I wondered at the cost/benefits, and grieved for the potential loss of livelihood in the north.
What about education? Trying to pay school fees, in a country where public education is so under-resourced as to be almost valueless, and where most people survive on subsistence agriculture and the informal economy, is a constant struggle. Worse, with so many people pinning their hopes for the future on education in a country with so few jobs, those degrees, which are won at such cost and sacrifice, keep declining in value.
Some problems are not mine to solve. I can’t fix the lives of other people or other countries. But I can do my share. I can grieve. I can love. I can pay attention, be as present as I know how, and be alert for my best role in each new moment—as both giver and receiver, in ways both large and small. When I do this, I can be sure that there will be ripples I won’t see, and I can steadfastly expect a miracle.
Somehow being in an environment so very different from where I usually spend my days helped me focus on this intention. Yet, as I reflect on it, this is the way I would choose to live all the time.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Control of corporate influence
In 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) passed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, commonly called the Tobacco Treaty. It is the first-ever public health and corporate accountability treaty. The treaty creates an internationally coordinated response to the tobacco epidemic, encouraging governments to raise taxes or prices to discourage tobacco use, put prominent warnings on tobacco packages, ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship and more.
Article 5.3 of the Tobacco Treaty enshrines in international law the principle that the tobacco industry has no role in public policy: “In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, [governments] shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.”
The article has allowed dozens of countries to implement much stricter policies than would have been possible with the presence of Big Tobacco in policy debates. Imagine if the international climate talks were able to take place without the heavy presence of fossil fuel corporations, or if health care policy could be created without Big Pharma.
www.who.int/fctc/guidelines/article_5_3.pdf
Some things that have made me hopeful recently (in addition to all the people we met in Northern Uganda):
A law passed this spring, requiring new buildings in the commercial zones of France to have either solar panels or green roofs. Similar green-roof bylaws exist in various cities around the world, including Tokyo, Toronto, Copenhagen, and Zurich. http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/france-green-roofs-law-solar-panels-20150819
The Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, which includes 28 U.S. cities, including Philadelphia Los Angeles and Houston, and is complemented at the international level by the Compact of Mayors, all committed to reducing local greenhouse gas emissions, and enhancing resilience to climate change. http://commongood.unitedforimpact.org/node/753
More resources
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
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Sunday, August 23, 2015
#146 Claiming economics
Dear all,
Well, we're delighted to welcome a new grandchild, Sebastian, born on August 7, and glad to be in a position to hang out with his big brother as they all get adjusted to their family's new size--everyone is well. And Chuck and I are about to set off on an adventure--three weeks in Northern Uganda doing counseling and trauma healing work with our dear friend Abitimo Odongkara.
Part of me wishes for the kind of vacation that involves doing nothing for an extended period of time, but I think I'd prefer to have a life full of adventures, with deep rest tucked in here and there.
I'm loving the early morning light--more about that another time.
Love,
Pamela
Claiming economics
When I was nine or ten my father, who taught college economics, would get my help creating the multiple choice questions for his exams. He would ask a question, I would come up with an answer that made sense to me in the absence of any text-book knowledge, and that became one of the choices. As a teenager, I witnessed his growing disillusionment with classical economics theory and its dismissal of whole fields— including human generosity, community and the environment. An accumulation of such childhood experiences left me feeling that I had a right to think about economics, and a right to expect it to make sense.
Leading an intensive week-long series of morning sessions on faith and economics at a conference this summer, I had one overall goal—for people to come out of it believing that they too had a right to bring their thinking and values to the realm of economic thought.
The barriers are significant. Although the original economic philosophers saw the field as infused with moral implications, economists of later years were eager to transform it into a hard science, where accurate measurements and tested formulas could lead to unassailable conclusions. (I’ve heard this impulse described as “physics envy”.) Though not all economists fit this mold, many are satisfied to be masters of a complex field; it leaves one able to dismiss the general public as dense and incompetent, and relieved of responsibility to address the common good. In the face of such unwelcome, it’s not surprising that many people just give up and cede the whole territory to the “experts”.
This is a problem. Now more than ever, the field of economics needs the public to wade in with our values intact, yet it can be hard to notice how they relate to such a complex and abstract system. It helped to start our workshop series with the reminder that the word economics comes from Greek roots meaning management of the home. (Ecology is “knowledge of home”.) Well, we all know something about the home.
So we made a list of principles involved in good home management. These included promoting safety; knowing your capabilities and limitations; keeping the future in mind; creating a place of rest and spiritual refreshment; not taking more than your share, and giving back when you have extra; having a budget—knowing what’s coming in and going out; seeing that everybody has a role; taking care of the little and vulnerable ones; giving up on things that aren’t working; knowing where things belong; gathering together to do larger projects; looking beyond the strictly functional; cleaning and taking out the trash—and knowing where the trash ends up; being kind.
Such principals are intensely relevant to our larger home management process, but the economy has strayed far from them. There was a time when we at least had language about promoting the common good. From Roosevelt’s New Deal and the start of Social Security, through the social planning of World War II, the GI Bill and grants for higher education, Medicare and Johnson’s War against Poverty, there was an assumption that the government had a duty to mitigate the grossest inequities of a market-based system for the benefit of the citizenry at large. (How many people know that the federal income tax rate in the 1950’s for income over $250,000 was 91%?)
Since the 1970’s, however, a significant shift has taken place, very much under the radar of general public awareness. A “neo-liberal” economic ideology has gained ascendancy, grounded in the belief that an unrestricted market will best serve our overall economic interests. Taxes have been adjusted to benefit those with more wealth, restrictions on the financial sector have been rolled back, corporate power and influence have grown. In consequence, the public sector has been squeezed, inequality has ballooned, credit card and student debt have mushroomed, and economic insecurity has gripped more and more of the population.
Equally troubling, underlying both the socially-conscious economic policies of the 1950’s and 1960’s and the greed-based neo-liberalism of the last 40 years, lies an assumption that our well-being depends on continued economic growth—which is setting us on a collision course with our finite planet’s resources and ability to sustain life.
These are not times to tinker with formulas and rates. These are times to step in boldly with our values intact and ask the big questions: Who is the economy for? What increases well-being? What makes up our common wealth? When is more better than less? What motivates people? What is our responsibility to the future? Who should decide?
We are all needed here: the innocents, like the child who saw that the emperor had no clothes; the people of conscience who can say that things are just not right; the farsighted ones who can offer the perspective of those who come after us; those who stand on their faith values; the people in my workshop—and everyone else—who claim their right to have a voice in the management of our home.
Soil
This vacant lot is vast
a gap once filled by two great houses
now hemmed in by poverty.
A lovely family tends it
for the children in their center
and the neighbors
who need beauty and good food.
Overflowing with abundance
our community garden’s flowers
spread and spread.
I long to share the bounty
with these new friends.
One great carload
and a morning’s work
together
fill the few raised beds,
the soil hauled in
from far away
by this good man,
each hard-earned shovelful
a kiss, a promise
of more nourishment
to come.
I would fill this lot with flowers
growing so abundantly
crying out to share.
Yet in this packed debris
a shovel cannot penetrate.
What’s needed first is soil.
My little compost pile
even if I gave it all away
would be a speck
in this vast lot—
and I have need of it.
My easy generosity
has foundered
on the hard slow work
of building up the soil.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
The financial transaction tax
A financial transaction tax is a very small excise tax on trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives and other securities. A tax of just one-hundredth of a percentage point would raise $185 billion over 10 years, according to new estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Such a tax would also reduce the amount of high-frequency automated trading that is used to make windfall profits by taking advantage of small differences in price in milliseconds.
Transaction taxes of one type or another have long been in place in countries with thriving financial markets, including Britain, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, India and Switzerland. Eleven countries of the European Union agreed to implement such a tax, in 2013, though pressure from opponents caused the introduction to be postponed until next year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/opinion/the-case-for-a-tax-on-financial-transactions.html?_r=0
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The recent presidential decree of the Costa Rican government—based on the research of a small non-profit—to protect workers in the agricultural industry from heat stress and dehydration, a major cause of kidney disease in that population.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150129-sugarcane-workers-kidney-disease-nicaragua-health-ngfood/
The relative freedom that President Obama is feeling these days to say and do what he thinks is right.
All the urban farming and gardening initiatives all over the country, and the positive impact they have on everyone involved.
A doctor in Indonesia who created a system for rural people to trade in recyclable trash for health insurance.
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/indonesians-can-trade-trash-for-free-health-care/
More resources
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Well, we're delighted to welcome a new grandchild, Sebastian, born on August 7, and glad to be in a position to hang out with his big brother as they all get adjusted to their family's new size--everyone is well. And Chuck and I are about to set off on an adventure--three weeks in Northern Uganda doing counseling and trauma healing work with our dear friend Abitimo Odongkara.
Part of me wishes for the kind of vacation that involves doing nothing for an extended period of time, but I think I'd prefer to have a life full of adventures, with deep rest tucked in here and there.
I'm loving the early morning light--more about that another time.
Love,
Pamela
Claiming economics
When I was nine or ten my father, who taught college economics, would get my help creating the multiple choice questions for his exams. He would ask a question, I would come up with an answer that made sense to me in the absence of any text-book knowledge, and that became one of the choices. As a teenager, I witnessed his growing disillusionment with classical economics theory and its dismissal of whole fields— including human generosity, community and the environment. An accumulation of such childhood experiences left me feeling that I had a right to think about economics, and a right to expect it to make sense.
Leading an intensive week-long series of morning sessions on faith and economics at a conference this summer, I had one overall goal—for people to come out of it believing that they too had a right to bring their thinking and values to the realm of economic thought.
The barriers are significant. Although the original economic philosophers saw the field as infused with moral implications, economists of later years were eager to transform it into a hard science, where accurate measurements and tested formulas could lead to unassailable conclusions. (I’ve heard this impulse described as “physics envy”.) Though not all economists fit this mold, many are satisfied to be masters of a complex field; it leaves one able to dismiss the general public as dense and incompetent, and relieved of responsibility to address the common good. In the face of such unwelcome, it’s not surprising that many people just give up and cede the whole territory to the “experts”.
This is a problem. Now more than ever, the field of economics needs the public to wade in with our values intact, yet it can be hard to notice how they relate to such a complex and abstract system. It helped to start our workshop series with the reminder that the word economics comes from Greek roots meaning management of the home. (Ecology is “knowledge of home”.) Well, we all know something about the home.
So we made a list of principles involved in good home management. These included promoting safety; knowing your capabilities and limitations; keeping the future in mind; creating a place of rest and spiritual refreshment; not taking more than your share, and giving back when you have extra; having a budget—knowing what’s coming in and going out; seeing that everybody has a role; taking care of the little and vulnerable ones; giving up on things that aren’t working; knowing where things belong; gathering together to do larger projects; looking beyond the strictly functional; cleaning and taking out the trash—and knowing where the trash ends up; being kind.
Such principals are intensely relevant to our larger home management process, but the economy has strayed far from them. There was a time when we at least had language about promoting the common good. From Roosevelt’s New Deal and the start of Social Security, through the social planning of World War II, the GI Bill and grants for higher education, Medicare and Johnson’s War against Poverty, there was an assumption that the government had a duty to mitigate the grossest inequities of a market-based system for the benefit of the citizenry at large. (How many people know that the federal income tax rate in the 1950’s for income over $250,000 was 91%?)
Since the 1970’s, however, a significant shift has taken place, very much under the radar of general public awareness. A “neo-liberal” economic ideology has gained ascendancy, grounded in the belief that an unrestricted market will best serve our overall economic interests. Taxes have been adjusted to benefit those with more wealth, restrictions on the financial sector have been rolled back, corporate power and influence have grown. In consequence, the public sector has been squeezed, inequality has ballooned, credit card and student debt have mushroomed, and economic insecurity has gripped more and more of the population.
Equally troubling, underlying both the socially-conscious economic policies of the 1950’s and 1960’s and the greed-based neo-liberalism of the last 40 years, lies an assumption that our well-being depends on continued economic growth—which is setting us on a collision course with our finite planet’s resources and ability to sustain life.
These are not times to tinker with formulas and rates. These are times to step in boldly with our values intact and ask the big questions: Who is the economy for? What increases well-being? What makes up our common wealth? When is more better than less? What motivates people? What is our responsibility to the future? Who should decide?
We are all needed here: the innocents, like the child who saw that the emperor had no clothes; the people of conscience who can say that things are just not right; the farsighted ones who can offer the perspective of those who come after us; those who stand on their faith values; the people in my workshop—and everyone else—who claim their right to have a voice in the management of our home.
Soil
This vacant lot is vast
a gap once filled by two great houses
now hemmed in by poverty.
A lovely family tends it
for the children in their center
and the neighbors
who need beauty and good food.
Overflowing with abundance
our community garden’s flowers
spread and spread.
I long to share the bounty
with these new friends.
One great carload
and a morning’s work
together
fill the few raised beds,
the soil hauled in
from far away
by this good man,
each hard-earned shovelful
a kiss, a promise
of more nourishment
to come.
I would fill this lot with flowers
growing so abundantly
crying out to share.
Yet in this packed debris
a shovel cannot penetrate.
What’s needed first is soil.
My little compost pile
even if I gave it all away
would be a speck
in this vast lot—
and I have need of it.
My easy generosity
has foundered
on the hard slow work
of building up the soil.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
The financial transaction tax
A financial transaction tax is a very small excise tax on trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives and other securities. A tax of just one-hundredth of a percentage point would raise $185 billion over 10 years, according to new estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Such a tax would also reduce the amount of high-frequency automated trading that is used to make windfall profits by taking advantage of small differences in price in milliseconds.
Transaction taxes of one type or another have long been in place in countries with thriving financial markets, including Britain, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, India and Switzerland. Eleven countries of the European Union agreed to implement such a tax, in 2013, though pressure from opponents caused the introduction to be postponed until next year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/opinion/the-case-for-a-tax-on-financial-transactions.html?_r=0
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The recent presidential decree of the Costa Rican government—based on the research of a small non-profit—to protect workers in the agricultural industry from heat stress and dehydration, a major cause of kidney disease in that population.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150129-sugarcane-workers-kidney-disease-nicaragua-health-ngfood/
The relative freedom that President Obama is feeling these days to say and do what he thinks is right.
All the urban farming and gardening initiatives all over the country, and the positive impact they have on everyone involved.
A doctor in Indonesia who created a system for rural people to trade in recyclable trash for health insurance.
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/indonesians-can-trade-trash-for-free-health-care/
More resources
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
Sunday, July 19, 2015
#145 Seeing the bones
Dear all,
What a rich away time we've had--a week at a Quaker gathering in North Carolina, where I had the privilege and challenge of leading a five morning workshop series on faith and economics, followed by three days with our wonderful west coast family who had come east for the same gathering (just what the doctored ordered!), bookended by stunning drives through the southern mountains, volunteer fire-company home cooking in Virginia, and an amazing fossil dig/display of big mammals in Tennessee.
One of the many gifts of the gathering was hearing from an elderly couple from Oklahoma who have persisted steadily over the years in raising the evils of mass incarceration, and are beginning to see some changes in their state. I'm reminded of the power we all have...
Love,
Pamela
Seeing the bones
It was the third time I found myself meditating on the importance of being able to see the bones of a situation—and in three totally different contexts. Clearly there was something here to understand.
The first was about trees. I always used to think that trees in winter were a sorry sight. The green fullness of summer, and the bright colors of fall were gone. Nothing of beauty or use was left. With all my attention on what was missing, I couldn’t even notice what was there. Then one day, on a long winter car trip, I started really paying attention. I could see how the shape of each kind of tree was different. I could notice their structure, and form a question in my mind about how the branches knew which way to grow and when to stop. It felt like I could see and think about trees in a new way because I had access to their bones.
The next experience came from reading a book about the melting glaciers, framed by the author’s experience with a tiny village high in the Himalayas. Since glacial melt was no longer reaching their village, they had made a collective decision to relocate—to land that was now barren but could get water by constructing a long canal to a more reliable source.
They could see the shape of their survival. Its bones were laid bare in those mountains—water for their crops, yak dung to burn for fuel, and neighbors to help in times of need. They could see clearly that they were the ones to take responsibility, and then, how to take focused, patient strategic action. In the west, our vision of what is required for survival has become clouded, and our vistas are cluttered with the accumulated stuff of wealth. Neither what we need nor what we might lose is in focus for us, and we face the prospect of climate change as individuals, with a combination of denial, arrogance and fear.
I was reminded of the third in a recent conversation with a friend. We have both followed the amazing work of a small group of passionate and dedicated peacemakers in East Africa—home of genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, war in the Congo, and deep tribal conflicts in Kenya. They hold workshops called Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities, bringing together people from both sides of the conflict for two or three days of very personal peace-building.
People come out of these workshops with a new understanding of the trauma they have experienced, and a new ability to forgive. Not only do they often experience what appears to be complete and transformative forgiveness of individuals whom they may have seen kill their loved ones, they go on to rebuild lasting neighbor relationships together.
How could they do this? We speculated that it had to do with seeing the bones of the conflict. They knew it as immediate and ugly, as a festering wound that kept one from sleeping at night, or being truly alive during the day. Their hunger for peace was immediate and pressing, and those who had offended were close at hand. It was worth it to them to forgive.
For many of us, particularly in the west, the bones of conflict are not so clear. Actual warfare is far away in time and space. Much of our social conflict is handled by big impersonal institutions, and we have so many personal options for avoiding what remains—distracting consumption, medication, losing ourselves in cyberspace, leaving and finding new real-time communities—that we rarely have to face it directly.
While the goal can’t be to hold up leafless trees, or the economic conditions of struggling Himalayan villages, or the conflict conditions of East Africa as an ultimate model, we ignore what they have to teach us at our peril.
What are the lessons? One has to do with clutter. If our eye is distracted or our sightlines are blocked, we lose our ability to see the shape of things. Another involves the importance of grasping whole systems and being able to identify our part in feedback loops. Western industrialized society has become so enormously complex that this is hard to do, but if we don’t see our place in the system, and see how our actions—or lack thereof—impact others, how can we know what to do? Ultimately it’s about being neighbors. Setting aside the trees for a moment, who are not confused, and whose dependence on their neighbors happens to a large extent underground, we’re in danger of losing the critical understanding that we need each other.
Cherry blossoms
Pink petals fall.
The stuff of poetry:
delicate beauty
soft caress
drifts and clouds
and gentle intimations
of mortality.
But this is no poem.
It’s a squall
a wall of pink
blowing sideways
fierce and full.
Don’t be fooled
those flying
blossoms say.
Nature at its heart
is rarely
delicate.
Imagine -- A new economy is possible!
Creating money in the public interest
In 1938 the Canadian government, recognizing that money should be created in the public interest, turned the Bank of Canada into a public institution. The bank was harnessed to finance Canada's war effort, plus infrastructure projects across the country. Mandated to lend not only to the federal government but to provinces and municipalities, this public credit was used to fund social programs like the Old Age Security Act and vocational training for veterans. Repayment on loans simply went back into government coffers.
In 1974, however, under the influence of neo-liberal economic philosophy, the government of Canada stopped borrowing from the Bank of Canada, and started borrowing through private banks, which then charged and kept the interest. Since 1974 the federal government has paid out over $1.5 trillion in interest to private banks that previously would have been available for public programs.
A current lawsuit seeks to restore the Bank of Canada to its original role, arguing that not only may it lend interest-free to the government, it is obliged to do so. Two courts have now refused to throw the case out, which means that the Bank has to justify charging interest on such loans.
http://citizenspress.org/leftnews/can-the-courts-liberate-the-bank-of-canada
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
How the practice in Finland of giving student 15 minutes of free play after every 45 minutes of class helps keep them focused.http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-finland-keeps-kids-focused/373544/
An art teacher in Chechnya who used time when children were confined for long hours to wartime shelters to teach them art--resulting in powerful illustrations for a book of stories on non-violent action in the region.
All the honest conversations on race that are happening throughout our country, and the good soil they are finding to grow in.
Pope Francis and his papal encyclical on climate change. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
More resources
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
What a rich away time we've had--a week at a Quaker gathering in North Carolina, where I had the privilege and challenge of leading a five morning workshop series on faith and economics, followed by three days with our wonderful west coast family who had come east for the same gathering (just what the doctored ordered!), bookended by stunning drives through the southern mountains, volunteer fire-company home cooking in Virginia, and an amazing fossil dig/display of big mammals in Tennessee.
One of the many gifts of the gathering was hearing from an elderly couple from Oklahoma who have persisted steadily over the years in raising the evils of mass incarceration, and are beginning to see some changes in their state. I'm reminded of the power we all have...
Love,
Pamela
Seeing the bones
It was the third time I found myself meditating on the importance of being able to see the bones of a situation—and in three totally different contexts. Clearly there was something here to understand.
The first was about trees. I always used to think that trees in winter were a sorry sight. The green fullness of summer, and the bright colors of fall were gone. Nothing of beauty or use was left. With all my attention on what was missing, I couldn’t even notice what was there. Then one day, on a long winter car trip, I started really paying attention. I could see how the shape of each kind of tree was different. I could notice their structure, and form a question in my mind about how the branches knew which way to grow and when to stop. It felt like I could see and think about trees in a new way because I had access to their bones.
The next experience came from reading a book about the melting glaciers, framed by the author’s experience with a tiny village high in the Himalayas. Since glacial melt was no longer reaching their village, they had made a collective decision to relocate—to land that was now barren but could get water by constructing a long canal to a more reliable source.
They could see the shape of their survival. Its bones were laid bare in those mountains—water for their crops, yak dung to burn for fuel, and neighbors to help in times of need. They could see clearly that they were the ones to take responsibility, and then, how to take focused, patient strategic action. In the west, our vision of what is required for survival has become clouded, and our vistas are cluttered with the accumulated stuff of wealth. Neither what we need nor what we might lose is in focus for us, and we face the prospect of climate change as individuals, with a combination of denial, arrogance and fear.
I was reminded of the third in a recent conversation with a friend. We have both followed the amazing work of a small group of passionate and dedicated peacemakers in East Africa—home of genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, war in the Congo, and deep tribal conflicts in Kenya. They hold workshops called Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities, bringing together people from both sides of the conflict for two or three days of very personal peace-building.
People come out of these workshops with a new understanding of the trauma they have experienced, and a new ability to forgive. Not only do they often experience what appears to be complete and transformative forgiveness of individuals whom they may have seen kill their loved ones, they go on to rebuild lasting neighbor relationships together.
How could they do this? We speculated that it had to do with seeing the bones of the conflict. They knew it as immediate and ugly, as a festering wound that kept one from sleeping at night, or being truly alive during the day. Their hunger for peace was immediate and pressing, and those who had offended were close at hand. It was worth it to them to forgive.
For many of us, particularly in the west, the bones of conflict are not so clear. Actual warfare is far away in time and space. Much of our social conflict is handled by big impersonal institutions, and we have so many personal options for avoiding what remains—distracting consumption, medication, losing ourselves in cyberspace, leaving and finding new real-time communities—that we rarely have to face it directly.
While the goal can’t be to hold up leafless trees, or the economic conditions of struggling Himalayan villages, or the conflict conditions of East Africa as an ultimate model, we ignore what they have to teach us at our peril.
What are the lessons? One has to do with clutter. If our eye is distracted or our sightlines are blocked, we lose our ability to see the shape of things. Another involves the importance of grasping whole systems and being able to identify our part in feedback loops. Western industrialized society has become so enormously complex that this is hard to do, but if we don’t see our place in the system, and see how our actions—or lack thereof—impact others, how can we know what to do? Ultimately it’s about being neighbors. Setting aside the trees for a moment, who are not confused, and whose dependence on their neighbors happens to a large extent underground, we’re in danger of losing the critical understanding that we need each other.
Cherry blossoms
Pink petals fall.
The stuff of poetry:
delicate beauty
soft caress
drifts and clouds
and gentle intimations
of mortality.
But this is no poem.
It’s a squall
a wall of pink
blowing sideways
fierce and full.
Don’t be fooled
those flying
blossoms say.
Nature at its heart
is rarely
delicate.
Imagine -- A new economy is possible!
Creating money in the public interest
In 1938 the Canadian government, recognizing that money should be created in the public interest, turned the Bank of Canada into a public institution. The bank was harnessed to finance Canada's war effort, plus infrastructure projects across the country. Mandated to lend not only to the federal government but to provinces and municipalities, this public credit was used to fund social programs like the Old Age Security Act and vocational training for veterans. Repayment on loans simply went back into government coffers.
In 1974, however, under the influence of neo-liberal economic philosophy, the government of Canada stopped borrowing from the Bank of Canada, and started borrowing through private banks, which then charged and kept the interest. Since 1974 the federal government has paid out over $1.5 trillion in interest to private banks that previously would have been available for public programs.
A current lawsuit seeks to restore the Bank of Canada to its original role, arguing that not only may it lend interest-free to the government, it is obliged to do so. Two courts have now refused to throw the case out, which means that the Bank has to justify charging interest on such loans.
http://citizenspress.org/leftnews/can-the-courts-liberate-the-bank-of-canada
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
How the practice in Finland of giving student 15 minutes of free play after every 45 minutes of class helps keep them focused.http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-finland-keeps-kids-focused/373544/
An art teacher in Chechnya who used time when children were confined for long hours to wartime shelters to teach them art--resulting in powerful illustrations for a book of stories on non-violent action in the region.
All the honest conversations on race that are happening throughout our country, and the good soil they are finding to grow in.
Pope Francis and his papal encyclical on climate change. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
More resources
Recent 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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/where-dignity-is-part-of-the-school-day
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