A Social Transformation Toward Sustainability and Justice Would Benefit Everyone

the words of Mahatma (Mohandas K.) Gandhi

This quote needs to be framed in reference to the struggle by people native to the Indian Subcontinent against what was the tyrannous and incredibly violent and harmful colonialism that was waged under the auspices of the British Empire.

I also like the idea of altering the quote slightly so that it ends with "everyone wins" - because real social transformation toward justice and sustainability would benefit everyone. Real social transformation, justice and sustainability would prove to be a winner for everyone...

Wow!!! Humanity has done such a huge damage to itself and to the living systems of the Earth in such a short time since the advent of fossil fueled industrialization!

The following are thoughts which are cross-posted at OlyBlog, link below:

I would really like to see people from the various social and environmental justice movements working along more of a unified front.

The root causes of environmental degradation and ecological unsustainability; imperialism and wars of aggression; exploitative labor practices; societal oppression; and poverty and any other social injustice are the same.

I would like to see a broad based, inclusive and supportive social movement - a movement that is accessible to everyone regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, ability, creed, and/or any other distinguishing feature - in order to effectively and successfully challenge the status quo: a status quo which is currently doing so much harm to all people.

Please imagine a movement to challenge the current establishment's enablement of a degrading and dehumanizing status quo of economic instability, ecological unsustainability, and social injustice...

Further thoughts and avenues for consideration on this topic include, but are not limited to, potential solutions and responses such as 1) permaculture: a resilient, sustainable and independent local/regional economic infrastructure, 2) socio-economic egalitarianism, 3) making health care a central and foundational economic feature ...and etc....

larger image olyblog.net/working-union

I've decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Why Should You Have to Pay to Live on a Planet You Were Born On?

more commentary: Why Should You Have to Pay to Live

Help us love even those who hate us; so we can change the world. - Cesar Chavez

Cultural Transformation

I have posted this before here, but I am posting it again, because I have been thinking about this quote recently.

Here's another MLK quote that I like:

We must accept finite disappointment,
but we must never lose infinite hope.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

see photo larger: Cultural Transformation Shift

Love is the Way

Help us to love even those who hate us - so we can change the world.
Cesar Chavez

Quietness and Security Forever

Happy Solstice!


Isaiah 32:17

The Science of War v. The Science of Nonviolence

Shift

I posted this before, but here I am posting it again. I have been thinking about this quote by MLK Jr. a few times today:


"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

If there is to be any peace...

If there is to be any peace, it will come through being, not having. - Henry Miller

We Face a Stark Choice

Vandana Shiva (Founder of Navdanya):

"Regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns. Governments and the UN should impose a carbon tax on corporations, both for production - wherever their facilities are located - and for transport, which the Kyoto Protocol does not account for directly. Incentives for renewable energy are also essential. We face a stark choice: we can destroy the conditions for human life on the planet by clinging to 'free-market' fundamentalism, or we can secure our future by bringing commerce within the laws of ecological sustainability and social justice." [emphasis added]

How can I live in a way that is truly happy, secure, and peaceful when I know that the ways of human societies are ruining the conditions for human life on Earth and dooming future generations to poverty?

...Earth democracy...transition...put nature first...

...respect and protect wilderness...nurture broken ecosystems, repair them, bring them back to health...restore ecological and economic balance...

Vandana Shiva scheduled to speak in Olympia, October 15: Vandana Shiva visit to Olympia, Washington

Our Greatest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people don't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson

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"The Earth, like the Sun, like the Air, belongs to everyone... and to no one." - Edward Abbey

On the Right Side

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Love Can Drive Out Hate | Martin Luter King Jr.

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.

In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

- MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, pp. 62–63 (1967).


see larger: Love Can Drive Out Hate

The Earth Belongs to Everyone - and to No One

Work for Tomorrow

One generation plants the trees, another gets the shade. - Chinese Proverb

Bursting Flower

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." - Aldo Leopold

We Have All Done Our Best

War is Vandalism

War technology is science in the service of obscene anatomical vandalism.
– Stan Goff