Ten suggestions for effective activism
Effective activism’s a long-haul process, not “save the earth in 30 days, ask me how.” But there are some principles that seem to reoccur for people addressing every kind of challenge from the Gulf Oil spill to inadequate funding for urban schools to how to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq. When I was updating Soul of a Citizen, an activist rabbi who was teaching the book at Florida Gulf Coast University suggested I gather together the Ten Commandments for effective citizen engagement. Calling them Commandments seemed a bit presumptuous, but I did draw together ten suggestions that can make engagement more fruitful. Some I’ve already explored in various Soul of a Citizen excerpts. I’ll explore others in coming weeks, but pulling them together in one place seemed useful.
Suggestion #1: Start where you are. You don’t need to know everything, and you certainly don’t need to be perfect.
Suggestion #2: Take things step by step. You set the pace of your engagement. Don’t worry about being swallowed up, because you’ll determine how much you get involved.
Suggestion #1: Start where you are. You don’t need to know everything, and you certainly don’t need to be perfect.
Suggestion #2: Take things step by step. You set the pace of your engagement. Don’t worry about being swallowed up, because you’ll determine how much you get involved.
Ancient oceans
“Salt remnants of ancient oceans flow through our veins . . .”
Now, along with endangered species, the Gulf spill has given us a new category: endangered oceans.
The challenges presented by the disaster lay before us in their incomprehensible enormity. To what extent have the hundreds of thousands of gallons of the highly toxic dispersant Corexit 9500 that BP has poured into the Gulf aggravated the ecological horror? How will hurricane season complicate the cleanup? Will the flow of crude continue till Christmas? How many cleanup workers have gotten sick, and why? Might the “relief well” also blow?
We can’t solve our problems, as Einstein said, with the same kind of thinking we used to create them. This sums up the situation for me as well as anything — and pushes my despair up against the door of possibility. We’re at the far edge of the industrial age: the age of fossil fuels. How do we proceed beyond it?
Now, along with endangered species, the Gulf spill has given us a new category: endangered oceans.
The challenges presented by the disaster lay before us in their incomprehensible enormity. To what extent have the hundreds of thousands of gallons of the highly toxic dispersant Corexit 9500 that BP has poured into the Gulf aggravated the ecological horror? How will hurricane season complicate the cleanup? Will the flow of crude continue till Christmas? How many cleanup workers have gotten sick, and why? Might the “relief well” also blow?
We can’t solve our problems, as Einstein said, with the same kind of thinking we used to create them. This sums up the situation for me as well as anything — and pushes my despair up against the door of possibility. We’re at the far edge of the industrial age: the age of fossil fuels. How do we proceed beyond it?
Obama was created by our failure to impeach Bush
Remarks at the Rutherford Institute, June 16, 2010
I want to save most of the time we have for your questions, so I'll be brief and I'll start with a couple of questions for you. And then I want you to think of questions for me, because otherwise I'll just go on and on about what I want to talk about.
Who can tell me who said this and where they said it? "I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation." -- President Barack Obama, asserting the illegal and unconstitutional power to make war, in a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway.
What about this one -- who and where?
I want to save most of the time we have for your questions, so I'll be brief and I'll start with a couple of questions for you. And then I want you to think of questions for me, because otherwise I'll just go on and on about what I want to talk about.
Who can tell me who said this and where they said it? "I -- like any head of state -- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation." -- President Barack Obama, asserting the illegal and unconstitutional power to make war, in a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway.
What about this one -- who and where?
Quicksand - America’s Pursuit of Power in the Middle East
From first impression to last impression this book, like its title Quicksand, is deceptive. Even the first physical impression, the physical structure of the book itself - its glossy pages and high quality binding - is designed to impress the reader. Initially the history is written powerfully and revealingly, highlighting information that I have not encountered within other histories of U.S. imperial adventures in the Middle East.
However as the story unfolds, particularly in the final third of the book, a different sense akin to déjà vu surfaces, as the history becomes more of a current events crisis without the in-depth analysis and critique that should have accompanied it. The end result is that instead of discussing the general Middle East geopolitical context and the power of the Israeli lobby within the U.S. - not to mention the lack of global context within the over-riding imperial intent of the United States since its inception - and there are many texts that support that analysis - the history ends leaving a feeling that, well, yes, the U.S. has made some mistakes in their relationships in the Middle East, but their intentions were good.
However as the story unfolds, particularly in the final third of the book, a different sense akin to déjà vu surfaces, as the history becomes more of a current events crisis without the in-depth analysis and critique that should have accompanied it. The end result is that instead of discussing the general Middle East geopolitical context and the power of the Israeli lobby within the U.S. - not to mention the lack of global context within the over-riding imperial intent of the United States since its inception - and there are many texts that support that analysis - the history ends leaving a feeling that, well, yes, the U.S. has made some mistakes in their relationships in the Middle East, but their intentions were good.
Corporate apocalypse vs. Solartopian survival
BP's apocalyptic Gulf gusher has put our ability to survive in serious doubt.
We have no reason to believe an end to the crisis is near---or even in sight. Nor can we begin to calculate the damage to our Mother Earth…to her oceans, to the core of her being…and to each of us as individual organisms.
Only one thing IS clear: we cannot ultimately survive without a rapid conversion to a Solartopian economy that is totally green-powered. That transformation will be forced by biological imperatives, not money or markets.
The powers that be studiously avoid the core reality that this disaster stems from the ability of large corporations to make all of us pay for their irresponsible greed.
The black poisons killing our global body gush from a system that grants corporations human rights but does not demand human responsibility.
It is suicidal to allow corporations to deploy technologies they cannot mange or insure and then make us pay for their greed.
From banking to industry to energy, the system privatizes profits and socializes disaster. It is the essence of what Mussolini called "corporate control of the state."
We have no reason to believe an end to the crisis is near---or even in sight. Nor can we begin to calculate the damage to our Mother Earth…to her oceans, to the core of her being…and to each of us as individual organisms.
Only one thing IS clear: we cannot ultimately survive without a rapid conversion to a Solartopian economy that is totally green-powered. That transformation will be forced by biological imperatives, not money or markets.
The powers that be studiously avoid the core reality that this disaster stems from the ability of large corporations to make all of us pay for their irresponsible greed.
The black poisons killing our global body gush from a system that grants corporations human rights but does not demand human responsibility.
It is suicidal to allow corporations to deploy technologies they cannot mange or insure and then make us pay for their greed.
From banking to industry to energy, the system privatizes profits and socializes disaster. It is the essence of what Mussolini called "corporate control of the state."
Inauguration Day 2013
“July 29, 2010: THE GREAT GULF GUSHER, DAY 100.”
“Good evening, and welcome to Nightline. I’m Ted Koppel, and you are not having a déjà vu experience. Yes, I look exactly as I did when this show originally aired in 1980. That is one of the beauties of being an avatar. ABC News Executive Producer, James Cameron, personally convinced me to come out of retirement to anchor Nightline with a promise that I would indeed have a full head of hair to work with. Tonight, I am actually speaking to you from the seventeenth tee of my retirement community golf course in central Florida. The sound of my voice as well as the image of me that you are viewing is, of course, computer-generated. Now, to our top story: The Great Gulf Gusher, Day 100 …”
“November 4, 2010: THE GREAT GULF GUSHER, DAY 196.”
“Good evening, and welcome to Nightline. I’m Ted Koppel, and you are not having a déjà vu experience. Yes, I look exactly as I did when this show originally aired in 1980. That is one of the beauties of being an avatar. ABC News Executive Producer, James Cameron, personally convinced me to come out of retirement to anchor Nightline with a promise that I would indeed have a full head of hair to work with. Tonight, I am actually speaking to you from the seventeenth tee of my retirement community golf course in central Florida. The sound of my voice as well as the image of me that you are viewing is, of course, computer-generated. Now, to our top story: The Great Gulf Gusher, Day 100 …”
“November 4, 2010: THE GREAT GULF GUSHER, DAY 196.”
Why the Arkansas primary challenge was worth it
It was a tough loss, 10,000 votes. Bill Halter might have even upset Blanche Lincoln in the primary run-off had his stronghold of Garland County not dropped the number of polling places from 42 to 2, or had a few thousand more of us called to get Halter voters to the polls. But despite an unnamed Obama administration official attacking attempts to defeat Lincoln by telling Politico's Ben Smith "Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet on a pointless exercise," I believe the groups who tried to unseat her made the right choice.