The Spiritual Imperatives of Our Time - Reading

Opening Our Eyes to the Spiritual Imperatives of Our Time -- Reading

James Luther Adams

“The institutional ingredient [for true democracy] is the right of free association – the freedom to form or belong to voluntary associations that can bring about innovation or criticism in the society.  It is a fragile freedom, often under attack because it represents a dynamic force for change.  It brings about differentiation in the community, a separation of powers. “Voluntaryism . . . refers to a principal way in which the individual through association with others gets a piece of the action. It involves an exercise of power through organization.  It is the means by which the individual participates in the process of making social decisions.  This process, particularly when it affects public policy, requires struggle, for in some fashion it generally entails a reshaping and perhaps even a redistribution of power.”

He goes on to point out that voluntary organizations are a messy business.  Paying for a place to meet, developing leadership and being able to motivate your volunteers, and getting access to the media to get your message out are on-going challenges.  Thousands of different voluntary organizations are doing this, hoping to influence the direction of society.  We hope that the government is listening and will represent the public good and the public consensus, because the state possesses the ultimate authority and power to decide.  “In this congeries of associations we see the dispersion of power and group creativity characteristic in principle of a pluralistic democratic society.”p58  (Will someone tell Mr. Harper?)

Jane Mansbridge (president of the American Political Science Assoc. and Harvard Professor) writes: “People are most likely to come to understand their real interests in a small democracy, like a town or a workplace, where members make a conscious effort to choose democratic procedures appropriate to the various issues that arise.”

John Stuart Mill:  “We do not learn to read and write, to ride or swim, by being merely told how to do it, but by doing it, so it is only by practicing popular government on a limited scale, that the people will ever learn how to exercise it on a larger.”

In his book, What Then Must We Do?  Democratizing wealth and building a community sustaining economy from the ground up, Par Alperobitz proposes it is time for us to imagine the alternative to corporate capitalism as a way to organize the economic structure of society.  As the Occupy Movement clearly demonstrated, corporate capitalism is not working for the vast majority of people.  It has not demonstrated the capacity to address the imperatives of our time:  climate change; world poverty; the need for economic institutions that are not required to grow; democracy and peace; Justice and freedom.  But how do we initiate a true transformation of society, and how do we muster the political will to make this change?

P139 “The modern civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, [the fall of the Berlin wall, the Arab Spring,] even the modern conservative movement . . . all rose to major power without benefit of pundit prediction.  Indeed, the success of all these movements was quite contrary to the conventional wisdom at the time, which held that nothing serious could change.”  Many happened after years of hard struggle by people with vision who may not have seen the changes in their own lives.

Alperovitz’s  says we are in such a time of change now.  The changes are brewing, percolating, emerging.  His vision is for a democratization of wealth. 

He sees us “Slowly building an alternative basis of the economy in local communities and states through democratization strategies.” – Don’t wait.  Let the seeds of the future be sown in the ground of the present.

Across North America a checkerboard of municipal and state possibilities – are already emerging, demonstrating the potential democratization of wealth.  When the traditional strategies of job creation through tax incentives and infrastructure gifts didn’t work, city after city across the United States has begun to invent new strategies: public utilities, land trusts, private public joint ownership, community development corporations, and outright public ownership of retail and commercial enterprises—even public banks.  Meanwhile innovative workers are initiating worker ownership and control through pension plans, cooperatives, and other means, and farmers and consumers are building the local food movement.

This “possibility of a certain longer-term evolutionary institution-building and institution-shifting strategy—[is] not for the faint of heart or for the short-term, instant-gratification folks among us.”  He calls the process of “building institutions, workplaces and cultures concerned with democratizing wealth evolutionary reconstruction.”

Frances Deverell:  While it is too often necessary to stand up and be counted, whether it be against injustice in Palestine or with our own First Nations, or against building our future on an expansion of the tar sands, it is spiritually draining to be constantly on the defensive, standing up to stop what we don’t want.  It is far more empowering to outline the future you most want to see, and to start building it – step by step.

Open Letter to Israeli Leadership

Open Letter to Israeli leadership

I write to you as a supporter of Israel, and someone who hopes fervently that there will always be an Israel that will be a place of refuge where Jews under pressure can come, establish themselves, and live happy and fruitful lives.  With on-going discrimination against Jews around the world such a place of refuge is necessary, and it is logical that it should be in the holy land, where Abraham wandered, David reigned, and Solomon built the first sacred temple.  My fear is that, if you continue your present course of action, you will ultimately destroy the very dream that you cherish.  I believe that your security strategy is fatally flawed.

As outsiders like myself watch, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Israel has forgotten that the Palestinian people are sons of Ishmael, son of Abraham, have also lived there for thousands of years, and have a right to share this land.  It seems as though the current objective is to continue to build settlements until it owns and controls the entire West Bank, and that Israel's preference would be to push the Palestinians who live there out—to places like Gaza, Syria, Jordan, and other places that will take them (such as Canada, where I live.)  Israel has not hesitated to use every possible tactic, from daily humiliation, walls and border controls, abusive policing and imprisonment, and brute force including bulldozing entire villages to achieve these goals.  The bombardment and destruction of Gaza is particularly brutal. 

Claiming that Hamas is responsible for the deaths of children and civilians because it hides terrorists amidst children is a spurious argument.  Over the years Israel has never presented evidence for such claims and I have read first hand witness reports from many people there is no evidence of that.  I do not condone the Hamas missiles any more than I condone the Israeli bombardment.  Violence will not bring peace and Hamas should stop making the situation worse.  But it must be recognized that Palestinians are in a struggle for their ultimate survival -- just like Israel.

Ultimately Israel will have to take responsibility for its deliberate attacks on UN schools, and shelters for civilians.  I would hate to see the day when its leaders are held to account in the international criminal court.  That is not the Israel the world dreamed of as a refuge and a sanctuary.  Citizens of the world call you to stop before it comes to this.

This kind of bombing will never end the Palestinian threat to Israel.  The German holocaust, brutal as it was, was unable to eradicate the world Jewish population or its spirit, its culture, and its identity.  That was certainly its goal.  Canadians have much experience with trying to eradicate a people and a culture.  Our goal was eradication of First Nations culture through assimilation.  We tried to take away the language, culture, and history of our First peoples by reducing their land to small reserves, and by forcibly putting their children in residential schools.  We outlawed their languages and their culture.  But our First peoples resisted and survived our colonial onslaught.  Their rich cultures are in renewal and my hope is that we will find a way to let them inform who we become as Canadians.

Of course, colonialism is not the model for Israel.  Israel’s situation is totally unique.  But the reality is that there were people living in the State of Israel that were pushed out, and this process continues.  Palestinians are desperately fighting for their very survival.  There are Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and all over the world who remember their homeland, who remember their culture, and who expect to have the right of return outlined in United Nations treaties.  You will never build peace and security through brute force and totalitarian control.  Your approach produces resistance, anger, righteousness, and ultimately revolution and you are risking spreading these characteristics to Arab countries all around you that are already hotbeds of rebellion.  There must be another path and if Israel wants to survive and thrive in the long term, it must seek another way. 

 A winning solution for Israel must also be a winning solution for Palestinians.  There will be no peace and security if it is not for both parties.  We must not be fooled on either side by tactics of stereotyping people as extremists and terrorists.  In the end we are all human beings and all everyone wants is the chance for our children to grow up, find jobs, support their families, and live in peace.

In their book, Sons of Abraham, Rabbi Marc Schneier and Imam Shamsi Ali outline the great principles and values that Jews and Muslims hold in common through their shared history and scriptures.  There are profound resources available in the holy texts and the oral tradition of both religions for building a shared peace.  Religious leaders on both sides have fomented fear and discontent.  They have a responsibility to take leadership in holding up the resources and spiritual values that will lead to building trust and creating peace.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have a great love of the land from which they both come.  Perhaps it is through the land itself that a route to peace can be found.  If both Israel and Palestine could rise above their differences and commit themselves to working together to protect and manage the land, the water, the air, and the energy resources, perhaps a new quality of bonds could be forged between them.

In her book, Blue Future, Maude Barlow outlines the abuses of water in many Arab countries and in the Gaza strip.  She describes how water has been used as a weapon of war between countries, and how usurpation of water by the rich and powerful at the expense of ordinary people and farmers was a key factor in bringing about the Arab Spring.   Because the people of Gaza have no access to plumbing parts, a bombed out sewage and water infrastructure is leaking all sorts of human and toxic waste into the aquifer shared by Gaza and Israel.  It’s a classic example of the harm you do to others coming back to haunt you. For Maude, “hope is a moral imperative.”  She proposes that instead of making water a source of conflict, we let it “teach us how to live together.”

My hope is for a two state solution, an Israel and a Palestine where each people has what they need in terms of energy, water, land and resources to live and even thrive; a land where security is built on a new relationship between two peoples based on trust and a shared commitment to each other and to the land they have shared for thousands of years.  I personally think this would be easier to make real than the other solution which offers some hope--one secular democratic country with one person one vote.  That would require a great deal more trust than a two state solution.  In either case, a vision of caring for the land for future generations is my suggestion for the bridge to peace.

Rev. Frances Deverell

Unitarian Minister in the Community in Ottawa

On Civic Holiday Put Climate First on the First -- Happy Camping

Put Climate First on August 1st – Happy Camping

It’s been the coolest July at the Cottage since I’ve been coming here.  This week the forecast is for highs as low as 16 degrees Celsius.  Sometimes it is hard to defend our focus on climate change when the weather isn’t telling us the climate is warming at all.  That’s the difference between weather and climate.  Weather is what happens every day and it is very changeable.  Climate is the bigger picture – the average of the weather over many years.  The bigger trends.  And science continues to tell us, in spite of this chilly summer at this particular location, the overall climate is warming quickly. 

The consequences of quick changes in climate are severe weather events.  Here in Haliburton we had the heaviest rainfall anyone can remember in 24 hours.  Roads washed out and we had brief power outages.  There was threat of flooding in Minden.  We were lucky the damage wasn’t worse.  We all remember floods last year in Calgary and Toronto.  Manitoba now faces a yearly diet of severe flooding.  Warmer air holds more water so when it rains it pours.  And the meandering jet stream goes more slowly, allowing clouds to sit in one spot and pour water down for days, while areas on the other side of the jet stream don’t get any and experience drought.  We haven’t begun to imagine how these accelerating trends will affect our food supply.  Our farmers will have to be adaptable and resilient.

August 1^st is a civic and a provincial holiday over much of the country so we encourage you to take this opportunity to write a letter to your provincial leaders, or your local utilities.  At the provincial level much can be done to help us deal with reducing our own ghg pollution.  Ask them to support programs to retrofit your homes with better insulation or more efficient appliances.  If you don’t live in a province with a smart, interactive grid that allows you to generate solar or wind power and contribute it to the grid system this should be a priority.  Provinces are responsible for the electricity sector.  How do you generate electricity where you live?  How is your province planning to increase renewable energy?  If you don’t know the answer, ask them to tell you in your letter.   And please, send a copy of your letter to climatefast@climatefast.ca.  We want to know how many of you are responding to our appeals for letters.  A sample letter can be found on our website

The August 1^st weekend is also the biggest weekend of the year for car traffic as people pile into their cars to go to the cottage or go camping.  Instead of food fasting why not try carbon fasting this coming long weekend.  Get to your destination by bike or bus.  Enjoy camping out instead of going to a cottage complete with all the power luxuries of home.  Enjoy some fresh air and exercise whether you go to the country or stay in the city.  But above all, be safe.  And have a great long weekend.

O Canada! We Stand on Guard For Thee -- July 1st

O Canada!  We Stand on Guard For Thee

It’s July 1^st and we celebrate our country’s birthday.  It’s a good time to reflect on what it means to be a Canadian – especially in times of great change; and especially in times like these when we face dilemmas like climate change.

What will Canada be like in twenty or fifty years?  What difference will it make if we just stay with the status quo, and continue building our economy based on mining and fossil fuels, as we have done for two centuries—or if we do as ClimateFast asks and work to make the transition toward renewable energy?  Prime Minister Harper says that no country will make a change if it means a slowing economy or loss of jobs.  He believes he is defending Canada’s best interests by hanging on to fossil fuels as the foundation of who we are.  I respectfully disagree.

I believe that if we stay the present course, we will be writing the death warrant of Canada as a significant nation in the world.  We’ll be hanging on to the past instead of moving into the future. 

I believe that we must explore and take risks, to discover the underpinnings of a new economy for Canada in the twenty-first century.  I see a future based on renewable energy of many different types.  I see a future based on the innovation of our people to design smart, interactive networks, and to create new models of energy storage and delivery.  I also see a future based on new relationships between our workplaces and our communities, where employers—job creators—are accountable not only to their stock holders, but also to their workers, their communities that resource them, and to the earth that sustains us all.

In this system it would not be possible for a company to determine its own self-interest as based only on a financial bottom line for a few people.  The financial and social well-being of all of us would have to be considered.  We would work through competing interests using good science, open dialogue, and mutual respect.  We would practice democracy in our families and become good at building consensus, so that we could translate those skills into good decision-making in our schools, workplaces, communities, and governments.

Let’s dream big for Canada and let’s put our life energy into making it happen.

Will you support our ClimateFirst on the First of the Month campaign? 

Will you commit to writing one letter a month on or around the first of the month. 

Will you invite your friends and family to join you?

If we can organize 12 people in every riding in Canada to get together and write one letter around the first of the month, it will make the difference. 

Together we will generate the political will to

·      End all fossil fuel subsidies

·      Put a price on carbon

·      Focus priorities on a transition to renewable energy.

Write your letter today, and send us a copy by e-mail please.