New Clear Vision

Can We Find Our Humanity in Conscience and Awareness?

by Robert C. Koehler 

This is American exceptionalism: “Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

But you have to say it without the doubt, the regret — the horror — of Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist extraordinaire and director of the Manhattan Project, who famously uttered these words in reference to the Trinity nuclear explosion in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert on July 16, 1945.

When you remove Oppenheimer’s moral awareness from the quote, it sounds more like: “Oh, I wouldn’t hesitate if I had the choice. I’d wipe ’em out. You’re gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we’ve never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn’t kill innocent people. . . . That’s their tough luck for being there.” Read the rest of this entry →

An American’s Letter from Europe

by Jan Jundberg

The time for a revolution of a deeper sort comes when the imbalance of unequal sharing of the land and its resources reaches the ultimate crisis point. People don’t want to contemplate this, but at least the unprecedented socioeconomic disintegration ahead will be the portal to achieving real sustainability.

This will occur despite any redistribution of present wealth through compassionate reforms or wrenching de-classism. For the hour is too late ecologically. This applies to the entire modern industrialized world.

A great measure of middle and working class affluence has brought European nations together. Rather than serving lofty goals of advancing civilization and peace, it was more to convenience the region’s powerful corporations and increase Europe’s bargaining muscle for importing energy. Digging deeper into the seamy side, the elevated material life was accomplished largely by borrowing money and wasting material resources (albeit only half as recklessly as the U.S., per capita). The come-down will be far more painful and chaotic than what has been glimpsed, such as the Spanish miners’ objections to their getting squeezed. The bright side is that the failure of affluence — of the post-war European Dream — will give way to strong local economics and bioregional power. Read the rest of this entry →

What Do We Lose When Experiences Go Extinct? 

by Chris Desser 

Over many years as an activist, attorney and artist working on environmental campaigns, Chris Desser began to wonder about the sensual pleasures that will disappear from our lives as more and more species go extinct. That was the genesis of her “Catalog of Extinct Experiences” — a multimedia installation at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center planned for the Fall of 2013.

“At its most basic, as we lose these experiences we lose ways of coming to consciousness,” Desser explains. “These things are all part of the commons — these experiences belong to all of us.

Some of the exhibits that she is planning for the exhibition include: images of endangered landscapes preserved in jars, like extinct species preserved in formaldehyde; recordings of soundscapes from rainforests, deserts and other threatened places; vials of perfumes made from endangered plants; honey flavored by various flowers, with empty jars for extinct species; commissioned and curated work from other artists.

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Soft Necks Will Not Be Slaughtered

by Kathy Kelly and Hakim

Abdulhai remembers his father being killed by the Taliban. “Anyone who takes up a weapon in revenge, whether the Talib or any other, is acting like the Talibs who murdered my father,” he says, in a matter of fact way. “The solution does not lie in taking revenge, but in people coming together like the people of Egypt to defend themselves in a nonviolent way.”

Nine people gathered this morning for an unexpected although welcome meeting here in Kabul, in the home of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, at which Raz Mohammed, a member of the group who is from Wardak province, had arrived along with a fellow student, named Rohullah. The meeting included Tajiks, Hazaras and one Pashtoon. We were surprised and pleased to see our good friend. Read the rest of this entry →

Always Wanting Something to Help Them Get Ahead

by Pat LaMarche

Some guy asked me for help the other day. Considering the time I spend hanging with homeless folks that sentence likely wouldn’t surprise anyone. But this guy wasn’t homeless. In fact he’s not even poor. He’s got it “going on” with a great job and he’s well educated. He came from a good family and was sent to the finest schools. He got a great college education back in the day when I got mine. Back when all four years of private higher ed was cheaper than one year is now.

Seems his brains and good looks, comfortable station and high profile job just can’t get him what he really needs to move ahead. What can I do for a guy like that? I mean for all intents and purposes he and I are peers. In fact we even do the exact same job; we’re both talk radio hosts. We literally got our broadcasting start in the same small market, although he was a little before my time. Read the rest of this entry →

Will Smarter Phones Mean Dumber People?

by Randall Amster

The road ahead was clearly marked as “closed” and a “dead end,” but the voice from the back seat insisted that we go forward anyway. “My phone says go straight ahead,” counseled the voice, ignoring the driver’s observation that the street was apparently closed. “The GPS in my phone is smarter than you are,” chimed the voice, good-naturedly yet sardonically. Obviously trumped, the driver continued forward — until we inevitably reached the advertised road closure that forced us to turn around and start over.

In itself, such a minor folly is entirely inconsequential and worthy of a little chuckle at best. Yet it’s also indicative of an increasingly prevalent attitude whereby the reliance on “smart” technologies is steadily supplanting human assessments and instincts. By now, such an observation is quite nearly passé, in that we have already given so much of ourselves and our reasoning capacities over to machines in one form or another. But the advent and rapid permeation of personal technologies like so-called “smartphones” raises further concerns that have been less explored during this most recent consumer frenzy. Read the rest of this entry →

How Progressives Can (and Must) Lobby for Social Change

by Diane Lefer

Abbe Land, West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem, doesn’t want activists to think of “lobbying” as a dirty word. “In the purest form, it’s about educating and helping elected officials understand the issue,” she told more than 100 community members attending the recent workshop, “Your Voice: Learning to Lobby for Social Change,” organized by the Advocacy Committee of the National Council of Jewish Women/Los Angeles.

“Paid lobbyists can keep knocking on your door till you let them in, keep telling you their side, their side, their side — till it’s possible forget about the other side.” Progressive organizations lobby, too, “to move our agenda forward,” she said in her keynote address, but don’t have the resources to keep up that kind of constant pressure without the help of the individual activist. The role of citizen lobbyist is crucial. Read the rest of this entry →