Outposts in our Heads

I find myself in one-on-one face-to-face conversations about the Enbridge pipeline expansion more often lately. One comes to mind from my son's baseball game a few weeks back. I get done explaining all of the horrors to the guy about the project. There's no place for him to go rationally except to say, "I'm against it. Sign me up!"

But he finds a way around it. "I used fossil fuels to get here," he says "so what can I say?" A long silence. We exchange parting remarks, then he moves on to talk with other community members and get as far away from me as possible. I wonder if I smell funny. Maybe have a booger hanging from my nose. Show signs of lepresy.

Here's what I wish I would've said after his paralyzing proclamation of powerlessness: "Who cares if you used fossil fuels to get here. You didn't set this system up. You didn't make us totally dependent on fossil fuels. Why do you need to take responsibility for what is not yours? Just because you drive a car that gives them right to bury this thing under every major watershed in Wisconsin and Washburn County? What about the right to our health, safety, and welfare? What about our inherent and inalieble right to self-government that's been granted to us in every major governing document?"

They have outposts in our heads.

Letter to the Editor

It was nice to take a 48 hour break from the internet. I finally got on to sit down and write a letter to our local newspaper's editor.

Sustainable Communities

It was a pleasure to read [Insert Name] letter to the editor last week. Why? Because a fellow citizen mentioned local government doing something about global warming in the first paragraph of his letter. Then that fellow citizen went on to point out that we can't expect federal and state government bodies to do much about the future of humanity on this planet.

A number of thinkers over the years, like Thomas Linzey from The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, have pointed out that state and federal environmental laws do more to protect the rights of corporations over the rights of communities and ecosystems. In other words, what environmental regulations regulate is environmentalists.

Perhaps this is why we're seeing militant environmentalism in the Penokee Hills. Maybe their actions are a result of the inherent injustice in the laws that have been written to protect the environment. As a result they've taken it upon themselves to do something about this in ways that most of us would not approve of. This is nothing new, of course. We've seen this throughout history surrounding many injustices. Slaves formed underground railroads and the Black Panthers fought back by any means necessary when faced with overt racism.

So this has got me wondering: If more citizens got together in their communities to lay out their visions of what a sustainable community is there would be no need for militant environmentalists because they'd have local laws in place to protect themselves and their landbase from destructive activities like the one being proposed in the Penokee Hills or the various frac sand mines to the south of us.

I think it's time for us to take the advice of Rene Diderot--the spiritual father of our American democracy-- when he said "If we look to the city rather than the state it's because we've given up hope that the state may create a new image for the city." That's what our country was founded on and perhaps that's what it is going to take for it to survive into the future.

Citizenship and War

This quote by Machiavelli and James Hillman's commentary on it is stunning and inspiring.

"A prince...should have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other things for his study, but war; [he] ought...never let his thoughts stray from the exercise of war; and in peace he ought to practise it more than in war."

James Hillman goes onto say: "The prince, as generous metaphor for responsible citizen and concerned member of the polis, will keep a focused mind, a mind undistracted by the multiple diversions of peace, and a psyche neither numbed nor in denial. And he will maintain this clarity not merely by meditating or praying to benefit his own 'mental health,' but for the common good and the defense of the community. Hence, the prince 'ought never let his thoughts stray from...war.'" Pg. 36, A Terrible Love of War

I'm also beginning to see why Derrick Jensen titled one of his CD's: Now This War Has Two Sides.