Planting trees as resistance and empowerment? In Nawbany, we just make stumps.

Wait, am I reading this correctly?

"Trees as an instrument of civil disobedience, empowerment, and emancipation, advancing democracy, human rights, and environmental justice."

In Kenya, maybe. In New Albany, we can rely on our ruling elites to display zero comprehension about trees apart from chopping then down at an unprecedented rate even as the urban heat island effect escalates.

Consequently, we look to Africa. Thanks to W for this link.

Planting Trees as Resistance and Empowerment: The Remarkable Illustrated Story of Wangari Maathai, the First African Woman to Win the Nobel Peace Prize, by Maria Popova (Brain Pickings)

“A tree is a little bit of the future.”

Walt Whitman saw in trees the wisest of teachers and Hermann Hesse found in them a joyous antidote to the sorrow of our own ephemerality. “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way,” William Blake wrote in his most beautiful letter. “As a man is, so he sees.”

Many tree-rings after Blake and Whitman and Hesse, another visionary turned to trees as an instrument of civil disobedience, empowerment, and emancipation, advancing democracy, human rights, and environmental justice.

Born near a holy fig tree in the central highlands of Kenya twenty years after the country became a British colony, Wangari Maathai (April 1, 1940–September 25, 2011) went on to become the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for her triumph of promoting “ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development” by founding the Green Belt Movement responsible for planting 30 million trees and empowering women to partake in social change — an act of courage and resistance for which she was beaten and imprisoned multiple times, but which ultimately helped defeat Kenya’s corrupt, authoritarian president and blazed a new path to ecological resilience ...

Required reading for local Democrats: "How (Not) to Challenge Racist Violence."

"If we truly want to challenge racism, oppression, and inequality, we should turn our attention away from the few hundred marchers in Charlottesville and towards the real sources and enforcers of our unjust global order. They are not hard to find."
-- from Common Dreams

Aviva Chomsky's essay (below) in the aftermath of Charlottesville sudenly becomes even more relevant in terms of escalated American military action in Afghanistan.

First, a local perspective.

DUNCAN: Hatred speaks loudest when we are silent, by Susan Duncan (That Hanson Show)

 ... But what cannot be seen is the hatred that dwells within. Racism has festered like an open sore, infection spreading like bacteria in the blood stream of America.

We have allowed that to happen by our denial, by our lack of attention, by our silence.

There were signs. Looks … words … deeds that proclaimed quietly, “I’m better than you.”

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There isn’t enough sand along the Ohio River in which for us to bury our heads.

We cannot sit in the comfort of our living rooms and extol the shame of it all. Let loose the ties that bind you from action.

Hate is learned. Teach love.

I'm reprinting Chomsky's piece in full: "Her most recent book is Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal (Beacon Press, 2014). She is professor of history and coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts."

The source: "Common Dreams has been providing breaking news & views for the progressive community since 1997. We are independent, non-profit, advertising-free and 100% reader supported."

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How (Not) to Challenge Racist Violence, by Aviva Chomsky (Common Dreams)

"Protesters are eager to expend extraordinary energy denouncing small-scale racist actors. But what about the large-scale racist actors?"

As white nationalism and the so-called “alt-Right” have gained prominence in the Trump era, a bipartisan reaction has coalesced to challenge these ideologies. But much of this bipartisan coalition focuses on individual, extreme, and hate-filled mobilizations and rhetoric, rather than the deeper, politer, and apparently more politically acceptable violence that imbues United States foreign and domestic policy in the 21st century.

Everyone from mainstream Republicans to a spectrum of Democrats to corporate executives to “antifa” leftists seems eager and proud to loudly denounce or even physically confront neo-Nazis and white nationalists. But the extremists on the streets of Charlottesville, or making Nazi salutes at the Reichstag, are engaging in only symbolic and individual politics.

Even the murder of a counter-protester was an individual act—one of over 40 murders a day in the United States, the great majority by firearms. (Double that number are killed every day by automobiles in what we call “accidents”—but which obviously have a cause also.) Protesters are eager to expend extraordinary energy denouncing these small-scale racist actors, or celebrating vigilante-style responses. But what about the large-scale racist actors? There has been no comparable mobilization, in fact little mobilization at all, against what Martin Luther King called “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”—the United States government, which dropped 72 bombs per day in 2016, primarily in Iraq and Syria, but also in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, making every single day 9/11 in those countries.

Historically, people and organizations struggling to change U.S. society and policy have used direct action, boycotts, and street protests as strategies to pressure powerholders to change their laws, institutions, policies, or actions. The United Farm Workers called on consumers to boycott grapes in order to pressure specific growers to negotiate with their union. Antiwar protesters marched on Washington or targeted their Congressional representatives. They also took direct action: registering voters, pouring blood on draft records or nuclear weapons, sitting in front of trains carrying weapons to Central America.

All of these kinds of tactics remain valid options today. But there has been a puzzling shift away from actual goals and towards using these tactics merely to express one’s moral righteousness or “allyship.” I remember my first “take back the night” march in Berkeley, in the 1970s. As men and women marched through the campus holding candles, I wondered whether they thought that would-be rapists would undergo a change of heart when they saw that large sectors of the public disapproved of rape?

Over the years I have come to see more and more of what Adolph Reed calls “posing as politics.” Rather than organizing for change, individuals seek to enact a statement about their own righteousness. They may boycott certain products, refuse to eat certain foods, or they may show up to marches or rallies whose only purpose is to demonstrate the moral superiority of the participants. White people may loudly claim that they recognize their privilege or declare themselves allies of people of color or other marginalized groups. People may declare their communities “no place for hate.” Or they may show up at counter-marches to “stand up” to white nationalists or neo-Nazis. All of these types of “activism” emphasize self-improvement or self-expression rather than seeking concrete change in society or policy. They are deeply, and deliberately, apolitical in the sense that they do not seek to address issues of power, resources, decisionmaking, or how to bring about change.

Oddly, these activists who have claimed the mantle of racial justice seem committed to an individualized, apolitical view of race. The diversity industry has become big business, sought out by universities and companies seeking the cachet of inclusivity. Campus diversity offices channel student protest into alliance with the administration and encourage students to think small. While adept in the terminology of power, diversity, inclusion, marginalization, injustice, and equity, they studiously avoid topics like colonialism, capitalism, exploitation, liberation, revolution, invasion, or other actual analyses of domestic or global affairs. Lumping race together in an ever-growing list of marginalized identities allows the history and realities of race to be absorbed into a billiard ball theory of diversity, in which different dehistoricized identities roll around a flat surface, occasionally colliding.

Let us be very clear. The white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, hate-filled and repugnant as their goals may be, are not the ones responsible for the U.S. wars on Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. They are not responsible for turning our public school system over to private corporations. They are not responsible for our separate and unequal health care system that consigns people of color to ill health and early death. They are not the ones foreclosing and evicting people of color from their homes. They are not the authors of neoliberal capitalism with its devastating effects on the poor around the planet. They are not the ones militarizing the borders to enforce global apartheid. They are not behind the extraction and burning of fossil fuels that is destroying the planet, with the poor and people of color the first to lose their homes and livelihoods. If we truly want to challenge racism, oppression, and inequality, we should turn our attention away from the few hundred marchers in Charlottesville and towards the real sources and enforcers of our unjust global order. They are not hard to find.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

All about Sojourn New Albany's Empowerment Seminar, coming on Saturday, March 19.

I'm tempted to be mischievous and comment that church services are always free (notwithstanding the collection plate, which after all is somewhat optional), but I won't.

Sojourn's Jonah Sage alerted me to this seminar, which strikes me as ideal neighborhood outreach. It includes advice on renter's rights, resume and interviews, scholarships and financial aid, and emergency preparedness.

Empowerment Seminar

Sojourn New Albany

Saturday, March 19

9 a.m. - 12 p.m.

All services are free!

A true renaissance (anywhere) "must be sparked by the empowerment of existing residents."

Fundamentally better NA.

Gill Holland made a few good points during his talk last week at the Green Building in NuLu. Given New Albany's recent experience with capital-intensive, gleaming facade and plaque-ready projects, this part struck me hardest.

Gill Holland, Steve Poe talk development in West Louisville, what to do if Humana is sold, by Chris Otts (WDRB)

Government is good at spending a lot of money in one place, like $135 million for the new Omni Hotel downtown. But 135 separate investments of $1 million in west Louisville would transform the area, he said.

Ah, but it would depend on campaign finance opportunities and voting patterns in those 135 areas, wouldn't it?

Joe Dunman recognizes the positives in the chat by Holland and Steve Poe, but he also sees "important differences between NuLu and Portland that ... often get lost in the hype." In several ways, these differences are both significant and relevant to New Albany's position.

I'm not doing Dunman's essay justice by reducing it to a mere paragraph -- and the conclusion, at that. Go to IL and read.

A true Portland renaissance must be sparked by the empowerment of existing residents, by Joe Dunman (Insider Louisville)

... If Portland and the rest of the West End are to enjoy a true renaissance, it must be sparked by the empowerment of existing residents. It can’t be imposed by a few outsiders buying up cheap lots and flipping them, displacing locals in the process. It requires a collective effort with government leadership. Speculators can invest and enjoy returns, but if the city is to improve as a whole, everyone must reap the benefits of neighborhood revitalization.

No, I will not shut up, but thanks for the hint. Now, for more on the necessity of independent business empowerment.

Most of us accept that when it comes to power, a vacuum is a condition waiting to be filled. It almost always is.

In New Albany, with local government barely a blip on the chart, both Develop New Albany and One Southern Indiana (the latter to a lesser extent) exist to fill the vacuum created by the inexplicable, ongoing refusal of independent local business owners to organize themselves, to advance their economic interests as a bloc, and to take seriously their potential power as such a purpose-built collective.

If business owners are content to outsource this clout to an organization, then shouldn’t it be an organization whose primary purpose is to advance the clout of business owners?

New Albany First might yet become this sort of organization, and make good on its  founding promise to be a true association of independent business owners, but NA 1st has had much difficulty getting started -- some of it organizational, and partly because of apathy and confusion on the part of those independent local business owners who should be its greatest supporters.

Also, there has been the impediment of predictable push-back from those who are threatened by the prospect of independent locally-owned businesses finally demanding an overdue seat at the table.

Verily, Develop New Albany cannot help us, and neither can One Southern Indiana. Both are driven by ideologies that are admittedly useful to specific constituencies, in certain circumstances, but which simply are not form-fitting to the needs of independent locally-owned businesses. They both have their places, as does the Urban Enterprise Association, although it currently is in a governmentally-induced vegetative state.

All one needs to know is that in this community, there is almost no disagreement: Independent locally-owned businesses have driven New Albany’s revitalization, and yet in terms of decision-making, the reins are nowhere close to our hands. Why do we acquiesce in this? Why do we not insist on input commensurate with our achievements?

Is it timidity, overwork, and under-education? Is it because we possess an inbred revulsion against cooperation for mutual benefit, or perhaps mistake it for unionization or some other ridiculous buzzword intended to frighten the uninformed into rejecting measures intended to redistribute local power more fairly? Whatever it is, it needs to stop.

As a case in point, think back to the tragi-comic, doomed “Come to City” marketing campaign almost foisted on the community by the compromised, England-endowed DNA cabal.

Ironically, at the discredited campaign’s heart was a generally truthful proposition: Independently owned local restaurants and bars represent the best known, and to date, most successful symbol of revitalization; therefore, these should comprise the gist of the marketing campaign.

Granted, the campaign was as ineptly maladroit as Dick Cheney is pure evil, but this isn’t the critical point in relating the story. The point is this: Independent locally-owned business was being told it was crucial to a marketing campaign presumably designed to advance the interests of the city as a whole, and this admission was tantamount to usurpers assigning the credit where it actually does belong. We should have seized the reins right then and there, and run the campaign ourselves; that way, at least we’d have been able to control how were to be marketed – a question DNA and its advertising man never even bothered to ask.

I’m suggesting today that there’s a far greater truth involved. As noted earlier today, “There truly is strength in numbers," and if we independent locally-owned businesses do not unite to assert our collective strength, there’ll be no one else to blame, and our credit will remain the sad debit it is today.

By insisting on going it alone, we’re at risk of blowing a huge opportunity to restore balance to the local conversation, and to establish a baseline for future reference. Maybe you can live with missing the chance ... but it really gripes my cookies that we remain oblivious to it.

Sheepless: "Tired of asking for change from the top down, they are taking their economy into their own hands."

As a Labor Day weekend op-ed in the New York Times observed, "The 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for 37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest research from Moody’s Analytics."

Using rope-a-dope notions like the "American Dream" to marginalize an excluded majority, while perpetually bedazzling its constituents with hopes of consumer materialism and delusions of religious/patriotic superstition, even as the overall playing field is kept tilted toward wealth where it already reposes ... well, that's one strategy. In fact, it's the whole of the Republican Party's platform.

Fortunately, there are other ideas. Thanks to A for the link.

An Economy Turned Upside Down

Folks at the bottom of the economic pyramid are not only finding ways to individually climb the path to realizing the American Dream. They are building ladders for others and organizing to flatten the pyramid, sharing a collective dream in which no one is left out and everyone is happier because of it. It is also becoming increasingly obvious that for most poor folks, the only way up is together. What would the economy look like turned upside down? As these experiments demonstrate, it might look a lot greener, more cooperative, participatory and fair.