Ah, Charlie Brooker

Genius as ever.

Do The Math

Our movement has music. And it sounds GOOD!

How Do We Respond When Systems Fail?

Tomorrow I’m going to visit Detroit.

I’ll be missing my economics midterm exam to go – which is ironic, as I’ll be going to see what our current economic system has done to Motor City. I’ll be on a learning journey led by leadership author Margaret Wheatley and The Boggs Center for Detroit to learn how citizens are responding to the fact that the jobs that created Detroit America’s fourth largest city, are not coming back.

I’m studying public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School at the moment – but so far little of what I’m learning has a coherent answer to the questions I’m asking. If we accept that ‘business as normal died in 2008‘, how do governments enable a transition to a sustainable economy? How do we redesign governance institutions to handle the complexity of ‘wicked’ problems?

I think Detroit has some answers.

“Like abandoned citizens everywhere, when people realize that no one is coming to help, the possibility of community arises. As people stop looking outside themselves and turn to one another, they discover the richness of resources to be found within themselves, their cultures and their land. No where in the Western world is this discovery of community-­as-­resource more vibrant than in Detroit. Intentional experiments are underway to explore:

• Food self-­‐sufficiency. 1600 vacant lots have become gardens and small farms.
• Reimagining work. Distinguishing work, which is purposeful and contributes to community, from jobs that employ individuals in existing capitalist systems.
• Reimagining education. Creating place-­‐based public schools rooted in community and culture.
• Public safety. Creating Peace Zones to put “neighbor back in the hood.”
• Arts for social change. Training youth to give voice to their experiences through music, theater and visual arts.
• Conscious conversations. Determining future direction and actions based on decades of experience with social movements and a profound understanding of society, economics, and the role of grassroots change.”

I’ll be visiting the individuals and communities at the heart of this transition – including Grace Lee Boggs, who is nearly 100 and is one of the most inspirational people alive today. I hope to share some of the stories I hear and lessons I learn on the blog over the coming four days.

On Activism & Consciousness

Boy, does Marianne Williamson know how to speak! Full of passion, insight and sass. Amazing.

Link Loving 21.10.12

• Moral passion, corruption and good citizenship. Graham Leicester.
• Why direct action is working for Walmart’s workers. Jake Olzen.
• Wonderful interview with Seth Godin.
• Continually inspiring work from the Full Circles Foundation.

Link Loving 16.10.12

• Natalya Sverjensky puts the Economist in its place.
• Could Panama join Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Andorra, Montenegro, and Kosovo in using the Euro? Joshua Keating.
• Gibrán Rivera on spirituality and citizenship. Like.
• Paul Mason interviews sociologist Manuel Castells and learns about how people are already participating in non-capitalism.
• Want to know what it’s like to be stopped and searched? Joanna Schroeder shares a secret recording.

The Summer Day

By Mary Oliver

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Link Loving 14.10.12

• The Edge Fund is open! A radical approach to philanthropy that puts power into the hands of marginalised groups. Super awesome.
• Because I Am A Girl video from Plan. Totally fantastic. Who has agency? What is the solution? Who uses humour and how?
• If you’re too busy to meditate, read this. Peter Bregman.
• Paul Mason finds the specter of the Spanish Civil War is rising in the public sphere.
• Luxembourg wants a seat at the Security Council table. David Bosco.
• Umair Haque on choosing money and meaning.

Sen On Smith

The Contradiction

“We human beings are made up of contradictions. Part of us is attracted by the light and by God, and wants to care for our brothers and sisters. Another part of us wants frivolity, possessions, domination or success; it wants to be surrounded by approving friends, who will ward off sadness, depression or aggression. We are so deeply divided that we will reflect equally an environment which tends towards the light and concern for others, and one which scorns these values and encourages the desires for power and pleasure. As long as our deepest motivation is not clear to us and as long as we have not chosen the people and the place of our growth in its light, we will remain weak and inconsistent, as changeable as weathercocks.”

Jean Vanier