Category: Social and Economic Justice

By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Social and Economic Justice

Journalist and political analyst Naomi Wolf, a trenchant critic of the bush Administration’s attack on civil liberties, has shown up with four Ss on her airplane boarding passes since 2002. Which means delays, searches, and a whole lot of annoyance, just to go about her speaking in support of her books.

She is eventually allowed to fly, since she’s actually on the “watch” rather than the actual “no-fly” list. But needless to say, she finds this frustrating.

And she looks further–to the way the Bush Administration uses this list as an instrument of social policy–to harass its obviously harmless critics such as herself. A chilling step toward totalitarianism, she believes–and I tend to agree.

So far, luckily, I haven’t gotten the dreaded four Ss. But I have noticed, as everyone has, how humiliating and unnecessarily inconvenient flying has become, and I, for one, don’t feel safer because “terrorists” can’t bring a water bottle on board. I was even prevented early one morning from bringing my lunch on a plane–leftover rice noodles and broccoli–because I’d made the mistake of putting it in a cottage cheese container! Yeah, my noodles were such a security risk that I had to choke down a few forkfulls at 5 a.m. and throw the rest away, so I was pretty hungry when I arrived.

Travel writer Christopher Eliott has suggested replacing this inane policy with making passengers prove the safety of their foods and drinks by eating or drinking some. That, apparently, is too much common sense.

My local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette of Northampton, Massachusetts, ran Wolf’s full op-ed under the title “Kafka Revisited. This link is subscription-only, but you can see the article at Alternet.

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By Posted on Posted in People Helping People, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice

Charles Hayes is one of my favorite commentators. Coming from a very conservative background, he nonetheless has a very progressive slant. He first came to my attention as a client several years ago, seeking publicity help for his brilliant book on self-education and liberalism, Beyond the American Dream.

I’ve just read two of his essays posted here: “Liberal vs. Conservative: Peace at Last.” and “Did the Cold War Condition Us to Fear Democracy?”

Like everything I’ve read by Charles, these are very thoughtful pieces. Not an easy read, but certainly within all of our grasp, and worth the effort.

Charles sees five pillars holding up society, but the liberals lean on two and conservatives on the other three, causing a great deal of friction. In typical Charles fashion–a brilliant and very well-read self-educated man–he quotes many sources, including George Lakoff (whose analysis I think is vital for an understanding of the liberal vs. the conservative mind.

And Charles’ perspective on this is especially fascinating because he was raised a southern conservative, is a veteran (Marines), and came to liberalism much later in life. Personally, I think liberals have at least as much need for community as conservatives, but they seek a *different kind* of community. And both liberals and conservatives can support caring communities; evangelical churches and fundamentalist Muslims have often been actively involved in homeless shelters, feed-the-hungry, and other social service ventures.

I’ve been having a correspondence this week with a very conservative Muslim friend who’s active on a publishing discussion list that I frequent–a retired state trooper who now runs a press that publishes American Muslim fiction, especially by women. She and I value many of the same things, but the expression of those values takes very different forms. Yet we have a great deal of respect for each other. Today, she proposed an Israel-Palestine peace idea that would make any liberal proud. And yet she repeatedly razzes on a listmate who is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, accuses him of hating America, and tells us that we have a great deal to fear from radical Muslim extremists, even though she sees them as violating key precepts of Islam.

One of the things I’ve learned to do well is to seek common ground with people who are different from me. They can hear me a lot better that way, and perhaps some part of my message of peace and social change gets through. My dialogue with this woman is an example of that, the sort of dialogue that Charles says is entirely too absent from the discourse.

And I think he’s right. We spend so much time shouting at each other and so little time listening., Yet we make big progress when we do engage, and listen, and talk.

My greatest successes as an organizer/activist always come when I’m able to help people find unity. It gave me huge satisfaction back when I did Save the Mountain (2000) to drive around the neighborhood and see our lawn signs sharing lawns with signs for Gore, Nader, *and* Bush. We had found the common ground–and we involved thousands of people and won a nearly complete victory. And I find, over and over again, for 30 years, that when we listen respectfully to each other, we not only find common ground, but we grow in our thinking a our analysis is challenged.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice

Audio interview on a year of eating only local foods, many of them from her garden.

https://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6208.cfm

I confess–while I try to eat local and organic as much as possible, I’m not to the point where I can completely give up cocoa, olive oil, and tropical fruit, among other pleasures. But nothing beats a perfect-tasting tomato or raspberry from our own planting and harvesting.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Arts & Entertainment, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice

We have close friends who moved last year from California to New Zealand, because they were concerned about the growing rightward drift in the US–even though they lived in one of the most liberal cities in the whole country.

Well, my wife and I saw “Sicko,” the other night: Michael Moore’s movie about the healthcare crisis in the US–and indepedently, both of us thought, ‘hmmm, New Zealand doesn’t seem so outrageous right now.’

Moore exposes the human cost of the USA’s failed healthcare system: doctors who are paid to deny necessary procedures, 9/11 volunteers who fell between the very large cracks, a cancer patient who had to sell her home and move into a spare room in her daughter’s house, thousands of miles away…and in true Moore fashion he bundles a few of these folks off on small boats to Guantanamo Bay–to demand the same free, state-of-the-art healthcare that the Bush-Cheney government repeatedly brags is offered to the prisoners there.

Of course, he’s turned away there–but finds a very receptive audience within the Cuban medical system, which treats the 9/11 volunteers as true heroes. In a very moving moment, a doctor in Cuba tells Moore that Cuba is a very poor country with few resources, but it has made healthcare a priority for all its citizens–and she pretty much tells him, if we can do it, you can too.

Cuba is not the only place that has made healthcare a priority–just about every First World country except the US offers high-quality free or minimal-cost universal healthcare, and Moore documents this with interviews in Canada, France, and England.

Less strident and more poignant than in some of his earlier films, Moore has made a film that I think could reach mainstream American audiences and show them it doesn’t have to be that way. And why, Moore asks, is “socialized medicine” such a demonized concept in the US? After all, we have socialized police and fire protection, public education, and plenty more. Why isn’t healthcare likewise considered a basic service?

In 1979 and 1980, I worked as a paid organizer for the Gray Panthers. Their biggest platform was the need for single-payer healthcare. Back then, we used to say that the United States and South Africa were the only two industrialized countries to lack this basic right–and South Africa, of course, embraced universal healthcare when it voted out the old apartheid government. So the US is all alone in its insistence that healthcare should be for profit, and not for health. Almost 30 years later, the Gray Panthers’ call is more important than ever.

And will I leave the country just to get affordable healthcare? At the moment, no. Our parents are here, our children are here, we live in Paradise in our antique farmhouse next to the mountain…and at the resent, we’re both in fine health. But certainly, this movie made us consider the option.

The website for the movie is https://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

Wow! The editor of a major Methodist publication, while noting that George W. Bush is also a Methodist and “brother in Christ,” is sharply critical of Bush’s action to keep Scooter Libby for sending even a single day in jail.

Cynthia B. Astle also cites several other commentaries condemning the action, including conservative sources. She doesn’t use the word “hypocrite” but she comes real close:

If, as our denominational leadership repeats endlessly, the UMC’s mission is “To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” then we must analyze how the action of the United Methodist layman in the White House has deleteriously transformed the American legal system – to say nothing of the blot on his soul.

You need not take my word for it. In the past four days, pols and pundits high and low have responded with incredulity and outrage to President Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence, which Bush contends was “too harsh.” Most legal experts have said that Libby’s commutation has been 1) exactly the opposite of the arguments used by the U.S. Justice Department itself in nearly 3,000 other federal cases and 2) likely to set a precedent throughout the legal system that, in effect, completely overturns the U.S. ideal of “equal justice before the law.”

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

One of my consistent favorite sources for stories everyone should know about but which get little or no play in the mainstream US media is a skinny little print newsletter called The Washington Spectator. Just four pages per issue, but tremendous content. It’s also available online.

The current issue features a horror story of some Connecticut librarians who received one of the dreaded “national security letters”–FBI fishing expeditions with no safeguards, and severe penalties if the recipients make these letters known. But these folks fought back, got the ACLU involved, and eventually–no thanks to the courts, not even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who turned down the request. In this situation, the FBI itself lifted its own gag order for reasons not made clear in the article.

I actually did know about this awful law, and I remember when librarians banded together to fight it, and were assured by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft that it wasn’t going to be used against librarians.

Well, that isn’t exactly how it turned out.

While two FBI agents waited in Christian’s office, he read a paragraph of his national security letter, which cited a statute and certified that the information the agent requested was “relevant to an authorized investigation against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, and that such an investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”

Christian had never heard of a national security letter. By his calendar the date was July 8; the letter was dated May 19. Almost a week had passed since the FBI had called his office. “This didn’t look like the FBI was in hot pursuit of anyone,” Christian said. The letter wasn’t addressed to him, but to the employee the FBI initially contacted. Its third paragraph prohibited the recipient from “disclosing to any person that the FBI has sought or obtained access or information to records under these provisions.”

“I told the agent I didn’t think the statute was constitutional,” he said. “And that I was going to discuss it with my attorney.”

Every freedom-loving American ought to be deeply concerned about the potential for abuses of power under this little-known provision of the Patriot Act. This is, after all, supposed to be a democracy.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

FreePress.net sent out this alert yesterday

Imagine having a fast connection to an open Internet wherever you go, without needing a telephone wire or cable modem.

The FCC could make this happen. Instead they’re on the verge of turning over our public Internet airwaves to the same giant phone and cable companies that control high-speed access for more than 96 percent of American users.

Don’t let the FCC give away our wireless Internet to these price-gouging giants. We need to use these public airwaves to connect more Americans to an open, neutral and affordable Internet.

And this is what I appended at the beginning of the comment field:

The idea of using the existing TV spectrum for widely available broadband is tremendously exciting. As a business owner, I could see that this might spark a wave of creative entrepreneurship like the original dotcom boom a decade ago, and create useful technologies we can only dream of currently. Open access is the way to do this, not tight control by a handful of companies.

If you’d like to comment on this, this link brings you to the webform.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

The well-known sustainable business guru Paul Hawken recently wrote that the presence of a decentralized and not-even-connected movement for environmental is not only a powerful force for change, but one for which there’s no precedent.

Hawken actually tried to quantify the number of organizations working to adopt a river, or ease world hunger, or work for peace, or a whole lot of other causes. Small, grassroots groups–collectively numbering about two million organizations, and thus tens of millions of people. There’s no overal leader, no single agenda–but he sees these splintered fractions coming together as a definable movement for environmental and social justice, and having enormous impact.

The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer solutions to what appear to be insoluble dilemmas: poverty, global climate change, terrorism, ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of culture. It is not burdened with a syndrome of trying to save the world; it is trying to remake the world…

And I believe it will prevail. I don’t mean defeat, conquer, or cause harm to someone else. And I don’t tender the claim in an oracular sense. I mean the thinking that informs the movement’s goal—to create a just society conducive to life on Earth—will reign. It will soon suffuse and permeate most institutions. But before then, it will change a sufficient number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied self-destruction.

As someone who has been involved with grassroots movements since I was 12 or 13, I think he’s right. In fact, in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I devote an entire chapter to the intersection of marketing and social change. I even included a case study about one social movement I started that defeated an extremely inappropriate development proposal–when all the “experts” said, “oh, this is terrible but there’s nothing we can do.” Well, we got thousands of people involved–and beat the “unstoppable” thing in just 13 months. (Note: the website hasn’t been updated in years–but it was a vital tool during the campaign.)

Starting that movement is something I will always feel is one of my greatest accomplishments.

There are a couple of books I want to write about the power of people to create social and environmental justice–and peace. In the meantime, I’m planning to start a high-level Internet discussion group for marketers who want to create social and environmental transformation. If you’re interested, comment here (with a way of getting in touch) or drop me a note at shel [at] principledprofit.com, subject line: Social Change Marketer Group (if you don’t hear back from me, check in again–email isn’t as reliable as it used to be!

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity, was kicked out in a power struggle, and started another organization to continue the work.

In this powerful interview conducted by Cynthia Kersey, the best selling author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women, Fuller discusses his accomplishments and challenges and faith. He comes across as remarkably humble and extremely effective.

I’ve always believed that one person can always make a difference, but that difference is greatly magnified if that person finds others to work with. If you’re not convinced, you need to read this entire interview. If you are convinced, read it for inspiration.

Couple of excerpts:

We thought that the work of Habitat for Humanity would be exclusively in third world countries and in the rural south. And Habitat has grown in third world countries, it’s all over Africa, it’s all over Asia, it’s all over Central and South America. It’s all over the rural south, but Habitat today is in every province in Canada. It’s in a number of European countries. It’s in New Zealand, it’s in Australia.

It is in all of the places we expected it to be, plus a whole lot more. Incidentally, that goal that we wrote about in our minutes of our first meeting was achieved in August of 2005. We dedicated the 200,000th house for the 1,000,000th person in Knoxville, Tennessee in August of 2005.

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many years is that? Twenty seven years?

MILLARD FULLER: We started in 1976, so just shy of 30 years. Currently, Habitat is building about 30,000 houses a year.

* * *

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many communities took your challenge to eliminate poverty housing in that particular area? As a city wide, not so much just the affiliate, but the city said, “This is what we’re going to do.”

MILLARD FULLER: You mean accept the goal of trying to eliminate poverty housing?

CYNTHIA KERSEY: Yes, exactly.

MILLARD FULLER: That was done here in Americus, Georgia, where we live, with Habitat for Humanities headquarter and where now The Fuller Center for Housing is located. In 1992, I called together a community meeting in Americus; we have a community college here called Georgia Southwestern State University. I called together all of the leaders of this community and I said, “Let’s eliminate poverty housing in this town and in this county, because that’s what we advocate for the whole world, let’s just model it here locally.”

We created an organization called The Sumter County Initiative. We set a goal to end poverty housing by the year 2000. We got organized, we gridded the county. We knew what families lived in each little grid and we wrote all of that down and got a plan in place and systematically, grid by grid, we built every family a house that needed one in each grid, or in some cases renovated houses, or in other cases houses were too bad to be fixed up so they’d just be torn down.

On September 15th of the year 2000, I stood in front of the Thomas family house and we had a big sign out front that said, “Victory House.” I led 400 people singing an old southern gospel song, Victory in Jesus because that house symbolized our victory over substandard housing. We got rid of all of the slums, we got rid of all substandard housing, and we built 35 houses that week. In the last week, we put up the last 35 houses in five days.

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How did that impact the community?

MILLARD FULLER: It had a very, very positive impact, a huge impact. We saw crimes go down, children doing better in school, all of the indicators of what makes for a better community, improved. I might do a fast forward, Cynthia, and I think the people who are on this call would find this very interesting. In December of this past year, I went to the little town that I was raised up in, over in Alabama. It’s the little town of Lanett and Valley, Alabama, two small towns right on the Georgia border and in West Point, Georgia.

Those three towns, West Point, Georgia; Lanett and Valley, Alabama make up what is called the Chattahoochee Valley. Population wise, it’s about the same as here in Americus, Georgia. I was invited over there to meet with a group in December and I challenged them to do there what we did here. They accepted that challenge and they have now created the Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project. On March 16, we will kick off a 500 house build in my little hometown area.

Again, the article is at https://www.healthywealthynwise.com/article.asp?Article=5211.

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