The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes. Now and then, in the course of the century, a great man of science, like Darwin; a...
People are waking up. They're getting involved. They're saying, "Not another day! This is where I mark the line." Their desire to change the world is turning from simple wishful thinking on Monday mornings into tangible action. The thoughts they used to have only occasionally about their relationship to the rest of the world now occurs to them all the time. They're...
Part 1: The River of Vision “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.” So begins the novel Ishmael , published in 1992 by Daniel Quinn, now residing in Houston. Through the course of more than a dozen books and countless speeches and essays, Daniel Quinn has served as a strong and poetic guide for the human journey. Whether...
Left-libertarianism in the relevant sense is a position that is simultaneously leftist and libertarian . It features leftist commitments to: engaging in class analysis and class struggle; opposing corporate privilege; undermining structural poverty embracing shared responsibility for challenging economic vulnerability; affirming wealth redistribution; ...
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview is an exciting and surprisingly uplifting new documentary about the role of ideology in finding solutions to the urgent global crises humankind faces in the 21 st century.
If the dynamic of a diverse safe space in which people dismantle oppressions through conflict resolution is at the root of Occupy's transformative potential, then perhaps there's not a distinct formula that can be reproduced, but simply spread - a culture - that people can choose to adopt. Occupy Sandy has been lauded as more American than FEMA. Strike Debt, an Occupy offshoot...
His vital April 4, 1967 speech is a direct repudiation of the sophistry now used to defend US violence and aggression. he civil right achievements of Martin Luther King are quite justly the focus of the annual birthday commemoration of his legacy. But it is remarkable, as I've noted before on this holiday , how completely his vehement anti-war advocacy is ignored when commemorating...
"What is keeping us from thriving?" asks the new movie, Thrive . The answer it gives is "the global elite," the people who control the financial system that in turn controls everything else. Operating through the power institutions of our society, this elite pursues a conscious agenda of total world dominance, purposely suppressing anything that would disrupt their power: from clean energy...
Many of you have visited the Films For Action website and asked us why we have not posted any Alex Jones documentaries or included Infowars, Prision Planet, Natural News or other like-minded sites on our list of recommended independent media. Unfortunately, we feel it would be irresponsible to promote Alex Jones, his websites, or any of his films. His films were always overly sensational...
I first met nature writer and philosophy professor Kathleen Dean Moore in 2004. I had already dog-eared my copy of her first collection of essays, Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water , when she came through town to read from her next book, Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World . After the reading I stayed so long asking questions that she invited me to join her philosophy...
My ecological journey started in the forests of the Himalaya. My father was a forest conservator, and my mother became a farmer after fleeing the tragic partition of India and Pakistan. It is from the Himalayan forests and ecosystems that I learned most of what I know about ecology. The songs and poems our mother composed for us were about trees, forests, and India’s forest...
The global Occupy movement is much more than an economic or political movement. Occupy is a consciousness-expanding phenomenon. The same people who mocked us before Occupy started, and said that there would never be a non-violent civil disobedience movement throughout the US, are now the same people saying that Occupy was a once in a lifetime or generational event. What these people fail to...
If indigenous and modern world views are going to inform each other to shift the trajectory of humankind toward a just, thriving, and sustainable future , an important step in this direction is for the modern world to better understand indigenous peoples’ stories, perceptions, and values. In the past, indigenous peoples’ perspectives have too frequently been told by outsiders...
For those of you who are curious exactly how Richard Register's ideas would work in practice, here's what it could look like if Americans ever decided to retrofit their downtowns for true sustainability. We know how to build the ecocity. It's easy if you want to: up-zone for more density and diversity in the centers and withdraw from sprawl. We are replete with tools. The starting...
Imagine a world in which all the things we make, use, and consume provide nutrition for nature and industry—a world in which growth is good and human activity generates a delightful, restorative ecological footprint. While this may seem like heresy to many in the world of sustainable development, the destructive qualities of today’s cradle-to-grave industrial system can be seen...
A plant-based diet: good for us & for the planet Author | Dr Rosemary Stanton, Nutritionist Most people are aware of the vital roles that vegetables, fruits, wholegrains and nuts can play in a healthy diet. And yet, meat eaters get prickly and many doctors and dietitians tack warnings onto any discussion of vegetarian diets.
What single change stands to give Americans more free time, healthier ecosystems, and more meaningful jobs? We tend to see growth as an unalloyed good, but an expanding body of evidence is now telling us to think again. Economic growth may be the world’s secular religion, but for most it is a god that is failing—underperforming for most of the world’s people, and...
Daniel Quinn is the author of many works including The Story of B , My Ishmael , and Beyond Civilization . His first book, Ishmael , was published in 1992. Since its release as the winner of the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, it has gone on to great success, and been read by millions. It has inspired new ideas in a diverse spectrum of people ranging from doctors and lawyers to musicians a
If we all treat one another with the best principles of human relationships, it is analogous to complying with Nature's biophysical principles by taking responsibility for our own behavior. In other words, if I want to become acquainted with you, it is incumbent on me to determine how I must treat you in order to allow, even encourage, you to reciprocate in kind. Thus, for me to receive the...
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? These are the questions that the artist Paul Gaugin wrote in the corner of one of his paintings when he was living in Tahiti in 1897, and they’ve been asked by thinking people for as long as we’ve been thinking – especially today, when there’s a solid case to be made from the ecological evidence that our...
Beauty in Darkness is a documentary of four short stories portraying difficult situations that people in Gumaca are suffering from, a typical scenario of a dark reality occurring in different parts of the world. It is in the most challenging situations that the intangible is hardest to recognize. However, the people in the movie demonstrate that the beautiful qualities are truly inherent in...
It's been five years since the Films For Action project began in Lawrence, Kansas. It started with one simple idea: we can't depend on the mainstream media to inform us, so let's become the media ourselves by hosting documentaries on issues that the corporate media ignores. Over the years we 've hosted over 30 film screenings, launched a website that has attracted over 380,000...
Hey you creatives, artists, environmentalists, workers, moms, dads, students, malcontents, do-gooders and aspiring martyrs in the snow: The last four months have been hard fought, inspiring and delightfully revolutionary. We brought tents, hunkered down, held our assemblies, and lobbed a meme-bomb that continues to explode the world's imagination. Many of us have never felt so alive. We...
The initial phase of the #OCCUPY movement was marked by several weeks of viral growth that peaked on October 15 with a global day of action. In the next phase, there will be a turn towards addressing the deep philosophical and strategic questions of how to escalate this democracy moment into a revolutionary people's movement. Across the nation there are clear signs that the #OCCUPY movement is...
Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry. The country, which has been pilloried by the...
The ongoing economic crisis that began with the unraveling of wildly inflated real estate prices and the Wall Street derivatives bubble in 2007 and the crash into near depression in October of 2008 resulted in trillions of dollars of public bail out money for banks and other institutions around the world. Other banks and businesses collapsed or went bankrupt and many individuals lost their...
Each day there are opportunities for resistance, liberation, freedom, creativity, engagement, and meaning. It is easy to miss these opportunities and get distracted and bogged down by day-to-day hassles -- stuck in traffic, staring at the internet, emotionally numb, confused, and feeling disconnected from anything important. There are no easy answers about how to live our lives but we all make...
PART ONE Closing In on the Problem I heard this, naturally, from my grandfather, he from his grandfather, he from his own grandfather, and so on, back many hundreds of years. That means this tale is very old. But it won't disappear, because I offer it to my children, and my children will tell it to their children, and so on. GYPSY STORYTELLER LAZAROS HARISIADIS, QUOTED BY DIANE TONG...
Consider this: thousands of diverse, locally-rooted, grassroots economic projects are in the process of creating the basis for a viable democratic alternative to capitalism. It might seem unlikely that a motley array of initiatives such as worker, consumer, and housing cooperatives, community currencies, urban gardens, fair trade organizations, intentional communities, and neighborhood...
Preamble We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common...
The Bottleneck. The Great Disruption. Peak Everything. The Great Turning. Whatever you call it, it's the big enchilada. In the words of filmmaker Tom Shadyac, "The shift is hitting the fan." We're experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation. This awkward 'tween state marks the end of pre-history - the sunset of an ecologically illiterate civilization. Like a baby being born, a...
With a growing awareness of mounting ecological, economic, and social problems, there exists many growing currents of response. On one hand, more people are waking up. They're getting involved. They're saying, "Not another day! This is where I mark the line." Their desire to change the world is turning from simple wishful thinking on Monday mornings into tangible action. The thoughts they...