I’m really excited about the possibility of a CCC because that could be the final piece for a plan to address many social ills and make real progress to mitigate the environmental chaos that will continue and worsen. I’ve updated this diagram to include how a CCC could fit in.
I’ve been working with Des Moines Mutual Aid for over a year, which has taught me a great deal by seeing this concept in action. https://landbackfriends.com/mutual-aid/
Mutual Aid works because Mutual Aid groups are made up of the people living in the neighborhood. Mutual Aid results in people getting to know and trust each other because it is about action, not meetings and plans for the future. And the work is to address the needs of the community, like food and shelter. Those involved get the satisfaction of making change happen immediately.
Mutual Aid should be integrated into the Civilian Climate Corps idea!
Key to the success of Mutual Aid is working to maintain a horizontal hierarchy, where everyone has a voice. Attention is paid to avoid vertical hierarchy from forming. Everyone is treated with respect, because we know circumstances might change where we need the help of Mutual Aid ourselves.
Because of these experiences, I wanted to find ways for Mutual Aid to be embraced by more communities. We need vast numbers of people to join in this work.
But how? Just talking to people doesn’t really demonstrate how Mutual Aid works.
Mutual Aid should be integrated into the Civilian Climate Corps idea!
That is how colonial capitalism can be replaced. That is how we can rapidly transition from fossil fuels. That is how we can rebuild caring communities.
There are so many reasons why a Civilian Climate Corps is important now. Millions of people, especially young people, are looking for meaningful work. And there is such a huge amount of work to be done. We routinely see images of the catastrophic damages from the wildfires in the West, and the hurricane and rains in the East.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see thousands of people deployed to disaster sites? Thousands of caregivers for childcare or to be there for senior citizens? To help in school classrooms. To coach sports teams. To raise healthy foods locally. To restore healthy soil and water. To build and repair housing. To build renewable energy infrastructure. To teach people how to pursue their interests, such as various forms of art.
I’m glad Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) is working to support a Civilian Climate Corps (CCC). You can use the link below to send a letter supporting CCC to your Congressional representatives.
Inspired by the ambition and impact of the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, a modern CCC will gainfully employ residents to confront the interlocking crises of climate change, environmental and racial injustice, and economic inequality. Doing work for the public good such as:
Retrofitting homes for energy efficiency, clean electrification, and climate resilience
Restoring native wetlands, prairie, and sustainable farming practices with Indigenous leadership to keep our water clean and soil rich
Collaborating with local governments to develop climate action plans and distributing aid in the wake of climate disasters
Corps members should be paid a living wage, receive healthcare and childcare support, and pre-apprenticeship training or full tuition reimbursement for stable careers in the clean economy.
Senate Democrats have included a Civilian Climate Corp in the reconciliation bill currently being debated. We need to step to ensure it is big enough to meet the scale of the crisis we face and that it prioritizes BIPOC folx who were cut out from the original New Deal.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) We need a fully funded CCC (Civilian Climate Corps)
Climate change and the actions the government takes to address it are a key concern for the vast majority of young voters, who are set to take on more of the burden of dealing with increasingly extreme weather caused or exacerbated by human industrial activity.
Voters aged 18 to 29 are much more likely than older voters to list tackling the climate crisis as one of their top two priorities, according to Abacus Data polling released last week. Those who voted for the Green Party in 2019 and residents of Quebec and British Columbia also rate climate change as a particularly pivotal issue.
“One thing that we’ve heard from young Canadians that they want to see and that we haven’t heard lots of parties talk about yet is green jobs,” said Camellia Wong, a spokesperson for Future Majority, a nonpartisan group of young people pushing for politicians to take more notice of their concerns.
She said that a robust green jobs program would help address two major issues facing the younger generation: the climate crisis and the precarity of work.
This year’s Prairie Awakening/Prairie Awoke ceremony will be held Saturday, 9/11/2021 at the Kuehn Conservation Area (map below) from 11:00 am – 2:00 pm.
Last year’s ceremony was not held in person because of the COVID pandemic. The following was written about the 2020 virtual event.
Prairie Awakening/Prairie Awoke 2020
Yesterday my Quaker Meeting, Bear Creek Friends of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative), discussed the meeting’s long history of connection with Prairie Awakening/Prairie Awoke. This ceremony is held annually at the Kuehn Conservation Area, just a few miles from the meetinghouse in rural Iowa.
This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prairie Awakening ceremony occurred virtually, with a series of videos. The following table has links to those and other videos related to Prairie Awakening/Prairie Awoke, most done by my friend Rodger Routh with Chris Adkins, Dallas County Conservation’s environmental education coordinator and longtime organizer of the event, narrating.
Having lived my adult life in Indianapolis, September 2017 was the first opportunity to attend. I had just retired to Iowa and was hoping to build up enough stamina to continue to live without a car, as I had done for about 40 years in Indianapolis.
I used the opportunity of traveling to the Prairie Awakening ceremony as a test. It is forty miles from home in Indianola to Bear Creek meeting. It is also about forty miles from the Iowa state Capitol building to Bear Creek Meeting. My bicycle and I were dropped off at the Capitol building in Des Moines, where I participated in a climate action on September 9, 2017.
Then I began the journey of bicycling from the Capitol to Bear Creek meeting. I hadn’t ridden that far, nor had I traveled that bike path before, so this was a test of my vision.
I did finally arrive at the Bear Creek meetinghouse that evening, around 5 pm, pretty much exhausted. There was one gigantic hill to climb near the end that practically had me crying. Well OK, I did cry. I was so grateful that Jackie Leckband had left water and food at the cottage next to the meetinghouse where I spent the night. https://kislingjeff.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/september-journey-day-1/
Unfortunately last year when we were gathered at Kuehn, just as the ceremony was about to begin, a big thunderstorm rained us out.
This year because of the pandemic, several videos were produced for a virtual ceremony. One of the things we did at yesterday morning’s pre meeting via Zoom was to watch and comment about those videos.
The years of Bear Creek Friend’s work with Prairie Awakening provides us with an excellent foundation to continue to build relationships with Native Peoples. Other ways we’ve built connections have been Paula Palmer’s workshops, “Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples”, Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) panel discussion “Building Bridges with Native Peoples”, some Friends participating on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March, support of the Wet’suwet’en Peoples efforts to stop construction of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline in British Columbia, and with Decolonizing Quakers.
My grandmother, Lorene Standing, said the will of God is often revealed in a series of small steps. I thought that meant a series of spiritual messages and that has been my experience.
But also, looking back over our lives, the series of actions we took, the decisions we made, map the path traveled. Spiritual guidance can help us stay on the path, might tell us what action to take. Each step gives us experience needed to continue on the path. We stray from the path at times. But learn by making mistakes.
This is the third anniversary of the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March (described below). When I learned about the March, I immediately felt a leading from the Creator this was something I should do. The experiences during the March were transformational for me.
The Spirit was important in numerous ways. One of the reasons I wanted to join the March was to learn more about Indigenous spirituality, and I did.
The article below describes how my Quaker community supported us spiritually during the March.
The Spirit created the opportunity for me to talk with my new friend, Matthew Lone Bear, about Quaker involvement with the native residential schools. And for him to share a story of the impact of those schools on his own family. (These stories are found on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March website https://firstnationfarmer.com/ )
Our experiences on the March have made it possible for us, native and nonnative people, to work together in many ways since.
Here is a link to the First Nation-Farmer website, where there are many stories, photos and videos from the March. And a link to the website LANDBACKFriends which is about work going on now related to the concepts of LANDBACK.
These are perilous times. Ferocious wildfires, melting glaciers and permafrost, severe drought, and devastating storms show rapidly evolving environmental chaos. Political, economic and social systems are breaking down.
There is also hope as we work together to address these challenges. Mutual Aid works because it is based upon people working and being together in their local communities, solving local problems. And LANDBACK is a framework for Indigenous peoples to teach us how to work to repair our relationships with Mother Earth and each other. It is because of the friendships that formed during the March that many of us are working together on Mutual Aid and LANDBACK.
Following is an article, written shortly after the March, published in On Creation, the publication of Quaker Earthcare Witness. The article is no longer online.
Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) Friends Peter Clay and I recently walked on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March. A group of about thirty that included nearly a dozen Native Americans walked 94 miles along the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline from September 1 – 8, 2018. One of the goals of the March was to bring attention to a case before the Iowa Supreme Court about the improper use of eminent domain to force Iowa farmers to allow construction of the pipeline on their land.
After walking between 9 and 15 miles, most evenings a community forum was held to discuss topics such as farming practices, or the consequences of the pipeline construction. One evening my Scattergood Friends School classmate Lee Tesdell discussed some of his progressive farming practices. Christine Nobiss discussed ways Native farming practices are better for the earth and water. This was an example of how this March helped us come together. As Manape LaMere, one of the headsmen from Standing Rock said, the purpose of the March was to make it possible for us to work together in the future. To do so, we needed to trust each other, and to trust each other we needed to understand each other.
During this March, Quakers in my local meeting, Bear Creek, often sent email messages of encouragement, and held us in their prayers. One of my Quaker friends, Liz Oppenheimer, invited people to offer spiritual support for our March in a couple of ways. One was via a telephone conference call every morning we were marching, from 8:30 to 9:00 am.
The other way Liz created for others to support us was by creating a Facebook group called “Meeting for Worship: Iowa’s Climate Unity March”. Following are a few of the messages shared on that Facebook page:
I see that Jeff has posted some of his recent writing about the march and its issues. My request is that we return to Jeff’s initial questions— sharing our reactions to the idea behind this march, as well as to the issues of pipelines, indigenous rights, misuse of eminent domain, etc.
As we share our own wonderings, questions, and struggle, I hope we can better accompany Jeff, Peter Clay, and other marchers.
George Fox suggested to us that if we answer that of god in others that we can then walk cheerfully over the earth. As I think about Jeff and Peter and the new sisters and brothers they will meet as they march, I realize that this sentiment works the other way also. As they walk over the earth they will then be able to answer to that of god in others.
This morning on the conference call for worship, we heard a vocal prayer of gratitude to Peter Clay, Jeff Kisling, and the other marchers and organizers of the march. We also heard the joyous hymn “Trees of the Field.”
After other Friends had left the call, and literally as my finger was about to hit the Hang Up button on my phone just past 9:00 am, another Friend joined the call. It was Jeff!!
He wants us to know that the marchers and organizers know we are holding them all in prayer and they are very appreciative of our support in this way. When I replied “It’s such a small thing we do,” Jeff reminded me “No, no it’s not.”
We are so blessed to be connected this way, no matter what form our march and our journey takes. And to those of you who are carving out time each day to hold the Climate Unity March in prayer, regardless of when, where, or how, all of us thank you.
Each morning of the March we gathered in a circle to hear about the day’s route and address any questions. The first morning I shared this Quaker support with my fellow marchers during our circle gathering, who expressed appreciation for this.
Some of the most powerful experiences I had during the March were times when prayers were offered. We stopped for prayers every time we crossed the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline. I was honored to be given the opportunity to give prayers at the pipeline crossing just before we reached Pilot Mound. I briefly described Quaker worship, then our circle, holding hands, worshiped in silence for a while.
The pandemic resulted in many people, including Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) staff, remaining home. So, FCNL invited people to attend weekly Quaker meetings for worship via Zoom, called Witness Wednesday Silent Reflection. There are a number of regular attenders, who often speak of how meaningful these meetings have been in these times. This Wednesday there will be a special silent reflection on 20 years of endless war, that anyone is welcome to attend. We will reflect on affirming our fervent hope that endless war will be no more. Signup to receive the Zoom link here:
As we mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and the unfolding humanitarian crisis and violence in Afghanistan today, join General Secretary Diane Randall for a time of reflection.
Take a moment to reflect in keeping with the Quaker practice of silent worship. Join us virtually on Zoom or by phone in affirming our fervent hope that endless war will be no more.
War has never been the answer to the world’s most pressing problems—including terrorism. Military solutions and large-scale violence cannot lead to sustainable peace. Instead, they only make the problem worse by spawning new terrorist groups and setting off cycles of retribution.
Only through the careful, patient work of peacebuilding with local human rights and civil society leaders which includes women, and through diplomacy by regional and international stakeholders can we reach just and durable solutions to the root causes of violence.
As we grieve these deaths and the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, we hold the people of Afghanistan in the Light in the days and months ahead. We affirm our opposition to war and violence and to the ensuing destruction and chaos.
Today, it is our fervent hope that endless war will be no more.
Two Decades of War by Diane Randall, General Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation, September 1, 2021
War is not the Answer
It was post-9/11, and Friends in Atlanta Friends Meeting wanted to publicly witness against war. Friends listened to their hearts’ stirrings during business meeting, and “War is Not the Answer” became the Meeting’s new yard sign.
These words were taken from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, delivered April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York.
War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.
These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born.
The message – War is Not the Answer – and the signs went viral. FCNL and Friends saw the potency and popularity of the message grew and spread, and the rest is history. With the increasing prospect for an endless war with Iran, War is Not the Answer, has become more relevant.
Friends and other people of faith act when they see broken systems. As we stand on the precipice of another war, Friends are mobilizing across the country to demand Congress halt the spiral into all-out war.
FCNL has distributed more than 2,000,000 “War is Not the Answer” bumper stickers and yard signs since 2002. Demands for the sign are increasing so we are making it available free online for you to download and print. If you’d like to purchase a lawn sign or bumper sticker, you can do so here.
What triggered this blog post was learning Congress is working to require women to register for the Selective Service System (“draft”). Men have been required to do so for decades.
As I began to write about that, I had to decide whether to post this article on my blog Quakers, social justice and revolution where it would fit with what that blog is about.
LANDBACK is about breaking away from white supremacy, the capitalist economic system and the structures that enforce them. So I updated this diagram I’ve been working on to add the military to the justice, police and prison systems that enforce colonial/corporate capitalism.
A growing number of us are working for the abolition of police and prisons. The military enforces white supremacy and capitalism beyond our borders. Thus, I think, abolition of the military, military bases and the use of weaponized drones could be considered part of LANDBACK.
Thinking about LANDBACK as an antiwar framework is intriguing. Mutual Aid is part of the LANDBACK idea. I was very interested to learn Des Moines Mutual Aid’s first public appearance was at an antiwar march:
One year ago today (2020) Des Moines Mutual Aid participated in a march protesting the potential for war or increased hostilities with Iran that followed the fallout of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani by drone strike in Baghdad.
Ronnie James
The immediate collapse of the Afghan government when U.S. troops left Afghanistan after twenty years of war has a great many of people wondering about militarism and war.
Most Quakers, such as myself, have opposed the draft in many ways, for many years. The issue resulted in a group of Quakers leaving the country called the United States and establishing a thriving community in Costa Rica, a country that does not even have a military. Numerous Quaker men either registered as conscientious objectors, or refused to cooperate with the Selective Service System. Some were sentenced to prison. This is a link to stories about Quaker men and the miltary: Young Quaker Men Face War and Conscription.
Senators on the Armed Services Committee recently approved a revision to military draft laws that would require women to register for the Selective Service System (SSS).
Proponents of the measure, which was included as part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), see it as a matter of gender equality. This argument misses the point: Congress should be focused on abolishing the draft entirely, not expanding it.
As laid out in a coalition letter we supported to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, this legislation “does not represent a move forward for women; it represents a move backward, imposing on young women a burden that young men have had to bear unjustly for decades – a burden that no young person should have to bear at all.”
It is difficult to not feel discouraged and helpless in the face of devastation from Hurricane Ida, severe drought and ferocious wildfires in the West, Coronavirus pandemic, mass incarceration, domestic terrorism, and subversion of our political and judicial systems. Clearly environmental chaos is rapidly evolving and these disasters will continue to grow in frequency and extent.
Cause for hope are mutual aid responses to Ida’s damage. “This is how we’ll forge the good, just and beloved community,” Akuno says. “We’ve got to organize that into existence.”
(Kali) Akunoexplained that he advocates for rational and democratic planning, decision making and resource sharing, in opposition to the laissez-faire approach of governments, which basically say, “Y’all have to fend for yourselves and good luck.” Mobilizing people and helping them gain the political confidence to demand better systems takes time and relationship-building, Akuno says, and in his decades-long experience as a community organizer he has come to know of an essential first step: “It’s important for people to know that there are other people who actually give a shit. You have to show them that you do.”
On Thursday, a van full of Cooperation Jackson’s members will embark on a mutual aid effort to distribute generators, solar-powered device chargers, potable water and canned food to people in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, as well as in New Orleans.
In addition to meeting people’s immediate needs, the group is delivering a message: It doesn’t have to be this way. Activists are communicating that in order to make sure that the rebuild is controlled on the ground as much as possible, it’s essential to build relationships, stay in touch and let each other know how we can support each other as we move through this crisis. They’re also emphasizing that mutual aid efforts can be paired with fights against the powerful systems that are hard to overcome, but that must be overcome.
“This is how we’ll forge the good, just and beloved community,” Akuno says. “We’ve got to organize that into existence. [Global] warming is already beating most of the models. We weren’t supposed to be at this point for another 20-25 years, but we’re already here. We have to come up with a survival plan based on what people think it will take, and what they’re willing to do.”
To that end, the petition, which integrates the United Nations principles for Internally Displaced People (IDPs), sets forth demands and guiding principles meant to be a moral compass to make sure that sweeping changes aren’t enacted without the people’s voice being central to the process. The petition asks for a plan of return: “If you’re going to evacuate people, how are they going to get home?” Bradberry asks. It further demands that any evacuation plan must adhere to the UN’s guidance for IDPs — for example, people must be evacuated as close to home as possible and families must not be separated.
Louisiana Activists Mobilize to Prevent “Shock Doctrine” Policies in Wake of Ida by Frances Madeson, Truthout, Sept 2, 2021
Organizers and activists in Louisiana and Mississippi are regionally coordinating their relief response in the wake of Hurricane Ida, and linking the immediate survival needs of people with a coherent set of political demands expressed in a petition to lawmakers including President Biden, calling for a humanitarian approach to evacuation and evacuees. Both initiatives draw on lessons learned from past disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Hurricane Ida has been another devastating blow to the New Orleans region and we would like to make sure that a just and equitable recovery is implemented. In the rush for basic needs, there are many important things that can get overlooked in the rush. We must TAKE ACTION NOW to ensure that the recovery efforts support the people in the region.
There are many organizations in Louisiana that were developed due to the failure of the government to act during Katrina. It is our goal to facilitate collaborative efforts and not attempt to override or minimize them.
Here are some things that will get lost in the rush to help. But these are no less important than clothes, food, etc.
Utilize United Nations Human Rights Commission Regulations Governing Internally Displaced Persons: Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
Establish a communications network for messaging in and out
***Establish a network for collection and disbursement of medication, Insulin, etc***
Engage the support of local, state & national organizations
Mandate alterations for Insurance Code & Conduct after the disaster to motivate assistance over bureaucratic delay
Enforce 1st source hiring
Enforce prevailing wages in recovery
Simplify the process for reimbursing churches and individuals housing evacuees
Pass Gulf Coast Civic Works like legislation to fund the rebuilding of coast following storm
Uphold universal voting rights – UN
Moratorium on rent, utilities, etc
Evacuation, use models provided by National & International Allies
Evacuation response and procedures must be humanitarian and not militaristic
MUST include a plan for citizens to return – unlike Katrina plan
Evacuation must be in line with United Nations principles for IDP
People should be evacuated as close to home as possible
Must have access to participate in processes governing the recovery/return home
Establish governing rules to maintain families connections (no breaking up of families)
For more information contact: Stephen Bradberry, info@bennuadvisory.com Stephen Bradberry is a founder of Bennu Advisory Group, http://bennuadvisory.com, and is a New Orleans-based advocate and organizer. He is a recipient of the RFK Human Rights Award in recognition of his work in the Gulf Coast post-Katrina and Rita.
Louisiana Activists Mobilize to Prevent “Shock Doctrine” Policies in Wake of Ida by Frances Madeson, Truthout, Sept 2, 2021
Even as President Joe Biden and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards continue to send federal aid relief to the southeastern states, grassroots organizations have taken up the mantle to secure resources and offer localized help to those affected by the storm. As we’ve seen during the Covid-19 pandemic and in the wake of last year’s George Floyd protests, mutual aid groups and other local organizations are able to directly respond to the needs of their communities in times of crisis, thanks to volunteer efforts and donations. Here are just a few of those groups assisting in the relief efforts for Hurricane Ida.
This non-profit consortium of indigenous tribes in Louisiana has provided regular storm updates for Ida on their Facebook page and set up a Relief and Recovery Fund for local tribe members. Other tribal groups in the Delta area with Ida relief funds include the Point au Chien Tribe, United Houma Nation, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, and the Atakapa Ishak Nation. A longer list and map of tribes who were affected by the hurricane, along with their individual aid efforts, can be found at Bvlbancha Public Access’s Ida Relief Doc.
This article discusses three groups using mutual aid for disaster response.
As climate change continues to produce more intense hurricane seasons, many communities have stopped relying on federal money, which is slow to arrive, and started looking to their neighbors for hurricane relief. Here are three groups using mutual aid as a tool for natural disaster response.
Powerful hurricane Ida which gained strength from the hot Gulf waters (from global warming) destroyed square miles of buildings as it came ashore. Then caused massive flooding as it moved through the country.
The entire electrical grid failed in New Orleans! It will be weeks or months before full power returns.
In February this year the power grid for the entire state of Texas failed.
Each hurricane also renews calls to find new ways to produce and distribute energy in the face of climate change, which experts say is leading to more frequent and more devastating storms. In New Orleans, advocates have tried to push Entergy to invest more in renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, and technologies that provide electricity to the area where it is produced.
Those concerns, along with worries about pollution in residential neighborhoods, fueled resistance to Entergy’s plan to build the new natural gas-powered plant in New Orleans East. Even after the company admitted to playing a role in the hiring of actors to support the project at public meetings, the council approved the plant. Groups that opposed the plan sued, and the case made it to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which upheld the council’s vote.
“Over and over we have tried to say we need not only climate action for renewables, but also we need to be adaptive to what is coming, because the traditional system to move power isn’t going to be able to help us weather these storms,” said Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy. “We’ve been ignored by utilities and regulators, and we are concerned that now, yet again, we will have this system rebuilt the same way we’ve done it and it will do us no good the next time.”
Slow return of power raises questions about a New Orleans plant that was supposed to deliver electricity after hurricanes. Calls for an investigation of Entergy’s power outages follow a wave of complaints about the company by Jon Schuppe, NBC News, Sept 1, 2021
Hurricane Ida thoroughly wrecked New Orleans’ power supply, preying on vulnerabilities that are only likely to get worse in the future as storms like Ida become more fierce. The storm knocked out all eight transmission lines that bring power into New Orleans, plunging the city into darkness. The damage was so intense that a new gas-fired power plant — sold as something that could keep the lights on after big storms — took days to bring power to the nearest neighborhood.
To keep the lights on in the future, leaders need to abandon old strategies and build up different kinds of energy infrastructure, experts say. The fallout from Ida is yet another reminder of how fragile the country’s existing energy infrastructure is, especially as climate change brings on more extreme weather.
“We’ve been saying, you know, we can’t depend on the traditional system,” says Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director of the local consumer advocacy group Alliance for Affordable Energy. “We need to be planning for the kind of climate impacts that we know are coming, and here they are. Having not planned for them, we’re experiencing the kinds of problems we expected.”
This is what LANDBACK is about, restoring Indigenous ways.
“How about phasing out fossil fuels and quit acting like addicts? Let’s have a new green revolution. Let’s take the green path.” Winona Laduke (in video below). Winona was arrested while protecting the water from Line 3. Honor the Earth says that the “charge of the colonial world is in conflict with the Anishinaabeg,” citing a 2019 White Earth Nation tribal law which requires the White Earth Nation to stand up for and protect the rights of wild rice and other sacred food.
The book The Red Deal is about an Indigenous led Green New Deal (GND).
The Sunrise Movement was launched as a national campaign for a Green New Deal (GND) in 2017. From the beginning I heard my native friends talk about the importance of a green new deal to be Indigenous led but didn’t have a clear idea of what that meant. In 2019 Sunrise’s Green New Deal tour included a stop in Des Moines. There my friends Trisha Cax-Sep-Gu-Wiga Etringer and Lakasha Yooxot Likipt spoke about Indigenous leadership as part of the GND.
So I’m glad to be reading the recently published book, The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth by the Red Nation.
“The Red Nation is a coalition of Native and non-Native activists, educators, students, and community organizers advocating Native liberation that formed to address the marginalization and invisibility of Native struggles within mainstream social justice organizing, and to foreground the targeted destruction and violence towards Native life and land.”
Inspired by the appeals to divest from the financial institutions funding oil pipelines during the Standing Rock uprising and the Movement for Black Lives’ divest-invest strategy, the Red Deal also targets the institutions of the military, police, and prisons for divestment. Imagine divesting from these institutions and opening up $1 trillion to accomplish the task of saving this Earth for everyone.
In 2018, Winona LaDuke pushed for an Indigenous-led GND. The former Green Party vice-presidential candidate inspired us to think about how divesting from fossil fuel infrastructure—such as billion-dollar oil pipelines—could be reinvested into building wind and solar farms and sustainable agriculture on reservations. Indeed, the most radical appraisals of the GND come from Indigenous people. According to the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), the GND, as is, “will leave incentives by industries and governments to continue causing harms to Indigenous communities.” Before endorsing the GND, IEN called for a clear commitment to keep fossil fuels in the ground; reject carbon pricing schemes; strengthen language on Indigenous peoples and uphold Indigenous rights; and stop, not prolong, our current exploitative and abusive economic and political systems.
Nation, The Red. The Red Deal (pp. 18-19). Common Notions. Kindle Edition.
… what if the question all water protectors and land defenders asked was, why don’t we just overturn the system that makes development a threat in the first place? This system, again, is capitalism. Rather than taking an explicitly conservationist approach, the Red Deal instead proposes a comprehensive, full-scale assault on capitalism, using Indigenous knowledge and tried-and-true methods of mass mobilization as its ammunition. In this way, it addresses what are commonly thought of as single issues like the protection of sacred sites—which often manifest in specific uprisings or insurrections—as structural in nature, which therefore require a structural (i.e., non-reformist reform) response that has the abolition of capitalism via revolution as its central goal. We must be straightforward about what is necessary. If we want to survive, there are no incremental or “non-disruptive” ways to reduce emissions. Reconciliation with the ruling classes is out of the question. Market-based solutions must be abandoned. We have until 2050 to reach net-zero carbon emissions. That’s it. Thirty years. The struggle for a carbon-free future can either lead to revolutionary transformation or much worse than what Marx and Engels imagined in 1848, when they forewarned that “the common ruin of the contending classes” was a likely scenario if the capitalist class was not overthrown. The common ruin of entire peoples, species, landscapes, grasslands, waterways, oceans, and forests—which has been well underway for centuries—has intensified more in the last three decades than in all of human existence.
Nation, The Red. The Red Deal (pp. 21-22). Common Notions. Kindle Edition.
I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.
So the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”
Ronnie James, Des Moines Mutual Aid, Great Plains Action Society
It has taken a while to adjust to thinking of abolition as the elimination of prisons instead of the historical context of abolition of the institution of enslavement. Not surprisingly the concept of prison abolition comes up in any discussion of capitalism and building a just future. Police are the enforcers of capitalism.
I am part of a new group of Friends who are interested in abolishing police and prisons called the Quakers for Abolition Network (QAN).
The following is from an article Jed Walsh and Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge, who helped start QAN, wrote for Western Friend.
Mackenzie: Let’s start with: What does being a police and prison abolitionist mean to you?
Jed: The way I think about abolition is first, rejecting the idea that anyone belongs in prison and that police make us safe. The second, and larger, part of abolition is the process of figuring out how to build a society that doesn’t require police or prisons.
M: Yes! The next layer of complexity, in my opinion, is looking at systems of control and oppression. Who ends up in jail and prison? Under what circumstances do the police use violence?
As you start exploring these questions, it becomes painfully clear that police and prisons exist to maintain the white supremacist, heteronormative, capitalist status quo.
This diagram shows abolition, along with LANDBACK and Mutual Aid, as pieces of changes to transition away from systems of capitalism and white supremacy.
I’ve been reading The Red Deal by the Red Nation, which is about empowering Indigenous peoples, in part to help guide us through environmental chaos. What follows are some interesting perspectives on prison abolition.
Austerity is enforced scarcity. The neoliberal policy of the last forty years has been a tax strike of the super wealthy, who have refused to pay their share of taxes and have locked away the world’s wealth in tax havens and offshore accounts. These are resources that should go towards providing services—education, housing, healthcare, public transportation, infrastructure, and environmental restoration—to those who actually produce the wealth: the Indigenous, Black, migrants, women, and children who are the workers of the world. This strike is worth crushing quickly and with prejudice. Direct action alone won’t reallocate wealth if it is not backed by popular mass movements and enforced by state apparatuses wrested away from the elite and powerful.
Prison abolition and an end to border imperialism are key aspects of the Red Deal, for good reason. The GND calls for the creation of millions of “green” jobs, as well as a policy of “just transition” for poor and working-class families and communities that currently depend on resource extraction for basic income and needs, and which will suffer greatly when the extractive industry is shut down. In the United States today, however, about seventy million people—nearly one-third of adults—have some kind of criminal conviction—whether or not they’ve served time—that prevents them from holding certain kinds of jobs. If we add this number of people to the approximately eight million undocumented migrants, the sum is about half the US workforce, two-thirds of whom are not white. Half of the workforce faces employment discrimination because of mass criminalization and incarceration.
The terrorization of Black, Indigenous, Brown, migrant, and poor communities by border enforcement agencies and the police drives down wages and disciplines poor people—whether or not they are working—by keeping them in a state of perpetual uncertainty and precarity. As extreme weather and imperialist interventions continue to fuel migration, especially from Central America, the policies of punishment—such as walls, detention camps, and increased border security—continue to feed capital with cheap, throwaway lives. The question of citizenship—colonizing settler nations have no right to say who does and doesn’t belong—is something that will have to be thoroughly challenged as a “legal” privilege to life chances. Equitable access to employment and social care must break down imperial borders, not reproduce them.
The Red Deal by The Red Nation (pp. 22-23). Common Notions. Kindle Edition.
Calls for abolition of the prison system have expanded in the wake of widespread police violence. Abolition is part of the work of our Mutual Aid community.
Prison abolition and an end to border imperialism are key aspects of the Red Deal
The Red Nation
This same war of conquest is currently using the mass incarceration machine to instill fear in the populace, warehouse cheap labor, and destabilize communities that dare to defy a system that would rather see you dead than noncompliant. This is the same war where it’s soldiers will kill a black or brown body, basically instinctively, because our very existence reminds them of all that they have stolen and the possibility of a revolution that can create a new world where conquest is a shameful memory.
What we have is each other. We can and need to take care of each other. We may have limited power on the political stage, a stage they built, but we have the power of numbers.
Those numbers represent unlimited amounts of talents and skills each community can utilize to replace the systems that fail us. The recent past shows us that mutual aid is not only a tool of survival, but also a tool of revolution. The more we take care of each other, the less they can fracture a community with their ways of war.
Ronnie James, The Police State and Why We Must Resist
Policing in the United States is a force of racist violence that is entangled at the core of the capitalist system. As Robin D.G. Kelley pointed out on Intercepted With Jeremy Scahill, capitalism and racism are not distinct from one another: “If you think of capitalism as racial capitalism, then the outcome is you cannot eliminate capitalism, overthrow it, without the complete destruction of white supremacy, of the racial regime under which it’s built.”
Police in the United States act with impunity in targeted neighborhoods, public schools, college campuses, hospitals, and almost every other public sphere. Not only do the police view protesters, Black and Indigenous people, and undocumented immigrants as antagonists to be controlled, they are also armed with military-grade weapons. This police militarization is a process that dates at least as far back as President Lyndon Johnson when he initiated the 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act, which supplied local police forces with weapons used in the Vietnam War. The public is now regarded as dangerous and suspect; moreover, as the police are given more military technologies and weapons of war, a culture of punishment, resentment and racism intensifies as Black people, in particular, are viewed as a threat to law and order. Unfortunately, employing militarized responses to routine police practices has become normalized. One consequence is that the federal government has continued to arm the police through the Defense Logistics Agency’s 1033 Program, which allows the Defense Department to transfer military equipment free of charge to local enforcement agencies.
LANDBACK Friends 