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A New Climate Movement in Bolivia
Cochabamba, Bolivia
It was 11 am and Evo Morales had turned a football stadium into a giant classroom, marshaling an array of props: paper plates, plastic cups, disposable raincoats, handcrafted gourds, wooden plates and multicolored ponchos. All came into play to make his main point: to fight climate change, "we need to recover the values of the indigenous people."Yet wealthy countries have little interest in learning these lessons and are instead pushing through a plan that at its best would raise average global temperatures 2 degrees Celsius. "That would mean the melting of the Andean and Himalayan glaciers," Morales told the thousands gathered in the stadium, part of the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. What he didn't have to say is that the Bolivian people, no matter how sustainably they choose to live, have no power to save their glaciers.
Bolivia's climate summit has had moments of joy, levity and absurdity. Yet underneath it all, you can feel the emotion that provoked this gathering: rage against helplessness.
It's little wonder. Bolivia is in the midst of a dramatic political transformation, one that has nationalized key industries and elevated the voices of indigenous peoples as never before. But when it comes to Bolivia's most pressing, existential crisis--the fact that its glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply in two major cities--Bolivians are powerless to do anything to change their fate on their own.
That's because the actions causing the melting are taking place not in Bolivia but on the highways and in the industrial zones of heavily industrialized countries. In Copenhagen, leaders of endangered nations like Bolivia and Tuvalu argued passionately for the kind of deep emissions cuts that could avert catastrophe. They were politely told that the political will in the North just wasn't there. More than that, the United States made clear that it didn't need small countries like Bolivia to be part of a climate solution. It would negotiate a deal with other heavy emitters behind closed doors, and the rest of the world would be informed of the results and invited to sign on, which is precisely what happened with the Copenhagen Accord. When Bolivia and Ecuador refused to rubber-stamp the accord, the US government cut their climate aid by $3 million and $2.5 million, respectively. "It's not a free-rider process," explained US climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing. (Anyone wondering why activists from the global South reject the idea of "climate aid" and are instead demanding repayment of "climate debts" has their answer here.) Pershing's message was chilling: if you are poor, you don't have the right to prioritize your own survival.
When Morales invited "social movements and Mother Earth's defenders...scientists, academics, lawyers and governments" to come to Cochabamba for a new kind of climate summit, it was a revolt against this experience of helplessness, an attempt to build a base of power behind the right to survive.
The Bolivian government got the ball rolling by proposing four big ideas: that nature should be granted rights that protect ecosystems from annihilation (a "Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights"); that those who violate those rights and other international environmental agreements should face legal consequences (a "Climate Justice Tribunal"); that poor countries should receive various forms of compensation for a crisis they are facing but had little role in creating ("Climate Debt"); and that there should be a mechanism for people around the world to express their views on these topics ("World People's Referendum on Climate Change").
The next stage was to invite global civil society to hash out the details. Seventeen working groups were struck, and after weeks of online discussion, they met for a week in Cochabamba with the goal of presenting their final recommendations at the summit's end. The process is fascinating but far from perfect (for instance, as Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center pointed out, the working group on the referendum apparently spent more time arguing about adding a question on abolishing capitalism than on discussing how in the world you run a global referendum). Yet Bolivia's enthusiastic commitment to participatory democracy may well prove the summit's most important contribution.
That's because, after the Copenhagen debacle, an exceedingly dangerous talking point went viral: the real culprit of the breakdown was democracy itself. The UN process, giving equal votes to 192 countries, was simply too unwieldy--better to find the solutions in small groups. Even trusted environmental voices like James Lovelock fell prey: "I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war," he told the Guardian recently. "It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while." But in reality, it is such small groupings--like the invitation-only club that rammed through the Copenhagen Accord--that have caused us to lose ground, weakening already inadequate existing agreements. By contrast, the climate change policy brought to Copenhagen by Bolivia was drafted by social movements through a participatory process, and the end result was the most transformative and radical vision so far.
With the Cochabamba summit, Bolivia is trying to take what it has accomplished at the national level and globalize it, inviting the world to participate in drafting a joint climate agenda ahead of the next UN climate gathering, in Cancún. In the words of Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solón, "The only thing that can save mankind from a tragedy is the exercise of global democracy."
If he is right, the Bolivian process might save not just our warming planet but our failing democracies as well. Not a bad deal at all.
This column was first published in The Nation (www.thenation.com)
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Show AllFrom the alternative climate summit in Bolivia to the alternative nuclear non-proliferation summit in Iran, the message is clear: The US has lost its leadership role because it consistently sides with the bully, the criminal and the illegal. We war against innocent people, build and sell WMDs, support dictatorships and apartheid states, and destroy the environment for the profits of corporate thugs. Obama is no better than Bush, and the Democrats are as culpable as the Republicans. America is a travesty.
Well said, Donna. I believe the essential problem for the US is an inherently disfunctional democracy, with a political and economic system designed for a simpler era when aggressive expansion and exploitation of resources and peoples was a viable option. That system is now so corrupt and in thrall to powerful yet essentially fictional entities, the corporations, that the US is a democracy in name only, with actual power reserved to only the tiniest of minorities. The culture cannot grasp its own deficiencies nor recognize the positive aspects of alternative world views.
"Abandon Repressive Satisfaction"
Marcuse
Correct Donna." Obama is no better than Bush ". Evo Morales: " The only difference between Bush and Obama is their color"!
Very succinct, very sad and very catastrophic for the rest of the world. In pursuit of our "non-negotiable" lifestyle, we will drag the entire human species into a new dark age. Laissez Faire, free market kapitalist globalization is turning Earth into a third world planet.
Naomi klein does it again-- well done!
AD
Have to admit, I find it hard to accept leadership in environmental matters from a country that generates most of its GNP from the extraction of fossil fuels. It is easy for Morales to take the high ground, pointing to the relatively small carbon footprint his citizens make--especially when compared to the United States, but I cannot help feeling that he will continue to take as much natural gas out of the ground as he can in order to support increased consumption of goods by his people. It is easy to blame the West for its excesses when you don't have much, but wait until higher prices bring wealth to Bolivia. Then the people will be driving their SUVs and the noise about global climate change will quiet down.
This is indeed an issue for the Bolivians, and even more so for us. Figuring out how to do "sustainable" and "green" will not be that easy. Step 1 has been taken by Morales, environmentalists and the indigenous peoples of various countries.
I do not think noise about climate change will quiet down. For one thing, the food and water supplies will be endangered. Hunger and thirst are huge motivators.
Joe
What choices do they have drosera? I don't think they'll be manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines anytime soon.
Your cynicism with regard to the indigenous peoples of third world countries is unjustified. We can learn a lot more of value from them than we can teach them. Not all people are as easily owned as we self-interested, greedy, complacent amerikans. Amerikans are so full of themselves, they actually believe they have every right to everything and pity any foolish, inferior, primitive nation, sovereignty be damned, that dares to stand in their way of having it!
It's easy to blame the "west" and the genocidal, planet-raping kapitalist profit machine because...oh yeah, it's their fault!
"They have pillaged the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy; if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of "empire." They make a desert and call it "peace"."
Roman historian Tacitus
I think people are people, indigenous or transplanted from somewhere else. People want things that will make their lives safe and secure as well as offering a modicum of comfort and glamor. Indigenous Bolivians or white Americans want basically the same things. Where I live, Native Americans have large casinos that promote ugly consumption of resources, alcohol, and tobacco. It is a far cry from the Nature ethic their great-grandparents lived. And I would not begrudge them these things--why should they behave differently? Everyone in a similar situation would do the same. Your deification of indigenous people comes from the European notion of the "Noble Savage," the view that indigenous people lived in a veritable Eden until the coming of Europeans. Like "Avatar," it is a dream built upon scant fact. Better to recognize indigenous people as another segment of the human population with the inevitable faults of our species and not as an idyllic society of infinitely wise people.
What could Bolivia do differently? A few things: Establish industries not based on gas and oil production. Develop the fields slowly with attention to the environment and to those living there. Invest in education. Invest in green technology even though there is plenty of cheap gas to burn. Is Evo doing these things? Perhaps some of them, but I would like proof before I would consider him to be a world leader in reducing greenhouse gases.
You display an arrogant, colonialist attitude drosera.
The nations of central and south america have been under siege for centuries. In modern times amerika has "intervened" on multiple occasions, replacing democratically elected, left leaning leaders with bloody, murderous but compliant puppet dictators. The u.s. will do everything in its power to prevent any progress in the "back yard, be it social, political, industrial or economic.
I have no such illusions regarding native people and am stunned by your suggestion that I actually worship them. Is such hyperbole common in your discourse?
I feel it's safe to say we shall have to agree to disagree.
“A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it’s going to get.”
Ian Williams Goddard
drosera didn't say you actually worship them, really.
I think you may be putting the good guys of the week (or decade) on a pedestal. Native people are very much human like us, and subject to greed and foolishness as are blacks and whites and everyone else.
All Americans aren't bad, all Bolivians aren't good. No one person is all good or bad. Capitalists can go to heaven I guess. Some Bolivians speak with forked tongue. Everyone's good in god's eyes (I think).
We won't have climate justice by pointing accusatory fingers at people we think are guilty.
Why don't we work to create the values we project on indigenous people's in our own neighborhood's and families?
Well imaginal, drosera says,
"Your deification of indigenous people..."
deification [ˌdiːɪfɪˈkeɪʃən ˌdeɪ-]
n
1. (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) the act or process of exalting to the position of a god
2. (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) the state or condition of being deified
So, drosera clearly states that I consider them "gods", which in turn means I must worship them.
Of course there are good and bad people everywhere on Earth. Who said otherwise?
We won't have "climate justice" until Nature takes its course and sends us back to the stone age, if we're lucky enough to survive as a species.
Your last sentence poses a very pertinent question. Can you answer it?
I'd venture it's because we're so busy consuming, always trying to obtain more, always trying to "get ahead" that we no longer even remember what neighborhoods and families are. This is how we have been trained by the marketing department of the profit machine. We are as conditioned as Pavlov's dogs.
"Establish industries not based on gas and oil production"
Gee, why didn't they think of that? Ever hear of the Non Aligned Movement, The Tricontinental Conference, UNCTAD, Raul Prebisch? Ever hear of the proposals that came out of the endless Third World forums (Vijay Prashad has an amazing book on the history of the third world if you're interested) that were organized by the former Third World, like the New International Economic Order? The complaints about the deteriorating trade values of raw materials (the majority of exports from developing countries) vs. the manufactured goods in the West, the fact that capitalism tended to undervalue natural resources and the trade cartels they tried to form to stop this? Logic and arguments haven't worked, force has worked to stop any change to the status quo
"I would like proof before I would consider him to be a world leader in reducing greenhouse gases."
Be honest, how much have you bothered to read up on where Morales came from and what he's done since he's been in power? How much have you read about the Bolivian social movements and the resource wars in the country? How much have you read about the huge increases in the funding for social programs, and the government's activism the world over on these issues? There is plenty of proof, do you expect us to spoon feed you?
www.zmag.org
www.counterpunch.org
Two good sites that will give you plenty of proof about the Bolivian government.
Just to give you a heads up. The majority of people in Bolivia are indigenous. They never had an indigenous president, never had a president that was truly responsive to social movements (at least since the destruction of the '52 revolution and the MNR's turn to the right). Does that not, by itself mean something? Why do people always have these types of childish comments when we dare to think that we can learn something from other cultures?
This type of mindset comes out often in regards to Cuba. I hear from so many how much travel to Cuba will change Cuban society. Why? Because we have freaking IPods? Nike shoes? Does anyone think that people will travel to Cuba and learn something? Does Cuba have something to teach us? Should capitalists be just a little worried, especially as the system continues to crumble?
"Where I live, Native Americans have large casinos that promote ugly consumption of resources, alcohol, and tobacco. It is a far cry from the Nature ethic their great-grandparents lived."
Bolivia isn't where you live and they don't and wouldn't want to improve their standard of living by opening casinos and selling off their women's bodies. What do British football drunkards have to do with me, you or the issues we're discussing?
It is necessary for the Cuban government to forbid its people from leaving the country. The whole island is a de facto prison camp. What else could one possibly need to know?
Give an indigenous child an ice cream, and that child will want another ice cream. Show his father a radio, or a Jeep, and that man will want his own radio and Jeep. I very much doubt that the Bolivians are somehow exempt from the cupidity that is in human nature. Men are not angels, except in Bolivia? Nah.
Nobody envies the Cubans their privations. The "capitalists" have nothing to be worried about, at least from that quarter.
I envy Cubans medical care.
What else could one possibly need to know?
Yeah, obviously that is a problem in socialist Cuba and no where else. Mexicans don't go elsewhere because of their economic situation (thanks in large part to the disaster that is neoliberalism), and capitalist Mexico is a paradise vs Cuba, with a better human rights record, right? Nope, I'm sure you're concerned about Mexico's human rights record and bother to mention the billions we're giving the army and police there, despite their long list of human rights violations. Same with capitalist El Salvador, how much of their money comes from relatives sending money back? The largest recipient of US aid in the hemisphere, Colombia? Have anything to say there? People in poor countries the world over don't have this problem do they? People in Turkey don't go to Germany for a better life (Turkey, a large recipient of US aid, with a far worse human rights record than Cuba)? Do people in neighboring countries flee to South Africa for the same reasons?
As I said, Cuba's Human rights record is nowhere near as bad as the countries who receive the most US aid in the region, there is no way you could argue otherwise. Again, you don't compare Cuba to the US any more than you would Haiti to Canada. You compare Cuba to countries that are at the same developmental stage and have about the same resources. Cuba stacks up well and its human rights record has improved greatley in recent years. If you include their humane missions abroad I think it stacks up well to the Colombia's of the world.
I would think that rational capitalists fear Cuba, and have for decades, for obvious reasons. Read the declassified documents about the fear of Cuba's revolutionary example, the elites were terrified, and for good reason. Go to a the World Social Forum and here the cheers everytime the country's name is mentioned. People aren't deluded or ignorant to its failures, they're educated about it success in human development and want something similar, and more democratic. You don't think someone from the US, who has also gone to the other poor countries in the region (the majority of which are horribly poor), wouldn't draw similar conclusions to mine? You don't think they would re-think the conventional nonsense they hear back home about "free markets" and what wonders it has done for developing countries?
Stay tuned: proofs come after.
By the way drosera, you might want to remember that "where you live" the natives have been all but exterminated, their culture and belief system utterly obliterated, their languages erased from existence and their lands and means of survival stolen through what can only be described as genocide.
Amen to that, visiting professor. Beautiful.
Joe
"The age of elite domination of societies is over..."
–Hardly.
On the contrary, it is now undergoing (driven mercilessly by applied fascist technology) the most savage, rigorous and malefic retrenchment in human history, with no end in sight.
So much so that there can be no rapprochement, no reconciliation and certainly none of the bad faith based 'Kumbayah' moments that are now, more than ever– part of the problem–not the solution.
Wheeling American vultures overhead, locked for descent on the multi lingual circle-jerk of the pious, hand holding illuminati in their eco sanctity. The fish in that barrel have no guns. As they trade organic seeds, fascists rob them and laugh in their faces.
"Brave new world" indeed! Hour of the Wolf.
I certainly agree that it is time. However, no matter how 'right' a position may be, no matter how 'timely' or 'overdue', its proponents have no chance against a machine gun. We must not forget that this 'age of elite domination' is supported by military and police who are armed with incredible firepower, and search-and-destroy technology. We do need the new paradigm, the new consciousness, the new culture. But its proponents [e.g. you and I and others on this website] will be lined up and shot when the crap hits the ultimate fan. I like your idealism. Your impracticality - not so much.
I disagree. I agree with the economist Michael Hudson. I think that Latvia, Iceland, Greece and the rest are dress rehearsals for what is to come here. We've never had true IMF style austere measures forced on us domestically. We've always preached what we would never accept domestically, and the horror is coming. Britain has, mid 1970's. The great Tony Benn has talked a lot about the debates in the British Labour Party at the time. What we're facing now, the austere measures that could very well be forced on us, could be very ugly. It will be pure capitalism too, the markets will be given a lot of confidence in our missery, no mass social movements or unions to worry about. The reactionaries here aren't going to like true capitalism a bit.
I also think that revolutions tend to create a power vacuum, and what fills that vacuum are the strongest, best organized, many times the most violent forces. We aren't like Latin America, or even Europe. We don't have mass social movements, unions are weak and we have no experience domestically with democratic socialism, and work place democracy. Our grand parents might a bit, we don't. Democracy to us is a spectator sport. If there is revolution here the right wing, the militarists, the reactionaries will take power. They are strongest, they are the most violent and they would have far more financial support.
We can't expect a non hierarchical society to emerge without years, probably decades, of organizing, mass education campaigns and short term loses. These things take time and the change is slow and painful. The left's best bet is for the capitalist system to not destroy the planet and the world's people before we can organize and educate people, and we are honeslty an inch away from the starting line. We are no where close to that right now.
-"It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."
I would caution enviromentalists to be careful what they ask for. The US may elect another "strongman" who says that climate change is so crucial, that staying within international law, the UN, and democratic norms must be "temporarily" abandoned. We've seen the sidelining of the UN, in Yugoslavia, which paved the way to Iraq. What is to stop Obama or his replacement from claiming he is fighting "a long war" against climate disaster, which demands further erosion of human rights, national sovereignty and government accountability?
“A little path can lead a long way” Haitian saying
The issue of democracy in time of ecological crisis is more complicated than Klein believes. There is also the question of freedom.
True, worldwide democracy would imply reduced consumption by the rich, but how? Will governments (or a world government) order people to stop driving, stop eating meat, or stop having children? Will we move to a totally planned economy, so that exploiting cheap labor and natural resources is no longer allowed? Perhaps all food will have to be grown within 50 miles of where it is consumed?
This is going to be a hard sell, because material standards of living do seem to benefit from free markets, even if everything else about a capitalist society goes to hell. Also, people justifiably desire freedom and won't want to give it up to slow down a climate change process they can't even see in their own lives. And if we are to give up freedom to a government climate-protection program, how can we trust that body to be honest and wise? Why would we even think it could be?
How do we enforce all this? Or can it be done by changing values on a worldwide scale, so that nearly everyone gives more value to Earth's survival than to their own material well-being and personal fulfillment? Can this be done? Is it a question of building a 6 billion person grassroots movement? How?
Actually its quite simple, democracy is the 51% most intelligent and wealthy enriching themselves upon the misery of the 49% laboring class.
Your implication that anyone of the "laboring" class is ipso facto less intelligent than a wealthy societal parasite is as insulting as it is a display of ignorance.
I would also question the ratio between the elite and the peasants. The psychopaths who control the international banking cartel and their privileged cohorts are more probably less than a quarter of the population.
"...the richest 25% of the world's population receives 75% of the world's income, even when adjusting for Purchasing Power Parity. The poorest 75% of the population share just 25%."
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/income.php
Democracy is irrelevant in the present situation.
Worse, the ruling classes don't even bother to vote. The opposing grops mainly use the media to motivate the few who vote, as for the rest they are paid for and shipped in at the last minute to swing the balance.
Both Democrats and Republicrats have done this in recent years. SO neither gets my respect or dammnation on this point.
My problem is with those who vote with no knowledge about whats good for them. Voting based only on clever commercials, of following some group they think they might identify with.
This is why I have no use for any open Democracy, there must be tests, or some kind of way to determine that they at least support the nation they live in. Lik only allowing militay veterians to vote these people gave up time to serve their country. so we know they care this much.
It will undoubtedly be difficult. But I see young ones, even kids who have been raised with ridiculous amounts of material comforts, who can see the kind of awful world we will have if we continue the way we are going.
Joe
"This is going to be a hard sell, because material standards of living do seem to benefit from free markets, even if everything else about a capitalist society goes to hell."
Absolute nonsense. Back this claim up. What do "free markets" have to do with America's, Britain's, Japan's or anyone else's development and standard of living? A Korean economist named Ha Joon Chang has written many amazing books about this very subject. A "free market" didn't even really exist in England until the middle of the 19th century and it didn't last half a century. Not to mention the horrible and violent British imperialism (which along with the state lead development had nothing to do with what they teach in economics departments). The US was as far from a "free market" as you could get until after WWII and our standard of living has declined as we've moved closer to what is called a "free market", "neo-liberalism", or whatever the hell you choose. We really can't even say we had anything resembling a "free market" until the late 1970's (after price, wage and capital controls were lifted and tax rates were reduced). Every single country in the West, without exception, has used massive state intervention when developing. We're still highly protectionist, the state supported industries (agriculture, bio-tech, civilian aircraft, weapons, and computers) are what are still healthy. Without the largest socialist institution in the world, the US military, we wouldn't have computers, the internet, satellites and cell phones, TV's. Hell, even airliners are really just modified military aircraft and use technology developed almost entirely by the state/military.
"Can this be done? Is it a question of building a 6 billion person grassroots movement? How?"
Good questions, but leaving it up to the market and capitalism is fool headed. The means to solving this are not known or a given, but if we can't answer these questions positively human civilization will not last. Thinking that the mythical "free market" can solve this is really scary. Read political economists like Robin Hahnel, Karl Polanyi and Herman Daly. Trying to use capitalism as a means to do this is not logically defensable, I see no logical way that anything we call capitalism can survive the ecological wall we're about to hit. I'd prefer the next system to be democratic, for institutions and government to be participatory and horizontal, not vertical in their decision making structures. I think (private or public) central planning would be horrible, but it is sadly a real option, while capitalism isn't.
There are a lot of really interesting things happening in Central and South America, and very few happening in English speaking Americas. If there is political hope, it is down there. I suppose the simplist response, if the stupidest, that the Amerikan power people can make, is to assassinate Morales. It would be simpler, and more final, to build Walmarts in all their cities, and to help Murdock build TV stations down there. That would quickly kill the progressive movements. When I look around at what has happened in my country and in the world in my 70 years I find myself vacillating between rage and despair. The complexity and universality of the problems - social, political, economic, biological, environmental - seem overwhelming, especially when taken with the severe decrease in literacy and education in the most powerful country the world has ever known. On these websites I read endless discussions of socialism vs capitalism, etc, etc. What we must do is take action. And writing letters and making phone calls obviously will not cut it. Protesting in the streets yields no result. Electing a group of people that we thought might make a difference gave us nothing. Action is required. Now. In my long experience with the peace and justice movement, even with Veterans for Peace, what always happens is in-fighting over what to do. The corporate elite does not have that problem. Action is required. Now.
But you should rejoice, as the purpose of this world is to prove the harm in it. And when things cannot possibly get any worse, then all things will turn toward the good.
Michael C, I agree with nearly everything you say. I too have been watching and ranting for over sixty years now and it's too late to "change the system from within".
There are only a couple of points where I take a different view.
The corporate elite is a big problem but they are only the servants of a smaller, far more powerful group, the international banking cartel.
As to taking action, the supremacists now have greater power and control over more of the world and its resources than at any other time in history. Their hegemony is, for the first time, truly global in scope. The sheer might of the military and police forces that they literally own is simply overwhelming. Unless a leader or unified group arises that can win over at least a significant portion of those forces there is little hope of success in terms of revolution.
Should such a rebellion take place today, it would become a very long, very bloody and cruel guerrilla war of underground resistance against the military machine of the elite. Welcome to the Matrix!
The masters are turning Earth into a single, global, third world nation. Walled and gated cities of opulence and excess guarded by the high-tech military caste and served from the pool of starving slaves huddled outside the walls in slums, barrios, ghettos and shanty towns.
By the way, during the conference, I did not see any reference to it in the New York Times. Then after the conference, there were mocking references to Morales all over the internet, saying he said eating hormone-injected chickens could make you gay and cause baldness.
People who want to oppose the US have to be extremely careful. Hundreds of insightful and cogent statements will be ignored, but any questionable statement will be distorted, perhaps, and reported over and over again in our shallow gotcha press. The essence of the statement about the hidden dangers of industially produced food - missing in action.
Joe
Not "extremely careful" but extremely courageous, for surely you shall be crucified alive. For your wife will be given a half million to throw you into divorce court, your sons will likewise disown you, and if you refuse to be silent and stay exiled deep inside a large timberland wilderness, you shall be beaten severely on lonely country roads.
Visiting Professor:
“The only way out is for all of us to work together,
in harmony with the regenerative natural forces
that nourish and sustain the living earth.”
The preferred way, but surely not the only way. For then the only purpose for this world would be to prove there is some good in man, and if man turned out to be all bad, if “Every inclination of the hearts of man was only evil all the time,” then this world was a big waste of time and all the wars and suffering was for nothing.
But if the main purpose of this world was to reach the ultimate conclusion of darkness, to discover all the pretenses of good used by corrupt government to enrich itself upon our misery in such darkness, then a great good will have been accomplished.
To give you common horse sense is not my burden,
either you have it or you don't.
Of course, most people would deny that there is any "purpose" to the world's existence. And if there were such a purpose, why should it have anything to do with people? Seems kind of silly to me.
What's happening now in bolivia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica is very important. All three countries are using democratic processes to deal with global warming.
Costa Rica has 95% of their energy from renewable sources, and protects 25% of their land--particularly their rain forests, volcano regions, and Caribbean area which is necessary for endangered turtles to reproduce in national parks. Costa Rica arrived at these government policies through a democratic process.
In Bolivia and Ecuador the glaciers are melting endangering both country's water supplies. In Educator at the international level, Ecuador’s initiative to get northern industrial countries to compensate them for not allowing oil drilling in the Yasuni Nation Park which has a huge oil has found support: " In June 2008, the German Parliament called on the Government to support the project. The government carried out a feasibility study in 2008/0. Apart from Germany, Spain, Belgium, France and Sweden are reported to have offered substantial payments and 15 other countries have declared an interest. For several months,the Ecuadorean government has been in negotiations with the UN Development Fund for a UN fund which was to be signed at the end of January."
The recent Bolivian climate change process allowed civil society to participate in writing global and national environmental policy--including indigenous people and workers in the country's mines.
We should imitate these countries in developing a democratic process in developing government policies regarding global warming and the environment. Too long in the U.S. has land and energy policies been dominated by oil companies, corporate agriculture, corporate lumber etc etc. We need to develop a democratic process here to
“We need to develop a democratic process”
But, democracy without morality is what we have had since 1776. The result being best educated 51% of society have great jobs, terrific homes and deluxe health care, while the 49% without a high school diploma do not even have the $35 needed to gain access to a doctor.
What is "DEMOCRACY"? Will some commentators PLEASE DEFINE?
This country was founded as a Republic.
If they really want Democracy I'd avoid the idea of going native. In almost every South American Tribal Leaders were chosin either. By Lienage, or chosen by Gods.
>^^<
No, their chosen because everyone sees clearly that they are the most intelligent one in the tribe.
For intelligence like sex-appeal passes from father to son, and that is what our High Society is all about.
How about-- democracy is the opposite of corporate. In a democracy a voter has a share, but only a share(1). In a corporate structure each share has a vote and a share is based on money-- a PERSON with one share gets one vote, a person, fund, trust, speculator, dog with 10 shares, gets 10 votes and so forth. It is all about money and inequality.
"But when it comes to Bolivia's most pressing, existential crisis--the fact that its glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply in two major cities--Bolivians are powerless to do anything to change their fate on their own. "
The above statement is clear evidence why non-native authors should stick to reporting the facts and avoid misrepresenting a culture and world view they have no knowledge about. This is the equivalent of John Boehner speaking for Jessie Jackson. Indigenous Peoples are not powerless! In our world view we are anything but powerless. It is not possible to put into a thimble millennia of cultural development and evolution.
PLEASE ALLOW TRADITIONAL NATIVE WRITERS TO REPORT ON NATIVE ISSUES! Thank you.
But since the beginning of civilization native groups has been powerless to stop the plunder of nature.
And there are no such things as "NATIVE ISSUES," as we all share the native lands together.
And so, your belligerent comment does not sound like any native group I know, more like one who is trying to isolate and destroy native groups.
Truth_Light, you are entitled to your viewpoint. I have been taught not to argue an issue but to state my thoughts clearly once, and so I have.
Hell, right here on Common Dementia almost all of us traditional native writers are almost immediately banned every time we speak from the indigenous perspective.
Nobody among the white colonialists wants to be reminded that it's his or her fault that the planet is in such a mess.
Jeevee”
“What is DEMOCRACY?
Will some commentator PLEASE DEFINE?”
Democracy is the 51% most intelligent and wealthy using the deadly force of government to enrich themselves upon the misery of the 49% laboring class. Laboring class being all those who have not a high school diploma.
Common horse sense, so why is it hardly a one here comprehends the simplicity of it, or is willing to except the light embodied in the reality of it?