“This landmark book shows how we can emulate and adapt nature’s operating instructions to the benefit of all life on Earth. It reports from the front lines of scientific and empirical innovation on true bio-technologies such as biomimicry, indigenous land management practices and ecologically intelligent design. “
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“This book brings important new dimensions to the interface between contemporary Western science and ancient Eastern wisdom. Here for the first time the concepts and insights of general systems theory are presented in tandem with those of the Buddha. Remarkable convergences appear between core Buddhist teachings and the systems view of reality, arising in our century from biology and extending into the social and cognitive sciences. Giving a cogent introduction to both bodies of thought, and a fresh interpretation of the Buddha’s core teaching of dependent co-arising, this book shows how their common perspective on causality can inform our lives. The interdependence of all beings provides the context for clarifying both the role of meditative practice and guidelines for effective action on behalf of the common good.”
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“To nurture whole people and whole communities to transition from a world of domination and extraction to a world of regeneration, resilience, and interdependence…Movement Strategy Center understands that transformative movements change the way we think, our structures and systems, the way we live, and even who we are. Transformative movements recognize that we are whole people, our communities are whole, and because the issues and problems are interconnected our systemic solutions and movements must be interconnected as well. For society to change we need our movements, and the people in our movements, to mirror and embody transformation right now. Along with a growing wave of movement makers, Movement Strategy Center believes incremental change strategies are inadequate in the face of rapidly accelerating climate disruption and growing inequality. Incremental change strategies cannot keep pace. Because the scale and nature of the problems we face are exponential, our change strategies need to be exponential as well. Transformative strategies are needed to generate the exponential change needed. But how do we accomplish this? How do we achieve transformation – the exponential shift of reality? Movement Strategy Center’s approach is grounded in four elements that are the core of transformative movement building: leading with audacious vision and bold purpose; deeply embodying the values at the heart of the vision; building radical and deep community around the vision; and using all of that – vision, embodiment, and connection – to strategically navigate toward the future.”
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Movement Strategy Center – Publications & Tools “To nurture whole people and whole communities to transition from a world of domination and extraction to a world of regeneration, resilience, and interdependence”
Read More Videos & Audio. “The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs seeks a more just and peaceful world by deepening knowledge and solving problems at the intersection of religion and global affairs through research, teaching, and engaging multiple publics. Two premises guide the center’s work: that a comprehensive examination of religion and norms is critical to address complex global challenges, and that the open engagement of religious and cultural traditions with one another can promote peace. To this end, the center engages students, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners in analysis of and dialogue on critical issues in order to increase the public understanding of religion.”
Read MoreBook: “With a world steeped in materialism, environmental destruction, and injustice, what can one individual possibly do to change it? While the present obstacles we face may seem overwhelming, author and humane educator Zoe Weil shows us that change doesn’t have to start with an army. It starts with you. Through her straightforward approaches to living a MOGO, or “most good,” life, she reveals that the true path to inner peace doesn’t require a retreat from the world. Rather, she gives the reader powerful and practicable tools to face these global issues, and improve both our planet and our personal lives. Weil explores direct ways to become involved with the community, make better choices as consumers, and develop positive messages to live by, showing readers that their simple decisions really can change the world. Inspiring and remarkably inclusive of the interconnected challenges we face today, Most Good, Least Harm is the next step beyond “green” — a radical new way to empower the individual and motivate positive change.”
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Book: “Moonrise explores the flourishing, passionate forms of leadership emerging from women on behalf of the earth and community. Many today find themselves being called toward greater leadership on behalf of the Earth, sourced from their inner authority and inspired by what they love and are dedicated to protect, transform, and strengthen. Those successfully heeding this call have embraced the qualities previously relegated to the “feminine”– inner awareness, collaboration, relational intelligence, respect for the sacred and generosity — and married them to the best of their “masculine” attributes to create a new form of leadership more inspiring, inviting, and effective for transforming how we live on Earth and with each other.”
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Film: “Money & Life is a passionate and inspirational essay-style documentary that asks a provocative question: can we see the economic crisis not as a disaster, but as a tremendous opportunity? This cinematic odyssey connects the dots on our current economic pains and offers a new story of money based on an emerging paradigm of planetary well-being that understands all of life as profoundly interconnected.”
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Podcasts about cosmos, psyche, science, shamanism and more
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News on women’s rights, protection and more in New Zealand.
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“Our Mission: We encourage people in all walks of life to discover their innate capacity for nonviolence and to cultivate its power for the long-term transformation of themselves and the world, focusing on the root causes of dehumanization and ultimately all forms of violence. We aim to make the logic, history and yet-unexplored potential of nonviolence more accessible to activists and agents of cultural change (which ultimately includes all of us), thereby empowering effective, healing, and principled action around the world…Values & Vision: Our core values grow from the power that it is our privilege to explore—nonviolence: responsibility, human dignity, compassion, respect for all life. We envision a world transformed by an awareness of the true potential of every human being, where all of life is sacred and where all our social systems work in harmony with the earth. We see a world in which conflict rarely occurs, and when it does, can always be addressed by the creative energy of nonviolence. In this world, unarmed peacekeeping has replaced military intervention, restorative justice has replaced retribution, and needs-based economies have replaced consumerism, among other essential changes.”
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“Marti Kheel was a prominent writer and activist in the areas of ecofeminism, animal advocacy, and environmental ethics and author of the recently published Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective. Her articles have been widely published in journals and anthologies both within the United States and abroad.”
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A website with extensive resources critiquing mainstream mental health treatment and promoting humanistic approaches to mental wellness.
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Book: “Love in Action is a collection of over two decades of Thich Nhat Hanh’s writing on nonviolence, peace, and reconciliation. Reflecting on the devastation of war, he makes the strong argument that mindfulness, insight, and altruistic love are the only sustainable bases for political action. This timeless book is an important resource for those interested in social change.”
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A Charles Eisenstein course: “Personal and collective transition from an age of scarcity and separation, to an age of abundance, community, and gift…To inhabit more fully the spirit of Gift is to transform life within us and around us. It is a journey of trust, an exploration of synchronicity, a recalibrating of boundaries, a step into community, a discovery of purpose, and an invitation to friendship with the world. This self-guided, self-paced course is an induction into the habits and perceptions of the Gift. Everything is on the table: economic and social, psychological and relational, spiritual and cosmological. While money (its presence in our lives and minds) is an important theme, the course goes far beyond New Age doctrines of abundance, because ultimately, no one wants merely to prosper personally within an unjust system. We can do better than that! We will see the power that comes from developing the foundational understanding that life is a gift, that the world is a gift, and that the cosmos operates on the principles of gift…You may choose to pay what a normal online program of this level of quality costs, or you may choose more, less, or even zero. “
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pdf Book: “Buddha and Christ, perhaps the two most pivotal figures in the history of humankind, each left behind a legacy of teachings and practices that have shaped the lives of billions of people over two millennia. If they were to meet on the road today, what would each think of the other’s spiritual views and practices? In this classic text, Thich Nhat Hanh explores the crossroads of compassion and holiness at which the two traditions meet and he reawakens our understanding of both. Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity. – Martin Luther King, Jr. He shows us the connection between personal, inner peace, and peace on earth. – His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”
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“This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the “graveyard of social movements”, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself. Original interview footage derives from Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michael Albert, John Stauber (PR Watch), Sharon Smith (Historian), William I. Robinson (Editor, Critical Globalization Studies), Morris Berman (Author, Dark Ages America), and famed black panther Larry Pinkney. Non-original interviews/lectures include Michael Hudson, Paul Craig Roberts, Ted Rall, Richard Wolff, Glen Ford, Lewis Black, Glenn Greenwald, George Carlin, Gerald Cliente, Chris Hedges, John Pilger, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Wollin and Martin Luther King.”
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“Let’s Talk is a space for movement builders to share our favorite insights, funniest moments, worst fears, highest hopes, most embarrassing questions, and warmest wishes. Let’s Talk is for anyone and everyone trying to build the relationships, power, strategy, collaboration, narratives, and new ways of being that can transform our society, economy, and culture. Let’s Talk is a labor of love from Movement Strategy Center.”
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“Legalize Democracy is a documentary film by Dennis Trainor, Jr. about a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution so that Corporations are not considered people, and money is not considered speech.”
Read More “Lee is the head writer and host of the national TV show Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp on RT America. He’s a former contributor to The Onion, former staff humor writer for the Huffington Post, and his web series “Moment of Clarity” has been viewed by millions. He’s toured the country and the world with his fierce brand of standup comedy, and George Carlin’s daughter Kelly said he’s one of the few comics keeping her father’s torch lit. Bill Hicks’s brother Steve said Lee is one of only a handful with Bill’s “message and passion.””
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“Cops and former cops who have put in decades fighting the war on drugs speak out against prohibition.”
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Joanna Macy quotes. “The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.”
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Events & Updates “We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come. We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life.”
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“Our mission is educational. We develop and share knowledge and resources on civil resistance with interested recipients throughout the world. This includes activists, scholars, educators, nongovernmental organizations, media professionals, and members of the policy community.”
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“ISR is the world’s largest academic social science survey and research organization. We are a leader in developing and applying new social science methods, and are committed to educating the next generation of social scientists.”
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Book: “Inciting Democracy offers a vision of what a good society might look like and explores how we can overcome five key obstacles to creating such a society. It offers a practical way to develop a large, decentralized education and support program (the Vernal Education Project) that would bolster grassroots movements so that people of goodwill can democratically and nonviolently transform society.”
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“Human Resources explores the rise of mechanistic philosophy and the exploitation of human beings under modern hierarchical systems. Topics covered include behaviorism, scientific management, work-place democracy, schooling, frustration-aggression hypothesis and human experimentation.”
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“Human Liberation is Animal Liberation…Understanding the connections between animal and human liberation is important for two reasons: 1) It focuses on the roots of oppression. We cannot make systemic change in society without a full analysis of power and domination. Challenging the oppression of one group requires us to understand the oppression of others, and challenge the oppression of all. 2) Individuals need to examine oppression in all of its forms. By educating ourselves on the intersections between our movements, and by building an intersectional analysis of oppression into our activism, we can simultaneously fight for the liberation of humans, nonhuman animals, and the earth, strengthening all movements.”
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“Honor the Earth uses indigenous wisdom, music, art, and the media to raise awareness and support for Indigenous Environmental Issues. We leverage this awareness and support to develop financial and political capital for Indigenous struggles for land and life.”
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“Each of us wants to have control over how and with whom we interact. In order to evolve and thrive, our communities must support everyone’s uniqueness. Yet today, our online relationships are dominated by centralized corporate web sites. Holochain enables a distributed web with user autonomy built directly into its architecture and protocols. Data is about remembering our lived and shared experiences. Distributing the storage and processing of that data can change how we coordinate and interact. With digital integration under user control, Holochain liberates our online lives from corporate control over our choices and information.”
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Book: “An extraordinary exploration of how technology can empower social and political organizers. For the first time in history, the tools for cooperating on a global scale are not solely in the hands of governments or institutions. The spread of the internet and mobile phones are changing how people come together and get things done—and sparking a revolution that, as Clay Shirky shows, is changing what we do, how we do it, and even who we are. Here, we encounter a whoman who loses her phone and recruits an army of volunteers to get it back from the person who stole it. A dissatisfied airline passenger who spawns a national movement by taking her case to the web. And a handful of kids in Belarus who create a political protest that the state is powerless to stop. Here Comes Everybody is a revelatory examination of how the wildfirelike spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them. A revolution in social organization has commenced, and Clay Shirky is its brilliant chronicler.”
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Book: ““Heart politics revisited” is part autobiography, part manifesto, and it dares to dream about a new politics with people at the center. “Heart Politics Revisited” is a new and expanded edition of the classic 1985 handbook for activists. Peavey’s approach shuns careerism, rigid ideologies, revenge and recrimination–and offers a pathway towards reconciliation and living with difference through empathy, non-violence, co-operation and person-to-person contact. And it has a humor which carries the reader through.”
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“Green Vegans is a solutions-oriented vegan environmental and justice organization that sees human behavior—our human ecology—as both the cause and cure for the most important issues of our time: environmental destruction; loss of biodiversity; climate change; human overpopulation; social and economic injustice, and unsustainable economic systems.”
Read More “Education blog with strategies, teacher tips, and classroom stories.”
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“This site serves as virtual home for our networks of allied community organizations. Perhaps bookmark our site and return if you seek hope from our beautiful creations…We are a Mutual Benefit Society dedicated to the arts, advocacy, research and development, education, and activism that promote engaged and resilient community wellness for our life on Earth.”
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Video: “Gentle World is a non-profit educational organization and vegan intentional community, with visitor centers in Hawaii and New Zealand. www.gentleworld.org”
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“The Gaia Theory offers insights into climate change, energy, health, agriculture, and other issues of great importance. The Gaia Paradigm describes a productive confluence between scientific understandings of Earth as a living system with cultural understandings (ancient and new) of human society as a seamless continuum of that system.”
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“Future Dreaming is a remarkable documentary that will challenge the way you think about humanity. The film explores the narratives that drive our economic, social and political thinking and offers a new way of understanding the Human Condition. Dr David E. Martin is an extraordinary intellect and speaker, with a deep insight into the past, present and future of mankind.”
Read More “The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. The scientific investigation of the Gaia hypothesis focuses on observing how the biosphere and the evolution of life forms contribute to the stability of global temperature, ocean salinity, oxygen in the atmosphere and other factors of habitability in a preferred homeostasis. The Gaia hypothesis was formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Initially received with hostility by the scientific community, it is now studied in the disciplines of geophysiology and Earth system science, and some of its principles have been adopted in fields like biogeochemistry and systems ecology. This ecological hypothesis has also inspired analogies and various interpretations in social sciences, politics, and religion under a vague philosophy and movement.” 15 page pdf
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“Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.”
Read More “The Foundational Research Institute (FRI) seek to identify and prioritize effective and cooperative strategies for reducing involuntary suffering. Due to the enormous ethical importance of the long-term future, their research focuses on the risks for dystopian futures, especially those arising from new technologies such as artificial intelligence.”
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“In 2004, thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers from all four corners, moved by their concern for our planet, came together at a historic gathering, where they decided to form an alliance: The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. This is their story. Four years in-the-making and shot on location in the Amazon rainforest, the mountains of Mexico, North America, and at a private meeting with the Dalai Lama in India, For the Next 7 Generations follows what happens when these wise women unite. Facing a world in crisis, they share with us their visions of healing and a call for change now, before it’s too late. This film documents their unparalleled journey and timely perspectives on a timeless wisdom.”
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“FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter — building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. It is a sprawling film, shot on location from the West Coast to West Africa. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, FIRST EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream. Chocking up over 300,000 hits on YouTube even before its official release, FIRST EARTH is not a how-to film; rather, it’s a why-to film. It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countrysides, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles. In the age of environmental and economic collapse, peak oil and other converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, focusing on food, clothes, and shelter. We need to think differently about house and home, for material and for spiritual reasons, both the personal and the political.”
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Book: “Feminist Theory established bell hooks as one of international feminism’s most challenging and influential voices. This edition includes a new preface by the author, reflecting on the book’s impact and the development of her ideas since it was first published. In this beautifully written and carefully argued work, hooks maintains that mainstream feminism’s reliance on white, middle-class, and professional spokeswomen obscures the involvement, leadership, and centrality of women of colour and poor women in the movement for women’s liberation. Hooks argues that feminism’s goal of seeking credibility and acceptance on already existing ground – rather than demanding the lasting and more fundamental transformation of society – has shortchanged the movement.A sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics, Feminist Theory argues that contemporary feminists must acknowledge the full complexity and diversity of women’s experience to create a mass movement to end women’s oppression.”
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Film: “This stunning film takes you on a hypnotic journey, reaching to the past to understand the origins of the catastrophic environmental transitions we now face. Over two years, director Matt Anderson traveled 16,000 miles to document firsthand our modern industrial world and the environmental destruction in its wake. In the process, he discovered exciting strategies to help humanity transcend the coming ecological and psychological crisis. Some of today’s most progressive thinkers, from anthropologists and bio-architects to psychologists and journalists collectively recreate a story of humanity and the history of Earth, illuminating a desperately needed new path for us to take. Fall and Winter is a survival guide for the 21st Century.”
Read More “FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information. Uniquely, FAIR works with both activists and journalists. We maintain a regular dialogue with reporters at news outlets across the country, providing constructive critiques when called for and applauding exceptional, hard-hitting journalism. We also encourage the public to contact media with their concerns, to become media activists rather than passive consumers of news.”
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“The aim of Ethics & International Affairs, the quarterly journal of the Carnegie Council, is to help close the gap between theory and practice (and between theorists and practitioners) by publishing original articles, essays, and book reviews that integrate rigorous thinking about principles of justice and morality into discussions of practical dilemmas related to current policy developments, global institutional arrangements, and the conduct of important international actors. Theoretical discussions that originate in philosophy, religion, or the social sciences should connect with such interests and concerns as the function and design of international organizations (for example, the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund); institutions of accountability (such as the International Criminal Court and ad hoc tribunals); arrangements governing trade and the global economy; as well as issues of human rights, the environment, and the use of force.”
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Film: “Political power—armed central authority, with states and war—is it part of human nature? Is it necessary for human community? Or is it a tool that ruling elites use to live at the community’s expense? A tool that does violence to human nature and the world? Engines of Domination offers a theory of political power as a tool for making tools of human beings—an engine that converts human energy into authority and privilege for the rulers. Invented in the Bronze Age, brilliantly refined for six thousand years, today the engine has caused a human emergency that threatens to destroy our world. This documentary makes a powerful argument that there is only one hope for saving the future. Armed central authority must be abolished, creating a world of cooperative peaceful communities—in other words, an argument for anarchism.”
Read More “Many Western philosophers admit that Buddhism is a rich philosophy. It has a plausible theory of personal identity: the separate self is merely a conventional concept, which can become dangerously addictive. It also contains a theory of wellbeing: the ideal state is the calm contentment that comes with realising one’s deep interconnections with the rest of the world.1 But can Buddhism make important contributions to the field of political philosophy?”
Read More “We conduct and coordinate research on how to do the most good in terms of reducing suffering, and support work that contributes towards this goal.”
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“Effective altruism is a joint effort. Our goal is to make the EA Forum the central place for collaborative discussion about how to do the most good we can.”
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“Education For a Sustainable Future presents information on how today’s practices in schools are socially unsustainable. The documentary film critically analyses what is considered socially relevant in a new education system which brings out the most potential in all of humanity whilst also detailing specific educational methods from a wide range of sources on how to nurture social skills, critical thinking techniques and a larger variety of important practices to positively reinforce from our earliest years onwards. It must be recognised that a sustainable education is one of the most critical components of any advanced society. Education For a Sustainable Future is an independent film production and has been uploaded online for free download and distribution. The views expressed in this documentary are not necessarily shared by the originators of source material presented.”
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Book: “This expansive collection illuminates the fertile edges between environmental restoration and holistic healing. Many of the world’s leading health visionaries show us how human and environmental health are one notion, indivisible, in an emerging movement called Ecological Medicine. Contributors include Carolyn Raffensperger, Dr. Andrew Weil, Michael Lerner, Charlotte Brody, Dr. Larry Dossey, Dr. Tieraona Low Dog and Jeanne Achterberg. Their inspiring, leading-edge work is of critical relevance to everyone concerned about reconciling health and the environment.”
Read MoreBook: “Powerful conversations between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and leading scientists on the most pressing issue of our time. Engage with leading scientists, academics, ethicists, and activists, as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and His Holiness the Karmapa, who gathered in Dharamsala, India, for the twenty-third Mind and Life conference to discuss arguably the most urgent questions facing humanity today: *What is happening to our planet? *What can we do about it? *How do we balance the concerns of people against the rights of animals and against the needs of an ecosystem? *What is the most skillful way to enact change? *And how do we fight on, even when our efforts seem to bear no fruit? Inspiring, edifying, and transformative, this should be required reading for any citizen of the world.”
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Book: “As our economic and natural systems continue on their collision course, Bruce Jennings asks whether we have the political capacity to avoid large-scale environmental disaster. Can liberal democracy, he wonders, respond in time to ecological challenges that require dramatic changes in the way we approach the natural world? Must a more effective governance be less democratic and more autocratic? Or can a new form of grassroots ecological democracy save us from ourselves and the false promises of material consumption run amok? Ecological Governance is an ethicist’s reckoning with how our political culture, broadly construed, must change in response to climate change. Jennings argues that during the Anthropocene era a social contract of consumption has been forged. Under it people have given political and economic control to elites in exchange for the promise of economic growth. In a new political economy of the future, the terms of the consumptive contract cannot be met without severe ecological damage. We will need a new guiding vision and collective aim, a new social contract of ecological trusteeship and responsibility.”
Read More Book, article, powerpoint presentation and short vidoes about eco-governance. “Applying the reality of our ecological interconnectedness to our local and global governing systems. The only legitimate purpose of governance is to cultivate the health and vitality of the planet and all its inhabitants. The material presented here offers an initial framework for beginning to think about the transition from a governance system rooted in a mindset of separateness and the domination of life, to a system of governance rooted in a mindset of interconnectedness and the cultivation of life. The work is inspired by and dedicated to the Global White Lion Protection Trust.”
Read More Events, classes and courses on Religious Diversity.
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Resources and data available. “EPI’s goals were (1) to provide a global plan (Plan B) for moving the world onto an environmentally and economically sustainable path, (2) to provide examples demonstrating how the plan would work, and (3) to keep the media, policymakers, academics, environmentalists, and other decision-makers focused on the process of building a Plan B economy….Plan B is a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are fast undermining our future. Its four overriding goals are stabilizing climate, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the earth’s damaged ecosystems.”
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Book: “The world is entering a period of great change. The environment is collapsing. Social disruption abounds. All around, it seems, societies are experiencing breakdown—even collapse. Out of this chaos, however, comes the opportunity to avoid a complete breakdown and instead foster a breakthrough. It is time, argues award-winning social entrepreneur, author, journalist, and filmmaker Kenny Ausubel, to reimagine our future and our connection to each other, and to nature. In Dreaming the Future, Ausubel tracks the big ideas, metatrends, and game-changing developments of our time being led by some of the world’s greatest thinkers. As more communities take the initiative to shape their own future and become more resilient, Ausubel shows how it’s possible to emerge from a world where corporations are citizens, the gap between rich and poor is cavernous, and biodiversity and the climate are under assault—and create a world where people take their cues from nature and focus on justice, equity, diversity, democracy and peace.”
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Book: “Citizen activism has achieved many positive results. But the road to success for social move-ments is often complex, usually lasting many years, with few guides for evaluating the precise stage of a movement’s evolution to determine the best way forward. Doing Democracy provides both a theory and working model for understanding and analyzing social movements, ensuring that they are successful in the long term. Beginning with an overview of social movement theory and the MAP (Movement Action Plan) model, Doing Democracy outlines the eight stages of social movements, the four roles of activists, and case studies from the civil rights, anti-nuclear energy, Central America, gay/lesbian, women’s health, and globalization movements.”
Read More“Here is the definitive guide on circles with planners in mind. Primal and potent in equal measure, the circle is the basis for all good conversation. It is well nigh indispensable today for those practicing planning as collective communicative action whereby common, meaning-filled places get made. [This book] presses many of the hot buttons for planners looking to be more relevant and effective in today’s world, while also stretching minds into the realm of hearts and souls. Circles may be regarded as a conduit for tapping the precious galvanizing spirit in their communities and (if professional planners dare admit it) in themselves. This is a timely call for planners to consciously circle their praxis … to realize fuller, fairer processes and to facilitate a democratics that can transcend mere politics and contribute to a more just society. –Ian Wight, Associate Professor, City Planning, Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg” (Review)
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“Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.”
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“This is the story of our unique moment in history. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We’re the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and the last generation that can do something about it. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future.”
Read More “Ecological economists have emphasized the study of commodification (i.e., the development of market-based exchange and valuation) rather than decommodification processes (i.e., the degree of immunization from market dependency). This is surprising given the fact that large-scale decommodification may be our best option for a post-growth transition so dear to many ecological economists. Based on Heinsohn and Steiger’s theory of ownership, we seek to provide an institutional foundation to processes of (de)commodification. These two authors distinguish between ‘property’ and ‘possession’, two bundles of rights generating different logics and consequences. We illustrate this approach with three cases taken from an advanced capitalist economy, Switzerland, showing how commodification and decommodification processes may appear together or vigorously oppose each other. Cooperatives, forests and municipal land are examples of (partial) decommodified assets that follow a logic of possession and are therefore more likely to be sustainable. It is high time that the study of decommodification becomes central to ecological economics.”
Read More“Deconstructing Democracy was written as a response to global events and to a series of “democratic elections” across the world that ushered into power, governing parties increasingly antagonistic to the so called democratic foundations of freedom, equality and justice. Scanning the record of democratic countries worldwide, it was hard to identify any one country that could truly shine the democratic values they claim to uphold. All seemed, to some extent or another, to have sold out to incentives of profit and power and the exploitation of people and planet. And yet, mainstream conversations continued to idealize democracy as the royal road to healthy governance. The dissonance between the ideal and the real catalyzed this exploration into the fundamental flaws of the democratic system…The second part of the exploration is the work of Co-creating EcoGovernance. It is not sufficient to resist that which is not working. For healing and transformation, it is essential that we articulate a new form of governance that responds wisely to the challenges and opportunities of our time, and integrates evolving knowledge and wisdom in life-enhancing ways.”
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“Deep Times offers must-read articles, art, and poetry for people who have experienced the shift in perception invoked by the Work That Reconnects–of how life flows in relationships and systems, not isolated things, and how our selves are not separated from each other or Earth, but deeply interdependent. The journal provides brainfood and techniques for those of us who are working to co-create life-sustaining, equitable cultures for all. The title comes from what Joanna Macy calls “Deep Time” work, in which we reconnect with ancestors and future beings to guide and inspire us. Deep Times follows the Spiral of the Work That Reconnects, with articles and poems on Gratitude, Honoring Our Pain for the World, Seeing with New Eyes, and Going Forth.”
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“DailyGood was born in 1998, when one college student started sharing inspiration with a half a dozen of his friends by sending them an enriching quote every day. Today, DailyGood leverages the internet to promote positive and uplifting news around the world to more than 100,000 subscribers through the daily and weekly newsletters. Readers receive a news story, an inspiring quote, and a suggested action that each person can take to make a difference in their own lives and the world around them.”
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Book: “This expansive and carefully crafted reader brings together many of the classic texts that help to define culture as a tool of resistance. With illuminating introductions throughout, it presents a range of theoretical and historical writings that have influenced contemporary debate, providing tools for the reader’s own interventions. In these pages can be found the work of Karl Marx, Matthew Arnold, Antonio Gramsci, C.L.R. James, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Virginia Woolf, Mikhail Bakhtin, Stuart Hall, Christopher Hill, Janice Radway, Eric Hobsbawm, Abbie Hoffman, Mahatma Gandhi, Dick Hebdige, Hakim Bey, Raymond Williams, Robin Kelley, Tom Frank and more than a dozen others, including a number of new activists/authors published here for the first time.”
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“Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. We believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, our work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness.”
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Film: “Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview is a documentary exploring the depths of the current human condition and the emergence of a worldview that is recreating our world from the inside out. Weaving together insights and findings from biology, psychology, network science, systems science, business, culture and media, the film reveals the inner workings of the human experience in the 21st century, urging viewers to step out of the box and challenge their own assumptions about who we really are, and why we do what we do. Crossroads places evolutionary context to today’s escalating social unrest, natural disasters, and economic failures. It illuminates the footsteps of an integrated worldview, penetrating its way through the power of social networks to the forefront of our personal and collective awareness.”
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US Admits to Pushing Ukraine Into a Fight It Can’t Win
We’re Taught About Liberal And Conservative Bias In Media, But Not US Empire Bias
Across the West, People Are Dying in Greater Numbers. Nobody Wants To Learn Why
The Imminent Extradition of Julian Assange and the Death of Journalism
Another Act of Terror. How the Media Do PR for Biden and Zelensky
Safety Third
How BBC Coverage Is Enabling Israeli State Violence at Al-Aqsa
It’s Not Just the Settlers – or Israel – Responsible for the Torching of Huwwara
Caitlin Johnstone: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Woke Imperialism