Sex, Death, Religion

   Modern Western economies have turned sex, death and religion into commercial commodities to an extent unheard of in human history.  The most direct examples, in the case of sex, include human trafficking as well as the pornography and erotic objects industry.  However, there is also the enormous use of sex as a branding for the marketing of all sorts of objects including cars, vacations, alcohol and clothing.  In this case, as Naomi Klein has pointed out in Logo, it is not the object itself that is being sold but rather the sexual idea behind the image created of that object through advertising.

   Death has also been become a commodity marketed for profit. A few major companies in North America control most of what happens when someone dies, including embalming and the casket or incineration and an urn, provision of space for a wake, arrangements for a funeral service and, finally, the internment in a cemetery. The family and friends of someone who dies become the paying spectators of arrangements processed through these multinational corporations.

   Finally, we are witnesses to a commodification of religion. The most obvious example can be found in that of fundamentalist religion marketed through radio and especially television. In some cases the primacy of profit is stunningly obvious. But, on a larger level, fundamentalist or integrist religious expressions, including those in many of the traditional Christian Churches and also in other religious traditions, follow many of the underlying dynamics of the dominant economic model by insisting on the primacy of the individual and the satisfaction of personal needs.

   There are minority movements that react to this. Many reject all expression of religion while highlighting the freedom of individual thought and expression. Some give enormous importance to rational thinking, especially to scientific truth. (Witness Richard Dawkins.) However, in all this they learn toward an isolation of the individual. This has led some anti-religious movements to extremely angry expressions against any form of religion. This sort of thing can be found in the movements surrounding metal music: death metal and industrial metal in particular.  In their view sex is a personal expression of pleasure for self. Death then becomes simply the end of life, a dead stop. The artistic expressions in music and art show signs of severe depression and even tend toward suicide in some cases.

    There is, however, another minority view on these three dimensions of life. It is expressed in the religion of many thoughtful mainstream Christians,  Buddhits and Muslims who struggle to provide a meaningful interpretation of their religious traditions in a contemporary context. In this perspective sex is a participation in the dynamic, creative unfolding of life in which death is an inevitable consequence of a universe moving toward larger and deeper expressions of life. Religion, in this context, is a set of beliefs and rituals that assist in the journey through life so that we keep in touch with those deeper dimensions and  that encourage us to discover and engage with the profound interconnections we have with one another and all  expressions of life on Earth.

   I insist that, in North America, this perspective has become a minority one. Most people are too taken up with the culture around them to devote energy to developing an alternative, even if that alternative is strongly rooted in our cultural and religious history.

La pensée de Thomas Berry

Voici le texte d'une conférence que j'ai donné dernièrement à Montréal. Il s'agit de présenter au monde francophone la pensée de quelqu'un peu connu dans ce milieu. Je commence avec l'identité fausséé de l'individu dans la culture moderne occidentale. Ensuite je propose un récit développé par Thomas Berry et Brian Swinme. Je conclue avec des implications.  (C'est un peu long !)

(Conférence préparé pour Terre Sacrée, Montréal)

 

16 novembre 2013                                                                 Richard Renshaw

Qui est Thomas Berry ?

   Thomas Berry est né en 1914 et est décédé en 2009 à Greensboro, en Caroline du Nord. Il s’est identifié comme historien culturel, et souvent il se présentait comme un géologien. Thomas Berry était un prêtre catholique romain de la congrégation des Passionnistes (un groupe semi-contemplatif). Sa pensée s’inspire, entre autres, d’un regard critique sur l’œuvre de Teillard de Chardin. À une certaine époque, il a été président de l’Association Teillard des États-Unis. Il a vécu en Chine et avait une vaste compréhension des traditions religieuses de l’Asie incluant l’hindouisme, le bouddhisme, le taoïsme et surtout le confucianisme.  Aujourd’hui, ses idées sont largement répandues parmi les intellectuels dans beaucoup de domaines et font l’objet d’une acceptation de plus en plus large.  Son livre le plus important et le plus influent, The Dream of the Earth (Le rêve de la terre) a été publié par le Sierra Club en 1988.  (Plus tard, il a collaboré avec Brian Swimme à la publication de The Universe Story (Le récit de l’univers).  D’autres publications incluent The Great Work (La grande œuvre), The Sacred Universe (L’univers sacré) et Evening Thoughts (Pensées du soir).  Il est intéressant de noter que Thomas Berry entre rarement en débat avec des auteurs contemporains (bien qu’il critique souvent les penseurs classiques).  Il rassemble plutôt les idées de beaucoup d’écrivains contemporains et les incorpore dans sa proposition.  Ce groupe inclut des gens comme Lynn Margulis, Carl Sagan, Theodore Rozsak et beaucoup d’autres.

The Scenario

The plan is actually quite simple. By now, everyone knows that climate change will make much of the world uninhabitable. Huge storms will cause catastrophes including loss of infrastructure, migration and massive deaths. Food will become scare -- over half of the arable land on the planet has already been destroyed.

The richest of the planet, the one percent, have a plan. It is probably not a conspiracy but rather a shared implicit logic that grows out of preserving self-interest.  More and more the lines of that logic are becoming clear.

Massive amounts of money are poured into arms and the military needed in order to control the unrest and wars that erupt as a result of changing conditions.

Because of the disruption of climate change as well as the wars that result, close to 90% of the world’s population will disappear. (Many scientists agree on this percentage.) That will leave just enough people to assure the infrastructure (food, industry, security) that would allow the very rich to continue in their lifestyle. In fact the 90% who will disappear are, in any case, dispensable within the current economic structures.

Massive restrictions on freedom and powerful military deployment will be needed to make sure that the  population remains faithful to their job of producing enough to keeping the workers in the economy alive and satisfied as well as, especially, to maintain the lifestyle of the very rich.

Should the planet swing entirely out of control, a last-ditch emergency plan would be to set up on another planet. The proposed one-way expedition to Mars is a trial balloon in that direction, an avant-guard who will work out the details of establishing a human colony elsewhere. Ultimately this would, once again, imply the transfer of a very small group (0.1% of the 10 % that remain, along with enough people to work to keep them in comfort). In a sense, society will continue to be normal in the sense that there will be approximately the same propositions of super-rich, middle class and poor. In that sense, everyone will continue to find their place though the scale will be reduced.  Those who retire into self-sufficiency, who provide for their own food sustainably will be inundated with hungry outsiders or raided by armed looters.

Am I exaggerating?  Am I retreating into science fiction? Not entirely. This is a scenario that could be realized within the next fifty years, that is to say, within the lifetime of many of those already living on the planet. What is needed is a massive, global upheaval. I am pretty sure that, at some point, it will come. However, I am also sure that the super-rich will be ready with their (massive) security precautions in place.

There is of course an alternative, a difficult one but one that is quite realizable. As long as we continue to contribute to the destruction of the planet required by the growing inequality between the super-rich and those entirely abandoned by the world economy, the logic described above will surely work its way forward. Fiddling with the current economic and political structures have repeatedly demonstrated little or no changes in the patterns.  Why is it that most people in the world, who are very aware of the general lines of this process, continue to follow their daily routines. We accept the political and economic processes with resignation and believe that the imperfections will be dealt with by those who hold public office?  What could be more insane?

The Great Plague of the 21st Century

I warn you that the following is not a glowing report of hopes for the future grounded in New Year optimism. It is, in fact, rather apocalyptic.. In any case, what I say here needs to be said and even repeated.



Found at http://hoocher.com/Charles_II
_of_England/Charles_II_of_England.htm

    A strong link exists, it seems to me, between the growing inequality in the economic world (where relatively few individuals now control the majority of the world’s economy) and the obvious crisis for humanity represented by the rapidly advancing phenomenon of climate change.  At the same time, it is important to underline from the start that climate change does not represent a crisis for the planet. Earth is quite capable of dealing with the impact of the various devastations posed by human economic and military adventures. It will adapt and continue to foster life. More than that, Earth will deal with the impact of human presence as it does with any other extreme phenomenon by eliminating the cause. It is humans who are in crisis of extermination. Moreover, I am convinced that the wealthy and powerful of this world are, consciously or subconsciously, aware of this and have, for a long time now, been taking measures to deal with it in their own way.      This tiny but privileged group is aware that the current economic and political trends are suicidal and so, true to their nature as controllers and dominators, have determined to make sure that they, at least -- if no others -- will survive. They have confidence that their immense economic and political leverage will assure that, when push comes to shove and when the economic, geophysical and political structures fall into chaos, they will be able to provide a “bubble” to protect themselves. Even under the direst scientific predictions, about 10% of the population should be able to survive. They want to make sure that they are included. Theirs is a huge gamble but, as a group they are the ultimate gamblers.
     This tiny group of hugely influential individuals believe in their privileged capacity to surround themselves with the security provided by gated communities, military and paramilitary protection as well as all the infrastructures to assure that they need not worry about anything that happens to the planet. While I do not believe there is an overt conspiracy here, I do believe that their reliance on the power to control leads them inevitably toward a logic that leads to a conviction that power over economic and political process is the path to ultimate security. There is also a corollary: To hell with the rest of the world!  What is worse, I also think there is a chance that may be right.
     There is still another layer to this: Much of the world, especially the Western world, believes this also and, even though they are excluded from the securities provided to the rich and powerful, they are convinced that, given the right circumstances, they will be able to assure their place inside the bubble. Instinctively they realise that those few super-rich individuals will need people around them who sustain and support their survival. They want to be part of that bubble when it arrives. For this reason, most of the population of North America and Europe is ready to “go along with the system” and hope that the bubble will be large enough to cover them. As a result, the political and economic process continues regardless of its obvious consequences for vast regions of the world. The greatest danger to the survival of humanity lies with this internalized subjugation within the minds of the vast majority of the population. Moreover, the educational and media industries reinforce this internalized mentality day after day.
     The picture painted here is quite sombre and could easily lead to despair about the future and our ability to shape it for the good of all. We are in a time when faith and hope are faced with a darkness unlike anything society has known in past centuries -- except perhaps in Europe during the time of the Great Plague.
    In fact the experience of the Great Plague in Europe is worth exploring. At that time people experienced a terrible devastation that took tens of millions of lives without understanding where it was coming from or why. It took decades of persistent investigation to pinpoint the source of the problem, then more decades to convince society to deal with it. In the meantime the devastation continued. What is hopeful in all this is that eventually reason prevailed and, while it was the poor who suffered the brunt of the disaster, eventually the process wore itself out and people began to organize to protect society as a whole from the menace. There is a difference however, the plague was an epidemic. Epidemics have a life, it would seem, of about twenty years. By then the immune has adapted, to a large extent, to resist the attack. Unfortunately, in our current situation, there does not appear to be any immune adaptation foreseeable.
    If the worst scenario is to be avoided, it won’t happen without considerable effort and enormous losses along the way. We have an option before us: confide in the richest and most powerful to protect us, or dislodge the destructive trend -- against all odds, with a faith and courage that is not diminished by the enormity of the odds.

Climate Change - We CAN Make a Difference!

   Today it is, I think, safe to say that no one doubts that the process of climate change now underway is the greatest challenge since tens of thousands of years to the planet, and more precisely to humanity.  However, perhaps like you, I have often felt that the little adaptations we try to make to our lifestyle are really a drop in the bucket compared to the need for massive transformation of our entire economic and industrial machine. In face of the urgency to stop the use of fossil fuels in industry, the military and transportation systems, it seemed futile to hope that turning off my computer when not in use, or lowing the temperature in the house a couple of degrees would make much difference. And while it is true that the cumulative effect of all these efforts can be quite monumental, it is certainly not enough. Governments have to step in and regulate.

   And my frustration grew when major international gatherings like Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen, Durban and Rio+20 seem, at least according to press accounts, resulted in no significant agreement.   In face of this urgent need I feel vulnerable and impotent -- also angry!

   Thus my surprise to discover Jean Desrocher’s interesting book, The Challenge of Climate Change, published by the Center for Social Justice in Bangalore, India (2012). John is the founder of the centre and its guiding light. He has published numerous serious studies over the last 20 or 30 years and has acted, for some time now, as a consultant to the Catholic Bishops Conference of India on issues relating to social justice. John’s forte is the summary of an extraordinarily broad array of relevant documents, carefully laid out and analyzed in order to provide a thorough review of the issues and options involved in whatever study he undertakes.

   For me there are two important discoveries in this book.  The first, and it is very important, is that all the efforts of the last 20 years have not been in vain. Enormous progress has been made and enormous changes have taken place, not only in the awareness of billions of people across the world, but also in government and business. The growth of a “green consciousness” with all sorts of inventive initiatives to explore alternatives has advanced by leaps and bounds. We are in a much better position to make the transition to clean energy than we were a couple of decades ago. There are hold-outs of course and they stand out remarkable. But, they are also more and more encircled by a wave of pressure for change.

   The second issue that came to the fore for me, and that I had not paid enough attention to in the past, is that there has been an enormous growth in the organization of the countries of the Global South to provide a clear path to the transformation required in a way that would be both feasible and fair. It has not been easy and there are still splits among the various countries. But a broad path has become clear. The countries of the Global South realize that the greatest impact of climate change will fall on their peoples. Moreover, they also realize that they do not have the means to make the transition without help from the industrialized world. They also believe strongly that their peoples should not be expected to set aside their aspirations to rise out of poverty but that the industrialized world that has been at the origin of the crisis over the past 100 or even 200 years, should take responsibility for what they have done. Thus they demand of the industrialized world that it cut back on its production of greenhouse gases and, at the same time, help the countries of the Global South to learn the new technologies and have the resources to support the transition even as they develop the productive structures that will allow their people to eliminate poverty.

   They have, in making various proposals over the years, found themselves facing a solid wall of resistance particularly from countries like the USA, China and Australia who demand that everyone make an “equal effort” -- even though the responsibility for causing the crisis and the means to deal with it are not at all equal!

   What has particularly surprising for me is that the economic burden for dealing effectively with climate change over the next 30-40 years is not, actually, all that great. It requires a program that would, in some ways, represent a global “Marshal Plan” and that could cost trillions of dollars each year. However, in the global context, given the global economy, given the current priorities, particularly military, a few trillion set aside each year by a consortium of all the industrialized nations would not necessarily have a major negative impact on the general standard of living of people in industrialised nations and would allow for a rise in the standard of living of people in the Global South. It is this realization that the fight against global change is not a herculean one, that is can be reasonably budgeted for and carried forward within the parameters of the current global economic process that leads to hope.
 
   In other words, the hitch is not technological, is not economic.  It is political and we can name the actors and then begin to mobilize around that. The actors are the industrialized nations, particularly the USA (with Canada), China, Australia and a few others. The political change that has to happen is one of moving the political culture out of the stance of self-interest for one’s own limited bailiwick (nation, region) and a move toward a governance that looks to the common good of all. There was some indication of this sort of politics after the Second World War with the establishment of the United Nations and all its satellite programs. It can be done, if…  if people will just mobilize on a grand scale to demand it of their leaders. And what is marvellous is that, today, we have precisely the means to mobilize those hundreds of millions of people through contemporary means of communication. Here I am not talking about the major media. They are clearly in the hands of those who have very narrow economic self-interest. Rather, I refer to that massive channel of alternative means of communication that have already mobilized people around the world on a vast array of issues. There needs to be a massive, unmistakable, unavoidable public outcry from hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world. When that happens, over and over again, politicians tend to get the message. They don’t like it. But, history moves forward. It is really up to us.   

Restoring Economics



Photo: P. Cerezo

A few months ago I was asked to review a book on Economics. Combined with some other reading, it turning into more than that. You can find the result here



Building a Future from the Grassrots up

    More and more the difference between struggles in the North and the South is evident.  For one thing, the peoples of the South, like Aboriginal peoples, struggle not only against what the neoliberal economy brings them, they also struggle, and to a very large extent, to defend the culture they have built over millennia. They defend their language, their traditional way of life, their values and future generations. In the North, the struggles have often been marked by a single-minded attack against what is seen as unjust. The weakness has often been that, once the particular difficulty has been overcome (work hours, pensions, salary gains, etc.), everyone settled down once again to their regular routine within the society that was theirs. And the manipulation and the corruption continued unabated.

Occupy the Heart of the Island, July 2012

     Perhaps, in some way that is why the case of Quebec (and various other minorities around the world) is somewhat different. The Francophone people in Quebec , like Aboriginal peoples, have something to defend (the beauty of their land, their language, the particular values that were entrenched in the Quiet Revolution of the 1970s). And yet, the majority in Quebec have been integrated into the values and lifestyle of the neoliberal economy and are all too willing to trust their social and political institutions to serve their needs -- much as is in the case for the Rest of Canada.
    There may now be a change at work. There is scepticism about the political machinery and its leaders; there is disgust at the way the financial world is functioning; there is a growing rejection of continuous cuts to social services; development plans erode the land itself; we witness a surrender of education to market interests; the French language is eroded in public places. These issues have drawn hundreds of thousands into the streets in recent month to defend what they have build and to demand accountability from their government. It remains to be seen whether that energy can get translated into a genuine cry for fundamental change.

Occupy the Place of the People, October, 2011

     The strength of the movement lies in its grassroots organizations, and here as elsewhere those organizations have tended to be dependent on financial support from various levels of government. What is needed is the creation of a broad grassroots economic and political life that is independent of government and not at all beholden to it. Here in Quebec we are at the beginning of this process.
    Very likely an election will be called within a month (to be held in early September). Already the pundits are saying that much depends on whether the students (who have led the charge since the beginning of the Maple Springtime this year) will translate their protest into political action by registering en masse and going out to vote. What is important is that, while no one thinks that a change of government will resolve the underlying issues, a more responsive government might be in a position to catalyze the grassroots energy into daring fundamental changes to our political and economic life.

Petite-Patrie

   I live in a neighbourhood right in the middle of Montreal Island. Last night 10,000 people marched through the streets of the neighbourhood--as they have every night for the last week--banging their pots. We were one of a multitude of neighborhoods in Montreal that saw marches. Moreover the phenomenon has spread throughout the Quebec territory. Why do they do this?  The answer is not simple.
   Part of it is support for the student movement that has been on strike for more than 3 months now after the government of Quebec announced it would raise tuition and the students said that would exclude the poor. Part of it is also in response to the government's attempt to temper the street activity by setting rules with heavy penalties for non-compliance. Part also, without any doubt, is a more general reaction to the current Quebec government that is riddled with corruption, pressing ahead with huge resource extraction projects and cutting support to social services. Indirectly, this popular anger is also fed by the arrogance of the federal government, which is enacting a series of legislative changes that crack down on youth crime (even though it is decreasing) and on  immigrants without papers while making drastic cuts to charities, international aid and social services. One traditional symbol among the people here is the rooster (Coq). People seems to have come the conclusion that they are being plucked to the bone (like the famous allouette) and they have had enough.
   As the marches continue, the people are beginning to realize that, in addition to marching through the streets, there is need for stronger organizations. Citizens groups are springing up to take up the issues, to get those in all the political parties to join together to change this: to abolish the infamous law 78 and to support the students. A public inquiry has begun into government corruption; The list goes on.
   This is a unique and historic moment in Quebec history. Something that has not been seen since the time of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s when Quebec took its destiny into its own hands. It is interesting that the official motto of Quebec is "I remember."  And indeed!

Student General Strike (Quebec)

The youth mouvement today is no small matter, check out this video about the Quebec student strike against tuiition hikes:  jeunesse d'aujourd'hui   Currently 100,000 students are on strike.

Please note, that the student struggle is not just about students being able to pay a tuitition hike but much more about the place of education in society and how it is made available to everyone and not just to the rich and the children of the rich;

Threats to society

A report on threats to the global society has just been released for the Davos group. It is certainly worth a read in the light of my earlier reflection on Societal Breakdown and its sequel.  I found  the link on the front page of Le Devoir today.

Do We Really Listen?

     For the past five years I have volunteered at a “listening centre” where people can call (or come) to talk about whatever is on their mind. We receive calls from people suffering from domestic problems, mental health difficulties, problems of addiction, loneliness, joblessness, in a state of panic or depression. The list is long and the calls are many. We spend hundreds of hours every year just listening. Our training is along the lines developed by Carl Rogers’ “active listening.” Active listening means paying attention to the person who is speaking, welcoming their presence and their story, without judgement or advice, counsel or orientation, respecting that they will, as they speak, eventually find the path they need to follow. We thank them at the end for speaking without offering them advice or orientation. We say very little except to encourage them to speak. Often, at the end of a session, the person who called or visited will conclude by saying that they feel much better and will express gratitude for the attentive welcome they have received.
     One of the important features of active listening is that one has to draw close to someone in order to hear them. We have to “displace” ourselves and move into the place of the other. Unless there is some sort of proximity (not physical necessarily), there is no possibility of listening.
     For me, all this connects with my interest in liberation theology, which begins by listening to what people are living, to what is happening in society. Without a listening ear, somewhere, we become non-persons, alone and disconnected. Our joys and our sufferings are unheard. We serve only to move the machinery of the economy; apart from that, we might as well be non-existent.  Far too often, this is the experience of the 99% who spend their days either working themselves to death for a pittance that barely provides for their basic needs, or perhaps not even that, or who are literally set aside entirely and live off hand-outs, unknown and unheard by those who have more than enough.    
     One of the interesting dynamics of the “occupy” movement is to attempt to listen to everyone’s opinion and to learn from it. First of all, it is pretty much impossible to participate in the movement without being physically present at their activities. To participate, we have to “displace” and on many levels.
     In an assembly, even one person can block a decision if it does against his or her profound values. The person presenting a proposition will have to go back and re-work it. Dialogue is essential. When a proposition is complex, the assembly divides into smaller groups for discussion. There is usually a “talking stick” that is passed around to give every person a chance to have their say without having to fight to get into the conversation. People are listened to carefully; their intervention is appreciated and pondered. Nothing serious will go far if there is no consensus.
     Try sometime, during a day, to watch how often you are more energized about sharing your point of view or your feeling than about listening to that of others. Watch how often people’s point of view or feelings go unacknowledged in conversations or how people are cut off because someone has something they consider more important to say. We are not a society that goes out of its way to listen, especially to those who are not “significant” or who do not have ready access to contexts where they can share easily.
     It is not hard to make a leap to the larger scale. More than half of the world’s population lives in conditions that do not allow their voice and their needs to be heard by those who have cornered the means to live in excessive comfort. While the press, radio and television blare out their messages twenty-four hours of every day, the message they send is geared basically to encourage us to become nameless, mindless consumers of things we really do not need or even want. In between, there are some rather half-hearted attempts at informing. Mark Twain is quoted as saying that if you do not read the newspaper, you are uninformed; But, if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. The media are not there to listen or even to inform. They are there to orient – to consumption of commercial products. Today, it is their principal reason for existence.
     The internet and the social media were invented to provide a medium so that everyone could have a voice – that is, if you could afford a computer or an iPod.  The commercial interests have done everything possible to turn them into a space for encouraging more spending on commercial goods. To some extent they have succeeded, though it remains an extremely significant means of communication between people. As a result, billions of dollars are now being invested in surveillance of this dangerous phenomenon of people communicating with one another.
     All this, it seems to me, reveals the disjunction between the way our economic structures work and what ordinary people really want and hope for. We are faced with fundamental options about how to live our lives.   

99% - Everywhere

Since Google does not give the same information everywhere, and for those who want to go a little further in understanding the "We are the 99%" movement--we call ourselves the "Indigné(e)s" in Montreal-- here are a couple of sites about the wider movement:

http://occupywallst.org/ (The New York occupation)

http://www.occupytogether.org/ (info about the movement in general)

http://www.occupytogether.org/directory/ (A listing of 200 occupations throughout the USA and elsewhere)

The 1% is getting nervous and beging to make preparations to eliminate these occupations. That will problably only broaden the struggle.

This is a movement that is certainly going to change as it grows. No one really knows what turns it will take -- But, one thing is sure: it has already inspired huge numbers of people throughout the world and has already made a significant difference in several countries.

A world march is being planned for Saturday October 29. Millions can be expected to turn out.

Les Indignés

     So the movement to occupy the public squares and demand change has finally come to North America and Europe. The turn-out yesterday was remarkable: More than a thousand cities around the world. The institutions are listening carefully, not so much to make major changes but rather to adjust the structure to accomodate the level of protest and to give the impression that something positive is happening. Meanwhile, at the stock exchanges and in government, it is still business as usual. The level of response would have to be much greater for anything significant to happen. Perhasp the movement will grow. That certainly was the case in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Yemen and in Syria, to mention only a few examples. Gradually there is an awakening.  However the dynamics are not the same here as in the South.      In any case, there are hundreds of people camped out in public parks in hundreds of cities around the world. As the slogan goes here in MontreaL the 99% is telling the 1% that thjey have awakened.
It will be an exceptional time to talk about things like participatory democracy and an ecological  economy on a human scale.
      This could be an important awakening. And, like all history, it could also be just a bubble.  That depends on all of us. 
A powerfull comment on the movement in the USA :  http://front.moveon.org/the-most-powerful-occupywallstreet-clip-you-will-see-this-month/#.TpttX9PHbS5.facebook

The Montreal occupaton  is going well. Visit their site on facebook: Occupons Montréal

Buy Gold ... ??

In these difficult financial times, many people are turning to a very traditional option to secure their savings: Buy gold. It’s an attractive option. Gold seldom, if ever, loses its monetary value. Six years ago gold sold for about $400 an ounce. In recent months the price has surpassed $1,800/ounce and is accelerating. Moreover gold is extremely mobile. You can even wear it as you travel around from one jurisdiction to another! In turbulent times such as are occurring throughout the Middle East and Africa, gold can be the surest way of having your wealth at hand when you need it. The value of gold is not limited to individual fortunes but also to entire nations. Many countries in Africa and Asia particularly are loading up on gold reserves as a more stable back-up for future needs.

      So then, why not buy gold, if you can? The answers are many. First of all, you have to buy gold that is produced somewhere. Since the price of gold began to rise, a global gold rush has mushroomed into one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Gold companies, especially Canadian-based gold companies have fanned out across the world to dig for tiny quantities of that precious metal spread out over large areas. Entire mountains are displaced in order to sift out the microscopic grains buried there. Whole valleys are torn up, vast tailing ponds created, entire communities displaced. All this so that you can buy that precious gold ring that marks your love and declares your wealth. There is a certain parallel between the profiles of gold mining companies and that of the drug industry in terms of profitability and social impact. The difference, of course, is that one of them is considered quite legal. Another comparison might be with the tobacco industry and its history of causing large scale death and destruction.  However you look at it, to buy gold ties one into a major, global, predatory industry.

     And then there is the argument proposed by Chief Seattle: Gold may be very beautiful and serve as a handy tool for conserving one’s wealth,  however, it satisfies no basic human need. It is not a source of energy; it is useless as construction material and you certainly cannot eat or drink it. Yet vast territories that produce just those elements are ripped up, torn out, destroyed forever by gold mines. Now there are even several projects to mine gold under the ocean!

     It is strange how our capitalist economy works. It destroys whatever is really valuable to meet basic human needs in order to provide a tiny minority with luxury items that ultimately serve no useful purpose. As Joseph Stiglitz says, it is government “of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.” Why is it that we give those few people the power to run things the way they do?

New World Order and Church (2nd part)

This reflection is a follow-up to the previous blog entry. (See below.)

     Evidence that governments around the world are attempting to reduce their commitment to social services is certainly not hard to find. As a major example, witness what is happening in Washington these days under the pretext of managing the public debt of the United States. Similar operations are underway in the European Union. (Witness the example of Greece.) In other times these were Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) imposed by the International Monetary Fund.  The difference today is moot. And I insist that they are largely pretexts. The fact is that governments do not want to have to deal with this side of governing. They would much prefer that private interests or “civil society” organizations be responsible. Thus we find moves toward privately run prisons, “charter schools,” and all sorts of aid programs funded by groups like United Appeal.
     Now, where do we find the Church in all this, especially the Roman Catholic Church? At the Vatican there is a small organism with considerable influence called Cor unum. It is established to deal with assisting those in need. It would like very much to bring all Catholic aid and cooperation organizations under its umbrella. One of these is Caritas Internationalis.

This is the second largest international aid organization in the world, much larger than the Red Cross or any NGO like Oxfam or Care. Only the United Nations can mobilize more resources in an emergency than Caritas. Most countries in the world have a national Caritas organization under the direction of the bishops. There is a central coordinating body with an international secretariat and a Cardinal as president. Recently the Vatican intervened in Caritas to prevent the secretary general, a highly competant woman from Australia, from being re-elected at the international assembly. In recent years Caritas had begun to encourage the incorporation of elements of “international cooperation” into their aid programs. This meant not just handing out aid but helping people organize to meet their needs. This is not well viewed by Cor unum since it has a “political” flavour. So out with her!

A New World Order: with the Church as Privileged Partner?

(Please note that the argument presented here regarding the role of the Church is based largely on rumour and conjecture. While there is no explicit public documentation to back it up at this point, it can nevertheless be said to be plausible given the general context that is described. In any case, I offer it as a call to be alert.)

     In recent weeks we have seen signs of a world empire that has overextended itself and is no longer able to maintain the military force required to “police the world.” Moreover, it is also toying with disaster by reducing the funds available to meet the basic needs of its own citizens.  

    A variety of options have been offered to deal with this. In all of them the invisible empire of the transnational corporations lurks in the wings. Whether the American empire survives or not is of relatively little interest to them. Whether America thrives or collapses, the corporate empire ends up concentrating even more power and wealth in its hands.  It is entrenched.

     Of course it is important to the corporate empire to remain somewhat veiled and to allow “democratic” governments handle the public side of politics. In that sense, the transnationals would be prepared to line themselves up with any political empire that chooses to act as a front for them. (It must be noted however that, at this point, no government that could assert itself against them and survive.)

Fixing The Future?

     There is a growing movement throughout the world today to create local communities with economies serving local needs. Sometimes they are called “transition villages.”  It is the burgeoning of a renewed vision of the “other world that is possible,” but this time in very concrete terms and in ways that take into account the scale of economy that fits the ecological context.      

     The movement coincides well with the vision of “right relationship” proposed in a book of that name by Peter G. Brown, professor at McGill University in Montreal (Canada). In the book (published by BK Publishers) he establishes the framework for a “whole earth economy” that can realistically replace the savage capitalist system that is currently ravaging the earth and its creatures, including ourselves. It is an economic theory that measures the impact on the “spaceship earth” of all its creatures by a formula that sees the global impact as a combined function of population, affluence (consumption), technology and ethics (values). He also outlines a process for gradually bringing about transformation. It involves four stages: grounding and clarification (beginning with awe and reverence for the planetary eco-system), design (including modeling), institutional change (He proposes a global reserve that would do the necessary research and develop policy proposals, a planetary trust to enact measures designed to protect life systems, a global federation for security and taxation and finally a global court.) and as the final stage, non-violent reform, that is to say actually going about the process of pressing the changes into being much as the “transition villages” are doing. Much of the transition could be built in part on what already exists locally and internationally.

       After viewing Inside Job (2010, directed by Charles Ferguson) or Gasland (with Josh Fox), it is not hard to recognize that our current economic system based on the fantasy of financial speculation is doomed. The sooner it can be replaced the better – for everyone. In contrast I much enjoyed Fixing the Future (a PBS production) focusing on what communities are doing to localize their economies.