New Clear Vision

Seeing and Believing It…

by Noah Kass

The prospect of peace seems distant in this modern era of perpetual warfare. As headlines scream of newfound conflict and environmental catastrophe, imaginations of peace are pushed further into our subconscious. But losing hope in the face of violence is just the easy way out when it comes to challenging the structures of violence that plague our planet. Instead of giving in to the negative narratives of apocalypse, we must prepare to wage peace. Averting our eyes and our actions from the destructive modes of living that have decimated life and environment, we must move toward the protection of our planet through the lenses of ourselves, our society, and the ecosystems that surround us.

The common Western mindset geared toward individualism and private opulence has fueled the rise of contemporary capitalism. Capitalism in turn has legitimized the Western consumption and acquisition of the world’s resources through violent coercion or extraction. Although a bit oversimplified, the truth remains that from the personal-entitlement complex of the common American citizen, we have subconsciously stamped our approval of the battles that take place in the name of resource security. In an effort to move toward sustainable survival, we must challenge our conceptions of subsistence and consumption. (more…)

Falling into the Poles…

by Windy Cooler

The color and quality of the light here is, I don’t know, dense. I always feel like I am being pushed into myself, quieting, sinking, falling through what is me and through the floor of the Earth when I walk alone here, visiting what seem like the ruins of the civilization I was part of eons ago, like the last survivor of Pompeii, when it was I who left. This is Montgomery, Alabama.

This is where I was a teenager and where I spent my early years as a mother, the place where I worked as a projectionist in a neighborhood theater, a non-profit one screen art house, called The Capri. Alabama is where my mother’s family has lived since before the American Civil War, in a small, ever flooding town called Elba, just north of Mobile. I am hardly a survivor as I burn and push through. I used to fancy myself one, feeling the need to keep on breathing through poverty and constant shaming, breathing and birthing a creature I could be proud of. The irony though is that surviving made me ashamed. And birthing is falling too. (more…)

Hot, Dry, and Merciless — Can We Keep the Flame of Hope Alive?

by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez

Last week, turning the corner into the astronomical Spring, we went abruptly from warm winter to hot summer.  And I mean hot: it was 84 degrees Farenheit in western Massachusetts, brightly sunny, with puffy white cumulus clouds against a brilliant blue sky, unobstructed by any leaves.  No shade.

This day reminded me of a wax model: beautiful but blank.  The façade of beauty, with the crucial vital spark missing.

When I went for a walk up the mountain early that morning, the woods were eerily silent.  I remembered mournfully the spring mornings of my childhood, where I would be awakened by the joyful singing of the dawn chorus of thousands of birds each happily greeting each other and the new day.

Reaching the top of the mountain having heard only the distant cry of a single phoebe, I stopped to sit on a rock and listen for a few minutes.  All I heard was the dim rushing of the traffic on the road far below me, and the drone of an airplane churning its way across the sky. (more…)

How Much Is an Earth, and Do You Have One in Extra Large?

by David Swanson

What Are YOU Doing to Live Well and Contribute to the Cause?

by Jan Hart

The Occupy movement is alive, credible and growing in the United States and the world. International in scope, the Occupy movement began just a few months ago in New York City, followed by San Francisco.  A few weeks later the protests had spread to 95 cities across 82 countries and over 600 communities in the U.S. Ordinary people are standing up to a system that they feel is unequal and unfair. The recent eviction at Zuccotti Park serves only to make the movement stronger. In a world where the wealthy elite, the 1 %, have all the power and control, 99 % of the people feel powerless to effect changes that would make their lives better. (more…)

Is There a Place Called Home for the Children of America?

by Mary Sojourner

“You must leave your home and go forth from your country. The children of Buddha all practice this way.” — The thirty-seven Bodhisattva Practices

My friend and I head for the Olympic Rain Forest. We never arrive. Somewhere around Sequim, he feels the northwest pulling him as far as it will be possible for two humans to go. Beyond that point there are cormorants and orcas. There is a blue-black horizon and light fading down into the sea. There is air vibrant with salt.

We stop along the way to where we can go no further. I walk to the water’s edge and scoop handfuls of liquid mineral. I touch my forehead, my heart and belly with wet fingers. I take away a gray-white pebble flecked with mica.

At the Makah Cultural & Research Center, I learn that the people regard the knowledge in that place as “a canoe” carrying them, and a “war club” shattering assumptions and prejudices. I learn that their real name is kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx which means People who live by the rocks and the seagulls. Makah is a name given to them by another First Nation. It means generous with food. (more…)

Hunger Politics and the Struggle for Autonomy and Resistance

by Devon G. Peña

The political project to homogenize and control the global food system dominated by a handful of multinational corporations and powerful nation states is capitalist at its core and manifest source. This reflects the culmination of five decades of American policies that made food into political weaponry, as Harry Cleaver presciently observed way back in 1977. Food as political weaponry became official US policy during the Nixon Administration when Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, declared that food was indeed part of the toolkit of American “diplomacy.”  Butz announced this policy in 1974 with the simple statement: “Food is a weapon.” (more…)