Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
And folks like comfortable Gaians, who are focused on long-term visions of civilizations that peacefully-coexist with Earth, who advocate for degrowth, who embrace planetary limits, and who would rather spend time in nature than in protest meetings, we, too, have to come together with the diverse anti-fascist coalition to fight for Gaia’s right to thrive.
Presently, the major currents of thinking on both the mainstream political left and right seem fatefully enraptured with the centralized politics of the nation-state, believing that if the correct government is in place it will deliver what the people really want. If people were to stop thinking that, we may be at the start of a politics equal to present times.
Many people question the meaning of life embedded in capitalism, or rather that there is no meaning of life embedded in capitalism. It is a system without a higher purpose and its only moral doctrine, if any, is the (flawed) notion that all will be better off if we just think about our own interest.
Because what we’re doing isn’t just resisting. We’re reclaiming the democracy we always should have had from those who would rule us as kings.
In this episode, Nate is joined by economic writer and strategist, Stacy Mitchell, to explore how concentrated economic power shapes the health of towns and cities – from economic resilience to social connectedness.
I wonder, how do the swallowtails drink if too many people buy meat from grocery stores? How does the blood return to the soil? How do the coyotes and the vultures feast on the entrails from the farmer and the hunter? Our wedges, our separation, spills over into all of life. A chink in the chain. We cannot divide ourselves without dividing everything.
So head off to the boonies and find yourself a pile of heavy fabric things and draft blockers and a nicely aged cedar cabinet to keep it all tucked away until winter begins to bite.
COP has been running for 30 years but institutional governance seems to focus on symbolic acts that redeem and repent empires instead of spearheading structural and fundamental changes. After all, the Fund is born out of a Global North/South divide where justice remains a voluntary and charitable gesture.
So, all we can hope that the path of sustainability becomes wider and better lit, because as long as it is too difficult, most people will take the easier path, even if the end of that path is not good for any of us.
The Earth doesn’t need us at all, it certainly doesn’t need us to awaken. It needs us to pay attention, to get involved, and to become ecologically literate.
At Rural Watch Africa Initiative (RUWAI), we believe that empowering one young person can ignite transformation across generations.
Within degrowth, we can and should continue to debate theories and strategies. But if we want to meaningfully engage with system transformation, we must recognise the pluriversal essence of the degrowth contribution and offer our analytical tools to support the anti-capitalist struggles, becoming thus an attribute – or adjective – of existing political proposals.
