Category: Environment

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Gratitude, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , ,
Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center

Regardless of what you think of her politics, her personality, or anything else, you have to admit she is quite a wordsmith.  Personally, I thought Elizabeth Warren was the best presidential candidate I’ve ever had the chance to vote for. But after her dismal Super Tuesday, it was clearly time for her to get out. She used the opportunity to be memorable once again, and to remind us that it was never about her, but about the movement.

Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center
Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center

Warren’s amazing pep talk of a withdrawal statement was one of the most remarkable pieces of oratory-in-writing (and, I’m guessing, oratory delivered in person to our campaign staff) I’ve ever seen. Since many readers of this blog are professional communicators, it’s worth analyzing and learning from it. Here it is, with my commentary:

I want to start with the news. I want all of you to hear it first, and I want you to hear it straight from me: today, I’m suspending our campaign for president.

No shilly-shallying, no evasion. Straight to the unpleasant truth.

I know how hard all of you have worked. I know how you disrupted your lives to be part of this. I know you have families and loved ones you could have spent more time with. You missed them and they missed you. And I know you have sacrificed to be here.

Acknowledging how her volunteers and staff have put their lives on hold. Few candidates do this. More should.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, for everything you have poured into this campaign.

Not just acknowledging, but giving direct thanks.

I know that when we set out, this was not the call you ever wanted to hear. It is not the call I ever wanted to make. But I refuse to let disappointment blind me – or you – to what we’ve accomplished. We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together – what you have done – has made a lasting difference. It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters – and the changes will have ripples for years to come.

Rooting the disappointment in optimism and accomplishment.

What we have done – and the ideas we have launched into the world, the way we have fought this fight, the relationships we have built – will carry through, carry through for the rest of this election, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Going for the long-term view.


So think about it:

  • We have shown that it is possible to build a grassroots movement that is accountable to supporters and activists and not to wealthy donors – and to do it fast enough for a first-time candidate to build a viable campaign. Never again can anyone say that the only way that a newcomer can get a chance to be a plausible candidate is to take money from corporate executives and billionaires. That’s done.

Look how she frames this: as a forever improvement to a broken system. Wonderfully bold.

  • We have also shown that it is possible to inspire people with big ideas, possible to call out what’s wrong and to lay out a path to make this country live up to its promise.

  • We have also shown that race and justice – economic justice, social justice, environmental justice, criminal justice – are not an afterthought, but are at the heart everything that we do.

And at the heart of this message. This was a campaign based from the start in social justice.

  • We have shown that a woman can stand up, hold her ground, and stay true to herself – no matter what.

Something we needed a certain amount of assurance about, after the debacle of 2016.

  • We have shown that we can build plans in collaboration with the people who are most affected. You know just one example: our disability plan is a model for our country, and, even more importantly, the way we relied on the disability communities to help us get it right will be a more important model.

This collaborative approach is rare in political campaigns, especially at the presidential level. Acknowledging the contributions of experts who don’t merely study but actually LIVE the experience in formulating policy.

And one thing more: campaigns take on a life and soul of their own and they are a reflection of the people who work on them.

This campaign became something special, and it wasn’t because of me. It was because of you. I am so proud of how you all fought this fight alongside me: you fought it with empathy and kindness and generosity – and of course, with enormous passion and grit.

Fairly typical kudos to the staff and volunteers. Nicely done, but other candidates have done the same.

Some of you may remember that long before I got into electoral politics, I was asked if I would accept a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was weak and toothless. And I replied that my first choice was a consumer agency that could get real stuff done, and my second choice was no agency and lots of blood and teeth left on the floor. And in this campaign, we have been willing to fight, and, when necessary, we left plenty of blood and teeth on the floor. And I can think of one billionaire who has been denied the chance to buy this election.

Back to the long-haul strategy, the idea that this is a fight that takes time, and that there are victories along the way, from years past to even as recently as this week

Now, campaigns change people. And I know that you will carry the experiences you have had here, the skills you’ve learned, the friendships you have made, will be with you for the rest of your lives. I also want you to know that you have changed me, and I will carry you in my heart for the rest of my life.

Doesn’t she sound like she’s giving a graduation speech? She’s reminding them of the inspiring, even life-changing experience they all had together in support of this larger cause: building a movement.

So if you leave with only one thing you leave with, it must be this: choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when things get tough – and they will – you will know that there is only option ahead of you: nevertheless, you must persist.

A lot going on in these three lines. A command to do what’s right, a reminder that you’ll face deep-seated opposition, and a call-back to the popular meme that sprung up around her after Mitch McConnell refused to let her read Coretta Scott King’s remarks on the Senate floor. McConnell was the one who said, “Nevertheless, she persisted,” and within days, that was on bumper stickers all around the country

You should all be so proud of what we’ve done together – what you have done over this past year.

  • We built a grassroots campaign that had some of the most ambitious organizing targets ever – and then we turned around and surpassed them.

  • Our staff and volunteers on the ground knocked on over 22m doors across the country.

  • They made 20m phone calls and they sent more than 42m texts to voters. That’s truly astonishing. It is.

  • We fundamentally changed the substance of this race.

Not just listing some of the accomplishments, but quantifying them. She’s reminding them that she is a policy wonk, that she uses data to substantiate her claims and justify her many detailed plans.

You know a year ago, people weren’t talking about a $0.02 wealth tax, universal childcare, cancelling student loan debt for 43 million Americans while reducing the racial wealth gap, or breaking up big tech. Or expanding Social Security. And now they are. And because we did the work of building broad support for all of those ideas across this country, these changes could actually be implemented by the next president.

Again, reminding them how they helped to change the discourse and make space for the next president to put these things into practice.

A year ago, people weren’t talking about corruption, and they still aren’t talking about it enough – but we’ve moved the needle, and a hunk of our anti-corruption plan is already embedded in a House bill that is ready to go when we get a Democratic Senate.

A subtle call to get that Democractic Senate majority, and a subtle reminder of the large pile of bills passed by the House but in limbo in the Senate.

We also advocated for fixing our rigged system in a way that will make it work better for everyone – regardless of your race, or gender, or religion, regardless of whether you’re straight or LGBTQ. And that wasn’t an afterthought, it was built into everything we did.

A universalist call for inclusion and intersectionality that manages to avoid insulting white working class straight Christian men, who are just as much “everyone” as those who identify as other than that.

And we did all of this without selling access for money. Together 1.25 million people gave more than $112m to support this campaign. And we did it without selling one minute of my time to the highest bidder. People said that would be impossible. But you did that.

Again, she is rewriting the expectation of what’s not only possible but can become normal.

And we also did it by having fun and by staying true to ourselves. We ran from the heart. We ran on our values. We ran on treating everyone with respect and dignity.

Social change can be fun! As Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.”

You know liberty green everything was key here – my personal favorites included the liberty green boas, liberty green sneakers, liberty green make up, liberty green hair, and liberty green glitter liberally applied. But it was so much more.

A bit of branding. In truth, I hadn’t noticed this. Warren’s signs have been blue-and-white for years (I live in Massachusetts and I’ve seen them since 2012).

Four-hour selfie lines and pinky promises with little girls.

In other words, what you staff and volunteers did helps to shape the next generation. A strong claim to deeper meaning.

And a wedding at one of our town halls. And we were joyful and positive through all of it.

Celebratory! And a talking point: what other candidate would inspire a wedding at a Town Hall, and what other candidate would make space for that to happen?

We ran a campaign not to put people down, but to lift them up –

Another message of empowerment, and a huge contrast with the incumbent.

and I loved pretty much every minute of it.

OK, so she’s probably exaggerating. But it is clear that she loved most of it. It’s obvious that she enjoys debating, meeting constituents and fans, showing up with media in tow even at a detention center for migrant children, doing funny TV appearances, chowing down regional food, showing off her policies, etc.

So take some time to be with your friends and family, to get some sleep, maybe to get that haircut you’ve been putting off – you know who I’m talking about.

Humor in the face of stress and disappointment, followed by…

Do things to take care of yourselves, gather up your energy, because I know you are coming back. I know you – and I know that you aren’t ready to leave this fight.

Another call to stay active and involved.

You know, I used to hate goodbyes. Whenever I taught my last class or when we moved to a new city, those final goodbyes used to wrench my heart. But then I realized that there is no goodbye for much of what we do. When I left one place, I took everything I’d learned before and all the good ideas that were tucked into my brain and all the good friends that were tucked in my heart, and I brought it all forward with me –

Reiterating that the fight goes on, and so do the policy wins and the friendships.

and it became part of what I did next. This campaign is no different. I may not be in the race for president in 2020, but this fight – our fight – is not over. And our place in this fight has not ended.

Because for every young person who is drowning in student debt, for every family struggling to pay the bills on two incomes, for every mom worried about paying for prescriptions or putting food on the table, this fight goes on. For every immigrant and African American and Muslim and Jewish person and Latinx and trans woman who sees the rise in attacks on people who look or sound or worship like them, this fight goes on.

Reiterating the intersectionality piece, the economic and social justice pieces, and the importance of defending the most vulnerable members of society.

And for every person alarmed by the speed with which climate change is bearing down upon us, this fight goes on. And for every American who desperately wants to see our nation healed and some decency and honor restored to our government, this fight goes on. And sure, the fight may take a new form, but I will be in that fight, and I want you in this fight with me. We will persist.

Bringing in the environment, which hadn’t shown up here so far. And again, reminding of how low the bar has fallen.

One last story. One last story. When I voted yesterday at the elementary school down the street, a mom came up to me. And she said she has two small children, and they have a nightly ritual. After the kids have brushed teeth and read books and gotten that last sip of water and done all the other bedtime routines, they do one last thing before the two little ones go to sleep. Mama leans over them and whispers, “Dream big.” And the children together reply, “Fight hard.”

A big, emotional close. Showing how the campaign’s motto is changing lives into the next generation. I would have ended it there but she has one more inspirational line:

Our work continues, the fight goes on and big dreams never die.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Green Business, Green Marketing, language, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Every year, bestselling author and social media visionary Chris Brogan challenges his huge reader base to come up with three words to provide focus for the coming year. This year, I decided to take the challenge for the first time since 2016. My three words are:

  1. Clarity (click to read Part 1, where I discuss this word)
  2. Justice
  3. Healing

Justice

Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain
Nonviolent peace demonstration in Britain

Today’s installment is about Justice, and how it shapes both my career and my activism.

My career has evolved quite a bit from its founding (as a term-paper typing service!) in 1981. For the past several years, I’ve focused my writing, speaking, and consulting on helping business turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. By showing companies how to make a profit doing this, I hope to leverage far greater change than I would if I tried to motivate them through guilt, shame, and fear.

Lets make this concrete: I listed several benefits for each of five different examples in this blog post.

Ready to know more?  In the very early phases of this shift in my business, I did a TEDx talk, “Impossible is a Dare.” (you have to click on “Event Videos”, and then on my talk). It’s a nice 15-minute introduction to this idea as it existed in 2014; I’ve refined it quite a bit since then. A much deeper introduction is my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, endorsed by Chris, Seth Godin, Chicken Soup;’s Jack Canfield, Joel Makower (Executive Director of GreenBiz.com) and many other business and environmental leaders. And of course, I’m happy to talk to you about how I can be a “Sherpa” on this journey for your organization. 

But now, let’s go back to the activist side. In order to talk about Justice, I also have to talk about Injustice: what we’re trying to change.

And from there, how I personally am working to change injustice into justice through community-based activism: the work I do in my non-career time. There have been a few times in my life where that work dominated my day and pushed the career part off to the side. This is one of those times.

Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Marchers at a rally for racial justice and immigrant rights, Holyoke, MA. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

As a citizen of the US, I’m deeply concerned about the attack on our planet and its people (and other living beings) by the current federal government. This government and its most visible spokesperson have viciously attacked immigrants, people of color, people without a Y chromosome (not male, in other words) or who don’t identify with the gender of their birth or any gender, people who are not Christian or even Christians who condemn him, people with disabilities, people suffering in poverty who face attacks on safety-net programs such as SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) as well as authoritarian responses to homelessness, people who’ve survived crimes this government doesn’t view as important (such as sexual harassment), and even 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg–as well as people who might be likely to vote for someone other than that very visible spokesperson.

Humans, at least, can defend themselves. Forests, oceans, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the plants and animals that we share our planet with–they need human beings to defend them against the brutal attack by this administration. Since January 2017, this government has rolled back dozens of environmental protections, stripped government websites of information about issues from the human impact on climate change to toxic pollution databases, barred government scientists from speaking out, and of course, pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord.

As of October, 2019, that same visible spokesperson had lied at least 13,435 times while in office. He has violated his Oath of Office every single day since he was sworn in, because he refused to divest himself of emolument-laden business interests and thus undermines the Constitution; he illegally uses his position for personal enrichment. He even went so far as to order the next G7 Summit held at his own golf resort (public pressure forced him to walk this one back; even Fox raised an eyebrow). And of course, there were the two violations so egregious that they led to his impeachment. I would have preferred a much fuller bill of criminal activity (this link lists nine potential counts as far back as July, 2018).

But the problem goes far deeper than one corrupt and mean-spirited individual in a position of great power. 

As a citizen not just of the US but also of the world, I worry to see similar patterns repeating in many other countries, among them Brazil, Hungary, India, and Bolivia–and less intense versions attempting to rear their heads in places like France and UK.

I’ve been an environmental and social justice activist since October, 1969. That’s just over 50 years. Since that time, I’ve done much to improve the lives of my fellow residents of Earth, whether human, other animal, plant, fungus, or other lifeforms. I’ve been involved in numerous campaigns, and was glad to play a role in winning some of them. But there’s so much more to be done!

Each of these situations involves many cases of justice denied. I will do what I can to turn that around; I will continue to write and speak and act and organize and demonstrate and lobby from a place that says we are better than this, that we don’t accept this as normal, and that we are not willing to turn the clock all the way back to 1930s Germany. And I will continue to take comfort in the small victories we win, and the many friends I have made in the Resistance who prove to me that we are, indeed, better than this.

And each of us has an impact, often far greater than we realize at the time. Never accept that you cannot make a difference as an individual! But recognize that it’s easier to make that difference if you work with others.

I can take direct credit for victories ranging from a crosswalk at an intersection that desperately need one to starting the movement that saved a mountain when the “experts” thought our victory was impossible. And I’m far from done.

In May, 2019, my wife and I were accepted as sanctuary accompaniment volunteers, helping protect an upstanding immigrant who has to live in a church because he would be deported if caught outside the grounds. This is a hard-working man who just wants to provide for his family, including three children born in this country. He has lived in the US for nearly two decades, and in the church for more than two years.

A month later, we participated in an eight-person delegation to stand witness outside the prison holding up to 3000 migrant teenagers in Homestead, Florida. That prison, like the far worse one in Tornillio, Texas, was closed due to public outcry. The affinity group we went with is called Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western Massachusetts. In February, we will be part of a ten-member JAIJ delegation doing relief work on the border at Brownsville, Texas and Mataoros, Mexico. Despite our tiny numbers, we’ve had a lot of influence, because we’ve been doing talkbacks, media interviews, and multiple public events since our return from Florida, and we’ve raised thousands of dollars to support the relief mission.

As in all my environmental and social work these 50 years, I hope to see my work become obsolete and unnecessary, because the problem has been fixed.

I dedicate my 2020 work for justice to the spirit of Frances Crowe, of Northampton, Massachusetts. She requested, for her 100th birthday, a demonstration with 100 signs representing 100 causes. She got 300 people marching in the streets, and I think she got her 100 causes, too. A few months later, she attended one of our public talks about the Homestead Detention Center just two weeks before she died. She was working on a climate scorecard for individuals to observe and improve their behavior at the time of her death.
I first met Frances at one of those actions that turned out later to have made a huge difference. She and I were both among the 1414 people arrested in 1977 while occupying the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear power plant, in New Hampshire. She was 58; I was 20, and I didn’t have a leadership role. When we got out, we discovered we’d birthed a nationwide safe-energy movement.

Part 3, on why I chose “Healing” for my third word, went live on January 20. Please leave your own three words (or any other appropriate comment) in the comments. Note that they are moderated, so don’t bother spamming.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Branding, Business Ethics, Business-general, Copywriting, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Other, People Helping People, poverty, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Every year, bestselling author and social media visionary Chris Brogan challenges his huge reader base to come up with three words to provide focus for the coming year. This year, I decided to take the challenge for the first time since 2016. And this time, I’m going to emblazon them on a printout in huge type, and post it where I can see my words every day.  My three words are:

  1. Clarity
  2. Justice
  3. Healing

Clarity

The first three lines of an eye chart
I’ll discuss Justice in Part 2 (with lots of links(), and Healing–including  a deeply personal experience that happened to me this month–in Part 3.eye chart reminds me of having clarity in this year of 20//20 Clarity, 2020 AD

The year 2020 reminds me of 20/20 vision: seeing with perfect clarity. While I don’t expect to achieve perfect clarity, even with the new glasses I’ve just been prescribed ;-), I do want to focus on seeing and acting as clearly as possible.

It’s been several years since I changed the focus of my business toward helping other businesses (and other types of organizations such as nonprofits) find the sweet spot where profitability intersects with environmental and social good.

I now market myself as the person who can help any organization discover opportunities to do go in the world by creating, identifying and re-purposing, and/or marketing profitable products and services that turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance.

I’ve gotten a lot clearer in my messaging since starting this quest in the summer of 2013, since giving my TEDx talk in 2014, and even since publishing my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, in 2016 (which Chris Brogan endorsed, along with Seth Godin, Jack Canfield, and many others).

But I’m still nowhere near as clear as I need to be about:

  • Who wants to pay me to do this work?
  • Which services they most want, and to achieve what goals?
  • How to set a price structure that’s fair both to solopreneurs and large corporations? 
  • Who do I most want to serve?

I’m beginning to figure out the answers. I’ve settled on pricing based on the size of the organization, which seems reasonably fair because larger organizations are more complex and therefore a task such as a marketing plan our outlining a product development campaign will take a lot more of my time–but I’m not sure I’ve got all the bugs worked out yet. I’ve realized that I’d rather work with small entities than large ones, but I am very open to being farmed out by a larger entity to their smaller customers, suppliers, or business units–and to the larger entities sponsoring me in other ways, such as funding my speaking to organizations that can’t otherwise afford me.

Hopefully, seeing that message of clarity on the wall of my workspace every day will inspire me to figure all this out, and to make my message so clear that everyone understands exactly how I can help and why it’s important.

 

I’ll discuss Justice in Part 2 (with lots of links), and Healing–including  a deeply personal experience that happened to me this month–in Part 3.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Events, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with ,

50 years ago today, October 15, 1969, my life changed forever. That was the day I became an activist, for real.

Yes, there was a time when as a toddler, I destroyed the cigarettes my parents’ party guests left lying around on the coffee table to protect the air quality of our apartment. Yes, there was the one-kid boycott I started that summer of 1969 of a movie theater that charged me for an adult ticket and made me sit in the children’s section (and I have still never been back to that theater). Yes, I grew up in a social change household and my mom dragged me around with her as she campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Yes, I had already decided to become a vegetarian, although my mom had extracted a promise to wait until I stopped growing. So I was predisposed. But I wasn’t an activist yet.

But that day, I participated in the national Vietnam Moratorium Day—which is why I still remember the date—and went to my first peace rally. Alone, I walked the few blocks from our apartment building on Loring Place at Tremont Avenue to NYU’s Bronx campus (now Bronx Community College), where I listened to the speakers.

Marching at the Women's March on Washington with my wife and children
Marching at the Women’s March on Washington with my wife and children (from left: son-in-law Bobby, daughter Alana, wife Dina, me, son Rafael)

I was 12 years old, and had just started 9th grade.

One of the speakers, who was probably only about 6 years older than me, proclaimed, “The Vietnam war is an undeclared war.”

I hadn’t known that.

And with this statement, my whole world came crashing down. All my faith in the checks and balances of the American system of government that I’d learned from social studies teachers turned out to be a lie. I started questioning everything I knew.

I still show up at many demonstrations. In the photo above, I’m holding a sign that says “Patriots Protect People and Planet” that I made for that protest: the Women’s March counterinaugural on January 21, 2017. A few days later, I turned it over and wrote “Another Jew for Human Rights,” and brought it to protest the administration’s first attempt at a Muslim ban. Both sides of that sign have gotten quite a workout the past 2-3/4 years.

But I learned early that showing up at demonstrations isn’t enough.

When my carefully constructed world fell apart on that October day in 1969, I started looking for ways to make a difference. To find that path back to the democracy I’d been promised, to make sure the system worked so the next time the US went to war, it would have at least been vetted by Congress (little did I know how THAT would play out! Most American wars since then have also been undeclared.) And to work for peace.

So peace and democracy were my first causes. A few months later, the first Earth Day added the environment to my focus. Over the years, I took up many others: human rights/opposing discrimination, safe energy, affordable housing, food and transportation justice, social change journalism, dialogue across differences, and many subsets and intersections of these.

Before long, I was joining organizations, writing and publishing about social change actions (starting with articles in an alternative paper at my high school when I was 15), planning events from speakers to rallies to the safe energy “swim-in” where I gave my first TV interview dripping wet in my bathing suit, building coalitions,  doing the hard work of helping to build movements–and making tons of friends, by the way. In fact, I’m going to a meeting of our Western Massachusetts Jews for Immigration Justice meeting this afternoon, where we’ll debrief a successful mass rally we held last week and plan our next steps.

Many of these were just as accidental or based on a random insight as my original peace activism.

Although I joined my first two environmental action groups (one in my neighborhood and one in my high school) I only got into the safe energy movement in a real way after researching “the pros and cons of nuclear power” for a college paper in 1974—and that in turn led directly to my getting involved with Clamshell Alliance and getting arrested at Seabrook three years later (another life-changing moment). This is the sign I carried to that action.

Sign by Nancy Hodge Green, used at Seabrook, 1977. Photo by Shel Horowitz
Sign by Nancy Hodge Green, used at Seabrook, 1977. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

My paths to human rights and opposing discrimination came in part from being told I was too young to count when I was an early activist, in part from my own coming out as bisexual as a 16-year-old college freshman, in part from being hired at age 22 for my one and only paid organizing job—charged with building a near-defunct Gray Panther chapter in Brooklyn (as a VISTA Volunteer with pay the first year of $82 a week in NYC!), in part from a growing awareness of disability issues as a 6-year member of Northampton’s official city Disability Committee, and in part from seeing the urban poverty all around me in the various cities I lived in as a child or during college internships—such as the ghetto neighborhood in Washington, DC I walked through on my way to work, or the one I biked through to visit my then-girlfriend (now wife of 36 years) in Brooklyn.

But it also comes from inserting myself into situations where some people might think I don’t belong—whether attending poetry gatherings in black neighborhoods or staying in Arab and Druze villages in Israel or visiting a colleague in Ramallah (Palestine).

Founding Save the Mountain was an accident of geography. I had only been living in the neighborhood we saved for just over a year when a developer announced plans to destroy it. And my work this past summer on immigration justice was also an accident.

Yet, after all these years, I am still deeply involved in those first three issues that found me: peace, the environment, and democracy. I’ve changed the way I participate—for instance, speaking to the business community on how social change and environmental healing can be profitable—but they are still very much a part of who I am.

I am grateful to that long-ago young man, and I wish I knew his name to say thank-you. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without his speech.

When I started, I was told I was too young to make change, and now, at 62, I’m beginning to hear that I’m too old, But as teen activist Emma Gonzales would say, I “call B.S.” on both claims. Like many of my friends and mentors, I expect to continue being an activist into my 90s and even 100s, if I live that long.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

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One of my marketing buddies, Marisa Murgatroyd, posted a picture of Greta Thunberg along with an inspirational message about how Greta’s work empowered Marisa to find her own place to make change.

Greta Thunberg on the cover of GQ, with commentary by Marisa Murgatroyd (Instagram screenshot)

It attracted a lot of comments, many of them expressing thanks for a great post–but others, far too many, dissing Greta and her work. Here’s my comment, in italics.

Thanks, Marisa, for posting this. Shocking how many people are posting to tear this young woman down because she’s changing the world. She will probably grow out of her extremism but if the world is lucky, she will keep her passion. I ask every person who is putting Greta down: what have you done in HER lifetime to make the world better, and what are you doing now toward that goal? Why is it important to you to spend your good energy attacking someone who is making a difference in the only ways she knows how?

And before you attack ME for using the word, “extremism,” remember this:

  1. This was a response to people who see her as an extremist. I used their own talking point to perhaps be listened to–to increase the chances that I might change a mind or two.
  2. Greta is acting out of deep despair. She does sound extreme at times. But let’s remember how hard it is to act out of despair, even if you don’t have Asperger’s (as she does). Positive motivators tend to work much better. To act from a dark place in a positive way is itself remarkable. In time, she will learn (as I did) that the world can be a very positive place, and we get the fun job of making it more positive, harnessing and amplifying the trends in the good directions, doing our best to neutralize the haters and the planet-killers. And that while the pace may seem glacial, we are actually winning.
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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, General Commentary, Peace and War, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

As a supporter of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign (and a resident of Massachusetts who’s seen the positive impact she has had on the state she represents), I got asked to do a survey of what issues I felt were most important.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

While it was tempting to check every choice, I limited myself to 12 of the 32 options.

And then there was an open question:  “Is there anything else you’d like to share about why you’re in this fight?” This is what I wrote:

I see the two biggest challenges as peace and climate change. The US has a major role to play in both, starting with STOPPING our support for repressive governments around the world. To get there, we have to have meaningful electoral reform to secure our own democracy, meaningful gun policies that make it at least as hard to get a gun as it is to get a license to cut hair, and policies/tax codes that eliminate all subsidies for fossil and nuclear while encouraging a rapid transition to solar, wind, hydro, and other true clean renewable technologies–including a deep conservation retrofit program. I’ve been a supporter of yours since your first run in Massachusetts (where I live) and an activist for 50 years starting at age 12.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,
Multicultural contingent at a climate march. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Multicultural contingent at a climate march. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

You won’t normally see me starting a blog post with a bible quote, but…I’m quoting an article that quotes the Bible: 

In Genesis 1 God commands humanity: “Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (1:28). “Subdue” and “rule” are verbs of dominance. In Genesis 2, however, the text uses two quite different verbs. God placed the first man in the Garden “to serve it [le’ovdah] and guard it [leshomrah]” (2:15). These belong to the language of responsibility. The first term, le’ovdah, tells us that humanity is not just the master but also the servant of nature. The second, leshomrah, is the term used in later biblical legislation to specify the responsibilities of one who undertakes to guard something that is not their own.

–Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The Jewish year divides the Old Testament into weekly portions that stay the same year after year.

My politically conservative, religiously Orthodox brother-in-law sent me the article I quoted, “The Ecological Imperative.” It turns out to be last week’s installment in a weekly series by a British rabbi on each week’s parshah, the Torah reading for the week. The readings assigned to each Hebrew-calendar week have stayed the same year after year, for centuries.

Joe knew I would like it. He didn’t know I’d be fascinated enough to write a whole blog post about it. I will share my takeaways from this article–but let me provide some personal background first.

 

My Back Story

I was a convert of the very first Earth Day, back in 1970, when I was 13. By 1971, I had joined my first two environmental advocacy organizations (one in my neighborhood, the other at my high school). That activism (and the lifestyle choices that support it) have been a strong part of my life ever since.

But my motivations back then were entirely secular. Three years earlier, my mom and dad had split up, and both parents had stopped being religious. I had moved from a yeshiva (religious school) with half the day in Hebrew to the regular public school. And as someone who’d not only been very frustrated with the many social and activity limits of Orthodox Judaism but who independently had questioned the existence of God by age 9, I welcomed those confusing changes in my life.

It was only many years later that I began to make space for a sense of faith. My image of God is very different from the classic image of the old man with a beard, throwing lightning. I don’t consider myself religious–but I can’t truthfully call myself an atheist.

In 2017, I began a process of reading major religious texts, starting with the Five Books of Moses, then continuing through the Four Gospels of the New Testament and now the Qur’an (Koran). So I’ve read Deuteronomy fairly recently. Of those nine books of the Old and New Testaments, I found Deuteronomy the most tiresome and challenging by far. It is largely a regurgitation in Moses’s voice of Leviticus and Numbers. As my secular side perceived it, it was a collection of random rules that made no sense in the modern world and maybe not much sense in the ancient world either.

 

Putting the Parsha in Context

But Rabbi Sacks reaches back from the week’s Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9 parsha (“Shoftim”) to the second chapter of Genesis, to show how the sages over these centuries have placed the commandment not to destroy your enemy‘s natural resources during a siege into a broader context of planetary stewardship, and even planetary healing.

The Sages, though, saw in this command something more than a detail in the laws of war. They saw it as a binyan av, a specific example of a more general principle. They called this the rule of bal tashchit, the prohibition against needless destruction of any kind. This is how Maimonides summarises it: “Not only does this apply to trees, but also whoever breaks vessels or tears garments, destroys a building, blocks a wellspring of water, or destructively wastes food, transgresses the command of bal tashchit.”[1] This is the halachic basis of an ethic of ecological responsibility.

 

Lessons and Takeaways

  1. Specifics in the Torah (and by extrapolation, other holy texts from other traditions) can be extrapolated to determine sweeping codes of social behavior/social responsibility.
  2. The texts support an earth-friendly interpretation that provides defense against the argument that the Bible commands us to subdue the earth and its other inhabitants.
  3. More than that, if we take these texts as the word of God, we are commanded to treat the earth as God’s creation, to treat it with great respect, and to maintain its abundance and its health for future generations.
  4. Given this imperative and the rapidly-closing window to solve the climate crisis, if we agree with #3, we have to support a political and business structure that encourages action. Presently, we face not only a global climate crisis (which I believe is still solvable through a combination of innovation and regulation), but a bunch of governments around the world, from the US to Brazil to the Philippines, that are actively attacking measures to preserve the environment (and, not coincidentally, attacking human rights at the same time). Just as Pope Francis’s climate encyclical provided impetus within the Catholic community, Rabbi Sachs’s interpretation can perhaps light a nonpolluting, non-carbon fire among religious Jews and even among Evangelicals (who of course see the Old Testament as part of the Word of God).
  5. The planet can’t speak up in front of a legislature or at the UN. So let’s get some movement going to get leaders who will speak on its behalf!

. 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, People Helping People, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
Child brushing teeth (FreeImages.com)
Child brushing teeth (FreeImages.com)

We always hear from conservatives that they don’t see how we can possibly afford universal health care, let alone the Green New Deal. Thus, as a public service, I’m listing five ways (among dozens if not hundreds) we can locate the funds. This is not even pretending to be comprehensive (or in any sort of order), and I’d love you to add your favorite in the comments.

  1. Eliminate the private for-profit insurance system, which jacks up the price. According to The New Republic (2015), this is costing us between $375 billion and $471 billion per year. The savings in getting rid of the middlemen would more than cover the increase in taxes.
  2. Cap doctors’ salaries at something reasonable and generous. I’ll pull a figure out of the air: 200K per year for generalists, 300K for specialists—but it could be higher or lower.
  3. Eliminate the crazy subsidies and price protections in so many industries, and particularly fossil and nuclear fuel, Big Pharma, highways and bridges to nowhere, and chemiculture-based Big Ag. We are subsidizing all sorts of things that should not be subsidized! Our policies should support the changes we want society to make (but right now, our policies interfere with those changes.
  4. Cut the military budget down to the expenditure of China (the country second on the list). Right now, the US is spending an obscene $649 billion per year (2016) to “defend” 329,345,285 people (more than the next seven countries combined). Yet China manages to protect 1,420,615,635 people, more than 4.3 times the US figure,  with military spending of just $146 billion (2016), or less than a quarter overall, less than a sixteenth per capita. So if the US slashed military spending by 75 percent to match China’s, it would still be spending more than four times per person than China does. Surely that would be enough to protect ourselves!
  5. Increase the tax rates for multimillionaires and for multinational megacorporations. Under Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent; now it’s less than half, just 37 percent. Meanwhile some of the most successful corporations pay zero income tax even while decimating local economies built on mom-and-pop retailers; In 2018, Amazon managed to double its profits from $5.6 billion in 2017 to $11.2 billion, and paid zero income tax both years. Lets end socialism for the rich.
  6. Do a Marshall Plan-style investment program to convert the entire nation to safe, clean, renewable energy; the upfront cost will be quickly amortized by energy savings AND healthcare savings, since we’ll be eliminating major causes of asthma, emphysema, etc. Plus, the cost of converting to solar, wind, etc. will drop way down, as economies of scale kick in. Even without a big government investment in converting the whole economy, solar and wind prices are now often compatible with or even better than fossil or nuclear power sources.

So next time you meet someone who wonders how to pay for the world we want, this article gives part of the recipe. Readers, please add your own favorite ways to find the money for these improvements, and please include a source for your data.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Environment, Ethics in Government, language, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , ,

I recognize the political difficulties of impeaching with a hostile Senate. Until the Republicans–as they did when Nixon was president–find their outrage, impeachment will fail in the Senate, and removal for incompetence under the 25th Amendment will fail in the Cabinet.

However, what the mainstream Dems continue to ignore is the political cost of NOT impeaching–and the political opportunities in calling out the GOP hypocrisy.

Marching to Impeach the 45th President
Marching to Impeach the 45th President

Yes, I know: the failed impeachment of Bill Clinton came back to bite the Republicans, hard. But the situation with Bill Clinton is not analogous, because Clinton’s trial was caught up in lying about one incident that had nothing to do with the way he governed, and the whole country knew it was a railroading. This does not excuse Clinton’s consistently icky behavior nor his lying about it–and if the Republicans had been smarter, they would have gone after stuff like the pay-to-play scandal that involved donations to the Clinton’s foundation. That really was a corrupt and impeachable offense. Lying about Lewinsky seems pretty tame by comparison.

But all of those moral guardians who were so quick to impeach back then are strangely silent about a man who stole the election, lied at least 9451 times since taking office (as of April 3, 2019), reeks of financial corruption, has been accused by 20-some women of sexual misbehavior (let’s remember that Clinton’s Lewinsky lie was about a CONSENSUAL act, although the original impeachment investigation that turned up that story came out of allegations of harassment that deserved a full investigation), has no idea how to govern, engages in hate speech constantly, has destroyed important ally relationships, and oh, yes, colluded with at least one foreign government.

How the Democrats Can Capture the Conversation

The Democrats have a moment to seize. This is our time to hammer home the idea that a crooked, venal, incompetent president in service to foreign powers and big corporations has no right to be in office, and the Separation of Powers principle gives Congress a moral obligation to enforce our right to a better government.

Just as Republicans were so quick to pillory Hillary Clinton for using private email servers (just as her Republican AND Democratic predecessors did), beating this message into our heads until it became part of the culture, so the Democrats must make reining in the runaway criminal in the White House part of the culture. And, considering that several key members of the current administration have also used private email servers–and, unlike Hillary, they can’t plead ignorance or precedent–hold these same Republicans accountable for their sudden strange silence when it’s a Republican who gets caught,

John Bonifaz and others have identified at least 10 different categories of impeachable offenses. Any one of these would justify starting impeachment proceedings. All 10 at once make it imperative.

The Democrats have to follow through on that moral obligation. Their messaging needs to focus on such talking points as:

  • The threat to our democracy, to our very Republic, from a president who is beholden not to the American people but to his corporate pals (Koch Brothers in particular) and foreign governments–not just Russia, but Saudi Arabia and Israel, at least, plus cozying up to dictators in places like North Korea and the Philippines.
  • The sheer magnitude of corruption oozing from DT and many of his past and present cabinet members, unprecedented even in the “swamp” of Washington
  • The scary parallels between DT’s patterns of speech and action (including his un-American demand for unquestioned loyalty, attacks on the judiciary/press/racial, religious, and cultural minorities, threats of violence, to name just a few) and the dictators who have risen as our enemies: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein–and thus, our patriotic duty to remove this man from power before he turns the country into a fascist dictatorship (interestingly, in researching these connections, I came across DT’s repeated passionate defense of Saddam and Libyan strongman Kadhafi during the 2016 campaign)–much as he has continued to defend other of dictators, including Putin, Duterte, and Kim Jong Un, among others.
  • The wisdom of our Founding Fathers in spelling out a process to determine whether a president has acted illegally, and removing that president from office if found guilty, right in the Constitution
  • Their responsibility and duty as members of Congress to the American people to protect us from these numerous criminal behaviors by upholding the Constitution

This could build on the momentum of 2018 and give people reasons to vote FOR Democrats, rather than simply against DT or Republicans in general. This is the sort of issue that can turn someone into a lifetime supporter.

Consequences of Failing to Act

OK, those are the positive motivators. Now, let’s look at the baggage Democrats will carry if they continue to let DT get away with the rampant criminality and incompetence:

  • Far too many progressives will sit out the 2020 election, feeling that the Democrats are just “Republican Lite.” (Yes, I’m intentionally using the low-calorie, low-substance advertising non-word, instead of “Light”.)
  • Democrats lose the moral high ground and lose momentum, maybe even find themselves facing a serious third-party challenge that would culminate in DT’s re-election (since we don’t have Ranked-Choice Voting in national elections in the US). This would likely hand DT a majority in the house again and set progressive politics back years, even as the climate clock is ticking.
  • The message to the Republicans will be “we don’t care enough to engage you over these crimes. Go and do whatever evil you want.”
  • Especially if re-elected, DT will be emboldened to do even more criminal acts, encourage even more race and ethnic divisiveness, stock the courts with even more extremist judges, roll back environmental and human rights protections even faster,  follow the footsteps of those dictators even more closely.

The message the Democrats must put forth is that we do care, we will hold him accountable, and we will keep the promises we made to represent everyone in the district. To get there, we progressives need to create a scenario where the Democrats see both the need to remove DT, hold him accountable for both his criminal behavior and his disastrous policies, and undo as much as possible of his anti-life, Profit Uber Alles legacy–and see the consequences to their careers and their party, as well as to the Constitution and the governed, if they fail to act.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Gratitude, Innovation, People Helping People, poverty, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

One of Seth Godin’s recent posts was a fascinating look at framing problems. He cited nine factors that make it easier to address them.

Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.
Seth Godin. Photo by Jill Greenberg. Courtesy of Seth Godin.

Riffing on two of the nine, I wrote him this letter (I’ve done some minor editing for clarification since sending it to him):

Non-chronic–rationalization is our specialty, and the reason we learn to rationalize is so that we don’t go insane when faced with long-term, persistent issues. We bargain them down the priority list.  

Solvable–see that earlier riff about rationalization and chronic problems. If a problem doesn’t seem solvable, we’re a lot less likely to stake our attention on it.

Maybe this is one key to why I haven’t yet really made a full transition to marketing myself as a consultant at the intersection of profitability and solving *chronic* problems such as hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. I have done some messaging on these problems being solvable even though they are millennia-chronic, other than climate change, which is only 200 years old as a major problem. But maybe they still feel too big and scary for most people to see themselves as part of the solution. 
And yet, in our brief lifetimes…

A lot of the progress is very recent, and I think much of the credit goes to the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (adopted in 2000) and their successors, the  17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (adopted in 2015),

So here’s the question: What advice would you give me in marketing my consulting, speaking, and writing to a population that is so shut down about solving these massive problems that they don’t see the progress we’re actually making? (And may I quote your answer in the blog?)

Shel Horowitz – “The Transformpreneur”(sm)

<End of my letter to Seth>

I got back a one-sentence reply agreeing that we’re making progress and noting that the progress happens more easily when we tell those stories.

So, here’s your opportunity to go where Seth doesn’t go. Let’s get a nice discussion going on how we can convince people that we can–and should–solve long-term, systemic, chronic problems. Please leave your comments.

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