You Are Not Rudderless

You are not rudderless. You have the capacity to determine the course of your life. You may not be able to influence circumstances that occur, but you can choose how you will respond to them.

In this moment, we can do well to be touched again “by the better angels of our nature”, as Lincoln once penned.* The order of the day is to resist the cruel and power wielding nature of man and return again to our capacity to be human. We’ve witnessed the upsurge of violence and hatred, but we have yet to extol and promote the power of benevolence and goodwill.

We have succumbed, by default and by choice, to the most egregious calamities both to the earth and to one another. We have, by default or by choice, handed our power to the ignorant and the arrogant and we will now collectively suffer the consequences of our inaction.

And what would it look like to return again to our humanity? Foremost, it would mean that a majority of us would reclaim our rudders, or better to say our moral compass. It would mean we would take time to discover in silence and in the reckoning of our own being, what is most important to us.

What we may find are common threads that run throughout humanity – our desire to live in peace, to respect and be respected, and to know the capacity of the earth to care for us and to feed us. Certainly, we would understand and cultivate dignity.

There is no dignity in being rudderless. There is no dignity in allowing suffering. There is no dignity in following inhumanity to its end. Your moral compass knows this. Take it out, dust it off and let’s begin again.

*From Lincoln’s inaugural address, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Presidential Actions after 1 week in office. – Many are being contested in courts and some have already been rescinded due to public outcry. Refuse to be victims.

Let’s Celebrate! Diversity Equity and Inclusion

Don’t hesitate to let your Congress to know how you feel. Find your Congress members here.

AND KEEP LEARNING and SHOWING UP

From Vision to Reality

This is the month we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, his wisdom and his humanity. We reflect on his vision of a country united in compassion, love, justice and peace. We do this in stark contrast to the vitriol of division that has swept through and consumes our land.

We do this as ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) seeks to locate itself in our communities in fulfillment of the campaign promise to have swift deportations of our friends, neighbors and co-workers on day one. We do this as the federal government ignores international laws of human rights. By detaining people accused of crime, but not allowing due process through our judicial system, we are not only disregarding international law, but the laws of our own Constitution.

As current anti-immigrant legislation is passing through Congress, we witness our elected officials sign on to mandatory detention for minor offences and empower states’ attorney generals to weaken immigration policies and block visa programs.

Driven by unjustified fears and old bigotries, too many of us will be ignoring the inhumanity that will be ushered in.

This, as the media continues to squelch the cost to our economy as we lose this vital workforce. This, as we will thrust human beings into illegal and inhuman conditions while they await their fate. This, as we forgo our own humanity and diminish the humanity of our friends, neighbors and co-workers.

There are many working to ensure migrant workers are aware of their rights in this reckless time. One is WISDOM WISCONSIN. It’s a faith based, predominantly Christian, statewide network of volunteers who are refusing to be complicit.

From their website: Support Immigrant Rights in Wisconsin! No matter where we come from, what our color, how we worship, or what our immigration status is, we are all in Wisconsin, and we all want to provide for our families.

WISDOM brings together people from across racial, geographic and economic lines to demand fair and safe immigration processes for all families, just like we won civil rights in our past. By joining all in together, we can make Wisconsin a place that honors all families, no exceptions.

From ZETEO: Challenging the mischaracterizations and lies.

Know Your Legal Rights When Dealing with ICE Immigration Enforcement: The US Constitution provides rights for everyone, regardless of immigration status. Right against Unreasonable Search and Seizure (4th Amendment) is based on personhood, not on citizenship.

1. Right to Due Process

2. Right to legal counsel

3. Right to be with family

4. Right against unreasonable search and seizure

5. Right to education

“I do not consent to any searches, I will not speak without a lawyer present”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., center, leads a group of civil rights workers and Selma black people in prayer on Feb. 1, 1965 in Selma, Alabama after they were arrested on charges of parading without a permit. More than 250 persons were arrested as they marched to the Dallas County courthouse as part of a voter registration drive. (AP Photo/BH)

A Cry for Moral Reckoning

The world watches as the death toll of civilian Palestinians surpasses 18,000. At the UN, 153 countries voted for ceasefire, 23 abstained and eight countries – a few of them tiny islands – voted with the United States and Israel to maintain the ongoing genocide.

The vote demonstrates the isolation that is beginning to encompass the United States and Israel.

Christian Palestinians who have suffered in this reign of terror have an open letter to Chri stians worldwide. They decry the willful tolerance to violence that too many people of faith have adopted over the past three months. They debunk the lies that allow for the United States and western media’s collusion with Israel. And they cry out for moral reckoning.

Cop28 has ended along with the dream that the world would unify to end the use of fossil fuels. Instead we are urged to “transition” to natural gas. Indigenous leaders and climate activists from around the world also drafted an open letter regarding the genocide of Palestinians. They remind us that colonizing has always been the excuse for genocide and the stealing of land.

It was in their letter that I learned of Israel’s twelve permits recently granted for natural gas drilling. They were extended to Great Britain’s BP and Italy’s ENI among others. The lies about the need to remove Hamas and the forced removal of Palestinian civilians for their “safety” made sense in this context. Israel wants to cash in on the “transition” away from fossil fuels. When power and greed lead, human beings are dispensable.

What we are seeing is this: people of peace, people of faith, people who are demanding an end to land theft and to genocide are not being silent. May we all eliminate the beliefs that allow for the slaughter of human beings for greed and power.

That is our first challenge and then united we will stand.

Viva humanity.

Please take time to listen to my WDRT Conversation with Janan Najeeb, Executive Director of Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition regarding Palestine today, the historical context and the urgency for all of us to return to our humanity.

The Insanity of War

Once again there is nothing new to report. Dominant cultures act out of dominance and humanity is forsaken.

It’s said the Nazis learned the ways of legalizing the mistreatment of human beings from their study of the United States government and military’s treatment of indigenous people.

Accounts of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing are rampant in our history. From the moment colonizers landed on these shores, Native people were systematically removed by ignorance or by plan.

In 1830, Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act forced the relocation of 60,000 Cherokees and other tribes. Known as the Trail of Tears the presidential orders were brutally carried out by the United States military.

And there are still those among us who glamorize the legendary Kit Carson whose scorched earth policy on the Dine or Navajo people were followed by numerous and deadly, violent forced removals. This ethnic cleansing or genocide was driven by ignorance, greed and racism and gave way to the Navajo Long Walk.

Sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it?

Land acquisition, resource plundering and cultural assimilation are the root of dominant culture and continue throughout the world.

Intentional and willful killing, displacement of innocents, destruction of non-military homes and other civilian enclaves such as hospitals, all fall within the realm of war crimes as ratified in the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

The retaliation of the Israeli government to the terrorist attack by Hamas has resulted in widespread war crimes from both sides. President Biden’s continued support in word and in financial aid to Israel constitutes an extension of those war crimes – and by default on all of us as citizens.

Isn’t it time we emerge from the insanity of war?

The signing of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 which established laws regarding war crimes.

Maybe it’s time we make war a crime…

Rights of Nature

Some say we’re on a learning curve. When it comes to the environment, I’d call it an unlearning curve.

Led by unscrupulous ambition for money and an insatiable devouring of energy, we – the people of the world – are finding ourselves reeling from natural disasters.

Voices of marginalized and front line people are going unnoticed as profiteers of oil and other extractions continue to tear up the earth and reduce ecosystems to wastelands. Waterways are polluted at an alarming rate. Crop failures are leading countless people into hunger and starvation. And all the while leadership turns a blind eye to the ignorance that has brought us to this moment.

There are beliefs that underpin our ignorance. Beliefs like dominion over the earth, beliefs that tout the wealthiest as god’s chosen and relegate the vast majority of the world to do their bidding. Beliefs that say the earth and all her resources are here for the taking with no recognition of those who will come after. We don’t worry about those coming after, because we have tidy beliefs that say it’s all going to end anyway.

In the meantime we’re allowing this most beautiful creation to be destroyed. And make no mistake, we are allowing it.

But there are drops of sanity emerging throughout the earth, beautiful jewels of wisdom and action. I offer tremendous gratitude to the indigenous among us who have not forsaken their traditional ways and have held fast to their recognition of our interconnectedness with the earth and one another. And I offer encouragement to those trying hard to unlearn the ignorance we were born into and are creating new ways of being and co-creation. Let the unlearning begin!

Please sign this petition from Rights of Nature Wisconsin, Wisdom, and Menikanaehkem:

Wisconsin Elected Officials: Adopt Rights of Nature Laws Today

Today, we face global environmental crises – including soaring extinction rates and accelerating climate change. This has happened despite thousands of environmental laws. What those laws have in common is that they regulate the exploitation of nature – treating nature as existing for human use. It’s time for that to change – for our laws to recognize nature — the waters, plants, animals and ecosystems we live among — as a living being with legal rights.

We call upon our elected representatives at the state and local level to adopt rights of nature laws – as communities across the U.S. have, as countries including Ecuador and Panama have, and as many indigenous nations have done – to secure the right of nature to exist, flourish, and be restored.

Sign here https://secure.everyaction.com/DQmEhEf3pE2eFAMwsuwQIw2

for more Center for Environmental Rights

Entrapment

A friend calls it psyhological entrapment. What amounts to a total disregard of process and environmental concerns, Minnesota Power recently signed a labor agreement with the Northern Wisconsin Building and Construction Trades Council to build a $700 million gas-fired power plant in Superior next spring.

The Nemadji Trail Energy Center was proposed in 2017 and has failed to secure the permits necessary to begin construction. Environmental groups have issued warnings and legal challenges, but apparently lobbyists for fossil fuels operate in a vacuum.

The generating cooperative, Dairyland Power, boasts that this plant will help us towards a “clean energy future”. They’re certain most people will accept the words “clean energy” and call it a day. They’re hoping ratepayers will ignore the price tag as well as the increased amount of energy required to run the plant. They’re hoping the calls for protecting the water; the people and their ancestral homeland by the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will fall on deaf ears. They have not yet understood environmental justice or human rights.

The fossil fuel industry distorts facts regarding renewables and battery storage as insufficient. They dismiss the science that tells us there’s no more time to waste as we continue to extract resources from the earth. They ignore the health risks associated with methane emissions and burst pipelines. And they’re tying our children’s children to unsustainable systems.

What could possibly go wrong building a natural gas plant along a wetland corridor of the Nemadji River?

Had enough of entrapment? Contact your local cooperative (Vernon Electric Cooperative) or utility or contact Dairyland directly at 608-788-4000. Let them know where you stand on this ill-fated energy center.

The following is a fact sheet from Sierra Club

The Silence of Our Friends

I’ve had the belief for a long time that there are more people willing to pick up a hoe than a gun. In other words, there are more people wanting to live in peace and harmony rather than in violent discord.

Living in the United States tends to make us doubt that possibility. Another school shooting, another pipeline breach, more felony arrests of nonviolent activists, and fear of LGBTQ+ keeps getting in the way of “live and let live”.

Recently as I participated in Vernon Electric Cooperative’s annual meeting and witnessed the majority of members voting against their own interests and willing to sacrifice democratic control, even I had to ponder the notion that more people want peace than not. I suppose it can be argued that authoritarian rule and control by a few is preferred because then no one has to think too much.

But the question remains: How does it feel?

How does it feel when you read about another school shooting yet continue to offer thoughts and prayers instead of applying pressure on legislators to change the course of things? How does it feel to know that queer people are being subjected to sub-human treatment? How does it feel to know this country was founded on the deliberate subjugation of People for wealth and pretend it isn’t so?

I’m not willing to give up my understanding that more people want peace. But I will admit to this: too few are willing to say and to do the necessary things to make living in a peaceful way a reality.

Martin Luther King spoke great wisdom when he said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. “

Find your voice friends. Before it’s too late.

Worth the Fight

So you might have heard Wisconsin has an election coming up on April 4th.

Besides the very significant Supreme Court election, which determines the direction of the court for the next decade, Wisconsin voters will be offered two resolutions and one advisory resolution. Two of the resolutions, if passed, will indicate our desire to maintain our high ratios of Black and low-income individuals in prison. The other is a call out to people stuck in the 70’s, when then President Reagan erroneously labeled a Black woman a “welfare queen”.

This label set in motion some of the most racist tropes still haunting us and is being used to drive a certain segment of our populace to the polls.

So why are Wisconsinites being fractured by such blatant ignorance? Simply put: because we can be. Christian radio blasts Justice Janet Protasiewicz as not tough enough on crime and it’s chomping at the bit to ensure taxpayer benefits do not go to the “un-deserving”. Love thy neighbor no longer applies. We opt for high cost prisons and overworked prison guards instead of doing the Christian thing and helping underserved communities get a leg up. Which is well within our reach to do.

It’s a sad state of affairs when ridiculous amounts of out of state monies come into a nonpartisan election and steer our thinking. The puppeteers are pulling strings and not only do we not notice, we don’t seem to really care. We wait for the buzzwords to hook us and then get reeled in. Fish fight harder for their independence than some of us are willing to do.

Three cheers for the fighters, for the thinkers, for the lovers.

However hard, it’s worth it.

Top photo: Replica of Forward an 1893 bronze statue by American sculptor Jean Pond Miner Coburn depicting an embodiment of Wisconsin’s “Forward” motto.

We Are The Majority

For me International Women’s Day, Earth Day and Human Rights Day all merge together as one. And we might as well add World Water Day and International Workers’ Day to the mix, because it’s getting harder to see where one leaves off and another begins.

And that is the meaning of intersectionality, isn’t it? It is the interconnected, overlapping and interdependent nature of the disadvantaged.

It’s great to have a day to champion our singular causes, and we could add many more honorary days to celebrate and move forward with bold agendas and transformative ideals.

Or we can take this notion of being disadvantaged and turn it upside down. When we realize our combined efforts towards equity and peace are the norms, not the defaults, and that in fact we are the majority, we can all win.

International Women’s Day began over 112 years ago, forgotten by many countries and then twisted into a kind of Mother’s Day by others, and now we witness what has besieged the girls and women of Afghanistan in less than two years.

A nightmare has been allowed to run rampant in humanity for far too long. It is based in competition and the accumulation of wealth at all costs. It’s the accumulation of wealth that promotes slavery and continues in its various forms today. It is the ridiculous competition among leaders that continues to send soldiers and civilians to their graves. And it is the degradation of women, children and the earth that has brought us to this moment of un-civilization.

Thinking, peace driven people must shun the failures of the past. These individuals, who can take the yokes from their own necks, and create new paths forward, can and will ignite the change we know is possible.

Please sign the petition to champion Peace Education

Facing Our Demons

Let’s call it what it is: illegal and inhuman. More than 2.4 million migrants have been turned away under Title 42 since 2020. According to US Customs and Border Patrol these individuals are seeking humanitarian protection. The recent Supreme Court decision to allow the continuance of Title 42 is in blatant disregard of human rights and a violation of International Law.

In the guise of a public health measure we have once again turned our backs on migrants fleeing poverty and violence. And we have allowed a right leaning court to uphold a pandemic health excuse to keep human beings in dire situations and in freezing weather at our border. Judges Gorsuch and Jackson articulated their dissent and in clear terms explained that this should not be in the courts domain; rather it is up to legislators to create avenues that support migrants seeking asylum.

That’s the rub, isn’t it? To get legislators to agree on a subject that will force them to unravel the racial biases that still dominate. There are legal and just ways to bring migrants seeking asylum into this country. Ukraine and Afghan refugees can attest to this. But let us not forget the photos of immigration enforcement on horseback rounding up Haitians to be deported. There were 20,000 Haitians deported in five months, and all under Biden’s watch.

Title 42 is an immigration enforcement tool. And we, as a country, should be ashamed. Instead, we make a wish for peace and celebrate the glories of a new year while in our name horrible racist and inhuman acts continue.

We pride ourselves on an exceptionalism that we have never earned.

May we become the humans that we are capable of being.

photo: creative commons licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0

Category: Human Rights