Welcome to day three of my week long daily blog challenge.
Yesterday my email was filled with exciting news and all related to a book I was going to review later this week but decided to move up to today. The emails were from a number of national organizations I subscribe to for social justice and /or environmental purposes and were inviting Canadians to sign a pact to support a hopeful new grassroots movement called the Green New Deal out of the US. (all linked in and comprising the second half of this post) But I will come back to this.
The book for today’s write up is called No is Not Enough – Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need and was written by Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and This Changes Everything amongst many other thought provoking works.
Naomi Klein’s books are not light, nor are they easy reads, but they are important, and this one is no exception. I slogged through it because her passionate enthusiasm takes me back to my university days when grassroots social justice movements seemed the only trustworthy place to imagine, and actually begin creating a better world for all.
Klein and her partner, filmmaker Avi Lewis, were the original creators of the Leap Manifesto, a document authored in 2015 with the intention of creating a more caring, inclusive, and sustainable country, and world. https://leapmanifesto.org/en/the-leap-manifesto/
That document, and its creators have since formed the basis of a movement called The Leap with the intention to see the ideals of the Leap Manifesto made real through actions oriented to creating a new economy which is better able to actually meet the needs of people within Earth’s environmental boundaries.
Like the manifesto, Klein’s book, No is Not Enough was written to help pave the way for a more just, civil society, and understandably, one as far from US President Donald Trump’s, twitter feed compass as Canadians, and global citizens’ can possibly get. Just how the moral compass of American politics got so messed is the carrying weight of this upsetting, and fascinating tale.
Klein’s ability to articulate what many of us speculate about reasons behind the direction North American politics have taken (specifically those of Donald Trump in the US) and are further headed towards, is brilliant to say the least.
She asks the difficult questions, and takes the time to break down the complex processes behind the stranglehold of ever increasing neoliberal ideologies, explicating the power they continue to wield for further social and environmental cataclysm.
“There’s a lot of confusion about the word neoliberalism, and about who is neoliberal. And understandably so. So let’s break it down. Neoliberalism is an extreme form of capitalism that started to become dominant in the 1980’s, under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, but since the 1990’s has been the reigning ideology of the world’s elites, regardless of partisan affiliation. Still, its strictest and most dogmatic adherents remain where the movement started: on the US right.” Klein, No is Not Enough
Klein runs through her playlist of multimillionaire schlumps who have worked doggedly behind the scenes of the American political arena in order to ensure that the agenda of neoliberals is front, and foremost in politics of the United States; from oil execs to big data, and surveillance firm owners, and all with massive gains to make from keeping shock values rooted in fear at the forefront of American citizen’s minds.
“This creates a disastrous cocktail. Take a group of people who directly profit from ongoing war and then put those same people at the heart of government. Who’s going to make the case for peace?" Klein, No is Not Enough
So, if Naomi Klein’s book provides a genius glimpse into how we got here, and a frightening look at where we might be headed, it is her premise that “no” is not enough that directs the reader to the rest of the story, not yet written on history’s pages. This is where things get a lot more hopeful, and that is due to the yes! we all can make for a new path being forged by diverse people with a common desire—to create a culture of caring which leaves no one behind, and is sustainable socially, economically, and environmentally.
And so now we are back where we began--with the hordes of exciting emails I received yesterday inviting Canadians to sign on to the Green New Deal to create the world we know we want to live in, rather than the one being enforced upon us by neoliberal elites.
Klein, Lewis and all the great many other caring Canadians and Americans who are paving the way for a better tomorrow through the Leap, the Green New Deal, and other such movements deserve our support. The alternative to supporting these movements is not a good one. We only need take to twitter and search up Donald Trump or turn on Fox News to know why.
From my email yesterday-- excerpts and links in case you are interested in learning more:
1) Council for Canadians
Politicians across the country are also failing to act with the speed and scale necessary to tackle this crisis. They are also the same politicians failing to act to build a nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous communities and tackle rising inequality.
.. that’s why, today, I’m asking you to stand with the Council of Canadians and people across the country to bring a bold and ambitious plan to the forefront of Canadian politics. Sign the pledge to show your support for a Green New Deal for Canada (Aussi disponible en français).
The Pact for a Green New Deal, an alliance of people, communities, and organizations, is building an ambitious vision for tackling the climate crisis in a way that also addresses other crises we face, such as injustice towards Indigenous communities, job losses, rising racism and economic inequality.
2) Lead Now
This is our chance to blow apart the toxic climate politics that have been holding us back for a decade. It's our chance to supercharge the fight for a safe climate, by putting the Green New Deal centre stage during an important election year.
But to actually get it on the political agenda, it’s going to take all of us. Right now, political parties are developing their election platforms -- and you can bet that they’ll be watching the public reaction to the launch today.
A flood of support for the Green New Deal could convince them to run on bold plans to fight the climate crisis and inequality. But we need to move fast, before parties finalize their platforms. So what do you say -- will you sign the pledge to support a Green New Deal for Canada now?
3) The Leap
For the past few months, The Leap has been part of a growing coalition of groups calling for the creation of a Green New Deal — for everyone.
Today, that coalition launched the Pact for a Green New Deal in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, with the support of organizations like the Canadian Health Coalition, CUPE Ontario, the National Youth Farmers coalition, and Migrante Alberta.
The Pact for a Green New Deal tells us “It’s decision time: we can either descend into division and disaster or come together with a far-reaching plan to avoid it and build a safe, just and prosperous future for all of us.”
4) The Friends of Public Services
A Green New Deal is at the core of everything we do at Friends of Public Services.
It’s a new phrase the idea that we can redistribute wealth, improve services, and rapidly reduce emissions by investing in creating millions of jobs rebuilding our infrastructure to run without fossil fuels, and caring for each other.
The best ways we have to accomplish all those things are to expand and improve public services.
Delivering Community Power, the campaign we co-created with Postal Workers and the Leap to create a zero-carbon logistics network and a public green bank, should be a pillar of any future “New Deal”-style policy.
The Future is Public aimed to expand this kind of transformative vision to the rest of the public sector, with a view to building the alliances that can deliver it.
Today, we are thrilled to join our efforts to a massive coalition of labour, environmental, and Indigenous groups, along with artists, scientists, and political representatives, to launch the Pact for a Green New Deal.
Thanks for reading!
In peace and hope,
Jill