All posts in category social justice

American Carnage

January 7, 2021

I feel today like I did on November 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump stole the US presidential election. 

Dumbfounded that such a criminal act could be allowed to proceed in the USA. 

Shocked and disgusted by the coarse hatred and stupidity on display in the crowds that supported him—the ones who chanted “Lock’er up” about Hillary Clinton, and put journalists in cages in the center of packed arenas, to be jeered at as though they were in some kind of stocks. 

Those same folks turned out in droves for Donald’s last stand in DC yesterday. And they must have had accomplices among the Capitol Police and other law enforcement units, who spectacularly not only failed to prevent the mob from overrunning the Capitol, but were caught on camera practically bowing as they let the criminals in. 

It was chilling to hear one of those self-styled “American patriots” speaking to an NPR reporter on the grounds of the Capitol building, declaring that lawmakers opposed to Donald Trump ought to be strung up and hung on gallows then and there. He went on to sketch out his vision of gallows in groups of four, ready to break the necks of anyone opposed to Trump.

American carnage, indeed. 

Shock and alarm beamed around the world, as people in other countries saw the unthinkable violence taking place in the heart of America, the so-called “leader of the free world.”

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by “freedom,” doesn’t it. 

For Trump and his brainwashed followers, it means the freedom to bear arms anywhere and everywhere, including schools, malls and halls of government. 

It means the freedom to insist that up is down, that wrong is right, that losing is winning, and that anyone who disagrees with you should be hung. 

The blind compliance of the Trump/Fox/Newsmax/QAnon followers is terrifying. 

We’ve seen it before, in the legions who followed Hitler and sent their neighbors to the gas chambers.

We saw it in the Cultural Revolution in China, where brainwashed followers committed violence and murder, often against their own family members, in the name of their fearless leader Mao. 

We saw it with the Hutus in Rwanda, who murdered their neighbors the Tutsis by the millions when the call came over the radio to do so. 

This is human nature, it seems. A savage mob mentality, lurking beneath the veneer of civilization, can be easily manipulated, at viral speed, by the dark lords of social media.

It is the job of those of us who have the capacity to discern truth from lies to continue to hold that line. No, the 2020 election was not stolen. Yes, Joe Biden legitimately won. 

But how can we heal a society so broken, a social fabric so frayed?

The US is on the brink of chaos. 

We saw it in microcosm yesterday. Imagine if whoever is masterminding this (and I don’t believe it’s Trump, he’s not intelligent enough. Steve Bannon, perhaps?) was able to bring the Trump mob out in multiple cities across the nation simultaneously. Imagine if sympathizers in the police forces, and perhaps even the military, stood by as violence erupted. Spin out that scenario and you see the clear outlines of a civil war that could only be quelled by serious military intervention of the kind that we are used to seeing in other countries. Think Baghdad, 2004. 

There are many today who are calling for Trump to be ousted from the White House immediately, using the 25thAmendment. My fear is that the toady Pence would then turn around and issue him a blanket pardon, which would prevent his future prosecution. Because make no mistake, Trump will be a menace until he is safely behind bars, without access to the Internet. Even then, he’ll become a folk hero, a rallying cry for his mob forevermore. 

It’s hard to know the best course of action for sane heads in America to take today. 

For those of us on the sidelines, watching and listening as the actors strut and fret their time upon the stage, these terrifying, sickening times must just be endured. I wish I could pull a Rip Van Winkle and go to sleep until it’s all over. 

But no. We are here for a reason. To hold firm to our belief in truth—yes, real, actual truth; to insist on justice for all—not just white supremacist fascists; to proclaim that might is not and never will be right. 

If there are angels watching over this sad, sick planet, I pray that they will strengthen the better nature in each one of us.

We surely need all the help we can get today.

4 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on January 7, 2021  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Politics, Social change, social justice, Terrorism
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on January 7, 2021

https://bethechange2012.com/2021/01/07/american-carnage/

Don’t let their blood red tarnish your vision

In the wake of the 2020 US election, I’m sitting with the sinking feeling, lodged like a stone in my gut, that there is not going to be any easy exit from the social quagmire that now exists in the United States. The ideological lines between red and blue have deepened into chasms between people who apparently disagree about pretty much everything. 

The red side is ready and willing to take up guns to settle such disagreements. In 2020 America, violence is always only a hair’s breath away, with millions of guns in civilian circulation, combined with militarized police forces everywhere. 

On the red side are autocrats who liked the original Constitution just fine—the one that gave rights only to landowning white men. It’s been especially disturbing to see how many white women support their own oppression, voting for the Handmaid’s Tale-esque party of “grab’em by the pussy.” 

I’ve seen some social media posts blaming the robust red turn-out on a poor public education system. It’s true that the red autocrats have been battling for years for ideological control of the common curriculum, with considerable success. I’m always struck by the starkly different narratives offered by American students from various parts of the country, when I ask them what they were taught about key topics like Native American history, the Civil War, slavery and women’s rights. 

But the most potent ideological education seems to be happening via the media these days. The red/blue divide is also a Fox/NPR divide. The Fox side lies with impunity and calls anyone who disagrees with their point of view a liar. How can you argue logically with people like that? 

Both sides speak to their own choirs, in a cacophony that boils over in every election cycle, when we are forced to hold our noses and listen briefly to each other. 

I have found myself pondering how a red/blue secession might work, logistically: is a bicoastal country possible? Or would the Pacific Coast and New England/Atlantic Coast each form their own federations? 

The fact that I am thinking about this is profoundly disturbing.

But given the Democrats’ failure to secure a majority in the Senate or mobilize a presidential landslide, in a year where at least apparently this was not because of “Russian interference” or any nasty “October surprise”—in a year when the red leadership seemed to be bending over backward to show its heinous true colors—blood red, we might call it—well, there is just no way to sweet-talk myself into believing that sane heads will prevail in American government going forward, even if, as I hope, Biden takes the White House.

The meanness and gridlock will continue, with the most vulnerable people being continually sacrificed on the altar of greed and xenophobia. Racism and sexism will continue to worsen, with a Fox-driven hysteria around “socialism” and “elitism” that whips poor white people up to do the bidding of the masters. 

As a woman of Jewish heritage, I am aware of my family’s privilege, these past few decades, of “passing for white” in the racist USA. But any Jew in this country has to be triggered by the Nazi rhetoric and symbolism coming out of the White House lately. What are Jews like Mnuchin, Miller, Kushner and Adelson but the kapos greasing the wheels of bigotry, hoping to profit off the downfall of others? Attorney Cohen saw how well that went. 

And yet—and yet, all the sages of the world tell us to respond to such evil with love, not fear. Meet hatred with forgiveness. Melt oppression by turning the other cheek. 

I don’t like the feeling of my heart hardening. I know it’s the work of fear, throwing up walls, finding enemies, closing down compassion. 

I have compassion for the millions of people who have been duped by the Fox oligarchy into voting against their own interests.; those who have been persuaded to harden their own hearts, not only against their perceived enemies, but also to the vulnerable within their own ranks. 

I do not have compassion or love for the ones who are doing the manipulating, in such a cynical, open way. They may be thinking that it worked for Hitler, but we know how many paid the price. 

Is the US heading for a civil war? Is there anyone on the horizon with the uniting vision of Lincoln who can pull us back from the brink and remind us what “these United States” are supposed to stand for?

I know it’s a mistake to rely on charismatic leaders. We should be looking within ourselves for that leadership, those answers. 

Vision is all. Vibration is powerful. We cannot allow their dark visions to prevail. 

Perhaps this is what is meant by “coming from love, not fear”:

Continuing to hold a bright vision of “equality and justice for all”; to animate that vision with personal integrity, making it so at least within our own limited spheres; trusting that the positive vibrations we put out into the world can and will make a difference, growing into a mighty chorus affirming the human potential for kindness, respect, beauty and right relations among all beings on this Earth. 

Join me in this, the least we can each do: don’t let the blood red of their vision tarnish yours. Keep your vibration high. 

Photo by J. Browdy, October 2020.
1 Comment
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 5, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in Alternative Futures, Community, Leadership, love, Politics, Politics of Gender, privilege, Resilience, social justice, women's leadership
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 5, 2020

https://bethechange2012.com/2020/11/05/dont-let-their-blood-red-tarnish-your-vision/

In memory of RBG, we must stand up for justice

Moments after the NPR notification appeared on my phone—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died—my social media feeds also lit up with shock and distress. Dear Ruth, so beloved by so many! She tried so hard to stay alive until after the election, and she came close…dying on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. 

As is often the case with Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah has a serious tone to it. The day RBG died is the first of 10 days of introspection, culminating in Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for one’s mistakes over the past year, along with a vow to do better in the coming year. 

Although I am not a practicing Jew, this ritual of taking stock of one’s transgressions at the start of the New Year seems like a wise one to me. I think many Americans are asking ourselves these days: how did it come to this? How did we let it come to this?

Well, my fellow Americans, it came to this because we were not paying close enough attention. We were not willing to rock the boat. We were not willing to give up our comforts. 

Justice Ginsburg was a shining example of a woman who paid attention. She repeatedly rocked the boat to stand up for her principles, and was beyond stoic in her willingness to sacrifice her personal comfort in order to serve her country. 

Imagine, at 87, after several battles with cancer, still working out at the gym to stay fit enough to keep going to work every day at an exhausting, demanding job. 

Gail Collins, in an admiring eulogy column, offered this summary of RBG’s trail-blazing legacy and her legendary grit:

“She came up as part of that first generation of women who proved they could mix families and careers, who stunned the authority figures in even the most demanding parts of their profession with their determination. While she was in law school at Harvard, her husband came down with testicular cancer. She went to his classes, brought him back notes, took care of their little girl … and made the law review.”

So many hard-working professional women today stand on the shoulders of women like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Thanks to her, the doors to power have been cracked open a little wider, allowing more women to step through more easily. 

But we still have a long way to go, and without RBG at the Supreme Court, or someone like her, America will continue its backslide towards what I can only call patriarchal fascism. 

Thanks to the social and economic devastation of the coronavirus, the wildfires and the hurricanes, coupled with the open train wreck of Republican “leadership” and the twin threats of militarized police forces and death-dealing vigilantism, Americans are finally paying attention. 

The Black Lives Matter movement showed that when people get angry enough to take to the streets en masse, change happens. 

No political tyrants have ever been able to withstand the will of the people when they refuse to go along with oppression. 

Americans above all should know this, coming from a country that proudly celebrates its birth in revolution. 

But revolution, or civil war, is always a tool of last resort. America has prospered as a law-abiding country, with good people like Justice Ginsburg working to bend the moral arc towards justice through the legal system. 

However, if the Republicans have their way, it is quite possible that RBG’s seat on the Supreme Court will be filled by someone who wants to bend the law towards oppression.

Americans have to pay attention, and refuse to let this happen. 

I still can’t understand how we all stood by and let Bush Jr. steal the election from Gore in 2000. 

How have we stood by while the Republicans gerrymandered the districts to give themselves the advantage in the state legislatures?

For that matter, how have we allowed the injustice of the Electoral College to stand for so long?

How have we stood by and allowed police brutality against people of color to continue with impunity?

How have we stood by and allowed women to be hobbled by the expectation that they will do unpaid housework and child care while also working jobs for which they are paid less than their male counterparts?

How have we stood by and allowed the corporate chieftains to throw the planet into the maw of industry, with the resulting extinction of millions of species?

How have we stood by and allowed America to thumb its nose at the rest of the world’s efforts to get a grip on climate disruption?

This long list could be much longer. The point is that in my lifetime, Americans have just stood by as our supposed shining city on the hill became ever more tarnished and corrupted. And now, in our networked, globalized human civilization, we are dragging the rest of the world down with us into the pits. 

Each of us bears some responsibility for the way things are now. And each of us has the power to act to make things better.

Of course, we all have to go vote. That goes without saying. 

But like so many Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, I find it hard to trust that we will have a just electoral process this year. 

And if the vote is stolen, if the election is rigged…then what? Are we going to stand by, like we did in 2000, and let the Supreme Court decide? Of course, that is why the Senate Republicans are suddenly slavering to appoint a Justice now, before the election.

How hard will they have to push Americans before a critical mass decides it’s time to stop standing by and letting the Republicans get away with the murder and mayhem they have inflicted on the country?

No one wants to see civil war erupt in the United States, and yet the conditions are ripe for it: a bitterly polarized citizenry, vast wealth disparity, and the powder keg potential of armed vigilantes and militarized police. 

The passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg brings us closer to this nightmare vision. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one tossing and turning last night, unable to sleep. 

I have no words of comfort to offer. 

We are in a transition time and the contractions have started. The pain will be real, the suffering immense. We can only hope that our collective labor will bring a better world into being. 

This morning, I am grateful for the shining example of RBG, who never, ever, gave up. 

7 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on September 19, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Leadership, New stories, Politics, Social change, social justice, women's leadership, WorldWrights
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on September 19, 2020

https://bethechange2012.com/2020/09/19/in-memory-of-rbg-we-must-stand-up-for-justice/

21 Questions for 2020: #20

#20. How will we find the inner fortitude to make it through this time?

I am writing today with a heavy heart, as I look out into a social landscape that seems to be ever-darkening. “I can’t breathe” has come to be the anguished whisper of our time, whether it comes from yet another Black man being criminally choked to death by supposed “law enforcement officers,” or from one of the hundreds of thousands of people who have fatally succumbed to COVID-19. 

Watching the contagion of violence spreading across the U.S. while the immoral  “commander in chief” twiddles his thumbs, seeming to maliciously relish the ensuing chaos, it’s impossible to see where this will end. The November election is still far away, with a lot of turbulence before us. 

How will we find the inner fortitude to make it through this time?

Each of us will find their own answers to this question, day by day. Here is what I am coming up with today.

Despair serves no one.

If we respond to the darkness of our time with a darkening of our souls, then the world will quickly become a very dark place indeed. Light has many gradations. I am not talking about “sunny optimism” that refuses to process reality. Nor am I talking about the pyromaniacs who take pleasure in setting the world on fire. 

I am thinking of the inner light that beams steadily within every living being on the planet, an inner flame that that connects us to the world soul, the anima mundi. This soul light is fueled by the same life-giving energy that turns our whole planet green in the spring, that for untold millennia has welcomed new life with joy and abundance. We humans are part and parcel of that cosmic dance, and we serve no one by letting our inner light gutter and dim. 

On the contrary, as revolutionary leaders throughout human history have shown, we take the first step towards a better world by standing firmly in the light of our own ideals and sharing our positive visions with others. 

Take our cues from Nature, and the Gaians around us. 

We are drawn to Nature in times of trouble because she models for us, without fail, the potential of positive energy manifested into form. In doing so, she gives us a glimpse of the full glory of a world suffused with the sacred: that sense of rightness that we call divine. 

All around us, in the natural world, we see enacted the principle of equality. The sun shines down equally on every particle of this world. The raindrops fall equally on both sides of every artificial border humans try to impose. 

We see Gaia providing, free of charge and with no strings attached, the conditions of flourishing life for every last member of her glorious Being. We see the tenderness of new life being nourished by the graceful death of the previous generation, a spiraling of life and death without end. 

Looking around us in the natural world, we see our relatives, our sister and brother Gaians of every shape and size, pursuing their life purpose with a fierce joy that knows no bounds. Despair is a uniquely human condition, which we sometimes force on animals we cage—but in Nature, all beings go at their lives with a fearless intensity that makes each new day an unfurling blessing. Death may come any moment, but a being who is tuned into Mother Gaia knows she is held in a secure, loving embrace at all times and does not live in fear. 

Embrace the light—and the darkness. 

The essence of Gaia is not only material, it is spiritual. Gaia is positive energy made manifest by the collective activity of each and every particle of her being. Spirit is the light that shines in and through each of us, and it is our task, each day, to tend our inner flame so that we shine out brightly into the world. This is all the more true when it seems like darkness is threatening. 

Just as there are different gradations of light, all animated by the great Light that gives this planet life, there are different gradations of darkness. The sweet darkness of the womb time, the dreaming darkness of a still, starry night, are not the same as the miasmic darkness of a world set upon by the demons of greed and cruelty. 

Knowing this, we must be discerning, rejecting the manmade darkness that we often call “evil,” while welcoming the blessed darkness of night-time, which we need, just as we need sleep, to nourish the creative power of the Light. 

Living as we do in a time of artificial light and manipulated darkness, we find ourselves under the thrall of artificers who have made us dependent on their spells. We must take care to use our magical technologies to enhance life, not to detract from it. This is not always easy: for example, we can see clearly these days how the connective fibers of social media can be used for good or for ill. 

That is where choice comes in. When we are fully connected to the positive life-giving energy of the anima mundi, we know instinctively, by our inner emotional gauge, when our actions contribute to the Light. 

Yes, there are sadists among us who take delight in others’ suffering. But those are the outliers. I believe that the vast majority of humans come into this world as light-bearers, ready to love and be loved. 

If only we could make society into a welcoming, nourishing garden in which every new soul could grow to its full potential….what a beautiful world it would be. 

Approach adversity with steadfast love and light. 

It’s always been true that we make history with each of our daily choices, but in times of great pressure and sorrow, like now, how we live each day becomes especially momentous. We each have a role to play in creating this great collective tapestry we call Life.

If adversity is the mother of invention, then we are surely in for some adventurous new twists and turns in human history, which afford us unprecedented opportunities for innovation. The specifics are up to each one of us, but the basic task is clear: Whatever you do, do it with love. 

Let your light shine out like a loving beacon on a darkening shore. As each of us kindles our inner light, our connection with each other and with the Gaian world grows stronger, our little lives becoming a prayer rising in a chorus of celebration of the fierce, fearless, unquenchable soul force of Life. 

Let every breath be a prayer. 

Even as we grieve for the unjust deaths of those whose lives have been harshly cut off too soon, life continues to surge through each one of us. 

With each breath, we have the opportunity to offer gratitude for the Gaian world that sustains us. 

And more: with each respiration we can offer inspiration, following the ancient Buddhist practice of tonglen: breathing in suffering, breathing out love. 

Breathe out the light that shines within you; or if you feel your light guttering, breathe in the restorative light of all the bright souls that are dancing beside you, visibly and invisibly. 

Just as Fire needs Air to kindle, we can blow on the embers of our spirits as we breathe, igniting the passion of our soul’s purpose in each cycle of breath. 

Let your breath be a song of love and gratitude, a quiet but mighty offering of the light that you are. 

3 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on May 30, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in 21 Questions for 2020, Alternative Futures, Leadership, love, Resilience, social justice, Spiritual Ecology
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on May 30, 2020

https://bethechange2012.com/2020/05/30/21-questions-for-2020-20/

The Truth of American Thanksgiving

I have been thinking and writing about Thanksgiving for many years on Transition Times. Waking up to the deep hypocrisy of this American holiday was part of my own process of mental decolonization, unlearning the indoctrination of my conventional American education. With each passing year, it’s good to see more public acknowledgment of the truth of how the early settlers of this country treated the native people they found here.

The myth of sharing a bounteous table may have been true on the Indian side: early accounts of Native-European interactions often show the Europeans reacting with amazement at the generosity of their Native hosts. Without a doubt, the Indians helped the Pilgrims and other early colonists survive by sharing food, seeds and knowledge.

 

History tells us how this generosity was repaid. It’s true that some of the cultural and physical genocide was inadvertent, as alcohol and smallpox were let loose on a defenseless population. But as time went on and more settlers arrived, all greedy for land, the violence and cruelty increased. When you read about the massacres of entire villages of Native people in Massachusetts, New York, and throughout New England; or the Cherokee Trail of Tears; or the heartrending massacres that occurred throughout the West…it’s easy to understand why Native Americans today consider Thanksgiving a day of mourning rather than celebration.

 

My complicated feelings about this holiday have only deepened over the years, as I’ve become more aware of the huge sacrifices that undergird the comforts and pleasures that I might want to give thanks for on Thanksgiving Day.

Let’s take food as an example. I am thankful for the markets that are bursting with food at this time of year. I am thankful for the delicious meals I will be enjoying at the tables of family and friends.

And yet I am aware of the holocaust of turkeys that occurs to satisfy American appetites on Thanksgiving. For most Americans, the traditional Thanksgiving side dishes of sweet potatoes, cornbread and stuffing will be cooked with conventionally farmed vegetables and grains—meaning that billions of beneficial microbes and insects were destroyed to bring them to our table, with the costs reverberating up the food chain as the toxic wastes of industrial agriculture flow into the ground waters and rivers, and the loss of insects devastates the birds, bats and other creatures who depend on them.

This is just one example of many I could give of the way the contemporary American lifestyle is based on a violent, unsustainable foundation. If you peel back the glamorized façade of American Thanksgiving, what you see behind it is a bleak industrial landscape, a place of poverty, ill health and unhappiness. It is no accident people are turning to drugs—whether alcohol, cannabis or opioids—to escape from it all. It’s no accident that the suicide rate keeps rising in our “home of the brave, land of the free.”

 

The Thanksgiving holiday is an extreme version of the whitewashing of American history, and the willful ignorance and denial of all the damage that our vaunted American lifestyle has wreaked on the world. Each of us who sees beyond the façade has a choice to make: we can continue to maintain a complicit silence and go along with the destructive flow; or we can speak up and share our perspectives with others.

Obviously I am choosing the latter path, in my own small way here on Transition Times. No, I won’t be making speeches at my family’s Thanksgiving table. I truly believe, with the great Audre Lorde, that guilt helps no one. Go ahead and enjoy your turkey and stuffing.

But as you tuck into your Thanksgiving meal this year, be aware of the true costs of our American lifestyle. Don’t take the ease and comforts of the industrial agriculture system for granted. Know how fragile our life support systems are, in this time of ever-increasing climate disruption.

There may come a time, in the not-too-distant future, when we Eur-Americans will turn again, in desperate need, to the wisdom of the indigenous people of this land. We will give thanks, then, that they held on to the ancient knowledge of how to survive in the old ways: how to hunt and gather and farm sustainably, in harmony with the other creatures who inhabit this Earth.

This Thanksgiving, I honor and give thanks to the indigenous people of Turtle Island, who are so often on the frontlines of resistance; who are too often victims of violence and abuse; but who still—indomitably, stubbornly, powerfully—stand tall and proud as crucial wisdom keepers, holding the spiritual, philosophical and practical keys to a thriving future for humans on Earth.

May Americans come to honor and respect the precious legacy embodied in the resilient, wise Native peoples of this land. May we give thanks for their great generosity of spirit, symbolized in the American Thanksgiving story. May we Eur-Americans learn, with humility and compassion, to live in harmony with all others in our Earth community.

Namaste.

 

Wisdom-Lessons-Cover-MaryLyons-FRONT copy

If you are looking for contemporary Native American wisdom, I recommend this book, which I was privileged to midwife into the world through Green Fire Press. Available wherever fine books are sold.

 

 

3 Comments
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 28, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Alternative Futures, Climate disruption, Community, New stories, Resilience, social justice, Uncategorized
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 28, 2019

https://bethechange2012.com/2019/11/28/the-truth-of-american-thanksgiving/

Facing the Zombies of the Trump Apocalypse

What can justify the tearing of toddlers from their parents? For Trump and his toadies, it is the parents’ unlawful entry into the United States—crossing the border without proper documentation.

Please think about this for a moment from the parents’ point of view. What could persuade a parent to take the terrible risk of crossing into the US at this moment in history, with small children in arms, without proper documentation?

Obviously these parents are fleeing something really terrible in their own countries. So far I have seen no current reporting about what’s going on in Central America that is pushing parents to grab their kids and make the perilous trek north. In the past we have had mostly young men coming north to try to make money to send back home to their families. What’s with the surge of entire families this year?

I hope we’ll start to see some journalists looking further upstream as this summer’s tragedy unfolds, and asking that all-important question: WHY?

Meanwhile, Trump is playing the hard guy for all it’s worth. He wants his wall, and he’s using traumatized children as the victims and pawns of his latest bullying. He wasn’t able to push the G7 world leaders around, but children in cages are easy targets.

This from a man who is only a generation or two removed from being an immigrant himself, married to an immigrant.

The alt-right who are supporting him are the slavering descendants of the racists of yore…the ones who had no qualms about tearing infants from their enslaved mothers (even when they themselves had fathered those infants). The ones who perpetrated systematic ethnic cleansing by kidnapping Native American children from their parents and detaining them for years in “boarding schools” that were much more brutal than today’s “tender age detention centers.”

What we’re watching today is not new, and its antecedents are not just Nazi concentration camps, which infamously separated families—though in the end most of them ended up in the same place, the gas chambers.

Trump has brought these dark episodes of human history back to life and reanimated them with a flourish of his executive order pen. In this horror flick, the evil zombies of history are back in action, and they care nothing for ethics and morality; they seem to be able to sweep aside any obstacle with a leering, bloody snarl.

It’s sickening to watch the craven Republicans going along with this madness, as they went along with the tax cuts for the wealthy despite huge deficit increases. Now they’re whetting their lips for the real prize, cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and welfare programs. Meanwhile Trump is planning his military parade and an expensive new military reality show—oops, I mean military program—called Space Force.

But we’ve been here before, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote has never been proven wrong: “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.”

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Berkshire MA residents Jana Laiz and Barbara Dean standing up for human rights and social justice in America

Good people are on the rise now. Protests are happening all across the US. Lawsuits are being brought daily against Trump and his mad minions. The Mueller probe continues. Journalists are upping their game, calling out the lies and asking the hard questions.

So much rides on the coming elections in November. Until then, Americans, we must hold on to our values, remembering who we are and what we stand for. We must not allow our thinking to be distorted by the mind-fucks of this misbegotten so-called president and his sycophants.

To be honest, I am worried about fraud and hacking in the 2018 elections. I am worried about a manufactured crisis that will throw Americans into disarray, a la 9/11. I am worried that Americans are just too unhealthy, in so many ways, to create a healthy society.

But these fears and anxieties go nowhere and help no one.  Every American of principle has a civic duty to stand firm against the onslaught of the Trump nightmare, vanquish it, and work towards creating the dream of MLK, Abraham Lincoln and so many other good leaders. If we stand together, we shall overcome.

1 Comment
by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on June 20, 2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Community, Human Rights, Leadership, Politics, social justice, Uncategorized
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on June 20, 2018

https://bethechange2012.com/2018/06/20/facing-the-zombies-of-the-trump-apocalypse/

This Thanksgiving, Let’s Do More Than Just Give Thanks

Thanksgiving. It’s a wonderful word, and a noble intention:

Let us sit down together with family and friends at the culmination of the harvest season, enjoy a bounteous meal and give thanks for our good fortune.

But with each passing year I have more trouble composing myself to write about Thanksgiving.

My early Transition Times Thanksgiving posts focused on the Native American dimension to the holiday—reminding myself that the original Massachusetts celebration was actually the beginning of the end for the pilgrims’ generous Native American hosts, whose suffering at the hands of the rapacious Christian-capitalist overlords of this continent still continues, along with their fiery and stubborn resistance.

Last year at this time, we were sending supplies to Standing Rock and I was giving thanks for the brave water defenders who were standing up for all of us as they built their camp on the banks of the river.

This year, having witnessed the brutal repression of the water protectors at Standing Rock, we are preparing for more fights over the zombie Keystone XL pipeline and watching in disbelieving fury as the Trump administration undoes regulatory protections for wilderness and national parks and actively promotes logging, mining, fracking and drilling as well as hunting endangered species at home and abroad (oh, my beloved elephants!).

It’s been quite a year, and it’s not over yet. How should I give thanks, and for what?

It feels self-centered and callous to give thanks for not being in the line of fire—this time. Should I give thanks that I wasn’t born as an elephant or lion? That at least this year my home isn’t in the path of a pipeline or a hurricane, that the water coming out of my tap is still clean?

Of course, in my typical egocentric human way, I am grateful to have a warm, safe home, good food and loving family and friends to share it with.

Of course.

But it’s hard to relax and enjoy that good fortune when so many others are suffering.

We know now that our world is profoundly interconnected: when we hurt and despoil one species in an ecosystem, the reverberations spread out to all. Because humans are the most empathetic of species, it’s hard for those of us who are aware of the deep suffering and sickness of so many on our planet to simply ignore it and continue with business as usual.

On a spiritual level, we suffer too—and I believe that even those who profess to be entirely uncaring of others’ pain—Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Ryan Zinke, I’m looking at you—are harmed by it on a subtle level, growing more zombified day by day.

We who are aware have an essential role to play in awakening others. It’s sort of an anti-zombie effect, our touch having the potential to draw the psychically dead back into the realm of the living.

To live is to suffer. But to live is also to “take arms against a sea of troubles,” in the cause of Life. To live is to offer our lives to the future, to work on behalf of future generations to leave our world better than we found it at our birth.

Those of us lucky enough to be counting our blessings this Thanksgiving must use our good fortune to step up our activism for a better world for all. And I don’t mean merely all humans.

Here’s something you can do to support a very important giver of life this Thanksgiving season. Please contribute to the Indiegogo campaign to underwrite Mary Lyons’ book of ancestral Wisdom Lessons.

Mary Lyons is an Ojibwe elder who, despite a long life filled with all kinds of challenges, continues to travel, teach and inspire others with the wisdom of her ancestors—wisdom we all need today.

Please contribute, in the spirit of giving thanks at Thanksgiving-time. Only two weeks left in the campaign and a long way to go to the goal.

Today I give thanks for the many shining lights who are out in the forefront leading the way to the more beautiful world we know is possible. I have written about many of them in Transition Times over the years, and I continue to honor them as my inspirations, every day.

Here’s a partial list of my guiding lights (among those still alive today). What names would you add?

Charles M. Blow

Stella Bowes

Clare Dubois

Charles Eisenstein

Eve Ensler

Dallas Goldtooth

Amy Goodman

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Naomi Klein

Elizabeth Kolbert

Nicholas Kristof

Winona LaDuke

Mary Lyons

Joanna Macy

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

Bill McKibben

Kandi Mossett

Kumi Naidoo

Nancy Roof

Nina Simons

Starhawk

Sandra Steingraber

Terry Tempest Williams

Andreas Weber

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 21, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Environment, Environmental Activism, New stories, social justice, Spiritual Ecology, Uncategorized, Wildlife
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on November 21, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/11/21/this-thanksgiving-lets-do-more-than-just-give-thanks/

Apres le deluge comes the fire: it’s time for another big march in America!

It is so sunny and peaceful here in Massachusetts, it’s hard to believe that Texas is in the middle of a hurricane with high winds and epic downpours that are expected to go on for days.

How convenient for the president and his henchmen, a natural disaster to distract everyone while a racist bigot sheriff is pardoned (Arpaio), a white nationalist fascist advisor is sent back into the shadows (Gorka) and the systematic work of undoing environmental protections goes full steam ahead (Bears Ears).

The circular motion of the hurricane seems an appropriate weather metaphor for America this August, whirling around the black eye of the solar eclipse. But this political hurricane has no end in sight. It just keeps getting stronger and stronger, worse and worse.

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Hurricane Harvey hits Texas, August 25, 2017

There is no fighting against a hurricane. You can only try to flee out of the storm’s path, or if that is impossible, do your best to hunker down and survive.

Like the Texas palm trees, we bend and bow under the fierce winds that Trump and his gang have unleashed upon the land. The pace of un-American proclamations and acts is so rapid and intense, we are under constant siege. How long before we snap?

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Winds of 130 mph as Harvey hit the coast

But the metaphor only goes so far. In today’s political hurricane, we do not have to flee or hide in our homes. Here in sunny New England, we are free to come and go as we please.

It’s time for another big march, people. Things have gone from bad to worse since the Women’s March on Washington in January. We are all under constant assault from this White House and Republican Congress, and the Democrats are sitting on their hands. It’s time for the people to rise up and defy the battering winds of the Trump machine.

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Women’s March on Washington, January 2017

How about on Labor Day? An uprising in every city and town across America, a show of force and unity in the shared vision of the peaceful, just, harmonious country we want to live in and create together.

But we could take the next step and make this an actual March for Impeachment, a march to show the president and his cronies that we see what they’re up to and we won’t stand for it.

We know they got where they are by trickery and manipulation (gerrymandering, hacking, corruption of all kinds). They were not elected by a majority of this country and it’s time for that majority to come out and let them know it.

If the Democrats won’t lead the charge, we need to do it for them.

Fired up? Ready to go!

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Still more work to do.

 

 

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on August 26, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Politics, social justice, Uncategorized
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on August 26, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/08/26/apres-le-deluge-comes-the-fire-its-time-for-another-big-march-in-america/

Off With Their Heads!

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When I posted this infamous photo on Facebook recently with a caption wondering whether the fury over its “bad taste” was misplaced, I got a storm of responses.

Some people recalled how the right had posted many horrible pictures of President Obama being lynched, and thought it was OK to fight fire with fire.

Others said when they go low, we should stay high, and it was never permissible to depict violence against a US President.

What I see when I look at that photo is yes, mob justice; the same kind of justice that brought down the aristocrats in the French Revolution and the Czars in the Russian Revolution. It’s the same kind of mob justice that threw off the yoke of colonialism in the Americas, Africa and India.

Sometimes you just have to say “Off with their heads!” and mean it. And sometimes one person’s “mob justice” looks like revolutionary freedom fighting to someone else.

What I see when I look at that photo are all the reasons why we should be angry—no, FURIOUS!—at the Orange Man.

The man currently squatting in our White House, aided and abetted by his family and henchmen, has been systematically dismantling environmental protections, financial regulations, the New Deal social safety net and health care coverage.

He stands for the billionaires, the hedge funds and the giant corporations who make their obscene profits by riding roughshod over ordinary people, national economies and the environment worldwide.

If the cruel juggernaut represented by this man is not stopped, climate change will run amuck, and the dream of the Libertarians will be realized: every man with a gun for himself. We would regress to a feudal warlord society, as has happened in many of the smaller countries we have armed and goaded into civil wars—think Iraq, Syria or Yemen.

I take no comfort in the knowledge of the kind of military force now available to local law enforcement agencies because this force could easily be turned against citizens who refuse to “get with the program” of the corporate elite: think Standing Rock, think Occupy.

And think how the Libertarians who perpetrated an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Washington state last year were treated with great restraint by Federal, state and local authorities, and got off scot-free; while the Standing Rock water protectors were hit with water cannons in freezing weather, arrested and treated in a demeaning manner in jail and have had to pay fines and fight through many court appearances.

Clearly there are many double standards going on here, similar to the way there was little notice taken when President Obama was depicted being lynched, while the woman who thought she was being funny by showing herself holding Trump’s bloody head has been pilloried.

This is my main point: we can’t afford to let ourselves be distracted by this kind of sideshow. A photo in poor taste is one thing, but a President taking the wrecking ball to environmental, corporate and financial regulation, civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, funding for science and the arts, health care coverage, international treaties…the list goes on…THIS is what we need to be outraged about.

I wouldn’t wish decapitation on anyone. But a political “decapitation”—removing this guy from office, and throwing out the GOP who delivered our nation to him—yes, we need that kind of justice.

Call it mob justice or call it freedom fighting, but let’s get it DONE.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on June 1, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Environmental Activism, Human Rights, Leadership, Media analysis, social justice, Uncategorized
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Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on June 1, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/06/01/off-with-their-heads/

This International Women’s Day, I Stand for Life

The good news this International Women’s Day has to do with resistance.

This year’s unprecedented Women’s March on Washington brought women and our allies out into the American public square demanding our rights, in a way that hasn’t happened for a long time.

Of course, never in my memory has the top American official, our President, been a man who is a gloating and unapologetic sexual predator of women; a man who treats his wife like a porn star bimbo and believes that serious women who dare to aspire to power are “nasty.”

By acquiescing in a warped political process that propelled this man into power, Americans have become bystanders to his nasty, discriminatory behavior towards women. “Make America Great Again” seems to mean “put women back in their place again”—in the home, making babies and waiting to serve their all-powerful men.

Well, no. Just NO.

Our foremothers did not fight so long and so hard for women’s equality just to see the current generation swallow our bile and tears and accept the rolling back of our rights as free and equal human beings.

Everywhere you look you can see women standing strong against this new tide of injustice.

The powerful women of Standing Rock are now flooding into Washington DC, along with thousands of other Native people and allies, for this weekend’s Native Rights marches. The Native people of America, and indeed the world, are leading the way on insisting that humans stop destroying our Mother Earth, and become her loving stewards.

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Tipis on the National Mall, March 7, 2017. Photo by Kandi Mossett

Although there are so many important issues to focus on this International Women’s Day, for me all of them can be summed up fairly simply: either you love and support life, or you hate and destroy life.

I CHOOSE LIFE.

That means I choose to stand up for children, our precious new generations, who have the right to quality education, good nutritious food, a loving family and community, and a healthy environment.

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My first child.

I stand for the right of every human being to play a meaningful role in their community, and to be rewarded and respected for their contributions. Of course, this means that women should have control over their bodies in every situation, just as men do.

I stand for the rights of animals, who should not be made to suffer…who should not be driven to extinction…because of the thoughtless greed of human beings. I stand for the protection of our environment, for the rights of Mother Nature, without whom none of us could live for even a moment.

This International Women’s Day, I give thanks and honor to every woman who has stood up for Life, sometimes in the face of fierce persecution, sometimes even giving her own life for the cause—like the environmental activist Berta Caceres, who we lost in 2016 because she refused to back down when the loggers and drillers advanced towards her community.

Berta

Berta Caceres

Yes, it can be dangerous to stand up and resist the forces of destruction, to say NO to those who would silence us and reinstate the supremacy of the patriarchy, now rearing up in its most potently savage form: racist, misogynist, elitist, imperialist, extractivist, militarist, corporatist, extremist…these are the times we are living in, and they demand an equally potent resistance movement.

Marching, calling, sending post cards, organizing in our communities, networking with kindred spirits across the globe…all this is necessary, and more.

All our activism must be rooted in a deep sense of purpose, a commitment that must run like sap up our core: the commitment to STAND FOR LIFE.

Every great successful movement of the past has been fueled by the moral imperative to do what is right, to live in alignment with our most deeply held values. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…” was a revolutionary statement in its time, which was shifted by the courageous work of 19th and 20th century activists to include women, people of color and non-landowners under the banner of equality.

We are living in another revolutionary moment. It is a transition time, when if we fail to recognize the intrinsic value of our most precious resources—clean Earth, Water, Air and the life they support—we will soon find our entire civilization swept away by the storms, floods and droughts of Earth recalibrating herself in a massive reset leading into a new epoch.

This International Women’s Day, I vow to stand, as a woman and a human being, for the health and wellbeing of Mother Earth and all her children, human and non-human alike.

Join me.

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Looking for a good place to start? Register for the Pachamama Alliance Game Changer Intensive course, starting a new series in March 2017. It’s free, and it’s a powerful way to connect with kindred spirits who also want to STAND FOR LIFE.

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by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on March 8, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Activism, Alternative Futures, Environment, Human Rights, Leadership, Politics, social justice, Uncategorized, women's rights
Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. on March 8, 2017

https://bethechange2012.com/2017/03/08/this-international-womens-day-i-stand-for-life/

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