Reject Hate, Every Time

The gift. It is an area of inquiry in deconstructionist postmodern philosophy, that connects to all the human aspirations we might classify as altruistic. The true gift asks nothing in return, not even recognition. At the heart of the act of giving, there lies a paradox: one must have the intention to give in order to do it, and yet awareness of the intention is itself a kind of recognition. Despite the impossibility of the perfect act of giving, a fundamental ethical call requires that we value and aspire to achieve it.

We are always already called.

By the very fact of being able to conceive of a human subject—the first-person singular, the experience of being the “I am” that we are—we establish an ethical relationship to the vulnerability, intentionality, right to be rightful, and ethical value, of all others who have this experience. The Golden Rule—Do unto others as you would have others do unto you—is not a wish or an idea; it is the structurally integral ethical universe that emerges from the fact that any of us is conscious, alive, and in any way vulnerable.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Joseph Robertson is Executive Director of Climate Civics International (climatecivics.org). He represents CCI in the UNFCCC negotiations and other United Nations processes, and in the Earth Diplomacy Leadership Initiative. He is Chief Strategist for Resilience Intel and the Climate Value Exchange, and a member of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition Advisory Group. Joseph is a principal in the Good Food Finance Network, co-leading efforts to establish a new co-investment platform for food systems transformation and the Integrated Data Systems Initiative. He previously served as Interim Director for the Food System Economics Commission, during its start-up phase, and as Senior Advisor, Sustainable Finance, for the EAT Foundation. He is the founder of Geoversiv (earthintel.org) and The Navigator (navigatornews.net).

Stand with Charlottesville

The murder of Heather Heyer was carried out by a neo-Nazi terrorist who went to Charlottesville to join armed militia groups, who despise the core principles of American democracy. The 45th President of the United States then shocked the world by seeming to place blame on law-abiding anti-racist citizens like Ms. Heyer, while exonerating the extremist hate groups that brought about her death.

The founding creed of the United States is:

that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Nazis, the KKK, and the Confederacy all used violence and terror to oppose these values and promote enslavement and genocide. The Nazis and the Confederacy murdered hundreds of thousands of loyal Americans. The KKK has waged a terrorist war against the American people for 150 years.

Donald Trump is decisive, specific, and vicious in his criticism of anyone he dislikes or disagrees with. When neo-Nazis attacked Charlottesville and killed Heather Heyer, he said “many sides” were at fault and refused repeatedly to name the racist militants responsible. In his ongoing refusal to condemn white supremacists, and in his efforts to subvert the prosecution of neo-Nazi terrorists, he has shown himself to be aligned with those whose unifying creed is hatred for the Republic he is sworn to serve.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

We are All Now Safer in our Freedom

On the morning of June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a basic right, across the United States. The ruling in the case known by the name Obergefell v. Hodges was 5 to 4, showing a tightly split Court, but effectively invalidating all bans on same-sex marriage, whether brought into effect by legislation, referendum, executive order or lower court rulings.

Here’s why this is good for people of all political and religious persuasions:

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Why Kiev Matters

The struggle over Ukraine’s political system is important to the world for a lot of reasons. In short:

It matters whether any human population has fair and transparent, democratically accountable government;
Ukraine is a strategic crossroads, both for political and economic reasons;
The tension over violence against protesters in Kiev could explode into a regional war that no one can afford;
A peaceful resolution is an indicator of whether Russia and Europe can work together;
Ukraine’s strategic value is partly to do with geopolitical spheres of influence, partly about carbon-based energy.

So, what is happening at this hour in Kiev matters to the wider world for moral reasons, for strategic political and economic reasons and because the outcome may determine whether petrostate hegemony will hold sway over the future of more than half a billion people. That authoritarian petrostate model—an outgrowth of both the Soviet dictatorship and the post-Soviet plutocracy in Russia—severely limits the power of individuals and communities to influence government, and to build a more humane, more collaborative, more sustainable future, from the ground up.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

The Problematic Case of PFC Bradley Manning

We have to ask ourselves, constantly and with serious attention to specifics, whether as we build our democratic universe of human relationships, we might be getting things wrong. Private First Class Bradley Manning took action that demanded that we do that. Some say his leaking of classified documents was treason (the courts do not say that); some say it was heroism (the courts do not say that either).

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Erdogan Declares Unilateral Authority over Speech, Threatens Violence

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has issued what the Guardian newspaper calls a “chilling warning”: he says “these protests will be over in 24 hours”. After calling nonviolent protesters “destroyers” and “enemies”, Erdogan declared “this episode is over”. He now has effectively declared his absolute, unilateral authority to accept or reject any and all attempts at democratic speech.

Observers across democratic nations allied with Turkey have expressed dismay and alarm at the unnecessarily counterproductive, violent and authoritarian reaction to what began as a sit-in protesting the destruction of a public park for commercial development. The extreme nature of Erdogan’s reaction has raised questions about whether his government somehow has existential ties to the commercial development plan.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Why Taksim Square Matters

The mass protest movement that has flooded through Turkish society, over the last few weeks, is of great importance to the future of international politics, not least because President Erdogan’s reaction has been so ham-fisted and unacceptable. As the head of government of a NATO allied nation with a constitutional mandate for secular government, Erdogan, leader of a religious party, has always had to walk a fine line; the protest movement has shown how superficial some of his moderate language may have been.

With what is considered to be genuine popularity, Erdogan has accumulated what many believe is an unhealthy amount of power, and he has allegedly been impatient with dissent of all kinds. What Taksim Square represents for Turkey, however, is the first true modern movement in defense of stakeholders’ rights. And that, many believe, is the 21st-century liberation struggle which even the most advanced democracies will have to confront: freedom of speech is one thing, freedom of the press another, both necessary for any genuine democracy to exist, but without a real, and influential voice, for stakeholders, any process of decision-making must be described as less than entirely democratic.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

We are Citizens; the Time is Now

In the first State of the Union address of his second term as president of the United States, Barack Obama outlined an ambitious agenda, to reform economic and social policy, education, immigration, energy, gun control laws, and laws governing gender equality. He laid down the most direct and explicit challenge to lawmakers on climate policy, saying “If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.”

The Congress has a choice on climate policy: comprehensive, market-based bipartisan policy, or an aggressive register of executive actions to tighten regulations and ensure US carbon emissions drop at the necessary rate. He called specifically for a “bipartisan market-based” approach, but left the specifics to lawmakers. Fortunately, thousands of citizens are already building political will for a bipartisan, market-based approach with none of the flaws of cap and trade. (Learn more here.)

Posted by Joseph Robertson

On the Inestimable Value of Citizenship

There are speech acts that negate their own validity. For example, the defense or promotion of violence in service of the sacred, or the notion that to oppose marginalization and stereotyping, specific groups need to be treated as inherently and universally hostile to one’s aims, no negotiations allowed. To be a citizen is about choice and responsibility, but it is never a valid choice—or an expression of any genuine personal freedom—to refuse it.

To refuse citizenship is a self-negating performative speech act, intended in every case to serve as a kind of comment on the state of affairs—”that’s not for me”, “my interests lie elsewhere”, “they’re all corrupt”, “I would replace the whole system”, etc., or, sometimes unwittingly (subconsciously, as a way of sloughing off the burden of responsibility): “I want those in power to have free rein”. To refuse citizenship is an act of cruel self-sabotage the bad effects of which seep out into the rest of society and undermine the health and wellbeing of the whole citizenry.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Stop the Violence Now

After the dignity and inspiration of the Arab Spring, what we are now witnessing in the United States has been an inspiration to millions of people who long to have a voice in their society. Yet some city governments are ordering the use of paramilitary assault tactics against unarmed civilians engaged in constitutionally protected peaceful assembly and free expression. In Oakland, we have now seen two displays of overwhelming, deliberate, combat-style police actions against unarmed civilians exercising their basic rights.

Video has emerged clearly confirming eyewitness reports that Oakland police fired directly into crowds of unarmed demonstrators with tear gas and flash-bang grenades. Scott Olsen, now famous the world over, was shot in the face when police fired “non-lethal” rubber bullets directly at protesters’ heads, at close range. Video shows a combination flash-bang/teargas grenade being fired directly into the middle of a crowd of people attempting to tend to him as he lay bleeding on the ground.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

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