Part I: Workshops
1 -- Global Economic Justice: Small group discussions of the inequalities of the current systems, and various strategies for change. The basic themes emerged: the culture of consumerism, the dominance of multinational corporations, the growing gap between rich and poor. The solutions we came up with were obvious and oft-cited: “eat locally”, return to cyclical, sustainable (organic) agriculture; secure water rights and clean water for third world/indigenous cultures; and anything we can do to gain and help others to gain our independence from the corporate-global megasystem. The consensus was that effective strategies are community-based, and augmented by global-cooperative networking, such as Fair Trade.
But in the course of discussion it came out that the real task and necessity is basic change within the culture, beginning with ourselves and our own habits of consumption. –Easy to say, but even we UU’s, though we “talk a good fight”, are slow to act. One lady summed it up: her congregations is mostly made up of very well-off, many of them retired people who, while they support the needed changes in principle, and may make a few adjustments (recycling, etc.) in their own lives, cannot or will not undertake the kind of basic lifestyle changes necessary to support the creation of a just and sustainable economy. Which basically leaves it to the younger people; to whom the leadership torch is already passing, if this GA is any indication. And I think it is. It’s only fair to them, who’ll have to bear most of the burden of change, and of the consequences of our own failure to take action.
I try to set a good example, and offer encouragement, albeit it “from the sidelines”, through poetry and writing. But I feel like I’m caught in the middle here: too old to be one of them; too young (in spirit) and Earth-attuned to have much patience with the ways of the past, or with those who cling to them. And disgusted with the continued complacency, denial, and outright and in some cases willful ignorance of an American public which thinks that life/business “as usual” is still an option. Clearly, it is not.
2 – Energy, Climate, and Sustainability: A very informative lecture put on by our UU United Nations Office. (I have some of their literature for the info table.) Speakers again emphasized cyclic-organic, non-petroleum-based agriculture as foundational to a sustainable global economy. –I couldn’t agree more; we need all the organic farms, farmer’s markets, and community gardens we can get, and I’m glad to be in the forefront of that effort, locally.
They also discussed the (largely failed) climate summit in Copenhagen, where the U.S. and the top 4 emerging economies (China, India, Brazil, and one other) basically sidestepped the whole process and substituted an agreement-in-principle between themselves which, if honored, would achieve maybe half of the scientifically-recommended benchmarks for carbon reduction. But even this is mostly contingent on the U.S. fulfilling its part of the bargain. The House passed a bill that begins to do so; the Senate has yet to move, and must move before the fall elections, which will probably produce a less-sympathetic Congress than the one we have already. The average voter thinks short-term, “where’s my paycheck?” not long-term, as in, how our our children (what to say other people’s children) going to live in twenty or fifty years? So, this may be our last chance on climate. Critical negotiations are underway as we speak. --Talk to your Senators, NOW.
Again, it’s the youth who are at the forefront: a delegation went to Copenhagen, through the Will Steger Foundation, and lobbied with negotiators. They’re deserving of our support. See the info table in coming weeks.
3 -- The U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: we heard from a Haida activist from Alaska, and from Winona LaDuke, prominent Ojibwa leader from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. The upshot was that these peoples, who’ve lived off and in harmony with the land for thousands of years, continue to face eviction from and restrictions on what they can do with that land and its resources, and the continuing erosion of their cultural integrity, language, and way of life. In the past this took the form of outright cultural genocide, the forced removal of their children to government-mandated boarding schools in which they were forbidden to speak their own language, effectively cutting them off from their parents, elders, and culture. It traumatized many for life: the combined plagues of alchoholism, drug use, and general loss of meaning and hope in life, from which native peoples are stilll struggling to recover throughout North America, Australia, and New Zealand.
Some have issued official apologies for these practices, though such “apologies” contain no promise of or hint of any right to reparations to these peoples, nor assurances that their land rights will be respected in the future. The main reason: oil, gas, and mining interests, and a growth-based global consumer economy whose ever-rising demand necessitate the taking of more, more, and more indigenous lands, further violating of the rights of these peoples. It’s happening all over the planet. And, as with the Gulf oil spill, mountaintop removal in W.Va., and the Canadian tar sands disasters, the ultimate cause is our own refusal to conserve resources and to find clean alternatives to fossil fuels. If these cultures are to survive, our own has to change, and the very cultural models which would serve us best in this regard, are the ones we’re in the process of wiping out! Language and all.
I can’t find language strong enough to express my own sense of shame, guilt, and disgust at all this, and with the culture I’m reluctantly a part. It only reinforces the points made above. I hope that people can see how closely interrelated all these issues are, and how clearly we, in our own choices, are either part of the solution or part of the problem. Though in all honesty, each of us is some of both. We live and define ourselves within that tension. And that brings up the deeper spiritual issue I’ll speak to in the next section.
Cry
Creator of All, hear the cry
of these we lift to Your remembrance:
Remember those whose lands have been conquered,
their culture destroyed, their holy men murdered,
their temples and sacred sites desecrated;
their country polluted, wild creatures slaughtered,
the inheritance built over centuries, squandered,
lost to their children. Lord, hear their cry.
Remember all creatures facing extinction,
the loss of their rightful place in Creation
before the crush of our human dominion;
our engines and appetites for consumption
like death and the grave beyond satisfaction;
nor any less cruel. Lord, hear their cry.
Remember all those whose lives are uprooted
by spiralling technological forces
unleashed by people whom they’ve never seen,
whose agendas have no further use or concern for
hard work and loyalty, years with a company,
the need for security, roots and stability,
friendship, nor places beloved in memory;
homes left behind. Lord, hear their cry.
Remember the children being left stranded
by drugs and divorce; abused or abandoned
for fast-track careers and adult ambitions;
cut off all working day from their parents
and from the beauty of wild, living creatures,
from the knowledge of God in man and in Nature;
for the love they’re denied. Lord, hear their cry.
Remember the wives and husbands abandoned
when the marriage vow is heedlessly broken,
when the covenant of the lips is forgotten
and the first, true love of youth is forsaken;
who find that there’s nothing left they can trust in,
believe in, or live for. Lord, hear their cry.
For every promise and covenant broken,
for every lie and heedless transgression
of the law of love which binds us together,
Lord hear our cry, and grant us repentence.
Show forth Your works, a fresh revelation
to open the eyes of this generation.
Unleash Your awesome beauty and power,
that Your covenant may again be remembered.
In wrath, remember mercy…
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