Indigenous leadership

My friends at the Great Plains Action Society (GPAS) continue their years of work providing Indigenous leadership on a number of fronts.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

First, we want to recognize that today (5/5/2023) is National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. On May 2, the City of Iowa City declared its first Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. The proclamation was accepted by Sikowis Nobiss, our Executive Director. It was through her work on the Iowa City Truth and Reconciliation Commission that she was empowered to advocate for this proclamation. It was inspired by the first MMIW proclamation in Iowa made last year by the City of Sioux City, which was influenced by the work of Trisha Etringer, our Siouxland Project Director. This year, Trisha accepted the second proclamation made by the City of Sioux City on May 1 and is currently working towards a state wide proclamation for 2024.

Great Plains Action Society

Berkshire Hathaway/MidAmerican coal power plants

Several environmental organizations have been working to get MidAmerican to shut down their coal burning power plants in Iowa. Today there will be a protest and round dance during the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting today. MidAmerican is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

See other actions against MidAmerican energy’s coal power plants here: https://quakersandreligioussocialism.com/?s=midamerican

Next, we want all our friends and relatives to know that we are fighting for the health and well-being of the nation’s two mightiest rivers–the Missouri and the Mississippi. Iowa is the only state bordered completely on the East and West borders by these rivers, making it a special place and one that needs to be protected. Over the next week, we will be on both banks carrying out important events to fight for what is right.

Two of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants, owned by the subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway–MidAmerican, sit on the Missouri River and are situated in the largely Indigenous corridor between Sioux City, Winnebago, and Omaha reservations. They have already been polluting our air, water, and soil and now one of the plants is lobbying to release their toxic coal ash into the Missouri, which is directly north of the Winnebago and Omaha reservations. So we have partnered with Project Beacon and the Clean Up MidAm Coalition for a protest and round dance during the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha to demand that they shut down these coal plants! Please join us tomorrow, May 6th at 11:45am, on the Corner of Cass Street and 10th Street. Great Plains Action Society

You can find out more about this event here.

**https://www.facebook.com/events/3391598084390132**

Round Dance for the Missouri River

Relatives in Omaha, Lincoln, Sioux City, Omaha Nation, and Winnebago Nation–Join Great Plains Action Society and Project Beacon for a Round Dance in Omaha during the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting to demand that they shut down their MidAmerican coal plants! We will be joined by Douglas Esau, who will bring his hand drum. The larger rally is being organized by the Clean Up MidAm Coalition.

The event is taking place on the SE corner of the Big Lot Parking B of the CHI Health Care Event center. On the Corner of Cass Street and 10th Street. There is a map in the discussion of this event page.

PARKING WILL NOT BE EASY AS THERE WILL BE A LOT OF FOLKS IN THE AREA THAT DAY! You will need to find parking in lots or ramps in the downtown area OR if you feel like taking a scenic walk you can park on the Council Bluffs side of the river at Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park and and walk across the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge to the event site–it’s about a 20 minute walk.

Two of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants are situated in the corridor between Sioux City, Winnebago, and Omaha reservations, polluting our air, water, and soil. Now, they want to start releasing their toxic coal ash directly into the sacred waters of the Missouri River and we are here to say NO!

We are offering $50 gas cards to the first 25 Indigenous folks driving from over an hour away–such as Lincoln, Sioux City, and the reservations. We encourage carpooling! Sign up here for a gas card; https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdCje8fXwYHgl…/viewform

There will also be lunch available for everyone! Email Sikowis@greatplainsaction.org for questions.

Round Dance for the Missouri River

Walk for River Rights

Next week, May 11-14, in the Quad Cities of IA and IL, we are hosting the first Mississippi River Summit with 40 BIPOC leaders and specialists joining us to talk about their respective fights to keep the water safe and healthy and to work towards Rights of Nature.Great Plains Action Society has ties to BIPOC folks at the headwaters all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and we have invited them to Iowa for an important reason! Iowa is the number one contributor to the ‘Dead Zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico and the most biologically colonized state in the country because of Big-Ag, CAFOs (concentrated animal feed operations), meatpacking plants, ethanol production, and general disregard for the land. The time will be utilized for grassroots assessments, specialist lectures, a tour of the Mississippi, and community-building exercises. On May 13th, at 11:30 AM at the Schwiebert Riverfront Park, Summit attendees will join the Quad Cities community for a Walk for River Rights in solidarity as One River community advocating for Rights of Nature for the Mississippi River and for the rights of all communities whose lives are supported by the waters.
If you’d like to learn more, visit our event page linked here.

We truly appreciate your participation in our advocacy and frontline efforts and need your support to continue. Please consider making a donation to help support Great Plains Action Society and allow us to continue organizing for the health and safety of Indigenous communities and our lands.

Support Our Work

Ay Hai Kitatamihin,

Sikowis Nobiss, She/Her
Nêhiyaw/Saulteaux, George Gordon First Nation
Executive Director, Great Plains Action Society

End Police Violence

Although the daily news is flooded with stories of police violence toward Black people, the incidence of police violence against Indigenous peoples is higher.

When I began to spend time with Indigenous people, I was surprised to find out about the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives (MMIR). And how that is related to oil pipelines and capitalism. That became easy to understand as I learned about the environmental racism of building pipelines near Indigenous reservations. The man camps, construction worker camps, were thus near Indigenous communities.

One of the first actions I was involved with after retiring to Iowa was to rally against USBank’s funding of fossil fuel projects. But besides demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a number of people held signs, and spoke about MMIR.

End Police Violence

Our heart goes out to Bemi (Shyla Wolf) – Meskwaki – who was assaulted on March 30, 2023 by Officer Kyle Howe while three of her young children watched from the car and screamed in fear. She ended up with contusions on her lip, neck, arms, and full body soreness. Officer Howe is known for targeting Meskwaki folks in Tama and represents the continuation of a long history of police violence and injustice perpetrated on Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island. Though Indigenous Peoples are targeted at alarming rates by cops, these disturbing statistics are not being heard by the rest of society due to the intense efforts to erase us and our place in the US.

Maggie Koerth from FiveThirtyEight, reports that “depending on the year, either Native Americans or African-Americans have the highest rate of deaths by law enforcement. The fact that Indigenous Peoples have such high police murder rates is not a well-known statistic because the population is smaller and because violence to Indigenous folx is not of particular interest to mainstream media. According to a CNN review of the Center for Diseases Control, “for every 1 million Native Americans, an average of 2.9 of them died annually from 1999 to 2015 as a result of a legal intervention”. For the Black population the number is 2.6, for Latinx it is 1.7, for Whites it is 0.9 and for Asians it is 0.6.”

This is a startling statistic because Native Americans only make up 0.9% (2.9 million people) of the population. Furthermore, these deaths are most likely under-reported just like the other epidemics that Native Americans face, such as missing and murdered women, abuse, rape, stalking, runaway children and violence committed by non-tribal members. In fact, the deadliest mass shooting in US history, known as the Wounded Knee Massacre, occurred in 1890 when United States Army troops murdered up to 300 Lakota, including women and children. According to Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, “The data available likely does not capture all Native American deaths in police encounters due to people of mixed race and a relatively large homeless population that is not on the grid.” (CNN) In a paper written by B Perry in 2006 titled, “Nobody trusts them! Under- and over-policing Native American communities”, they presented evidence from 278 individual interviews with eight separate Native Nations that police action toward Native people ranged from ignoring victims to outright brutality against suspects. (Fatal Encounters Between Native Americans and the Police)

Collective Action Will End Police Violence to Indigenous Peoples by Sikowis Nobiss, Great Plains Action Society

Policing in this country began in the 1700’s with “slave patrols” to capture and return those fleeing their enslavement or planning uprisings. Policing has always been about protecting capitalists and their property.

The only way to end police violence and abolish this inherently white supremacist institution built on colonization and the greed of capitalism is for communities to take collective action. Centering mutual aid and radical healing in our communities will take back power and end erasure of us, our history and our culture. Taking back power builds strength and increases resources, which we need to oust violent cops and create our own culturally appropriate systems of accountability and wellness programs. Great Plains Action Society remains committed to this goal and will continue to work diligently towards abolition of systems set up to eradicate us.
Collective Action Will End Police Violence to Indigenous Peoples by Sikowis Nobiss, Great Plains Action Society

Mutual Aid

It is by building mutual aid communities that we take back our power from “inherently white supremacist institution built on colonization and the greed of capitalism”.

I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.

So, the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”
Ronnie James, Des Moines Mutual Aid

mutual aid is the new economy. mutual aid is community. it is making sure your elderly neighbor down the street has a ride to their doctor’s appointment. mutual aid is making sure the children in your neighborhood have dinner, or a warm coat for the upcoming winter. mutual aid is planting community gardens.

capitalism has violated the communities of marginalized folks. capitalism is about the value of people, property and the people who own property. those who have wealth and property control the decisions that are made. the government comes second to capitalism when it comes to power.

in the name of liberation, capitalism must be reversed and dismantled. meaning that capitalistic practices must be reprogrammed with mutual aid practices.
Des Moines Black Liberation

I belong to the Quakers for Abolition Network, described in this excerpt from Western Friend.

Mackenzie: Let’s start with: What does being a police and prison abolitionist mean to you?

Jed: The way I think about abolition is first, rejecting the idea that anyone belongs in prison and that police make us safe. The second, and larger, part of abolition is the process of figuring out how to build a society that doesn’t require police or prisons.

M: Yes! The next layer of complexity, in my opinion, is looking at systems of control and oppression. Who ends up in jail and prison? Under what circumstances do the police use violence?

As you start exploring these questions, it becomes painfully clear that police and prisons exist to maintain the white supremacist, heteronormative, capitalist status quo. The racial dynamics of police violence are being highlighted by the recent uprisings and the Black Lives Matter movement.

…

We are in the same place, with a call to imagine a culture radically different than the one in which we live. Abolishing police and prisons, like abolishing slavery, would change the structure of our society: dramatically decreasing violence and undoing one set of power relationships that create domination and marginalization. And in place of this violence, we could, instead, have care.
Abolish the Police by Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge and Jed Walsh, Western Friend, Nov 2020

Des Moines Mutual Aid

**Support for Atlanta Forest Defenders, Des Moines, Iowa, 2023**

Paradigm shift

Recently, we discussed our peace and justice work at my Quaker meeting. I explained my vision of creating a Mutual Aid community to guide our justice work. And included examples of what the meeting is already doing that are Mutual Aid.

I felt we had a good discussion. I didn’t have answers to some of the questions raised. I believe those questions would be answered as we got experience with implementation. But the meeting is clearly not ready to begin working on Mutual Aid.

As I was preparing for this discussion, I knew it would be difficult to distill my more than three years of experience with Des Moines Mutual Aid (DMMA).

Paradigm shift: an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Mutual Aid represents a paradigm shift in Quaker’s thinking about spirituality and justice work. How can I help people make this shift happen? What is the Spirit asking of us?

I have no doubt that the Spirit leads me to continue with my involvement with Des Moines Mutual Aid. My friends there know I hope to bring spirituality into the work of Mutual Aid, so I’ll give them an update on our meeting at Bear Creek.

One paradigm shift from my past comes to mind. In the early 1970’s I moved to Indianapolis and was horrified by the foul air from auto exhaust. I was led to live without a car as a result. But I had no success in convincing anyone else to give up their car. So here we are now, facing ever increasing environmental chaos.

During the years’ long struggles with my meeting about cars, which was difficult since many meeting members lived in rural settings, one Friend asked if I had invited the meeting into my concerns about cars. And I realized I had not done so. When I did invite the meeting to join me in our common concerns about fossil fuels, one thing we developed was a concept we called Ethical Transportation (see below).

So, I applied that idea to invite the meeting into Mutual Aid work. I often share my experiences at Des Moines Mutual Aid with the meeting. Our discussion this past weekend is another step that will lead to Mutual Aid. As more communities and people are impacted by environmental and social chaos, we will naturally turn to the idea of Mutual Aid for disaster relief.

I am impressed with the Great Plains Action Society’s Mechanism of Engagement. Mutual Aid is one of the Methods in the model. I wonder what such a model would look like for Quakers. Maybe that is part of the way forward, for my Quaker meeting to become more oriented toward Mutual Aid.

Ethical Transportation Minute

Radically reducing fossil fuel use has long been a concern of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative). A previously approved Minute urged us to reduce our use of personal automobiles. We have continued to be challenged by the design of our communities that makes this difficult. This is even more challenging in rural areas. But our environmental crisis means we must find ways to address this issue quickly.
Friends are encouraged to challenge themselves and to simplify their lives in ways that can enhance their spiritual environmental integrity. One of our meetings uses the term “ethical transportation,” which is a helpful way to be mindful of this.
Long term, we need to encourage ways to make our communities “walkable”, and to expand public transportation systems. These will require major changes in infrastructure and urban planning.
Carpooling and community shared vehicles would help. We can develop ways to coordinate neighbors needing to travel to shop for food, attend meetings, visit doctors, etc. We could explore using existing school buses or shared vehicles to provide intercity transportation.
One immediately available step would be to promote the use of bicycles as a visible witness for non-fossil fuel transportation. Friends may forget how easy and fun it can be to travel miles on bicycles. Neighbors seeing families riding their bicycles to Quaker meetings would have an impact on community awareness. This is a way for our children to be involved in this shared witness. We should encourage the expansion of bicycle lanes and paths. We can repair and recycle unused bicycles and make them available to those who have the need.
Ethical Transportation Minute. Approved by Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) 2017

Transforming justice strategies

Is working for justice important to you? Are you satisfied with your justice work?

Working for justice has been a lifelong focus of mine. Being a Quaker, I have many examples of how people and organizations have worked for justice. But, no, I am not satisfied with my justice work. I don’t believe we can be as long as there is injustice.

Over the past decade, I have connected with many great activists and organizations. In addition, I’ve been fortunate to have received several types of training for community organizing.

Much of what I’ve learned relates to working with different communities and cultures, which I summarize here:

Significant changes are occurring that add impetus to re-evaluating how we (Quakers) do justice work.

Accelerating environmental chaos is increasingly disrupting communities and lives
There is rising resistance to political systems based upon White superiority and evolving authoritarianism
Economic, food, transportation, energy, education, political, and healthcare systems are failing
Indigenous peoples are reclaiming their leadership and ways of protecting and healing Mother Earth

Change is hard

I plan to discuss these things this weekend with my Quaker meeting (Bear Creek Friends). I’ll share my recent experiences with Mutual Aid, Indigenous friends, and the Buffalo Rebellion. Change is hard, and this might involve some challenging discussions. And may involve changes in how we do justice work together.

Mutual Aid

First, there are many ways my Quaker meeting is already working regarding the concepts of mutual aid. Such as connections in the nearby town of Earlham, working to deliver meals, staffing the museum, and the Sunshine sewing circle. Years of work supporting the annual Prairie Awakening/Prairie Awoke ceremony. And connections with the nearby Grade A Gardens.

I believe Friends can add to the spirituality of Mutual Aid.

Needed Changes

From my experiences over the past five years, I have been led to see Mutual Aid as the model for justice work now. (See: https://quakersandreligioussocialism.com/mutual-aid/ )

We must replace the current structure of using committees to do justice work. Because Mutual Aid is fundamentally about not having hierarchies.
What would a Quaker Mutual Aid community look like?
- Spirituality?
- Who would be involved?
- When and how would the community meet or communicate?
- How would decisions be made?
- How do we center the voices of the oppressed? Of Indigenous peoples?
- How would we interact with Quaker organizations?
- How would we physically build community structures?

Options

I will continue my involvement with Des Moines Mutual Aid. And would continue to share what I’m learning with my Quaker meeting
Bear Creek could decide to replace the Peace and Social Concerns committee with a Mutual Aid community, OR
Bear Creek could continue its Peace and Social Concerns Committee structure and create a Mutual Aid community for justice work.

Implementation

Creating a Mutual Aid community at Bear Creek would require:

Ways for community members to communicate in real time
- Des Moines Mutual Aid uses the Signal app, an encrypted real-time messaging system
Permission for Bear Creek Mutual Aid to make decisions in real time

As the graphic below shows, Mutual Aid is one of the methods the Great Plains Action Society (GPAS) uses as an engagement mechanism.

GPAS supports Des Moines Mutual Aid (DMMA) by funding the work of Ronnie James. Ronnie has been my Mutual Aid mentor.

GPAS is part of the Buffalo Rebellion, a coalition of environmental justice organizations in Iowa. Continued connections with GPAS and the Buffalo Rebellion are how to center the voices of Indigenous and other oppressed peoples.

The Buffalo Rebellion is a coalition consisting of

Des Moines Black Liberation
Great Plain Action Society
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice
Sierra Club Beyond Coal
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 199, and
Cedar Rapids Sunrise Movement

Also below are the Des Moines Points of Unity, which explain what DMMA is about.

Finally, other justice organizations are re-evaluating their strategies. The Climate Mobilization Network describes why they decided to pause and transform their strategy. Mutual Aid is a focus of their new strategy. I’ve been in touch with Climate Mobilization Network about working with them.

Why We Decide to Pause and Transform our Strategy

Congressional failure to take meaningful action on climate
The slow pace of local climate programs where policy change is severely limited by what’s considered politically possible
Rising inequality amid continued neoliberalism
Escalating climate disasters that are hitting global and US-based frontline communities the hardest and will continue accelerating rapidly!
And widespread cultural and generational concern about climate change has not yet been tapped into effectively by a mass movement.

This collective visioning, movement incubation and learning gathering will equip you with space for reflection, new ideas, inspiration, and next steps to participate in this new campaign.

Together we will build relationships and explore:

How survival and mutual aid programs can grow the movement
New, creative approaches to taking action against fossil fuels
Ways to integrate healing into our work
And how to create space for reflection, intentionality and strategic clarity

Climate Mobilization Network

Injustices of Capitalism

I am a hierarchy resister

I spend so much time praying and writing about Mutual Aid because I believe Mutual Aid is the correct path for our peace and justice work. And because I get to spend time with my Des Moines Mutual Aid friends every week, where we catch up with each other and our work while we fill boxes of donated food to distribute.

Mutual Aid is the framework that models the Beloved communities we strive to create. And gets to the roots of injustice.

Those living in capitalist societies usually need some education to understand why Mutual Aid should be the framework for our justice work. Simply put, capitalism is a system that enforces injustice and oppression. It does this by violently enforcing strict hierarchies.

The greatest resistance I’ve found to embracing mutual aid is the difficulty people have in seeing the injustices of capitalism. So, I distilled this in the following diagram.

My experiences with mutual aid include:

My introduction to Mutual Aid was a Spiritual leading.
Maintaining a flat or horizontal hierarchy is what makes Mutual Aid work.
- MUTUAL is the key.
Removing artificial hierarchies eliminates grouping people by race, class, gender, education, etc.
Mutual Aid resists authoritarianism and colonization.
- There cannot be white supremacy, for example, if there is no hierarchy.
Mutual Aid is NOT charity.
A fundamental principle of justice work is to follow the lead of the oppressed community. In Central Iowa, a coalition named the Buffalo Rebellion is providing such leadership. The Buffalo Rebellion is a coalition consisting of
- Des Moines Black Liberation
- Great Plain Action Society
- Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
- Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice
- Sierra Club Beyond Coal
- Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 199, and
- Cedar Rapids Sunrise Movement
I believe Mutual Aid is the Quaker way of being in the world.

Our Quaker Queries recognize the injustices of our capitalist economic system.

‘We are part of an economic system characterized by inequality and exploitation. Such a society is defended and perpetuated by entrenched power. “

The advice also says “we envision a system of social and economic justice that ensures the right of every individual to be loved and cared for…”
Faith and Practice, Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative)

Queries related to Mutual Aid
Do we recognize that hierarchies are about power, supremacy and privilege? What are Quaker hierarchies?
Do we work to prevent hierarchies in our peace and justice work?
What are we doing to meet the survival needs of our wider community?
How are we preparing for disaster relief, both for our community, and for the influx of climate refugees?
Are we examples of a Beloved community? How can we invite our friends and neighbors to join our community?

Mutual aid is essential to building social movements. People often come to social movement groups because they need something: eviction defense, childcare, social connection, health care, or help in a fight with the government about something like welfare benefits, disability services, immigration status, or custody of their children. Being able to get help in a crisis is often a condition for being politically active, because it’s very difficult to organize when you are also struggling to survive. Getting support through a mutual aid project that has a political analysis of the conditions that produced your crisis also helps to break stigma, shame, and isolation. Under capitalism, social problems resulting from exploitation and the maldistribution of resources are understood as individual moral failings, not systemic problems. Getting support at a place that sees the systems, not the people suffering in them, as the problem can help people move from shame to anger and defiance. Mutual aid exposes the failures of the current system and shows an alternative. This work is based in a belief that those on the front lines of a crisis have the best wisdom to solve the problems, and that collective action is the way forward.
Dean Spade. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) (Kindle Locations 163-171). Verso.

Today, around the world, people resort to alternative forms of autonomous organization to give their existence a meaning again, to reflect human creativity’s desire to express itself as freedom. These collectives, communes, cooperatives and grassroots movements can be characterized as people’s self-defense mechanisms against the encroachment of capitalism, patriarchy and the nation-state.
Kurdish scholar-activist Dilar Dirk

mutual aid is the new economy. mutual aid is community. it is making sure your elderly neighbor down the street has a ride to their doctor’s appointment. mutual aid is making sure the children in your neighborhood have dinner, or a warm coat for the upcoming winter. mutual aid is planting community gardens.

capitalism has violated the communities of marginalized folks. capitalism is about the value of people, property and the people who own property. those who have wealth and property control the decisions that are made. the government comes second to capitalism when it comes to power.

in the name of liberation, capitalism must be reversed and dismantled. meaning that capitalistic practices must be reprogrammed with mutual aid practices.
Des Moines Black Liberation

I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.

So, the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”
Ronnie James, Des Moines Mutual Aid

Eyes of the Future

How can Friends achieve the 2022 theme of World Quaker Day, “Becoming the Quakers the World Needs,” while functioning in a blatantly and politically corrupt, racialized world?
Black Quaker Project

Introduction

These are times of upheaval, with greater changes rapidly approaching. Times of uncertainty and fear. These are also times of opportunity. Can we use this collapse to envision and build more just communities?

I believe we can. But first, we need to understand the injustices the capitalist economic system is based upon. And use this understanding to guide the development of mutual aid communities. which reject capitalism.

It is difficult to escape the status quo. But that is the only way we can protect and heal Mother Earth and build communities for future generations. The status quo in this country is about preserving the capitalist economic system and White superiority. Maintaining the status quo will only deepen environmental devastation and collapse. And collapse of the systems built on capitalism.

The eyes of the future are looking back at us, and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come.
Terry Tempest Williams

The Seventh Generation Principle is based on an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.

Then

Environment

I’ve had my own experiences of looking back and trying to help people “to see beyond our own time“. Over fifty years ago, I moved to Indianapolis, a big change for a farm boy. I was not prepared for the noxious clouds of auto exhaust enshrouding the city. I was led to live without a car. Of course, that was not the status quo.

Looking back to that time, I feel sorrow for what might have been. How different the world would be if we had rejected the car culture in this country. Our cities and towns would have been built to be walkable. Land would not be covered by asphalt and concrete. Most importantly, we would have been able to live in a sustainable manner and would not be on a path toward extinction.

Looking back now, who doesn’t wish we had rejected the car culture in this country? Wish we had not let banks and fossil fuel companies rape the earth?

If those who lived prior to the rise of the car culture could have visited our world today, to see the disastrous consequences we are dealing with now, I believe many people who lived then would have chosen to live a different (sustainable) lifestyle.

Capitalism

Wealth is attended with power, by which bargains and proceedings, contrary to universal righteousness, are supported; and hence oppression, carried on with worldly policy and order, clothes itself with the name of justice and becomes like a seed of discord in the soul.
John Woolman, “A Plea for the Poor.”

As the sign in the photo above says, Colonial Capitalism = 7th Generation Genocide

Despite trying every way I could think of, regardless of my prayers, I was not able to convince others to give up their car. People chose convenience over care for Mother Earth and future generations.

It is the same when I urge others to build alternatives to capitalism. Those who are comfortable economically strongly resist any suggestion to abandon capitalism. Capitalism is the materialism Martin Luther King warned about. “The giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism”.

How has hunger for millions become acceptable? Houselessness? Lack of access to medical care? Police brutality? Locking people away for years for nonviolent crime? Profligate consumption of nonrenewable fossil fuels? Poisoning water?

As Americans honor King on his birthday, it is important to remember that the civil rights icon was also a democratic socialist, committed to building a broad movement to overcome the failings of capitalism and achieve both racial and economic equality for all people.

Capitalism “has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes,” King wrote in his 1952 letter to Scott. He would echo the sentiment 15 years later in his last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?: “Capitalism has often left a gap of superfluous wealth and abject poverty [and] has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few.”

In his famous 1967 Riverside Church speech, King thundered, “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

“What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter,” King is widely quoted as asking, “if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?” In King’s view, the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, the voter registration drives across the South and the Selma to Montgomery march comprised but the first phase of the civil rights movement. In Where Do We Go From Here, King called the victories of the movement up that point in 1967 “a foothold, no more” in the struggle for freedom. Only a campaign to realize economic as well as racial justice could win true equality for African-Americans. In naming his goal, King was unflinching: the “total, direct, and immediate abolition of poverty.”

THE FORGOTTEN SOCIALIST HISTORY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. By Matthew Miles Goodrich, In These Times, January 16, 2023

Now

What will the eyes of the future see when they look back upon us today? How will they feel about the state of the world we are leaving them?

What are we willing to do now to make the world a better place for ourselves and future generations?

Will we:

Radically reduce our fossil fuel consumption?
Continue to build renewable energy infrastructure?
Resist false solutions such as carbon capture?
Reject capitalism?
Reject White superiority?
Build Mutual Aid communities?

There is an urgent need for reflection on these questions. And to seek and implement ways to answer them.

mutual aid is the new economy. mutual aid is community. it is making sure your elderly neighbor down the street has a ride to their doctor’s appointment. mutual aid is making sure the children in your neighborhood have dinner, or a warm coat for the upcoming winter. mutual aid is planting community gardens.

capitalism has violated the communities of marginalized folks. capitalism is about the value of people, property and the people who own property. those who have wealth and property control the decisions that are made. the government comes second to capitalism when it comes to power.

in the name of liberation, capitalism must be reversed and dismantled. meaning that capitalistic practices must be reprogrammed with mutual aid practices.
Des Moines Black Liberation

“Quakers will only be truly prophetic when they risk a great deal of their accumulated privilege and access to wealth. Prophets cannot have a stake in maintaining the status quo. Any attempt to change a system while benefiting and protecting the benefits received from the system reinforces the system. Quakers as much as anyone not only refuse to reject their white privilege, they fail to reject the benefits they receive from institutionalized racism, trying to make an unjust economy and institutionalized racism and patriarch more fair and equitable in its ability to exploit. One cannot simultaneously attack racist and patriarchal institutions and benefit from them at the same time without becoming more reliant upon the benefits and further entrenching the system. Liberalism at its laziest.”
Scott Miller

How can Friends achieve the 2022 theme of World Quaker Day, “Becoming the Quakers the World Needs,” while functioning in a blatantly and politically corrupt, racialized world? In engagement with this exciting theme, offered by the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), the Black Quaker Project would like to remind Friends of the tools at our disposal to challenge those aspects of society which we wish to change and to see changed. Our fractured societies are further divided by enormous gaps of inequality in almost every imaginable category—psychological, social, political, cultural, economic. How might we, as Quakers, achieve justice, equity, and peace under these circumstances?
Black Quaker Project

New Perspectives

I grew up in Quaker communities, which defined my justice work for much of my life.

Then a decade ago I was led to engage with a number of communities, working outside Quaker meetings. By engagement I mean spending significant time in these communities. These experiences have taught me decidedly different approaches to justice work. These new perspectives convince me that Quakers, particularly White Quakers, need to change how we think about and do justice work.

My perspectives include:

The need to advocate for Indigenous leadership to help protect and heal Mother Earth.
Black, Indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC) do not see any distinction between White Quakers and other White people in this country.
The capitalist economic system is fundamentally unjust.
- Capitalism transfers great wealth to the wealthy by exploiting and oppressing those who aren’t.
- Capitalism impoverishes millions of people
- Capitalism is economic slavery
- Capitalism treats natural resources as commodities to be exploited for profit
- Capitalist systems do not feel the need to conserve resources
Police and prisons must be abolished.
- The criminal justice system enforces the policies of the White dominant culture.
- The criminal justice system violently targets BIPOC people
- It is inhumane to lock people in cages.
White Quakers are settler-colonists. We continue to live on and profit from Indigenous lands.
The involvement of some White Quakers in the native boarding schools and how to begin healing related to that, is crucial for authentic relations between White Quakers and native peoples.
- I have witnessed the multigenerational trauma affecting Indigenous people today.
Increasingly, as environmental chaos worsens, responding to the disastrous consequences will consume our attention and resources.

Black, Indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC) do not see any distinction between White Quakers and other White people in this country.

The most significant new perspectives are about the capitalist economic system. I hadn’t been as aware of many of the injustices fueled by capitalism prior to spending time in oppressed communities. Now I have witnessed the devastating effects of capitalism in these communities.

The nearly universal resistance to my attempts to convince White people to build systems not based upon capitalism is because the system works for them.

Capitalism is an unjust system. A different system is required. Mutual Aid is such a system.

Justice cannot be attained by incremental changes to an unjust system.

Accelerating environmental chaos is increasingly disrupting life as we know it. Which means, among other things, that the current political and economic systems in this country will continue to collapse. Now is the time to envision and build alternatives such as mutual aid.

Justice cannot be attained within an unjust system

Our Quaker Queries recognize the injustices of our capitalist economic system.

‘We are part of an economic system characterized by inequality and exploitation. Such a society is defended and perpetuated by entrenched power. “

The advice also says “we envision a system of social and economic justice that ensures the right of every individual to be loved and cared for…”
Faith and Practice, Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative)

This is well summarized by my friend Ronnie James. We work together at Des Moines Mutual Aid.

I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.

So the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”
Ronnie James, Des Moines Mutual Aid

This is a simplified schematic of the consequences of White dominance (Red), and the alternatives for a transition to justice and disaster preparedness (Green).

Implementing the transition to a more just society will be impeded by

Environmental chaos
Corrupt and failing institutions
Authoritarianism

This diagram shows the current systems in the column labeled White.
The column under Black, Indigenous and other people of color shows the injustices resulting from the current systems.
The Red/Green New Deal shows how we can address these injustices.
The solid red column indicates the challenges to moving to systems of justice, sustainability, and resilience.

I’ve written about these concepts on my blog: https://quakersandreligioussocialism.com/

Nico Santos and Artificial Intelligence

I share the significant concerns of many about some uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI). My profession as a software engineer gives me a unique perspective.

I’ve been doing a lot of research and some writing in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) recently
(See: https://quakersandreligioussocialism.com/?s=%22Artificial+Intelligence%22)

One thing is clear is that AI is a powerful research assistant. I’ve written about forty AI prompts over the past week. See an example at the end of this.

Nico Santos

I was really surprised to find the new music video (Number 1) by one of my favorite artists, Nico Santos, was directed by Artificial Intelligence. CHATGPT is a very commonly used AI interface.

Show a palm tree. NICO’s expression!!

EXAMPLE: AI prompt and response

Prompt:
Explain how Mutual Aid is a way to work against the authoritarianism growing in the United States and provide examples and references

Response:

Mutual aid is a voluntary, reciprocal exchange of resources and services among individuals and communities. This concept, rooted in the principles of solidarity and cooperation, has gained traction as a way to counter the growing authoritarianism in the United States. By prioritizing the needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups, mutual aid seeks to dismantle oppressive systems and foster a more equitable society. In this context, let’s explore how mutual aid can work against authoritarianism and provide examples and references to support this argument.

1. Decentralization: Mutual aid operates on a grassroots level, which means that it is decentralized and not controlled by a single, centralized authority. This decentralization empowers local communities to make decisions and take actions to address their specific needs. By doing so, mutual aid weakens the influence of centralized power structures, which are often associated with authoritarian regimes.

Example: The efforts of the mutual aid network in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as organizing food drives and providing support to quarantined individuals, showcase the effectiveness of decentralized, community-led initiatives.

Reference: Spade, Dean (2020). “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next).” Verso Books.

2. Building solidarity: Mutual aid encourages people from diverse backgrounds and circumstances to come together and support one another, fostering a sense of solidarity among community members. This solidarity, in turn, can act as a powerful force against authoritarianism, as it promotes unity against oppressive systems and policies.

Example: The Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program in the late 1960s and early 1970s is an example of a mutual aid initiative that built solidarity within the African American community, which helped to counteract racist policies and state repression.

Reference: Bloom, Joshua, and Waldo E. Martin Jr. (2013). “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party.” University of California Press.

3. Empowering marginalized communities: Mutual aid initiatives often focus on providing resources and support to marginalized communities that are disproportionately affected by oppressive systems. By empowering these communities and addressing their needs, mutual aid can help to dismantle the hierarchical structures that perpetuate authoritarianism.

Example: The UndocuFund for Disaster Relief in Sonoma County provides financial assistance to undocumented immigrants who have been affected by natural disasters. This mutual aid initiative empowers a marginalized group that is often neglected by government relief programs.

Reference: Ramos, Dante (2018). “In Sonoma County, an undocumented community rises after fires.” The Boston Globe.

4. Encouraging active citizenship: Mutual aid promotes active citizenship by encouraging individuals to participate in their communities and address local issues. This active involvement can counteract the passivity and disengagement that often accompany authoritarian systems.

Example: Time banking, a form of mutual aid where participants exchange services based on time spent rather than monetary value, encourages active citizenship by fostering cooperation and skill-sharing within communities.

Reference: Cahn, Edgar S. (2004). “No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative.” Essential Books.

In conclusion, mutual aid serves as a powerful tool to counter growing authoritarianism in the United States. By decentralizing power, fostering solidarity, empowering marginalized communities, and encouraging active citizenship, mutual aid initiatives directly challenge oppressive systems and work towards creating a more just and equitable society.

AI revisited

As I wrote yesterday, I’ve been enthusiastic about my recent experiences with Artificial Intelligence (AI). I know AI works well as a research assistant, because yesterday AI discovered many sources of information I had not found after months of searching on my own.

And the AI results not only returned new pieces of information but was even more impressive at combining concepts to reveal new relationships among them, often providing a new path of information and concepts to explore.

But I also have grave concerns about AI.

My experiences with computers are relevant. When I was a student at Scattergood Friends School (late 1960’s), the University of Iowa (about fifteen miles away) donated time on their mainframe computers for use by students in nearby schools. My math teacher suggested I read a book about the FORTRAN computer language, which is how I began to learn, i.e. taught myself to program computers. In those days, prior to the availability of classes in computer science, most of us were self-taught. I went on to teach myself about six computer languages. A computer programmer has to be a life-long learner, because computer languages and systems were changing very rapidly. I usually spent about 20 percent of my time at work downloading and learning evolving information. It wasn’t always a smooth process. I spent about six months trying to learn the PROLOG language, and never mastered it.

During the summer prior to my Senior year at Scattergood, Don Laughlin (an Iowa Quaker and mentor) arranged for me to spend the summer at the University of Iowa Hospitals working with him in his medical electronics lab. The lab had just purchased one of the first commercially available desktop computers and wanted me to write the software to automate the process of calculating results from pulmonary function testing, which took a couple of hours, each, to do manually.

This was at a time when laboratories were transitioning from using oscilloscopes to measure and display data, to using computers, instead. The many advantages included real time display of signals (from babies breathing, in my case), the opening and closing of various valves to regulate the testing proedure, immediate calculation and display of complex results, and automatic storage of all the data in databases. But it immediately became apparent that developing such software was a complex and very long-term process. The last software system I worked on, which measured how well gases in a baby’s lungs diffused between the alveoli in the lungs, and the capillary blood, took three years to finish. That involved measuring eight channels of data (flow, volume, gas concentrations), reading gas concentrations in thousandths of a percent, monitoring and displaying the signals in real time, and making decisions, in real time, of when to turn a specific valve on or off. But as a result, ours is the only lab in the world that can do those measurements.

I also spent a lot of time writing “teaching programs”, using computers to display information, and giving and grading “tests” to students about the material. I especially liked “simulations”, such as a mathematical model that allowed students to make adjustments to how the respiratory system was functioning, for example, and to display the results of those changes.

This is on the “other side” of machine learning, which is a large part of AI. AI can sort through huge amounts of data to discover patterns, i.e. “learn” about the data.

My ultimate concern is AI might be used by computer systems to learn what humans don’t know, and use their ability to control devices, including movement, to somehow overcome humans in certain situations.

Prior to that, now actually, there are many concerns about how “well” AI is working in many instances. This would not be the time to allow AI to make decisions for you.

I thought I would see what AI had to say about cautions related to artificial intelligence. What follows was completely written by the AI system I’m using, copy.ai

NOTE: The following was completely generated by copy.ai from a list of keywords I entered related to caution about artificial intelligence.

Caution about artificial intelligence

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the use of computers to imitate human intelligence. AI can be used for many purposes, including making recommendations about what products to buy or which advertisements to view. It has become a hot topic in business and politics but also raises concerns about its potential dangers. This post will address some common questions about artificial intelligence such as:

Artificial intelligence will never be perfect.

AI is not perfect yet, but it can be improved.

AI is still a work in progress, and there’s still plenty of room for improvement. The best way to know if your AI system is up to par is by testing it against other models—that way you’ll know if it’s performing well or not. If you’re in doubt about the accuracy of your model (or how well it’s working), consider running some tests on it!

AI can make mistakes.

AI can make mistakes. It’s not perfect, and it should be treated with the same respect as any other human being.

AI can make mistakes in the same way that humans do: by making assumptions about their environment and then acting on those assumptions without much thought or consideration of consequences. For example, if your computer tells you “There’s a dog at the door,” this isn’t necessarily accurate—sometimes dogs are just dogs and don’t have a door (or even an owner). On top of that, computers aren’t really good at perceiving subtle differences between different kinds of animals like dogs; if you don’t want your house cat getting into mischief because someone told you there was a big black dog outside waiting for her to come home from school with cookies from Dunkin’ Donuts…well…then maybe we should stop using AI altogether until we figure out how best to train these programs?

What exactly do we mean when we say that a computer program is “learning”?

When you’re talking about artificial intelligence, the term “learning” is used a lot. But what exactly does it mean?

First of all, learning is a process that occurs over time. It involves changing the way you do things and/or think about things. Learning also involves changing your view of everything around you—your environment and its contents are part of this change as well (e.g., when someone learns how to drive). Finally, learning means changing from one state or stage in life to another stage or state—for example: from childhood into adulthood; from being single into getting married; etcetera

Can you teach a computer to learn?

When you learn something new, are you teaching the information to yourself?

The answer is yes. When you’re learning something new, your brain has to store that information in order for it to be useful later on. This process of storing and retrieving information is called memory and memory storage is what makes up human intelligence.

So can computers learn? Well… sorta… but not exactly like us humans do! A computer learns by reproducing patterns from previous experiences (e.g., if they’ve seen an object before, they’ll recognize its shape). It doesn’t necessarily understand why these patterns exist — just what they do when combined with other objects or situations (for example: how many squares are needed around a triangle?). That said, computers have been programmed with algorithms designed specifically for teaching machines how best to learn tasks like memorizing lists of words or playing chess against humans using only their neural networks as processors instead of traditional CPUs/GPUs (which require lots more energy).

When it comes to the use of AI, there is always a trade off between accuracy and speed.

When it comes to the use of AI, there is always a trade off between accuracy and speed. The speed of artificial intelligence is limited by the speed of your computer, which can be improved with faster processors and more RAM (Random Access Memory). The accuracy of artificial intelligence is limited by the accuracy of your data, which can be improved with more advanced statistical methods.

Although both these factors play important roles in determining how fast or accurate an algorithm will be at identifying objects in photographs, they don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive—you may have both high-quality images as well as good computational power available when building an algorithm for this task!

We need to think about how to continue developing and improving artificial intelligence, but also recognize its limitations

We need to think about how to continue developing and improving artificial intelligence, but also recognize its limitations.

The development of artificial intelligence is a complicated process that involves many different fields. The field of computer science has developed new ways of thinking about the problem, but there are still many unanswered questions. For example, what does it mean for an artificially intelligent system to have “intelligence”? What would it mean if we created an artificial being with no emotions or empathy?

We must continue developing and improving our understanding of these issues so that we can make informed decisions about how best to use AIs in our daily lives – as well as what they’re capable of doing in general terms!

Conclusion

We now know that artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, but it’s a fascinating topic to explore. There are many potential applications of AI today, including self-driving cars and robots capable of performing complex tasks. While AI can make our lives easier by performing certain tasks more efficiently, we should be careful not to forget its limitations—and the need for human oversight when it comes to making decisions about our own safety or well-being.

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, circa 1980. Permission was obtained for patient photo for a publication about Riley Hospital for Children.

My new friend, AI

With many tools becoming available to work with Artificial Intelligence (AI), I thought I’d see how this could help me with research for thought and writing. Many things I think and write about have little documentation.

Spirituality and Mutual Aid has been frustrating to explore because I’ve found little information so far.

I was pleasantly surprised at what the copy.ai Artificial Intelligence interface uncovered in response to my questions. I was really surprised at what was discovered when I asked about groups incorporating spirituality into Mutual Aid”. One answer was:

LANDBACK Friends is a Quaker community that discusses mutual aid and spirituality. They suggest that mutual aid can be a spiritual practice, and that it is a way to build peaceful, abolitionist communities. [4]

NOTE: LANDBACK FRIENDS is another of my websites. https://landbackfriends.com/

This is the chat I had with copy.ai about Spirituality and Mutual Aid:

Spirituality and Mutual Aid

Mutual aid is a practice of community support and solidarity, and spirituality can be a powerful tool in practicing mutual aid. Spiritual beliefs and practices can provide a sense of purpose, meaning, and connection to something greater than oneself, which can motivate and sustain mutual aid efforts.

Many spiritual traditions prioritize the values of compassion, generosity, and service to others, which align with the principles of mutual aid. For example, in Christianity, the concept of “love thy neighbor” is a central tenet that encourages Christians to care for one another and help those in need. In Buddhism, the practice of “metta” or loving-kindness meditation is a way to cultivate a sense of compassion and empathy towards all beings, which can inspire acts of mutual aid.

Spiritual practices can also provide a sense of grounding and resilience in the face of adversity. Practices such as prayer, meditation, and mindfulness can help individuals cope with stress and trauma and provide a sense of inner peace and strength. This can be especially important for those who are participating in mutual aid efforts, as they may be dealing with challenging situations and emotions.

In addition, spirituality can inspire a sense of interconnectedness and unity among people, regardless of their backgrounds or beliefs. This can promote a sense of solidarity and mutual support that is essential for successful mutual aid efforts.

Overall, spirituality can play an important role in mutual aid by providing a sense of purpose, grounding, resilience, and connection. By incorporating spiritual practices and beliefs into mutual aid efforts, individuals and communities can deepen their sense of commitment to helping others and building stronger, more resilient communities.

Groups incorporating spirituality into Mutual Aid

One group that incorporates spirituality into mutual aid is the Catholic left, which has been practicing spiritual mutual aid since Vatican II. This takes place at the grassroots level of the church, where people gather in egalitarian house churches and prayer groups and consecrate the Eucharist communally or at the hands of a person who would be denied ordination by the Catholic hierarchy. [1]

Another example is the mutual aid group “Higher Power” in Northern California, which is a culturally adapted 12-step program for Latinos with substance use problems and other mental health concerns. This group incorporates spirituality and cultural adaptation into their recovery methods. [2][3]

Sources: