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The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 2

Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Lies that Build Empire 4

Studying Empire Together 7

Session A: Getting Wise to the Lies; Strengthening our Resilience 8

The Just World Fallacy by Garold Stone (with comments by Mushim

Ikeda, Katie Loncke, Robert Fettgather, & Rachel) 9

Dear Jambolan Tree (a Letter from Võ Hai) 11

Inner and Outer Dissonance by Rachel Buddeberg 13

What’s the Point? By Edith Lazenby Trilling 14

My Lover, Monsanto by Nathan G. Thompson 15

Session B: Logics of Empire & Imperialism 17

Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking

Women of Color Organizing by Andrea Smith 18

The Greater Common Good by Arundhati Roy 25

The Fraud of Jobs by Stephen Fortunato 26

Session C: Challenging Power; Taking Action 30

Can Mindfulness Change a Corporation? by David Loy 31

Are Justice and Enlightenment Incompatible? The Yoga Journal / Hyatt

Controversy by Katie Loncke 36



BPFer Dharma Talk on DC Climate Change Rally (Audio) by Taigen

Dan Leighton 40

From “Action Strategy: a how-to guide” by The Ruckus Society 42

Session D: Resisting Empire and Domination in our Groups 45

Study Group Guidelines and Embracing Debate by Dawn Haney &

Katie Loncke 46

Commitment to Dismantling Oppression compiled by Dawn Haney and

Jacks McNamara 47

Session E: Overview of the Lies that Build Empire 50

Practice Exercises 51

Sponsors’ Corner: Introduction to The Pachamama Alliance 53

About Buddhist Peace Fellowship and The System Stinks 54

Permissions & Photo Credits 55

With Gratitude 57



The Lies that Build Empire

The Buddha Dispelled Some Big Lies As if it weren’t enough to rediscover eternal truths of dharma, during his lifetime the Buddha also dispelled a few socially significant lies. Born into the luxury of royal life, it wasn’t until his early adulthood that the Buddha discovered the false safety of opulence — the illusion that wealth will protect us from old age, sickness, or death. But upon discovering the reality of a wider, poorer world (no doubt the birthplace of his childhood servants or courtesans), Prince Gautama took off for the forest, leaving behind a now desiccated courtly comfort. Even more significantly, the teachings of an enlightened Buddha flew in the face of a socially deterministic society. Offering the possibility of freedom based on individual effort, the dharma rejected caste ranking as a determinant of spiritual potential in this lifetime. Although the Buddha did not act out of political motivations, exposing this lie was a big deal: it challenged an entrenched power structure. And though it earned the Buddha a few enemies, it also opened a mighty way forward for countless buddhas of the lower castes. Even today, many Dalit followers of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in India embrace Buddhism instead of religious traditions that relegate them to an oppressed “untouchable” status. Can We See Through Today’s Lies? We still have many more lies to dispel, for the sake of all beings. Some lies we may be aware of: the fantasy of infinite natural resources; the idea that free markets are fair markets (or even truly free in the first place); myths of meritocracy; beliefs that women are naturally subservient or inferior. Some lies we take on as “useful fictions” because we think they make life simpler or safer (for some of us). National borders. Binary gender. A biological basis to race. The notion that disabled bodies are flawed because they don’t fit the cogs in the machine of capitalism. The idea that prisons, cops, and wars make us safer. The promise that mindfulness makes kinder CEOs, or that peace and justice must be achieved without ruffling any feathers.



Other lies may lie half-conscious in us, like internalized oppressions. One could even argue that the notion that “lies build empire” is itself a misconstrual, and that what really builds empires are not ideas but material relations, which then shape and form dominant ideas! Why “Lies That Build Empire”? As students of both the dharma and global movements for justice, we (Dawn and Katie) chose to frame our questions about these structural lies within the context of empire. We were curious to learn what our fellow political Buddhists had to say about imperialism, as we felt it to be an important dynamic to understand as we build for true peace. Neither of us are experts on the history of imperialism and colonialism — and in any case, “expertise” in an analytical sense does not automatically engender an understanding of how the effects of imperialism live in the body, in the mind, in the heart. Instead we offer this framing of “Lies That Build Empire” out of our commitment to learning. Not only learning for learning’s sake, but for the sake of liberation from structural harms. We appreciate you joining us both as our fellow learners and as our teachers. What are Some Ways We Can Understand Empire & Imperialism? Contributors to this first theme on Turning Wheel Media have covered a range of lies undergirding empire, in the broad sense of empire as a dominating mode of economics and government — a way of interacting with beings and the earth. Empire tells lies about job creation; empire tells lies about feeding the world through monocultures;

empire tries to relegate First Nations to the history books, in order to continue exploiting their lands. One starting definition of imperialism is the practice of one country or government growing stronger by taking economic and political control over other countries or territories that have important resources — whether raw materials, consumer markets, investment opportunities, or strategic geographical location.

BPF Members Suggest Further Reading

The Limits of Power by Andrew Bacevich

The New Military Humanism by Noam Chomsky

The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Blowback by Chalmers Johnson

Confronting the Third World by Gabriel Kolko

The Accumulation of Capital by Rosa Luxemburg

Against Empire by Michael Parenti

Earth Democracy by Vandana Shiva

Make your suggestions at:

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/what-

classic-texts-would-you-like-to-see-for-lies-that-

build-empire/



Using this definition, we can see that despite the “successful” revolutions of many nations colonized during an historical Age of Imperialism, imperialism is far from over. Through military force, economic incentives to local governments, new settlements, and propaganda insisting on cultural superiority, imperialist governments and corporations still foster parasitic or outright deadly relationships with peoples and lands throughout the world. The struggles of Native American, Pacific Islander, and First Nation tribes in the United States and Canada, Palestinian people trying to survive an expanding Israeli state, and Tibetans opposing Chinese rule all characterize their resistance as against imperial power.

Imperialism as “the Globalizing of Capitalism”

In addition to land grabs by particular nations, in today’s imperialism, we see land and resources taken over in “the globalizing of capitalism” (Childs & Williams, An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory).

“The contemporary international division of labour is a displacement of the divided field of nineteenth-century territorial imperialism. Put simply, a group of countries, generally first-world, are in the position of investing capital; another group, generally third-world, provide the field for investment.” (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’).

In this iteration of imperialism, resource grabs are supported not only by the military strength of individual nations, but the collective might of a global body -- the United Nations. Political philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri would in part blame peace-lovers like our own Buddhist Peace Fellowship for giving such power to the UN. The UN Security Council “has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and

security.” Yet the choices of which conflicts to intervene in never seem fully based on compassion. Instead, they seem to support the maintenance and growth of resources/power for countries already powerful enough to have a strong military force. In today’s version, "Empire is formed not on the basis of force itself but on the basis of the capacity to present force as being in the service of right and peace" (Hardt & Negri, Empire). In addition to military force, this globalized version of empire is still driven by economic incentives (from the World Bank and their severe structural adjustment policies), resettlement (this time of globalized corporations, made easier through free



trade agreements), and exported propaganda insisting on cultural superiority of “First World” people. Under today’s imperialism, land and resource theft is still happening, both by nation states and also by global political entities and global corporations. A Bodhisattva Practice to Resist Empire?

As political Buddhists and bodhisattvas-in-training, how can we apply the Buddha’s lie-busting vision to the castes and power structures of our time? What lies of empire have impacted us through our ancestry? How do we see through the lies and justifications of global empire, and be advocates for the liberation of all beings? Realities are quite complex, but like the Buddha, we take courage and do our best to observe, to study, to learn, to understand. Fostering relationships with you, with other people working for liberation, we hope to promote freedom across time — from ancestors, to present fellow beings, to future generations — by studying the processes and effects of imperialism. Please share your knowledge, experience, and wisdom with the rest of us, as you feel moved to! May it help us to heal collectively from dysfunctional systems, which have different impacts on different beings but affect us all in one way or another.

~ Katie Loncke & Dawn Haney, Co-Directors, Buddhist Peace Fellowship

Studying Empire Together We encourage you to explore these ideas with other political Buddhists, whether in your local area or online. For more tips and conversations about how to start study groups, see the Study Group Support Guide: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Study-Group-Starter-Guide-v2.pdf Depending on how often your group meets and what you are interested in, you can choose one or more of the following sessions to dig in to! Feel free to start with whichever session draws you in most.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Study-Group-Starter-Guide-v2.pdf





Session A:

Getting Wise to the Lies; Strengthening our Resilience

Empire isn’t just a concept “out there” - it’s embedded within our lives. We all have stories of encountering the lies of empire, the ones we’ve learned and internalized. Let’s learn about each other’s lives, both the places where we’ve been disillusioned and the bases of our strength to resist. Session Goals:

Share our stories of how we came to connect spirituality and politics Investigate how imperialism is intertwined with our lives

Discussion Questions:

In the discussion of Gary Stone’s note on the Just World Fallacy, people began telling stories of when their belief in a just world was shaken. What’s your story: Have you ever believed in a just world? If so, was your belief shaken? Tell a story about what that was like for you.

Võ Hải speaks both of the dislocation of imperialism, and his efforts to care for and connect with the Jambolan tree as a way to resist empire. What helps you be resilient in the face of empire?

Hải, Rachel, Edie, and Nathan offer us poetic takes on how empire is intertwined in our relationships with the earth, with other people, and with our own minds. Where do you experience imperialism connected to your daily life?

What helps you

be resilient in the

face of empire?

I write letters to

the Jambolan tree

-Võ Hải



The Just-World Fallacy

In my humble opinion and

beyond my limited ken …

Many of the “system-level lies”

listed in Turning Wheel’s call for

submissions for this theme seem

to me to be instances of the

commonly held (incorrect) world

view of the “Just-World Fallacy”

(JWF).

JWF seems to be a general

template for various system-level

lies (memes) that blame the

victim and insidiously teach

victims to blame themselves for original sin or for past sins of commission or omission

(remembered or not, intentional or not) which they purportedly had committed.

Under JWF, Karma would be reduced to a simplistically linear “what you sow is what you reap”

— popularized in the TV show “My Name is Earl” and in some celebrity-endorsed self-help

books.

JWF seems to be in sharp conflict with Buddhist teachings of Samsara, Dukkha, Impermanence,

Interdependence, or Liberation.

Likewise, JWF is misused to justify privilege.

Garold (Gary) Stone, Laurel, MD, Retired

Sitting with Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center, Silver Spring, MD

In the tradition of Thich

Nhat Hanh

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/reminder-deadline-tomorrow-for-lies-that-build-empire/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/grs.jpg



Comments:

Mushim Ikeda

I haven’t seen the famous movie, “Hadaka No Shima” (“Naked Island”) in years, but when I saw

it 30 years or so ago, it punched a big hole in my JWF. And it’s probably meant to represent a

culture that is Buddhist. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjVtXe2pLaU

Katie Loncke

Ooh, nice — adding it to my list of films to watch. Thanks, Mushim!

I remember in high school, something that “punched a big hole in my JWF” (love that way of

putting it) was when I realized, at an embarrassingly late stage (senior year), that my public high

school was financially segregated: parents could donate money specifically to the magnet

program I was in (with advanced and college prep classes) without spreading it around to fund

the whole student body. In my naíve zeal I wanted to write a story for the student paper,

interviewing students in “regular” classes and in the magnet program, ‘exposing’ the fact that the

non-magnet students were receiving an inferior education. Luckily my journalism teacher talked

me out of biting off more than I could chew.

It’s not so much that I thought that students in ‘regular’ classes deserved fewer resources, or

were there because they were somehow lazy or less smart, but I was so focused on my own

studies and social group and life (literally sectioned off from the rest of the 2,500-student school,

with a whole wing of the building reserved for the magnet program and language classes) that it

simply never occurred to me that there might be structural disparities within my pubic school. To

this day, I’m a little haunted by how blinkered I was. My JWF made me complacent, just

accepting as normal a situation that favored me.

Robert Fettgather

Very insightful to invoke Lerner’s Just Worlc Hypothesis (JWH) . The hypothesis is generally

regarded as false, hence (JWF). A status quo mindset, Invoking JWH, minimimizes cognitive

dissonance over injustice with the false presupposition that folks get in life what they deserve.

Believers sleep well amidst the suffering. Victims of a stinky system are thus dismissed. Beyond

Lerner, the JWH also assumes the righteousness of Victimizers. My work in the mental health

system over 4 decades, while deeply gratifying over helping people out, usurped my own JWH:

that government,profit and non profits always work toward the well being of disadvantaged

persons. A system that pays bureaucrats to care for especially vulnerable populations (e.g., elders

with dementia, people with severe intellectual impairment or severe mental illness) is prone to

exploitation. This system tends toward objectification of these often voiceless groups. Care

becomes neglect or in the case of Sonoma Developmental Center, serial torture. Careerists who

victimize in this system collect their paychecks and, it seems to me, bask in the JWH illusion that

they must be caring, rather than harming, innocents. To the BPF I submit that people with severe

intellectual impairment may be among those most hurt by a system that stinks, and among the

least understood and supported.

http://www.mushim.wordpress.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjVtXe2pLaU



Rachel

Thanks to this post, i finally understood why i have not been enjoying TED talks anymore…

They seem to be full of just-world fallacies… Why are there so few women in the upper levels of

the business world? Sexism? No, women drop out. If they’d just stay, there would be more! So

says Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

(admittedly, i didn’t watch the whole thing… I got too sick to my stomach after the first 5

minutes or so…)

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/the-just-world-fallacy/

Dear Jambolan Tree (A Letter from Võ Hải)

Chào cay trâm mốc/Dear Jambolan tree,

I hear from a Vietnamese elder in the town that I grew up

in in the US after the diaspora that you are a rare species

in this, to you, foreign land. I also hear that your leaves

and branches get cold and shiver in the winter compared

to sweating and basking in the glorious humidity of

the east of Asia, where you grow abundantly and are not

so rare.

I, too, shiver in the winter. There are many of me’s that

grow abundantly and are not so rare in the east of Asia,

too. Like you, this land is foreign to me. We are part of

the diaspora together, me and you, trying to find home,

trying to evolve and ground our roots, making sense of it

all.

So just like how I get excited when I meet other

Vietnamese in the diaspora, I get excited when I find rarities like you. That same elder

has birthed from one of your seeds more of you, planting one of you in a public sidewalk — to

share the prosperity and to heal ecosystems while also resisting the corporatized, industrialized,

globalized food system.

This corporatized, industrialized, globalized system doesn’t want you — your prosperity, your

healing. Over 90% of seeds — the very substance that begins to give life, life — are controlled

by a few companies that’re changing how you prosper, how you heal — changing the very things

that make you, with the help of the sun, water, biodiverse soils, and other plants and animals —

your fullest self, that make you beautiful, that make you, you.

http://www.rabe.org/

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/the-just-world-fallacy/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/jambolan-tree-1.jpg



How can this food system feed the world when

it favors monopolies — the growth of only a

few crops (wheat, corn, and soy to name some)

— but the world is home to an abundance of

life and diversity? I find irony.

I also find the touch of your leaves gentle like a

plum tree, the smell of your bark a bit milder

than an oak’s. I’m excited for you.

Kind and gentle cay trâm mốc/jambolan tree, I

have yet to taste your fruit because you have to

yet to blossom. I am patient. I read your

fruit gifts bare sweet, bitter, astringent, and

acidic tastes. I want to reciprocate — a give-

and-give cycle that I find in all of life — give

to your nourishment and growth with the hopes

that you will give more life to other plants and animals. Is this what raising and/or helping

raise children is like?

I hope to be more rooted like you someday, to take care of more of you, to return to that mindful

and manifesting bliss of prosperity and healing. I’m doing that by reclaiming land for you and

your fellow siblings to grow your next generations, collecting seeds of you and your fellow

plant friends, and stewarding soil that you call home, nourishing you every moment of the day.

Mến và hoà bình/Love and peace,

Võ Hải

Hải Võ là người Mỹ gốc Việt. With ancestry in

present-day Việt Nam, Hải was raised in Southern

California, by way of birth sponsorship in Iowa, by

way of refugee camps in the Philippines. Hải, a

queer-identified second-generation Vietnamese-

American helps organize youth (food) justice

initiatives. Hải is passionate about traditional

food(ways), (e)advocacy, popular education around

food sovereignty, and returning to Việt Nam in the

very near future. @nuocmamca.

nuocmamca.tumblr.com.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/dear-jambolan-tree/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/dear-jambolan-tree/

http://www.turningwheelmedia.org/snap-snap-snap/hai/



Inner And Outer Dissonance

I was born into the wrong life:

Unconventional ideas

with a conventional lifestyle.

I can see things clearly

without the inner strength to change them.

I can see how to live

without the courage to live it.

I got a radical brain

and conventional habits.

It’s tearing me apart.

Eating me alive.

I don’t know how to break free.

Glimpses of freedom

are quickly covered again

by the voices of norms.

I never learned how to do this

and the dissonance is pulling me apart.

Longing to find the support

to bring inner and outer into alignment

and don’t know where to look.

Even there are the stories of convention

preventing me from seeing and acting.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/inner-and-outer-dissonance/

Rachel A. Buddeberg is a feminist philosopher, freethinking humanist, and student of meditation and Buddhism. At 45, she is trying to perfect the art of failing and hoping she’ll fail at it! Thus she is leaving behind the inner normative voices that bind her to a life of servitude and fighting for outer freedoms so that everyone can thrive! Her journey is uncovering what this looks like. You can follow it and other meanderings at http://www.rabe.org/.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/inner-and-outer-dissonance/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/inner-and-outer-dissonance/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/trapped-giuseppe.jpg

http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=19523

http://www.rabe.org/



“What’s The Point?”: A Poem

The breaking point isn’t a point.

I make tea and forget the water.

Yet there’s direction.

I got lost driving today.

I feel the moon, but cannot see.

I was terse about using a bathroom.

I found my way home.

I meditated this morning.

I went for a walk, snapped a photo,

Ducks floating on water.

I don’t float. I look out to look in.

The point is one of many.

The studio was locked.

I lost a phone number.

Kids waiting in the hall.

I think I breathed. Someone helped.

How do I help? I have entered

Carolyn’s Castle of Teresa of Avila.

The reptiles rule

The first mansion. But in mine they’ve

Crawled upstairs. She offers a candle

In every room. There’s always a letter.

This is the Castle of the soul.

My mother-in-law says intimacy here is hard.

I say I have poems.

I find my next class of beginners.

I learn I am screaming. I step back.

I apologize. I think of fun things to do,

To loosen the fetters in my voice,

The tightening around their hearts.

I try more Carolyn.

I cannot listen to Carolyn now.

Fear teases into a whip

That snaps my heart into a hissing snake.

I watch Madmen. I burst into tears.

Now sits on my shoulders

Like a friend who is too shy to move.

I think am in the fourth mansion, where

Bodies float. Mystical love is a force.

Mystical love is not about need.

Mystical love is God’s grace.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/frustration.jpg



Yet I am holding a snake. I must charm it.

I must not look in its eyes.

In this Castle demons curl my toes

And flick sparks into my reflection.

The refraction started on the lawn in college.

It was finished in Boston. I was nothing but fragments.

No one knows the insides are shattered.

I hold onto this life with unspoken prayers.

I keep it together until I don’t.

My body moves, my voice speaks,

I go to work, pay bills,

And get lost to find my way.

How do I know I am holding on

Until I let go? How do I know when these edges

That frame my soul will sharpen into fine

Shards of glass and those I don’t

Bleed because I cannot feel what’s broken.

I gather now for tomorrow. I get ready to meditate.

I might have to leave the Castle yet my soul

Has learned enough to understand ego’s

Need no longer serves me.

I ask you, how do

I navigate if my lens cannot see

Past mist and shadow?

All I want, is to be touched by grace, in living

In a world where amen is an ending when in truth,

It is only the beginning of many beginnings?

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/whats-the-point-a-poem/

My Lover, Monsanto

My lover, Monsanto,

who owns the garden

who does me well

by choosing the seeds,

is out in the fields,

sweeping the dead

away

so that our love

can grow some more.

Who owns the garden?

my lover, Monsanto,

By Edith Lazenby Trilling

I am someone who loves to share and thrives on being with others. My craft whittles moments into meaning and eases my heart. I learn best by listening. I teach yoga and I write. Life is challenging but simple. My kitties make me happy. My husband is my best friend. Check my blog: edieyoga.wordpress.com

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/whats-the-point-a-poem/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/028.jpg

http://edieyoga.wordpress.com/



who is out in the fields

poisoning the soil

so the food will grow.

Who does me well?

my lover Monsanto of course,

who is out in the fields

as I lie here in waiting

for the August winds

to blow in the September harvest.

“By choosing the seeds,”

my lover Monsanto tells me,

“we take the soil by force,

grow gigantic vegetables,

and feed the entire world.”

Out in the fields still,

my lover Monsanto makes me wait

in our chambers, naked and ready

to ripen, fall, and be carried,

just like the crop,

by the strong hands

that facilitate the harvester.

“Sweeping the dead away,”

my lover Monsanto tells me,

“is easier after the sun

has cooked the bodies down

to a skin so thin

that even the slightest wind

could take them away

if it wanted to.”

“So that our love can grow some more,”

he tells me, stuffing my mouth

with his freshly washed broccoli.

“So that our love can grow some more,”

I echo back, as I devour his corn,

The very thing that replaced

the prairie milkweed,

and emptied the skies

of nearly every, last monarch.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/my-lover-monsanto-and-other-

poems/

Nathan G. Thompson is an activist, writer, and lover of the Earth from St. Paul, Minnesota. A long time member of Clouds in Water Zen Center, he received the dharma name Tokugo (Devotion to Enlightenment) in 2008. He is the author of the spiritual and social justice blog Dangerous Harvests, and has written articles for a variety of online and print publications, including a regular column at the webzine Life as a Human.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/my-lover-monsanto-and-other-poems/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/my-lover-monsanto-and-other-poems/

http://www.turningwheelmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/nathan-thompson-head-shot.jpg

http://dangerousharvests.blogspot.com/

http://lifeasahuman.com/



Session B:

Logics of Empire & Imperialism

What makes empire and imperialism tick? Why are these important concepts for socially engaged Buddhists? Where do our ideas about imperialism converge and diverge? Session Goals:

Explore concepts of empire & imperialism, using classic texts, new analysis, and our own experiences

Learn about the different ways we understand empire Connect imperialism to other issues we care about


How would you define empire or imperialism? (If you don’t know where to start, it’s okay to go look it up to find a definition that makes sense to you, for now!) How do your definitions compare to the dynamics discussed by Andrea Smith, Arundhati Roy, and Dawn & Katie’s introduction? What examples of imperialism do you experience in our world today, and how do these connect with the Three Pillars of White Supremacy that Andrea Smith discusses? In Arundhati Roy’s piece, she describes the conflicts arising as the government of India takes over people’s lands to build dams, displacing tens of millions of people for the “greater common good” of the country. She also mentions foreign investors backing these developments. Who or what do you think is responsible for driving these development-related conflicts? Can you draw a “power map” depicting some of the main groups and interests described in the article, and how they relate to one another? “The Fraud of Jobs” raises questions about whether all people are entitled to basic necessities and a decent standard of living, even if we don’t have jobs. What do you think about this argument? Do you think it would be possible to create a worldwide society where everyone’s needs are met regardless of employment? Do you think this is connected to peace work, or does it seem like a separate issue to you? Tell us more about an issue you care deeply about (like climate change, war, education, prisons, or reproductive justice). How does this issue connect with imperialism?



Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy

Rethinking Women of Color Organizing by Andrea Smith

Reprinted with permission from Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology by INCITE! Women

of Color Against Violence

Scenario #1

A group of women of color come together to organize. An argument ensues about

whether or not Arab women should be included. Some argue that Arab women are

"white" since they have been classified as such in the US census. Another argument

erupts over whether or not Latinas qualify as "women of color," since some may be

classified as "white" in their Latin American countries of origin and/or "pass" as white in

the United States.

Scenario #2

In a discussion on racism, some people argue that Native peoples suffer from less racism

than other people of color because they generally do not reside in segregated

neighborhoods within the United States. In addition, some argue that since tribes now

have gaming, Native peoples are no longer "oppressed."

Scenario #3

A multiracial campaign develops involving diverse communities of color in which some

participants charge that we must stop the black/white binary, and end Black hegemony

over people of color politics to develop a more "multicultural" framework. However, this

campaign continues to rely on strategies and cultural motifs developed by the Black Civil

Rights struggle in the United States.

These incidents, which happen quite frequently in "women of color" or "people of color"

political organizing struggles, are often explained as a consequence of “oppression olympics."

That is to say, one problem we have is that we are too busy fighting over who is more oppressed.

In this essay, I want to argue that these incidents are not so much the result of "oppression

olympics" but are more about how we have inadequately framed "women of color" or "people of

color" politics. That is, the premise behind much "women of color" organizing is that women

from communities victimized by white supremacy should unite together around their shared

oppression. This framework might be represented by a diagram of five overlapping circles, each

marked Native women, Black women, Arab/Muslim women, Latinas, and Asian American

women, overlapping like a Venn diagram.

This framework has proven to be limited for women of color and people of color organizing.

First, it tends to presume that our communities have been impacted by white supremacy in the

same way. Consequently, we often assume that all of our communities will share similar

strategies for liberation. In fact, however, our straregies often run into conflict. For example, one

strategy that many people in US-born communities of color adopt, in order to advance



economically out of impoverished communities, is to join the military. We then become

complicit in oppressing and colonizing communities from other countries. Meanwhile, people

from other countries often adopt the strategy of moving to the United States to advance

economically, without considering their complicity in settling on the lands of indigenous peoples

that are being colonized by the United States.

Consequently, it may be more helpful to adopt an alternative framework for women of color and

people of color organizing. I call one such framework the "Three Pillars of White Supremacy."

This framework does not assume that racism and white supremacy is enacted in a singular

fashion; rather, white supremacy is constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated,

logics. Envision three pillars, one labeled Slavery/Capitalism, another labeled

Genocide/Capitalism, and the last one labeled Orientalism/War, as well as arrows connecting

each of the pillars together.

Slavery/Capitalism

One pillar of white supremacy is the logic of slavery. As Sora Han, Jared Sexton, and Angela P.

Harris note, this logic renders Black people as inherently slaveable -- as nothing more than

property. That is, in this logic of white supremacy, Blackness becomes equated with slaveability.

The forms of slavery may change -- whether it is through the formal system of slavery,

sharecropping, or through the current prison-industrial complex -- but the logic itself has

remained consistent.

This logic is the anchor of capitalism. That is, the capitalist system ultimately commodifies all

workers -- one's own person becomes a commodity that one must sell in the labor market while

the profits of one's work are taken by someone else. To keep this capitalist system in place --

which ultimately commodifies most people -- the logic of slavery applies a racial hierarchy to

this system. This racial hierarchy tells people that as long as you are not Black, you have the

opportunity to escape the commodification of capitalism. This helps people who are not Black to

accept their lot in life, because they can feel that at least they are not at the very bottom of the

racial hierarchy -- at least they are nor property; at least they are not slaveable.

The logic of slavery can be seen clearly in the current prison industrial complex (PIC). While the

PIC generally incarcerates communities of color, it seems to be structured primarily on an anti-

Black racism. That is, prior to the Civil War, most people in prison where white. However, after

the thirteenth amendment was passed -- which banned slavery, except for those in prison -- Black

people previously enslaved through the slavery system were reenslaved through the prison

system. Black people who had been the property of slave owners became state property, through

the conflict leasing system. Thus, we can actually look at the criminalization of Blackness as a

logical extension of Blackness as property.

Genocide/Colonialism

A second pillar of white supremacy is the logic of genocide. This logic holds that indigenous

peoples must disappear. In fact, they must always be disappearing, in order to allow non-

indigenous peoples rightful claim over this land. Through this logic of genocide, non-Native

peoples then become the rightful inheritors of all that was indigenous-land, resources, indigenous

spirituality, or culture. As Kate Shanley notes, Native peoples are a permanent "present absence"



in the US colonial imagination, an "absence" that reinforces, at every turn, the conviction that

Native peoples are indeed vanishing and that the conquest of Native lands is justified. Ella Shoat

and Robert Stam describe this absence as "an ambivalently repressive mechanism [which]

dispels the anxiety in the face of the Indian, whose very presence is a reminder of the initially

precarious grounding of the American nation-state itself .... In a temporal paradox, living Indians

were induced to 'play dead,' as it were, in order to perform a narrative of manifest destiny in

which their role, ultimately, was to disappear."

Rayna Green further elaborates that the current Indian "wannabe" phenomenon is based on a

logic of genocide: non-Native peoples imagine themselves as the rightful inheritors of all that

previously belonged to "vanished" Indians, thus entitling them to ownership of this land. "The

living performance of 'playing Indian' by non-Indian peoples depends upon the physical and

psychological removal, even the death, of real Indians. In that sense, the performance,

purportedly often done out of a stated and implicit love for Indians, is really the obverse of

another well-known cultural phenomenon, 'Indian hating,' as most often expressed in another,

deadly performance genre called 'genocide." After all, why would non-Native peoples need to

play Indian-- which often includes acts of spiritual appropriation and land theft -- if they thought

Indians were still alive and perfectly capable of being Indian themselves? The pillar of genocide

serves as the anchor for colonialism -- it is what allows non-Native peoples to feel they can

rightfully own indigenous peoples' land. It is okay to take land from indigenous peoples, because

indigenous peoples have disappeared.

Orientalism/War

A third pillar of white supremacy is the logic of Orientalism. Orientalism was defined by Edward

Said as the process of the West defining itself as a superior civilization by constructing itself in

opposition to an "exotic" but inferior "Orient." (Here I am using the term "Orientalism" more

broadly than to solely signify what has been historically named as the Orient or Asia.) The logic

of Orientalism marks certain peoples or nations as inferior and as posing a constant threat to the

well-being of empire. These peoples are still seen as "civilizations" -- they are not property or

"disappeared" -- however, they will always be imaged as permanent foreign threats to empire.

This logic is evident in the anti-immigration movements within the United States that target

immigrants of color. It does not matter holy long immigrants of color reside in the United States,

they generally become targeted as foreign threats, particularly during war time. Consequently,

orientalism serves as the anchor for war, because it allows the United States to justify being in a

constant state of war to protect itself from its enemies.

For example, the United States feels entitled to use Orientalist logic to justify racial profiling of

Arab Americans so that it can be strong enough to fight the "war on terror." Orientalism also

allows the United States to defend the logics of slavery and genocide, as these practices enable

the United States to stay "strong enough" to fight these constant wars. What becomes clear then

is what Sora Han states -- the United States is not at war; the United States is war. For the system

of white supremacy to stay in place, the United States must always be at war.

Because we are situated within different logics of white supremacy, we may misunderstand a

racial dynamic if we simplistically try to explain one logic of white supremacy with another

logic. For instance, think about the first scenario that opens this essay: if we simply dismiss



Latino/as or Arab peoples as "white," we fail to understand how a racial logic of Orientalism is

in operation. That is, Latino/as and Arabs are often situated in a racial hierarchy that privileges

them over Black people. However, while Orientalist logic may bestow them some racial

privilege, they are still cast as inferior yet threatening "civilizations" in the United States. Their

privilege is not a signal that they will be assimilated, but that they will be marked as perpetual

foreign threats to the US world order.

Organizing Implications

Under the old but still potent and dominant model, people of color organizing was based on the

notion of organizing around shared victimhood. In this model, however, we see that we are

victims of white supremacy, but complicit in it as well. Our survival strategies and resistance to

white supremacy are set by the system of white supremacy itself. What keeps us trapped within

our particular pillars of white supremacy is that we are seduced with the prospect of being able to

participate in the other pillars. For example, all non-Native peoples are promised the ability to

join in the colonial project of settling indigenous lands. All non-Black peoples are promised that

if they comply, they will not be at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. And Black, Native, Latino,

and Asian peoples are promised that they will economically and politically advance if they join

US wars to spread "democracy." Thus, people of color organizing must be premised on making

strategic alliances with each other, based on where we are situated within the larger political

economy. Thus, for example, Native peoples who are organizing against the colonial and

genocidal practices committed by the US government will be more effective in their struggle if

they also organize against US militarism, particularly the military recruitment of indigenous

peoples to support US imperial wars. If we try to end US colonial practices at home, but support

US empire by joining the military, we are strengthening the state's ability to carry out genocidal

policies against people of color here and all over the world.

This way, our alliances would not be solely based on shared victimization, but where we are

complict in the victimization of others. These approaches might help us to develop resistance

strategies that do not inadvertently keep the system in place for all of us, and keep all of us

accountable. In all of these cases, we would check our aspirations against the aspirations of other

communities to ensure that our model of liberation does not become the model of oppression for

others.

These practices require us to be more viligant in how we may have internalized some of these

logics in our own organizing practice. For instance, much racial justice organizing within the

United States has rested on a civil rights framework that fights for equality under the law. An

assumption behind this organizing is that the United States is a democracy with some flaws, but

is otherwise admirable. Despite the fact that it rendered slaves three-fifths of a person, the US

Constitution is presented as the model document from which to build a flourishing democracy.

However, as Luana Ross notes, it has never been against US law to commit genocide against

indigenous peoples -- in fact, genocide is the law of the country. The United States could not

exist without it. In the United States, democracy is actually the alibi for genocide -- it is the

practice that covers up United States colonial control over indigenous lands.

Our organizing can also reflect anti-Black racism. Recently, with the outgrowth of

"multiculturalism" there have been calls to "go beyond the black/white binary" and include other



communities of color in our analysis, as presented in the third scenario. There are a number of

flaws with this analysis. First, it replaces an analysis of white supremacy with a politics of

multicultural representation; if we just include more people, then our practice will be less racist.

Not true. This model does not address the nuanced structure of white supremacy, such as through

these distinct logics of slavery, genocide, and Orientalism. Second, it obscures the centrality of

the slavery logic in the system of white supremacy, which is based on a black/white binary. The

black/white binary is not the only binary which characterizes white supremacy, but it is still a

central one that we cannot "go beyond" in our racial justice organizing efforts.

If we do not look at how the logic of slaveability inflects our society and our thinking, it will be

evident in our work as well. For example, other communities of color often appropriate the

cultural work and organizing strategies of African American civil rights or Black Power

movements without corresponding assumptions that we should also be in solidarity with Black

communities. We assume that this work is the common "property” of all oppressed groups, and

we can appropriate it without being accountable.

Angela P. Harris and Juan Perea debate the usefulness of the black/white binary in the book,

Critical Race Theory. Perea complains that the black/white binary fails to include the

experiences of other people of color. However, he fails to identify alternative racializing logics to

the black/white paradigm. Meanwhile, Angela P. Harris argues that "the story of 'race' itself is

that of the construction of Blackness and whiteness. In this story, Indians, Asian Americans, and

Latino/as do exist. But their roles are subsidiary to the fundamental binary national drama. As a

political claim, Black exceptionalism exposes the deep mistrust and tensions among American

ethnic groups racialized as nonwhite.”

Let's examine these statements in conversation with each other. Simply saying we need to move

beyond the black/white binary (or perhaps, the "black/nonblack" binary) in US racism obfuscates

the racializing logic of slavery, and prevents us from seeing that this binary constitutes Blackness

as the bottom of a color hierarchy. However, this is not the only binary that fundamentally

constitutes white supremacy. There is also an indigenous/settler binary, where Native genocide is

central to the logic of white supremacy and other non-indigenous people of color also form "a

subsidiary" role. We also face another Orientalist logic that fundamentally constitutes Asians,

Arabs, and Latino/as as foreign threats, requiring the United States to be at permanent war with

these peoples. In this construction, Black and Native peoples play subsidiary roles.

Clearly the black/white binary is central to racial and political thought and practice in the United

States, and any understanding of white supremacy must take it into consideration. However, if

we look at only this binary, we may misread the dynamics of white supremacy in different

contexts. For example, critical race theorist Cheryl Harris's analysis of whiteness as property

reveals this weakness. In Critical Race Theory, Harris contends that whites have a property

interest in the preservation of whiteness, and seek to deprive those who are "tainted" by Black or

Indian blood from these same white property interests. Harris simply assumes that the positions

of African Americans and American Indians are the same, failing to consider US policies of

forced assimilation and forced whiteness on American Indians. These policies have become so

entrenched that when Native peoples make political claims, they have been accused of being

white. When Andrew Jackson removed the Cherokee along the Trail of Tears, he argued that



those who did not want removal were really white. In contemporary times, when I was a non-

violent witness for the Chippewa spearfishers in the late 1980s, one of the more frequent slurs

whites hurled when the Chippewa attempted to exercise their treaty-protected right to fish was

that they had white parents, or they were really white.

Status differences between Blacks and Natives are informed by the different economic positions

African Americans and American Indians have in US society. African Americans have been

traditionally valued for their labor, hence it is in the interest of the dominant society to have as

many people marked "Black," as possible, thereby maintaining a cheap labor pool; by contrast,

American Indians have been valued for the land base they occupy, so it is in the interest of

dominant society to have as few people marked "Indian" as possible, facilitating access to Native

lands. “Whiteness" operates differently under a logic of genocide than it does from logic of

slavery.

Another failure of US-based people of color in organizing is that we often fall back on a "US-

centricism," believing that what is happening "over there" is less important than what is

happening here. We fail to see how the United States maintains the system of oppression here

precisely by tying our allegiances to the interests of US empire "over there."

Heteropatriarchy and White Supremacy

Heteropatriarchy is the building block of US empire. In fact, it is the building block of the

nation-state form of governance. Christian Right authors make these links in their analysis of

imperialism and empire. For example, Christian Right activist and founder of Prison Fellowship

Charles Colson makes the connection between homosexuality and the nation-state in his analysis

of the war on terror, explaining that one of the causes of terrorism is same-sex marriage:

Marriage is the traditional building block of human society, intended both to unite

couples and bring children into the world … There is a natural moral order for the family

… the family, led by a married mother and father, is the best available structure for both

childrearing and cultural health. Marriage is not a private institution designed solely for

the individual gratification of its participants. If we fail to enact a Federal Marriage

Amendment, we can expect not just more family breakdown, but also more criminals

behind bars and more chaos in our streets."

Colson is linking the well-being of US empire to the well-being of the heteropatriarchal family.

He continues:

When radical Islamists see American women abusing Muslim men, as they did in the

Abu Ghraib prison, and when they see news coverage of same-sex couples being

"married" in US towns, we make this kind of freedom abhorrent-the kind they see as a

blot on Allah's creation. We must preserve traditional marriage in order to protect the

United States from those who would use our depravity to destroy us?

As Ann Burlein argues in Lift High the Cross, it may be a mistake to argue that the goal of

Christian Right politics is to create a theocracy in the United States. Rather, Christian Right

politics work through the private family (which is coded as white, patriarchal, and middle class)



to create a "Christian America." She notes that the investment in the private family makes it

difficult for people to invest in more public forms of social connection. In addition, investment in

the suburban private family serves to mask the public disinvestment in urban areas that makes

the suburban lifestyle possible. The social decay in urban areas that results from this

disinvestment is then construed as the result of deviance from the Christian family ideal rather

than as the result of political and economic forces. As former head of the Christian Coalition,

Ralph Reed, states: "'The only true solution to crime is to restore the family," and "Family break-

up causes poverty." Concludes Burlein, "'The family' is no mere metaphor but a crucial

technology by which modern power is produced and exercised.”

As I have argued elsewhere, in order to colonize peoples whose societies are nor based on social

hierarchy, colonizers must first naturalize hierarchy through instituting patriarchy. In turn,

patriarchy rests on a gender binary system in which only two genders exist, one dominating the

other. Consequently, Charles Colson is correct when he says that the colonial world order

depends on heteronormativity. Just as the patriarchs rule the family, the elites of the nation-state

rule their citizens. Any liberation struggle that does not challenge heteronormativity cannot

substantially challenge colonialism or white supremacy. Rather, as Cathy Cohen contends, such

struggles will maintain colonialism based on a politics of secondary marginalization where the

most elite class of these groups will further their aspirations on the backs of those most

marginalized within the community.

Through this process of secondary marginalization, the national or racial justice struggle takes on

either implicitly or explicitly a nation-state model as the end point of its struggle -- a model of

governance in which the elites govern the rest through violence and domination, as well as

exclude those who are not members of "the nation." Thus, national liberation politics become

less vulnerable to being coopted by the Right when we base them on a model of liberation that

fundamentally challenges right-wing conceptions of the nation. We need a model based on

community relationships and on mutual respect.

Conclusion

Women of color-centered organizing points to the centrality of gender politics within antiracist,

anticolonial struggles. Unfortunately, in our efforts to organize against white, Christian America,

racial justice struggles often articulate an equally heteropatriarchal racial nationalism. This

model of organizing either hopes to assimilate into white America, or to replicate it within an

equally hierarchical and oppressive racial nationalism in which the elites of the community rule

everyone else. Such struggles often call on the importance of preserving the "Black family" or

the "Native family" as the bulwark of this nationalist project, the family being conceived of in

capitalist and heteropatriarchal terms. The response is often increased homophobia, with lesbian

and gay community members construed as "threats" to the family. But, perhaps we should

challenge the "concept" of the family itself. Perhaps, instead, we can reconstitute alternative

ways of living together in which "families" are not seen as islands on their own. Certainly,

indigenous communities were not ordered on the basis of a nuclear family structure -- is the

result of colonialism, not the antidote to it.

In proposing this model, I am speaking from my particular position in indigenous struggles.

Other peoples might flesh out these logics more fully from different vantage points. Others might



also argue that there are other logics of white supremacy are missing. Still others might

complicate how they relate to each other. But I see this as a starting point for women of color

organizers that will allow us to reenvision a politics of solidarity that goes beyond

multiculturalism, and develop more complicated strategies that can really transform the political

and economic status quo.

Arundhati Roy on

The Greater Common Good

Arundhati Roy's moving essay, "The Greater Common Good," is rather long, so we're not

including it directly in the Study Guide (you can follow the link below), but it's well worth the

read, if you can find the time. Here's a sample, to give you a sense.

"Many of those who have been resettled [to make way for development] are people who

have lived all their lives deep in the forest with virtually no contact with money and the

modern world. Suddenly they find themselves left with the option of starving to death or

walking several kilometres to the nearest town, sitting in the marketplace (both men and

women), offering themselves as wage labour, like goods on sale.



Instead of a forest from which they gathered everything they needed – food, fuel, fodder,

rope, gum, tobacco, tooth powder, medicinal herbs, housing material – they earn between

ten and twenty rupees a day with which to feed and keep their families. Instead of a river,

they have a hand pump. In their old villages, they had no money, but they were insured.

If the rains failed, they had the forests to turn to. The river to fish in. Their livestock was

their fixed deposit. Without all this, they’re a heartbeat away from destitution.

In Vadaj, a resettlement site I visited near Baroda, the man who was talking to me rocked

his sick baby in his arms, clumps of flies gathered on its sleeping eyelids. Children

collected around us, taking care not to burn their bare skin on the scorching tin walls of

the shed they call a home. The man’s mind was far away from the troubles of his sick

baby. He was making me a list of the fruit he used to pick in the forest. He counted forty-

eight kinds. He told me that he didn’t think he or his children would ever be able to

afford to eat any fruit again. Not unless he stole it. I asked him what was wrong with his

baby. He said it would be better for the baby to die than to have to live like this. I asked

what the baby’s mother thought about that. She didn’t reply. She just stared.”

It’s long (33 pages!) so we didn’t include here, but interested and ambitious studiers can read all

of “The Greater Common Good” online at: http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html

The Fraud of Jobs

by Stephen Fortunato

Lies abound. There are the mostly

benign “white lies” of the insincere

compliment or the fabrication to avoid a

social obligation, and there are the

grander and more poisonous ones that

can shape and undergird an entire

political culture, or at least its dominant

class. Some lies eventually assume the

status of myth or religious doctrine: for

example, the United States is always a force for good in the world; or that favorite of political

panderers: that the common sense and basic decency of the American people will triumph over

any adversity.

A current lie that is as dangerous as it is fantastic, and which mesmerizes the two major

political parties as well as the punditocracy and the public, is that the creation of jobs and

“putting people back to work” is the motivating objective behind all economic policy. This

lie is repeated as a mantra in stump speeches, legislative debates and op-ed pieces in ways that

always mask its deeper and more metaphysical premise that it is only economically productive

http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html

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labor performed for a wage which entitles a person to the resources that will allow for a life of

dignity and contentment. Poverty and privation necessarily become the only alternatives for the

millions of people who perform no such work or are compensated meagerly for the jobs they

have.

Put another way, the managers of the

current economic system — whether it is

called capitalism or globalization — insist

that the unemployed seek jobs even when

not enough exist for everyone and the jobs

that remain available after outsourcing and

automation often pay less than a living

wage. Anyone who has shopped for food

or rented an apartment knows that the

federal minimum wage of $7.25 is a joke

as cruel and fraudulent as the poverty

demarcation line of $23,050 for a family

of four.

The detritus of the departed manufacturing

base is observable everywhere in the form

of abandoned factories, desolate towns and

aisles in megastores filled with imported

goods, most of them shoddy. And the

assault on human labor by automation and robotics is ubiquitous as well, from the self- checkout

scanners that convert customers into unpaid replacement employees to the cranes and containers

in our ports that have decimated the ranks of longshoremen.

This state of affairs, with cybernetic machinery

relentlessly displacing workers, was predicted more

than a half-century ago by economists and social critics

in a sadly ignored document titled The Triple

Revolution (full text available at

www.educationanddemocracy.org) which was

submitted to President Lyndon Johnson and other

political leaders. Its conclusion that work as it had been

known for centuries was changing qualitatively because

of technological innovation should be no surprise when

the core principles of capitalism are considered. The

animating force of free enterprise is the maximization of profits but this is no more a moral

precept than its corollary of minimizong the costs of production. Because labor is usually the

major cost of any capitalist enterprise and therefore an impediment to profit growth, the

elimination of this “problem” through locating a cheaper labor supply or, better still,

by substituting a machine for workers suits the capitalists’ goals just fine.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/job-creationism/www.educationanddemocracy.org



It should not be forgotten that for more than two centuries the United States economy, as well as

that of other empires, was built largely by slaves, the classic unpaid labor force. Today, modern

forms of wage slavery in such places as China, India, Mexico, and the United States — for

agricultural and menial workers — is the model applauded by contemporary economic

buccaneers who, far from being the job creators their political apologists claim they are, employ

every opportunity to exploit, and ultimately eliminate, labor.

Nowhere in the capitalist universe is there anything approximating the Buddhist precepts to save

all sentient beings and to act with compassion toward all including one’s self. Nowhere in the

capitalist universe are there found any rudimentary notions of social justice as taught by all of

history’s prophets and poets.

So the Big Lie is that everybody is obliged to contribute toward production, though jobs

are too few and many pay inadequate wages, or else face a marginalized existence of

poverty and privation. And a significant footnote to the Big Lie is that production can be of

anything, regardless of social benefit and even if the methods of production degrade the

environment or endanger the worker, or both. The Lie, once exposed, thus presents the question:

What must be done?

The answer must be explored along two channels: individual and social. Individually, through

meditation and activities with the sangha, or other small groups, an awareness arises that lasting

contentment comes not through the accumulation of things inspired by advertisers manipulating

desires, but rather through simple joys like

cooking, gardening, making art, or

activism. The simple, non-acquisitive life is

something taught by the Buddha and modern

guides such as Thich Nhat Hanh, and sages

from other times and places as well, from

Horace and Seneca, to Ryokan and Thoreau,

to Dorothy Day and Helen Nearing.

To address the question of the political and

plutocratic demand that work is an absolute



prerequisite for sustenance, if not survival, is more difficult; but there is a growing movement

pressing for a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) which would, in essence, provide each individual

with an annual government stipend without any work or means-test requirement.(See,e.g.,

www.usbig.net and www.basicincome.org.) Though current political discourse would lead one

to think otherwise, the United States committed to the notion of BIG in theory when it signed the

United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Article 25 of that international

agreement provides that governments must assure that all people have

a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself [sic] and of his [sic]

family,” and declared importantly that this minimum must be guaranteed even when a

person experienced a “lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his [sic] control.

Needless to say, the BIG contemplates a

significant rearrangement of budgetary

priorities, not to mention a tectonic shift in

political consciousness and will. Surely the

megabillion defense budget requiring bases

and the stockpiling of weapons of mass

destruction along with personnel, public and

private, to maintain the Empire will have to

be cut back; and a tax system that

encourages the concentration of great

fortunes in the hands of a few while

necessary services like education and fire

protection are curtailed must be

reconfigured. And activists, whether in Occupy and Living Wage organizations, or the Buddhist

Peace Fellowship, must educate the public and their elected leaders about the obvious: among

the vaunted, inalienable rights that inhere in all people are the rights to food, shelter,

healthcare, and a dignified existence allowing for educational and spiritual growth,

regardless of any so-called productive labor performed at a “job.”

Some may object that these demands are utopian. My response can only be that the prevailing

ludicrous insistence that people obtain jobs that do not exist — or which are being phased out

into oblivion — is a cruel fabrication that will result in nothing but the continued dystopian

consequences of poverty, marginalization, and oppression.

Stephen Fortunato was a trial judge on the Rhode Island

Superior Court for thirteen years after serving as a civil

rights lawyer for more than two decades. He has been a

Zen practitioner for at least forty years.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/job-creationism/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/job-creationism/www.usbig.net

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/job-creationism/www.basicincome.org

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/job-creationism/

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Session C:

Challenging Power; Taking Action

What can we do in the face of empire? What actions are effective in challenging its power? Using three examples - a picket of a Yoga Journal conference held in a boycotted hotel, a letter to mindfulness proponent and Goldman Sachs/Exxon Mobil board member William George, and a DC rally against the Keystone XL pipeline - we will explore strategy and tactics in political organizing. Session Goals:

Strengthen political organizing skills by analyzing strategy & tactics for actions Learn about group members’ preferences for different kinds of action


Why do you think spiritual activists chose William George, Yoga Journal, and President Obama as the targets for their actions? Are these effective and appropriate targets? Describe the strategy and tactics used in these three examples. Do you think they were effective in achieving a goal? What other strategies or tactics might you try? What next steps would you suggest? How could you harness not just your individual power, but the power of collective action? What kinds of actions have you participated in? How were the strategies and tactics used similar or different than these actions? As Buddhists and spiritual activists, do we understand the effectiveness of compassionate actions in terms of material successes (i.e. stop the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline) and in other ways, as well? How do we balance these inner and outer, personal and social transformations?

Best tactics for

our strategy?

Writing a

letter

Putting my body

on the line Participating in a

mass rally

Strike!

Boycott



Can Mindfulness Change a Corporation?

The letter that follows is self-

explanatory. Last October I sent

it to Mr. George three different

ways – to two email accounts

and by post to his office.

Unfortunately, he has not

responded, so after some

deliberation I’ve decided to

express my concerns publicly.

I want to emphasize that the

issue is not personal: that is, I’m

not attacking Mr. George

himself, who (according to what

I’ve read and heard about him)

seems to be a nice, well-intentioned fellow. The basic problem, it seems to me, is that one can be

well-intentioned and yet play an objectionable role in an economic system that has become

unjust and unsustainable – in fact, a challenge to the well-being of all life on this planet. Mr.

George is an important figure in the “mindfulness in business” movement: as well as being a

professor in Harvard’s MBA program, he has written some influential books that emphasize the

importance of ethics and mindfulness in the marketplace. His position therefore highlights some

concerns I have about the role of the “mindfulness movement,” and also has broad implications

for socially engaged Buddhism generally. I’ve written elsewhere about the fact that today the

traditional “three poisons” of greed, aggression, and delusion have become institutionalized as

our economic system, militarism, and the media. If so, what does that imply for our engaged

Buddhist practice?

David R. Loy

www.davidloy.org

16 October 2012

William George

George Family Office

1818 Oliver Ave.

S. Minneapolis, Minnesota 55405

Dear Mr. George,

We haven’t met, but I’m taking the liberty of contacting you because you are in a position to

contribute in a valuable way to an important debate that is developing within the Buddhist

http://www.davidloy.org/



community in North America. (I’m a professor of Buddhist and comparative philosophy, and

also a Zen student/teacher.)

The UK Financial Times magazine of August 25‐26 included an article on “The Mind Business”

that begins: “Yoga, meditation, ‘mindfulness’… Some of the west’s biggest companies are

embracing eastern spirituality – as a path which can lead to bigger profits.” You are mentioned

on p. 14.

William George, a current Goldman Sachs board member and a former chief executive of the

healthcare giant Medtronic, started meditating in 1974 and never stopped. Today, he is one of the

main advocates for bringing meditation into corporate life, writing articles on the subject for the

Harvard Business Review. “The main business case for meditation is that if you’re fully present

on the job, you will be more effective as a leader, you will make better decisions and you will

work better with other people,” he tells me [the author, David Gelles]. “I tend to live a very busy

life. This keeps me focused on what’s important.”

I was initially struck by your position (since 2002) as a board member of Goldman Sachs, one of

the largest and most controversial investment banks. Researching online, I learned that you have

also been on the corporate board of Exxon Mobil since 2005 and Novartis since 1999. I also read

that you participated in a “Mind & Life” conference with the Dalai Lama and Yongey Mingyur

Rinpoche, on “Compassion and Altruism in Economic Systems.” These discoveries led to my

decision to contact you, in order to get your perspective on what is becoming a crucial issue for

Western Buddhists.

The debate within American Buddhism focuses on how much is lost if mindfulness as a

technique is separated from other important aspects of the Buddhist path, such as precepts,

community practice, awakening, and living compassionately. Traditional Buddhism understands

all these as essential parts of a spiritual path that leads to personal transformation. More recently,

there is also concern about the social implications of Buddhist teachings, especially given our

collective ecological and economic situation. The Buddha referred to the “three poisons” of

greed, ill will, and delusion as unwholesome motivations that cause suffering, and some of my

own writing argues that today those three poisons have become institutionalized, taking on a life

of their own.

I do not know how your meditation practice has affected your personal life, nor, for that matter,

what type of meditation or mindfulness you practice. Given your unique position, my questions

are: how has your practice influenced your understanding of the social responsibility of large

corporations such as Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil? And what effects has your practice had

personally on your advisory role within those corporations?

Those questions are motivated by the controversial – I would say problematical – role of those

two corporations recently in light of the various ecological, economic, and social crises facing us

today. As you know, the pharmaceutical giant Novartis has also received much criticism. (In

2006 Novartis tried to stop India developing affordable generic drugs for poor people; in 2008

the FDA warned it about deceptive advertising of focalin, an ADHD drug; in 2009 Novartis

declined to follow the example of GlaxoSmithKline and offer free flu vaccines to poor people in



response to a flu epidemic; in May 2010 a jury awarded over $253 million in compensatory and

punitive damages for widespread sexual discrimination, a tentative settlement that may increase

to almost $1 billion; in September 2010 Novartis paid $422.5 million in criminal and civil claims

for illegal kickbacks.) However, my main interest is with your role on the corporate board of

Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil, and how your meditation practice may or may not have

influenced that.

Since you have been on the

Goldman Sachs board for a

decade, you are no doubt

very aware of the

controversies that have

dogged it for many years, and

especially since the financial

meltdown of 2008. There are

so many examples that one

hardly knows where to begin.

In July 2010 Goldman paid a

record $550 million to settle

an SEC civil lawsuit, but that

is only the tip of the iceberg.

In April 2011 a Senate

Subcommittee released an

extensive report on the

financial crisis alleging that

Goldman Sachs appeared to have misled investors and profited from the mortgage market

meltdown. The chairman of that subcommittee, Carl Levin, referred this report to the Justice

Department for possible prosecution; later he expressed disappointment when the Justice

Department declined to do so, and said that Goldman’s “actions were deceptive and immoral.”

Perhaps this relates to an ongoing issue: a “revolving door” relationship with the federal

government, in which many senior employees move in and out of high‐level positions, which has

led to numerous charges of conflict of interest. It may be no coincidence that Goldman Sachs

was the single largest contributor to Obama’s campaign in 2008.

In July 2011 a suit to fire all the members of Goldman’s board – including you – for improper

behavior during the financial crisis was thrown out of court, for lack of evidence.

Controversy ignited again this year when a senior Goldman employee, Greg Smith, published an

OpEd piece in the New York Times on “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs” (March 14, 2012),

writing that “the environment [at Goldman Sachs] now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever

seen it.” He blames poor leadership for a drastic decline in its moral culture – which is especially

interesting, given your own teaching emphasis on the importance of leadership. In just the few

months since that OpEd, however, Goldman has been fined in the UK for manipulating oil

prices, and in separate U.S. cases has paid $22 million for favoring select clients, $16 million for

a pay-to-play scheme, $12 million for improper campaign donations, and $6.75 million to settle



claims about how it handled option claims. Such fines seem to be acceptable as simply another

cost of business, rather than a spur to change how the company conducts business.

Please understand that I’m not criticizing you for these illegal activities. Being on the board, you

are not usually involved in day-to-day management. However, I would like to know how you

view the “toxic environment” at Goldman Sachs, and the larger social responsibilities of such a

powerful firm, in light of your own meditation practice. And since you have been on the

Goldman board since 2002, how do you understand the responsibility of a board member in such

a situation, and what role have you been able to play in affecting its problematical culture?

I am also curious about

your position as a board

member of ExxonMobil

since 2005. It is

reportedly the world’s

largest corporation ever,

both by revenue and

profits. According to a

2012 article in The

Daily Telegraph, it has

also “grown into one of

the planet’s most hated

corporations, able to

determine American foreign policy and the fate of entire nations.” It is regularly criticized for

risky drilling practices in endangered areas, poor response to oil spills (such as the Exxon Valdez

in 1989), illegal foreign business practices, and especially its leading role in funding climate

change denial.

ExxonMobil was instrumental in founding the first skeptic groups, such as the Global Climate

Coalition. In 2007 a Union of Concerned Scientists report claimed that between 1998 and 2005

ExxonMobil spent $16 million supporting 43 organizations that challenged the scientific

evidence for global warming, and that it used disinformation tactics similar to those used by the

tobacco industry to deny any link between smoking and lung problems, charges consistent with a

leaked 1998 internal ExxonMobil memo.

In January 2007 the company seemed to change its position and announced that it would stop

funding some climate-denial groups, but a July 2009 Guardian newspaper article revealed that it

still supports lobbying groups that deny climate change, and a 2011 Carbon Brief study

concluded that 9 out of 10 climate scientists who deny climate change have ties to ExxonMobil.

Even more important, the corporation’s belated and begrudging acknowledgement that global

change is happening has not been accompanied by any determination to change company

policies to address the problem. Although there has been some recent funding for research into

biofuels from algae, ExxonMobil has not moved significantly in the direction of renewable

sources of energy such as solar and wind power. According to its 2012 Outlook for Energy: A

View to 2040, petroleum and natural gas will remain its main products: “By 2040, oil, gas and



coal will continue to account for about 80 percent of the world’s energy demand” (p. 46). This is

despite the fact that many of the world’s most reputable climate scientists are claiming that there

is already much too much carbon in the atmosphere, and that we are perilously close to “tipping

points” that would be disastrous for human civilization as we know it.

In response to this policy, I would like to learn how, in the light of your meditation practice, you

understand the relationship between one’s own personal transformation and the kind of economic

and social transformation that appears to be necessary today, if we are to survive and thrive

during the next few critical centuries. How does your concern for future generations express

itself in your activities as a board member of these corporations (among others)? Are you

yourself skeptical about global warming? If not, how do you square that with your role at

ExxonMobil?

Let me conclude by emphasizing again that this letter is not in any way meant to be a personal

criticism. From what I have read and heard, you are generous with your time and money, helping

many nonprofits in various ways. What I’m concerned about is the “compartmentalization” of

one’s meditation practice, so that mindfulness enables us to be more effective and productive in

our work, and provides some peace of mind in our hectic lives, but does not encourage us to

address the larger social problems that both companies (for example) are contributing to. Today

the economic and political power of such corporations is so great that, unless they became more

socially responsible, it is difficult to be hopeful about what the future holds for our grandchildren

and their grandchildren.

What is the role of a corporate board member in critical times such as ours? I would much

appreciate your reflections and your experience on this issue.

Sincerely yours,

David Loy

646 Quince Circle

Boulder, CO 80304

www.davidloy.org

David Robert Loy is a professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the

Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. His writings

and workshops often focus on the interaction between traditional

Buddhism and the modern world, especially the social implications

of the Buddhadharma.

Top photo: Blue board room by zen Sutherland

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/can-mindfulness-change-a-

corporation/



http://www.flickr.com/photos/zen/3880484715/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/can-mindfulness-change-a-corporation/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/can-mindfulness-change-a-corporation/



Are Justice and Enlightenment

Incompatible? The Yoga Journal / Hyatt

Controversy

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks*

Yoga Journal’s recent decision to hold a conference at the SF Hyatt Regency, despite an ongoing

union-led boycott of the hotel chain, has prompted some spiritual activists to pipe up —

Buddhists included.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/hyatt-yoga-journal-signs.jpg



Can Crossing A Picket Line Be Right Action?

Advocating for a model of business that can “align with our deeper, spiritually-based values and

ethics,” Nathan Thompson of Dangerous Harvests shares some facts and figures challenging

YJ’s claim that they “couldn’t afford” to break their Hyatt contract and change locations to

support the workers’ struggle. Hyatt Hotels Corp doesn’t get a pass, either. As an alternative,

Nathan points to possibilities of grassroots conferences, maintaining that “in addition to resisting

injustice, more of us have to embody and create the liberated, just world we desire.”

Writer and acupuncturist Rona Luo observes,

“prob is we don’t identify as workers anymore…

picketing workers are a ‘they’ rather than a ‘we.’”

Indeed, not only are many yogis workers, but some

Hyatt workers also have yoga practices of their

own. They joined a group of Bay Area practitioners

who took their asanas to the picket line to

demonstrate compassion through solidarity.

Cyber-side, as well, scholar-activist and dharma

student Be Scofield has created an online pledge to

help supporters from all over encourage YJ to

respect the boycott in 2014, if it is still in place.

The pushback seems to be working on some level,

as celebrity teachers like Seane Corn have publicly

vowed not to join next year’s conference if it means

crossing a picket line.

Although Yoga Journal itself has not significantly

changed its position, they seem to be grappling, at

least somewhat, with the alleged hypocrisy. How can a wellness industry undermine workers’

struggles for safer job conditions?

And yet, yoga is more than a wellness industry, isn’t it? It’s a spiritual path. And herein lies a

deeper question; one familiar and acutely relevant to political Buddhists. Does a spirituality of

acceptance and non-preference, of liberation from suffering, have something to say about

justice? About good and evil, wrongdoing and rightdoing?

Transcendantal Demonstrations

Commentator Eric Walrabenstein, quoted in a Yoga Dork article highlighted by dharma

practitioner and political comedian Manish Vaidya, lays out his take on the paradox:

Dear Yoga Friends,

http://networkedblogs.com/HpOWE

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/01/18/labor-supporters-make-progress-yoga-community-hotel-boycott

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14456/bad_karma_at_hyatt_regency_san_francisco/

https://www.facebook.com/events/449818455071581/

http://yogadork.com/news/hyatt-boycott-doesnt-stop-sf-yoga-journal-conference-should-yogis-rally/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/class-war-kitteh-yoga-journal-hyatt.jpg



Let me start out by saying that I do in fact care about the disenfranchised. I do work to

see a more just and compassionate world. And if I were in charge of the Yoga Journal

conference, I would very likely change venues in support of those who are seeking a fair

shake from the global giant Hyatt.

And thus, I stand shoulder to shoulder

with those who are voicing their

disappointment in Yoga Journal for

deciding to hold their conference at the

San Francisco Hyatt.

But I do so in the name of this

opinionated and imperfect character Eric

Walrabenstein—not in the name of yoga.

Certainly not.

To voice our outrage about Yoga

Journal’s decision to on the basis of

yoga—or their affiliation with it—is to,

frankly, not understand the purpose, or practice, of yoga. And quite colossally so.

Here’s the thing:

-Yoga is not about standing up for what’s right, while going to war with what’s wrong.

It’s about transcending right and wrong all together.

-Yoga is not about aligning ourselves with those who do good and against those who do

not.

It’s about being liberated from the self all together.

-Yoga is not about standing up and fixing the problems of the world.

It’s about sitting down and seeing the innate perfection that has always already been.

This war against reality is the ego’s game, not yoga’s—and certainly not your truest

self’s.

So, by all means stand up for the causes that you believe in: Rail against injustice, fight

for the disenfranchised, champion the good and assault the bad. It is your right, and some

would argue your responsibility, to make this world a better place in which to live.

But please don’t drag yoga into your war against God’s perfection.

Yoga is about creating unconditional stillness; yoga is about accessing the perfection of

what is; yoga is about recognizing who you truly are—beyond the one filled with outrage

and self-righteousness.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/seane-corn-hyatt-boycott.jpg



If you wish to truly do something in the name of yoga, sit, breathe, and smile.

Love & blessings…

E

P.S. I have no doubt that this idea will ruffle a great many feathers; particularly those of

the spiritualized, feel-good crowd who confuse temporarily satiated egos for some sort of

spiritual progress. I understand. I get pissed at things too, whilst trying to remind myself

that this too is part of the inherent perfection of what is.

Sound familiar, BPFers? It’s one of the thematic questions we’ll continue to revisit throughout

the year in The System Stinks: how do we accept the world as it is, and fight like hell to

change it?

There’s no easy answer (which is why it’s a great question to keep coming back to!), but dharma

teacher Mushim Ikeda shared some relevant insights yesterday:

The Buddha said, “Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by non-hatred alone is healed.” Gil

Fronsdal, Buddhist teacher and translator, has said the word “love” in English is not a

good translation of the Buddhist term for “non-hatred.” I have been meditating for many

years now on how agape (Christian term) or metta (Buddhist term), which both mean

unconditional loving friendliness, is a stance of non-hatred and a way of being that is

nonviolent. Can we envision a love that is not in any way personal or conditioned or

conditional? I believe that was what Dr. King was pointing towards; when we are able to

directly tap into the realm of the Unconditioned, there is enormous, unending power and

energy to keep moving forward toward what is good, what is beneficial, what is wise, and

what is compassionate — and, I think, what is JUST.

When we remember how to dwell in a way of nondualism, we may find ourselves becoming

intimate with unconditional love. And though I tend to agree with Be Scofield that this

unconditional love is probably ethically neutral, I think it can spur us to think and to act for what

is just. To try our best, for the good of all beings. To keep discovering what “the good of all

beings” might actually mean. To work with the details, the minutiae, the history, nuances, the

practicalities of choices and change.

Take the opening poem of this post, widely credited to Rumi. The words are beautiful. They

speak to anatta, no-self. To the unconditional love that can exist there. (There which is nowhere

and everywhere.) And the love I feel from this poem inspires me to learn about the route by

which it comes to me. Which, as it turns out, has to do with the controversial “translations” of

Rumi’s work by the non-Persian-literate, English-language poet Coleman Barks. What the Sufi

poet Rumi actually wrote may be very different from the words I read, from the works that sell

so well in the U.S. today. And this matters. It is political. It relates to human history, to our

ancestors, to colonization, imperialism, and orientalism. Not saying it’s right or wrong (that

would be a post for a different day), but just saying: It Has A Political Existence. One that

deserves some investigation.

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/our-work/training-and-education/the-system-stinks/

https://www.facebook.com/mushim.ikeda/posts/590204781006370

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/11/15/why-the-dalai-lama-is-wrong-to-think-meditation-will-eliminate-violence/

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/11/15/why-the-dalai-lama-is-wrong-to-think-meditation-will-eliminate-violence/

http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/979/found_in_translation__how_a_thirteenth_century_islamic_poet_conquered_america

http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/979/found_in_translation__how_a_thirteenth_century_islamic_poet_conquered_america



And skillful investigation doesn’t mean selectively scrounging for convenient examples to back

up our beliefs. As Mushim reminds us through her thought-diversity work, and as many a good

scientist will tell you, investigating well means being open to data that might contradict our

opinions. Facts that might complicate our view of things. Even in the case of the Hyatt boycott,

for example, it’s not clear to me that the Unite Here union is a hero in this fight. Unions are no

panacea in class war, and counter-claims by Hyatt that this union is not interested in fully

representing all Hyatt workers might have some truth to them. While honoring righteousness,

let’s not be satisfied with reductive approaches.

Perhaps the spiritual does not need to be separate from the mundane, from the political. Perhaps

the spiritual can help guide us in approaching the mundane, the political, with loving attention,

thoughtfulness, courage, enthusiasm, and openness to discovering new truths within the

specifics.

Beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. This makes me wonder: was this field once a

commons? Has it been privatized in a racist capitalist land grab?

Katie Loncke, born in Sacramento, California, and now living in

Oakland, is the curly granddaughter of Negros and Jewish

refugees. She started organizing in high school with a Lesbian

Gay Straight Alliance, and currently organizes with workers,

tenants, and homeowners in a solidarity network. Following her

graduation from Harvard, the Cambridge Insight Meditation

Center offered Katie a warm, life-altering introduction to

Buddhism. Her writing on Buddhism and politics has appeared in

The Jizo Chronicles, The Buddhist Channel, make/shift

magazine, Flip Flopping Joy, and Feministe, as well as her personal blog, Kloncke.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/are-justice-and-enlightenment-

incompatible-the-yoga-journal-hyatt-controversy/

BPFer Dharma Talk On DC Climate Change Rally (Audio)

BPFer Taigen Dan Leighton of Chicago kindly shared with us his dharma talk reporting back

from the Forward On Climate Change rally last week. Have a listen! Lots of useful information,

including in the Q&A discussion at the end. (Sorry, we don’t have a transcript for this one…)

From Dan himself:

This was a rally opposing development of the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been

described by NASA scientist and leading climatologist James Hansen as “game-over” for

climate change.

http://www.cimc.info/index.html

http://www.cimc.info/index.html

http://www.kloncke.com/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/are-justice-and-enlightenment-incompatible-the-yoga-journal-hyatt-controversy/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/are-justice-and-enlightenment-incompatible-the-yoga-journal-hyatt-controversy/

http://audio.ancientdragon.org/20130218DT_ADZG_climate_change.mp3



Close to 50,000 people attended from all over the country to urge President Obama to

block this pipeline. I decided to participate and took a 12 hour overnight bus ride

Saturday evening to get there, and a 12 hour overnight bus ride back to Chicago Sunday

night, organized by the Sierra Club, because this seems to me the key moral issue of this

time. The future of our species, if not a habitable planet, is at stake.

A crucial point about the Keystone

XL pipeline issue specifically is

that the decision does not depend

on congress, or the Supreme

Court, but solely on President

Obama and Secretary of State

Kerry. As a leading scholar of

Fossil Fuel has said, “Presidential

decisions often turn out to be far

less significant than imagined, but

every now and then what a

president decides actually

determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline,

which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil on the planet from

Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. It could determine the fate of the

Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being of the planet.”

It is crucial for all future generations that we pressure our government and policy makers

to adopt a sane energy policy that addresses the climate change happening around the

world, and shifts rapidly from fossil fuel to sustainable energy sources. We still have time

to lessen the suffering now arising from climate and environmental damage.

As [350.org] founder Bill McKibben has carefully documented, the business plan of the

fossil fuel industry will certainly release far, far more carbon into the atmosphere in the

next several decades than will sustain human life. He has likened this industry to the

Tobacco industry, and now along with the Sierra Club is organizing to stop the Keystone

XL pipeline; and also to encourage universities and other institutions to follow the

successful example of divestment from South Africa, and stop investments in the fossil

fuel industry, and eliminate all such investments over five years.

My talk below includes much more detail about Sunday’s demonstration.

President Obama will face great pressure from the extremely wealthy fossil fuel industry,

but if you want to support and encourage President Obama to stop the Keystone Pipeline,

please call The White House comment line at 202-456-1111; submit comments

at www.whitehouse.gov/contact; or write: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

NW, Washington, DC 20500.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/bpfer-dharma-tal-on-dc-

climate-change-rally/

http://350.org/

http://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse?group_id=0

tel:202-456-1111

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/bpfer-dharma-tal-on-dc-climate-change-rally/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/bpfer-dharma-tal-on-dc-climate-change-rally/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/keystone-XL-rally.jpg



From “Action Strategy: a how-to guide”

The Ruckus Society defines direct action as the

strategic use of immediately effective acts to achieve a

political or social end and challenge an unjust power

dynamic.

Usually, actions take place within campaigns, and

campaigns take place within social movements. A

social movement is made up of different

groups, networks, and individuals moving toward

similar systemic goals. Social movements are powerful

because their impact is greater than the sum of their

parts. If your actions and campaigns synergize

and align with others, it can create exponential change.

Smart actions and campaign strategies complement the

campaigns other groups are working on and amplify

impact. Remember, no campaign operates in a vacuum,

and your work or actions will impact and be impacted

by the work of many others.

Many campaigns start with investigating the problem and setting goals. Education, such as

hosting workshops, often comes next. Early on, campaigns also engage in organization

building, forming alliances with new allies, establishing a group, and recruiting members.

Groups often negotiate with the target in the hope of easily reaching an agreement. Campaigns

then tend to start using low-level confrontational tactics, such as speaking at city meetings or

wheat pasting. High-level confrontational tactics and resource intensive actions follow, such as

rallies, lawsuits, and civil disobedience. Campaigns usually subside when a group negotiates a

deal with the target, although it’s common for groups to reapply pressure to ensure the agreement

is implemented. This handout is about the confrontational actions that occur in the middle of a

campaign.

Strategy: A smart strategy considers the goals, niche, and capacity of your group. For

instance, a student group might want to achieve the goal of helping pass legislation to reduce

student debt. The group decides their strategy will consist of a series of direct actions targeting

elected offcials across the state. They decide upon this strategy because a) the group is skilled at

organizing actions, b) they want to organize with student groups across the region, and c) other

groups in the state are lobbying and taking to the courts to pass the law. This group is embracing

its tactical niche.



Smart strategies are consistent and responsive

to change. Consistency lets you build upon

your efforts. For example, a company boycott

grows powerful if a group’s tactics are all

about executing the boycott, from sending a

letter to a company’s customers to protesting

at the retail outlets of one high profile

customer. A group’s energy becomes too

diffuse if members are running the boycott

AND trying to pass legislation. Our actions

should be in keeping with our strategy, and

the work we and others have done before this

time, and intend to do moving forward.

On the other hand, it is critical you

continually meet and reassess the

effectiveness of a strategy, asking questions

like 'is this the best thing we can do with our

time?', and 'what new political developments

or changes are affecting our work?'

If we don’t have the resources or time to execute a complete strategy, then we can choose to

collaborate with other groups and together execute a strategy.

Actions have a target. A target is often the group or people who have considerable power

over the issue and who are actively opposing you, such as a mining company. But the actions in

your campaigns are not just about pressuring your target; campaigning is also about building

relationships with other stakeholders affected by or involved in the issue. The “Spectrum of

Allies” diagram (which was created by Training for Change) is a useful aid to help us identify

and assess the stakeholders involved in an issue. When identifying stakeholders, be as specific as

you can, identifying both groups and influential individuals.

Most groups choose one or two priority stakeholders to “move” in a campaign. It’s a positive

thing when a stakeholder moves even a little closer to our side. We might prioritize a stakeholder

because they don’t get a lot of attention from other allies, we already have some credibility with

or access to them, or we know they’re sympathetic to direct action tactics. When designing an

action, it’s useful to ask how will our action affect and involve these stakeholders? Who are we

targeting? Will our action help us do outreach to, recruit or partner with groups that share (or

could share) our strategic priorities? Remember, some actions might unintentionally move key

groups in the opposite direction.

It is sometimes wise for tactic ideas to be discussed with other groups. It is considered respectful

for frontline or impacted communities to have some influence over the goals and tactics of

groups working on campaigns that affect their daily lives. For example, some members of the

Grassy Narrows First Nation were concerned they would experience greater harassment from

Vision: the way we think the world should be. Visions are big-picture, transformative, compelling, and deep. E.g., We envision a Canada where First Nations have the right to say “no” to industrial activity on their land. Campaign goal: what we think we can achieve to solve our problem. E.g., End unwanted logging by Weyerhaeuser on the territory of the Grassy Narrows First Nation. Campaign strategy: our plan to get from point A (where we’re at now) to our goal. E.g., Boycott campaign against Weyerhaeuser. Action: a tactic taken to execute our strategy. E.g., Protest outside an Office Max store to encourage people to buy elsewhere (as Office Max buys Weyerhaeuser paper).



residents at the nearby town following a blockade of the TransCanada Highway to draw attention

to unwanted logging on their land. As a result, community members asked non-Native allies to

be spokespeople at the blockade to divert blame and attention from Native organizers.

Case Study: SNCC

In 1964 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

(SNCC) was a major driver of the civil rights movement,

and at the time they were registering black voters in the

South. SNCC found they had a lot of passive allies who

were students in the North: they were sympathetic but

had no entryway into the movement. SNCC sent busses

up North to bring folks down to participate in the

struggle for the summer through organizing and action.

It was called Freedom Summer. Locally, SNCC collaborated with other allies in church groups

and others to make sure that the influx of outsiders reinforced their work and didn’t jeopardize it.

Students came down in droves and for the first time witnessed lynching, violent police abuse,

and angry white mobs—all simply for trying to vote. So a shift happened – a large group of

passive allies became active allies. Then they wrote letters home to mom and dad, who suddenly

had a personal connection to the struggle. So another shift happened: their parents became

passive allies. And they brought their workplace and social networks with them. Some of those

students went back to school in the fall and proceeded to organize their campuses. More shifts.

The cascading waterfall of support helped turn the tide in the struggle, all because of a strategic

set of actions. The landscape in the U.S. changed.

Full guide available: http://ruckus.org/article.php?id=821

http://ruckus.org/article.php?id=821



Session D:

Resisting Empire and Domination in our Groups

Without conscious effort to make them otherwise, our study groups can be a microcosm of the larger dynamics of empire and domination that exist in our world. How do we prepare ourselves to name and dismantle the unequal power dynamics that will show up in our groups - especially those painful institutionalized forms of inequality, like racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism? How do we learn to challenge each other with debate, while being open and welcoming to a diversity of perspectives? How can our experiences in an engaged Buddhism study group be a “friendly laboratory” for transforming how we interact with groups in the world? Session Goals:

Agree to group guidelines or ground rules that resist domination Explore different forms of oppression and domination


What guidelines do you find helpful in a successful discussion group? Looking at the list of guidelines our group has generated, which ones might privilege dominant perspectives? Is there a way to reframe them? We all live within a matrix of oppression, on some dimensions we experience unearned privilege while on other dimensions we experience oppression. Dimensions like disability, race, class, sexual orientation, gender, immigration status, & age. Which of these are you familiar with, from personal experience and/or study? Which ones do you want to learn more about so you can contribute to this group being more inclusive? How do you feel about debate? Being open to a diversity of perspectives? How do these relate to feelings and experiences you have around confrontation, anger and vulnerability? How will the group balance the more reticent and the more talkative members? How will group time be distributed? Are there differences between some who prefer discursive conversation to more feeling-oriented conversation? How can the group work with this?



Study Group Guidelines

On the surface, organizing a gathering to

discuss shared readings may seem simple, but

complexities are bound to arise. There are no

real safe havens of comfortable conversation;

toxic culture permeates everywhere, often in

subtle ways. Our particular theme is

tricky. Though the characterization of a

“stinking system” is somewhat playful, the

harms of systemic violence and structures of

domination are real, and as we gather together

to study them, we may find ourselves coming

face to face with unpleasantness and

pain. This is no reason to be discouraged,

though: difficulties can be part of learning for

liberation, along with times of joy and ease in

collective discovery.

Many groups find it helpful to establish a set

of guidelines or ground rules about how the

group will communicate with each other. A

good exercise during your first meeting would

be to talk about guidelines that feel important

to you within the group. We offer these

guidelines as a starting point for encouraging

positive connection within study groups, and

we hope they may help all of us feel better

equipped and more confident to engage each

other, that we may enrich one another’s

perspectives.

Embracing Debate

While we want to cultivate respect, kindness, generosity, and deep listening in our groups, we

also want to acknowledge that disagreements and even debates are compatible with these

wholesome qualities! Here are a few tips for keeping debates fruitful.

Speak from the heart and share your own experience as much as possible. Some people

find that using "I" statements makes this easier.

Instead of invalidating somebody else's story with your own spin on their experience,

share your own story, experience, and analysis.

Generally give advice only when another has asked for it.

G.L.I.M.M.E.R. Guidelines for getting along in a group

Give space after a person has spoken, not jumping in immediately. (This can vary depending on the culture of a group, and how well everyone knows each other.)

Listen actively: respect others when they are talking. (Maybe use the “one mic” rule.)

Intend to appreciate and respect the others in the group. Demonstrate respect verbally and nonverbally as well. (Nonverbal gestures can say as much as words!)

Make a commitment to learn from others.

Make a clear commitment to be in the group and attend meetings.

Ecology of Time: Pay attention to the ecology of time - be mindful of taking up too much or too little space compared to others in the group.

Recognize our own and others’ privilege: When entering a space and speaking, be aware of privilege based on race, age, experience, sex, gender, abilities, etc.



Do not be afraid to respectfully challenge one another by asking questions, but refrain

from personal attacks — focus on ideas.

Maintain confidentiality: share what was learned, rather than who said what.

Agree to air and attempt to resolve difficult feelings with another person.

As you discuss ground rules, your group can investigate how proposed ground rules might subtly

reinforce the dominant culture.

Can your group get creative with ground rules that resist micro-practices of empire? Share your

group’s guidelines and any interesting discussions you had, so we can all learn from this process

and add to the collective pool of wisdom: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/study-group-

discussion-commitment-to-dismantling-oppression/ (password: thesystemstinks)

Commitment to Dismantling Oppression

We’ve started collecting a resource guide for us to learn about forms of domination that we may

be less familiar with. We’ve focused on “101” level resources as an entry point, which are

generally directed toward folks who have a level of privilege within each particular system of

domination. Have a favorite resource you’ve found helpful in your own education? Add

your resources in the comments: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/study-group-

discussion-commitment-to-dismantling-oppression/ (password: thesystemstinks)

How Oppression & Domination show up in groups

To equalize power among us http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org-

handouts/to%20equalize%20power.pdf

Common Behavioral Patterns that Perpetuate Relations of Domination

http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org-handouts/patterns%20.pdf

Creating an Atmosphere in which Everyone Participates

http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org-handouts/social%20power.pdf

Class

Where are you in the class system?

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&view=finish&catid=1&cid=44&

Itemid=31&m=0

“For example, in a dialogue about race, white participants will often support

ground rules meant to keep anger out of the discussion — ground rules focused

on keeping them comfortable. When we consider who is protected by ground

rules like ‘do not express anger,’ it becomes apparent that, intentionally or not,

they protect the participants representing privileged groups.” - Paul Gorski

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/study-group-discussion-commitment-to-dismantling-oppression/




http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org-handouts/to%20equalize%20power.pdf

http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org-handouts/to%20equalize%20power.pdf






http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&view=finish&catid=1&cid=44&Itemid=31&m=0

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&view=finish&catid=1&cid=44&Itemid=31&m=0

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/activities/groundrules.html



The Ruling Class & the Buffer Zone

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=23:article&id

=81:the-ruling-class-and-the-buffer-zone&Itemid=15

Race

The Benefit of Being White

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexic

ontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=89:the-

benefit-of-being-white&Itemid=16

Examining Race & Class

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexic

ontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=126:examinin

g-class-and-race&Itemid=16

Catalyzing Liberation Toolkit: Anti-Racist Organizing to

Build the 99% Movement

http://collectiveliberation.org/wp-

content/uploads/2012/06/catalyzing%20liberation%20too

lkit.pdf

Disability

Making Space Accessible is An Act Of Love for Our Communities

http://creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com/making-space-accessible-is-an-act-of-love-for-

our-communities/

Creating Fragrance Free Spaces http://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/fragrancefree.html

Creating Accessible Events: A Checklist for Programmers, Organizers, Advertizers, Speakers

and Event Attendees http://blackbrokenandbent.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/creating-accessible-

events-a-checklist-for-programmers-organizers-advertizers-speakers-and-event-attendees/

Gender & Sexuality

Larry Yang on LGBTQ folks finding refuge in the Dharma http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-

yang/towards-freedom-and-enlig_b_1173926.html

The Benefits of Being Male

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&i

d=90:the-benefits-of-being-male&Itemid=16

Breaking through the binary: Gender explained using continuums

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/breaking-through-the-binary-gender-explained-

using-continuums/

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=23:article&id=81:the-ruling-class-and-the-buffer-zone&Itemid=15

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=23:article&id=81:the-ruling-class-and-the-buffer-zone&Itemid=15

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=89:the-benefit-of-being-white&Itemid=16



http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=126:examining-class-and-race&Itemid=16



http://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/catalyzing%20liberation%20toolkit.pdf



http://creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com/making-space-accessible-is-an-act-of-love-for-our-communities/

http://creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com/making-space-accessible-is-an-act-of-love-for-our-communities/

http://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/fragrancefree.html

http://blackbrokenandbent.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/creating-accessible-events-a-checklist-for-programmers-organizers-advertizers-speakers-and-event-attendees/

http://blackbrokenandbent.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/creating-accessible-events-a-checklist-for-programmers-organizers-advertizers-speakers-and-event-attendees/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-yang/towards-freedom-and-enlig_b_1173926.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-yang/towards-freedom-and-enlig_b_1173926.html

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=90:the-benefits-of-being-male&Itemid=16

http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=90:the-benefits-of-being-male&Itemid=16

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/breaking-through-the-binary-gender-explained-using-continuums/

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/breaking-through-the-binary-gender-explained-using-continuums/



The Genderbread Person v2.0 http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/03/the-genderbread-

person-v2-0/

Tips for Talking to Trans, Genderqueer and Gender Non-Conforming People

http://www.basicrights.org/resources/trans-justice-resources/tips-for-talking-to-trans-

genderqueer-and-gender-non-conforming-people/

Glossary of Gender-Related Terms http://online.sfsu.edu/ctate2/genderglossary.html

How to refer to trans and genderqueer persons: pronoun resource

http://thomascwaters.com/2012/01/14/trans-pronoun-resource/

Intersectionality

Ain’t I a Woman? speech written by Sojourner Truth (read by Alice Walker)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsjdLL3MrKk

“Intersectionality” is a Big Fancy Word for My Life - Mia Mingus

http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/%E2%80%9Cintersectionality%E2%80%9D-

is-a-big-fancy-word-for-my-life/

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/study-group-discussion-

commitment-to-dismantling-oppression/ (password: thesystemstinks)

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/03/the-genderbread-person-v2-0/

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/03/the-genderbread-person-v2-0/

http://www.basicrights.org/resources/trans-justice-resources/tips-for-talking-to-trans-genderqueer-and-gender-non-conforming-people/



http://online.sfsu.edu/ctate2/genderglossary.html

http://thomascwaters.com/2012/01/14/trans-pronoun-resource/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsjdLL3MrKk

http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/%E2%80%9Cintersectionality%E2%80%9D-is-a-big-fancy-word-for-my-life/

http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/%E2%80%9Cintersectionality%E2%80%9D-is-a-big-fancy-word-for-my-life/





Session E:

Overview of the Lies that Build Empire

Can’t pick one topic to delve into yet? Not sure what folks in your group are most interested in? These questions can help you broadly explore the Lies that Build Empire with your group. Session Goals:

Explore the Lies that Build Empire in a broad way Get to know the issues that are of most interest to group members


What piece of media did you find inspiring or engaging? What piece of media did you find challenging? What was difficult about it? How did this media help you think about the world more systemically? How did this media relate to the theme “The Lies that Build Empire”?

Readings: Anything in the study guide (or beyond!) that interests you!

What are the lies

that build

empire?

Prisons, wars, and bank

bailouts make civilians safer.

Good immigrants follow

the rules and wait in line

for citizenship.

Strong people don’t cry.

If you work hard enough, you

can be somebody.



Practice Exercises

Feeling Tone Practice

Imperialism, though devastating to billions of people and other species, still leaves cracks, room for resistance, and sometimes even complex cultural formations that we might experience as pleasant. Things are complicated. If we’re going to be serious about tearing down imperialism, we need to know the appeal of it (and to whom it appeals), as well as its brute force. A meditation on “feeling tone” comes out of the teachings on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, taught regularly in Theravadan traditions of Buddhism. In this meditation technique, the teaching is to simply notice whether the tone of your experience is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. You might start by grounding yourself in noticing the breath or whatever you find helpful to anchor your awareness. Bring to mind an example of imperialism that is entwined in your daily life (though not the most painful one! It’s good to practice with something simpler before working your way up to more difficult examples). You might choose an example that feels complex or confusing to you. When do I feel strongly the pain of imperialism’s destruction? Does this give me resolve to help end it? Does it impact me in other ways? In my culture, are there types of food, music, clothing, cities, or other products of a colonial history that actually make me feel at home or feel pleasant in some way? How do I handle these complex contradictions? Do I, or does anyone I know, experience joy in resisting imperialism? What does that resistance entail? Are there aspects of imperialism I experience as mundane? Disguised as normal and unremarkable, where do I not have strong feelings either way? Are there dimensions of imperialism I tend to ignore? Instructions on practicing with feeling tone: Joanna Harper (audio, 1+ hour): http://www.againstthestream.org/audio/item/jt12-feeling-tone Rob Burbea (audio, 20 minutes): http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/10642/ Open Dharma (written): http://www.opendharma.org/static.php?left=blue&content=teachings/instructions/

http://www.againstthestream.org/audio/item/jt12-feeling-tone

http://www.againstthestream.org/audio/item/jt12-feeling-tone

http://www.opendharma.org/static.php?left=blue&content=teachings/instructions/mindfulness/feelingtone&title=feeling%20tone



mindfulness/feelingtone&title=feeling%20tone Silent Mind, Open Heart (written): http://silentmindopenheart.org/articles/feeling.html

Re-engaging with history & nature The logic of imperialism is very future oriented. It demands the devaluation of indigenous ways of life (save what can be commodified and sold), and it often relies on the rhetoric of “progress”: including standardization that can decimate natural diversity, along with efficiency-driven industrialization that separates humans from the rest of the natural world. How can we ground in historical practices — whether of Buddhism, of our families, or of learning about the histories of the places we live? Without romanticizing the past, can we poke holes in the historical amnesia of imperialism? Grounding yourself in what knowledge you already have about the history of your region and the people who have lived there, do some research to deepen your knowledge even further. Go outside and get to know local geographical formations, native and non-native plants, and the world around you. What is your version of the Jambolan tree?

Imperialism: The Game (group practice): Pull out the board games or video

systems, it’s time for a game night! What games have you played that subtly or not so subtly educate us about imperialism: Settlers of Catan, Risk, or Monopoly? There’s even a board game called Imperial and a video game called Imperialism. And this re-envisioned imperialist Monopoly board that gives insight into Lenin’s assessment that “imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.” What happens when we play these games mindfully, paying attention to the subtle and overt mechanisms of empire? While you play, you might share stories about playing these games as children or among adult friends, or narrate aloud the internal feelings that arise when your army invades a neighboring country or when your property gets foreclosed on by the bank. How can we counteract the 'rules of the game' as we play? Like, when the sheriff shows up to evict you from your foreclosed property, what if you refused to leave, backed up by 100 supporters?

http://www.opendharma.org/static.php?left=blue&content=teachings/instructions/mindfulness/feelingtone&title=feeling%20tone

http://silentmindopenheart.org/articles/feeling.html

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24181/imperial

http://www.mobygames.com/game/imperialism

http://m0burg3r.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/monopoly/




Sponsors’ Corner:

Introduction to The Pachamama Alliance

The System Stinks would not be possible without the generous support of BPF members. You made this idea into a reality, and we are excited to see where it takes us, as an international sangha of spiritual activists. We would like to express special gratitude by highlighting this message from TSS sponsors Chris and Barbara Wilson. If you would like to shout-out an organization in a future volume of TSS, send your brief note to [email protected], Subject: Shout-out for System Stinks, and you just might see it in an upcoming PDF (space is limited). Thank you! Dear fellow BPFers, We invite your active involvement with The Pachamama Alliance (pachamama.org). This organization was founded to empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture. For over ten years Pachamama has worked with the Achuar tribe of the Ecuadorean Amazon to build a coalition of rainforest tribes strong enough to prevent drilling for known oil reserves in their territory. They have been successful in this struggle for over ten years, including getting a provision in the new Ecuadorean constitution that guarantees that nature itself will be represented by special legal counsel in any litigation that threatens significant environmental impacts. In addition, the leaders of the Achuar (a dream-guided shamanic culture) asked The Pachamama Alliance to do something to “change the dream of the North” — that is, to awaken the peoples of the Northern Hemisphere to the harm their obsession with fossil fuels is doing to the rainforest and indigenous peoples. To this end, the Pachamama Alliance has developed an interactive immersion seminar to motivate systemic change. Several thousand facilitators have been trained and the seminar has been presented in over 30 countries and languages. We strongly urge BPF members to support these efforts and explore volunteer opportunities with this extremely effective and well-run organization. For the well-being of all, Chris and Barbara Wilson

mailto:[email protected]

http://pachamama.org/



About Buddhist Peace Fellowship

and The System Stinks

Aware of the interconnectedness of all things, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship cultivates the

conditions for peace, social justice, and environmental sustainability within our selves, our

communities, and the world.

The mission of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), founded in 1978, is to serve as a catalyst

for socially engaged Buddhism. Our purpose is to help beings liberate themselves from the

suffering that manifests in individuals, relationships, institutions, and social systems. BPF’s

programs, publications, and practice groups link Buddhist teachings of wisdom and compassion

with progressive social change.

The Buddhist Peace Fellowship works for peace from diverse Buddhist perspectives, embracing

a triple treasure of compassionate action: learning, speaking, and doing.

Co-Directors Dawn Haney and Katie Loncke have been at the helm together since Spring 2012,

steering BPF in its newest incarnation as a mostly-online network of Buddhist activists.

ABOUT "THE SYSTEM STINKS"

"The System Stinks" (TSS) is a year-long curriculum and dialogue aiming for a return to the

roots of BPF, posing a loving challenge to engaged Buddhism to deeply explore what it takes to

build for true peace and social justice in today's world. How can our political work benefit from

ancient understandings of human suffering and its causes? How can our spiritual understanding

of suffering and liberation benefit from analysis of the social structures that shape and form

us? By creating a space to ask such questions, we hope to develop a wide network of leaders

able to bring our dharma practice into conversation with theories of radical social change and on-

the-ground collective action.

Copyright © 2013

By Buddhist Peace Fellowship

PO Box 3470; Berkeley, CA 94703

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org

Requests for permission to reproduce any materials in this curriculum should be directed to

Buddhist Peace Fellowship


http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/about-bpf/staff/

http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/the-system-stinks/

mailto:[email protected]




Permissions & Photo Credits

Cover photo: Andrew Cardoza

Page 4: "Buddha." Photo by Marco Abis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matley0/4094623441/

Page 5: "Oh Canada, Our Home ON Native Land" by Toban Black

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/2769692138/

Page 6: UN Peacekeepers in Haiti entered take control of a neighbourhood after 3 hours fighting

armed gangs. Credit: MATEUS_27:24&25: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mateus27_24-

25/6083943911/

Page 7: American Buddha by Rob Schouten via Portland Insight http://www.portlandinsight.org/

Page 9: Sloping field (source unknown)

Page 9: Gold medal stand by Brian Taylor

Page 11: Jambolan Tree by Võ Hải

Page 12: Jambolan Seeds (source unknown)

Page 13: giuseppe http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbmunny

Page 14: “Frustration” by Peter Alfred Hess http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterhess/

Page 16: My Lover, Monsanto field by Paulo Fridman/Bloomberg/Getty

Pages 18-25: “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women

of Color Organizing.” Andrea Smith. Reprinted with permission from Color of Violence: The

Incite! Anthology by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. South End Press.

Page 25: Arundhati Roy via Occupied Wall Street Journal

Page 26: Supermarket checkout signs by Jessica Hill/AP

Page 27: Fast Food Forward via www.fastfoodfoward.org

Page 27: Checkout machines

Page 28: At the port now via AP

http://www.flickr.com/photos/matley0/4094623441/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/2769692138/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mateus27_24-25/6083943911/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mateus27_24-25/6083943911/

http://www.portlandinsight.org/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbmunny

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterhess/

www.fastfoodfoward.org



Page 28: At the port then via www.portseattle100.org

Page 28: Cooking, cleaning & caring is work via Reuters

Page 29: Day laborer hiring (source unknown)

Page 31: "Blue Boardroom" by zen Sutherland http://www.flickr.com/photos/zen/3880484715/

Page 33: Goldman Sachs protest by SEIU International

Page 34: Board room by Shawn Kelly

Page 36: Yoga Journal protest (source unknown)

Page 37: Nama-stay meme (source unknown)

Page 38: Seane Corn meme by Be Scofield

Page 41: Keystone XL by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Page 42: The Ruckus Society

Page 44: Civil rights lunch counter sit in, Atlanta, GA, 1963; via Ruckus Society

Page 48: Catalyst Project cover, designed by Design Action Collective

Page 49: The Genderbread Person 2.0 by Sam Killermann

Page 52: Neo-imperial Monopoly by m0burg3r


http://www.portseattle100.org/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zen/3880484715/




With Gratitude

We would like to express our tremendous gratitude to people who have given time, skills, energy

and resources to make this curriculum possible. Its mistakes and flaws are our doing, and its

strengths are due to the efforts of many people.

For critical feedback and editing that is at once firm, kind, and not infrequently brilliant, we

thank Kimberly Alidio, Rachel Buddeberg, and Mushim Ikeda.

For the cover's illustration, we thank Andrew Cordoza.

For all the original media contributions featured on Turning Wheel Media and here in the Study

Guide, we thank the wonderful media makers.

For donating photography work, we thank Hozan Alan Senauke, Roshi Joan Halifax, Aneeta

Mitha, and Nopadon Wongpakdee.

For giving of their time and wisdom as teachers of the Dharma, we thank Bhante

Buddharakkhita, Joanna Macy, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Hozan Alan Senauke.

For amazing behind-the-scenes work and helpful thinking partnership, we thank Erin Brandt,

Stephen Crooms, David Nelson, Jenn Biehn, Mia Murrietta, and Tyson Casey.

For the video that expressed our aspiration and helped bring the right people together to make it

happen, we thank Virginia Brisley.

For indispensable support, guidance, and fundraising magic from BPF's Board of Directors, we

thank Chris Wilson, Anchalee Kurutach, Belinda Griswold, Kathleen Rose, Scott Woodbury and

Michaela O'Connor Bono.

For the legacy inspiring this curriculum, we thank Diana Winston, Donald Rothberg, Tyson

Casey, and others for their work on the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement (BASE).

To YOU, all the BPF members whose contributions support our Right Livelihood, and make this

work possible, we thank you so very much.

We are all fortunate to have encountered the teachings of Buddha in this lifetime, and we aspire

to work together to use this good fortune for the benefit of all beings.

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