What can I do about Justice and Sustainability?

Understand our society

Develop credible values and views

Understand our influence, and how best to use it

Express our views!

Do our bit to help

Take the next step

‘twas ever thus..

Greed and Hatred (Selfishness, Prejudice) always creep in

We must be vigilant to recognise it; bold to speak and act against it

History

Our addiction to cheap plentiful energy

Technology; a powerful, double-edged weapon

The rise of the Company

Companies – originally a people-structure to harness resources, for sustainably benefiting people

But they have become something rather different..

The Established Order: ‘I must serve the Company’ – but does the Company serve Society?

What’s wrong

Deep injustice is still built into the fabric of Western society

Power is concentrated at the top (Boards of selfish white males)

Trade and labour conditions, trading and IP rules, favour the rich and powerful

Government influenced by selfish commercial interests (and selfish voters)

Media strongly reflect debased vision and values, not truth and justice

I am complicit

Ignorant

Turn a blind eye

Say nothing - Let it happen

Carry on doing things the same old way

We need to disentangle ourselves!

Yesterday’s challenges

18th-20th century, in the West

The Slave Trade

Labour conditions

Education

Votes

Social security

Healthcare

Today’s challenges - global

Stop Climate Chaos

Make Poverty History and the Millennium Development Goals

Fair Trade

Trade Justice

Drop the Debt (Jubilee Debt Campaign)

Stop the Traffik

Sweatshops – eg International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF)

Control Arms

Selfishly selective political/military interventions

AIDS, Malaria etc (eg www.unaids.org/en www.rbm.who.int)

Today’s challenges – local

Selfish Capitalist lifestyles and Mental Distress (depression, stress, addictions etc)

Centralisation

Community life

Solutions:

Engagement with beauty and the natural environment

Exemplary living

Counselling and support

What difference can it make?

People’s attitudes obey a ‘Bell Curve’ distribution, with The Crowd at the peak, and Activists at either extreme

A small group of Activists can pull the Crowd in either direction

Examples (negative): Nazism, Serbian nationalism etc

Examples (positive): The Slave Trade, Environmentalism

My circle of influence

We have unprecedented information, access and influence

I am directly connected to dozens of people and organisations

Do they all know what I want to happen?

Am I using my powers of support and veto?

Common interest/campaigning groups

Avaaz.org – web/email campaigns

Tearfund – prayer and campaigning updates; SuperBadger on Facebook

Oxfam – events, briefing sheets

www.writetothem.com – contacting MPs, MEPs, councillors

Our disposable resources

Finance

Knowledge and skills

Time and energy

Contacts and relationships

Can we harness them to better effect?

Search for ‘win-win’ redeployments

Actions

Lifestyle audits

Work out marginal benefits and costs of different actions

Prioritise

Review

Make myself accountable

Get together with others

The G8, Campaigning, Soundbite Society, Selfish Capitalism, and WAFTAG - useful discussions/info, from 7/7/08 Witney meeting

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead (1901–78), cultural anthropologist and writer

The G8 summit

opened Monday 7th in Toyako (Hokkaido island, Japan). The news seems to be changing fast (see web links below). Statements have now been issued on fulfilling pledges made on poverty at Gleneagles, halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and ensuring biofuel investments don’t affect food prices/availability. However experts say these still leave many ends un-tied. So, very much a case for vigilant watching, praying and joining our voice with other people of good faith on these very important issues.

• Do pray hard, and consider campaigning online – eg via Avaaz.org.

More info:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7494702.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7489993.stm

Campaigning

Speaking up for truth and justice is a key activity for Christians – but generally we do little of it. It can seem a daunting jungle of forums, claims and counter-claims, but we can make a worthwhile difference by speaking, writing, emailing etc, and there are organisations and websites that do a good job helping us tackle key issues. In Fair Doers we should eventually systematically review priority organisations and activities, but for now the following two are recommended – do sign up with them!

www.Avaaz.org – non sectarian, but one of the best in promoting focused, balanced, timely and effective action – and feeding back results.

• Sign up, and respond to their (brief) email calls.

www.Tearfund.org – highly regarded Christian charity, which puts emphasis on campaigning as well as helping on the ground.

• Join their ‘Superbadger’ application on Facebook (contact Marcus if you’d like help).

Judging right courses in a ‘Soundbite Society’

The group discussed that some are sceptical of the current ‘climate’ of opinion (sorry for pun..) on global warming – is it real, or just a fashion? But some of the most questioning are also strong advocates of not polluting and living sustainably, so regardless of background reasoning, we probably all agree on practical strategy. However this raises the important issue of how we assess truth in a society that is strongly driven by media, marketing lobbies etc.

The answer probably lies in making the best assessment we can of the motivation, expertise and reputability of the key opinion sources, judging our actions on the balance of probabilities with careful reference to biblical priorities and the precautionary principle. And keeping our decisions under review. Marcus and Matt will try and do a study on this topic, and present back to the group in future. Any inputs and expertise welcomed – do let us know!

Selfish Capitalism

Oliver James is a clinical psychologist, writer, and documentary producer and pundit on TV and radio. In his books Affluenza and The Selfish Capitalist, he describes and illustrates scientific studies on mental wellbeing and its inverse association with Virus values – placing a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous. Although we may think we don’t do these things much, his book shows that these values are surprisingly prevalent in all the English-speaking nations (including the UK). I (MJS) was certainly challenged on how they can exist in our local christian circles and in my own life.

The Vaccines to Affluenza are:

• Have Positive Volition (not ‘Think Positive’)
• Replace Virus motives (with Intrinsic ones)
• Be Beautiful (not Attractive)
• Consume what you need (not what advertisers want you to want)
• Meet your children’s needs (not those of little adults)
• Educate your children (don’t brainwash them)
• Enjoy motherhood (not deperate housewifery)
• Be Authentic (not Sincere), Vivacious (not Hyperactive), Playful (not Game-Playing)

These are explained in the book(s).

Although Oliver James doesn’t seem very sympathetic to organised religion, I’m struck by the parallels with Christian values of avoiding greed, envy and materialism rather than spirituality.

• To what extent are we infected with the Affluenza virus of Selfish Capitalism?
• How we can cultivate the ‘vaccines’ in our own lives and our local (or wider) society?

More info:

About Oliver James http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_James

His website http://www.selfishcapitalist.com/

Guardian article by him (provides a good summary of his arguments)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/03/comment.mentalhealth

Video - interview with Mariella Frostrup (good summary for those who prefer listening/watching to reading) http://www.selfishcapitalist.com/selfish_multimedia.html

Independent article by him; more politically focused:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/oliver-james-despite-ourselves-we-are-all-gordon-gekkos-now-774535.html

WAFTAG

Witney Area Fairtrade Action Group is Witney’s local group supporting and promoting fair trade. Although its campaign for Witney to become an officially-recognised Fairtrade Town is stalled while we wait for emotions to calm down on all sides, longer term there seems little real difficulty in achieving this, and actually it is merely the icing on the cake – the real benefit to both Witney and developing-country producers lies in creatively working with shops and other outlets to increase awareness and uptake of fairly traded goods.

• There is lots to do constructively here, and anyone’s ideas or energy would be welcomed.

A current activity is planning an art competition for children, advertising fair trade during Fair Trade Fortnight in March 2009. This will link Witney’s schoolchildren with some of the poorest communities in the world, by increasing understanding, and sales of Fair Trade products in Witney. Witney’s Meller art gallery has a Christian ethos and supports fair trade. Maybe they could support the competition? Wendy will look into promoting the competition via the Meller gallery and Waftag’s Schools sub-committee.

More info:

www.waftag.blogspot.com