Mental Fruit

Changing the World

VSN — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:47:00 +0000

Americans have tended to watch with a remarkable (I think frightening) degree of passivity as crises of all sorts have gripped the country and sent millions of lives into tailspins. The tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them. We will not be pulled from the morass without a big effort from an active citizenry, and that means a citizenry fired with a sense of mission and the belief that their actions, in concert with others, can make a profound difference. It can start with just a few small steps. It’s a risk, sure. But the need is great, and that’s how you change the world.

A Lesson of Somali Pirate Attacks

Benjamin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:54:43 +0000

Somalia is like Afghanistan in that we had a great deal of interest in the place during the Cold War and more or less forgot about it afterward. But two decades later we continue to deal with the consequences of our abrupt exit from both countries. Our intense and highly selective outrage began when the Somalis started targeting commercial vehicles. Faced with this response it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the Western consumer products, carried by these ships are more valuable than Somali lives. In light of this incident we should recognize there are two sets of victims here: innocent workers taken hostage by pirates and those people living along the poisoned and depleted Somali coast who may well see these pirates as heroes. We should also know that part of combating terrorism means addressing the conditions in which it flourishes.

America's Shame

VSN — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:45:57 +0000

Reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty throughout the world is clearly one of the great moral challenges of our time. Although the issue is by no means absent from what we study and teach, as educators in the United States we appear to be falling short in the task of ensuring that our students are adequately informed about world poverty, its consequences, and the ways in which it can be reduced. Is it possible that some of the reluctance to deal with the topic stems from the fact that it may have uncomfortable conclusions for our own lives?

If we take seriously the idea that the value of a human life does not diminish when we cross national boundaries, then we ought to be giving a much higher priority to reducing world poverty. I have in mind a broad re-envisioning of what we teach.

We should not limit so important a topic to specialized courses on international development (valuable as they are). The issue should be prominent in anthropology, cultural studies, economics, ethics and sociology.

18 Students Are Suspended as Protest at N.Y.U. Ends

VSN — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:20:13 +0000

After about 70 students took over the dining room on Wednesday night, they created a Web site (takebacknyu.com), where they listed demands, including a thorough annual reporting of the university’s operating budget, expenditures and endowment. They also asked that the university provide 13 scholarships a year to students from the Gaza Strip and allow graduate teaching assistants to unionize.

Some of the students who had been suspended said they would continue their campaign.

“We are fighting for transparency,” said Drew Phillips, a junior majoring in philosophy. “What we need right now is the support of everybody.”

Do The Right Thing: Hampshire's Selective Divestment Movement

VSN — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:14:34 +0000

Dear friends,

I am so excited to report to you that Hampshire College has become the first US college... to divest from Israeli occupation, just as they were the first to divest from South African apartheid in 1977! You can read all about it to your heart's content at the Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) website: http://www.hsjp.org/.

But Hampshire SJP...need[s] your help! The Hampshire administration has distanced itself from the decision, claiming that the board's decision to divest was a broader one, not tied to any particular political cause. The Hampshire community knows better. Alan Dershowitz also knows better, and has threatened Hampshire with his own divestment campaign against the college. It seems the administration is trying, as Alan Dershowitz has said, to play to both sides. Let's help them be clear, by writing to them, congratulating them, and encouraging them to be proud of their groundbreaking decision!

Gandhi on Economic Prosperity

VSN — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:22:15 +0000

“According to me”, Mahatma Gandhi said “the economic constitution of India and for that matter of the world, should be such that no one under it should suffer from want of food and clothing. In other words everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet. And this ideal can be universally realized only if the elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses. Their monopolization by any country, nation or group of persons would be unjust. The neglect of this simple principle in the cause of the destitution that we witness not only in this unhappy land but in other parts of the world too.”

Organizing 101

VSN — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:40:57 +0000

http://www.tenant.net/Organize/orgbas.html#I20

very nice written by Shel Trapp, famous great organizer founder of National People's Action, trained lots of really good organizers including Ed Shurna of Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Shel Trapp is the pre-ACORN Saul Alinsky of neighborhood/community/tenant organizing

http://comm-org.wisc.edu/train.htm

this is the best online resource I have found. It has been around for years and they keep adding to it.

Beyond Wealth - Resources

VSN — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:20:45 +0000

Here are some links addressing the question of how wealth/privilege affect social justice work.

SOME RESOURCES:
Read stories from young weatlhy folks from the US:
http://www.resourcegeneration.org/Resources/archive.html

More on money, privilidge and wealth:
http://www.resourcegeneration.org/Resources/relationship.html

Some Scary Stats
http://www.resourcegeneration.org/Resources/class.html#statistics

Interesting Charts

VSN — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:24:46 +0000

Charts by Bill Moyer about social change and movements:

PDF Download

The Story of Stuff

VSN — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:07:30 +0000