Earlier this year, due to a combination of badgering by my lovely workmate Jennie, and some research on my own part, I made the decision to boycott Coca-Cola and its products permanently. My investigations have found that Coca-Cola is a company that leads in the abuse of workers’ rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination.

Whilst I expect to make very little impact on the company financially, I do hope my actions help inform others, and together we can bring about lasting change.

Below are some of the reasons I boycott Coke. You can find out more at www.killercoke.org

• Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from their factories in Colombia were killed after protesting the company’s labor practices. Hundreds of other workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.
• In Turkey, 14 truck drivers and their families were beaten severely by Turkish police hired by Coca-Cola, while protesting a layoff of 1,000 workers from a local factory in 2005.
• In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country’s water resources.
• In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water to use in their products. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.
• Coca-Cola has caused Water shortages in Varanasi, Thane, and Tamil Nadu.
• Coca-Cola is guilty of reselling its plants’ industrial waste to farmers as fertilizers, despite its containing hazardous lead and cadmium.
• Coca-Cola is one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions. In México, it fired a senior bottling manager for being gay.
• By regularly denying health insurance to employees and their families, Coca-Cola has failed to help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. The company is one of the continent’s largest private employers, yet only partially covers expensive medicines, while not covering generic medicines at all.

from  Shane Claiborne.. you can see the letter in all its original Esquire-glory here

“To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn’s Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn’t quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don’t know Jesus.

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, “God is not a monster.” Maybe next time I will.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.

At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, “I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ.” A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That’s the ugly stuff. And that’s why I begin by saying that I’m sorry.

Now for the good news.

I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it’s that you can have great answers and still be mean… and that just as important as being right is being nice.)

The Bible that I read says that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it… it was because “God so loved the world.” That is the God I know, and I long for others to know. I did not choose to devote my life to Jesus because I was scared to death of hell or because I wanted crowns in heaven… but because he is good. For those of you who are on a sincere spiritual journey, I hope that you do not reject Christ because of Christians. We have always been a messed-up bunch, and somehow God has survived the embarrassing things we do in His name. At the core of our “Gospel” is the message that Jesus came “not [for] the healthy… but the sick.” And if you choose Jesus, may it not be simply because of a fear of hell or hope for mansions in heaven.

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in the afterlife, but too often all the church has done is promise the world that there is life after death and use it as a ticket to ignore the hells around us. I am convinced that the Christian Gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and that the message of that Gospel is not just about going up when we die but about bringing God’s Kingdom down. It was Jesus who taught us to pray that God’s will be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” On earth.

One of Jesus’ most scandalous stories is the story of the Good Samaritan. As sentimental as we may have made it, the original story was about a man who gets beat up and left on the side of the road. A priest passes by. A Levite, the quintessential religious guy, also passes by on the other side (perhaps late for a meeting at church). And then comes the Samaritan… you can almost imagine a snicker in the Jewish crowd. Jews did not talk to Samaritans, or even walk through Samaria. But the Samaritan stops and takes care of the guy in the ditch and is lifted up as the hero of the story. I’m sure some of the listeners were ticked. According to the religious elite, Samaritans did not keep the right rules, and they did not have sound doctrine… but Jesus shows that true faith has to work itself out in a way that is Good News to the most bruised and broken person lying in the ditch.

It is so simple, but the pious forget this lesson constantly. God may indeed be evident in a priest, but God is just as likely to be at work through a Samaritan or a prostitute. In fact the Scripture is brimful of God using folks like a lying prostitute named Rahab, an adulterous king named David… at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Some say God spoke to Balaam through his ass and has been speaking through asses ever since. So if God should choose to use us, then we should be grateful but not think too highly of ourselves. And if upon meeting someone we think God could never use, we should think again.

After all, Jesus says to the religious elite who looked down on everybody else: “The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom ahead of you.” And we wonder what got him killed?

I have a friend in the UK who talks about “dirty theology” — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man’s eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay “out there” but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, “Nothing good could come.” It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society’s rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors… a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, “I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.” If those of us who believe in God do not believe God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world… well, we should at least pray that it is.

Your brother,

Shane”

This letter from Sojourners is being issued by over twenty faith and moral leaders to President Obama, as he considers a new strategy in Afghanistan. Please read the letter, and if you agree with its content, add your name and Sojourners will send a copy to the White House.

Yesterday, between 9.45 and 10am, thieves broke into my apartment and stole a number of valuable items, including everybody’s laptop (5 in total) and some jewellery. My laptop was among those taken. I had no insurance. On top of this, I lost all my photos, videos, poetry, and original music I have recorded (the thieves stole my backup hard drives too). Obviously I’m very angry and upset about the creative and sentimental loss more than anything.

The police are investigating the crime, and we are taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.. re-fitting locks, updating/getting insurance etc.

No-one was home, so no-one was hurt, and that is a blessing. We are all in a state of shock at the moment, and while we are appreciating loving texts and emails from friends and family, we are asking these be kept to one or two, just so we don’t get barraged with love.

The best thing anyone can do now is pray. Pray that myself and the rest of the flatmates find peace in this situation, and don’t allow feelings of anger or fear to fester. Pray that the police do their job well and find the thieves and our belongings. Pray the thieves realise the error of their ways and turn themselves in, or at least hand in the items to the police, however unlikely that is.

Also, without downplaying the wrongness of the thieves’ actions, we must remember that crimes like this are so often the result of a society where groups of people have been hurt, marginalised and ignored. Let us all pray, hope for, and work towards a society where thievery and crime is no longer necessary, or consciously possible.

I am reminded of this quote:

“To bless the people who have oppressed our spirits, emotionally deprived us, or in other ways handicapped us, is the most extraordinary work any of us will ever do.” – Elizabeth O’Connor

Practically, I am accepting offers of beer and confectionery  =)
But in seriousness, PLEASE forward me all photos you might have of Asher, or me. I have lost all these.Another useful thing people can do is keep an eye out for computers/laptops that I can use in the meantime until I buy a new one (a long way off), or keep. I am involved in a number of volunteer community initiatives in my spare time that require a computer, and I don’t like sitting in my office till 10pm typing away

Love to you all

Will (and his flatmates)

People’s Coffee are launching their ‘Keepcups’ ‘ on Monday, the 23rd of November!

At last, a Fairtrade Coffee company with excellent coffee is providing a good alternative to paper disposable cups for takeaway coffees! People’s…  I think love you.

I am a coffee addict, and I often forget to bring my thermos mug with me to Cafes. The sheer amount of takeaway coffees I have subsequently bought and thrown away over the years is a secret source of shame for this supposed eco-justice hippy. And I am not the only one.. in Wellington, our love of great takeaway coffee is costing our environment dearly.

So at least now, if I’m hankering for a caffeine fix in town and I forget my Keepcup, I can always buy another one and give the first away as a gift to a friend! (I promise I will try not to do this too often..)

KeepCups seem pretty cool… not only are they sexy, but at the end of their life (approximately four years) they can be recycled or the components can be replaced. They are reusable, unbreakable (according to the website), and are produced using relatively low energy compared to similar products. Nice one!

People’s have got a poster up about the Keepcup at their Constable St and Garrett St cafes. I encourage you to go check em out!

From Richard Rohr’s daily meditations.. so profound:

“St. Catherine of Siena in her Dialogues pictures the spiritual life as a large tree:
The trunk of the tree is love.
She says the core of the tree, that middle part that must be alive for the rest of the tree to be alive, is patience.
The roots of the tree are self-knowledge.
The many branches, reaching out into the air, are discernment.
(Note she recognizes much more subtlety is needed than mere black and white answers.)
In other words, says Catherine, love does not happen without patience, self-knowledge and discernment.
Today we have little encouragement toward honest self-knowledge or training in spiritual discernment from our churches. By nature, most of us are not very patient. All of which means, love is not going to be very common. We need St. Catherine’s tree again.”

Sustainability is the big buzzword in the development sector right now, and Canada, Australia and NZ in particular are exploring the ‘Four Pillars’ model of sustainability that sprang from a 2005 UN summit and has been taken up by various community and development sectors around the world.

Originally, the United Nations 2005 World Summit Outcome Document came up with three pillars for sustainability. It refers to the “interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars” of sustainable development as economic development, social development, and environmental protection.

However..  Indigenous people have argued, through various international forums such as the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Convention on Biological Diversity, that there are four pillars of sustainable development, the fourth being cultural.

This makes a whole lot of sense. This newer ‘four pillars’ model recognizes that a community’s vitality and quality of life is closely related to the vitality and quality of its cultural engagement, expression, dialogue, and celebration. It further recognizes that the contribution of culture to building lively cities and communities where people want to live, work, and visit, and plays a major role in supporting social and economic health.

The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) further elaborates the concept by stating that

“…cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature”;

it becomes  “one of the roots of development understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence”.

If culture is the sum total of beliefs, values, institutions and practices whereby a society or group affirms its presence in the world and assures its reproduction and persistence through time. It can be seen as a form of capital, like economic and environmental capital, that we should seek to use sustainably, and increase as much as possible.

This is why cultural diversity is so important.. by learning more about others, not only are our minds and hearts expanded, we understand our own culture and identity better. When a society is comprised of groups of people with different experiences and backgrounds more innovative and creative ideas are a distinct result. It is only natural that people who have varying life experiences and perspectives would be able to come up with unique solutions to problems which may not arise from groups who think similarly; this is of great value to a society. We need to move beyond tolerance of the ‘other’ to recognition of their inherent value and that they have something to offer.

Culture informs all the other ‘pillars’ of sustainability.. it gives us fresh ideas, critical perspectives and models for living. Its up to us to minimise the negative impact that globalisation has on cultural diversity, and reinforce the good stuff.. sharing ideas, stories, languages, wisdom etc.

From now on, I have decided to ask myself the following questions…

What am I doing to understand others?

What am I doing in order to be understood?

Where will I take a stand in preserving, promoting and enjoying diversity?

“In those days,
we finally chose
to walk like giants
& hold the world
in arms grown strong with love
& there may be many things we forget
in the days to come,
but this will not be one of them.”

- Storypeople

On February 28, 2008 Karen Armstrong won the TED Prize and made a wish: for help in creating, launching and propagating a Charter for Compassion. On November 12, 2009 the Charter was unveiled to the world.

The Charter for Compassion is a document which urges the peoples and religions of the world to embrace the core value of compassion. The charter is currently available in seven languages, and is being translated into more.

You can see the intro video below, or read the full Charter on its website, here.

The website itself is great.. a place for people to share stories about how acts of compassion – toward and from them -have changed their lives. Check it out!

This article is one of the most eloquent and insightful explorations of faith, conflict and interfaith understanding that I have ever read. I applaud Karen Armstrong for her careful thought and proactive initiatives.

Here is one of my favourite quotes:

“Religion is a practical rather than a notional discipline. It is not a question of thinking or ‘believing’ things but of behaving consistently in a way that changes you at a profound level…
…In the New Testament, when Jesus was asking for “faith” (Greek: pistis, “trust, involvement, commitment”) he was not asking for a credulous acceptance of a set of doctrines. He was calling for action, seeking disciples who would give what they had to the poor, live rough, behave compassionately even to social outcasts, and devote their lives to the coming Kingdom when rich and poor, weak and powerful would live together in harmony. When the early Christians recited “creeds” they were not expressing “belief” so much as making this kind of commitment; the Latin credo derives from cor do: “I give my heart.”
- Karen Armstrong

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it’s best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

E.E. Cummings

I recently stumbled across this Guardian article, which takes an in-depth look at NZ’s clean green image and finds it wanting. Our performance when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions is probably the most shocking and shameful statistic of all. Our emissions are today 60% higher than those of Britain, per head of population.

My good friend Phil, a kiwi now residing in London, is something of an expert on environmental issues. He shares his thoughts here.

When I was in Japan several years ago, I fell in love with the concept of Haiku. Japanese haiku are traditionally associated with nature, and have the classic 5- 7- 5 syllable or ‘on’ structure. Haiku were mostly discounted in the west as having little poetic value until recently. Now, many modern western poets have begun to appreciate the Haiku.

You will often notice the Japanese haiku, translated to English, use less syllables then 575. Because of this I tend to favour writing Haiku in a free meter.. eg, without the 5- 7- 5 syllable constraint… because it keeps the idea of simplicity. I like the concept that a Haiku is like a poetic photograph. It captures a moment in time. Her are some of my favourite Haiku that I’ve written over the years:

Long train ride
My heart beats in time
with the tracks, with the tracks

Glancing up
That cloud has moved again
Sneaky, sneaky








Summers day
Through the privy hedge
The laughter of children I don’t know








Sudden wind
The bamboo stalks
Wave hello








Tokyo sunrise
The curtains unveil
Winking steel








Rolling over and
Realising its Saturday and
Rolling over

I pray

and when I pray
I condense my very being
into words
to scrawl myself in hurried ink
upon the threshold of your throne
a humble text
eager to be criticised
surrendering all ownership of my material
its rhythm and argument
into the hands of its author
no longer the victim of my own amateur arrangement
but
thirsty for your themes
your penmanship
yearning to be rewritten in red
in the ink you have obtained for me
to become a composition worthy of close-reading
and one that would instill in others
a propensity
for poetry

I pray

As Nicolas Stern has said,

“The most vulnerable – the poorest countries and populations – will suffer earliest and most, even though they have contributed least to the causes of climate change.”

This excellent video from TEAR Australia tugs at the heart strings, but it also asks us some very important questions.. how will we respond when we see our neighbor already suffering from the devastating effects of climate change.

My friend, activist Jarrod McKenna, has called this the most pressing social justice issue of our time. His fears are reflected in this quote from Nazmul Chowdhury, the

“Forget about making poverty history. Climate Change will make poverty permanent.”

The issue of Climate Change has been ignored and sidelined for too long by Western communities, Christian and Secular, because of the inconvenience it causes us in terms of lifestyle changes and shifts in thinking. It also uncovers the great myth of Western supremacy for what it really is.. a bigoted arrogance built on the sweat, blood and bones of the millions of people we have exploited over the years, and continue to exploit, in order to live the way we do.

The problem of Climate Change requires global solutions. New Zealand has one of the most greenhouse polluting economies in the world on a per-capita basis. We are punching well above our weight in terms of our contribution the problem. We need to encourage our politicians to become leaders in finding solutions for the world and for the global poor. You can check out some ways to get involved in this here and here.

Also,  everyone can play a part in limiting the greenhouse gas emissions that are the primary driver of current global warming. I’ve made the personal decision to no longer buy meat for my groceries (livestock are responsible for around 40% of NZ greenhouse emissions). I’m saving on my grocery bill, and on emissions!
Take some simple steps to reduce your impact! It’s really not that hard. Find out more here and here.

I am 82 years old.

I am in a wooden rocking chair

not out of necessity

but because I enjoy its peaceful rhythm.

I rock slowly back and forth

my porch is made of old, varnished native wood

it creaks in unison with each rock of my chair.

It is sunset,

I look out over a small, sandy bay,

splashed red-purple by the evening sun.

There is an old woollen blanket on my knees that was my fathers

in the background there is the laughter of children,

I am alone on the porch,

snatching a brief moment of solitude

behind me, in the house, my children

berate their children for making a mess

with their toys on the floor

I laugh

I gave them the toys.

From the kitchen wafts the smell of fresh baked bread

and homemade vegetable soup

the vegetables were grown in the back yard by my grandchildren..

I taught them how to grow things.

In the corner of the house, someone is playing a guitar

beneath my feet, just in front of my chair,

is an old dog, sleeping.

I finger a set of prayer beads given to me

by an old monk I met somewhere on my travels

I give thanks for a good life and children

and the chance to make a difference

the wind blows flowers from a Kowhai tree into my lap..

the breeze is warm

I am content.

I fall asleep and snore loudly

until my family comes

to fetch me for dinner.

Today I read about someone who I’m sure is to become one of my contemporary heroes..Mohammed Khatib, secretary of the Bilin, West Bank, village council, referred to as “a modern-day Gandhi”.

Khatib’s nonviolent resistance, in cooperation with Israeli peace activists, has earned him arrests, beatings, and death threats by Israeli forces — as well as modest legal victories, which have yet to be enforced, to change the Israeli separation barrier’s route through his village’s lands.

From the article:

“His message is a hard sell: Khatib, 35, is a modern-day Gandhi in a culture that enshrines the language of the gun, even if most Palestinians have never used one. And the risks of his activism are enormous.”

My prayers are with Khatib and his fellow activists as they attempt to break the cycle of violence in the Israel/Palestine conflict. I do hope he is encouraged by the words of Gandhi:

“Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of humanity. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of humanity.

Nonviolence is not passivity in any shape or form. It is the most active force in the world. Nonviolence is the supreme law. Just as one must learn the art of killing in the training for violence, so one must learn the art of dying in the training for nonviolence. One person who can express nonviolence in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality.”

Mohammed Khatib prays at the grave of his friend Bassem Abu Rahma in the West Bank town of Bilin. Abu Rahma was killed in April by a high-velocity tear gas grenade fired into a crowd of nonviolent demonstrators.

So Clint Eastwood is directing a new biopic movie about Nelson Mandela! Centered arond the events of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, this promises to be an interesting film, particularly for that generation of Kiwis involved in the Sprinbok tour protest.. there may be more than a few tears in the cinema when that generation of activists are reminded of the part they played in the fall of apartheid.

Plus Morgan Freeman is playing Mandela! I love Morgan Freeman.

Check out the full article here.

The internet is a wonderful place when you can find initiatives like this.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.

Watching this video, seeing some of my greatest heroes all lined up and ready to share their wisdom with the world.. I’ll admit, I got teary eyed (especially when Tutu speaks.. boy I love that man).

Here’s a intro video, and the website is here.

Heard this today at Church.. love it, love it, love it. This is going on my wall soon.

“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.”

In case any of my friends or readers overseas missed this.. classic deadpan humor from a Kiwi cop on the beat. This has now become something of a cult phenomenon here in NZ, being printed on Tshirts and even inspiring a South Park style spin-off.

Went to hear Father John Dear speak tonight.

He was awesome.

John is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, lecturer, and writer of approximately twenty books on nonviolence, including Living Peace.

In the course of his civil disobedience as protester of war and violence, he has been arrested more than 75 times. His longest period of incarceration lasted eight months, plus nine months of house arrest, following his participation in a Plowshares Movement disarmament action. As a result, Dear lost his United States voting rights, is prohibited from traveling to certain countries, and is subjected to increased scrutiny at airports.

In protest to UAV attacks in Pakistan, in an event sponsored by Nevada Desert Experience, Dear, Father Louie Vitale, Kathy Kelly, Stephen Kelly, SJ, and others were arrested outside Creech Air Force Base on Wednesday April 9, 2009. He received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in September of 2009 for his solidarity and leadership in nonviolent resistance, vegetarian life style and Gospel living.

This guy is my hero. He marries sound and courageous theology (where did the Sermon on the Mount go for the last 1700 years?) with integrity in word and deed. Not just that, but John showed an intimate knowledge, historically and contemporarily, of humanities addiction to violence, and its complete failure to truly resolve human issues. He put forward practical examples, starting with Jesus, moving through the usual suspects (gandhi MLK etc) and into the modern era where active, smart, courageous, disciplined and loving non-violent activism and peace-building truly have succeeded in bringing lasting peace.

I can’t remember any off the top of my head other than the ones I knew already (Gandhi’s India, MLKs civil rights, the Marcos regime in the Philippines, and a number of states in the former Soviet Bloc). Watch this space for more on the subject.

In the meantime, check out Father John Dear’s website here. Lots of good info to be going on with.

There’s a lot of media attention on the British NHS at the moment, most of it drawn by american Right Wingers who are resisting the much-needed healthcare reform in the States. ‘Don’t create public healthcare!’ they say, ‘just look at the NHS!’

Well, ok. I’m a brit, born and raised. I grew up with the NHS. ANd all I have to say is.. ‘free healthcare?? yes please!!’

Sure, the NHS has a lot of room for improvement. But long waiting lines and dodgy dealings by NHS staff doesn’t negate the fact that a free public health service benefits MILLIONS of brits who would otherwise never be able to afford the healthcare they need, period. Sure, there’s long waiting lines.. thats what happens when all healthcare is free… people start going to the doctor and dentist as soon as they feel poorly, instead of waiting for it to get chronic.

My family grew up in the UK, and most of them are still over there. Because of NHS, I was all able to get things like a set of jaw braces (normally thousands of dollars), operations etc for free etc. Free healthcare is fantastic. If people don’t like the waiting lines, they can go private if they want! Private healthcare will always be there, offering faster and higher quality services.. but not everyone will be able to afford this.

Again, most of the attention on the NHS currently is because of the healthcare reforms in the US, around which so much misinformation has been spread. For goodness sake, no one is forcing you to use a public health option if you don’t want it! Government officials won’t turn up at your door as soon as you start getting sniffly. You can still go private, or keep the private provider you already have. Having a public option means those who simply cannot afford private care will have somewhere to go when they get sick.

It’s time for the misinformation and lies to stop.. this boils down to healthcare corporate lobbying vs the needs of impoverished familes.. period.

Found this fantastic radio interview with Dr Ariel Salleh, a sociologist in political economy at the University of Sydney. She focuses on the ecological debt notched up by affluent societies as main contributors to global warming.

The interview gets very academic and wordy in parts, but its well worth the read. Salleh makes the basic premise that it is Northern institutions, not Southern ones, that need capacity building in the area of sustainability science. She supports the suggestion made to the UN by the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit – that the time has come for Northern institutions to host technical briefings by Indigenous peoples on traditional knowledge and climate change.

For too long the path of industrialised society has been guided by a narrow, western post-enlightment way of thinking that has discredited or ignored alternative forms of sense-making and knowledge. Now, on the edge of a climate and resource crisis, the industrialised world has reached a ‘wrong way, turn back’ sign, as Salleh puts it, and is scrabbling for answers… unfortunately with the same thinking cap on that got us here in the first place.

Indigenous models of sustainable development almost unanimously advocate for autonomous, local, intimate economies in possession of food and energy sovereignty. Their models are highly sophisticated and well-thought out.. and best of all, they could really help solve the resource crisis. But will they happen here in the West before it is too late? To quote Salleh,

“Here is a people’s science that vies closely with the advice of good environmental consultants in the global North. The trouble is that in growth economies that advice too often gets shelved by governments under pressure from business. Or, unwieldy administrations foil the translation of principles into action on the ground. Beyond this, our capitalist states are so dependent on resources from the meta-industrial periphery, the exacting sustainability practices of the global majority must remain invisible. Yes, technical briefings by Indigenous peoples are going to be indispensible if international decision-making is to become coherent and democratic.”

I for one look forward to hearing some fresh voices on the sustainability debate.

Stumbled across this excellent series of videos, based on the book by Douglas Rushkoff of the same name. In this first 9 minute clip, Douglas explores how the world has become ‘corporatised’, what this means, and what we can do about it. Excellent, thought-provoking content. More to come from this man in later posts.

Thanks to Justice.net.nz for finding this and posting it. These words ring so true for me. If they ring true for you too, let us pray this poem together.

Lord of all enemies, critics, competitors,
It’s not that we love violence;
We just hate the hard work of peace.
We would rather not sit with our rivals
We would rather not look them in the eye, seek to understand.
We turn them a cold shoulder.
We ignore their emails and phone calls.
We insult them when we’ve had enough,
We battle them with our wits, insisting on winning.
We wish them gone, dead.
We assume one of us must leave.
Forgive our haughtiness.
Remind us that you love them as much as you love us.
That they bear your image as much as we do.
That on your holy mountain,
Everyone finds a place
Enemies become friends,
Predators become pets
Vipers become playmates.
Give us the heart and the stamina we need
To take the hard, upward road of peace.
- Written by Byron Rempel-Burkholder, editor, Faith & Life Resources, Mennonite Publishing Network

Everywhere I turn, I hear horror stories of how the new Government is cutting funding to essential community services here in NZ. Adult Community Education, Enviroschools, NZAAHD, the National Youth Workers Network, Youthline, OUT THERE!, Te Reo Marama.. the list goes on. It seems that this new government’s strategy for dealing with a recession is to cut services to the young and vultnerable, who will be most affected by the financial crisis. The Alliance Party are calling this ’social vandalism’, and I don’t think they’re far off.

Ironically, in a press release this month, Tariana Turia announced that

‘That the Government is committed to strengthening its community relationships and that it intends to put this into an agreement by the end of the year…

.. “This is an opportunity to define the relationship that the sector and government wish to have, based on mutual respect and trust. It will focus government agencies’ attention on areas where further effort is needed to strengthen relationships to achieve common goals,” Minister Turia said.”‘ (Source)

What a joke.

If the Government is serious about working more closely with the Community sector, they could start by listening to the uproar and disgust surrounding the funding cuts occuring across the country.

If Government is serious about engagement, they could listen to sector experts when developing their policy to ensure that it is based on evidence and best practice. Instead, they create boot camps to ‘deal with’ troubled young people without waiting for the results of the Social Services Select Committee on the efficacy of such camps, or listening to the advice of the Families Commission who said the camps would do little to reduce youth offending and in some cases might increase it. Meanwhile the pleas from youth development professionals for the funding to be spent on early intervention and prevention instead go unheard and unfunded. Let’s get real.. the boot camps were never anything more than a political charade, designed to create an impression during the election campaign that National would be tough on crime

National’s image of ‘we’re a party who likes to work with everyone’ may have helped them win the election, but there is little evidence so far it is anything more than talk. Here’s hoping the worst is over, but I’m not holding my breath.

The author was reading my mind when he wrote this one.

On my friend Rowan’s photography website,  InVision photography =)