Democratic Forest Trusts (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.Democratic trusts with leadership elected by citizen-members promise to solve many of the problems afflicting both traditional government and corporate ownership of forestlands. This article explores these issues in some depth.Complexity and the Dream of Human Control of Eco-Systems (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.The title captures it. I then explore the kinds of institutions compatible with both nature and the modern world that are implied from this analysis.Rethinking the Obvious: Modernity and Living Respectfully With Nature (PDF)The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Winter, 1997.Modernity is usually considered a wrong turn in terms of respect for and sustaining the environment. I argue the reality is more complex, for modernity has freed us from personal dependence on agriculture, ended the economic value of children, radically reduced the likelihood of large scale wat, and shifted much production to intellectual rather than material capital. This partially decouples society from nature, which gives us important opportunities as well as problems.Towards an Ecocentric Political Economy (PDF)The Trumpeter, Fall, 1996.This paper begins my effort at showing how liberal modernity can be harmonized with an ecocentric perspective on our relationship with the natural world. It is a corrective to much “free market environmental” literature that sacrifices Nature to money as well as to anti-liberal attacks by well-meaning but economically naïve environmentalists.Unexpected Harmonies: Self-Organization in Liberal Modernity and Ecology (PDF)The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, 10:1, Winter 1993This is my initial paper exploring how what I term ‘evolutionary liberal’ thought can be an important means by which society and nature can be brought into greater harmony. The other Trumpeter papers build on it.Deep Ecology and Liberalism: The Greener Implications of Evolutionary Liberalism (PDF)Review of Politics, Fall, 1996.Liberal thought and deep ecology are usually regarded as mutually exclusive. But the “evolutionary” tradition offers a way to integrate the two through commonalties in the work of David Hume, Michael Polanyi, Arne Naess, and Aldo Leopold, providing a stronger foundation for liberalism while strengthening the case for an ecocentric ethic.(Related subjects: Ecology)Saving Western Towns: A Jeffersonian Green Proposal (PDF)in Writers on the Range, Karl Hess and John Baden, eds., University Press of Colorado, 1998.Developmental pressures in the rural and small town West involve three groups: long term residents, new arrivals, and environmentalists. Today their interests often conflict. This conflict is in part the outcome of institutions which prevent harmonizing competing interests. The concept of developmental trusts, both for rural regions and for small communities offers a means whereby these interests can be harmonized for the benefit of all concerned.(Related subjects: Politics)Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism (PDF)Critical Review, 6: 2-3, 1992.Murray Bookchin is considered a leading radical environmental theorist. However, his analysis is incapable of leading humankind towards a more respectful and sustainable relationship with the natural world. Criticisms of Bookchin from both the deep ecology and evolutionary liberal perspective complement one another, pointing the way towards a better understanding of how modernity relates to the environment.The paper as a whole offers an early discussion of issues that are more clearly addressed in later papers, particularly Deep Ecology and Liberalism (1996) and the three Trumpeter articles in 1997, 1996, and 1993. However, there are other ideas in the article which have not been developed more thoroughly elsewhere.
Wild Hunt has done wonderful work in making more information available. See Jason Pitzi-Water’s latest report here. And he also had a piece when McCoillum met with Obama Administration officials to discuss issues such as religious discrimination.
Pitzi-Waters quotes McCollum as to some of the truly depraved actions by Fundamentalists in California’s prison system
I’d like to start with a few true examples of discrimination to
illustrate the severity of the problem: A Wiccan inmate has cancer and
the prison guards refuse to transport him to his chemotherapy
treatments unless he removes his religious pentacle medallion which
they have objections to. He chooses to forgo his chemotherapy and keep
his pentacle. A Wiccan inmate has been trying to go to Wiccan services
for months, but the guard at her dorm refuses to give her a pass. The
guard says it is for the good of the Wiccan inmate’s soul. Another
dying Wiccan writes his volunteer chaplain that he needs to see him
before he crosses over. The chaplain makes numerous attempts to reach
prison staff to receive the necessary clearances, but no one responds.
But worse, prison mailroom staff refuse to forward the chaplain’s mail,
so that the inmate knows why his chaplain isn’t coming.
I think this issue is very important because as we grow in numbers and appeal to others, Conservative Christians, who historically have always relied on the State to impose their domination will likely increase their efforts to attack and demonize us. This is a prediction I hope does not come true, but I suspect that it will.
I am afraid this is the beginning of an organized conservative Christian effort to suppress Pagan religions as a threat to their dominance. Conservative Christians have never been able to tolerate religious liberty, have grudgingly allowed it when they lacked the power to deny it, and can be expected to work hard to attack us now that we are so visible I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.
posted February 18, 2010 at 7:47 pm
No Gus, you’re not wrong. Except for the part where you state that it’s the “beginning” of the effort. I believe it’s been going on for some time.
I expect their efforts to fail mind you, but we will definitely have to fight for the rights that the followers of other religions in the US take for granted.
posted February 19, 2010 at 9:45 am
A pagan friend introduced me to your blog, which I find fascinating, informative and thought-provoking. Thank you for the insights!
I just wanted to say that although I’m not American, I am a committed Christian and I am horrified and upset by the things you’ve reported here. As I’m sure you know, this is not the sort of love for others that Jesus taught. I hope you won’t think that all Christians are like that nowadays. There are still many of us, including in the States, who remember which commandments Jesus thought most important and that right after John 3:16 comes John 3:17: for God did not send his Son to condemn the world but to save it. (I’m not trying to convert you either. The point is – not condemnation, but love!)
I wish there was another word you could use to express fundamentalist conservative cultural christians as opposed to those who really do want to live as Christ did, but sadly I’m afraid there isn’t. I hope Mr McCollum is able to win his case, and am passing the info on to others who may be able to write to your government about it (I don’t think they’d care what a non-resident non-citizen like myself thinks!)
posted February 19, 2010 at 11:45 am
Thank you Michaela-
I think my little piece on universal polytheism sheds light on the problem you describe. These Fundamentalists and Evangelicals worship different Gods than you do. They worship demons of domination and anger and their payback for this devotion is endless self-righteousness and a sense of superiority to others. They have little to nothing in common with your kind of Christianity. In my opinion, the problem, a BIG one, is so few genuine Christians seem to recognize this fact that their religion has become associated with a kind of Satanism.
posted February 19, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Pagans were burned at the stake but those days are over. The prison and army populations are the only captive audiences these church members have left. But they are using state and federal money to impose their religious discrimination and it will stop when they get taken to court.
Christian religions have had an adversarial relationship with pagan religions ever since the expansion of Christianity from Rome. But within the Christian religion our traditions are still preserved in every single religious holiday.
People like us were once murdered, tortured and jailed for our beliefs, peaceful as they were, but now its time that society recognize that pagans bring a lot to the table. Were coming up in the world.
posted February 20, 2010 at 9:52 am
Krissy, there are plenty of Pagans who share your passion about this issue, myself included, but I strongly recommend you find an objective history of Europe from Pagan Rome to the Protestant Reformation. Of longer scope than that, but a book I highly recommend, is A History of Pagan Europe by Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick.
You will find, amongst other things, that quite a few (rebellious) Christians were burned at those stakes, that Pagan leaders (monarchs, etc.) were the first to oppress their people in response to Christian imperial threats that were primarily political and economic (military threats were always at least implied), and a very important foundation for later Christian violence in their expansion was the egregious violence done to them by (amongst others) Roman oligarchs who found them easy scapegoats for their own self-created problems.
posted February 20, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Hi, Gus–
I read your blog of 2/18/2010 with horror. As an atheist (or am I a pantheist?), I’m not in tune with all the beliefs of paganism but I’m more comfortable with nature religions than I am with the patriarchal sky-god(s). As a recovered ex-Mormon and ex-Christian-fundamentalist, I’m not a bit surprised by the repressive actions of the followers of a jealous, domineering god–just angered and saddened. Keep up the good work on educating your readers about this ongoing repression and maybe enough of a groundswell of indignation will develop to change the situation.
Blessings;
Dixon