a free e-zine from Alternatives for Simple Living
#2 -- June, 2002
What is this? (Introduction to this series)
INTRODUCTION: Alternative Media
NOTES on web sites of a few members of the ALTERNATIVE MEDIA.
- Adbusters: #40 / March-April, 2002
- Baptist Peace Fellowship: Legislation Introduced to Create a Department of Peace
- Business Ethics: The 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2002
- Center for a New American Dream
- E/The Environment Magazine
- Earth Island Journal
- Earthlight: Issue 44 - Winter 2002: Youth Rising
- Mother Jones: May/June 2002: Unjust Rewards
- New Internationalist
- The Other Side
- Pax Christi
- Peaceworks Monitor
- Prism E-pistle
- Real Money
- Simple Living Oasis
- Sojourners
- SOJOMail
- Utne Reader: No. 111, May-June, 2002
- WorldWatch
- Yes Magazine
Introduction: ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
A medium is simply a way of sharing information. Some are verbal, like the telephone. Some are narrowcast, like a letter, one person at a time. Some are broadcast, like television. Some are electronic, like radio and the internet. Some are printed on paper, like newspapers. All are "published," whether on paper or electronically.
All the media tell stories. And there's a story behind the surface story.
Mainstream North American media tend to tell the story of what's best for America, especially for Corporate America.
Alternative media tend to focus on what's best for the world.
Mainstream media are huge, powerful and well financed by advertising. The story behind the story is to do what's best for the advertisers, and by extension, for stockholders.
Alternative media are small by comparison, sometimes funded by advertising, sometimes by subscribers and donors. The story behind the story is to do what's best for the planet.
There's a great deal of latitude in how to tell a story. Sometimes it's told briefly, like in "sound bits," short pithy quotes, like on most network news. Sometimes it's told in more detail, like on public television's News Hour.
Reporters and editors make decisions about what to include and what to leave out. That's true not only within a story, but in what to publish at all and where to place it. That's why some alternative media give awards for the most important stories of the year under-reported by the mainstream media.
Some stories are unimportant but so sensational that the mainstream media give a great deal of attention to them, such as President Clinton's private life.
The alternative media would find the story there to be why the mainstream media are so fixated on an unimportant story. The answer is usually simple -- sensation attracts readers and viewers ultimately to the advertisers.
Main streamers tend to report little outside the US, except about a US official who is traveling. When stories outside the US sphere of interest are reported, they tend to be "buried," that is, given poor placement.
The alternative media in their own small way tend to give more time and space to events and people throughout the world.
Alternatives for Simple Living supports and promotes alternative media -- through this e-zine and by offering subscriptions in our web site catalog and in our quarterly paper Resource Guide.
Last issue was organized by topics, like government, food and health. This issue is organized around the media that it includes, such as Sojourners and Earth Island Journal.
After you've sampled this issue of Alternatives Reader, we welcome your opinion. Here's a little survey to stimulate your comments. One easy way to send it to us is to highlight it, press your copy command, open a new email, press your paste command, type your answers, address it to Alternatives@SimpleLiving.org, send it. Thanks!
SURVEY
My likes and dislikes about the FORM of the e-zine. Please rank each from 1-5 (1 = strong dislike; 2 = dislike; 3 = neutral; 4 = preference; 5 = strong preference).
1. Complete articles
2. Article Excerpts
3. Article Descriptions
4. Tables of Contents
My comments on the CONTENT of the e-zine.
I preferred
__ issue #1
__ issue #2
for these reasons:
Issue #1 contained graphics, #2 didn't. I found the graphics:
__ essential
__ helpful
__ distracting
__ what graphics?
__ ______________________________________
NOTES on web sites of a few members of the ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
Here in alphabetical order are a few of the Alternative Media that we read
regularly here at Alternatives for Simple Living. Some of these are featured
in this issue. This information was accurate mid-May, 2002.
Alternatives offers subscriptions to most of these publications. For more information, visit http://www.simpleliving.org/catalog/Magazines.php
Below "text" means that you can electronically cut and paste, edit and format
text from the web site. "PDF" means that you can download and print a complete
item, including graphics. But you cannot edit it.
Adbusters (www.adbusters.org) offers the text of selected articles and activist reports (with graphics) from issue #19 (autumn, 1997) to recent issue (March, 2002). Large, readable type! Not PDF downloadable.
Appalachia-Science in Public Interest (www.a-spi.org) offers complete newsletters but is not current.
Baptist PeaceMaker archives (www.BPFNA.org) includes only a few select articles so far.
Business Ethics (www.Business-Ethics.com) offers only the feature article for current issues (and some past features).
Center for a New American Dream (www.NewDream.org)
Creation Care (www.creationcare.org) offers the complete text in one document (no art) for Spring 98 to Winter 2001.
E /The Environment Magazine (www.EMagazine.com) provides lead stories complete; brief descriptions for other articles for 2002. Before 2002, articles are complete.
Earth Island Journal (www.EarthIsland.org) provides text of everything.
EarthLight (www.EarthLight.org) has links to selected articles.
FOCUS on Study Circles (www.studycircles.org) gives the current issue and selected articles from past issues by topic (not by issue).
Journey into Freedom (www.JourneyIntoFreedom.org) gives a synopsis of past newsletters.
Ministry of Money's newsletter (www.MinistryOfMoney.org) is PDF download only.
Mother Jones (www.MotherJones.com) gives a couple of articles from current issue. Almost all articles from past issues (back to 1993) are available in text.
New Internationalist (www.NewInt.org) provides all the articles in current and past issues in text. Up-to-date!
The Other Side (www.TheOtherSide.org) offers selected complete articles from the current and past issues.
Pax Christi's "Catholic Peace Voice" is not available on web site (www.pc-usa.org).
Peace Tax Fund Quarterly Update (www.peacetax.com) offers current issues as PDF.
Peaceworks Monitor archives (http://peaceworks.missouri.org [no www]) contain complete articles, but not the current issue.
Prism (www.ESA-online.org) is not current. The free E-Pistle e-newsletter comes bi-weekly.
Real Money (www.realmoney.org) offers the cover story from the current issue, featured articles from past, and PDF of whole issues. This is just one of the several worthwhile newsletters and web sites from Co-op America.
Seeds of Simplicity (www.SeedsOfSimplicity.org) offers helpful information but not it's newsletter.
Simple Living Oasis (formerly Simple Living Journal) (www.SimpleLiving.COM) gives article descriptions and the complete featured article from each issue.
Sojourners (www.sojo.net) gives most articles, columns, depts. as text. Up-to-date! Also, free weekly e-news (SojoMail), daily e-news briefs.
Utne Reader (www.Utne.com) offers articles from over 2,000 alternative media sources in its monthly magazine. The web site gives the complete text of selected articles from the current issue only (no art); no back issue archives. Free e-newsletters: UTNE Web Watch (a little Utne Reader three days a week) and UTNE Buzz (weekly links to articles in the current Utne Reader and other information).
Whole Earth Magazine (www.WholeEarthMag.com)--All feature articles and book reviews from current and past issues (to summer, 1997) available as text. Current issue is Spring, 2001!
WorldWatch (www.WorldWatch.org) offers some articles for sale in PDF. A few are free in PDF; very few complete as text. However, the current popular statistics column, "Matters of Scale," is available as text.
Yes Magazine (www.yesmagazine.org) provides a table of contents for each issue. Selected articles are complete in text.
Featured Media
Adbusters
#40 / March-April, 2002
Articles with * are available on-line.
* The Psychology of Submission
The IMF's four steps to enslaving a nation
* Resistance
Two words to remember -- empires fall
By Katharine Ainger
Carnival Riots and Deviant Leisure
Resistance as pleasure
By David Redmon
Common Sense
A or B. Free or unfree. It's just common sense
By Nancy Snow
The Empire's New Rules
No boundaries, no center -- and endless points of resistance
By Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
Fear
Quagmires are out, virtual war is in
* Intimidation
One morning, they made us all deputies
* The Imperialism of Everyday Life
We know where this civilization is really heading-- don't we?
By John Zerzan
BUY NOTHING DAY
* BND Update 2001
* What's in store for 2002
* Debate
REDESIGN
* When History Looks Back
What will be the ad industry's great work?
By Jelly Helm
* Psycho Design
Stuff to make you think
FICTION
On the Way to Retreat
By Muhammad Nasrullah Khan
Darwin Alone in the Universe
By M.A.C. Farrant
Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
Legislation Introduced to Create a Department of Peace
On July 11, 2001 Congressman Kucinich introduced H.R. 2459, a bill to create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace which embodies a broad-based approach to peaceful, non-violent conflict resolution at both domestic and international levels. The Department of Peace would serve to promote non-violence as an organizing principle in our society, and help to create the conditions for a more peaceful world. To read the text of the legislation, along with a current list of cosponsors click here.
Domestically, the Department would be responsible for developing policies which address issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly. Internationally, the Department would analyze foreign policy and make recommendations to the President on matters pertaining to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict.
The Department would also have an Office of Peace Education that would work with educators in elementary, secondary and universities in the development and implementation of curricula to instruct students in peaceful conflict resolution skills. In addition, a Peace Academy, modeled after the military service academies, would be established to provide instruction in peace education and offer opportunities for graduates to serve in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.
I encourage you to review the Department of Peace legislation and share with me any comments you have on the legislation.
What Can You Do To Help
- Hold "Teach-Ins" on the Issue of Peace. Holding a public "Teach-In" on the issue of peace and non-violence is a great way to get your community to debate the issues. You can do this by inviting a public official, religious leaders, educators, heads of organizations or local community leaders who have contributed to promoting peace and justice.
- Contact your state representatives, city council, mayor and ask them to sponsor a resolution that promotes peace and justice on the local, national and international levels.
- Write an opinion-editorial for your local paper and get it published, emphasizing the importance of local communities making efforts towards encouraging peace, tolerance and understanding.
- Join an organization that has a campaign on the issue of peace and work with them, or start your own organization.
- Circulate a petition to a local leader encourage them to keep the issue of peace and understanding on the local agenda.
- Organize a peace rally to bring the issue of peace to the forefront of local community leaders and elected officials.
- Organize a booth or a display case at local events. Your local library or community center are great places to set up an eye catching display about an issue that is important to you. Or you may want to reserve a booth at a highly attended event such as a concert, local sports event, rallies or community picnics.
What Do You Think? [Comments welcome]
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/action/peace.htm#Legislation
Business Ethics
March/April, 2002, Vol. 16#2
The 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2002 (cover story)
Getting There:
The Methodology Behind the Corporate Citizenship Rankings
Chart: The 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2002
Leading the Way: Profiles of Some of the "100 Best"
To read, visit http://www.Business-Ethics.com/100best.htm
Center for a New American Dream
A few words about the Center for a New American Dream and In Balance:
The Center for a New American Dream's mission is to help Americans change the way they consume to improve quality of life, protect the natural environment, and promote social justice. We work with individuals, communities, institutions, and businesses to establish sustainable practices that will ensure a healthy planet for future generations. For more information on our mission, staff, and board of directors, please see www.newdream.org/aboutus.
In Balance, written by Dave Tilford, is distributed monthly to concerned
citizens and organizations working on consumption issues. Previous issues
can be found at
www.newdream.org/bulletin/inbalance.php (link no longer valid)
Contact dave@newdream.org to subscribe, unsubscribe or submit material for possible inclusion in In Balance.
Center for a New American Dream
6930 Carroll Ave., Suite 900 Takoma Park, MD 20912
Tel: 301-891-3683 Fax: 301-891-3684
IN BALANCE
From the Center for a New American Dream
No. 39 (April 2002)
_____
1. Consumption News
Fight Global Warming For $1 a Day
New Jersey Town Takes the Night Off
BP Cuts Company Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Staples to Stock Environmentally Friendly Paper
2. Resources
5. Profile
David Hochschild, Vote Solar Initiative Co-founder
_____
1. Consumption News
FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING FOR $1 A DAY
In the latest syndicated column from the Center for a New American Dream,
Maryland author Mike Tidwell tells how his family shifted to sustainable
sources for their home energy consumption. The family combined solar energy,
efficient appliances and a corn-burning stove to dramatically reduce their
household's contribution to global warming. (This free syndicated column
is available for redistribution or reposting on websites.)
www.newdream.org/column/9.php (link no longer valid)
NEW JERSEY TOWN TAKES THE NIGHT OFF
The town of Ridgewood, New Jersey, 20 miles west of New York City, decided en masse to slow down one Tuesday evening in late March. Families unplugged the TV and brought out board games. Telephones went unanswered and kids were relieved of the usual appointments with soccer coaches, piano teachers, even school books. It was all part of a concerted effort by the community's nearly 30,000 residents to take control of their over scheduled lives and set aside just one night in which practices, homework and after-hours work didn't intrude. The slogan: "Ridgewood Family Night - Ready, Set, Relax." www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-1616433,00.php
BP CUTS COMPANY GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
Eight years ahead of a self-imposed schedule, energy giant BP reduced its global greenhouse gas emissions by nine million tonnes, or 10 percent off 1990 levels - and did so at no net cost to the company. Among other measures, BP switched to low-sulfur transport fuels and natural gas, improved efficiency and plugged natural gas pipeline leaks. The company plans deeper cuts through additional shifts to natural gas and development of renewable energy sources. (BP's solar energy business grew 40 percent in 2001 and already accounts for 17 percent of the world market.) CEO Lord John Browne takes issue, however, with those who contend that BP's example supports the notion that voluntary steps are all that is needed. Browne feels that governments must help establish the appropriate framework of incentives if we are to move toward climate stabilization. www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5334
STAPLES TO STOCK ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY PAPER
Bowing to activist and consumer demand, Staples recently announced that on Earth Day it will introduce an environmentally preferable printer/copier paper into its U.S. stores. The paper will be made of 90 percent post-consumer waste and 10 percent tree-free hemp and flax fibers, and will be 100 percent chlorine-free in the hemp/flax portion and acid- and process-chlorine-free throughout. Last year, thousands of Center for a New American Dream Step by Step activist contacted Staples to request more environmentally friendly paper. The Dogwood Alliance and other organizations continue to pressure Staples to end its association with destructive forestry practices. See www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=20005
2. Resources
MORE FUN, LESS STUFF: THE CHALLENGES AND REWARDS OF A NEW AMERICAN DREAM
- Video by the Center for a New American Dream. Hosted by actor Danny Glover.
www.newdream.org/publications/video.php (link no longer valid)
ECO-LABELS.ORG - Consumers Union's guide to environmental labels helps you choose the greenest alternatives. Find out what's behind a particular eco-label, who's green and who's just greenwashing. Learn what "organic" really means, how to shop for sustainably grown coffee, bookcases made from recycled wood, and more. www.eco-labels.org/
GRADUATION PLEDGE OF SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY - "I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work." Start a campaign at your school. www.manchester.edu/academic/programs/departments/peace_studies/fi les/gpa.php
GREEN MONEY JOURNAL - Online and print journal for socially and environmentally responsible business and investment information. www.greenmoneyjournal.com/
INFORMATION AND CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING FOR SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION - Report of the OECD Workshop
identifies key issues and strategies for using information to guide consumer choices towards sustainability. www.oecd.org/env/consumption/
MAKING A DIFFERENCE COLLEGE & GRADUATE GUIDE - Guide to colleges and relevant majors for students seeking meaningful work for the environment, peace, social justice.
www.making-a-difference.com/pages/CollegeGuide.php
MESA REFUGE - Retreat for writers focusing on issues of the environment, human economy, and social equity.
www.commoncounsel.org/pages/mesa.php
THE WORLD BUYS GREEN: INTERNATIONAL SURVEY ON NATIONAL GREEN PROCUREMENT PRACTICES www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/reports_third.cfm?LinkAdvID=24737
5. Profile: David Hochschild
The following is an excerpt taken from the Center's web profile of David
Hochschild The full, unedited profile is available at
www.newdream.org/bulletin/profiles.php (link no longer valid).
Bio:
David Hochschild was instrumental in the successful campaign to pass a $100 million bond initiative for solar and wind energy in San Francisco. He recently co-founded the Vote Solar Initiative (www.votesolar.org) to help other cities do the same. Prior to becoming involved in renewable energy, he worked for the San Francisco Mayor's Office and Former President Nelson Mandela's youth empowerment program in South Africa.
Q:. What are the primary obstacles to shifting to more responsible patterns of production and consumption and achieving a sustainable future?
A: For renewable energy, the main obstacle is the flawed process for determining the costs of energy. There is scientific consensus that global warming is the most pressing environmental threat we face and we know that it's leading cause is pollution from energy generation. Yet there is no reflection of that cost - or other environmental costs such as waste from nuclear plants - in the price we pay for energy. Clean energy is cheaper when the true costs are accurately taken into account.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand and implement one policy change, what would it be and why?
A: I would mandate that every school in the country be powered by solar panels and that, in conjunction with that, all students be taught a global warming curriculum. I think it's critical to strengthen the understanding of the connection between the environment and the way we live. In many ways, that is where our humanity lies - in recognizing those connections and understanding how our fate is inextricably tied to our environment.
Q: What is your top book recommendation?
A: King Leopold's Ghost. You may think I'm biased because my dad is the author but read the book and you'll see...
IN BALANCE
From the Center for a New American Dream
No. 40 (May 2002)
_____
1. Consumption News
New Hampshire First State to Pass Law Curbing Global Warming
...Followed Closely by California
Taking the Grave Out of Cradle to Grave
EU Passes Electronics Recycling Law
Canada Closing Loophole on SUVs
2. Resources
5. Profile
Mary Harding, Executive Director of the Nebraska Environmental Trust
1. Consumption News
NEW HAMPSHIRE FIRST STATE TO PASS LAW CURBING GLOBAL WARMING
In April, New Hampshire became the first state in the nation to pass a law aimed at curbing global warming. The bill passed 21-2 in the Senate and was endorsed by a broad bipartisan coalition, the state's largest environmental groups and the state's largest utility, Public Service Company of New Hampshire. The measure also addresses acid rain, smog and airborne mercury poisoning. "I'm delighted because it will have a ripple effect on all sorts of initiatives," said Julian Zelazny, a lobbyist for the New Hampshire Audubon Society. "Other states will see you can do this, so perhaps they'll follow suit. And it will show the people in Washington that this issue deserves to be on the agenda."
http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/local2002/clean_air_law7466_2002.sphp
...FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY CALIFORNIA
The California Senate may have accomplished what the U.S. Senate was unwilling to do - force the auto industry to increase fuel efficiency. The California Senate just passed a bill limiting greenhouse gases emissions from vehicles, which in effect means better gas mileage. If signed by Governor Davis, the measure would require the Air Resources Board to adopt regulations that would achieve "the maximum feasible reduction" in emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. The legislation could trigger industry-wide changes, given California's position as the largest auto market in the nation and the impracticality of building different vehicles to meet different emissions requirements.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/747164.asp
TAKING THE GRAVE OUT OF CRADLE TO GRAVE
William McDonough, an American architect, and Michael Braungart, a German chemist, are working on the next industrial revolution-one that harmonizes with nature rather than disrupts it. Their partnership, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, designs production systems that circulate materials in closed loops, reducing waste, energy consumption and damage to the immediate environments. McDonough and Braungart believe "everything from cars to urban centers can be designed to never pollute." They offer a vision of the revolution in their new book, "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.02/mcdonough.php
EU PASSES ELECTRONICS RECYCLING LAW
In April, the European Parliament approved a law requiring manufacturers of electrical goods to be financially responsible for recycling their products. The EU aims to keep these items-from freezers to toasters to computers-and their sometimes hazardous components out of landfills and incinerators. Only 10 percent of electrical goods are currently recycled in the EU. "Producer take back" measures such as these are believed also to spur production of less toxic, easily recyclable products. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1920000/1920777.stm
CANADA CLOSING LOOPHOLE ON SUVS
Canada strengthened its emission rules from for all new vehicles and ended an exemption that allowed higher levels of pollution by sport utility vehicles and minivans. The new regulations will curb vehicle emission of smog forming pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds (carbon dioxide was not covered by the rules). The new law brings Canadian passenger car pollution standards up to those in the U.S. However, the new Canadian rules will surpass lax U.S. standards for SUVs and minivans.
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15329/story.htm
2. Resources
BAGELHOLE.ORG - Information about low-tech sustainability for individuals and communities.
CENTER FOR COMMERCIAL-FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION - Updated website contains
information about commercialism in schools, sample policies for school boards,
and tips on how to fight advertising in schools.
http://www.commercialfree.org/ (link no longer valid - try http://www.ibiblio.org/commercialfree for a possibly older version?)
DON'T BUY IT - Great new site from PBS offers innovative and fun ways for kids to evaluate and analyze the messages fed to them by advertisers. pbskids.org/dontbuyit/
2002 FAIR TRADE TRENDS REPORT - Tracks growth in fair trade industry.
http://www.fairtradefederation.org/
TEACHING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE: COOL SCHOOLS TACKLE GLOBAL WARMING - Curriculum guide for K-12 educators to teach students about issues related to climate change.
http://www.greenteacher.com/tacc.php
ECO-LABELS.ORG - Consumers Union comprehensive guide to environmental labels helps consumers understand what's behind the labels and choose the greenest alternatives.
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT QUIZ - Web-based calculator by Redefining Progress and Earth Day Network lets you calculate your Ecological Footprint and see how it compares to that of others.
http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp
THE EMERGING INTERNATIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS MARKET - Report prepared for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change documents the emergence of a market for greenhouse gas emissions as a method of addressing climate change. http://www.pewclimate.org (search on trading and emissions - the original link here no longer works)
SILENT THEFT: THE PRIVATE PLUNDER OF OUR COMMON WEALTH - by David Bollier. Book addresses the enclosure and commercial exploitation of the commons.
TOMORROW'S MARKETS - GLOBAL TRENDS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS - Joint UNEP, WRI, WBCSD report on how environmental and social performance will shape the global business environment. http://www.wri.org/business/tomorrows_markets.php
5. Profile: Mary Harding
The following is an excerpt taken from the Center's web profile of Mary Harding, executive director of the Nebraska Environmental Trust. The full, unedited profile is available at
www.newdream.org/bulletin/profiles.php (link no longer valid, can't find that info elsewhere on that site)
Bio: Degree in bilingual education in 1974. Seventh generation Nebraskan. For the last eight years, director of the Nebraska Environmental Trust. Mom, friend, wife, daughter, sister.
Q: What is your greatest source of hope that society can shift to more responsible patterns of production and consumption and achieve a sustainable future?
A: In Nebraska, 70 to 80 percent of the population consistently say they place a very high priority on our natural resources and open spaces. Here, at least, there is a great attachment to the land and a love of place. I believe this sentiment can be translated into action, if only we can successfully communicate in clear terms the consequences of irresponsible consumption and help provide alternatives that the average person can adopt without too much initial sacrifice or inconvenience.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand and implement one policy change, what would it be and why?
A: I would mandate whole-cost accounting for private enterprise, and prohibit companies from externalizing costs to the public sector. I think profit making is splendid, as long as the profit-maker assumes all of the costs of the undertaking. Since costs of production are passed along most usually to the consumer, consumer behavior might shift towards more sustainable practices.
For more information on the Nebraska Environmental Trust, see http://www.environmentaltrust.org/
E/The Environment Magazine
Volume XII, Number 6
November-December 2001
The Gold Crush
Though considerable attention has been focused on California's agonizing electricity shortage and water woes, very few people have recognized that these problems stem from a dramatic population explosion. In 2000, California added a breathtaking 571,000 people, giving it a 1.7 percent growth rate that outpaces Bangladesh. The state is already 40 percent more densely populated than Europe.
The Nuclear Phoenix
The Bush Administration is putting its weight behind a full-scale revival of the moribund nuclear power industry. Along the way, it wants to streamline plant licensing, reduce citizen input and even hide low-level waste in consumer products.
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/november-december_2001/_1101contents.php
Also...
GREEN LIVING
Your Health: Raising the Alarm About Electromagnetic Fields.
Eating Right: Can It! A Guide to Home Preserves.
Money Matters: A Click Away: Green Cause Websites.
House & Home: Enliven Your Yard with Bird Feeders and Baths.
Going Green: Aspen Skiing Company's Sustainable Slopes.
Consumer News: Holiday Shopping for Eco-Babes.
Tools for Green Living: Greener Showers, Adopt-a-Turkey, Conscious Chopsticks and The Living Wild...
E WORD
Want to Reduce Immigration? Work for Economic Equality
CURRENTS
New American Dream
Parks as Lungs
Attack of Bark Beetles
Chesapeake in Crisis
Opposing GE Foods
IN BRIEF
ANWR Polar Bears
Hawaii's Veggie Fuel
Green Internet Access
Lawyers vs. Lead
UPDATES
Killer Sharks?
Eco-Terrorism Spreads
Cities and Smog
FEEDBACK
Advice & Dissent
EMAGAZINE.COM
A Service of E/The Environmental Magazine. Copyright © 2002. All Rights Reserved.
Volume XIII, Number I / January-February 2002
The Case Against Meat
There has never been a better time for environmentalists to become vegetarians. Evidence of the environmental impacts of a meat-based diet is piling up at the same time its health effects are becoming better known. Meanwhile, modern factory farming methods have given rise to recent, highly publicized epidemics of meat-borne illnesses.
Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals and Compromises Our Health. So Why Aren't More Environmentalists Switching to Vegetarianism?
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2002/0102feat1.php
Body of Evidence
Were Humans Meant to Eat Meat? Are we natural vegetarians? The architecture of the human form offers no simple answers.
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2002/0102feat1sb1.php
Across the Great Divide
Most environmentalists support the idea of vegetarianism, but actually giving up meat is a big hurdle. Although this is a life-or-death issue for animal rights advocates, some environmental leaders aren't convinced giving up meat will really help the planet.
Environmentalists and Animal Rights Activists Battle Over Vegetarianism
By Jim Motavalli
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2002/0102feat2.php
E/The Environmental Magazine
Volume XIII, Number 2 / March-April 2002
Getting Out of Gridlock
Thanks to the Highway Lobby, Now We're Stuck in Traffic. How Do We Escape?
As cities sprawl farther into distant suburbs, an hour a day in the car has become the national norm. Here are some novel solutions to car dependency, which is threatening our quality of life across America.
By Jim Motavalli
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/march-april_2002/0302feat2.php
Car Busters in Action
In the fall of 1997, anti-car activists from 50 groups in 21 countries converged on Lyon, France, for a conference that was far more than the usual round of speeches. Although there were some relatively sedate workshops, the real action at "Towards Car-Free Cites" was in the streets, with protesters blocking highways, physically moving illegally parked cars, and even distributing official-looking "tickets" explaining the environmental consequences of car ownership.
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/march-april_2002/0302feat2sb1.php
**********************************
Reinventing the Zoo
It's no longer enough to put endangered species on display and call it conservation. The best zoos are taking the first steps toward restoring rapidly vanishing habitat.
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/march-april_2002/0302feat1.php
E/The Environmental Magazine
Volume XIII, Number 3 / May-June 2002
Heavy Metal Harm
The Fight Against Highly Toxic Mercury in the Environment Has Just Begun
Got Mercury?
This intensely toxic heavy metal is in thermometers, canned tuna, fluorescent lights, dental fillings, vaccines and even car parts. It's also in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Mercury is pervasive in our environment, but we can -- and must -- get it out.
By Jim Motavalli
To read the complete article, go to http://www.emagazine.com/may-june_2002/0502feat1.php
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Going, Going...
Exotic Species are Decimating America's Native Wildlife
Alien Invaders
Scientists say that 42 percent of the nation's threatened or endangered species face trouble primarily because of competition with the non-native plants and animals that hitched a ride to America.
To read the complete article, go to
http://www.emagazine.com/may-june_2002/0502feat2.php
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IN BRIEF
Trouble Brewing
By Sofia Perez
To a java junkie, there is no such thing as too much coffee, but when it comes to the world's coffee industry, the opposite is true. The massive overproduction of coffee presently glutting world markets is causing a crisis of historic proportions.
Currently selling for approximately 45 cents per pound, the price of coffee beans has reached 30-year-lows, exacting a steep cost on already poor farmers and shrinking tropical forests. Many farmers can no longer cover the expenses of production, with some even leaving their beans to rot. "Thousands are being forced to sell their land," says Nina Luttinger of TransFair USA, a group that certifies coffee cooperatives under the "Fair Trade" label to ensure that participating farmers get a minimum price per pound.
http://www.emagazine.com/may-june_2002/0502ib_coffee.php
EMAGAZINE.COM A Service of E/The Environmental Magazine. Copyright © 2002. All Rights Reserved.
EarthLight Magazine
Issue 44 - Winter 2002
Theme: Youth Rising
Exploring Second Nature: Youth, Wilderness, & Rites of Initiation
THE GREAT TURNING: All the Time in the World
EarthSaint: Robert Schutz: Reflections and Writings
The Gift of a Dream: Children & the Earth Charter
To read these complete articles, go to: http://www.earthlight.org/about_issue44.php
Mother Jones Magazine
May/June 2002
Unjust Rewards
The government continues to award federal business worth billions to companies that repeatedly break the law. A Mother Jones investigation reveals which major contractors are the worst offenders.
by Ken Silverstein
http://motherjones.com/magazine/MJ02/unjust.php
New Internationalist
http://www.NewInt.org/index4.php
New Internationalist 342
Jan / Feb 2002
THIS MONTH'S THEME: Another World Is Possible
FEATURES
THE STARTING-POINT
The altered landscape
The fractured violence of the post-11 September world makes it all the more
necessary to chart new paths into a better future, argues Jordi Pigem.
GLOBAL DEMOCRACY
A parliament for the planet
Globalization without representation? George Monbiot demands a real voice for the world's people.
CULTURE
Unchaining captive hearts
Beyond the global monoculture, Jeremy Seabrook celebrates alternative ways of being embodied in diverse local cultures.
The right to rave
Eduardo Galeano claims our right to dream, to dance, to demand the impossible.
ENVIRONMENT
Going down in history
Global warming is sinking the island state of Tuvalu. But the concept of 'ecological debt' could yet bring the rest of earth back from the brink, as Andrew Simms explains.
RELIGION
Time for renaissance
Tehmina Durrani has launched her own movement for Islamic renewal to reclaim her faith from the fundamentalists.
The impossible dream
1789 and 2001. They said it could never be done. Dangerous demands from the French Revolution set against our own.
JUSTICE & SECURITY
Might or right
The world has to be able to intervene to stop genocide. But Peter Singer contends that we need a new rulebook - and new global institutions to write it.
MONEY
Heavy surf and tsunamis
Ellen Frank explains why even the globalizers may have an interest in financial reform, while Carolyne Culver puts the Tobin Tax on the table.
Give us your dreams
A selection of NI readers' own utopian visions.
FOOD & FARMING
The end of the styrofoam strawberry
The hungry will be fed not by ever-grander schemes, ever-bigger farms, but by smaller farms that are more in touch with the earth, believes Peter Rosset.
LOCAL RESISTANCE
Bringing it all back home
Jim Shultz hones some strategic tools we can use to fend off the free-trade agenda.
FROM THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
"I have here a magic potion given to me by a great magician of the Amazon. It has marvelous properties and can work miracles," says Durito the beetle, taking out from under his shell a little bottle of sherry.
I ask: "And if you take this potion, will it enable you to understand neoliberalism and construct an intelligent alternative?"' The questioner in this short story is the Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos.
Needless to say, the NI has no such magic potion. We have no utopian manifesto, nor overarching blueprint. What we do have is a passionate desire to change this savagely unequal world.
In this spirit, we approached various writers, activists and advisors to ask for their visions of another possible world - starting with a seminar held on 12 September. Given what happened the day before, the discussion took place under a shadow but seemed all the more vital as a result.
This magazine is the eventual end-product. It was created not by any one editor, but by our whole team.
It offers no single alternative to the current global system but many diverse pathways into a better, fairer world. This is not an end, but a beginning.
Katharine Ainger & Chris Brazier
for the New Internationalist Co-operative
kat@newint.org
Letters
Oil and attacking Somalia; Israeli terrorism; the Arab world's unwavering disregard; Elvis again.
PLUS: Letter from Lebanon by Reem Haddad.
Southern Exposure
Morning prayers in Iran, by local photographer Javad Montazeri.
View from the South
Meditations on The Couple - footsteps, kisses, bones and sins - by Eduardo Galeano.
Currents
Tobacco companies pull a fast one; Mozambique's swords into ploughshares; social innovation in response to Argentina's financial crisis.
PLUS: Word Corner - Holocaust.
PLUS: Big Bad World - Cartoon on the meaning of immorality.
PLUS: Seriously
Chronicle of the Year 2001
An alternative view of the year's events with special focus boxes on: African Union; 11 September; Afghanistan; Israel/Palestine; WTO; Asylum; and Alternative Nobel Prize winners.
Special Jumbo
NI Crossword
Mixed media
The Best of the Year PLUS
MUSIC: Vespertine by Björk; Mantra Mix by various.
BOOKS: The Blue Mountain by Meir Shalev; Eco-Economy by Lester R Brown; Born in Blood and Fire by John Chasteen.
FILM/VIDEO: Adanggaman directed by Roger Gnoan M'Bala.
PLUS: Webwatch
Country Profile - Romania
New Internationalist 343
March 2002
THIS MONTH'S THEME: Speed-up
FEATURES
Rush to nowhere
It was speed that sank the Titanic and it's turbo-capitalism that's consuming the earth - fast. Richard Swift wants to slow down.
How corporations steal your time
What not to buy from the company store.
Boo to Captain Clock
Potentates and pencil-pushers try to regulate our time. Jay Griffiths celebrates the long history of subversion.
American karoshi
Matthew Reiss wonders why New Yorkers have borrowed from Tokyo the bright idea of working yourself to death.
RUSH TO NOWHERE - THE FACTS
Suffering and smiling
Dicing with death on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, Ike Oguine observes a pitiless race that's run mostly at a standstill - in traffic jams.
The hurried child
The faster you grow up, says Kathleen McDonnell, the more you have to leave behind.
Slow activism
Slow food, slow cities, less work... A guide to the practical possibilities.
Enclosing time
The anarchist who wanted to blow up Greenwich Mean Time may have been mad, but C Douglas Lummis thinks he was on to something.
FROM THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
One should be careful when doing an issue of the NI not to climb on too high a horse. The very things you criticize in the wider world are often things that you are guilty of yourself. This issue, about our desire to go ever faster - a desire shaped in large part by turbo-capitalism and its technological possibilities - is a case in point.
I rail long and hard against the consequences of incessant speed-up. But am I one to talk? Most people don't think of me as swift, despite my name. Teachers used to make bad jokes over the irony of it all. But sometimes I do go too fast: I don't think enough about the small pleasures of the moment; I don't fully appreciate what life is dishing up, jumping too quickly to what is coming next. It's a common enough fault, I guess, but it can rob you of the potential happiness of the here and now.
A deferred pleasure is often a pleasure lost. One danger is that this becomes habit-forming. We end up skipping over the lingering sunset or the small kindnesses of a friend or neighbour, concentrating instead on the big dreams - financial success, status, the newest electronics or some other consumer goodie. While this helps to stoke the economy and propel us into a future of ever-expanding Gross Domestic Product, it also tends to submerge the things that make us more than simply worker-consumers. The seductions of 'slowing down' are more subtle but they are pleasures we at least have a chance of discovering for ourselves.
Richard Swift
for the New Internationalist Co-operative
Letters
Snail finally reaps reward; new venues for class war; US tears have no agenda; progressive Islam; human not animal cunning.
PLUS: Letter from Lebanon Home is where the hurt is, by Reem Haddad.
Southern Exposure
A Bangladeshi cowboy and his flute, by local photographer Mohammad Younus.
View from the South
Nigerian writer Ike Oguine argues that all Africans should oppose Robert Mugabe.
Currents
Hollow WTO agenda in Qatar; global citizens movement gathers in Porto Alegre; plight of Afghani refugees in Australia.
PLUS: Word Corner - Quarantine
PLUS: Seriously
Worldbeaters
The spy who came in from the Cold War: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Big Bad World
Field of nightmares, the latest Polyp cartoon.
PLUS: The NI Crossword
Mixed media
BOOKS: The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto; Private Planet by David Cromwell; Reflections on Exile by Edward W Said; By The Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah; No Place Like Home by Melanie Friend.
FILM/VIDEO: Black Hawk Down directed by Ridley Scott; Monsoon Wedding directed by Mira Nair.
MUSIC: Rock It To The Moon by Electrelane; Feminist Sweepstakes by Le Tigre.
PLUS: Sharp Focus on acoustic ecology.
Essay - The voice of the majority
If the poor had a voice would they demand more economic growth and free trade? Jeremy Seabrook thinks not.
Country Profile - Dominican Republic
The Other Side
Shall the Poor Be Always With Us?
http://www.theotherside.org/archive/may-jun02/tull.php
"The idea that poverty is inevitable has trapped us in stale paradigms. There is a completely different vision we might follow."
by Jim Tull
It is a familiar story. On his final journey toward Jerusalem, Jesus stops in Bethany to eat at the home of Simon, a leper. A woman enters with an alabaster jar of expensive ointment; she breaks the jar and pours the ointment on his head. Her gesture invokes the fury of some present. The ointment was worth a year's wage, they grumble. It could have been sold, and the money given to the poor.
A single line of Jesus' reply has been scissored out to become a classic apologetic for poverty: "The poor you will always have with you" (Mark 14:3-9).
This statement, arguably one of the most repeated lines of the Gospels, is often invoked by people who care not a wit for anything else Jesus ever said. Although Jesus did not pretend by his remark to be shedding new light on the problem of poverty, we point to this phrase as proof that poverty is inevitable. When we state that "the poor will always be with us," we are expressing a reality we accept as a given, as unquestioned in Jesus' day as it is today.
But it isn't true. Marshall Sahlins, one of today's most prominent anthropologists, has identified hunter-gatherer tribal peoples who enjoyed--and enjoyed equitably--a kind of wealth that far surpasses in value the benefits we associate with having wealth in our culture. He dubbed these people "the original affluent societies." (Using this lens, Columbus and other European explorers and colonists did not discover poverty here in the Americas. They created it.)
Yet the belief persists that poverty is inevitable. In fact, this belief is one of those collectively held assumptions that constitute the mythology of our culture and our contemporary global civilization. And it is not an idle myth, but rather a vital one, a powerful and essential means of sustaining the dominant political and economic structures of our society.
As one who has spent the past twenty-five years actively expressing compassion and indignation at the persistence of hunger, homelessness, and poverty in our affluent nation, I find this myth debilitating. It has convinced us that there is no sense in trying to end poverty; that the best we can hope for is to lessen it. And it has blinded us to how poverty, far from being the fate of humanity, is the product of the way we have structured our civilization.
One way we perpetuate the myth of never-ending poverty is by continuing to believe that the history of our culture and civilization is the history of humanity itself. We view those outside our recorded history as destitute, half-human savages. In fact, humans lived as hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years before the Agricultural Revolution spawned our civilization and culture. Yet our history and our collectively held and lived mythology reduce the human experience to the last ten thousand years of civilization-building that have occurred since that revolution.
Not only does this erase the vast human experience prior to the current era, but it excludes the experience of humans flourishing in egalitarian societies today. There are still scattered pockets of tribal people who have never known the kind of poverty we take for granted. They are living proof that poverty is a function of culture, not of nature.
Another reason this mythology of poverty is so entrenched is that we don't want poverty to go away. It is convenient to believe that the poor will always be with us, because we live by an economic system that depends on and generates poverty. In fact, our own employment hinges increasingly on its presence.
I was reminded of this by an experience I had during the years I worked at Amos House, a center in Providence, Rhode Island, that offers meals, shelter, and social services to the poor and homeless. One day, a young man was ejected from the soup kitchen for a rule infraction. He shouted back at me from the curb, "You know, if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have a job!"
He was right. The same Industrial Revolution that displaced laborers and the life-sustaining role of small communities (tribes, then villages) also created tremendous marginalization and human need. More recently, automation and cheap foreign labor challenged our economy to find new ways to sustain growth; it responded by creating a burgeoning service industry to take up the slack.
The mounting social problems increased the demand for services. Private and public programs fit the bill nicely--they ease the pain and give the appearance of an effective response without actually solving the problem. (Indeed, the kinds of short-term, palliative interventions provided by such services often allow the problem to worsen over time.)
In a tribal context, humans freely shared the care of others in a mutually supportive network. Today we still feel the need to care for people beyond our immediate family members, but lack the opportunities. At some level, we are like my dog, Pearl: No longer required to hunt instinctively, she continues to play out the hunt in our house and backyard, sometimes in absurdly comical ways. As humans, we have lived 99 percent of our time on earth in tribal structures, compassionately caring for each other. Perhaps we cling to the continuation of poverty because we need a place to express our frustrated inclination toward compassion.
The mutual care that characterized tribal society has been supplanted in our post-tribal world by professional services, functioning within a service system. In this modern sense, service is the attempt to meet needs outside the context of community. Tribal people have no concept of service, just as we do not use the word service to label the care we provide within our families. For individuals with an especially caring disposition, the service system may provide the only outlet beyond one's own family.
But the professional service system is a poor substitute for the kind of support only a genuine community can give. As author and community activist John McKnight points out, the service system's network of private and public institutions and agencies is geared to efficiency, and its contact is impersonal, a counterfeit version of the care a community offers. These systems thwart and frustrate compassionate and well-meaning service providers.
Like its precursors of extended family, clan, and village, the nuclear family is growing weaker, increasingly surrendering its support function to professional services. In the very near future, we may all find ourselves supported by service providers alone.
If poverty is not, in fact, inevitable, what can we do to eliminate it? The first and perhaps the most radical task is to recognize the cultural mythology around the inevitability of poverty, and to begin replacing it with an acknowledgment of the earth's abundance. This strategy is one of learning and relearning. Instead of "the poor will always be with us," we need to be convinced that "the earth will provide." The natural order includes cycles of creation and destruction, birth and death, but within them "the earth will provide." With its abundant and richly diverse community of life, our planet has the capacity to adequately support all its species--us included. No one should languish in the kind of marginal destitution we commonly call poverty.
The second challenge is building community--finding small and more ambitious ways of reintegrating ourselves into small-scale economies of support, founded on trusting relationships. In his novel My Ishmael, Daniel Quinn distinguishes between a tribal economy, founded on the exchange of human energy, and our modern economy, founded on the exchange of products, including service products. In the former, the economy is based on the mutual giving of time and support. In the latter, the economy is product-based, operating on a cycle of making products and getting products. To the extent that we can transfer our faith and reliance from the product system to the communal support system, we contribute to the atrophy (and eventual elimination) of the institutions and political structures of the product system.
The kind of poverty we are familiar with seems inevitable because it is inherent in the culture of our civilization. Eliminating it requires a fundamental break from the way we think and live.
Our allegiances and psychological attachments strongly favor the prevailing way of life. Our default assumption is that the world will evolve toward a "more and bigger" version of what we have today. Yet the capacity to trust the earth and to live by mutual support and the recognition of individual unique gifts lies within us like a recessive gene. For the most part it is dormant; yet should an adjustment call it forth, it is ready to surface.
We see this instinct manifested among some of our society's disaffected youth. Although they are still partially dependent on the product system, they have chosen to live tribally, preferring the freedom and vitality of life outside the product economy to eking out a living in the usual way. Less dramatic experiments, ranging from intentional rural communities to urban block associations, echo a paradigm that relies on giving and getting support.
For me, one source of hope is the potential for defection within the middle and upper classes. In my facilitation work with materially comfortable members of churches and nonprofit organizations, I find a surprising receptivity to the disturbing message that, judged by the standards of tribal wealth, even our financially well-off are quite poor. People are beginning to see, for example, that a million dollars is not enough to ensure that they won't spend their last decade in a nursing home (or to pay for it if they do). They are realizing that our contemporary products contest offers us a life that is increasingly accelerated, virtual, alienating, and superficial--as well as ecologically perilous.
As this continues, the rewards of abandoning the game we play become increasingly irresistible. The simple-living trend of the past decade may portend a shift that is deeper and more widespread. Such a shift could provide a catalyst for the cultural break necessary to end poverty.
When we imagine rich people releasing their hold on product wealth and the means of creating it, we may appear to be dreaming. But if we recognize this release as a process of shifting attention to the creation of a different kind of wealth, it becomes a more realistic vision. Were such a process to occur, the marginalized poor would have a better chance of reestablishing access to land and resources. Unfortunately, the prevailing models of development in poor communities and countries are rooted in the products system, which the poor then look to as the only way out. Organizations committed to reducing poverty could emphasize instead strategies that regenerate the self-reliant community life of giving and getting support. Perhaps then we would finally be capable of recreating true societal wealth.
In many ways, the story in Mark's Gospel is a story of how we view wealth. To those who complained about the waste of a valuable product, Jesus redirected their attention to the communal value behind the woman's action--her obvious care for him and her anointing of his body for burial. And that, Jesus might remind us, is precisely the point of remembering the story at all.
From The Other Side Online, © 2002 The Other Side, May-June 2002, Vol. 38, No. 3.
The Cost of Entitlement
http://www.theotherside.org/roots/roots_ma02.php
"You, God, have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and
new wine abound...You alone make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:7,8b
Most North Americans are steeped in cultural attitudes subtly undergirded by a Gospel of Entitlement. It preaches that we deserve good things because we have been godly or smart or diligent or born in the right place. Conversely, the message is that those who suffer are somehow responsible for that suffering.
This mindset keeps domination in place by making people of privilege believe that we are entitled to convenience and wealth in a world where the vast majority of our sisters and brothers toil in poverty. Comfortable, we don blinders at will, never asking what our cheap energy, cheap consumer goods, and cheap imported foods exact from the rest of God's creation and the human community.
The dynamics of entitlement shape the lives of both the wealthy and the poor within U.S. culture, yet we are largely unaware of these dynamics. Ironically, our political lexicon instead applies the word entitlement to programs in our frayed social safety net--housing, income, and medical supports for low-income people. In the lexicons of our struggling sisters and brothers around the world, we are not "entitled." We are privileged, rich, wasteful, or complaint-filled.
Living with attitudes of entitlement carries tremendous spiritual costs. Entitlement numbs us, grounding us in a sense of scarcity that is completely out of kilter with the abundance of creation. It keeps us looking for more, feeding both consumerism and addiction, and blinds us to the tremendous blessing of being part of the human community and living in a world of miracle.
The true gospel calls us to gratitude and contentment steeped in the graciousness of God. But too often we find ourselves trapped in cycles of bickering and dissatisfaction, where nothing is ever enough.
A central biblical precept is that God--and God alone--is the source of life: of abundance, of justice, of mercy, of all good gifts. God has freely shared these gifts with us. We have no ownership over them, and our only appropriate response is gratitude.
The model of community God gives through commands to Moses exposes the Gospel of Entitlement as false. This model is rooted in complete trust in the care and provision of God and in human interrelationship. The land is a gift from God, not to be owned or accumulated, but redistributed regularly. Economic health is determined by the well-being of the entire community. At the heart of the prophets' critique is the insistence that the community strayed from this reliance on God, resulting in neighbor exploiting neighbor.
Jesus healed wounds caused by religious and cultural systems based on entitlement. To the well-off, he told provocative warning stories about wealthy landowners claimed by God in their sleep, and powerful figures trapped in Sheol for ignoring the beggars at their gate. He urged a rich man to follow him, but reminded him that spiritual wholeness demands giving away his entitlements. To those marginalized and scorned by the religious purists, he offered healing welcome and a place.
At The Other Side, we believe that we are also called to heal the wounds of entitlement--in ourselves and in the world. As we make choices that restore human community, we will be more and more out of step with a culture of affluence. We will begin to embrace what we receive with a spirit of gratitude rather than as something earned or expected. We will practice what the world views as a kind of lunatic self-sacrifice, but which we recognize as a careful reweaving of human community rooted in the graciousness of God--the door to authentic joy.
--Dee Dee Risher, Coeditor From The Other Side Online, © 2002 The Other Side, March-April 2002, Vol. 38, No. 2.
White Spaces
http://www.theotherside.org/archive/mar-apr02/shearer.html
"If we would build a beloved community across racial lines, we must confront
the ways that racism shapes and wounds not only persons of color, but also
those who are white."
by Tobin Miller Shearer
For most of my adult life, I have been involved in work to overcome racism. For me as a white male, this has meant confronting not only the effects of racism on people of color, but also the ways racism and white privilege have shaped my own life and spirituality.
As I consider racism's effect on my life, I often think of the unnamed scribe in Mark's Gospel who asks Jesus which commandment is the greatest. Jesus surprises the scribe with a twofold response: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. After the scribe affirms Jesus by adding that love of God and neighbor is "much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices," Jesus tells him: "You are not far from the kingdom of God" (12:28-34).
These words of Jesus ring in my ears, for I think that this scribe's situation parallels the identity of white people who struggle with racism today. Like the scribes of Jesus' time, we are the beneficiaries, the privileged ones in a stratified society that oppresses the poor and defines many as unclean. We are the ones who get "greeted with respect in the marketplace" and have "the best seats in synagogues and places of honor at banquets." By the virtue of our skin color, we end up profiting at the expense of the poor and oppressed.
It is difficult to honestly acknowledge the power and privilege we receive because of our whiteness. Once we do, we may wonder if that is not enough: "Are we really that far from the kingdom?" we ask. "Is something keeping us from entering in?"
We would do well to listen to Jesus' words to the scribe. Even though this exchange is mostly positive--in fact it's the only place in Mark's Gospel where Jesus' interactions with a scribe are not entirely negative--Jesus still does not invite the scribe into the kingdom. He is near, but he is not yet in.
Jesus knows what holds us back from the kingdom. He invites us to enter in.
To be healthy, all of us need to know who we are. For white people, part of that knowledge comes from recognizing how our whiteness hurts us, how it holds us back. In considering how we might enter the kingdom, I believe there are four "white spaces" we must confront.
The first of these spaces is isolation. Most white people have a difficult time understanding themselves as part of a group. Our first--almost instinctual--response is to think of ourselves as individuals. While this heightened sense of individualism is true of all members of Western society, I believe this impulse tends to be amplified and warped among white people. Many of us have lost any sense of our group identity as white persons.
As I consider the way this dynamic shapes my own life, I see that I sometimes isolate myself from other whites by conveying the impression that I am a well-read, irreproachable antiracist expert. I rationalize that the amount of energy I've devoted to antiracism efforts has earned me the right to no longer acknowledge the effects and reality of racism in my life. I function as if my efforts have somehow separated me from any collective white identity.
Having recognized this tendency, I've begun to try to identify more with the resistance I sometimes experience from other whites in discussions of racism. When I say, "Racism makes all white people into racists," I try to put myself in the place of someone who might be hearing those words for the first time. I remember the resistance I felt when I first heard those words.
It is the same resistance I feel when a colleague of color challenges me about something I have said. It is the same resistance I feel when I realize that I respond differently to the young Latino man who walks past me than I did to the young white man who passed me on the same sidewalk a block earlier.
Long-time antiracism organizer and author Dody Matthias once reminded me, "We have to remember the pain and discomfort we all go through as white people when we first become aware of racism's effects on us. It is like remembering the pain of coming out of the birth canal to look around at a new world."
When I am able to connect with how difficult it is for all of us who are white to name our racism, how difficult it is for each of us to come through that birth canal, I am better able to respond to the resistance I might encounter in a workshop or conversation. I am better able to talk without shame about working against racism in my majority white congregation. And I am ready to stop protecting white people--including myself--from the pain of facing our complicity in this racist system.
In the space of isolation, the task for us is connecting. We who are white are not autonomous individuals. We must learn to understand together that we are a group of people who have all been shaped into being white.
A second white space is control. For many of us, this may be the most difficult space to visit. We do not want to acknowledge how accustomed we are to being in control. Even when dealing with racism, we want to define the problem and then find the solution, the correct response, to this social evil. We are reluctant to acknowledge the spiritual effects of racism on our lives and our inability to free ourselves completely from its influence.
In institutional settings, the desire for control sometimes takes the form of maintaining and promoting programs that benefit white people at the expense of people of color. Many of the short-term service ventures prevalent in church mission agencies are a prime example of the unspoken desire of white-led institutions to remain in control.
Typically, such programs take privileged and resourced people (most of them white) into impoverished settings for short-term service. In the September 1995 issue of A Common Place, James Logan spoke of his experience as a young African American recipient of such short-term service: "I call them 'get-to-know-the-ghetto tours.' " Logan points out that such projects contribute to the community's destabilization, rather than increasing its health. "Short-term service is, I think, very much like crack cocaine and alcoholism; it gives a false sense of security. But it does not build a coherent, intergenerational community that empowers its members."
Even in the face of such concerns, short-term service endeavors remain popular. While the effects of such projects are admittedly complex and amorphous, the vast amounts of funding and participation that allow such programs to continue with such vigor seem to indicate that something else is going on. The fact that such service continues to be so prevalent, when that service may in fact be harmful, speaks powerfully of the need for the sponsoring institutions to set the agenda, rather than taking their lead from those in the communities that they seek to serve.
The principal task I've identified in this white space of control is that of letting go. One concrete expression of this is an emphasis on accountability to communities of color. Such accountability can put us in a place of not being able to rely on white privilege.
In our work as an antiracism training team, my colleagues and I try to ensure that people of color get veto power. For example, if one of our workshops includes an uncooperative participant, and we cannot agree whether to confront this person directly or let the behavior go for the time being, we give the people of color the final say. In disagreements over training in potentially volatile settings, again the final word goes to people of color.
I resist strongly being put in situations where I cannot depend on my white control and privilege. Yet I know how powerfully God can act when I allow myself to be grounded in the space of letting go.
Racism also situates whites in a place of loss. Yet we who are white seldom recognize what we have lost because of racism, nor are we given permission to grieve this loss.
In the process of becoming white, European Americans lost much of their culture and history. We disowned an intimate understanding of where we came from and how we came to be. We lost our own stories. Just as the people of the Hebrew Scriptures had to remind themselves again and again how they came to be the children of Israel, so do we as white people need to recover our own stories of foundation.
As we begin to confront our own racism, we may be tempted to keep our exploration of these issues on an intellectual level. Confronting issues of race on an emotional and spiritual level can be painful. But if we are open to grieving, we may be able to hear what we have previously ignored.
Author Lillian Roybal Rose has pointed out the need for whites to move beyond a purely intellectual struggling with racism. Yet she recognizes how difficult it will be for most of us: "The movement to a global, ethnic point of view requires tremendous grieving. I encourage white people not to shrink from the emotional content of this process. . . . When the process is emotional as well as cognitive, the state of being an ally becomes a matter of reclaiming one's own humanity."
I suspect that beneath much of our hesitancy to grieve is an emotional response that begs to be expressed--perhaps at first in anger or denial, possibly even in weeping. All these are expressions of grieving the loss of critical, life-giving parts of our humanity. Such grieving takes great courage and commitment. And the importance of a caring and nurturing community to surround us as we grieve cannot be overstated.
I once witnessed a video of a worldwide gathering of Christian indigenous people. It was filled with images of worship, but it was worship unlike any I had ever experienced. Group after group sang, danced, walked, chanted, and moved in their indigenous dress, language, and style of worship. I saw Maori, Choctaw, Filipino, Finn, and Zulu worship styles explode with Christ-centered jubilation.
In one scene a middle-aged Indonesian man danced slowly across the screen with a power and grace I have rarely witnessed. As I watched him act out a battle with Satan, his face filled with dignity and strength, I began to cry.
I cried for joy that this fully human, profoundly fleshy experience of worship was still with us. But I also cried out of grief that somewhere in the history of becoming white my own indigenous roots and identity had been left behind. I cried that my mother had been taught that dancing was profound sin. I cried that in my own church congregation we seem to barely register that we even have bodies. And I cried because I knew that as we have called ourselves white and declared ourselves superior, we have also become poorer.
If we are willing to be honest with our grief, to confront what we have lost, we can move forward into reclaiming who we are. We can begin to confront our own personal journeys in "becoming white," as well as our family and collective histories. When these tasks of reclamation are undertaken with full knowledge of how the dominant society tries constantly to shape white people into racists, the journey of reclamation can be joyful and life-giving. It can also become a profound act of resistance to racism.
Finally, one of the most curious spaces that racism creates for white people is a space of loathing: both a self-loathing and an active distaste for and mistrust of other white people. I have known some ardently antiracist whites who seem unable to sit down and simply enjoy the company of other white people. It does us no good if, in the midst of working to dismantle racism, we end up hating one another.
Sometimes white people who work to end racism try to express their deep commitment to this cause by lashing out at other white people--or even at themselves. Such attacks are not healthy for us, nor do they help to confront racism. This final white space of loathing must be countered with the difficult task of learning to love ourselves and others.
I was confronted with the difficulty of this at a family reunion one summer. Two of my relatives presented a skit that was introduced as an encounter between a pastor and a "colored" man. The skit proceeded to show a racist stereotype of a confused, illiterate "colored man," complete with Southern drawl.
After getting over our initial shock, my wife Cheryl and I left the room. Amid tears and embarrassment, we talked about how we should respond. We decided that we had to return and say something. Although it was a moment of utter dread and sheer terror, we both felt we could not live with integrity if we did not speak up.
So we went back into that gathering of about one hundred relatives, and spoke about the pain the skit had caused us. I told them how much I want to be proud of my family and described how disappointed and hurt I'd been by our collective silence in the face of the skit. I spoke about how saddened I was by the messages this skit might have taught my young sons. Yet I felt glad that my sons were there to see at least one small way in which we were trying to love each other in spite of this racism.
After we spoke, all I wanted to do was leave. Yet several relatives came up and told me how much they appreciated what Cheryl and I had done. Their presence and support gave me the courage to stay in the room and to continue to be with folks whom I didn't even want to see in those moments.
It may seem strange to conclude a systemic analysis of the effects of racism on whites by focusing on the interpersonal principle of loving one another. Yet the systemic and the personal are not, in fact, contradictory.
The work of dismantling systemic racism and building new institutions that are not based on white power and privilege needs to be infused with a deep love for and among all of us who are working together. Antiracism work can quickly become warped if it involves white people who fundamentally do not love themselves.
Underlying each of these white spaces--isolation, control, loss, and loathing--is the pattern of internalized superiority that racism has taught all white persons. We have believed that we have the answers. It can shake our very foundations to discover that these lessons of superiority and our ensuing dependence on privilege may inhibit our complete and unlimited entrance to the kingdom.
I believe that our inability to confront and pass through these four white spaces may keep us from completely entering the kingdom. It is my hope that a deeper focus on connection, grounding, reclaiming, and loving might help remove those barriers to living out God's reign that are particular struggles for white people.
Jesus words to the unnamed scribe serve as both a caution and an invitation. "You are not there yet," he seems to say to us, "but keep working together, so that one day you might all enter the kingdom rejoicing."
From The Other Side Online, © 2002 The Other Side, March-April 2002, Vol. 38, No. 2.
Nonviolence or Nonexistence
"We have passed beyond the imaginable limits of violence. Can we pass equally beyond the imaginable limits of nonviolence?"
by Jim Douglass
Martin Luther King, Jr., understood our situation profoundly. He summed it up in his contingent prophecy for the rest of human history: "Nonviolence or nonexistence." King knew humanity had passed beyond the imaginable limits of violence at Hiroshima. Today, God and history challenge us to pass equally beyond the imaginable limits of nonviolence. King, like Gandhi and Jesus, felt there were in truth no limits to nonviolence.
Like the prophets before him, King was a realist. By "nonviolence" he did not mean a world without conflict. He meant a deepening, widening commitment to meet every conflict with unflinching compassion, non cooperation with evil, and an effort to see through the eyes of one's opponent. "Love your enemies," Jesus said; see through their eyes while resisting all evil, Gandhi and King interpreted. In the nuclear age, this is not a counsel of perfection, but a ground rule of survival.
Jesus, a realist if there ever was one, said that we had better settle our conflicts. Nonviolence is rooted in the unshakable belief that everyone without exception has a piece of the truth. Let the voice of even Osama bin Laden and the alienated millions he speaks for be heard, not assaulted by our missiles in an act of vengeance. May God's justice and peace be with all of them, as with all of us.
Let the suffering of countless brothers and sisters, crushed by our policies, be felt by us as one with our own suffering in the shadows of September 11. Let the depth and urgency of their demands for justice become our own, in an inconceivable transformation and unification.
In response to unimaginable violence, let there be the inconceivably more powerful response of impartial justice, a concern for the truth, a compassion for all, and nonviolent non cooperation with evil.
Either that, or let us recognize what we are now choosing--the end of our world. Nonviolence or nonexistence.
From The Other Side Online, © 2002 The Other Side, January-February 2002, Vol. 38, No. 1.
To read the complete article, go to http://www.theotherside.org/archive/jan-feb02/douglass.php
Our Sabbath Year
"The question represented a profound challenge to us: What if we spent the next year without acquiring anything newer or better?"
by Sue Klassen
I read Arthur Waskow's Proclaim Jubilee! Tucked in among the author's proposals for periodic community-wide rest, celebration, and economic redistribution was the following modest proposal:
What if we spent a year just not acquiring anything that's newer, better, faster, easier, prettier, more sophisticated, longer lasting, better designed, or--that most empty improvement--"the latest"?
We also wondered if we would feel compelled to go on a great shopping frenzy to "catch up" once the Sabbath Year ended. I waited a full year to see. We did not. In many cases, the must-do projects that were put off during the Sabbath Year seemed less important after it was over.
With inflow of things a given, conscious thought to outflow is essential. Waskow suggests that "we might also use every seventh year to do an inventory of all we possess, asking ourselves whether we need to keep it, the extent to which we actually use it, and how much attention we're paying to its upkeep and preservation."
I still feel the refreshment of that year, and a certain inner quiet has stayed with me. While our life has returned to its normal routine, I still carry the enrichment that the Sabbath Year brought to me. And I look forward to every seventh year, hoping that each one will move us boldly toward true Jubilee.
From The Other Side Online, © 2002 The Other Side, January-February 2002, Vol. 38, No. 1.
To read the complete article, go to http://www.theotherside.org/archive/jan-feb02/klassen.php
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Enough is Enough
"In feeding the hungry crowd, Jesus reminds us that the wounds of scarcity can be healed only by faith in God's promise of abundance. "
by Walter Brueggemann
We live in a world where the gap between scarcity and abundance grows wider every day. Whether at the level of nations or neighborhoods, this widening gap is polarizing people, making each camp more and more suspicious and antagonistic toward the other. But the peculiar thing, at least from a biblical perspective, is that the rich--the ones with the abundance--rely on an ideology of scarcity, while the poor--the ones suffering from scarcity--rely on an ideology of abundance. How can that be?
The issue involves whether there is enough to go around--enough food, water, shelter, space. An ideology of scarcity says no, there's not enough, so hold onto what you have. In fact, don't just hold onto it, hoard it. Put aside more than you need, so that if you do need it, it will be there, even if others must do without.
An affirmation of abundance says just the opposite: Appearances notwithstanding, there is enough to go around, so long as each of us takes only what we need. In fact, if we are willing to have but not hoard, there will even be more than enough left over.
The Bible is about abundance. From the first chapters of Genesis, God not only initiates abundance--calling forth plants and fish and birds and animals--but promises continued abundance by commanding them to "increase and multiply" (1:22).
In the New Testament, Jesus knows all about the generosity and fidelity of God. Today, the fundamental human condition continues to be anxiety, fueled by a market ideology that keeps pounding on us to take more, to not think about our neighbor, to be fearful, shortsighted, grudging. Over and over, we're told to be sure we have the resources to continue our affluent lifestyles, especially with the approach of our "golden years" (which are "golden" in more ways than one). That same market ideology powers the multinational corporations, as they roam the world, seeking the best deal, the greatest return, the cheapest labor and materials. Whether it's global policies or local poverty-wage jobs, those who fear scarcity refuse to acknowledge any abundance that extends beyond their own coffers.
One glaring example of today's anxiety-driven scarcity is the frenetic activity that so characterizes our society. Corporate executives boast a "24/7" mentality as a bulwark against losing their edge or missing an opportunity. Those of us with less "prestigious" positions continually wrestle with our bulging appointment books and ever-growing to-do lists. Even youngsters have exchanged a carefree childhood for a schedule of structured activities. There's never enough time; there's never a moment's rest.
The Bible offers an antidote to all this activity: the call to Sabbath. As shown in the creation account, Sabbath (God's day of rest) is based on abundance. But how willing are we to practice Sabbath?
A Sabbath spent catching up on chores we were too busy to do during the week is hardly a testimony to abundance. A Sabbath spent encouraging those who want to fill our "free time" with calls to amass more possessions--whether the malls with their weekend specials or televised sports events with their clutter of commercials--does nothing to weaken the domain of scarcity. Honoring the Sabbath is a form of witness. It tells the world that "there is enough."
Too often, the church has understood God's unconditional grace as solely a theological phenomenon, instead of recognizing that it has to do with the reordering of the economy of the world. We cannot separate the two. When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment, he replied with a trick answer: "You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength" and "you shall love your neighbor as yourself." You can't have just one; you need to have both. And the link that unites them is God's limitless generosity, acknowledged and enacted.
When we gather as church each Sunday, we should ponder the stories that declare scarcity to be false: an impromptu hillside meal with as much in left-overs as when it began, a barren desert blossoming with manna, an earth fully equipped to meet everyone's needs. And a question should be burning in our hearts: "What if it is true? What if one of the links between the Creator's generosity and the neighbor's needs is us, this community?"
If that is not true, then scarcity rules and we are in sorry shape. But if it is, and if we believe it is, we can begin life anew as stewards of God's abundance.
Travelers Together, the study guide based on this issue, features this article. For a copy, call 1-800-700-9280.
From The Other Side Online, © 2001 The Other Side, November-December 2001, Vol. 37, No. 5.
To read the complete article, go to http://www.theotherside.org/archive/nov-dec01/brueggemann.php
Pax Christi
From PCUSA Spring 2002 p. 7
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-01/osu-whm013002.php
Public release date: 30-Jan-2002
Contact: Craig Jenkins
Jenkins.12@osu.edu
614-292-1411
Ohio State University
Worldwide hunger more a political problem, study finds
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The key to helping developing countries with hungry populations is not just providing more food - it is eliminating war and providing stable, democratic governments. A new study of 53 developing countries with populations over 1 million found that high levels of child hunger in these countries was linked most to high levels of internal war and violence, political repression, high levels of arms trade, and population pressures. Food imports from governments and charities in the United States and elsewhere seem to do some good, but their effects are modest when compared to political factors affecting the countries.
"Food supply is not the central issue in reducing hunger," said Craig Jenkins, co-author of the new study and professor of sociology and political science at Ohio State University.
"Hunger is largely a political issue."
Jenkins said the current situation in Afghanistan is a good example.
"Years of war and Taliban rule have all contributed to a major hunger problem in Afghanistan," Jenkins said. "Creating a stable government and institutions is as important as providing food in terms of eliminating hunger in Afghanistan."
Jenkins conducted the study with Stephen Scanlan, a former Ph.D. student at Ohio State who is now an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Memphis. Their results were published in recent issues of the American Sociological Review and International Studies Quarterly.
The researchers used a variety of sources, most from the United Nations, to see which factors affected both food supply and the percentage of children under age 5 who are of healthy weight. They used data from 1988 to 1992, the most recent available.
Results showed that internal violence in the countries - such as civil wars - had the greatest effects on levels of child hunger, Jenkins said. Closely related were findings that political democratization helped reduce child hunger rates, as did lower levels of international arms trade.
Often, internal violence in the countries studied was the result of ethnic conflicts in which some minority groups faced high levels of inequality and discrimination, he said.
"Political discrimination and internal violence against minorities or other groups is one key to the persistence and increase in child hunger rates," he said.
In countries without stable democratic governments, food is often used as a method of control by political leaders or by warring factions, according to Jenkins. In these cases, food is often not distributed to people who need it the most.
Some researchers have argued that democratization can actually increase hunger in some cases because it can be politically destabilizing. However, Jenkins said this study does not support that view. "We found that political democratization encourages economic growth and improvements in basic needs," he said. "We need more democracy, not less."
The study also found that high levels of child hunger were linked to population pressures created by high fertility levels and rapid growth in populations. "This suggests that improving women's status through education and employment opportunities should be central to improving both food supply and child hunger rates," he said.
Many researchers have argued that international food imports from developed countries - no matter how well-intentioned - may actually harm less-developed countries by making them dependent on foreign food. Jenkins said results from this study suggest that international food imports do increase the food supply, but do not have a major effect on child hunger rates. However, he said the data does not separate food that is sold to countries from that is donated as aid.
"At the very least, food imports are not harmful, as some people have suggested," Jenkins said. "It may be that if we could separate the various forms of food imports we would find that food aid - food that is donated -- actually does help reduce hunger. However, the results suggest that international food imports must be better targeted to address underlying hunger problems."
Overall, the study shows that reducing hunger throughout the world is more than just a question of agricultural and economic development, according to Jenkins.
"Hunger is also a distributional problem, and the obstacles to improved distribution are primarily political," he said. "Conflict regulation, violence prevention, the reduction of international arms trade, and the protection of civil and political rights should be central to policies that address hunger."
The study was supported by the National Science Foundation, Ohio State's Mershon Center for International Security, and the Dean's Distinguished Fellowship from Ohio State's graduate school, given to Scanlan. ###
Sign-on to Endorse Kucinich Space Ban Bill
March, 2002
Bruce Gagnon
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) originally introduced a bill (HR 2977)
in Congress on Oct. 2, 2001 calling for a permanent ban on U.S. weapons in
space, and for preserving space for peaceful uses. An amended bill,
H.R. 3616, titled: the "Space Preservation Act of 2002" was introduced
in 2002, calling upon the President of the United States to work for a worldwide
ban on weapons in space as well.
We wholeheartedly support this bill and call upon the U.S. Congress to enact this legislation. If the U.S. places weapons systems in outer space, a new arms race among nations will surely follow. The world will become less secure, not more. The environment will be further polluted. And the economic drain on the people of the U.S. and the rest of the world will be enormous.
Please join us in support of H.R. 3616, the "Space Preservation Act of 2001." To sign on your organization send an e-mail to: globalnet@mindspring.com
Contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators and urge them to
support Kucinich's ban on weapons in space. Also please help us spread
word about this bill to your mailing lists.
Peaceworks Monitor
http://peaceworks.missouri.org [no www], click on Monitor Archives
February-March 2002: Living in "Wartime"
- * Civilian Death Toll in Afghanistan
- * Poor Affected by "War on Terror"
- * Iraq Still Potential Target
- * JROTC in Columbia?
- * Civil Liberies in Times of War
- * Bush Administration Does Not Play Well with Others
- * Reflections on Living in Wartime
- * Terror Is as Terror Does
- * End of the ABM Treaty
- * Who's Next?
November-December 2001: Focus on Terror, War and Peace
- * A Time Like No Other
- * United We Stand?
- * Not All Are Pacifists
- * Blowback: The Consequences of Short-Term Thinking in a Complex World
- * Media and War
- * Take Our Civil Liberties, Please
- * Terrorism in Context
- * Peace in the Holy Land?
- * Is It the Stupid Oil?
- * Patriarchy, Power and War
- * Economic Stimulus: Comforting the Comfortable
- * A Few Good Men and Women?
Prism E-pistle (ESA)/Creation Care (EEN)
IT'S A SMALL WORLD: check out "The Miniature Earth," a well-crafted, one-minute
online video that shows what the world's population would look like if reduced
to a community of just 100 people. Presenting statistics on poverty and race
from a global perspective, "The Miniature Earth" (requires Flash) can be
found at
http://www.luccaco.com/terra/terra.htm
.
LIFE AND DEBT: Stephanie Black's acclaimed film on the impacts of globalization
and debt on Jamaica is now touring the country. It is a poignant, poetic
and thoroughly educational film that you are likely to want to promote in
your community. Visit the LIFE & DEBT website for schedules and more
information:
http://www.lifeanddebt.org
(from HOT, JUICY LINKS: THE PRISM E-PISTLE, Wednesday, March 20, 2002, Vol 4.6)
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A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed - what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don't bother anyone, that's the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.
(Excerpted from THE VIOLENCE OF LOVE by Oscar Romero, published by and available from Plough Publishing House: http://www.plough.com .)
(from THE PRISM E-PISTLE, Wednesday, March 20, 2002, Vol 4.6)
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Here's another EXCELLENT website that might prove helpful to anyone interested
in ethical investing that has been recommended to us -
http://www.faithfulsteward.org (link no longer valid).
****************
For information specifically about EARTH DAY 2002, go to http://www.earthday.net
To find out about celebrating CREATION SUNDAY (typically the Sunday closest to Earth Day on the calendar), and for a whole host of resources available for your church, go to http://www.creationcare.org/resources/sunday/
(from THE PRISM E-PISTLE, Wednesday, April 17, 2002, Vol 4.8)
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A THOUSAND POINTS OF HYPE
by Paul Rogat Loeb
I've spent much of my life working to get Americans more engaged, yet I'm dismayed by George W. Bush's embrace of volunteerism, like his co-chairing of the April 26-28th National Youth Service Day. Community service should draw support across political lines. I'm delighted that AmeriCorps has been so spectacularly successful that it now draws bi-partisan support. Men like Republican Senator Rick Santorum no longer dismiss it as taxpayers paying "a bunch of hippie kids to sit around the campfire, holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya.'" But it's the height of duplicity for an administration that's the most hostile toward the poor and powerless in 20 years to imply that everything will be fine if we all just voluntarily pick up the slack.
For those of us who've long advocated getting both youth and adults more involved in community service, it's tempting to praise Bush's calls for 4,000 hours of service for giving a seal of approval to our efforts. But his benevolent words demand nothing of his administration, and change no budget priorities. Worse yet, they take the commitment and compassion of America's community volunteers, and misuse it to give political cover for choices that attack the very communities that the volunteers serve. Each time we use his endorsement, we're implicitly giving him ours, because quoting is a badge of respect.
"We want to be a nation," Bush's speech writers proclaim, "that serves goals larger than self." Meanwhile his administration has repeatedly contradicted these caring sentiments by cutting funding for child abuse prevention, after-school programs, community policing, low-income childcare and health care, training for dislocated workers, a Boys' and Girls' Club public-housing program, and a program that teaches low-income children to read. Meanwhile, he funded a tax break that gave $75 billion a year to the top five percent of Americans. Bush encourages us to clean up our local parks and rivers, then slashes the EPA budget, abandons a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide, pulls out of the Kyoto global warming treaty, and pushes an energy policy written by companies like Enron.
It's hardly a record of compassion.
Millions of Americans participate in voluntary activities. We serve in soup kitchens and shelters; conduct literacy programs; coach Little League; read to hospital patients and the elderly; work with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts; and run volunteer fire departments. All of this is good, yet most of us find it easier to help our fellow citizens one-on-one than to exercise our democratic voice, or challenge destructive policies sold with benign words. We're far more likely to volunteer to meet a specific human need than to help elect wiser leaders; pressure major economic, political, and cultural institutions to act more responsibly; or otherwise try to influence the larger public choices that dictate our common destiny.
Volunteer efforts can help us regain our sense of connection, offer lifelines of support to beleaguered communities, and change people's lives. Like Gandhi's "constructive program," they can create new alternatives to address urgent problems, such as the pioneering work by Habitat for Humanity in building affordable houses. Yet during Habitat's 25-year history the situation of those who need affordable housing has gotten worse - because so many common programs have been cut.
The former director of Boston's powerful youth involvement program, City Year, compared the situation of community service volunteers to people trying to pull an endless series of drowning children out of a river. Of course we must address the immediate crisis, and try to rescue the children. But we also need to find out why they're falling into the river - if only because no matter how hard we try, we lack the resources, strength, and stamina to save them all. So we must go upstream to fix the broken bridge, stop the people who are pushing them in, or do whatever else will prevent them from ending up in the water to begin with.
I see too many compassionate individuals trying to stem rivers of need, while upstream, national political and economic leaders open the floodgates to widen them. We distribute two dozen loaves of bread to the hungry in one neighborhood. Then Congress makes a decision that robs every poor community in the country of 500 loaves. We build five houses with Habitat, while escalating rents and government cutbacks throw a hundred families into the street. We laboriously restore a single creek while a timber company clear-cuts an entire watershed. As the Reverend William Sloane Coffin once said, "Charity must not be allowed to go to bail for justice." The behavior of society's major political and economic institutions is too consequential to ignore. As contributions to non-profits decline in the wake of economic recession, we see the fallacy of exempting those who have the most from the responsibility of contributing to the whole. We're in trouble if what once were shared responsibilities are now made private - and voluntary.
So let's honor the volunteers, but not use their hard work and commitment to excuse destructive national choices. Let's get involved, but then ask what common choices are creating the wounds we work to heal. Let's listen to those who come to the food banks and homeless shelters, battered women's centers and Boys' and Girls' Clubs. Let's learn about their lives, then ask the hard questions about who gains and who loses in America, and why we allow so much needless suffering and pain. Instead of hiding behind sentimental phrases about how we all care - what I'd call a thousand points of hype - let's join with those whose voices have been silenced. That would be the real service to America - and to our common humanity.
(Paul Loeb is the author of SOUL OF A CITIZEN: LIVING WITH CONVICTION IN A CYNICAL TIME [St. Martin's Press, www.soulofacitizen.org] and three other books on citizen involvement.)
(from THE PRISM E-PISTLE, the biweekly ezine of PRISM Magazine & Evangelicals for Social Action: ESA. Love justice, do mercy! -Zech. 7:9, May 1, 2002, Vol 4.9)
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Thanks for visiting the virtual home of EEN and Creation Care magazine.
EEN is a unique evangelical ministry whose purpose is to "declare the Lordship of Christ over all creation (Col. 1:15-20). EEN was formed because we recognize many "environmental" problems are fundamentally spiritual problems. EEN's flagship publication, Creation Care magazine, provides you with biblically informed and timely articles on topics ranging from how to protect your loved ones against environmental threats to how you can more fully praise the Creator for the wonder of His creation. You can sign up today for a free issue of Creation Care magazine.
We Seek Solutions Grounded in Jesus Christ and the Bible
Have you seen the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation?
The declaration is a carefully considered statement on the biblical call to reduce pollution and environmental degradation and the harm they cause to people and the rest of creation. Since the day we released it , hundreds of evangelical leaders in North America have expressed their agreement with the principles of the declaration by signing on.
Networking Together to Serve
EEN is a network of individuals and organizations, including World Vision, World Relief, InterVarsity, and the International Bible Society (see our Partners page).
Our educational campaign Healthy Families, Healthy Environment and it's web site, www.healthyfamiliesnow.org, is a service ministry that provides families with practical information to help them protect their loved ones from health concerns in the environment.
Contact us at een@creationcare.org or (202) 554-1955.
Last updated April 3, 2002
Real Money
The Real Money Newsletter (www.realmoney.org) offers practical tips to help people save, spend, and invest their money in harmony with their values. Read this article of the month and you'll gain valuable advice for greening your life and your money.
The January/February 2002 issue features these articles: Kinder, Gentler Body Care, Turning Down the Heat, Social Investing Trends, Your Money or Your Life ("Strike a Balance"), Real Stock Picks, and Choose to Reuse.
featured article of the month:
Kinder, Gentler Body Care
More than 15 percent of people suffer from adverse reactions to toxic chemicals in personal care products. Here's how to make sure yours are safe.
We absorb 60 percent of the substances we put on our skin, from moisturizers
and shaving lotion to makeup and cologne. In other words, anything you put
on your skin will get under your skin - including harmful synthetic chemicals
that are included in many over-the-counter body care products...
Simple Living Oasis
Simple Living OASIS is a complete re-design of the one we have been publishing since 1992, titled The Simple Living Journal. The world has deepened and gotten more interesting, and so have we!
We added the word Oasis because of the wonderful connotations it represents:
Oasis is a place to go for refuge, renewal and inspiration. You can also envision yourself in an Oasis, sitting up all night talking with people you'd never meet anywhere else. And most of all, Oasis is a place where you go when you want to feel alive.
Our new journal focuses on the harmony we all seek: being vitally involved with life, balanced with self care and refuge. We cover it all.
Simple Living Oasis takes the best of simplicity and weaves it into the whole dialogue of our lives.
INSPIRATIONAL PEOPLE
Jerilyn Brusseau: "It was the work that was in my bones the day I was born."
by Janet Luhrs
THEY HEALED THEMSELVES AND EACH OTHER
Danaan and Jerilyn merged their two organizations, PeaceTrees and Peace Table, and began working to bring young people together from all over the world, to plant trees and also cook their food and share their stories. "It was a way for them to heal themselves and each other," she says.
Since they began in 1995, PeaceTrees has sponsored safe clearance of 84 acres of land from a very fiery battle ground that had experienced tremendous warfare. They safely removed 1,440 land mines and bombs, planted more than 9,000 indigenous trees, and brought 18 delegations of volunteers to work with the Vietnamese people.
ORDINARY PEOPLE WORK TOGETHER TO REVERSE THE LEGACY OF WAR
"In a certain way, it's a small, simple project and idea for ordinary people to work together to reverse the legacy of war. It grows out of a big commitment that is possible and takes hard work, vision, and tenacity, but it's the spirit of friendship that fuels our work," Jerilyn says. "It's also the generosity of people all over the world. We raise every dollar. It takes about $3 to manufacture a land mine, and about $800 - $1,000 to remove one safely.
To read these complete articles, go to:
http://www.simpleliving.com/journal.htm
Click on "take a peek"
ISSUE #36 / SPRING 2002 [WINTER was not published]
SOJOMail
March-April, 2002
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.... Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
- U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(from Quote of the Week from S O J O M A I L, 27-March-2002
Promoting faith, reason, compassion, and justice in days of violence and fear
Brought to you by SojoNet, Publisher of Sojourners magazine. Visit: http://www.Sojo.net)
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Religions in the U.S.: the young and the old
Religious groups with greatest concentration of adults 18 to 29 years old:
- Islamic: 58%
- Buddhist: 56%
- No religion: 35%
- Non-denomin. Christian: 35%
-
Mormon: 29%
Religious groups with greatest concentration of adults 65 or older
- Congregational/UCC 35%
- Presbyterian 29%
- Jewish* 28%
- Episcopalian/Angl. 28%
*Jewish by stated religious affiliation, not ethnicity
**Source: Graduate Center of the City University of New York and USA Today
(from By the Numbers: S O J O M A I L 03-April-2002)
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The Poverty Debate
Jim Wallis' article on changing the poverty debate is excellent (as always)
as far as it goes. But it needs to go much further.
Any Christian stand on poverty needs to take into account the 250 references in scripture that condemn the personal accumulation of riches. What we need to eliminate is not poverty, which scripture recommends, but gross wealth. Destitution should be divided off from poverty and eliminated if possible. But what passes for "poverty" in America, which would be unrecognizable as such almost anywhere else in the world, is not a problem.
Contrary to the myths of the West, poverty does not breed crime. What breeds crime is gross wealth side by side with poverty. When we in Malawi were all poor together,
you didn't need doors, let alone locks. Today, a grossly rich elite having been developed, one lives behind walls with bars on every window and door. And even today, our murder rate is a small fraction of America's.
Contrary to the myths of the West, people living in poverty are not unhealthier or unhappier than those living in gross luxury. This is because poor people in general are rich with emotional, social, and spiritual wealth, all more important than material wealth for well-being. Western visitors to Africa are continually amazed at how happy poor people here are, not knowing that they are happy BECAUSE they are poor. Studies done here and elsewhere show that perception of health and happiness actually go down as level of affluence rises.
If poverty (as the West understands it) was eliminated worldwide, it would be an environmental catastrophe. The amount of wealth in the West is already an environmental disaster. Starvation, nakedness, and homelessness are problems. Poverty is not.
Mtumiki Njira, Limbe, Malawi
(from Boomerang: S O J O M A I L 03-April-2002)
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Lord have mercy
by R. S. Thomas
Because we cannot be clever and honest
and are inventors of things more intricate
than the snowflake - Lord have mercy
Because we are full of pride
in our humility and because we believe
in our disbelief - Lord have mercy
Because we will protect ourselves
from ourselves to the point
of destroying ourselves - Lord have mercy
And because on the slope to perfection
when we should be halfway up,
we are halfway down - Lord have mercy
*R. S. Thomas is a poet and priest from the United Kingdom.
(from Soul Works: S O J O M A I L 10-April-2002)
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Startling new scientific discovery
A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Administratium." Administratium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Administratium has no electrons, it is inert.
However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.
Administratium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization. In fact, Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."
You will know it when you see it...
(from Funny Business: S O J O M A I L 10-April-2002)
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Are you an environmentalist or are you beginning to explore environmental issues? This terrific study guide offers an exciting challenge to all of us who share creation. "Holy Ground" contains practical reflections and models for action through articles and study questions concerning issues of environmental racism, eco-feminism and more. To order, visit: https://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=resources.catalog&mode=display_detail&ResourceID=139
Globalization: from conquistadors to corporations
by Richard Parker
The period today that we vainly imagine is so new and revolutionary is only the latest chapter in a fourth or fifth stage of globalization, a wave that began in Western Europe 500 years ago.
There are, of course, undeniably "new" things about the world we live in today. Yet what so many briskly talk about as characteristically modern - as signs of our "new global era" - in fact rest on long-established patterns and achievements. Even those larger features we think are most distinct about our own global era today - the immense trade flows, or the instant information of the worldwide Internet, or the electronic financial markets that send billions coursing around the globe - all have a longer and deeper heritage than most of us understand.
To read the entire feature as it appears in the May-June 2002 edition of Sojourners magazine, link to:
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj0205/article/020510.php
(from S O J O M A I L 01-May-2002)
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City government using divestiture to bring peace in Israel
Having led the nation in divesting from South Africa and helping bring an end to apartheid, the Berkeley City Council [may clear] the city's portfolio of investments in Israel and Palestinian territory in an attempt to bring peace to the Middle East.
The ambitious plan also calls on City Hall to boycott firms doing business with Israel and the Palestinians and would prohibit the purchase of products made there.
Backers believe it would make Berkeley the first city to boycott the two sides.
To link to the full feature, go to: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/23/MN.DTL
(from Building a Movement: S O J O M A I L 01-May-2002)
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U.S. Foreign Aid Myth
I wish to address...the U.S. as "the world leader...in foreign aid." This untruth needs to be set straight: The three best aid providers, measured by the foreign aid percentage of their gross domestic products, are Denmark (1.01%), Norway (0.91%), and the Netherlands (0.79%). The three worst: USA (0.10%), UK (0.23%), Portugal, Australia, and Austria (all 0.26%).
Source: http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-12/21duboff.cfm
Beth Rockwell, Lakewood, New York
(from S O J O M A I L 01-May-2002)
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Making the possible...possible
by Jim Wallis
I just returned from 10 days in England. The original invitation was to lead clergy conferences in several Anglican dioceses, but the agenda grew quickly. A new
British coalition, named JustShare, is pulling together diverse Christian groups around the issues of international debt, aid, and trade and wants to partner with Call to Renewal. My sermon in the historic Wesley Chapel (where the revivalist's pulpit still stands) was one of their inaugural events. But it was the meetings with the Labor government's cabinet ministers and members of Parliament (MPs) that were the most remarkable.
America's leading ally in the world today is utterly convinced that terrorism will not be defeated without a "Marshall Plan" for the economic development of the world's poorest nations. And the United Nation's stated goals to dramatically reduce global poverty are now in the forefront of British foreign policy. The U.N.'s "Millennium Summit," held in the fall of 2000, made a commitment to cut global poverty in half, reduce infant mortality by two-thirds, and make primary education available to all children - all by 2015. These "2015" commitments were a part of every discussion of international affairs I had with the English leaders of both church and state.
It is indeed an important and urgent commitment. Today, some 800 million people around the world are malnourished. According to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, 30,500 children die every day in the developing world from hunger and preventable diseases. Three billion people, nearly half the world's population, live on less than $2 a day, 1.2 billion of them on less than $1 a day.
Following the Summit, a special U.N. report estimated that these commitments to significantly reduce global poverty could be met by increasing development aid to poor countries by $50 billion per year, and set a goal to accomplish this by developed countries spending 0.7% of their GNP from the current average of 0.22%.
In several important speeches over the past year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown have called for a new "Marshall Plan" of aid to developing countries in order to accomplish these ambitious goals. In a speech on December 17 at the National Press Club here in Washington, Chancellor Brown recalled how U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall had committed the resources needed to rebuild Europe after World War II, believing that a true victory in that war would require a global fight against "hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."
Today, said Brown, "There cannot be a solution to the urgent problems of poverty the poorest countries face without a...substantial increase in development funds for investment in the very least developed countries.... We must move from providing short-term aid just to compensate for poverty to a higher and more sustainable purpose, that of aid as long-term investment to tackle the causes of poverty by promoting growth."
Blair and Brown are right - an international war against terrorism that doesn't target global poverty is doomed to failure. The U.S. government's $50-billion-a-year increase in the military budget will do little to eradicate the conditions of poverty, injustice, and lack of democracy that breed terrorism.
I met with Brown, Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short, Treasury Minister Paul Boateng, and several members of Parliament. All of them are convinced that churches and faith-based organizations could play a decisive role in convincing the people and governments in the West of the political and moral imperatives of dramatically reducing global poverty. The British leaders believe that unless the United States can be persuaded to lead in this effort it cannot really succeed, and that the American churches must help their government to act.
So last week, with British church leaders and aid organizations, we began to lay the foundations for a U.S./U.K. transatlantic faith-based alliance aimed at mobilizing our own people and pushing our governments toward effective moral and political leadership in seriously reducing global poverty. The goals we discussed are not at all out of reach, but they depend upon creating a new political will to accomplish them. They are indeed possible, but not without a spiritual engine to drive them forward. That is indeed what the religious community can most provide, agreed the British government leaders I spoke with last week. Together, we committed to work to make the possible...possible.
(from Hearts & Minds: S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
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Help the poor and homeless get through the next winter
The Survival Two Event will take place across the USA on Saturday Nov. 30, 2002. The purpose of the event is to save lives this winter by preparing the poor and homeless with the materials they need to survive. It's also a chance for each city to take care of their own by getting personally involved with their poor and homeless brothers and sisters.
To get involved, check out the Care of Poor People
Web site: http://www.coppinc.com
(from Building a Movement: S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
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Book club for reading-averse kids
by Rodolpho Carrasco
My wife, Kafi, is the literacy resource teacher at Cleveland Elementary School. In January she and Principal Abel Quesada started a book club for fourth- through sixth-graders at Cleveland Elementary. In early February they received a grant...that allows the children to keep the books they complete.
Today there is not just one club, but three. Initial success led them to start two more clubs. Now 14 second- graders, 10 third-graders, and 15 fourth- through sixth-graders meet every two weeks during lunch time to discuss assigned books, which include "The Great Brain" and "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson."
Kafi notes that the book clubs are not just populated by children who enjoy reading. Children who do not read well - the very children the clubs were designed to reach - have chosen to participate.
Read more about this creative educational initiative at:
http://www.urbanonramps.com/rc/book_club.php
(from S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
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Are you on the "No Fly" list?
by Matthew Rothschild
Alia Kate, 16, a high-school student in Milwaukee, wanted to go to Washington, D.C., for the protests Saturday, April 20. She was looking forward to demonstrating against the School of the Americas and learning how to lobby against U.S. aid for Colombia.
She had an airplane ticket for a 6:55 p.m. flight out of Milwaukee on Friday the 19th, and she got to the airport two hours ahead of time. But she didn't make it onto the Midwest Express flight. Neither did many other Wisconsin activists who were supposed to be on board. Twenty of the 37 members of the Peace Action Milwaukee group - including a priest and a nun - were pulled aside and questioned by Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies. They were not cleared in time for takeoff and had to leave the next morning, missing many of the events.
What tripped them up was a computerized "No Fly Watch List" that the federal government now supplies to all the airlines. The airlines are required to check their passenger lists against that computerized "No Fly" list.
To read the entire feature story, link to:
http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc042702.php
(from Politically Connect: S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
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Jesus visits the Hamptons
by Will Willimon
Some time ago I was returning from a preaching gig in the Hamptons, home of Martha Stewart, Steven Spielberg, and numerous others of the very rich. There I had seen homes with two bedrooms on the market for $6 million, a house with a 200-car garage, and other architectural obscenities. But we had a wonderful weekend among the beautiful people of the Hamptons and no one walked out of my sermon on Sunday. As my wife and I flew back to drab Durham, North Carolina, I asked her, "Would you please explain to me what Jesus has got against rich people? I like rich people. I've met some great people who are rich. What's the problem with Jesus?"
Well, like it or not, built right into the fabric of the gospel and the practice of the Christian faith, there seems to be a deep suspicion of, even a hostility toward, the prosperous. I would have had a much better time visiting the Hamptons if I were not forced to take Jesus with me.
To read the entire feature as it appears in the March/April edition of Sojourners magazine, link to:
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj0203/article/020322.php
(from Soul Works: S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
**********************************
Chris Brown writes from Glasgow, Scotland:
A week ago I was at a march and rally organized by the Scottish Coalition
for Justice, attended by a lot of people listening to speakers from government
groups, CND, and Palestinian exiles, as well as a speaker from the Iona
community. Interested to find out how many attended (as it looked a big crowd)
I scanned the papers the next day and could find no mention of the demo.
But some May Day demos with smaller participation than the one I was at were
splashed over the content of the papers. Also they reported the anti-Le Pen
rally attracting 800,000 in Paris. The one worry I have: Does a rally of
any kind have to have a potential for violence to be newsworthy?
Thank God for Sojomail and the links to peace you have given. Without it
I would be uninformed.
(from: S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
*************************
The best of the Web
*Bread for the World's annual hunger report
"A Future with Hope," the twelfth annual report on the state of world hunger produced by Bread for the World Institute, finds that U.S. congressional decisions about the welfare program and a reassessment of U.S. relations with Africa and other poor parts of the world could lead the way to dramatic reductions in hunger, both domestically and abroad. Go to: http://www.bread.org/issues/backgroundpapers/March_2002_A_Future_With_Hope_Hunger_2002.php
(from Webscene: S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
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PBS special report asks 'Are we making our children sick?'
Kids and Chemicals, a special Bill Moyers report that recently aired on PBS, explores a disturbing medical mystery: More and more children across the United States are suffering from asthma, childhood cancers, and learning and behavioral disabilities. Are everyday environmental toxins -- what kids eat, drink and breathe -- putting them at risk?
The program tracks the latest research on links between childhood illness and environmental contamination and looks at cases around the country. One small desert town in Nevada, for example, has had 15 recorded cases of childhood leukemia in just five years. In its investigation, the Centers for Disease Control considered everything from jet fuel emissions to pesticides to naturally occurring arsenic in the water. In one Missouri town, lead contamination is a very current issue, despite the headway the United States has made in mitigating lead hazards.
For more information and to check local listings, visit www.pbs.org
Find Your Community! Just enter your ZIP code and find out what pollutants are being released into your community -- and who is responsible. www.Scorecard.org
(from S O J O M A I L, 08-May-2002)
Sojourners
Sojourners
May-June, 2002
Only highlighted articles (*) from this issue are currently available on-line. Subscribe now and get the full print magazine sent directly to you. Complete on-line archival content of this issue will be available upon publication of the following issue.
It might seem that "globalization" didn't exist before the widely publicized protests in Seattle during the November 1999 WTO meetings. But economist Richard Parker asserts that it was around a little bit earlier than that - say, several thousand years ago, when our prehistoric ancestors began wandering out of Africa. The current round of globalization, of course, is much younger than that - only about 500 years old, by Parker's reckoning. Looking back, we can see how others have worked to mitigate the destructive forces of global change and even steer it toward a positive good - important tools as we confront a global future.
Speaking of making positive global connections, we established a "partnership" last year with the Pura Vida Coffee company in Seattle because of our common values and goals, and together we produce "SojoBlend" coffee. Maybe the jolt of caffeine helped us think more clearly, because we soon realized that their innovative business model would make for an interesting and hopeful magazine profile. Pura Vida co-founder John Sage now puts his previous business experience with Microsoft and Starbucks to a very different use. Holly Lebowitz Rossi explains how Sage and partner Chris Dearnley turn profits into computer centers for Costa Rican children, good news for those who seek justice with their java.
And, as always, there's plenty more in these pages: efforts to make the church green, Martha Stewart-induced musings, sacred sexuality, as well as news, views, and reviews, from near and far. - The Editors
Cover
* From Conquistadors to Corporations
Wanna do something about globalization? You might start by learning a little history. by Richard Parker
Features
* Cuppa Joe, With a Twist
Pura Vida coffee - like most companies - goes after profits, but what happens next is hardly ordinary. by Holly Lebowitz Rossi
* What makes Pura Vida beans better?
by Bethany Spicher
* Preaching God's Green Gospel
An interview with environmental minister Sally Bingham by April Thompson
Building Dreams
Architecture students at Alabama's Rural Studio raise shelters for the spirit. by Rose Marie Berger
* Anything But the Grrrrrl
An interview with musician Ani DiFranco - founder of Righteous Babe Records and folk-punk troubadour of the secular Left. by Rocky Kidd
Martha Stewartship
How to tell the difference between the good and a Good Thing OR What I learned from a domestic dominatrix. by Julie Polter
Editorials
*Crossing the Nuclear Threshhold
Just exactly how are nuclear weapons supposed to help us wipe out terrorism? by Jim Wallis
* Sins of the Fathers
The deepest guilt is the church's. by Jim Rice
* A New Farrakhan?
The Nation of Islam leans toward the mainstream. by Larry Bellinger
Why Daniel Pearl Died
Pursuing truth is always a risky venture. by Molly Marsh
A Moment of Triumph
It takes real faith to make change happen. by Scott Harshbarger
Between the Lines
| Yellow Light on Green Travel | * Peaceable Kingdom Sighted | * 9-11 Relatives Visit Afghanistan | * Kids and Sex | Just Do It. | * Israel's Defense Forces: "No More" | * News Bites | * Good Neighbors | Good Drug Smugglers? | The Monks of Malt | * Glocalization (say what?) | * Fun With Facts | Lust in Las Vegas | * Resources: Building Supplies |
Columns
* Hearts & Minds: Time to Come to Washington
by Jim Wallis
* Macrowave: You Are What You Owe
by David Batstone
The Hungry Spirit: Managing the Erotic Life
by Rose Marie Berger
* Eyes & Ears: The Outlaw Rebel
by Danny Duncan Collum
H'rumphs: Don't Try This at Home (no, wait...)
by Ed Spivey Jr.
Departments
* Living the Word: God So Loves This World
by Kari Jo Verhulst
* Taking Action: The Church of Mary Magdalene
by Tricia Schug
Poetry: On the Road to Emmaus
by Rose Marie Berger
* Connections
compiled by Bethany Spicher
* Letters
| What's a Myth | No Easy Answers | In the Eye of the Beholder? | The Smell of Evil | Gone Too Far? | Or Not Far Enough? |
Reviews
* Enlarging the Family
TV's first all-Latino drama broadens the cultural picture. by Aaron McCarroll Gallegos
Television Review: American Family (PBS: 2002).
* A Few of My Favorite Things
by Holly Lebowitz Rossi
* Living on Bananas
by Judy Coode
Film Review: Stephanie Black, Life and Debt (New Yorker Films: 2002).
Singing Down the Walls
by Robin Fillmore Chapin
Film Review: Lee Hirsch, Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (HBO: 2002).
Deep Reverence
by Beth Newberry
Music Review: Michelle Shocked, Deep Natural and Dub Natural (Mighty Sound Records: 2002).
Good for the Soul
by Wayne A. Holst
Book Review: Jim Forest, Confession: Doorway to Forgiveness (Orbis Books: 2002).
Christianity Inc.
by Michael Budde and Robert Brimlow
Book Excerpt: Michael Budde and Robert Brimlow, Christianity Incorporated: How Big Business is Buying the Church (Brazos Press: 2002).
* New and Noteworthy
compiled by Molly Marsh and Bethany Spicher
Worth Noting...
by Julienne Gage
Music Review: Lila Downs, Border/La Linea (Narada Producations: 2002).
Discussion Guide
* Table Talk
A Discussion Guide for May-June 2002 Sojourners
© 2002 SojoNet. SojoNet® is a registered trademark.
Sojourners
March-April, 2002
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/contents/issue/soj0203.php
At times we've discussed running articles on "pastoring in boom and bust"
- about the different challenges that arise for pastors depending on how
their congregations are being affected by economic trends. In this issue,
noted preacher and writer Will Willimon takes on a related topic - the tensions
and contradictions that he feels in preaching the gospel amidst wealth. Even
now, as the U.S. economy is more bust than boom, we look around and find
an apparent twist on scripture: The rich, it seems, we have with us always.
Need a fix of hope? We commend to you the feature on the inspiring ways several young adults are living out their faith and doing a little world-changing while they're at it. We originally planned to run this article last fall, then delayed it to allow for coverage of the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath. That's led to jokes among staff that we'll have to change the article description from "young Christian activists" to "middle-aged Christian activists." Although one person who's included in the article offered to send a new photo - since he now has gray hairs - we're sticking by the original description.
However, we are aware that prophets, servants, and shake-'em-up activists come in all ages, so we'll be keeping our eyes out for future opportunities to tell the stories of radical elders and mid-life movers, as well as more sons and daughters with dreams and visions. - The Editors
Cover
Fundamentalism and the Modern World
A return to the Dark Ages? Or a modern rebellion against secularism? Either way - as we've so painfully learned - we ignore this phenomenon at our grave peril. A dialogue with Karen Armstrong, Susannah Heschel, Jim Wallis, and Feisal Abdul Rauf
Features
The Anti-Slackers
Young Christians are pushing the edges of faith. Here's a glimpse into the hearts and dreams of a few of them, in their own words.
Can I Get an 'Amen'!
Rev. Billy may not be a reverend, but he's got some good news to tell. by Rose Marie Berger
Jesus Visits the Hamptons
Okay, so it's not such good news for everybody... by Will Willimon
The Persecuted Body
Christians around the world are being attacked and churches burned to the ground. Is anyone paying attention? by Ivy George
Editorials
Black Hawk Move Over
by Rose Marie Berger
'Violence is Against My Religion'
by Bethany Spicher
When Secrets Kill
How a CIA cover-up sealed a husband's fate. by Jennifer K. Harbury
What the Church Can Learn From Hobbits
The theology of the Rings. by Roberto Rivera
Between the Lines
| The Familes That Roared | Your Tax Dollars at Work | Re-Education Camp | 1,000 Words | First, They Kill the Lawyers | Cows for Peace | News Bites | Evangelicals Fight Anti-Terrorism Bill | Real Product: Super Savior | Fun With Facts | Just High on God | Resources: Building Supplies |
Columns
Hearts & Minds: The Sin of Enron
by Jim Wallis
Macrowave: Poor Enron
by David Batstone
The Hungry Spirit: Pursuing the Secret of Joy
by Rose Marie Berger
Eyes & Ears: The Rockabilly Movement
by Danny Duncan Collum
H'rumphs: Beep Beep
by Ed Spivey Jr.
Departments
Living the Word: A Mysterious Joy
by Kari Jo Verhulst
Taking Action: A School for Change
by Ben MacConnell
Poetry: Seven Miles Outside of Jerusalem
by Todd Davis
Connections
Compiled by Bethany Spicher
Letters
| Imagine That | Resisting Terrorism | Phew! Praise Jesus! | The Smell of Remembrance | Meditation on McVeigh |
Reviews
How to Live Forever
Studs Terkel reflects on life, death, and oral history. by Danny Duncan Collum
Book Review: Studs Terkel, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith (New Press: 2001).
A Few of My Favorite Things
by Julie Polter
Changing the Menu
by Bethany Spicher
Book Review: Daniel Charles, Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food (Perseus Books: 2002).
Christianity's Gift
by Walter Wink
Book Excerpt: Walter Wink, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of Man (Augsburg Fortress: 2002).
In the Court of the Gentiles
by Duane Shank
Book Review: Harvey Cox, Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and the Christian's Journey Through the Jewish Year (Houghton Mifflin: 2002).
Loving Your Neighbor
by Nathan Wilson
Book Review: Diana Eck, A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation (HarperSanFrancisco: 2002).
Saved by the Devil?
by Theresa Blythe
Television Review: Alias (ABC: 2002). 24 (Fox: 2002). The Agency (CBS: 2002).
Worth Noting
by Rose Marie Berger
Book Review: Dylan Matthew, War Prevention Works: 50 Stories of People Resolving Conflict (Oxford Research Group: 2002). Howard Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo (Pluto Press: 2002).
New and Noteworthy
Compiled by Molly Marsh and Bethany Spicher
Discussion Guide
Table Talk
A Discussion Guide for March-April 2002 Sojourners
© 2002 SojoNet. SojoNet® is a registered trademark.
********************************************
We currently have all back issues of Sojourners magazine since May 1994 available on-line. You can find them below or through our search engine using key words in the text. To obtain printed copies of available back issues, including those before May 1994, visit the Sojourners Resource Center or call 1-800-714-7474 or (202) 328-8842.
Sojourners
January-February 2002
Soul Searching: How Sept. 11 blew away our certainties and opened the door to transformation, with Richard Rohr, Kathleen Norris, and Jim Wallis; Plus: Growing up with activist parents; And Joan Chittister on the dangers of Christian discipleship.
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/contents/issue/soj0201.php
http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/back_issues.php
Utne Reader
No. 111, May-June, 2002
Love Your Food: Celebrating sustenance three times a day
THE JOY OF EATING | By Jay Walljasper
Rediscovering the childlike wonder of food.
* THIS AMERICAN MEAL (Available in print only) | By Karen Lehman
Want to know the real story behind a typical American dinner? It's not a pretty picture-but it could be.
* HOME GROWN | By Karen Olson
From Ohio to Brazil, communities enrich themselves by embracing local food.
* SLOW FOOD'S PLEASURE PRINCIPLES (Available in print only) | By Alexander Stille, The Nation From Italy with love, to a table near you.
* HAPPY MEALS | By Alice Waters
Want to start the food revolution? Invite your family to share a meal together.
* FOOD FAST (NOT FAST FOOD) | By Andy Steiner
From Tokyo take-out to Julia Butterfly Hill's Kitchen, three healthy ways to grab a quick bite.
* YOU AND YOUR FOOD (Available in print only) | By Renee Lertzman, The Sun
Finally, a diet expert who prescribes chocolate-one piece at a time.
Features
MORE GREAT AMERICAN HANG-OUTS
From the Jersey shore to San Francisco's Rainbow Grocery, our readers uncover some great American hang-outs.
HUEY FREEMAN: AMERICAN HERO (Available in print only) | By John Nichols, The Nation
America's leading dissident just may be a cartoon character.
* SERIOUS ABOUT THE FUNNIES | By Chris Dodge
Comics Journal covers cartoons like nobody else.
THE WAY OF THE WACKO (Available in print only) | By Jon Spayde
Crazy Wisdom! Not all our problems can be solved by rational thought.
* WISE FOOLS | By Chris Dodge (Available in print only), Karen Olson, and Jon Spayde (Available in print only)
A pantheon of crazy thinkers, lovable tricksters, and spiritual provocateurs.
SHOWDOWN IN CHOCTAW COUNTY | By Jacob Levenson, Oxford American
A weary social worker fights an AIDS epidemic in rural Alabama.
DR. VIRCHOW'S CURE | By Jeremiah Creedon
A 19th-century doctor prescribed an effective strategy for public health. We need to rediscover it today.
New Planet
FREE AT LAST! By Leif Utne
How the growing "copyleft" movement could reshape society with its fresh approach to intellectual property rights.
GREEN BEER By Craig Cox
We have quaffed the future of beer, and it is delicious.
NOW, THAT'S REAL HOMELAND SECURITY! By Gar Smith, Earth Island Journal
Like to feel safe again, Americans? Here are 16 surefire ways.
ROCK THE CASBAH (Available in print only) By Jim Motavalli, The Nation
Arabic music brings the world closer together.
A GI BILL FOR ALL OF US By Craig Cox
Uncle Sam put thousands of veterans through college.
What about the rest of us?
UNRAVELING A HEALTH MYSTERY By Jack Armstrong
Understanding the mysterious methods of homeopathy.
IN AFGHANISTAN, SMALL IS NOW BEAUTIFUL
Village by village, a war-torn country rebuilds.
SIX WHO ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Remarkable biological pioneers.
SOAPBOX: MANDELA'S DREAM DEFERRED? By Mark Hertsgaard
Political transformation has moved ahead in South Africa, but social and economic progress is stagnant. What does this mean for the rest of the world?
Gleanings
A TRULY OUTSTANDING ARTICLE By Ray Nedzel, The Brooklyn Rail
Why our language has gone bombastic. In a word, it's amazing, huge, excellent. Unquestionably.
ANI ANSWERS (Available in print only) By Ani DiFranco, The Nation
How a righteous babe meets the press.
WHY I LIVE WITH MY MOTHER By Katie Haegele
Here A Gen Xer discovers there's no shame in going home again.
COFFEE, TOOL OF THE MAN By Amanda Huron
Yesterday's Fishwrap Could be Today's Oracle Here's a new way to stick it to your boss: Stop drinking coffee.
MINOT DINER By Bill Brown, Dream Whip
A 24-hour Dakota diner dishes up a real slice of Americana.
Culture Mix
SARANDON RAPS By Andy Steiner
Oscar winner Susan Sarandon talks about movies, activism, and
motherhood.
THE UTNE WEEDER
The golden age of ads. A better Bible? Women on the open road.
CARPE DIEM By Jay Walljasper
Salute spring with Whitsuntide.
THE UR LIST
This summer's hottest bestsellers. We've got the early results.
PLAYLIST (Available in print only)
Professor Longhair, Michelle Shocked, and Basque rock.
STREET LIBRARIAN By Chris Dodge
Teaching magazines for parents and free-thinking educators.
VIEW FROM LORING PARK: Am I a Food Snob? By Jay Walljasper
LETTER FROM THE HEARTLAND: A Walk in the Woods By Nina Utne
LETTERS (Available in print only)
LAST CALL: Studs Terkel, Arundhati Roy, James Baldwin
© Lens Publishing Company, Inc. 1995-2002
WorldWatch
Matters of Scale (current)
http://www.worldwatch.org/mag/mos.php
Matters of Scale
Fit for Public Consumption
Amount of money U.S. drug companies spent on marketing in 1999
$14 billion
Amount of money the 12 largest drug companies spent on research and development that year
$19 billion
Amount that BP (formerly British Petroleum) is spending annually to market its new name and its new environmentally friendly image of moving "beyond petroleum"
$100 million
Amount that BP invests annually in clean energy (solar, wind, etc.) each year
$100 million
U.S. military spending on the war in Afghanistan
at least $2.5 billion
U.S. government spending on emergency humanitarian aid to Afghanistan
$0.320 billion
U.S. funding for Plan Colombia, which aims to halt illicit coca production largely through military funding and aerial spraying of herbicides
$1.3 billion
Share of this funding dedicated to helping Colombian farmers shift to legal crops
$0.081 billion
Wholesale price, per pill, Bayer Corporation charges for the anthrax-fighting antibiotic Cipro
$4.67
Approximate price that generic drugmakers say they could profitably charge for making the drug
$0.40
Sources: Public Citizen report, "Analysis of Pharmaceutical Industry Corporate Profits, 1999," 6 October 2000; "Dinner's On You," All Things Considered, NPR, 23 July 2001; "BP Amoco Unveils New Global Brand to Drive Growth," BP Press Release, 24 July 2000; Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, Climate Change and Shareholder Value: Case Study of BP (New York: 2001); "War experts: U.S. Campaign Cost-Effective," CNN.com, 14 December 2001; "Fighting Terror/Aiding a Nation; U.S. Cost to Rebuild Afghanistan at Issue," The Boston Globe, 9 January 2002; "Stepped Up Battle Against Coca Ignites Debate," The Miami Herald, 16 April 2001; "Medicine as a Luxury," The American Prospect: Globalism and Poverty supplement, winter 2002.
Copyright © 2002
All Contents Worldwatch Institute. All Rights Reserved.
WorldWatch: Working for a Sustainable Future
January/February 2002
What Will it Take to Halt Sprawl? (1,330KB in PDF format) is available for free if you fill out our registration form, and activate the link.
What Will it Take to Halt Sprawl?
by Molly O'Meara Sheehan
Urban development around the world is moving toward increasingly low-density housing, with its unsustainably high-volume automobile traffic. In three prominent cities, citizens have organized to fight urban sprawl -- and to demonstrate that the alternatives really work.
If you fill out our registration form, then return to this page, you can click on the following PDF link and download this article for free: What Will it Take to Halt Sprawl? (1,330KB in PDF format).
***********************************************
WorldWatch
May/June 2002
http://www.worldwatch.org/mag/2002/15-03.php
A Win-win-win-win Industry for the Tropics (magazine article in PDF format)
by Brian Halweil
Date: May 2002
Single Copy: US$0.00
Downloadable for FREE if you register.
Press Release
The cultivation of shade-grown coffee can be a very good thing for people
who like good coffee, but it is also good for the farmers who grow it, the
companies that sell it , and the endangered tropical environment in which
it grows.
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WorldWatch
Nov.-Dec. 01
http://www.worldwatch.org/mag/2001/14-06.php
Chocolate Could Bring the Forest Back
by Chris Bright
Chocolate lovers of the world can have their cake and save Brazil's endangered Atlantic Rainforest too, according to an article in the November/December issue of World Watch.
In "Chocolate Could Bring the Forest Back", Worldwatch researcher Chris Bright proposes that the cocoa plant, which thrives below the forest canopy in this biodiversity hotspot, could be the key to preserving one of the world's most threatened areas, revitalizing a faltering industry and creating new livelihood opportunities for many of Brazil's poor.
If you fill out our registration form, you can click on the PDF link and download this article for free: Chocolate Could Bring the Forest Back (1,330KB in PDF format).
Yes Magazine
http://www.yesmagazine.org/21American/vangelder.php
Spring 2002
Letter from the Editor
These are the stories of people who are creating America, not only to fulfill their own American dream but to fulfill the common dream of all peoples for a world in which each child can grow up in peace and dignity.
Dear Reader,
To be an American citizen is to participate in an ongoing process of creation. Generation by generation, our country is created and re-created by succeeding waves of immigrants and by those whose families have been here for decades and even millennia.
Yet today, our role as creators of America is getting lost. Our political leaders challenge us not to create a more perfect union but to go shopping. Instead of thinking of ourselves as active players in this great drama of America, we are more like cheerleaders who root for "good" and against "evil."
This is a dangerous time for Americans to be passive. Since September 11, we have seen a massive erosion of civil liberties, shameless public giveaways to corporations, and a mind-boggling military build-up. Journalists are fired for writing columns critical of US actions. Professors who question US war policies are skewered by, among others, an association linked with both Lynne Cheney (wife of the vice president) and Joe Lieberman (our would-be vice president). Dissenting voices are excluded, ridiculed, and threatened. And all of these agendas - from endless war, to the use of secret military tribunals, to the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - are sold to the American people as national security measures, playing on our grief and fear following 9-11.
But there is something else at work, something that is missed by the mainstream media. The great losses and the displays of heroism on September 11 opened Americans to a level of reflection we haven't seen in decades. There is an outpouring of interest in Islam. People are joining conversation cafes and discussion groups. Our winter 2002 issue, Can Love Change the World, is in such high demand that we've done a second printing.
This is a moment when many are considering what it means to be an American. How might we leave our children a world plagued neither by Anthrax scares nor breast cancer epidemics? Might it be possible to break our addiction to petroleum and to a disproportionate share of the world's raw materials, and might we then be more likely to have peace and a healthy environment? How might we right past wrongs and assure that we are not contributing to future wrongs? What is it that makes America great?
This issue of YES! explores sources of strength, insight, and vision that can help us as we participate in this next phase of building America, not on a foundation of fear and military retaliation, but based on a greatness that transcends both. That greatness is rooted in our founders' insistence on the rights of each individual and the sanctity of democracy, even when they had opportunities to take more power for themselves (see Jacob Needleman's essay, page 12).
It's rooted in traditions European-Americans learned from native peoples, like the Iroquois, whose powerful and mostly peaceful democracy inspired both the framers of the Constitution (page 14) and the early suffragists (page 18).
It grows out of the courage of men and women who formed the Underground Railroad and took a stand for freedom during the civil rights movement, despite being at best unpopular and at worst subject to imprisonment or assassination (see my interview with Harry Belafonte, page 26).
And this greatness continues to be created today. The youth of Selma, Alabama, overcame centuries of fear and violence to elect the city's first black mayor. A congregation in Hawai'i acknowledged its part in overthrowing Hawai'i's queen 100 years earlier, offered an apology and made restitution (see page 33).
Some Americans are meeting the people of Iraq and Guatemala who are suffering as a result of US policies and finding ways to alleviate their suffering (see pages 22 and 40).
Homeless people in Portland, Oregon, are creating a village where residents find dignity and the chance for a new start (see page 43). Homeowners, who are turned off by oversized suburban "McMansions," are creating a new kind of American dreamhouse - one of beauty, environmental harmony, and simplicity (see page 46). Thousands of people are working to achieve the kind of real security that Amory and Hunter Lovins propose - security built on diverse, decentralized, renewable energy resources (see page 50).
These are the stories of people who are creating America, not only to fulfill their own American dream but to fulfill the common dream of all peoples for a world in which each child can grow up in peace and dignity. It's a process that will take generations, but a process that promises joy (and hardship) for those involved and hope for our children's children.
Sarah Ruth van Gelder
Executive Editor
©2001 Positive Futures Network
http://www.yesmagazine.org/21American/21toc_main.htm
Spring 2002 / issue #21
What does it mean to be an American now?
Table of Contents
Articles
12 founding America
The roots of the American experiment in democracy reach back thousands of years, fed by our failures as well as our successes, our crimes as well as great ideals
by Jacob Needleman
14 the untold story of democracy
Long before Columbus, native peoples were practicing a form of democracy that provided a model for the US confederacy
by Jack Weatherford
18 American women
Colonial women had no right to own property, to vote, or even to have custody of their own children. What made them imagine equal rights were possible?
by Sally Roesch Wagner
20 American journey
Kim Stafford - a test and freedom
Terry Tempest Williams - a promise of parrots
Liam Mahony - only one
Philip Levine - the mercy
Pat Mora - sonrisas
Granny D - a crazy old woman, walking by
26 freedom sings
Harry Belafonte's search for the musical roots of black America took him to the music of chain gangs, escaped slaves, early churches, and West Africa
an interview with Harry Belafonte
by Sarah Ruth van Gelder
30 get your vote on
Forty years ago, Selma, Alabama, was ground zero in the battle for civil rights. But it wasn't until last year that the people of Selma finally won
by Malika Sanders
33 old pain, new hope
More than a hundred years after it helped overthrow the Queen of Hawai'i, the Congregational Church musters the courage to face its past
by Sheldon Ito
36 the (sometimes) beautiful American
Yes, sometimes we Americans are ugly. Sometimes we turn our backs on our friends and allies for own "national interest." But America also has another, finer side
by John Mohawk
40 what happens to your heart
A few Americans refuse to accept the lethal effect of US-led sanctions on Iraq's children. They're defying the law to bring pure water and hope to Iraqis, and to tell their story abroad
by David Morse
43 a place for dignity
Where do you go when you have no place to go? In Portland, homeless people are building a village and helping each other make a new start
by Carol Estes
46 the new American dreamhouse
Americans are trading in their big dreams of suburban McMansions (and their nightmares of high mortgages and taxes) for smaller, soulful, affordable dreamhouses
by Pamela O'Malley Chang
50 what is real security?
If our addiction to oil makes us vulnerable, can decentralized, renewable resources supply more security than big military spending?
by Amory B. and L. Hunter Lovins
52 how to be a patriot
True patriotism is an act of love. If your country is about to run into the street without looking, there is nothing disloyal about crying, "Stop!"
by Sam Smith
55 resources for patriots
Resources for protecting your rights
by Rik Langendoen
PFN news
56 speak out anyway
Danny Glover, actor, activist, and PFN board member, is one of many who are reaping the
consequences of speaking his mind
by Frances F. Korten
In review
59 book reviews
White Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and its Rewards in Corporate America by Jill Andresky Fraser
In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest by David A. Neiwert.
Caring for New Life by Ron Miller
Departments
1 Letter from the Editor
4 Readers' Forum
6 Indicators: Visiting Afghanistan; Hiroshima peace flame comes to US; Toxic compost; A drowning nation; A Fresh Cup'a Justice; Earth Summit + 10; The Green Party's next moves
11 The Page That Counts
57 What's Up? Events and Announcements
62 YES! But How? non-toxic carpets, body work, ant hotels
64 Order back issues of YES! and more
65 No Comment pop quiz: Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?
©2001 Positive Futures Network P.O. Box 10818, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110-0818, USA - phone 206/842-0216 - fax 206/842-5208
Winter 2001/2002 / issue #20
http://www.yesmagazine.org/20spirituality/20toc_main.htm
Can love save the world?
Articles
12 can love save the world?
Yes, but only if it's the smart, militant, hard-edged kind of love that Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., had in mind
by Walter Wink
16 heart of a Muslim
How does a Muslim honor the victims of the September 11 attacks? By honoring the truth of Islam and his own heart
by Jamal Rahman
20 just listen
Ours is a noisy, complicated, dangerous world of political conflicts, policy quagmires, and ethnic hatreds. Can something as simple as listening really change anything?
by Leah Green, photographs by Beverly Duperly Boos
26 through my enemy's eyes
Sometimes the man who knows hate can tell us the most about love, and the man acquainted with despair can teach us to hope
by Troy Chapman
30 ordinary heroes
A Polish Jew rescued from the Holocaust in 1942 by a Catholic neighbor devotes his life to the study of selflessness
by Samuel Oliner
34 the native way
For a sundancer and bundle-keeper in the Dakota tradition, the world and the spirit are identical
by Tom Goldtooth
37 prayer
by N. Scott Momaday
38 the power of the powerless
Elected leader of Burma and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi talks about her struggle to be nonviolent
by Alan Clements
40 wounded
How can a wounded species heal the planet? The archetype of the wounded healer points the way
by Michael Lerner
41 spirit of youth
These young activists from around the world put their bodies and souls on the line for love, then watch the ripples spread
stories compiled by Neva Welton & Linda Wolf
47 911 the failure of war
Why do we always think we can put an end to killing by waging a war? It never works, for reasons that should be obvious
by Wendell Berry
51 911 in the eyes of the world
The Ugly American lives on and he's undermining our chance for peace says this Third World writer
by Walden Bello
53 911 our time to choose
The grim events of September 11 present a teachable moment for Americans
by David C. Korten
54 911 choose love
Searching for a hero in the midst of war, this writer finds a painter instead of a warrior
by Yael Lachman
55 911 wisdom from the Lao Tzu
translated by Stephen Mitchell
56 resources
Wondering where to turn for sources on engaged spirituality and active nonviolence? Start here
by Rik Langendoen & Pam Chang
In review
58 A Cure for Affluenza
Plus reviews of Kalle Lasn's Culture Jam and Joanna Macy's autobiography, Widening Circles
PFN news
60 YES! Something Shifted
In the shadow of war, evidence accumulates of changing cultural priorities and a brighter future
by Frances F. Korten
Sustainable living
62 Yes! But How?
What's the world's most sustainable building material? Hint: it's as common as dirt. Plus an herbal eviction notice for the ubiquitous mouse.
by Doug Pibel & Annie Berthold-Bond
Departments
1 Letter from the Editor
4 Readers' Forum
6 Indicators: successes of the Durban racism conference, keeping salmon down on the farm, the anti-war action the media missed, envisioning the US Department of Peace, and a silent spring after all
11 The Page That Counts
61 What's Up? Events and Announcements
64 Order back Issues of YES! and Saying Yes!
65 No Comment: Guerrilla labeling - shoppers bypass the FDA
©2001 Positive Futures Network
Correspondence
To read the many positive things people have shared with us recently, visit - http://www.simpleliving.org/Archives/index.php#Feedback
This column contains longer letters, as well as questions and complaints that deserve a public answer or explanation.
**********
I enjoy the influence Alternatives has made on my life and enjoy reading the materials I have received; however, my husband is handicapped and I am his primary caregiver so I have little time to take on projects. Alternatives has helped me to be at peace with our simple lifestyle; during the years of our marriage we have traveled much, so this was a major adjustment to give up living and venturesome activities for this quiet simpler life style of reading, contemplation, volunteer work, prayer and listening to others rather than speaking out on issues; still, I am probably well known in my community to speak out on the importance of "building relationships" rather than to build "empire's" based on materialistic consumerism values.
I find great joy in having learned to let go of ownership to earthly possessions and delight in the gifts with which God has so abundantly blessed us: family, friends, nature, etc.
Rather than complaining about problems and the injustices of the world, I believe in "I will... (do what is needed)" rather than "we/or they should" ____. Responsibility for change starts with the individual and improvements are measured one person at a time.
One of the more radical changes we have made in the new year is to limit grocery shopping to what I can carry home in my backpack and not to drive to the store, which is just over a mile away. Interesting how much we can save on groceries -- not to mention gas and "little extras. "
Downtown L.A. is a different world from the museum's, bookstores, and shopping areas we have visited in the past. Here the smells, sights, and sounds were reminiscent of my trip to South America with the bustling produce market, the small retail shops filled with bargain goods, and people speaking Mexican. They weren't talking on cellular phones, however, as everywhere else in L.A., and the shops and seldom had electronic or photographic merchandise. People seemed unaware of what happened just a week before in New York; they were just trying to survive on whatever meager income they might make by selling their goods. It was a shocking contrast to the television news, which focused on the millions of dollars being lost each day by the impact of the events in New York on the Los Angeles Airport and Wall Street businesses.
I know I cannot directly help and comfort those who have suffered human losses and continue to hurt from the toll on their lives, but I keep them in prayer. I find merit in the criticism made that many, especially those who have little, are offended by America's consumerism and concerned with protecting our economy rather than caring about the welfare of other people in the world. Even America's humanitarian aide seems couched in our economic and political aims rather than truly caring about human lives. I am offended by the message that we rush out and spend money to shore up our economy. I don't enjoy watching the network news anymore -- didn't much enjoy watching television before because of the endless advertisements and concern about money. Where we put our trust? In God or the almighty dollar? (This especially applies to "Homeland security. ")
Leslye Korvola, Fairbanks, AK
**********************
Greetings, Marilyn,
You suggested we produce "analyses of particular companies/products in terms of ecological and social responsibility? Web links to similar resources?"
We do have a links page on our web site. You can access if from our home page drop down menu or from our site map or go directly to http://www.simpleliving.org/main/Links.php
If you have suggestions to add, please reply.
A new site that does analyses of companies/products is www.idealswork.com. Please let me know what you think.
Peace,
Gerald
***************************
Dear people -
As an impoverished 1930's depression child raised from age 2 years in Catholic institutions, I know all about doing without, and because I have never gotten out of marginal economic circumstances, I continue to live frugally, with rationing of everything. My electricity bill consisted in Dec and Jan, two of the darkest months, of using only 50 cents/day of electricity, an amount which will decline through spring, summer and fall.
However much I conserve at the individual level, unless there is a concomitant response at the organizational and governmental levels, and a radical change in the economic system of this nation and the contemporary industrialized developed world, this earth will not survive.
The capitalistic system is predicated on unlimited consumption, greed and lust for more, pride in having as much as possible, and the highest possible profits and salaries for CEO's as possible. The gap between the salaries of CEO's and the average worker is unconscionably high, and growing, given perks, bonuses, and retirement packages.
So unless this change in economy occurs, for example by developing only local economies, individual (i.e., micro) level frugality, preservation and conservation will not be sufficient, especially given the gaps between those who have sufficient surplus income and resources to buy and do whatever they want whenever they want.
Sincerely, Gini Paulsen
******************************
Hi Gerald,
Thank you for responding so quickly. I went to your web site home page. I totally support your mission, however I have the following comments: Why not focus on encouraging a life that reflects conscientious living - rather than just holidays. The same with consumerism usurps our life - not just our holy days. I feel your message is so important for where most people are these days - why limit yourselves to holidays or holy days? Have a great day! And thank you for making a difference - it's truly a gift!
Aloha, Judie Hilke Lundborg, Lihue, Hawaii
Greetings, Judie,
We originally focused on Christmas. Now we promote voluntary simplicity year-round.
Peace,
Gerald
************************
Dear friends,
While I must applaud the implied intent of Alternatives to live a much more simple and holistic lifestyle, that is not the implication derived from some of the publications offered for sale. Rather I do get the impression that your advocacy is more of the type of ennui generated in the sterile white suburbs of the privileged upper class. This Alternative simple life which you are advocating is only a viable alternative just so long as you are allowed to pretend that you are actually living a the simple life in your $400,000 A frame house, while driving your $30,000 SUV to your Dot Com job. But when G.W. finally succeeds in dragging this country into a massive depression, you will vanish back into our portfolio of Blue Chip stocks in your plastic house in the suburbs.
Please keep me on your mailing list until I am able to become a member. Living Simply implies poverty. -- Dr. David D. De Loera, Hammond, IN
*************************
Thanks so much for Alternatives Reader #1--it's a great resource! Sally Rings
************************
Love the e-zine!! Excellent and I am so happy to have a synopsis of such important articles with links to the entire piece. Have to mention, though, the links you include to the entire text are not hot. One can't click on them and get to the article.
Thank you, Gloriamarie Amalfitano, Living the Simple Life in San Diego County
Gloriamarie,
Thanks for your comments. To some degree, hot links depend on the reader's browser. Gerald
P.S. If anyone finds broken links, let me (the WebMaster) know. David@Simpleliving.org. Sometimes we miss linking a web address to the appropriate site. Also, sometimes articles are added/removed on those sites, which we have no control over.
*************************
I am impressed with your new e-zine. Well designed and easy to navigate. Nice. -- Carroll Lang, Fort Dodge, IA
***********************
I think the best alternative for simpler living might be to live more simply. I receive many advertisements for resources to help me live more simply. I have come to believe that "simple living" is now quite a consumer business, hawking media products similar to those found in the life we propose to simplify. Were I to avail myself of all these resources, I'd be buried under a pile of magazines, videos, books, tee shirts, hats and other assorted junk that differs in no way from the complex consumer world save for the "simple" label. I'm afraid that even the quest for simply living has been cooped by market our consumer culture. Pastor Ed Stone
Greetings, Pastor Ed,
Yes, numerous corporations are trying to capitalize on the simplicity movement, such as the phony "Real Simple" Magazine. We've faced this dilemma for almost 30 years -- offering tools to help people simplify their lives. Big Business cannot afford to sell really effective tools.
Please read my response to a similar letter in "correspondence" in our e-zine #1.
Peace,
Gerald
***************************
The majority of us North Americans are trapped in the media lies and elite's New World Order plans to want to change any. After the Eco Crash (Venezuela's a current guinea pig to show how it's done), people will be forced to simply their lives. Until then, good luck. Al, Garden Valley, ID
Pardon our idealism, Al. We here feel called to be faithful, not successful. Gerald
***********************
ALTERNATIVES for Simple Living
"Equipping people of faith to challenge consumerism, live justly and celebrate responsibly"
Resources for responsible living since 1973
Gerald Iversen, National Coordinator
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