The Common Good Podcast: Recent Episodes
Lee Van Ham
The Common Good Podcast is a production of Jubilee-Economics.org, a 501 c3 organization dedicated to One Earth Economics for the Common Good.
Most people feel on the outside of extreme wealth. Some aspire to it. Many are offended by it and consider it immoral—even evil. For most of us it’s a sideshow. But Chuck Collins, our guest today, says, “No! It’s not a sideshow. It’s the main show. It affects all of us.” We pay the taxes that build what everyone uses. They avoid taxes, sometimes paying none, taking no responsibility for the common good though they benefit from it. Who makes all this work? That’s what our guest today explains. Definitely worth staying with us. We hope you can.
Our guest, Chuck Collins, is Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good, co-editor of Inequality.org at Institute for Policy Studies. I first became familiar with him through the book, Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change, co-authored by Chuck in 2000. Then I was greatly impacted by a book he wrote with Felice Yeskel, Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (2005). That book so clearly explains how the economic system can lessen the economic divides in our society and how it can increase them. Subsequently, I established a relationship with Chuck at the Solidarity Economic Forum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2009. When I wrote my first book, Blinded by Progress, Chuck agreed to write the “Foreword.” I’m grateful for that.
A good way to appreciate why Chuck can speak with authority to our topic today, inequality and the radical wealth divide, is to scan titles of his writings.
- He is author of the popular book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good (Chelsea Green)
- There’s also: Is Inequality in America Irreversible? (Oxford, UK-based Polity Press).
- He’s also written 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It.
- He is co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth, (Beacon Press, 2003), a case for taxing inherited fortunes. Chuck’s work with wealthy persons led to co-founding Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business leaders, high-income households and partners working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation. This network merged in 2015 with the Patriotic Millionaires.
Most recently, Chuck has written, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Spend Millions to Hide Trillions. And a short article appeared in “YES! Magazine” entitled, “Helping the Rich Give Away Their Wealth.”
So many voices tell us that saving life on our planet requires a whole different economy. A whole different way of thinking. Consider renegade economics and doughnut economics? How might staying in the dough of the doughnut be a model for us in our work in the world?
In the Simpler OneEarth Living Podcast we're committed to living well AND not to exceed the capacities of our one planet home. We want to live in full interdependence with trees, soils, plants, water, animals--all the eco-systems that sustain life. We experience the sacred in all that is. Humanity needs a lot of help to get to such OneEarth living. So we seek out others with a similar commitment and invite them to be guests on this Podcast.
Della Duncan describes herself as a renegade economist. Her goal is to create islands of alternative economics in the ocean of capitalism. We hosts think of ourselves as being one of those islands.
Della hosts theUpstream Podcast about economic systems change. She is also a Right Livelihood coach, a Senior Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute in the London School of Economics, the Course Development Manager of Fritjof Capra's Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, a co-founder of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and an Alternative Economics Consultant.
Visit:
- Donella Meadows' Leverage Points essay
- Doughnut Economics Action Lab
- Upstream Podcast
- How to Implement Doughnut Economics in Your Community by Della Duncan
This episode tells how religions are working together to forge new possibilities in ecology, economics, and women’s empowerment—all are making real difference in their communities. Listen too for the importance of organizing as circles in the practice of cooperation. Our previous podcast episode presented the circles of Jubilee. This time we present the circles of cooperation in United Religions Initiative as we talk with Lauren Van Ham in her work with United Religions Initiatives to form and empower Cooperation Circles around the world.
Jubilee OneEarth Economics is not focused on just one issue, but on a worldview—a way of viewing the world and living in it. That is a strength, because we need this worldview to save us from the devastation of life happening from the practice of the MultiEarth worldview that prevails today. But worldviews are big and reach into all areas of life. That makes them challenging to describe.
This worldview of OneEarth Jubilee guides us in ways similar to how Indigenous peoples have been guided to live sustainably on the Earth for millennia. The Bible also presents this worldview as an alternative to kings and empires. In the Bible, it goes by various names—the Kingdom of God, living acceptable to God, and Jubilee. But in the name of progress, civilization came along and proposed improvements. Some of the ways of progress worked in close interdependence with nature, but most have violated nature and the evolved systems of creation, bringing us death and repeated disregard for life. And now it’s taken us to within a few years of destroying our planet’s capacities to sustain life. Scientists are alarmed. Yet, corporations from pharmaceuticals to banks and meat producers race ahead, valuing billions of dollars over life itself. Indigenous ways continue to suffer, being thought of as in the past or outdated, and the Jubilee worldview has been forgotten from the biblical narrative.
But not everyone.
In this episode, four people understand that the situation of life is dire and that just as surely there is a worldview that saves life. Two of the four are from Mexico; two from the U.S. They are part of circles of other people who share a devotion to living the OneEarth Jubilee worldview in radical contrast to the reckless gamble the powers in charge are making with life on the planet.
Angelica Juarez is a physician and artist in the village of San Mateo, Puebla, MX.
Lindsey Mercer-Robledo is a community organizer in the city of San Cristobal, Chiapas, MX.
John Michno is a former IT person who now directs Jubilee Economics Ministries in San Diego, California, USA.
Lee Van Ham is a co-founder of the nonprofit OneEarth Jubilee Economics, and has worked to deepen his understanding and practice of the Jubilee worldview for over 20 years.
They tell how the Jubilee worldview came to appeal to them, and how they’re devoted to put it into practice daily. For them, it is a spiritual path for living in the midst of the breakdowns happening in the current crises.
Notable Quote: "Immigration. When people see how people live day by day, sometimes they don’t have enough even to eat, you can be touched. Tools for people to develop their income. You don’t have to go to other places. They can live here, and stay together as a family. In the pandemic, in this time fewer people have gone to the United States."
OneEarthJubilee.com -- Living Within Our One Planet's Capacities
SimpleLivingWorks.org
If you are part of a family struggling with student debt, you likely know that student debt now totals nearly $1.7 trillion, exceeding both total car loans and credit card loans. Only mortgage loans are a bigger part of economic debt. Rugged individualism holds that I must pay off the debt I incur. But that fails to recognize the structures of debt. Debt is not structured by individuals, but by powerful financial and political groups that make repayment strenuously difficult. For many, impossible. Such debt is immoral and destroys creativity to the extent that all, not just the debtor, suffer. That’s why, in a Jubilee worldview, debt is forgiven after a reasonable period of time. Jubilee refuses to marginalize people in perpetuity because of debt. All people must be treated as kin in the human family and that disallows any perpetual separation into loan makers and borrowers.
We pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” And for all who pray the "Trespasses" version, remember that the greatest trespasses are the structural ones that separate people from one another, dividing us into categories like have-gots and have-nots. With either version of the prayer, we’re praying to forgive economic evils that separate us from one another and from our souls.
With every year that passes, evidence mounts that the current economic and political systems cannot deliver the social and ecological justice that is necessary to sustain life on our planet.
Where then do we turn? Women are an obvious and undervalued source—an answer hiding in plain sight. Women are creating systems that are far more just, and far more life-giving than the ones which currently stress the planet and most people. Let me clarify one point. Today’s podcast conversation is not about women elevated to positions of leadership in male oriented paradigms. Rather, our conversation is about women who can act boldly in expressing the wisdom of the feminist ways of running households, businesses, societies, economies, and political policies. Today you’ll hear such a woman—a feminist economist who focuses on economic justice as a primary measure of a healthy economy. She recognizes that focusing on economic growth can never get us to the economy we need in the 21st century. So with hundreds of other women in the economy who are intent on feminist economics, Dr. Brenda Wyss [weess], our guest, points us to the way through, where currently there seems to be no way.
Lee met Brenda 15 or so years ago. He was staying in her home because her husband, Barry Shelley, and Lee were attending and leading a workshop in the Solidarity Economy Network conference happening in Amherst, Massachusetts. Lee's introduction to feminist economics was just beginning at the time. In this podcast conversation Lee asks Brenda, “What is feminist economics?” She gives us a thorough answer. It’s clearly her passion. Lee also asks her about evaluating an economy by measures other than growth. Her answers are really important.
Brenda Wyss is professor of Economics and Coordinator of Development Studies at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.
In her own words, Brenda says: I am particularly interested in issues of economic justice and I bring that commitment to my research, teaching, college service, and my life off campus. I strive to make economics exciting and accessible and to introduce students to a range of viewpoints, issues and questions often left out of economics courses. I’ve been teaching a course about women in the U.S. economy for 30 years. I also teach Foundations of Political Economy which highlights how power shapes the economy and economic outcomes.
I’ve worked with the Center for Popular Economics (CPE) since the 1980s, providing economic literacy training and analysis to social change activists and grassroots organizations.
For more information, visit these sites:
Center for Popular Economics
Amartya Sen - His Nobel Prize winning work was on development and freedom. Please tell us your thoughts on these subjects.Leave a message on Jubilee OneEarth Economics and/or Simple Living Works! Facebook pages.
Matthew Brennan is the VP of Sales at CollectiveSun®, LLC. He is a solar installation expert with experience in both residential and commercial projects. In addition to being a talented entrepreneur, Matt has a strong engineering and technical background. His experience includes founding SanDiegoSolarPower.com, a solar sales and procurement company with extensive market reach. Prior to SanDiegoSolarPower.com, he worked as an industrial engineer for a network equipment manufacturer, a sales engineer for electronic equipment manufacturers and an operations manager for an industry-leading mechanical engineering magazine. Now he’s brought his passion for solar power to CollectiveSun®, where Matt manages all aspects of installer relationships and project development. Matthew received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of New Hampshire.
It’s far too easy to assume that not much good is happening in states that are fertile ground for the growth of right-wing ways of doing things. The states of Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota have been just such fertile soils. And yet, precisely in the area where those three states come together along the Missouri River, this effective activist on environmental concerns helps us break through this stereotype that not much good can happen in areas dominated by right-wing politicians and profit-hungry corporations.
As an eco-minister and eco-theologian, Neddy directs Green Faith in Florida and in Latin America. Be sure you go to the GreenFaith.org to learn far more about Neddy’s accomplishments and hopes. How they frame their work:
Religious and spiritual communities everywhere generate a moral awakening to the sacredness of Earth and the dignity of all people. Together, we are building resilient, caring communities and economies that meet everyone’s needs and protect the planet. The era of conquest, extraction, and exploitation has given way to cooperation and community.
The good life is one of connectedness—with each other and all of nature. It is a world of flourishing life that replaces despair with joy, scarcity with shared abundance, and privilege with justly distributed power.
in the continuing urgent work of reversing the climate crises—and who isn’t?— you will find one great ally in this podcast episode. Let’s call her Tree, a great ally in pulling CO2 out of the air, in cooling where you live, in saving energy, in giving you healthy food, and that’s just some of what she does. You don’t need to pay lots of money to enlist Tree’s help either. Maybe none at all.
Let’s see if we can match that level of concern when we learn of the tremendous loss of environmental wealth, or natural capital as it is also called, in the annual net loss of trees. Robin will tell us more about the wealth and treasure in our trees—a kind of wealth our systems and our eyes have not been trained to see.
We can all commit to do something really meaningful as we gratefully celebrate Earth Day and Arbor Day. And, please, listeners, promote this important conversation to others.
More info https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-y-rivet-0a004420 https://sdhort.org/Sys/PublicProfile/7644008 https://www.sdhortnews.org/search-results-page/Robin%20Rivet
How Lee has benefited from Faith & Money Network
Ways we’ve collaborated
Linking money to faith, when it affects ALL our uses of money and not just our giving, is itself a radical position.
Having this conversation while the U.S. economy is being exposed for its inability to deal with grotesque income and wealth gaps—to wit, the stock market is at all time highs but the people without work and others who are underpaid are much too high for our economy to meet the standards of faith, financial morality, or an economy to hold up as a model.
The education and training done in F&MN
Signature quote:"A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life."- Wendell Berry. How is F&MN linking change of thinking values to change of practice?
Instances where someone’s change of practice goes as far as changing the economic and faith paradigms by which they live, e.g., is Christian faith naturally linked to the values of capitalism’s economic model. Do you see people shifting their faith and economic models?
The U.S. economy stumbled badly under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic. The new administration in Washington has inherited the worst jobs market in modern times. The challenge to find paths of recovery for households, small businesses, states, and more has been engaged. Here on the Simpler OneEarth Living podcast we pursue an economic model we call OneEarth Jubilee. Today we talk with an economist about assumptions that underlie the current national economy and initiatives people are taking that show different assumptions and economic models are possible.
This episode took me into conversation with economist, Barry Shelley, senior lecturer at Boston University. In Jubilee Economics Ministries we benefit greatly from Barry because he is an economic advisor to JEM’s understanding and practice of an alternative economy rooted in creation more than wealth accumulation or maximization of profits. This conversation with Barry focuses in three areas: (1) the underlying assumptions of the prevailing economy and the challenges in moving our economy in new directions, (2) the discussions happening among professional economists about changes and different economic models, and (3) local initiatives he considers important in showing that alternative sub-economies can be created within the larger, prevailing economy.
Barry Shelley is senior lecturer at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He went to that work after three decades of experience as a practitioner, teacher, and researcher focusing on the political economy of international development and the environment,particularly in rural areas of the Global South.
Working with people in poverty is central to spiritual practices, but how we do it challenges us all, poor and non-poor alike. When you see poverty in a neighborhood, whether it’s urban or rural, do you assume that the people living there just don’t have what it takes to improve their lives? Most cities develop a poor neighborhood by gentrifying it with lots of financial investment and new buildings. But that displaces all the people and businesses who were there before. Where do they go? There’s also the argument that poor people simply have to help themselves; that aid takes away their incentive to improve their situation. What approach do you believe works best? Stay with us to hear an approach that really does change people as well as their situations.
Much of what we assume about the birth of Jesus has to be unlearned if we are to get at how that birth posed a threat to empires and superpowers everywhere. Will O’Brien speaks to the politics and economic alternatives to empire that were announced in the birth stories of Jesus.
He’s ability to take apart ideas presented to us by our culture, and find, instead, the nuggets of truth that subvert the cultural understanding. He continually shapes a discipleship in the way of Jesus that is daring in how it seeks justice in politics and economics. That’s what we’ll hear in this episode.
Also learn about the Alternative Seminary he hosts in Philadelphia and what he means by the politics of Christmas.
Women are being empowered toward fuller personhood through the work of Jubilee Circles. Women in Mexico are learning their rights instead of obeying patriarchal norms shaped by machismo. Some are being trained in the power of civic action and political candidacy. Others in economic self-reliance. These examples from Jubilee in Mexico relate to all of us, wherever you are listening. Hear these strong real life stories as told by Angelica and Lindsey.
Scott's current thinking is about how the world could be different, if we all invested in creating the world we want to live in, rather than investing to maximize our financial returns. What would Maximizing Our JUSTICE Returns look like?
We can contrast it with Indigenous Peoples values around money. Wealth is held collectively....there are usage rights to the Earth, not ownership as white society thinks of it.
We talk about legal barriers to bringing this sort of world about, and some concrete ways that listeners can invest their own assets, and ask questions of pots of money they influence, with their employers, with their churches, with their community foundations.”
Fascinating Announcements
- Jubilee OneEarth Economics has begun to post short videos for free on YouTube at "OneEarth Jubilee."
- You can be a promoter of Jubilee living. Watch for information about a new Jubilee School and a certification course.
- In our previous podcast episode we interviewed Lane Van Ham on the power of immigrant advocacy. You can get his new book “Composite Nation: A History of Immigrant Advocacy in the United States,” directly from OneEarth Publishing, a service of Jubilee OneEarth Economics.
- During Advent, the four week period before Christmas, read and use Lee’s new book “The Liberating Birth of Jesus: A Birth Story Able to Reverse the Earth’s Perils.” Read more here // Hear more here, and at TheOneEarthProject.com/books. Order a copy directly from Jubilee or from various suppliers on the internet.
Thousands of people and organizations advocate for immigrants. Even so, the best advocates are the immigrants themselves. Immigrants are archetypally the strangers in a strange land. Enormous creativity is being generated by these strangers—today and throughout human history. It is the strangers in a strange land, far more than the privileged in the land, who envision the world that makes space for all of us; the only world that can save life on our planet today. Immigrant advocates change systems from the bottom up. From the margins outside of borders. They force rethinking of what “border” means and how it gets used politically, racially, and religiously.
Can the current economy handle the global pandemic that increasingly shows it will be with us for a long time? Month by month signs intensify to unveil the economy’s weaknesses, leaving many to conclude that this economy is not flexible enough to bring wellbeing, but is delivering suffering instead. How, then, can we live according to a new economy?
“Within just a few weeks—faster than the blink of an eye in geological time—a tiny, microscopic entity brought the global monolith of human civilization, the captains of industry, the might of the world’s militaries, the financial juggernauts of money and manufacturing, to their knees.”--Ahmed
Systems are being exposed, leading to profound transformation:
- Healthcare systems
- Farming and food systems
- Economic systems depending on growth, fossil fuels
- Political systems and intergovernmental systems
- Trade and travel systems
- Social systems structured for racial inequalities and class
Arundhati Roy described it poignantly: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”
More than that, the pandemic is a crucible, burning away and altering the structures that comprise the old paradigm, remaking who and what we are.
The four phases of the “adaptive cycle”--
- Growth
- Conservation
- Release
- Reorganization
The crucible invokes the truth that The Only Way Is Through. We need to cross the threshold and step into the crucible rather than fight to hold on to what we had.
CoronaVirus is revealing breakdowns and lack of resilience in our food supply systems. Which links in the chain are broken? Rather than fixing them, what are new and better choices for us in how we bring food from soil to savory, healthy eating?
This is the third successive podcast episode in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. By the end of May, over 100,000 people have died in the U.S.—a horrific, emotional and spiritual wrenching of lives, hundreds of thousands of people across the nation are hurting, grieving. Surely, this experience of death and suffering—the largest in our lifetimes—is releasing the commitment to new life in enough of us to take leaps in the direction of change—the changes that our planet says we must make in this decade of the 2020s. Not to do so will form calluses on our souls and decay in who we are.
Covid-19 abruptly stopped the fragile food supply system we’ve been depending on. The system that’s broken down is driven by industrial agriculture, global markets, trade breakdowns and corporate control.
At Least 9 Million US Households With Children Are 'Not At All Confident' They'll Be Able to Afford Food Next Month, Census Survey Finds.
Excellent sources that (1) explain the breakdown and (2) help us identify the systems we need going forward.
Richard Heinberg wrote The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality. The final chapter is loaded with things people are doing to adopt practices of OneEarth living and economics measured by wellbeing, not growth. He is senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and continues to share the wisdom of that think and action group in his Museletter on his website, https://richardheinberg.com.
I interviewed Richard for this podcast, Ep. 109.
In 4/20 Museletter #326, “Fraying Food System May Be Our Next Crisis” summarizes flaws in the current system.
https://richardheinberg.com/museletter-326-pandemic-response-requires-post-growth-economic-thinking
“Experts who study what makes societies sustainable (or unsustainable) have been warning for decades that our modern food system is packed with ticking bombs. The ways we grow, process, package, and distribute food depend overwhelmingly on finite, depleting, and polluting fossil fuels. Industrial agriculture contributes to climate change, and results in soil erosion and salinization. Ammonia-based fertilizers create “dead zones” near river deltas while petrochemical pesticides and herbicides pollute air and water. Modern agriculture also contributes to deforestation and biodiversity loss. Monocrops—huge fields of genetically uniform corn and soybeans—are especially vulnerable to pests and diseases. Long supply chains make localities increasingly dependent on distant suppliers. The system tends to exploit low-wage workers. And food is often unequally distributed and even unhealthful, contributing to poor nutrition as well as diabetes and other diseases.”
Heinberg: five of the links that are breaking down currently in the food supply chain's “wicked complexity.”
These five give us a big picture of what corporations and globalization have been creating in recent decades.
1. Vulnerable Food Workers
2. Fragile Distribution Networks
3. Broken Global Supply Chains
4. Bankrupt Farmers
5. Vanishing Affordability
Solutions We Suggest
1. Growing more of our own. — growing more of their own food. // Baker Creek seed company,
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Rationing. — At the national level, food price controls have an uneven history of success. Stan Cox: Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing // Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program
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Shorten supply chains. LINKS: capture atmospheric carbon and sequester it in soil, that build healthy and biologically rich topsoil // nutritious and affordable food // fair to farmers and farmworkers.
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Guides for how Our Choices can reconfigure food supply post-Covid-19 (mid-Covid-19)
From the Reader Supported News website, an article on young adults turning their grief to action: Anna McClurkan
a. Local supply—growers, retailers, markets. Focus in communities instead of corporations.
b. Reduce Meat by at least 50%
c. Organic—no pesticides, herbicides
5. The Land Institute, Salina, KS, — reconfiguring farming (notes from Panel with Stan Cox, 5/23/20)
Detailed Show Notes at http://simpleliving.startlogic.com/SLW-PODCAST/?p=2371
CoronaVirus is reshaping life and society, moving in the direction of ecological living. We also acknowledge the intense resistance to that move as many of the powers want to get back to normal.
So much desolation has been caused by human incursion. We've even given it holy sounding names like Manifest Destiny. In some cases humans carry disease to other cultures that have not developed immunity, such as Europeans invading the Americas.
"Perhaps the most important message the coronavirus offers is that the natural world is conspiring to save us from ourselves, to slow our materialistic greed and reign in our aggressive, self-centered, short-term, and xenophobic tendencies." --John Perkins, co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance
Lee and Jerry talk about what the virus has to teach us and share pertinent thoughts from experts.
Simple Living Works and OneEarth Jubilee work on the crises caused by the explosion of human beings on the planet in the past century and on an economics of endless growth on our wonderful planet’s limited resources.
Colleagues: GrowthBusters (Dave Gardner)--film and podcast; World Population Balance // OverPopulation Podcast; Post-Carbon Institute programs + CrazyTown podcast (SLW! Ep. 109–Richard Heinberg); CASSE: Center for the Advancement of the Steady-State Economy (The Common Good Podcast Ep. 46–Brian Czech); Center for Sustainable Economy; and Population Connection (SLW! Ep. Ep. 72: John Seager of Population Connection, Part 1; Ep. 73, Part 2); Bill Ryerson of the Population Institute and Population Media Center (SLW! Ep. 113: Part 1--Population Crises; TCGP #97: Part 2--Reducing Population Using Methods that Work)
For Jubilee OneEarth Economics, part of positioning ourselves to meet the challenges of the 2020's is adding John Michno to the leadership team.
For Jubilee OneEarth Economics, part of positioning ourselves to meet the challenges of the 2020's is adding John Michno to the leadership team.
John's Values
Environmental and human sustainability are so important. I can see that the Pearl of Great Price Jesus talks about -- is the ecosystem -- Earth, our home. Earth provides the right amount of oxygen, water and plant nutrients. This delicate balance is changing, due to the unconscious way that we over- consume. The Good News is, we are creating a new culture of sustainability.
John's Work & Business
I started work as a Fellow with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, researching mathematical models of sea pollutants and overfishing. With a degree in Physics from UCSD, I worked as a software engineer for a former division of General Electric. I became a software sales consultant to Global 500 corporations, saving building & vehicle operations costs and energy use. Advising a leadership team at the Federal Aviation Administration, I facilitated a $5.2 million software purchase. As a project manager, I directed 44 software engineers, gathering requirements from thirty US Navy managers. I eventually headed a team of twelve software engineers working for the National Science Foundation. We were a $20 million program for earthquake and structural engineering research from a consortium of fifteen universities around the world.
John's Human-Valued Mission
As this work drew to a close, I was weary of moving up the ladder. My ambition had always been to earn another promotion, challenging myself. But in the competitive world of business, I was wanting more kindness and coaching to develop my growth possibilities.
I had been an Intervarsity Bible Study leader and a camp counselor with inner city Latino and African American youth. I started to study Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a conflict intervention process with roots in the work of psychologist Carl Rodgers, who emphasized the beauty of the individual. I joined a circle of Unitarians, Buddhists and activists who hosted communication workshops. My friends invited me to co-facilitate a monthly NVC practice group. We added Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space Technology, mindfulness and Heart Math. I was invited to teach at various universities, synagogues and churches.
After the election of 2016, I became more aware of the bullying of Muslim, Hispanic and other school children. I joined an interfaith team and liaised to social workers at Trauma Informed Care Team. With the school district, we created new procedures and curriculum to protect kids from bullying.
As the climate emergency became apparent, I worked as the Interfaith Coordinator for 350, seeking to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. My job was to form relationships with clergy of all faiths, inviting them to take joint action on climate change, through education about the science of climate change, and through Creation Care circles in their faith communities. I worked with Catholics, Brethren, Episcopalians, Methodists, UCC, Religious Science and Ba’hai.
Through these experiences, I increasingly valued the diversity of spiritual practices, the insight of science, the preciousness of our environment, and of individual humans. We are bringing these gifts to nourish our planet and our peoples.
In 2020, we’ll be holding special events recognizing the 20th year for Jubilee Economics Ministries -- A delegation to southern Mexico to learn communitarian practices from the JEM Circles there, 6/6-13; a conference in San Diego, 9/19-20, featuring scholar Wes Howard-Brooke; a 20th anniversary party in San Diego toward the end of the year.
The 2020’s
- Hopes and challenges of OneEarth (low growth/no growth) economics in the face of unbridled capitalism. Using communitarian (not communist!) models exemplified among the Zapatistas.
Colleagues: GrowthBusters (Dave Gardner)--film and podcast; World Population Balance + OverPopulation Podcast; Post-Carbon Institute programs + CrazyTown podcast (SLW! Ep. 109–Richard Heinberg); CASSE: Center for the Advancement of the Steady-State Economy (The Common Good Podcast Ep. 46–Brian Czech); Center for Sustainable Economy
- Future of voluntary simplicity; being replaced by minimalism
Overconsumption and Overpopulation as the primary drivers of the Climate Crisis
For Earlier Episodes, visit http://simpleliving.startlogic.com/indexoth.php?place=podcast.php
http://simpleliving.startlogic.com/SLW-PODCAST/ | SimpleLivingWorks@yahoo.com
Biology professor David Hoferer at Briar Cliff University, Sioux City, IA, an activist with the Sierra Club and Audubon Society, talks about the reasons for and the effects of a huge, precipitous drop in bird populations.
Jerry met David through the NorthWestern Iowa Group of the Sierra Club, where he serves as an officer. He also leads the local chapter of the Audubon Society. He knows birds--how important they are to the web of life and how threatened they are in the climate crisis.
Only a few months ago Lee began reading reports on the loss of birds, nearly ⅓ of all birds in 50 years. That’s less than his lifetime. The skies are emptier, the woods and our yards are quieter. Hanging bird feeders in our yards was once a kind of hobby. Now it’s radical, spiritual activism in resistance to the prevailing behavior of our species.
A New York Times article from 9/19, entitled “Birds Are Vanishing from North America” reviews an article in the journal “Science” that reports on an exhaustive study of bird populations. It left scientists in sad astonishment at the rate of decline. They remind us with urgency of what we’re losing. It’s not only that many birds have nice songs and entertaining behaviors. Common bird species are vital to ecosystems, they control pests, pollinate flowers, spread seeds and regenerate forests.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-america-canada.html
In this episode, Jerry interviews Lee about his new, 130+ pages book on how the perils of our planet can be reversed by the story of the birth of Jesus as told in the Gospels. The Gospels give us a story of new creation. Matthew and Luke give us riffs on Genesis, a collection written to protest the Babylonian Empire. Genesis and the Gospels give us stories that radically counter the stories of superpowers. Their stories are about the creation of the Earth and new life, and they do so in defiance of the superpower domination and death they were experiencing from Babylon and Rome respectively. Those stories give us what we need in 2020 to live by a different story from the superpowers of today’s world that are destroying life for so much of our planet.
The interview flows through a series of topics:
- why Lee wrote the book
- how the birth story in the Gospels and the Christmas story exist in two different paradigms
- the significance of the selective, mixed-gender genealogy Matthew gives us at the start of his gospel
- the significance of dreams in the birth story and in our new creation story today
- why cosmology keeps the creation story much larger than historical versions do
- actions we can take to live in the new creation
The new book is The Liberating Birth of Jesus: A Birth Story Able to Reverse Our Planet’s Perils. It’s available both on Amazon and Powell’s Books. It grows out of blogs Lee wrote in Christmas seasons during past years. This is Lee’s fourth book.
See http://theoneearthproject.com/books/ for descriptions of his earlier books.
Listen to this high energy, informative conversation with Julie Trager & Ava Torres-Bueno, two advocates for single payer healthcare. Their backgrounds in healthcare bring deep knowledge to their convictions. They tell how all of us can be served better and cheaper through California’s single payer plans.
Julie and Ava answer the objections to single payer that we often hear and explain how those objections come from the money-interests (insurance, pharma) who want to keep the status quo … and protect their profits. After this podcast you’ll be smarter about why and how single payer will serve us far better than the costly, confusing system we have now. You’ll know how you can help make it real asap.
We urge you to visit the website of California Health Care for All http://www.healthcareforall.org for helpful information and how you can help build momentum for this change in your area.
TransitionUS is part of the global Transition Town movement.
The Transitions approach states that three dynamics underway require urgent action: Peak Oil, Climate Change and the Economic Crisis.
The author of "Light, Bright, Damn Near White: Stories and Reflections of a Multi-Racial Black Man's Battles with Racism in America" adds focus to February, Black History Month.
1. Candace Vanderhoff - water consulting and designing water harvesting systems, sustainable landscapes and water conservation products. Issue: Less than 1% of world’s water is fresh; 50% of all fish species live in it; 70% of withdrawals are for ag. Fracking; no corporate takeover of water districts. SAMATLA in San Mateo. She is an entrepreneur creating businesses to do what her heart and ideals tell her to act on. She works with a deep sense of Spirit and love. Our own greywater system
2. Walter Brueggemann--Primal Power of Money & Possessions in Our Lives: Six Theses; connections between the six theses and contemporary politics.
- Learning Resistance and Alternatives from Zapatistas and Jubilee's Mexico Partners. Issue: carving lifeways amid violent systems.
4. Kelly Siefken - Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services; VP for Communications and Marketing.
Issue: failures of food system.
Food - a primary door to OneEarth living
5.
Hazel Henderson: Reforming Economies to Work for the Wellbeing of All Creatures -- Hazel Henderson is a world renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, a worldwide syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable development, author of Beyond Globalization, and seven other books. Her editorials appear in 27 languages and more than 400 newspapers.
6. Patricia St. Onge (Haudenosaune). Issue: How Indigenous and non-Indigenous relate to one another to empower change in systems and love for all species.
Resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota catapulted Indigenous peoples into major news stories. The prayerful, nonviolent actions of the Standing Rock Sioux and thousands who stood with them, First Peoples and others, showed the power of spiritual activism in the face of powerful corporations intent on domination. Our guest on this podcast, Patricia St. Onge, a Haudenosaune, went to North Dakota and interpreted the actions there in countless conversations. She is a consultant and coach, with Seven Generations Consulting, a business she and her partner, Wilson Riles, founded. It’s a great treat for us to bring to the Common Good audience this conversation with Patricia St. Onge. Patricia is the founder and a Partner in Seven Generations Consulting and Coaching, where all of the work is culturally based. Here’s how she describes her consulting and coaching work: “Deeply rooted in the concept of Seven Generations, we honor the generations who have come before us, are mindful of those yet to come, and recognize that the impact of the decisions we’re making now will last for seven generations.”
Hazel Henderson is a world renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, a worldwide syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable development, and author of Beyond Globalization, and seven other books. Her editorials appear in 27 languages and more than 400 newspapers. It's a treat to hear this interview with her by co-host Jerry Iversen.
The challenges to the global economy glare at us: ecological breakdown, exaggerated rich-poor disparity, and the use of war to secure resources. Our guest, Hazel Henderson, has spent a lifetime promoting real alternatives. She has pursued economic reforms. She measures an economy’s strength and merit by more criteria than whether or not it’s growing. She created the Green Scoreboard online so we can all follow the trillions of dollars being shifted into the green economy year after year. She’s a great cheerleader for cooperatives. She founded the Ethical Markets TV program where she interviews guests from different parts of the world who tell viewers how ethical markets and economics are working for them. Listen! It's a feast of encouragement ala Hazel Henderson.
Visit EthicalMarkets.com for details of its programs and Hazel's bio.
If you haven’t already subscribed to TCGP, we hope you will now through iTunes or your favorite podcast service.
Have you visited the food bank in your area recently? If not, you may have an out-of-date picture of what a food bank is. Let Kelly Siefkin bring you up to date on this podcast. You’ll appreciate her enthusiastic, articulate description of the impact Sacramento [CA] Food Bank & Family Services is making in Sacramento County. She’s the VP for Communications and Marketing there and clearly believes in what she’s doing!!
Special thanks to Paul Taylor for arranging this interview with Kelly. TCGP interviewed Paul for episode #74. He’s been a board member for 20 years at Sacramento Food Bank.
Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services (SFBFS) offers compassionate support and a compass for families navigating difficult times. Immediate problems and pain are alleviated followed by services that move people towards self-sufficiency and financial independence. With 15 diverse programs and services, a staff of 82 employees, several thousand volunteers and the financial support of the community, SFBFS guides families on their journey through support and education.
135,000 men, women and children receive support from SFBFS every month. All services are provided at no cost to families seeking to change their lives. SFBFS welcomes families regardless of zip code, income, language or education level.
Fifteen programs and services include Parent Education, Clothing, Adult Education, Health & Nutrition and CalFresh. See online for the 2015-2016 Impact Report. In 2015/2016, 8,271 volunteers gave 76,247 hours of service, equivalent to 36 full time employees.
Contact Info: (916) 456-1980 or visit www.sacramentofoodbank.org
Candace Vanderhoff is an architect who designs water conservation and reclamation systems for homes and businesses. She has done field study of subsistence cultures and traditional architecture in the central Pacific islands. Currently working to develop projects and systems for simple regenerative living in the US, projects focused on water conservation and reuse, and regenerative building.
She has interest in appropriate technology, material reuse, water conservation, off-grid living, indigenous architecture, Central Pacific islands, curriculum development, teaching, woodworking, nature, small houses and poetry.
Susan Taylor, Just Money Advisors on Relating to Money in a Toxic Culture and Parenting Children about Money
lee@jubilee-economics.org | http://www.casajubileo.org
Lee Van Ham’s From Egos to Eden: Our Heroic Journey to Keep Earth Livable
- This book is the 2nd of three in the series, “Eden for the 21st Century.” How does the content of this book fit into that series?
- The book agrees with those who say that the current crises are beyond anything our species has ever faced. What is it about our current moment that makes it so daunting?
- As your subtitle indicates, the book’s overall structure follows the sequence of a mythic heroic journey. How does that journey fit our task of keeping our planet livable?
- You attach a lot of importance to the experience of Call. Do you believe that our entire human species is being called to this heroic journey? What is the importance of speaking about our response to Earth’s ecological crises as a Call?
- Quite a few First Peoples speak in your book—especially in the “Foreword” (written by a Haudenosaune woman) and in Chapter Seven where First Peoples are considered mentors and partners in OneEarth living. What is happening among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples that make their voices important to our heroic journey?
- It’s apparent that Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, has been important to how you understand our abilities as humans to move beyond what we’ve yet achieved. What is it about Jung that makes him so helpful in solving our ecological and civilizational crises?
- You speak about this as an apocalyptic time. Why do you find it helpful to speak of apocalypse? Many use that word to describe catastrophe.
- Every heroic journey is a quest for a treasure. What is the treasure that our heroic journey seeks in order to solve the crises we’re in?
- You join with Thomas Berry, the late “geologian,” and others in believing that we humans are capable of moving beyond greed, acquisitiveness, and domination and actually create a world beyond our current crises. On what do you base such belief?
- Heroic journeys take us on life-threatening adventures, but finally we arrive “home.” What does home look like in our journey from egos to Eden?
Lee's bio / Jubilee blogs/ Lee's OneEarth blog Gerald's Vision of the Future/ Gerald's Enough blogsfor Jubilee OneEarth Economics (in process)
Re-reading Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, speech "Where Do We Go from Here?" gives inspiration to give voice to what others are remaining silent about. African-Americans have repeatedly raised their voices and marched their feet for right relationships in America when America's too-white leadership kept silent, retaining their positions of power unfairly.
Richard Lawrence, who grew up in an African-American family of 15, tells us in this podcast of his experiences giving voice with King and others to how the economic system was ruled by whites in ways that acutely excluded blacks. Richard was present in Selma (1965) and led clergy in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood in an important business and bank boycott which King joined in. (Richard was guest on an earlier podcast.)
In 2013, the quest for right relationships throughout a new economy must include our planet who is herself speaking ever more loudly about how the current economy dumps its waste while extracting what it wants without paying the true environmental cost. Leaders of wealthy nations remain silent. The Common Good Podcast resolves to add our voice to the Earth's, along with other organizations like 350.org.
Also, learn about a new resource co-host Jerry Iversen has prepared to help us focus daily on living toward a new economy. He calls it a calendar of daily inspiration for every year. (Read more in a recent JEM blog.)
Ways to Listen and Download To listen to this episode, click the player at the bottom right of this page. The player also appears on the JEM home page or the top of the podcast main page.
To download this episode, subscribe using Feedburner, where you can choose your preferred subscription method including iTunes, email, or any other reader/podcatcher.
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Veterans for Peace tell story upon story of people who turn increasingly toward making peace, because, while they were making war, they came to see that much of what is said and believed about military engagement is not true.
Barry Ladendorf is a veteran of the VietNam War. But by the time he was into his third tour of duty, on a naval ship stationed off the coast, he no longer believed that the war was succeeding nor that it was making the world safe for democracy. The U.S. government persisted in claiming both.
On this Common Good Podcast, Barry tells his story of transformation and how, upon retiring from a legal career, he "enlisted" in San Diego Veterans for Peace. Today he speaks most articulately to how he and other veterans join together in a powerful mission of bending our worldviews, governments, and economies to the sure knowledge that peace generates not only far more jobs than does the military industrial complex, but builds a safer, stronger, more democratic, more ecological, and happier world.
In this final TCGP episode of 2012, cohosts Jerry Iversen and Lee Van Ham add some quick thoughts of their own about the season, especially how peace is a far bigger story than the warmaking of superpowers old and new.
Ways to Listen and Download To listen to this episode, click the player at the bottom right of this page. The player also appears on the JEM home page or the top of the podcast main page.
To download this episode, subscribe using Feedburner, where you can choose your preferred subscription method including iTunes, email, or any other reader/podcatcher.
To listen to other episodes, click Feedburner or click Menu on the main podcast page player.
Links and Mostly Free Resources Related to This Episode War Resisters’ League
SOA Watch (School of the Americas/School of the Assassins)
Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quaker lobby)
Lee’s Unwrapping Christmas in a Different Paradigm AND The Unholy Family of Christmas — readings for the weeks before or week after Christmas
Two examples of what to tell the folks when you change how you give gifts:
Our Alternate Christmas Celebration
The Rewards of Changing Gift-Giving Patterns
Feedback Call 858-480-6855 and leave up to a three minute message. Or, you can use recorder on our web site and leave up to a ten minute message (Flash Player required).
Leave a written message in the sidebar form, or email feedback@thecommongoodpodcast.com.
Please rate us and leave a comment in iTunes Music Store.
Donate to JEM JEM invites you to show your appreciation of our web outreach by a donation—either one time or as often as you like. Help us with hosting costs, software, and other incidentals that allow us to create our educational and inspirational content. Thank you.
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This podcast features some of our thoughts about learning to live in the Presence of the sacred. JEM followers have urged us to talk about how we link the Common Good practices that we talk about on this show to our spirituality; to do it explicitly, not just vaguely. So in this episode we give it a go.
Here's one broad, underlying assumption. Whenever we can fit our lifestyle choices to fit within the resources of our one planet home, we show a reverence for Creation. We are connecting with the Spirit of the creational order instead of the spirit of the times. Practices that take us to such One Earth living are also practices for the common good. And when we follow practices for the common good, we have entered into the Spirit as well as the Order of our planetary home. In such living, we are engaged in spiritual practice whether we are aware of it or not, whether we call it that or not.
Episode 31 also includes ...
- Lee and Jerry reflecting on the 2012 election results.
- Thoughts to help us stay in charge of our holidays rather than letting them run us, based on Tips for Simpler, More Meaningful Celebrations, also the subject of a recent blog.
- Jerry's new free group coaching service via internet.
- Lee telling why he chose train over flight recently to return from Kansas City. Also, he comments on his HOA (Home Owners' Association).
Ways to Listen and Download To listen to this episode, click the player at the bottom right of this page. The player also appears on the JEM home page or the top of the podcast main page.
To download this episode, subscribe using Feedburner, where you can choose your preferred subscription method including iTunes, email, or any other reader/podcatcher.
To listen to other episodes, click Feedburner or click Menu on the main podcast page player.
Free Resources for This Episode Peter Sawtell's Gratitude and Transformation from Eco-Justice Ministries is very pertinent.
All of Treasury of Celebrations: Create Celebrations That Reflect Your Values and Don't Cost the Earth is helpful, especially so at this time of the year. Alternatives to the Commercialized Christmas
Green America credit card
Heifer Project International
YERT-Your Environmental Road Trip
Check out the courses at Northwest Earth Institute
Lee's One Earth Project site and blog
Feedback Call 858-480-6855 and leave up to a three minute message. Or, you can use recorder on our web site and leave up to a ten minute message (Flash Player required).
Leave a written message in the sidebar form, or email feedback@thecommongoodpodcast.com.
Please rate us and leave a comment in iTunes Music Store.
Donate to JEM JEM always gladly accepts donations given in any amount according to your generosity. Show your appreciation of our web outreach by a donation—either one time or as often as you like. It helps us with hosting costs, software, and other incidentals that allow us to create our educational and inspirational content. Thank you.
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The 2012 elections accentuate explicitly the overwhelming dollars pouring into government in the U.S., whithering democracy in the hot sun of their influence. The dollar take-over of government from local to national continues, of course, throughout the election cycles in all forms of influence.
This is what the Common Good Podcast guest, Bob Edgar, actively resists in his work as President and CEO of Common Cause. He knows his work well because of his experience as a 12-year member of Congress from Pennsylvania. His work as a prophetic provacateur also includes a stint as General Secretary of the National Council of Churches.
Episode 30 also offers ...
- Thoughts to help us stay in charge of our holidays rather than letting them run us, based on Tips for Simpler, More Meaningful Celebrations, also the subject of a recent blog.
- Jerry tells about questions and thoughts from the audience during a presentation he recently gave in Ames, Iowa.
- Lee tells about a local model, named Blue Sky Ranch, of people living in community, raising produce and fruit organically, retaining rainwater, and being intentional about spirituality.
Ways to Listen To listen to this episode, click the player at the bottom right of this page. The player also appears on the JEM home page or the top of the podcast main page.
To download this episode, subscribe using Feedburner, where you can choose your preferred subscription method including iTunes, email, or any other reader/podcatcher.
Free Resources related to this episode Bob Edgar's organization, Common Cause
Lee's Unwrapping Christmas in a Different Paradigm
All of Treasury of Celebrations: Create Celebrations That Reflect Your Values and Don't Cost the Earth is helpful, though in our avoidance of debt and gluttony, especially pertinent is the article there Do You Serve Feelings Or Food?
Feedback Call 858-480-6855 and leave up to a three minute message. Or, you use recorder on our web site and leave up to a ten minute message (Flash Player required).
Leave a written message in the sidebar form, or email feedback@thecommongoodpodcast.com.
Please rate us and leave a comment in iTunes Music Store.
Donate to JEM JEM always gladly accepts donations given in any amount according to your generosity. Show your appreciation of our web outreach by a donation—either one time or as often as you like. It helps us with hosting costs, software, and other incidentals that allow us to create our educational and inspirational content. Thank you.
You can listen to the podcast here or download it. See Ways to Listen below.
Four segments in this episode 1. Advertising is designed to keep us dissatisfied, to make us feel that we’ll be better or more popular when we buy a particular product. How can we resist that pressure? How do we help children?
- Making a Difference — Will Jubilee Economics or simple living make any real difference? What does the Future look like?
Jerry gives insights about how jubilee economics and voluntary simple living come together in practical ways.
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Lee and Jerry discuss countering advertising and other Multi-Earth forces through alternative holiday celebrations. It's based on Tips for Simpler, More Meaningful Celebrations, also the subject of a recent blog.
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Exciting updates at JEM - The One Earth Project is getting closer to publishing the first volume of Lee's trilogy. We thank Ed Lucas for his years of service as he moves on. And other news.
Director Lee Van Ham’s back on the show because his spouse, Juanita, star of episode #6, is well along on reovering from her recent hip surgery.
Free Resources Segment 1. SEE Jerry on advertising here.
READ more about advertising from Jerry here.
Segment 2. Jerry and Rita have chosen The Lutheran Community Foundation as the place to help safeguard the future of their granddaughter's generation.
350.org - a global movement to solve the climate crisis
Segment 3. Lee recommends Tikkun Magazine for ways people of any faith can benefit from Jewish holidays.
VIDEO: The Celebration Revolution of Alexander Scrooge / Leader's Guide and script
VIDEO: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas / Leader's Guide and script
Segment 4. Lee's One Earth Project site and blog
Simple Living Works! site
Ways to Listen To listen to this episode, click the player at the bottom right of this page. The player also appears on the JEM home page or the top of the podcast main page.
View, play and share all our episodes here.
To download this episode, subscribe using Feedburner, where you can choose your preferred subscription method including iTunes, email, or any other reader/podcatcher.
Feedback We’d love your feedback and we’d love to use it in the show. Here are a few options:
We are at Facebook. Like us and share us there.
Voice: call our Google Voice number, 858-480-6855 and leave up to a three minute message. Or, use the recorder on our web site and leave up to a ten minute message. (At that point, we might just consider you our next guest!) The SpeakPipe recorder requires Flash Player.
Leave a written message in the sidebar form, or email feedback@thecommongoodpodcast.com.
Please rate us and leave a comment in iTunes Music Store.
Donate to JEM JEM always gladly accepts donations given in any amount according to your generosity. Show your appreciation of our web outreach by a donation—either one time or as often as you like. It helps us with hosting costs, software, and other incidentals that allow us to create our educational and inspirational content. Thank you.
Doug Clegg Doug Clegg wields a mean guitar. And a mean fiddle. And a mean mandolin. And a mean piano. And a mean resonator guitar. And ... well, he can play just about any instrument in the folk music tool box. But even a bit more dangerously, he sports a formidable pen too. When he puts lyrics down, he just might channel the folk singer greats and their calls for just labor relations, or a healthy environment, or to call crooked politicians to truth.
Doug has published his own music for years now and has several albums to his credit. He and his partner Kate Wallace have created the Trinity Backstage concert series, now at just over 100 shows, giving singer-songwriter artists a classy venue and listeners a classy act for a totally reasonable price that still lets each party and the host church reap suitable rewards that do everyone some good. Creating a parallel world for artists and listeners to meet and support and inspire each other is itself a form of jubilee economics.
Doug is all that, and a massage therapist, but of interest to us here is the fact he's the board president of Jubilee Economics Ministries.
In May, JEM got volunteers, board, and friends together for meetings and a coffee house concert of Doug's music. Doug came down to San Diego and afforded us the chance to finally do a podcast with him, seeking his perspective on JEM, music publishing on the outside of the mainstream recording industry, the Artists for Change CD, social justice, the plight of Native Americans, and whatever else came to mind in this freewheeling chat. He also played a couple songs for us too and wove their lyrical themes into the podcast discussion.
This is quite a different show than we've ever had.
The weekend also resulted in a rich batch of new audio and video for our library:
Listen! The following player has all the songs of Doug's performance at Rebecca's. You can download any of the songs in this playlist, or share it around with a simple link, or if you like, embed it in your site just like it appears here.
Watch! The YouTube playlist just below features four of Doug's original songs at the Rebecca's show and two songs from this podcast session.
Total running time for six videos is about 32 minutes.
The Common Good is now on Facebook Oh, our page has been there for some time even alongside JEM's page, but now you can find our show and a convenient list of our episodes, all playable in Facebook via the Libsyn app. You'll have to allow the app to interact with your own account, but isn't it SO worth it to hear The Common Good Podcast? Of course, now it is stupendously easy to share TCGP with your friends. Under the show logo is the magic "SEND" button.
Farewell, Van Pelt Psychiatric Help Ward Ed Lucas' home studio and the launchpad for The Common Good Podcast [video] is a thing of the past as of this episode. Oh, maybe someone else will do a podcast from the same room in the funky, 90 year old craftsman house in San Diego's North Park neighborhood, but probably not. Most of the first 26 episodes were done there, and a lot of JEM's present online presence originated there since early 2010. JEM meetings of the San Diego working group were had there, sometimes even on the porch during the summer. It was just a mile from the main JEM office, but a bit more spacious and not prone to the other distractions at the Christ United Methodist church where the office resides. So farewell to the old house. We're going to have to figure out what else to do, either at Ed's new place some miles out of town, or just to do location recording of interviews.
Gerald Iversen In the works is a new idea for The Common Good Podcast that involves our new collaborator Gerald Iversen. Gerald's long history in the voluntary simple living movement dovetails with JEM's mission. Gerald has contributed many videos and will contribute many more to a new YouTube channel devoted to voluntary simple living. We're working out how to get Gerald in as a regular voice on TCGP, even as he's elsewhere in the nation.
Listener Feedback We want to hear from you. One easy way is to use the voicemail recorder that appears in pink to the right of this page, or if needed, here. No phone required, and you can leave us up to a five minute message! How cool is that? We'd like to use it on the show.
You can also write to us using the sidebar email form.
Featured Interview: Rev. Deb Mitchell Deb Mitchell was quite like millions of her time and place, comfortable in a middle class life with a good job at a major corporation. Without meaning to, she held advantage that she didn't even know she had over others. Eventually as her world grew larger than her Midwestern roots reached, Deb became more and more attuned to the dimension of life that had gone unnoticed for so long. Thanks to international travel and a changing corporate landscape, Deb was forced to look at things in a whole new way.
At the age of 50, and after having become disgusted with the corporate life, she finally answered a call to ministry that had been lurking since her youth. Now she's ordained and serving in the Presbyterian Urban Ministries facility in San Diego, serving a population of homeless and economically disadvantaged folks, and where all the years as a corporate marketing exec for AT&T seem like light years ago. She talks about some of the eye opening, paradigm shifting things that happened along the way. This is a show about awakening to a deeper life that will make you feel, folks.
Lee Van Ham dot com? That's right folks. With Lee pounding away furiously like a monkey on a typewriter (okay, it's a Macbook Pro), trying to get his book ready for market, he's soliciting feedback on draft work. Soon there will be a blog-based site at LeeVanHam.com. Help him out with your comments and sharing.
Voicemail for The Common Good Podcast You can leave your voice message at a range of portals scattered about this site, but the easy way to remember it is to use TheCommonGoodPodcast.com/voicemail. You could also use the loud pink widget strip on the right of the window at the main site. You get to record up to five minutes using only your computer's audio input. It sounds real good too.
Or, you can continue to use our Google Voice feedback line, old style with a phone: 858-480-6855. Messages can be up to three minutes.
Coming Engagements JEM is a pretty geographically scattered bunch, and we rarely even see each other. But this month, we're going to get together for a weekend and tease out the whys and wherefores of our work together. Oh, and while he's in town, Doug Clegg, JEM board president and a fiercely talented multi-instrumentalist, will strum some tunes at Rebecca's Coffee Shop in San Diego on Friday night, May 4th. You could come and meet all but one of the JEM crew and some friends, and hear Doug play some great solo, acoustic music. At the bottom of this post is a link to the Artists For Change project that he coordinated. Download, share, enjoy!
Catholic Worker Hospitality House roundtables See all about it at a previous post here on JE.org.
Additional Resources Presbyterian Urban Ministries, San Diego
Our new voicemail recorder
Doug Clegg
Artists for Change CD on Soundcloud player
San Diego Catholic Worker House, Casa Milagro
Wouldn't It Be Good video (Nik Kershaw, 1984, suits our feature this month.)
All About the Money! Lee starts off with announcements regarding the shared mission of JEM and allies in the cause, Faith and Money Network. One thing that FMN does is get people to write their money autobiography to help identify and if needed, to help change how one relates to money. Often money matters are more taboo in family and/or public discourse than sex or religion, and FMN helps people break through all that, into a greater understanding of how attitudes toward money are far more influential than they might seem.
You'll want to check out a couple of Lee's posts that speak to the virtues of voluntary downward mobility and the awakening that awaits the soul who crafts a money autobiography. After you've done your own money autobiography, you may find your newly opened heart wishes to address your investing strategy, and when that happens, you'll want to know about our guest for this episode, Jan.
Feature: Jan Schalkwijk, Green Financial Advisor
Jan Schalkwijk is a financial advisor with a specialty in targeting investment options for people who are looking at more than just the "old" bottom line of profits alone.
Last year Jan was featured on episode 11 of this podcast. In that episode he relates his personal story about how he found himself called to apply the new convictions earned from traveling extensively. In this episode, he talks more about the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) branch of financial services and how his "green" approach is a part of a larger movement with progressive approaches meant to support the companies that have greater respect for the planet, workforces and distribution, and that are corporately governed more equitably and transparently.
Jan tells about some of the hands-tied legal snags that make it somewhat more difficult for small time investors to invest in smaller, nonpublic companies. He names a few workarounds that might be of interest to some.
Also, in the age of dawning realization that Earth is a finite place with finite resources, where does an eco-conscious advisor find opportunities for healthy growth?
Resources JPS Global Invest
Jan's first podcast and his article on SRI in the Rockies, 2011
Faith & Money Network
SRI in the Rockies
Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
Richard Heinberg (author of The End of Growth)
Your Comments and Feedback We're always looking for show ideas and guests. If you're working to bring viable and sustainable economics into the world, tell us about it! Leave a comment or idea at podcast@jubilee-economics.org, or call 858-480-6855 and leave up to a 3-minute message on our Google Voice mail. We want to use your comments on the "air."
Featured Guest: Lane Van Ham Lane Van Ham is our featured guest for this episode. (Okay, you figured us out. He's related to Lee just like Lauren from episode 16 is. We're a small organization!) Apparent nepotism not withstanding (no one is geting paid, ahem!), Lane's new book, A Common Humanity: Ritual, Religion and Immigrant Advocacy in Tucson, Arizona (University of Arizona Press) just came out and stands just fine on its own. Having done his graduate studies in the field of immigrant advocacy, this book emerged from that experience.
Here Lane's focus is on a different aspect of the immigration debate. Rather than argue for or against or who is right, he helps us to know the human stories of those who make (or attempt) the perilous desert crossing from Mexico into the United States and those who offer humanitarian aid and advocacy on the US side of the border. Lane takes us past the right and wrong, polar thinking, and helps put a face on the who and why of this issue.
Lane not only came to do this podcast interview in early January, but he also addressed a crowd of two dozen or so at JEM's San Diego office. You can watch the entire presentation and discussion on YouTube. It's a bit long (over an hour) but it's a must see accompaniment to this podcast. Please share it around to your friends who are interested in border issues.
SOPA: 0, The Digital Commons: 1 Before we got into the body of the episode, we wanted to acknowledge the epic fail of SOPA/PIPA, and to recognize that the power of the Commons was summoned to stare down overzealous entertainment industry figures and their politicians-in-tow. (Don't let the door hit you too hard on the way out, gentlemen.) Bravo! That means we get to keep on with our work since all the hosting companies we use (and all those that we don't use) have the heat turned down.
Reach Out and Coff-Tea Someone We also take a bit of time to recognize that JEM has had a digital heyday this last year and a half but we got a bit far from our in person presence, as we built up our digital media profile and as Lee worked on his book. In 2012 we're looking forward to some in person engagements.
To that end, the two main things to discuss already have been the real casual but warmly received Jubilee Coff-Tea Time at Cafe Virtuoso and the presentation by this month's featured guest. We reflect on what it's like to be in the same place together, with a feeling of real community.
The Coff-Tea Time was anchored by past guests of this podcast, Harry Watkins and Steve Von Kolkow. We're looking forward to more such events with different guests who would help paint the picture of how JEM-style alternative, One-Earth economics values are finding expression already.
Reources * Lee's blog post following Coff-Tea and Lane's presentation. * Lane's book presentation video. * Slideshow tour with Steve and Laurie from Cafe Virtuoso. * Episode 12 with Harry Watkins. * Episode 18 with Steve Von Kolkow. * San Diego local news about the Friendship Park and other border monuments being walled up.
Lots of stuff in this episode because there is much to report on. We plan to diversify content within each episode so as to keep you abreast of things in JEM-land, to reflect on some notable news, and to build community among our listeners and readers. We're starting to get the hang of this after all this time!
Featured guest: Rev. David Miller and the Interfaith presence at Occupy San Diego Raised in a Reformed Jewish house and eventually answering a call to be a Unitarian Universalist minister, David Miller's presence at Occupy San Diego was indeed one of interfaith. He tells about his interest in the persistent, decentralized movement as he sees it from his personal experience. David once took part in the Metanoia Gatherings, a JEM small group that met in 2006-2007, and which spawned the workbook, Shift Happens, co-authored with Lee Van Ham while David was going to seminary.
- Visit David's blog.
- David's profile on UUFSD's website.
Christmas blog series: The Unholy Family of Christmas Lee Van Ham has a series of entries to appear during this Advent season. Like last year's series about the Gospel of Luke's Caesar-squashing cosmological tale, he takes a deeper look at some of the misplaced parts of the Christmas story, this time featuring some of the scandalous women in Jesus' genealogy as written in the Gospel of Matthew. All these entries can be found in our blog category, Unwrapping Christmas. Stay tuned during December for the remaining entries of this new series.
More podcast news We're seeking your input for our podcast. Want to leave a phone message that we could use on the "air"? Call 858-480-6855. It can be up to three minutes. Want to email us? Send a message to podcast@jubilee-economics.org. We want to build up the community around our site and this show, so let us know what you're doing, or what we ought to be doing.
Steve von Kolkow and Laurie Britton, co-owners of the cleverly named Cafe Virtuoso, believe in delivering quality coffee and tea products primarily to wholesale customers. Their product line is all organic, and since October is Fair Trade month, we wanted to talk to them about that. How did Fair Trade look to them as businesspeople with a bottom line to mind?
It turns out to be a bit more expensive, yes, but it was hard to turn down since their experience at farmer’s markets taught them that individual customers were asking more and more for Fair Trade product. Seeing the demand, they in turn led the way with their wholesale customers, a victory for Fair Trade as more and more vendors will be moving FT product at an increasing scale that bodes well for FT to be a sustainable model.
Steve and Laurie each give personal accounts of how they started Cafe Virtuoso, how they educate customers on the products the pros and cons of Fair Trade’s certification and the trends in the industry.
October is Fair Trade month, and we have other clips from another recording we made onsite at Cafe Virtuoso. You will be able to enjoy three slideshows where you can see pictures of the Virtuoso shop and hear Steve and Laurie give a guided tour and offer additional interest to today’s recording.
This month’s show is a conversation between Lee Van Ham and Michael Johnson. Lee and Michael are collaborating on a project based on Lee’s book-in-progress, The Eden We Can Choose: Moving to a One-Earth Economy and the Stories That Get Us There. The book is Lee’s definitive call for an economics that is suited to and answers to the possibilities available on one Earth. This is of course in contrast to the economics model that disregards the natural limits and promises growth, growth, growth even as that is becoming a clearly outlived and impossibly dangerous model.
Michael’s desire to aid the process of guiding society back to safer shores of economic and cultural activity led him to be ready for a lecture that Lee gave a few years back. His background in multimedia and learning technology will help take the message Lee is bringing in his book to a wider audience. This show itself is part of the creative process as they discuss some of the options available.
Their enthusiasm for this project is palpable throughout.
- Michael Johnson’s main production company is Industrial Strength Television.
- Look on this blog for some samples of the book and related thoughts in the One Earth category.
The movement we at JEM see is toward a greater consciousness about the interconnectedness of all things. More than being a philosophical musing discussed over coffee (or absinthe) in lofty intellectual circles, this realization is dawning on more and more people and becoming evident in social movements, economics, and contrary to what some might believe, in matters of spirituality. A post modern view is emerging of wholeness and interrelationship and is affecting decisions from the household level to the corporate giants.
Lauren Van Ham has had a love affair with the natural world and has found renewal from being there. She has worked in nonprofit and for-profit settings, ministry settings, corporate settings, and has found herself instructing WalMart employees and management in what sustainablity means on a personal level. She is the Dean of Chaplaincy at the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley where people called to interfaith spiritual leadership can learn how to communicate with and serve people of various religions and none at all. After some eye opening experiences showing her the great need for someone tuned into the needs of the Earth, she decided to recommit herself as an “eco-chaplain,” even re-ritualizing her ordination to solidify her commitment outwardly.
Lauren tells us about the varied experiences she’s had and how she’s been sculpted into a spiritual leader who embodies the needs of the new century—able to work meaningfully at the personal and corporate level to help the world on the way to healing.
Here is a bonus! We had a video camera trained on the conversation that day. Enjoy a 10:40 version of the interview, or pass it along to your buddies. (Audio file for download is below the movie clip.)
The fault of our economic system these days is that it doesn’t know what enough is. That is, enough is never enough unless it involves a little bit more. So goes the logic of the economic thought for the last century and more, particularly in America. Unfortunately, there are few checks and balances on this line of thought. Schools can’t educate people on what enough means. Messages from nearly every sector of society revolve around the perceived need for more.
For Rick Zemlin, he checked in with his Catholic upbringing and chose to model his lives on the saints—people who embodied the noble goals he’d pursue, and people he notes were not of the middle and upper classes of society. A Peace Corps term in the Phillipines also gave him a vision of what true poverty was and how he might conduct himself with regard to his earning and consumption habits in order to lessen the disparity of wealth between the people he saw and his own earning potential in the States. Out of that awareness, his career in non profit and charitable organizations grew.
Choosing to live on a budget of around $10,000 a year, Rick tells how his consciousness has been shaped, how he determines what is enough for him. It isn’t a prescription for everyone else, but for those who are looking for ways to adjust to new standard of living suitable for one Earth, Rick might be inspiring. He gives conceptual and practical examples of how one can live a dignified life with less, forgoing the things that might distract him from the spiritually-satisfying life he has led for decades now.
The absolute common denominator of being human is that one day we meet our deaths. It stirs the full spectrum of our emotions, engages our spiritual selves, and can cost a lot economically. The costs of caring for a deceased family member can quickly become inflated because of decisions made in grief. Such decisions add to the post-death stress in many families. Few know that most of what the funeral industry does is not necessary or required by law. Even more important is that no professional mortuary services can help us as much with our range of emotions as a loving family-directed in-home funeral. So what alternative is possible to the current, typical funeral?
This show features Eric Putt and Andrea Deerheart of Thresholds, a mortuary service that provides home- and family-directed funerals that put the human dimension back into taking care of the deceased—a real alternative to the commercial funeral industry, which by intent or accident has usurped the role of loved ones to carefully tend to the body. As Eric says, the goal is to put himself out of a job because he wants to empower families to choose how to take care of their loved one at the time of death. For those who are not death-averse, it can be a great option to plan for and fulfill the complete picture of life by using traditional means that celebrate rather than mask from sight this part of the fullness of life.
Lee Van Ham, while ostensibly the interviewer and facilitator, tells of his own experience caring for his mother in the fashion that Thresholds supports. Eric and Andrea have their respective stories of how their eyes came to be opened to the need for a more satisfying way to see their loved ones off. Hear about how death can be dignified, honored, and most of all, healing by taking control back from commercial mortuaries. How much does it cost? 20% or so of what conventional funerals cost—a viable, affordable, loving way to proceed when our family experiences a death.
- Thresholds
- The HeartWay (Andrea)
- Funeral Consumers Alliance
- Lisa Carlson's "Caring For The Dead"
- Bios of this show's panelists (PDF)
How are business majors being trained for the marketplace in the new context shaped by Earth’s pushback on unlimited growth business models? That’s where The Common Good goes in this episode with guest Harry Watkins, Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at the Fermanian School of Business, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego. Harry held marketing and sales positions with Tektronix, Mentor Graphics, Amerex Technologies, and more before his current teaching position.
In this interview we hear the challenges of change in a university business curriculum to a triple bottom line that addresses planet and people as well as profit. As Harry studied sustainability for marketing and business courses, he came to understand its complex interconnections with many other disciplines (political science, social science, theology, and more). So he turned to his colleagues for help, inviting them to come to his classes to teach a segment on their discipline and sustainability. Out of these interdisciplinary experiences, Harry has created a minor in sustainability. Hear Harry’s assessment of both what is being achieved in his business school and elsewhere; also, the much more that needs to happen for business to realize its potential for moving humanity into life-sustaining relationships with all the inhabitants of Earth.
Jan Schalkwijk kicked off his financial advisor career in the traditional mold. But after a sweeping tour of the world in 2005, he came back energized to approach his career life with new vision for how to keep moving people toward sound investments but with an added criterion: to invest in companies and ventures that have the sustainable ethic in mind. With so much investing being the race to earn a quick buck, Jan set his sights on a larger goal: to find the best intersection of a worthy return and support for companies that see sustainability as the only way to go, if the long run is of any concern.
Jan spoke with Lee Van Ham for this episode and tells the story about how he spanned the chasm and embraced two forces that people often don't see in any alliance. Jan discusses how he gets a feel for the real goals of an investor to decide where they are on the continuum of risk, and then match that with as many funds as possible that include strong green and sustainable values. That is the art in Jan's practice: finding the right balance for a given investor.
Jan's firm is JPS Global Investments, in San Diego.
This month our guest is Nancy Casady, the General Manager of the Ocean Beach People's Organic Food Market, a cooperatively owned retail store in San Diego. OB People's concentrates in selling vegetarian food, but the cooperative as a business model can be applied to any kind of business that is now run by a corporation. The difference of course, is that shares are held in a one-owner, one-share manner and no one can accumulate shares and the influence that goes with them.
Nancy discusses the history and the globally recognized principles that define the cooperative model. She also talks about how its democratic organization is better for civic virtue and participation, since each owner is equally empowered and can profit equally. By answering to individuals, the cooperative is more responsive to the needs of a wider segment of a community.
Community Land Trusts are growing in popularity and viability in this age of foreclosure and neighborhood disintegration. The CLT model holds land in trust but allows sales of houses upon that land, with the price of the land being removed from the sale, the price for housing can be far more within reach for working families who actually want to live in a house with a stable situation. The CLT as a legal structure fosters closer interaction between all parties, rootedness for the homeowner, and minimized concern about speculative gains in favor of stability and accountability, one party to another.
This month’s episode features two guests from the San Diego Community Land Trust, where Lee Van Ham is the board chairman. Richard Lawrence, ordained in the Methodist Church, has a long history in social justice work, affordable housing efforts and community building in Chicago and San Diego. Anastasia Brewster, coordinator, has experience in Real Estate consulting and has worked with a Phoenix area CLT before coming to San Diego and working with the local CLT.
Richard and Anastasia discuss not only the basics on the CLT structure, but also some of the stories that drove them to take up this work and their visions for the future success of their work. Each also reflects on the recent CLT conference in Albuquerque, NM.
San Diego Community Land Trust
David Funkhouser of Fair Trade USA (formerly TransFair USA) is our featured guest for this episode which coincides with Fair Trade month (October). David is Strategic Relations coordinator for FTUSA in Oakland and just finished a day of presenting at three universities before coming to meet and talk with us. He talks about his attraction to and involvement in the movement, the origins of FT, the processes for certifying cooperatives that produce the goods, and how FT meets needs of smaller producers better than the so-called free trade market, ensuring that participating farmers and artisans can remain situated in their homelands, as dignified and productive citizens. The structure of Fair Trade cooperatives help foster democratic organization and solidarity when pitted against banks and a rough and tumble marketplace.
Back in America and the consuming societies, there are also increasing numbers of so-called Fair Trade Towns and Fair Trade Universities. David discusses this determination to embed FT into the institutional life, buying and using FT goods exclusively or nearly so. UCSD is one of the first FT Universities, hence his visit to San Diego. His addressing USD, a Catholic university, indicates how FT is an expression of how faith-based groups can be at the leading edge of this new economic practice that just seems too right to ignore.
Lee’s beloved Juanita is now our first guest on the podcast programs, and in this show she is talking about her work at the San Diego Cooperative Charter School, where their grandson went to school. She liked the role of managing the “compost train” so much that she stayed at the school even after Tyler moved on!
In this show, Lee and Juanita talk about her work there, and the joy of seeing the young kids take to this kind of life with open eyes and wonder, as the natural world—even in an urban school setting—still has the power to educate and renew the soul at a deep level for all ages.