This is something I wrote around New Years

There is so much to be angry about.  My mother shovels snow to the stench of shit because a factory farm has been setting up shop within sight of the home where she raised me.  After describing her dilemma, she announced that she just paid her taxes, taxes my representatives have sent to the Israeli military so that they would have enough bombs to kill hundreds of Gazans.  Even the virtual world is not immune to the devastation.  A friend informs me that pictures of the Palestinian dead are cropping up in his social networking site.  Then he goes on to tell me about other pictures being taken from the sky above Appalachia.  The pictures are of coal ash, a poisonous by-product of coal burning.  The Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plants store their ash in huge containment ponds.   As with any system that relies on dirty energy, tragedy will happen.    On Dec 22nd one of those ponds burst , spilling 1 Billion gallons of nastiness into tributaries of the Tennessee River.  I view the aerial photos showing a lake of toxicity washing over people’s homes.  It reminds me of the tons of cow shit generated by that factory farm now embedded on the landscape where I used to watch sunsets.  Mother says the manure gets piled on a hill to fester, and, during a heavy rain, it will wash right over to the neighbor’s playground.  There is a lot be be angry about.  

There is a lot to be angry about, especially if, like me, you live by a coal plant, and when you hear the trains making their deliveries of fossil fuel, you wonder how many mountains were leveled to make today’s heating bill possible.  

There’s a lot to be angry about it, if, like me, you drove a lot this week and had to wonder, while stopping at the gas station, about this bizarre and deadly exchange the U.S. has with the middle east.  Send in the guns.  Distribute to dictators, terrorists, and armies of occupation.  Remove the oil.  And if petroleum oil wasn’t bad enough, now there is palm oil.  It comes from palm trees that are usually grown on tropical lands that were once rain forest, until they were converted by fire.  Now palm oil, the fruits of this scorched earth agrisprawl, has infiltrated thousands of products in just about every American supermarket.  Grrrrr!!!  Feeling that every meal contains rain forest destruction is enough to drive a person crazy.

But not for me; not today.  Today I devoured a bowl of manoomin, wild rice grown by the Anishanabee people.  They grow it north of where I live.  They have grown it before, during and after American colonial genocide, and their defiant food traditions have been keeping alive possibilities of liberation.  Plant and resist.  Harvest and resist.  Eat and resist.  When I eat manoomin I ingest some ancient strength. The rice mingles with the rage that lives in my belly, and that digestive marriage produces something new, a productive anger, a call to action, transformation.  I go for a walk, mail some protest letters, compose some e-mails & make further plans for turning my seething rage into focused intent.  I intend to keep organizing.  Organizing is an act of love.

One Person’s masochism is someone else’s comfort

Supposedly, Wisconsin is in the grip of a bone chilling cold front.  The words of caution didn’t deter me from going out to enjoy today’s sunshine.  I walked around the neighborhood and was surprised at how warm I felt, in spite of being well bundled

I decided to visit my place on power on the shores of Lake Mendota, and suddenly I felt the meaning of the words wind chill.  Out there there are no trees, no houses, no barriers to the rapidly moving north east air that pummeled my exposed little face.  Now those words of caution all make sense.

Nevertheless, I stayed, bedazzled and captivated by the winter wind surfers strutting their colorful sails and daring to do acrobatics on the frozen lake.  I canceled my plans to hike across Mendota, but I watched Her for a while.  The wind was whipping snow across the lakescape.  The after math of this is drifts that no human architecture can equal.   It was glorious, and the chance to behold a piece of glory is worth some pain.

Reading, pausing, reading

Today I am taking my second break from the book that I’ve been devouring, Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  I bought it the night that Naomi Klein visited my town.  She delivered a riveting speech to a packed lecture hall.  It was her first public address since the November elections.  Afterwards I just had to get a copy of her book since everyone has been talking about it.  On the back cover there is a prominent quotation by Howard Zinn.  He calls The Shock Doctrine, “a brilliant book, one of the most important I have read in a long time.”

During my first year of college, I was assigned to read the beginning chapters of Howard Zinn’s premier publication, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present.  It was electrifying to discover an historian whose writings were all about the experiences and resistance of the enslaved, the indentured and the indigenous, nevertheless, I didn’t read very far past the colonial period.  Then a decade passed, Naomi Klein came to town, I read Part I of her book and then felt compelled to finish Zinn’s history before going any further.  So that’s what I did.  

People’s History  was one of many excellent text books from my undergraduate days.  There were plenty of not so good ones too, but the sheer volume of assigned readings that defined my college life led to some literary burnout.  The mind and heart needs time to digest profound ideas, just as the stomach needs time to digest a wholesome meal.   Most semester class loads didn’t allow for that kind of balance.  If I lurched down the aisle to receive my diploma, it’s only because I was feeling more like a foie gras goose than a triumphant student.

2008 marked my full recovery from being burnt out on books.  Through intentional searches and chance discoveries, I rediscovered my passion for works of history and historical fiction.  Each one taught me something different, but together they reaffirmed that it is important to make time for ideas, and it is also important to take breaks.

Dust to Dust

A lot of people are disappointed with President Elect Obama’s nominations for executive jobs.  The latest groan I’ve heard is over Tom Vilsack, former governor of Iowa, darling of the agribusiness biotechnology industry and Obama’s pick to head the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).  

The choice of Vilsack is doubly disappointing because there had been an active grass roots campaign urging Obama to pick a real change agent for Secretary of Agriculture.  A coalition of sustainable democracy groups put together a short list of people who would have brought some sorely needed organic values to the USDA.  Had President Elect Obama listened to the thousands of people who petitioned him to nominate someone from this list, he might have chosen someone like Fred Kirschenmann, a bona fine organic farmer and a fellow at the Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Ames, Iowa.  Or maybe, we the people, would be looking forward to a USDA headed by Jim Hightower, a former Texas Secretary of Agriculture who has done a lot of writing about sustainable communities and agriculture.  Instead, we are faced with the prospect of Vilsack, “ardent supporter of corn and soy based biofuels, which use as much or more fossil energy to produce them as they generate, while driving up world food prices and literally starving the poor.”

Some people say this move shows what kind of a leader Obama really is, a man of hollow rhetoric, a pawn of corporate interests.  I hope that’s not true, but whether it is or not, I draw other lessons from this disappointment, lessons that say this is not about Obama; it’s about us.  No president is going to be so perfect that he saves us the trouble of taking an active role in the democratic process.    We can look at this choice as a call to reflect on our own willingness to advance our interests and ideals.  (And I think that anyone who eats has a vested interest in the health of soil and those who work it.)    

My ideals include the power of corporate agribusiness vanishing beneath the rising tide of family farmers who are actively nourishing their communities.  The president’s influence could really help to bring this vision to fruition, but I’m not holding my breath for any leader to demonstrate impeccable judgement all the time.  I’m invested in building a sustainable agriculture movement that I hope becomes so large, so cohesive, so vocal and so powerful that no president would dare cross it.

Will you join your voice to this movement?  The Vilsack nomination is by no means final.  He still has to go through a confirmation process, and we could make every step of it into a challenge to his legitimacy and the elite interests he represents, maybe even sending him back into the abyss from which he came and opening up space for a real public servant to assume authority over the USDA.  A good first step would be to sign the petition against Vilsack’s nomination.  There’s an electronic version on the Organization of Organic Consumer’s Website.  Then we could get creative.  What can you imagine yourself doing to insert some democracy into the USDA?

Solstice Time

The longest night of this year has passed.  My house hold chose to mark the occassion by having guests over for a candle lit vigil.  No artificial lighting.  Before our event we had to look up the definition of vigil. It is “a period of purposeful sleeplessness.” 

My friends Bill and Stephanie prepared a midnight fondue.  It was my first one.  I’m told the practice was begun some winter over 200 years ago by Swiss peasants who wanted to make stale bread and spoiling cheese palatable.  Now fondue has become a refined culinary custom.  Somewhere in my family tree there are people who emigrated from Switzerland, but their spirits don’t get nearly as much attention as my more plentiful Irish and Danish ancestors.  I hope my fondue brought some pleasure to the Swiss ghosts 

This dying time of year brings on many questions about life before and after death.  Sometimes I wonder if the living will continue to recognize me after I have departed this good Earth.  Will my picture grace the ancestor shrines of the future?  Will today’s babies one day carry tokens of remembrance of me?  This dying time of year is also an annual cleaning time of year, for me, and that brings with it whole new sets of questions about death and dying.  At the back of my closet there is some shelving that never seems to get organized.  Sometimes my curiosity bounces in there and says, “What if I were to die this month.  That would mean someone would have to go through all this and then what sort of conclusions would that person draw about m

The embarrassment of a messy closet. There’s one more reason to stay alive.  Somehow, I remain excited to find out what the future holds.  Traditionally, I do a lot of divination around this time of year.  This solstice I drew 8 Tarot cards, one for  each of the solar holidays.  Expert diviners usually recommend asking a specific question when consulting an oracle, but I kept my inquiry pretty general.  “Show me something about my coming year,” I asked my new deck, and this is how they responded…

Winter Solstice – Queen of Swords

Candlemass – Queen of Wands

Spring Equinox – Princess of Swords

May Day/Beltane – The Moon

Summer Solstice – Eight of Cups

Lughnassad -  Two of Discs

Fall Equinox – Ten of Cups

Samhain – The Tower

Comments and interpretations are welcome.  Note that my reading from last year had the Knight of Swords at the Winter Solstice.  I am sensing a theme.

30

On the 30th day of the 11th month in the year 2008, I turn 30 years old.  It has been a day of spooning and Thai food,  Mad Liberty workshops and catching up with friends from Gainesville.   I awoke with a cold, and it snowed all day.  I know I haven’t posted in a while, but that is about to change.

The Walk

Yesterday feels kind of unreal.  This is not so uncommon when I have to wake up really early, as I did around 5:45 a.m.  It was worth it, however.  I got into a truck with my friend Todd, rode to Tomah and found the people that I had searched for last week.  I found the Witness against War folks, those who are walking across Wisconsin to bring attention to the suffering of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation, not to mention the suffering it is bringing to this country.  

I walked along a highway for 6 miles carrying a sign, which is not easy to do.  For the last third of the trek I alternately walked and rode the Witness bicycle.  It accompanies the walkers and pulls a trailer containing first aid kit, a big water cooler and spare signs.  

We ended the walk in Sparta, the self-proclaimed “bicycle capital of the world.”  I did not know this until we came to the edge of town where a road sign told us what a unique place we were entering.  It didn’t say exactly what it is about Sparta that makes it the “bicycle capital of the world,” nevertheless, as the marchers marched down the sidewalk I felt special that I got to be the biker for this leg of the journey.  We went downtown hoping to visit one of our comrades who was being held prisoner in the county jail.    Here is a fuller account of the walk written my friend Joy

THIS IS JOY FIRST’S ACCOUNT OF THE WITNESS WALK TO SPARTA AND AN ACTION THAT HAPPENED THAT DAY AT FORT MCCOY

 I was honored and awed joining with other activists in a nonviolent direct action at Fort McCoy near Sparta , WI on Sunday August 10, 2008.  The action was organized by Witness Against War, a campaign of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (http://www.vcnv.org ).  Witness Against War has about 10 activists walking 450 miles from Chicago , the location of the 1968 Democratic National Campaign, to St. Paul for the start of the 2008 Republican National Campaign.  They are interacting with local communities along the way, raising awareness about the role of both political parties in continuing the war and occupation of Iraq , and calling for an immediate end to our government’s illegal and immoral actions in Iraq .  They spent two days in Madison at the end of July and I was happy to be able to join up with them again for this action.

A training/planning meeting was planned on Saturday afternoon near Sparta .  I was able to get a ride from Erin and Ron, who were driving up from Chicago .  As we gathered at a small town hall in a beautiful setting in rural Wisconsin on Saturday for training and action planning, I was humbled to be in the company of this dedicated and inspiring group of people.  Looking around at the pastoral lands, it felt like we were truly in the heartland of the country.  Also joining in were others from Catholic Workers and Christian Peacekeeping.  As I looked around the room with about 45 people present, I realized that I had been arrested with about eight of them in the past.  Many of the individuals in the room had spent time in Iraq and surrounding areas and have first-hand knowledge of the carnage going on in the middle-east.  They are committed to doing all they can to bring the suffering and devastation to an end.

We spent about four hours in intense training and planning for our action the next day, talking about the goals of the action, logistics, and how the action would be carried out following the principles of nonviolence.  Twelve individuals stated that they planned to risk arrest the following day at Fort McCoy .

At 6 pm we went to the farm of Dick and Violet, where we would be spending the night camping out.  We had a few working groups who still had to complete tasks that evening, making posters, doing media planning, planning singing for the vigil, and discussing details of the action for those risking arrest.  After a delicious dinner provided by Dick and Violet, we spent another couple hours discussing the action for the next day.

When we finished our planning, I had a chance to relax a little and appreciate the beautiful landscape.  The sun was going down and it was gorgeous there with the rolling wooded hills and fields.  The night sky was beautiful without the light pollution from the city and I was able to see some meteors streaming across the sky from the Perseid meteor shower.  This was a very relaxing place to be the night before an action.  Unfortunately Alice Cooper was giving a concert about a mile away at Fort McCoy and we could hear the music blasting until almost midnight.

I woke up early the next morning feeling anxious about the action, but stayed in my sleeping bag.  At 6 am I heard the revelry playing at the military base and got up.  It’s always very stressful putting your safety on the line and risking arrest.  We were not certain what would happen during this action, but expected we would be held overnight either  being taken to Madison to be arraigned at the federal courthouse or being held overnight in the Monroe County jail.  We also always know that it is likely to be very uncomfortable physically, being handcuffed with little or no access to bathrooms, water, or food.  However it is a risk that we feel compelled to take as we continue our resistance to our government’s illegal actions.  When I am feeling anxious about doing this, I think about the suffering of the people of Iraq and of the US soldiers and their families, and then it feels like a small sacrifice to make.

After breakfast and last-minute details to work out, we were shuttled to Tunnel City where the walk would begin.  The plan was to walk on State Highway 21 three miles to the boundary of the base.  Then those risking arrest would take the lead and we would walk three more miles to the main gate of Fort McCoy for the action.  That morning we were joined by several other people who would be there in solidarity with us and so we had about 50 people walking along the highway to Fort McCoy .

It was an incredible day with a blue sky and about 76 degrees.  We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day.  As we walked the three miles in the military base, it felt like we were walking through a national forest rather than through a military base with the beautiful pines lining the road and ponds with cattails.  Breathing in the scent of the pines was grounding and gave me strength as we continued to walk towards our destination. 

The beauty of what we saw along the road was really an illusion, hiding what was really happening at the base.  In our hosts garage the night before I saw an aerial photo of part of Fort McCoy along the river that runs through the base.  It was barren and marked with craters from weapons used during the military exercises that they have there.  It was a reminder of the destruction that is being carried out in Iraq in our names. 

I usually don’t walk six miles at a stretch and I was getting very tired and sore.  I was glad when we saw the military base ahead, but also apprehensive.  There was a big electronic sign stating that the main gate was closed and sawhorse type roadblocks across the entrance.  The fifty walkers lined up along the highway across from the entrance, holding our signs, some of them saying, “Support the troops.  End the war”.  We began to sing. 

Then the thirteen of us who were going to risk arrest walked across the street continuing to sing.  We approached the roadblock and an officer told us that we could not go any further.  Jeff Leys, co-coordinator with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, told him why we were there.  Jeff said that we came with an open letter to those on the base and we would like to enter and talk to those on the base.  He also said that we were calling on the government to end the war, bring all military personnel home, take care of our returning soldiers, and support Iraq in its reconstruction.  Jeff said again that we wanted to enter the base to talk to soldiers who may be deployed Iraq soon and let them know their rights.  The officer said that we could not enter.  Jeff said that some of us are choosing to enter in a peaceful, nonviolent manner in spite of the warning.  At that point the 13 of us proceeded across the line.  Immediately about twice as many US Army police officers swarmed out of the building and came towards us.  They were very polite as they began to handcuff us and lead us into a large garage type area for processing.

Those arrested included: Kathy Kelly, 54, Chicago, IL; Jeff Leys, 44, Watertown, WI; Joy First, 54, Madison, WI; John Bachman, 56, Eau Claire, WI; Brian Terrell, 52, Des Moines, IA; Renee Espeland, 47 Des Moines, IA; Kryss Chupp, 49, Chicago, IL; Ceylon Mooney, 33, Memphis, TN; Eileen Hanson, 34, Winona, MN; Joshua Brollier, 25, Clarkesville, TN; Lauren Cannon, 38, Chicago, IL; Alice Gerard, 51, Grand Island, NY; and Gene Stoltzfus, 68, of Ontario, Canada.

We were kept in handcuffs the whole time we were being processed.  They asked us for our personal information, wrote out citations, took our picture, fingerprinted us (the cuffs were temporarily removed, but we were recuffed immediately), and we waited to be transported.  We were each given a citation for trespassing and were told that we would be mailed a date for a mandatory court appearance in federal court in Madison .

It must have been about an hour before the first group of 3 or 4 was taken away in a police van and maybe 90 minutes before I was put into a police van, still cuffed.  I asked where we were going and the officer told me they were dropping us off on the edge of the base where our friends were waiting for us.  I was surprised and thankful to hear that we were being released so quickly.

It was a couple of minutes down the road and I saw the peace bus and all of our friends waiting for us.  What a wonderful sight!  They welcomed us with hugs, water, and food.  We waited for the last group to come and were surprised that Kathy Kelly was not among those released.  Lauren Cannon explained that the officers discovered that Kathy had some old outstanding warrants in Wisconsin so she was likely going to be transported to the Monroe County jail.

This was a much easier experience than I was expecting.  I didn’t think I would get home until Monday.  Stephania was with the group waiting for us, having driven from Madison on Sunday to be there in solidarity with us.  She wanted to get on the road and get back to Madison , and she offered me a ride home which I was happy to take.  I’m always anxious to get home after an action and it was nice to have the chance to talk to Stephania on the way home and process the experience.

As I continue my resistance to our government’s actions, I constantly question what I am doing and why.  I know that what I am doing will not stop the war today or tomorrow.  I know that we need many more people to be involved in civil resistance.  But for today, I know that I must continue my resistance.  I have to continue to do all I can in speaking out against the illegal and immoral actions of our government.  I believe that what we do does make a difference.

My People, My People

Who are your people?  Do you have ever have a hard time finding them?  Last week I went on lengthy search for some people but ended up finding just an individual, my friend Cristah.  She is a philosopher and a good ally when it comes to facing the deep questions.  Over a bowl of carrot salad and a cup of home made yogurt we spoke of many things.  Our conversation often kept returning to the troublesome presence of male supremacy within liberal, radical and progressive movements.  I had meant to interject something about Marshall Rosenberg and his teachings on nonviolent communication, but the thought slipped my mind, like many things that day. 

I hadn’t planned on spending time with Cristah.  My idealistic intentions for the morning had included tracking down some peace activists who were walking across my state as part of the Witness Against War Campaign.  That day they were in my town and I wanted to walk with them for a few hours.  I wanted to take public action with those who felt like my people.  Unfortunately, I slept in and woke up without the information I needed in order to find them.  Biking all over town in a vain search for the walkers yielded nothing, but I did end up in Cristah’s neighborhood and she just so happened to be home and invited my inside for a light lunch.  My quest for a public demonstration led me to a private conversation.

Activist scholars will often tell you that social change takes place in that hard to reach place between action and reflection.  Striking the right balance between analyzing social problems, taking collective steps to solve them and then analyzing the real results of those steps is the challenge that faces the politically engaged.  Last week I tried stepping into the realm of action only to slip into a space of reflection.  It was good and felt worthwhile.  Of course I was disappointed not to find the walkers.  They had really inspired me just a couple nights before at a reception that the local peace and justice community had organized for the walkers and their fellow campaigners.  I cannot yet say whether the unplanned turn of events restored or upset my own balance between action and reflection, but it did nourish my faith that actions born of wholesome intentions tend to produce results that are also wholesome, if wildly unpredictable.

Happy Lughnassad

Some forecasters say the temperature in my bioregion will hit 90 degrees this weekend. If so it would be the first time this year. August is ushering in some characteristically summer scenery. The grass is no longer a lush green. Parking lots have become doubly insufferable and rain falls infrequently. I know that dryness brings stress to many beings, but I must admit that it appeals to me, especially after the catastrophic rainfall that initiated us into the summer of 08. Taken to a certain extreme, the current weather pattern will take its toll on me, but for now I am simply taken with the splendor of Queen Anne’s Lace, the glory of our sun and the turning of the wheel of the year.

Happy Lughnassad

More Gratitude

I’m happy that more comments have been appearing on Earth Based Idealism.  Thank you to all who have taken the time to read my thoughts and a big gracias to those who have submitted reactions.  Keep them coming.

After writing my thoughts on presidential politics, I realized I do have some opinions on the candidates as well as the whole system of candidacy.  I’ll be posting those soon, so stay tuned.

This afternoon I’m fortunate to be spending some time watching my 4-year-old housemate Fin while his father sells sauerkraut and his mother sleeps.  It’s been a while since I’ve done this, and it may be a while before I get to do it again.  The second half of summer promises to be full of activity.  Luckily, I seem to able to keep an eye on the boy while I write this entry.  Hope neither task suffers from my divided attention.

I’m also happy to report mounting interest in my raw milk habits.  After an arduous search into the nooks and crannies of the world wide web, I finally found the essay that seeded my devotion to raw milk.  Check out Sally Fallon’s address to an Acres U.S.A. conference.  I like how she connects the basic act of drinking raw milk with a broader vision of social and economic transformation.  I concede that her speech begins with a heavy dose of macroeconomic theory, but taking the time to read through her thoughts is well worth the reward.