Our Fossil-Fuel Economy Destroys the Earth and Exploits Humanity - Here's the Shift We Need

(crossposted from Good Reads)

Our Fossil-Fuel Economy Destroys the Earth and Exploits Humanity - Here's the Shift We Need to Be Sustainable

Communities around the world are rewriting the rules of their economies and building something beautiful.
Iliana Salazar-Dodge / AlterNet May 12, 2016

I am a Mexican immigrant and a senior at Columbia University who’s been organizing around fossil fuel divestment since freshman year. Two years ago, I had a bit of a crisis. I suddenly felt disillusioned with the movement—not with the tactic of divestment, but rather with the fact that national campaigns were solely focused on taking down the fossil fuel behemoth. Don’t get me wrong; it’s extremely satisfying to hear of another divestment win, to see the fossil fuel industry take a hit. But I began to realize that while we need people to fight the bad in this world, we also need people creating the society we do want to live in. I want to be one of those people.

snip

America's extractive economy

Whether or not we care to admit it, our current economy is extractive—that is, it’s built on the exploitation and extraction of human labor and the earth’s resources. It relies on corporations that force workers to work long hours in unsafe conditions for insufficient wages and benefits. It exists by the continual removal of nutrients from the soil, minerals from the mountains, and fossil fuels from underground. This system isn’t working for us today, and it isn’t going to work for us tomorrow. We know that infinite growth is not possible, but this economy depends on it.

Regenerative economy

In contrast, a regenerative economy satisfies the needs of the present planet without diminishing the prospects of future generations. It builds community wealth by shifting economic power, making workers the owners of their own businesses, community members the decision makers about their resources. It also strengthens the public sector such that it serves the people rather than private interests. A just transition to a regenerative economy restores our relationship to food, Mother Earth and our communities.

A just transition requires accountability, transparency, and solidarity. It exposes the false promises of corporations and governments and values solutions from the people who are most impacted by systemic issues.

This all sounds really great, but it seems impossible, right? There are incredibly powerful forces keeping our extractive economy in place. People in power talk about our economic system like it’s gravity—“it’s just the way the world works.” But a regenerative alternative is not just a figment of the leftist imagination. People wrote the rules for the extractive economy and we can write different rules.

This woman is out there being the change, I find it inspiring.

Read more here
http://www.alternet.org/local-peace-economy/our-fossil-fuel-economy-destroys-earth-and-exploits-humanity-heres-shift-we-need

Posted by Rebkeh | Mon May 16, 2016, 10:12 AM (2 replies)

Our Fossil-Fuel Economy Destroys the Earth and Exploits Humanity - Here's the Shift We Need

(crossposted from Good Reads)

Our Fossil-Fuel Economy Destroys the Earth and Exploits Humanity - Here's the Shift We Need to Be Sustainable

Communities around the world are rewriting the rules of their economies and building something beautiful.
Iliana Salazar-Dodge / AlterNet May 12, 2016

I am a Mexican immigrant and a senior at Columbia University who’s been organizing around fossil fuel divestment since freshman year. Two years ago, I had a bit of a crisis. I suddenly felt disillusioned with the movement—not with the tactic of divestment, but rather with the fact that national campaigns were solely focused on taking down the fossil fuel behemoth. Don’t get me wrong; it’s extremely satisfying to hear of another divestment win, to see the fossil fuel industry take a hit. But I began to realize that while we need people to fight the bad in this world, we also need people creating the society we do want to live in. I want to be one of those people.

snip

America's extractive economy

Whether or not we care to admit it, our current economy is extractive—that is, it’s built on the exploitation and extraction of human labor and the earth’s resources. It relies on corporations that force workers to work long hours in unsafe conditions for insufficient wages and benefits. It exists by the continual removal of nutrients from the soil, minerals from the mountains, and fossil fuels from underground. This system isn’t working for us today, and it isn’t going to work for us tomorrow. We know that infinite growth is not possible, but this economy depends on it.

Regenerative economy

In contrast, a regenerative economy satisfies the needs of the present planet without diminishing the prospects of future generations. It builds community wealth by shifting economic power, making workers the owners of their own businesses, community members the decision makers about their resources. It also strengthens the public sector such that it serves the people rather than private interests. A just transition to a regenerative economy restores our relationship to food, Mother Earth and our communities.

A just transition requires accountability, transparency, and solidarity. It exposes the false promises of corporations and governments and values solutions from the people who are most impacted by systemic issues.

This all sounds really great, but it seems impossible, right? There are incredibly powerful forces keeping our extractive economy in place. People in power talk about our economic system like it’s gravity—“it’s just the way the world works.” But a regenerative alternative is not just a figment of the leftist imagination. People wrote the rules for the extractive economy and we can write different rules.

This woman is out there being the change, I find it inspiring.

Read more here
http://www.alternet.org/local-peace-economy/our-fossil-fuel-economy-destroys-earth-and-exploits-humanity-heres-shift-we-need

Posted by Rebkeh | Mon May 16, 2016, 10:10 AM (0 replies)

Our Fossil-Fuel Economy Destroys the Earth and Exploits Humanity

Our Fossil-Fuel Economy Destroys the Earth and Exploits Humanity - Here's the Shift We Need to Be Sustainable

Communities around the world are rewriting the rules of their economies and building something beautiful.
Iliana Salazar-Dodge / AlterNet May 12, 2016

I am a Mexican immigrant and a senior at Columbia University who’s been organizing around fossil fuel divestment since freshman year. Two years ago, I had a bit of a crisis. I suddenly felt disillusioned with the movement—not with the tactic of divestment, but rather with the fact that national campaigns were solely focused on taking down the fossil fuel behemoth. Don’t get me wrong; it’s extremely satisfying to hear of another divestment win, to see the fossil fuel industry take a hit. But I began to realize that while we need people to fight the bad in this world, we also need people creating the society we do want to live in. I want to be one of those people.

snip

America's extractive economy

Whether or not we care to admit it, our current economy is extractive—that is, it’s built on the exploitation and extraction of human labor and the earth’s resources. It relies on corporations that force workers to work long hours in unsafe conditions for insufficient wages and benefits. It exists by the continual removal of nutrients from the soil, minerals from the mountains, and fossil fuels from underground. This system isn’t working for us today, and it isn’t going to work for us tomorrow. We know that infinite growth is not possible, but this economy depends on it.

Regenerative economy

In contrast, a regenerative economy satisfies the needs of the present planet without diminishing the prospects of future generations. It builds community wealth by shifting economic power, making workers the owners of their own businesses, community members the decision makers about their resources. It also strengthens the public sector such that it serves the people rather than private interests. A just transition to a regenerative economy restores our relationship to food, Mother Earth and our communities.

A just transition requires accountability, transparency, and solidarity. It exposes the false promises of corporations and governments and values solutions from the people who are most impacted by systemic issues.

This all sounds really great, but it seems impossible, right? There are incredibly powerful forces keeping our extractive economy in place. People in power talk about our economic system like it’s gravity—“it’s just the way the world works.” But a regenerative alternative is not just a figment of the leftist imagination. People wrote the rules for the extractive economy and we can write different rules.

This woman is out there being the change, I find it inspiring.

Read more here
http://www.alternet.org/local-peace-economy/our-fossil-fuel-economy-destroys-earth-and-exploits-humanity-heres-shift-we-need

Posted by Rebkeh | Mon May 16, 2016, 10:07 AM (0 replies)

Flipping the script or changing the script? (POLL)

This has been a most telling election season for the left, things I long suspected have come to light. For example, the idea of Trump losing voters to a progressive candidate is somehow a mark against the progressive and his supporters – how on earth is the possibility of Trump leaking votes a bad thing? Up is down, apparently.

While some adapt quickly to change, others take more time. Those who take more time stabilize things as change comes and goes, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Until, that is, they resist change altogether.

This election season has been clarifying for me, it has brought to the surface, in starker terms, the difference between liberals and progressives. Liberals don’t necessarily aim to un-rig the system, they aim to make the rigging work in their favor, while keeping the ‘us vs them’ model intact. Once they get money, power and/or status, they have no problem with the status quo. They mask this in wanting equal opportunity for the disadvantaged without addressing the inherent inequality built into the "opportunity" and "access" arguments. They are lefties who want change, but they don’t want to change.

Progressives, on the other hand, appear to be interested in progress, they aim to un-rig the system so there is justice for all people.

There are some progressives, though fewer than most think, that want to reverse the rigging back to their favor. Then there are liberals who want to reverse the rigging to finally start working in theirs. These two groups are the people who are fighting – the rest of us are trying to keep it in perspective – the rigging itself is the problem.

This has been a weird election, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Change is in the air. Social issues alone are no longer enough to unite the left, it's time to go deeper.

POLL: Do you believe the political system can be unrigged for everyone? (explain below)

For the record, my answer is the last one but it’s up to us, we can do it now or later, but we are going to do it. At some point we will have no other choice.

One final note, also my personal opinion here, the progressives are on the right side of history - you cannot get justice for all from an unjust system. And as long as there is someone on the bottom, there is a threat of you ending up there too - the struggle for equality never stops because there is no justice to be had in this model.

Posted by Rebkeh | Mon May 16, 2016, 09:44 AM (4 replies)

About that LA Times endorsement...

I am not saying this happened again in LA but I'd like to know if it did.

You guys have to read this:

Atlanta Mayor's Column Ripping Bernie Sanders Drafted by Lobbyist, Emails Show
Lee Fang, The Intercept_
May 6, 2016

A FEW DAYS BEFORE the Georgia primary, influential Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed published a column on CNN.com praising Hillary Clinton and ripping her opponent, Bernie Sanders. Reed attacked Sanders as being out of step with Democrats on gun policy, and accused him of elevating a “one-issue platform” that ignores the plight of the “single mother riding two buses to her second job.”

But emails released from Reed’s office indicate that the column, which pilloried Sanders as out of touch with the poor, was primarily written by a corporate lobbyist, and was edited by Correct the Record, one of several pro-Clinton Super PACs.

Anne Torres, the mayor’s director of communications, told The Intercept this week that the column was not written by the mayor, but by Tharon Johnson, a former Reed adviser who now works as a lobbyist for UnitedHealth, Honda, and MGM Resorts, among other clients. The column’s revisions by staffers from Correct the Record are documented in the emails.

Continue reading: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/06/hillary-super-pac-draft-oped/

Posted by Rebkeh | Sat May 14, 2016, 05:54 PM (5 replies)

Voter ID and supermajority

Even if Nixon vetoes it, the republicans can override him.

The Nation
Ari Berman

One of the Most Racially Divided States in the Country Just Passed a New Voter-ID Bill

Missouri Democrats filibustered against the GOP-sponsored bill, noting that 5 percent of the electorate—220,000 registered voters—lack a government-issued photo ID.

http://www.thenation.com/article/one-of-the-most-racially-divided-states-in-the-country-just-passed-a-new-voter-id-bill/

Posted by Rebkeh | Fri May 13, 2016, 09:34 PM (0 replies)