activism (Page 30)

A Facebook friend recently said I was a “shameless troll” in response to this question I’d posted:

Let me put it this way: If men really like women just as they are, how do you explain the mass marketing success of the private area hair waxing and removal and the must-be-thin-no-jigglers and the must-look-“good”-as-defined-by-mass-marketing phenomena?

I disagree I’m being a troll with this question, or that I ever would be an Internet troll. Wikipedia defines a troll as someone posting inflammatory content with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. No way that’s me. I certainly welcome emotional responses if the topics deserve them. I ♥ heated debates, discussions, arguments, conversations.
When I post content that might seem inflammatory my intent is never to just stir up the muck. I want to make my own position clear and learn what other people’s positions are. Or, I’m seeking information from other people about their perceptions. If people get into name calling and hitting brick walls not listening to each other, that’s unfortunate. But it’s absolutely and totally a price worth paying for the meaty substance that can also come from “hot topics.”
So, no. No troll here. Just me, believing in the power and pleasure of direct and blunt conversations.

The original title of this post was a call for responses from my Anarchist readers (see questions below).
Only a few weeks ago I thought Libertarian’s were full of crap. I only knew of “Libertarians” as essentially pro-choice Republicans. Since then I’ve had some interesting conversations on Facebook, and I’ve done some reading. A solid handful of Facebook friends have given their perspectives, informing my new ideas. Reading the anarchism sites (see links below), I keep thinking I’m very close to being an Anarchist, or, a Libertarian Socialist.
Big problem, though. I can’t entirely support one of the basic premises of anarchism: eschewing or even flat out rejecting all hierarchy. This is the foundation as I understand it. I find this not only impractical, but can’t wrap my brain around any community that doesn’t have some sort of administrative body to, yes, administer as necessary. And, within administration, there (it seems to me) must be leadership.
In my experience, groups of people typically have only a very small minority of members/participants who understand what kind of administrative tasks are required to make even the most egalitarian system successful. From what I’ve read so far, anarchism doesn’t address the realities of running any kind of organization (large or small) but simply says, “we won’t know until it’s happening.” Quoting Howard Zinn, “You cannot have self-sufficient little collectives, because these collectives have different resources available to them. This is something anarchist theory has not worked out and maybe cannot possibly work out in advance, because it would have to work itself out in practice.”
I’m also lately considering and reconsidering what has been a passion of mine for several years now. This passion is one that leads me towards considering anarchism. Since I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, especially and before that when we joined our CSA in 2003: Eat local, buy local, etc. It has all made sense to me where it matters most, in my heart. Logic played a part, too. Local businesses flourish, the environment takes less of a beating, food is fresher and healthier (and tastier), big box beast companies have less success destroying small farms/small companies, etc. After hearing from the author of this article, though, I’ve been rethinking how I feel about the localvore movement. It totally shook me. I’m in the high 80s or more percentage-wise that I’m going to stay committed to the movement. But, honestly, it freaked me out when I realized how much in common I had with some of the most bizarrely, freakishly isolationist sorts I’ve ever encountered. (See question #3 which touches on similar concerns.) So, on to my questions. I am hopeful some of you may give me some thoughtful answers — even if you just give me some decent links. Thanks in advance!
How would you, an Anarchist, answer the following questions?
1) What constitutes “small” in “small collectives?” At what point do these small collectives become too large and need to be broken apart, or… what happens when they grow?
2) How would resources be shared among the collectives?
3) How is anarchism not isolationist, selfish, and self-serving?
One of the conflicts I’m having with the theory is that, yes, I agree hierarchy often leads to oppression. But, if we have no hierarchy (no government leadership) doesn’t that lead to a “to each their own” mentality? How does the attitude of service find its way into the community if there is no statement of commonly agreed upon values (i.e. the Constitution)? It seems to easy for anarchism to equal = do what feels right for your community however you define it which could very, very easily lead to “and screw the rest of you.”
4) In my view: Fighting for justice requires organization. Organization requires leadership. How does anarchism agree or disagree with these statements?
Thanks, again, for any info you share. I most definitely thought “anarchism = chaos” and never pursued the theory beyond that mistaken association. Of course, I’ll do my own further reading. But I thought perhaps it might be interesting for you to consider answers to these questions. In particular, #3 — if I had put them in order of importance to me, what seems most pressing, most incongruent with what I perceive as the otherwise social-justice oriented socio-political theory. And, once more, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Bringing up a child in a tv-free home with just me and full-time employee Coparent wasn’t always easy. It will be even more difficult with Baby2 (baby #2, the 9 week old) since Baby1 now watches a 2 (or 3) 20 minute shows most days. Baby1 started with television when she was 4, I think. I was very sick and Coparent had to work. I put March of the Penguins on the computer so she could watch something while I was sleeping next to her. That was the beginning of the end of her tv-free life. Part of why we kept her tv-free was because Coparent and I are both huge fans of television. We were not at all convinced we would be able to offer the entertainment to Baby1 in any form of moderation. It turns out this is a great risk especially when things got tough as a parent.

Very committed to the idea of keeping Baby1 tv-free for a while, sometimes I’d get “weak” and want to just have a break. I’d go to a few people — you’d be surprised how very, very few people in this world subscribe to this radical notion that a child’s life might benefit from no screen time — and ask for help and advice. The best answer I got was, “sounds like you need more support.” When I’d get that twinge of oh-my-god-if-only-I’d-feel-comfortable-with-one-episode-of-Sesame-Street-so-I-can-have-a-freakin’-break, I’d remember “I need more support.”

Fast forward to this past weekend we spent with my parents at their summer place. I remembered back to those days as a new mother sometimes struggling against the temptation to use the television as a babysitter. “I need more support.” Well, over the weekend when we were all together it was even more obvious to me. The use of television as a sitter and needing more support is deeply connected. With my parents there, it was easy to slip off to the bathroom or even take on a project like cleaning out the car. Not a big deal to ask someone to sit with a sleeping newborn, or play with a cute bundle of squishy sweetness. Not even a big deal to ask them to change diapers since it was only an occasional thing. And, of course, they were great company to Baby1 (almost 6) who was full of things to say as they did their work on the property and in the gardens. My brother and sister-in-law were there, too, which was like icing on the cake.

Having a group of adults around, even just one extra, like I imagine they had generations before (or perhaps they still do in worlds different than mine) makes all the difference. That little moment of sanity, of being “off duty” for even five minutes at a time is all that it takes for me to stay in the groove of completely loving parenting. It’s only when it’s non-stop with no break and no break in sight that everything starts to crumble. And, it’s doubly true with two children.

I think now of all the single parents I’ve known. Those parents who not only were the only parent involved–the partnership of a fully involved father makes the work much less difficult–but who also were without any extended family nearby. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Makes me want to run away and never come back just imagining what it must be like to be “on” all the time. And I mean all the time. Even if their child is in daycare so they can work, the child is still their responsibility. If s/he gets sick, who will pick them up? If the parent gets sick, who will take the child to daycare? The obvious list goes on.

When I was pregnant with Baby2 we considered hiring a post-partum doula. What this job entails is basically someone who comes in and fills the role I imagine was filled by extended family in the past. Laundry, cooking, watching the baby so the parents can sit on the porch with a cold drink for ten minutes, cleaning, shopping. Life. Help with life. But hiring a doula costs money. My parents offered to help — they are generous that way — and came up from Boston. But, then, they went home. And no matter how involved Coparent is, most of the parenting is my job. At this point it’s because of the nursing responsibilities. But, later, it will be because he works a “regular” job while my business is something I do in odd hours (whenever I can manage it). Our friends are all families with super involved fathers, but, for a variety of reasons most of running or managing the household does come under the mom’s list of responsibilities.

What is the solution? Hiring a stranger to come in and help is an option for some (I’d do it if we could afford it). Staying close to family is another option, though mostly unappealing for so many of us and simply impractical for most. Living with our extended family would be ideal but, again, in my world that’s rarely even considered. And, truth be told, I prefer it that way.

Perhaps one thing we can do is simply acknowledge how near impossible it is to do it all ourselves. Take help where it comes (a group of mamas here in Maine cooked and froze and delivered many great meals for our family after Baby2 was born). Ask for help when it’s needed. And, whenever possible, spend time with our extended family (blood related or friends) to get those much needed few minutes wherever we can.

It’s not easy doing it myself (not discounting Coparent’s role at all, see above explanation). And, it’s not easy asking for help. The help my parents give us is more valuable than any cash we could spend (if we had it) on someone coming in to help. Their help is free, loving, and at times with only a bit of exaggeration it feels life-saving. So, thanks, Mom and Dad. :-)

A brief follow-up to my “Jesus never existed” post.
I believe Jesus of Nazareth existed. I believe he was a great and gifted teacher and healer. I also believe Jesus as Christ only happened when his followers placed that on him.
As for “no first-hand accounts,” I wrote my “Jesus never existed” essay to acknowledge this truth. The accounts we have of Jesus of NazarethJesus are, so far, not first-hand accounts. And, to that, I say, “so what?” Going back that far in history it’s not very common to have first-hand accounts of anything. And, as a wise theologian wrote to me, “Proof cannot be an operative word here, since we’re dealing with the past. The only question that counts is historical probability.”
Moving on to discussions of the resurrection I’ll happily explain that on every third or fourth day I’m perfectly content with that as reality. The other days I’m more comfortable with it as metaphor. What makes me a sort of wacky christian is that I don’t care. Both work for me. If I’m celebrating poetry or a miracle can change from moment to moment.
Let’s love our neighbors, care for the least of those among us, look beyond ourselves for strength (some of us will go to god for that strength, others go elsewhere), and work for social justice every day. If some of us call that christianity, why argue?

What if there was no historical figure named Jesus? Set aside the question of the resurrection and just look at the rest of what we christians assume to be true. For example, I’ve always thought there was a firm consensus among scholars that there was a man name Jesus, from Nazareth, who was a great teacher and healer. While in a discussion with some hard core atheists, there was an insistence that there was no credible first-hand accounts of this man called Jesus.
My own christianity doesn’t center around the idea of Jesus as God. I’m perfectly content with the idea, even, that the resurrection may be just another metaphor for everlasting life through self-sacrifice and faith in god. Growing up I learned Jesus’ message was to love our neighbors, care for the poor, and center our lives around god. This message speaks to the core of my being and it’s why I consider myself christian rather than, say, Buddhist or Unitarian. My religion also centers entirely around the notion that the stories the Bible tells (which are metaphors as far as I’m concerned, not literal history) can help us be kind to each other and make the world a more peaceful place.
What then if there really was no Jesus as I’ve always assumed there was? Can I have faith in a myth? Can the idea of the story sustain me even if there was no human being who was so spiritually connected with God that he believed love and peace were the purpose of life? I’m not sure.
I set out to see if these arrogant know-it-all atheists from the newsgroup discussions were right. And it turns out they were. Even among the most Christian of historians, there are no solid claims of first-hand accounts of this man Jesus of Nazareth. Even the Romans who were serious record keepers probably only listed Jesus’ crucifixion as just another executed poor carpenter. A handy resource for my few weeks of research was the Frontline series, “From Jesus to Christ.” On this site there’s a good article from TIKKUN Magazine by Claudia Setzer that summarizes the closest any historian I’ve found will come to claiming there was, without a doubt, this man name Jesus. In this article, Setzer writes:

“His followers, and even a non-believer like the Jewish historian Josephus, recall Jesus as a healer, exorcist, and miracle worker.”

But going a bit deeper into the Josephus records I learned that even these are a bit sketchy. I wasn’t able to find any historian (besides a few Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians) who would claim there was first-hand evidence that Jesus existed.
Personally, I don’t find this troubling. I also don’t find it anything close to proof that the man didn’t exist. However, it does cause me to question what matters to me in my faith.
When I consider if Jesus was a real man who taught such important lessons, who washed the feet of the prostitutes and dined with lepers and tax collectors, I realize it really is that message that drives me. In fact, the earliest Christians seem most in tune with how I view christianity. While they did celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus (Christ) as their reason for being, their communities also centered around equality in societies where hierarchical social structures were the norm.
In my Dad’s most recent book, Ritualizing Nature: Renewing Christian Liturgy in a Time of Crisis, he writes about the earliest Christians bringing together the bread and the wine. He writes:

“This was part of ‘the work of the people.’ But the very poor among those members typically could not afford to bring wine. So they brought water (which, according to cultural mores, was perfectly appropriate). That water they poured into the large, common chalice, mingling it with the wine from the others, so that, in the end, there was then only one offering. All social, political, and cultural distinctions were thereby countermanded and transfigured…Thus, for what Christians today is often merely a routine act of traditional symbolism–biblically rooted, to be sure, but not of major ritual importance–was for those early Christians a profound and revolutionary public acknowledgment of a new kind of egalitarian society and a new kind of hope for the whole world.”

There are countless examples like this of the earliest Christians authentically living by Christ’s example. Christianity got off track, in my relatively uninformed and humble opinion, when it moved beyond the countercultural activism through spiritual connection and adopted hierarchical power structures.
I’ll admit my world was a bit rattled when I confirmed the argumentative atheists were right about the absence of first-hand historical proof of Jesus’ existence. I’ve questioned all sorts of aspects of Christianity, but always assumed there was no doubt that the man lived, taught, and healed. I don’t feel any closer to knowing if he was an amalgamation of lots of good ideas or if he was truly a living human being. After these searches, however, I do feel closer to my commitment to the message. Love your neighbor. Help the needy. Care for the Earth. Commune with god. Strive for peace. These messages are why I still consider myself a christian person.