New Clear Vision

The Moral Obligations of Civil Disobedience and Universal Rights

by Jenny Passero, Meredith Holladay, and Sara Turcios

In order to set the tone for overcoming fear and promoting just alternatives, we open with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “When injustice becomes the law, then civil disobedience is a moral obligation.” This quote is equally fitting as a response to the current political manipulation that is occurring in the Arizona State Legislature, with several Republican anti-immigrant proposals including: House Bill 2561 and Senate Bill 1309, as well as House Bill 2562 and Senate Bill 1308, which contest birthright citizenship.

This legislation is being used as a political tactic intended “to attract a legal challenge that could eventually lead to the U.S. Supreme Court reconsidering whether the 14th Amendment truly grants citizenship to such children.” (more…)

From JFK to Obama — in Words, if Not Policies

by Jay Walljasper

“I believe that for all of our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.”

These words from President Obama struck a chord with many Americans, even those — on both the right and left — who remain skeptical of his policies on health care, war, economic policy, the role of government and more.

He touched many of us, still reeling from the Tucson tragedy, when he eulogized 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green as “a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday too she might play a part in shaping her nation’s future.”

This was not a political speech, although its political implications may be longstanding. (more…)

Learning Peacefulness from the Zapotecas

by Devon G. Peña

Pundits and analysts have engaged in mostly thoughtful discussions of the social, cultural, and political contexts of the recent mass murder in Arizona. According to Michael Nagler, there is growing recognition of “an apparently forbidden truth: that we bring violence on ourselves when we promote it, glorify it, or legitimize it — as in this case by the extreme rhetoric associated with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, among others.” Still, for every such in-depth analysis of the issue, there are others content to remain on the surface.

Was the Tucson massacre a form of political violence? Some have argued that it was, by virtue of the fact that the principal target was an elected official. Many on the right, including Palin, have objected to this characterization, arguing that “blaming the right” or any one else is intrinsically unfair and that the mindless crime occurred simply because the perpetrator was mentally ill and unhinged. Since the assassin was ‘sick,’ this cannot be seen as a ‘political act.’ The allegedly deranged mental state of the perpetrator becomes an opening to ‘de-politicize’ the crime. This is, simply put, a ruse. (more…)

Will It Be Force … or Discourse?

by Randall Amster

In that fateful supermarket parking lot in Tucson, two drastically different forms of politics were on display, and the contrast couldn’t have been more starkly evident. On the one hand there were ordinary people meeting with their congressional representative, ostensibly to get to know one another and share concerns about important issues. On the other there was an alienated and disturbed individual armed with a deadly weapon, seemingly bent on making a statement of his own while brutally silencing others in the process. The fact that this transpired in beleaguered Arizona, known widely for its invidious policies, lax gun laws, and blunt politics, has served to heighten the contrast and arouse the nation’s conscience in the process. (more…)

An ex-Weather Underground Radical on the Tucson Shootings

by Mark Rudd

In 1970, when I was 22 years old — the same age as Tucson gunman Jared Loughner — I was a founder of the Weather Underground, an offshoot of the antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society. At that time, having fashioned myself “an agent of necessity,” I was willing to kill or be killed for some romantic notion of “the revolution.” So it’s not that difficult for me to imagine what might have been in the mind of someone like Loughner, who perhaps acted (as I did) in the misguided belief that it was up to him to do what needed to be done.

By the winter of 1970, the members of the Weather Underground had gone over the edge. A small group of us in New York City, charged with “taking the struggle to a higher level,” was planning a bombing at Fort Dix, New Jersey, which was then an army basic training center. Three pipe bombs filled with dynamite and larded with nails were to be left at a noncommissioned officers’ dance to remind our fellow Americans of the millions of tons of bombs our country had been dropping on the Vietnamese for five straight years. (more…)

Food Justice as a Pathway to Sustainability and Community

by ISE (Institute for Social Ecology)

Please introduce yourself (what kind of work you do, where you live, etc.).

My name is Erin Lingo. I live in Prescott, Arizona, and am the coordinator of the Prescott College CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and the Prescott Farmers Market. My passion is food and all things related: nutrition, cooking, food justice, sustainable agriculture, farmworker rights, and local food systems. I am a graduate student in the Prescott College/ISE program with an emphasis in Community Food Systems.

How did you become introduced to the ideas of social ecology? How do yo define social ecology when asked about it?

I became interested in Social Ecology because I wanted to continue my education with a study that addresses the relationship between society and nature, particularly how it relates to food. I already lived in Prescott and worked for Prescott College, so the PC/ISE program resonated with me. (more…)

A Firsthand Account of “Healing and Understanding”

by Maggie McQuaid

I left Bisbee (in Southern Arizona) at 9:30am and made it to Tucson about 2 hours later where I met up with Susan, a coworker, and her partner Veira. We hopped a city bus and got to the University of Arizona campus around noon where we joined a rapidly growing throng outside the McKale Basketball Arena. Campus police, Secret Service, the Tucson Police Department, and the US Marshals were very much in evidence. Despite having a huge crowd on hand, they were all decent and courteous.

We were pretty much sequestered in an open area outside the arena, where we could leave if we wished, but could not come back. By 1:00 that afternoon, the announcement was made that the crowd was already at stadium capacity, and that anyone arriving on campus past that point would not be able to get in. We were closely packed in amongst thousands of others, with no room to sit down. I had expected porta-johns and food vendors, but there were none to be had. (more…)