All posts in category Alternative Futures

Challenging the culture of (white male) entitlement: Come on, Occupy, let’s do it!

I spent several hours today listening to a friend tell me, with much anger, sadness and frustration, the story of how her marriage of more than 20 years has crumbled.

Then I went up to see my son’s soccer game, and could not bring myself to say more than “hello” to my own ex-husband, who chose freedom and autonomy over his 25-year relationship with me, and the satisfaction of living in the same house as our children.

When I got home, I checked the Occupy Wall Street website and found a statement from the “sexual assault survivors team,” describing and condemning the recent attack on a female protester by a man who apparently already had a record of sexual assault.

I also got a blog post from a student in my gender studies class, about an organization called About Face, which strives to get viewers to question the fashion industry norm of presenting emaciated women as “beautiful.”

What connects these dots?

A culture in which men feel more interested in following their own selfish desires for personal fulfillment (aka, sexual fulfillment) than in upholding their roles as fathers and husbands.A society that makes it easy for them to choose this route: why struggle to please a demanding wife when you can have sex with someone else with no strings attached?

A society that tells women that the more pale, limp and weak-looking they appear, the more beautiful they are in the eyes of men.

A society where women have to be guarded, even at protests that supposedly entertain no gender disparity, because there could be sexual predators around any corner.

A society that makes it terribly difficult for women to find independent means to self-respect.

Too often, in previous revolutions, women have supported the movement but found that the men in charge were not willing to give women’s issues equal footing with class issues.

If the young men and women of the Occupy movements are serious about creating true social change, they must put the issue of entitlement squarely on the table.

Not just the entitlement of the 1%, but specifically male entitlement, and white entitlement.

We will not be able to bring a new social structure into being unless we hit these areas of privilege and entitlement head on.

And no, we are not substituting women’s empowerment for men’s.

We are after another world entirely, in which gender, class and race are not the arbiters of power.  In which power flows from the collective wisdom of the group, rather than top-down in hierarchical fashion.

The Occupy movements are on to this shift with the general assemblies and the consensual mode of decision-making.  Breaking with the gendered conditioning of Western society, which gives men all the power, all the time, is not going to be easy.  But if anyone could achieve it, it’s the young men and women of the Occupy movements.

I want to see these young people make this an explicit focus of their movements.  Because otherwise, on a certain level, it’s just business as usual, no matter if the masters of Goldman Sachs come out to lick your boots.

Change the disrespectful attitude of men towards women, and you REALLY change the world.

Let’s give it a try, and see what happens.  Things could not get much worse, and they could get a whole lot better if men and women worked together for the good of ALL.

8 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 5, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Community, New stories, Politics, Politics of Gender, privilege, Social change
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 5, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/11/05/challenging-the-culture-of-white-male-entitlement-come-on-occupy-lets-do-it/

Sweet stirrings of a new world: fringe politics overturning the barricades

The venerable social critic Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker contrasts the Tea Party with the Occupy movement in this week’s magazine, and finds the Occupy movement lacking in precisely what has made the Tea Party so strong: a willingness to get involved in (and take money from) the established American political parties.

“Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are both protest movements, not interest groups,” Hertzberg says, “and while both are wary, or claim to be, of established political figures and organizations, each welcomes their praise, if not their direction. Both have already earned places in the long, raucous history of American populism. But only one, so far, has earned a place in the history of American government.”

Are we supposed to be proud that the Tea Party has “earned” an infamous place as the launching pad for the new cadre of rightwing Republican zealots who have spent their time in Congress obstinately shooting down and stampeding every effort by President Obama and the Democrats to steer this nation towards a more compassionate and forward-looking political stance?

In its few years of existence, the Tea Party has happily wormed its way into the main arteries of American political power.  Hertzberg offers an apt metaphor of this tea as a new wonder drug, “injected into the scarred veins” of the GOP, which has quickly become addicted to this mainlined source of entranced, stupified frenzy.

“Now the Democrats are hoping the drug might be available as a generic,” Hertzberg continues, eying the Occupy movement as a way to enliven its own moribund political base.

I firmly hope that the Occupy movement does not allow itself to be used in this way by the political establishment, and I think it’s a reasonable, if remarkable, hope.

Remarkable because for so long Americans have been asleep, indifferent or unaware of what Hertzberg calls “the astounding growth of what can fairly be called plutocracy.”

Why it took so long for the sleeping giant of American popular opinion to wake up is a question for historians of the turn of the 21st century to ponder.

Why is it that Americans have been voting against their own class interests so long?  Why is the persistent myth of American equality, liberty and justice for all so teflon-coated?

We all want to believe that our country represents the moral high ground in the world, and that our leaders in government are as invested in upholding our idealism as we are.

Our public education system, which is responsible for the education of a great portion of the 99%, aids and abets this self-delusion by giving students the most doctrinaire and uncritical version of American history and civics, and teaching docility and proficiency at standardized testing above all.

Our media doesn’t help much; with the exception of a few poorly funded but stalwart independent outlets, the vast social landscape of contemporary media is focused at best on distraction, and very often on outright deception.

Under the pressures of this kind of social conditioning, it’s remarkable that the young idealists in the Occupy movement have had such success in galvanizing the country to wake up, shake ourselves, and stare around us with new eyes.

Hertzberg obviously intends his column as a signpost for the Occupy movement, pointing towards Washington D.C. as a more important battleground than Wall Street.  “Ultimately, inevitably, the route to real change has to run through politics,” he concludes; “the politics of America’s broken, god-awful, immutably two-party electoral system, the only one we have.”

Here is a glaring example of the kind of civics mis-education that has made our country so hard to reform over the years.

Who says our political system is limited to two parties?  Or at least, to the two parties we have now?

The Republicans and the Democrats have shown themselves to be chronically unable to lead this country out of the morass of special interests and ruthless corporate-driven capitalism that has bulldozed right over our cherished ideals of equality, not to mention the sacred ecological web that forms the real foundation of all our wealth and prosperity.

The Occupy movements are showing their intelligence in shying away from engagement with the established political system.  If anything, their political allies are more likely to be found in those perennial political organizations that have always camped out on the fringes of our electoral parks: the Green Parties or the Rainbow Coalitions.

Remember Ralph Nader, for example?  Remember how Big Media colluded with the established parties in denying so-called “outside” candidates a seat at the table at the televised Presidential debates?

This year the Ralph Naders of the political world have suddenly swelled their ranks dramatically, but without the figurehead of a single leader at the head of the crowd.  As Nader knows only too well, one man at the head of a true opposition movement is open to all the slings and arrows that the establishment can muster.  Even Gore and Kerry have felt the force of the muddy vomit pitched their way out of the far-right Republican swampland.

Far better for the Occupy movements to stay plural and collective, strong in the anonymity of the multitudes.  Those of us who are serious about doing more than simply rearranging the deck chairs on the great hulking Titanic of American politics realize that “America’s broken, god-awful, immutably two-party electoral system” is exactly what has to go.

OK, Hendrik, it may be the only one we HAVE HAD, but now the veil has been torn down, the people are awake, and we realize that another world is possible.  As Arundhati Roy famously put it, “on a clear day, I can hear her breathing.”

That clear day has dawned.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 4, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Community, Economy, Education, Empathy, Environment, Human Rights, Media analysis, New stories, Politics, privilege, Social change
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 4, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/11/04/sweet-stirrings-of-a-new-world-fringe-politics-overturning-the-barricades/

Fighting for Change with Hearts Wide Open

The environmental philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore looks out at the Occupied social landscape and sees “The Big One”–a movement that will bring all the disparate struggles of our society together on common ground, and effect deep, lasting, structural changes.

“The lines that connect climate change to jobs to the environment to education to health to justice are strong and undeniable,” she says. “The time has passed for an environmental movement. The time has passed for a climate change movement. The time has passed for isolated grassroots movements. We stand on ground that trembles with tectonic movement. Along the straining fault lines of our civilization, we feel the forces building for justice, sanity, and lasting ecological and cultural thriving.”

She’s certainly right that isolated movements are not going to change the world. That’s what’s been so great about the Occupy movements–they’ve been widespread and inclusive,a big big tent spread out over a lot of ground, coast to coast.

As Moore says, the moral ground of the Occupy movements is quite simple and clear: “it’s wrong to wreck the world.”

That’s something I knew instinctively as a child, as most children do.  Part of the great tragedy of our society has been the way we slowly deaden and numb the compassionate, empathic instinct of our children, teaching them to ignore pain and injustice, to just keep walking and mind their own business.

I know that’s what I was taught as a privileged young American growing up in a deeply unequal, unjust and exploitative society.  I know now that it was wrong.

And thanks to Occupy Wall Street and the other Occupy movements, I am beginning to know what to do about it.

We need to stop going about our business as usual, and relearn how to see and feel suffering and inequity.

We need to think outside the box of our normalized capitalist assumptions, making well-being rather than profit the goal of human effort.

We need to make protecting our planetary home our highest priority, because without a healthy environment, we will never build a healthy society, and things are so far gone that bringing back ecological balance will take everything we’ve got.

One of the reasons that revolutions are almost always carried out by the young is because they are closer to the instinctual compassion of their childhoods.

If only the stuffed shirts in Congress and in corporate office buildings all over America could remember what it was like to live with their hearts wide open, we might start to see the great boulder of social change really start to pick up steam.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 3, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Community, Education, Empathy, Environment, Health, New stories, Parenting, Politics, privilege, Social change
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 3, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/11/03/fighting-for-change-with-hearts-wide-open/

Hope, Struggle, Dream, Persist: A Mantra for Dark Times

It is the day after Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and the day before my birthday.  It is one of the darkest days of the year, and a week from now, when American standard time “falls back,” it will seem darker still.

I was born in 1962, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War began to pick up steam.  Each decade of my life has been marked by war and conflict, by a struggle between the forces of ruthless global capital, and the push-back from those who valued peace and a more equitable sharing of resources.

In my nearly half a century of life, I have witnessed a sharp decline in the ecological health of this planet.  Great flocks of many different types of birds have dwindled to a few sad outliers.  Clouds of multi-colored butterflies and swarms of busily working bees have vanished.  Delicate native wildflowers in the woods have been overrun by voracious invasive weeds, and the woods themselves have been overrun by a stampede of cookie-cutter tract housing in suburb after ugly suburb.

In my time, cancer has become a terrible epidemic, followed closely by diabetes and heart disease.  We humans have been sickened, just like the wild creatures, by the heedless spread of chemical treatments, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers, preservatives, additives and so many other toxins in our diet, soil, air and water.

What is there to celebrate on this birthday, the last in my fifth decade?

I look to my ancestors for hope and guidance, as is traditional on the Day of the Dead.

I see my Grandma Fannie, who believed in the power of the word, and practiced it by writing poems and stories that kept the wisdom of her Yiddish forebears alive.

I see my Grandma Mildred, who raised three kids, hosted and entertained her extended family frequently, and worked fulltime for a salary as well, year after year.  In her retirement she began the work she loved most of all, volunteering in her local public elementary school helping kids learn to read.

I see the ancestors I claim as kindred spirits, even though we do not share a blood relation: Gloria Anzaldua, who stands there arms akimbo telling me to “put my shit on paper,” no matter what the obstacles; and Audre Lorde, who reminds me constantly that “none of us is free as long as one of us is still shackled.”

As the Scorpio moon wheels overhead and I make my way to bed on my birthday eve, I can celebrate my own place as a link in this chain of strong women who spent their time on Earth trying to make it a better place for those who come after.

This has been a tough half-century, a period of decline and crisis in many ways.  It is a dark time.  But still the lights continue to shine defiantly: young people gather to Occupy the common ground and revive the dream of social equality; a Monarch butterfly sips a last meal at my butterfly bush before spiraling up to find the trade winds down to Mexico; the sun rises once again.

On this Day of the Dead, life goes on.  And while life goes on, we must hope and struggle for our children and their children, and the young creatures all over this planet that are being born today.  For their sakes, we must continue to work for a better future, and insist on our right to dream, and to make our dreams manifest.

This is my birthday mantra: hope, struggle, dream, persist, hope, struggle, dream, persist, endure.  And again.

2 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Environment, Health, New stories, Resilience, Social change, Spiritual growth
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 1, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/11/01/hope-struggle-dream-persist-a-mantra-for-dark-times/

Never underestimate the value of JUST SHOWING UP

In response to “Beyond Occupy” in today’s NY Times:

Dear Bill Keller,

I was surprised and pleased to see that on your recent trip to India, you made time to talk with the social activist Anna Hazare–or at least, with a member of his team, since the great man himself, “exhausted by his latest hunger strike and weary of the media melodramas that have bedeviled his team,” had just “announced that he had taken an indefinite ‘vow of silence.’”

Obviously you didn’t think much of this as a tactic for activism, but you went ahead and talked to his associate, a woman, “Kiran Bedi, who battled for reforms as India’s first policewoman before joining Hazare.”

Despite this conversation, and despite the name of Hazare’s organization, Team Anna, you came away from this encounter with the impression that the movement is dependent on the personal charismatic leadership of Mr. Hazare.  You also noted approvingly that Hazare is “always very explicit about his objectives”–he makes specific, winnable demands.

You used this information to criticize the American Occupy movement for its “consensus-oriented and resolutely leaderless” character, and its stance as a “composite of idealistic causes, many of them vague.”

You also took the occasion to contrast the Occupy Wall Street movement, which you say is “scornful of both parties and generally disdainful of electoral politics,” with Team Anna, which “uses Indian democracy shrewdly” to advance its aims.  And while you say that the Occupy movement “has at least a strong undercurrent of anticapitalism,” the Indian movement of Hazare is, according to spokeswoman Bedi, “not anticapitalist,” but rather “pro-integrity.”

You ended your column by sticking it to the Occupy Wall Street crowd with a pithy zinger that I’m sure had you chuckling to yourself:

“I’m prepared to celebrate when the Occupiers…accomplish something more than organizing their own campsite cleanup, demonstrating their tolerance for tear gas, and distracting the conversation a little from the Tea Party. So far, the main achievement of Occupy Wall Street is showing up.”

Well, Mr. Former Executive Editor of the New York Times, I think you need to get over yourself and wipe that self-congratulatory smirk from your face.

You are among the 1% who “showed up” to be crucial cogs in the capitalist and electoral wheel that cranked us inexorably to where we are now, mired in an economic and political system so corrupt and so destructive that it has effectively locked out the millions of young people in this country who might have wanted to give American-style democracy and capitalism a chance.

Despite having covered the news for the past thirty years or so, you don’t seem to have realized that there are very few American dissenters today who can evade capture and imprisonment or even worse, assassination.  Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn got away with it.  Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Mumia, Peltier and even Tim DeChristopher have not.

The strength of the Occupy movement is precisely in its “resolutely leaderless” quality.  It’s also, as Slavoj Zizek perceptively noted recently, being strategic in not coming up with a unified “platform,” with planks that can be shot down by snipers from all sides.

Yes, the Occupy movement is suspicious of electoral politics.  That’s because it’s smart enough to figure out that if even someone as apparently idealistic and populist as Barack Obama enters the maw of American “democracy” and comes out zombified, the system itself is not worth trying to win. It has to be changed from the ground up.

And that’s what those resolute, leaderless people on the ground at Liberty Parks all over the country are out to do.  By just showing up, day after day, they slowly pull the Bill Kellers of the world out of their insulated comfort zones and into the conversation.

I may not like what Keller has to say, but I’m glad he’s talking about these issues, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to engage him in dialogue about what’s wrong with our society, and how we might go about making it better.

Never underestimate the power of a company of dedicated activists who JUST SHOW UP, day after day, to change the world. They just might be able to do it.

Let’s give them credit, let’s give them a chance, and let’s give them a hand!

3 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 31, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Community, Economy, Media analysis, Politics, Social change
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 31, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/10/31/never-underestimate-the-value-of-just-showing-up/

Scary Halloween Statistic: 7 Billion People on the Earth by Oct 31, 2011

If you’ve never seen the Worldomters clock ticking, it’s worth a click.

Watching those numbers spin by brings home how very fast the human species is multiplying, especially when you consider the following chart, which shows how recent this population explosion really is.

No wonder we’ve got a sustainability problem!

Population control has gotten a bad name in recent years, and justifiably so.  It cannot and should not be imposed upon women by force, as it has too often in the past.

But study after study has shown that when women are educated and respected in society, birth rates go down.

Want to slow down that worldometer population clock?  Start by educating girls and opening up career opportunities for them after graduation.

Educate a girl and save the planet?  Might not be hyperbole after all.

1 Comment
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Alternative Futures, Community, Education, Energy Sustainability, Environment, Health, Human Rights, New stories, Parenting, Politics, Politics of Gender, Social change
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 30, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/10/30/scary-halloween-statistic-7-billion-people-on-the-earth-by-oct-31-2011/

Climate Change Blues: The one thing the 100% of us have in common is that we can’t afford to ignore the weather!

President Obama, venturing outside during last night’s storm, called the weather “less than ideal” for trick-or-treating.

What an understatetment.

Here’s what it looks like at my house in western Massachusetts this morning:

All those trees in the background are tall maples, bent over with the weight of snow on their leaves.  So far no big limbs have snapped, but that could change any moment, and many of them are hanging over an outbuilding and my car….

So the question we should all be asking this morning is whether this freak October snowstorm is just an aberration, or if it’s part of a developing and accelerating pattern of climate change.

Yes, there have been October snowstorms before.  But has there been a three-month period before with record high temperatures (August), record rainfall (September), a hurricane hit to the entire East Coast (Irene) AND a record-breaking snowstorm?

Not being a meterologist, I can’t answer this question, but I’d sure like to know.

One thing I do know is that if we don’t start reducing carbon emissions, weather events like this are going to become more frequent and more severe.  This is not “Day After Tomorrow” hysteria, this is scientific truth.

So again, the question becomes, what can we DO?

Well, next weekend in Washington DC there will be an action at the White House; the plan is to assemble enough people to make a linked-arms ring around the White House, in the hopes of persuading President Obama to stand with the people on the anti-tar sands extraction, anti-Keystone pipeline issue, rather than with the energy corporations.

You can hear actor Mark Ruffalo explain it here:

My hope is that weather events like last night’s “freak” snowstorm will raise people’s awareness about the reality of climate change, and how it will affect all of us–our food supply, our physical security, our ability not just to carry on as usual, but to carry on at all.

All of us–the rich, the poor, the inbetween–the 100% of us, and not just in the US but in the world, are already feeling the effects of manmade climate change.  We’ll be feeling it increase exponentially in the coming months and years.

So all of us need to step off the path of least resistance and start demanding government support for a huge Apollo Project-style transition to sustainable energy and a serious commitment to energy conservation.

If you can’t get to Washington DC next Sunday for the demonstration at the White House, you can be part of the virtual ring that will surround the people on the ground there, and build support wherever you are for the movement for responsible and caring stewardship of our Earth.

We cannot afford to ignore these issues any longer.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Climate Change, Community, Energy Sustainability, Environment, Global warming, Politics, Resilience, Social change, Uncategorized
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 30, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/10/30/climate-change-blues-the-one-thing-the-100-of-us-have-in-common-is-that-we-cant-afford-to-ignore-the-weather/

A Realist Assessment of Where We Are Now

Human beings are like crows.  We are attracted to glitter.  We make a lot of noise.  We are social and travel in flocks. We are not terribly sensitive.

It has taken us a long, long time to realize how our presence here on Earth has been harming the planet.  You would think, with our tremendous intelligence, that we would have realized it sooner.  But we are masters at denial.  200 species a day go extinct because of human activity, and we just shrug and go about our business, focusing on the glitter at hand.  Perhaps it’s the animal in us, that refuses to recognize peril as long as, in a material way, we ourselves are OK.

Well, that long period of denial is coming to an end.  Or at least, it’s coming to a head.  We can no longer deny that it makes no difference to us if the ocean acidifies to the point where it can no longer support life.  Or the deforestation of the planet begins to interfere with oxygen production and the sequestration of CO2.  Or that the fresh waters that sustain us are increasingly toxic.

Yes, this affects every one of us. At some point, not very far in the future, it could be the case that our local supermarket will no longer be able to supply our nutritional needs, because the agri-socio-economic system that supplies the supermarket will be totally disrupted by climate change.

No, I am not being alarmist.  I am being realist.

We need to focus on this with all the amazing intelligence of our species.  We have brought the Earth to the brink of catastrophe, and alone among all the species on the planet we have the power to turn things around.

Will we seize this opportunity?  Will the current upswelling of activism associated with the Occupy movement get that the issues go far beyond the little hopes, dreams and disappointments of the middle class individual?

I refuse to give up hope.  I refuse to give up hope.  I refuse to give up hope.

Stand with me.  Let’s turn things around, before it’s too late.

2 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Community, Environment, Health, Human Rights, Politics
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 29, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/10/29/a-realist-assessment-of-where-we-are-now/

Calling all Occupiers: Join the Deep Green Resistance of the Earth, before it’s too late

Occupy the Machine – Stop the 1%, Literally | Deep Green Resistance.

I had a feeling that the Deep Green Resistance movement would have something interesting to say about the Occupy movement, and I wasn’t disappointed.

As might be expected from a radical environmental group, they are envisioning a massive escalation of the movement, swelling the numbers and multiplying the targets so as to overwhelm the police who will be called in to maintain order.

DGR is imagining an occupation at the sites of worst destruction of the environment, like the boreal forest of Alberta, known to the energy mafia as the tar sands; the coal-burning power plants; the pipelines and the shipping routes.

I might add factory farms to the list, like the beef and hog farms out West that generate the toxic runoff that is poisoning the ocean for miles around the outlet of the Mississippi River.

Naming targets is one thing, but what’s really important is being clear on what the occupations are for. I don’t think the Occupy movement is especially focused on the environment.  It seems to be focused on social inequality–excessive wealth that has destabilized our economy, and the lack of jobs for the middle class.

These are all worthy issues.  But as I’ve said before, it won’t matter a rat’s ass if you have a job–or if you’re dripping in gold or starving and naked–if the climate changes decisively due to global warming.

To turn global warming around will require a movement like the Occupy movement, filled with idealistic, dedicated, thoughtful people who are willing to give it their all.  This struggle has to be linked with a critical rethinking of the industrial capitalist economic model of ruthless extraction and production in the name of profit.

That is the model that has driven our planet to the brink of systemic correction.

Not collapse.  The planet will be fine, she will regenerate.  She has time.  But to do it she will need to effect a serious correction of a species gone haywire, the human species, which in a very short time has altered the planetary environment to such an extent that millions of other species have gone extinct, and supplies of the basic life support systems like oxygen and water are threatened.

The Earth has survived such challenges before, and she will survive this time again.  But human beings, and most of the countless other beautiful life forms that share the planet with us at this time, will be doomed if industrial civilization is not rebooted and recreated as an ecologically sustainable system.

That is where the pressure of the Occupy movement needs to be applied.

Will the Occupiers step up to such an enormous challenge, much bigger than the one they initially envisioned?  Hard to say.  But at the moment they seem to be the best hope of deep change of our society and our terribly destructive economic system.

It’s in the Liberty Parks all across the world that the conversations are beginning that might have the potential to lead to real change.

All the money in the world is not going to buy safety or plenty once the Earth herself begins her own form of Deep Green Resistance.

2 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Climate Change, Community, Eco-terrorism, Economy, Environment, Global warming, Politics, Resilience, Social change
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 29, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/10/29/calling-all-occupiers-join-the-deep-green-resistance-of-the-earth-before-its-too-late/

Is there an “American Spring” around the corner?

You have to admit my blog is aptly named.  Each day brings new evidence that we are living through a speeded-up period of rapid change.

Was it only a few short months ago that we were stuck in the August doldrums of Congressional gridlock, in which the Republicans seemed to have a total stranglehold on the nation’s very lifeblood, our Treasury?

Was it only a few short weeks ago that the first Occupy Wall Street protesters arrived on the scene, the vanguard of what has now become an international political movement that just might have the power to challenge the two-party American oligarchy?

The deep distrust and disappointment Americans feel in our government is represented in a new NY Times/CBS News poll published tonight.

Get this: only 9% of those polled approve of the way Congress is doing its job.

Only 10% say they trust the American government to do what’s right for its people.

 These are dreadful numbers, especially when compared with the 46% of those polled who said they believe the views of the Occupy Wall Street protesters reflect the views of most Americans.

The urgent question becomes, will this dissatisfaction with our government and strong identification with the protest movement lead to actual sociopolitical change?

In one of my classes we are reading Allan G. Johnson’s book Privilege, Power & Difference, which seeks to understand why those with social privilege so rarely lend their support to any movement that might upset the status quo, even when they profess to be sympathetic with the goals of social equality.

Johnson says that all of us, but especially the privileged, tend to follow the path of least resistance.  Our society is set up in such a way that the paths of least resistance all favor the privileged, making it very hard for anyone to rock the boat.

But, he says, if we are aware of the ills of social inequality and do nothing about it, we will become “like the person who loses the ability to feel pain and risks bleeding to death from a thousand tiny cuts that go unnoticed, untreated and unhealed” (124).

I think that many of us privileged folks have indeed become numb to the harsh realities of our social system, which we have come to accept as natural, like the weather or the usual background noise of civilization.

That this callousness is wounding in ways we are hardly aware of is less obvious, but it comes out in the deep malaise of privileged American society: our tendency to depression, self-destructive behaviors, and underlying rage.

We are living through a moment in time when it is just possible that the privileged will wake up and decide that enough is enough.  That is the hope and the lure of the 99% movement.

There are a lot of privileged people in that 99%: educated, wealthy people, who have a lot to gain, in material terms, by not rocking the boat–but who, it seems, are doing some real soul-searching right now about taking the right path, instead of the path of least resistance.

Think about it: only 10% of Americans think Congress is doing a good job.  If that isn’t a mandate for change, I don’t know what would be.

Everything is speeded up these days.  Even last night’s solar storm, which caused spectacular aurora borealis displays all over North America, apparently hit Earth eight hours faster than predicted, and spread out much further over the U.S. than usual–visible all the way down in the Deep South.

Could it be that we will have our own “American Spring” in 2012?

WHY NOT???

2 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 25, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Economy, Empathy, Human Rights, New stories, Politics, privilege, Social change
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on October 25, 2011

https://bethechange2012.com/2011/10/25/is-there-an-american-spring-around-the-corner/

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