No. … Pope Francis is not perfect. But he is one religious leader who is honestly and smartly, and in humility, attempting to address challenging local & global issues of socio-ecological injustice and insanity positively & effectively.
The encyclical of Francis, “Laudato si” stresses that:
- the ecological crisis is a moral & spiritual challenge to care for creation,
- we are all connected and should plan and act in solidarity, and
- we must acknowledge that the poor contribute the least to the ecological crisis.
Francis has said that “taxation should favor wealth redistribution for public services.”
Finally, in “Fratelli tutti,” Francis says “Life, for all its confrontations, is the art of encounter”. That is what life is: the art of encounter. Encounter is, as it were, the oxygen of life. Francis denounces a culture of walls and disparity and asks for us to see Jesus of Nazareth in the excluded.
He wishes for us to recognize that peace comes through truth, justice, and mercy. Francis shouts out to the world, “Never again war” … or the death penalty.
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No. … I don’t have the social, political, human, financial, and cultural capital of Francis. However, somewhat remotely like the proposals of Francis, the positions I personally take aren’t socio-politically, economically, or even religiously popular. Remarkably, my humble proposals of anti-growth and that “Less Is More”* can even seem radical in this neoliberal capitalistic globe of rapid depletion of: social fabric, dynamic homeostatic symbioses including humans, and sustainable ecological systems. They seem so very radical to some, even though they are desperately necessary for quality life for a decent existence of future generations.
Yes. … Living a minimalist ecological footprint is the moral and ethical way toward what should be our goal of quality life for all, including other species. I necessarily propose living the seven S’s … sabiamente (or wisely), simply, smally, slowly, steadfastly, sharingly, sustainably. (I stopped at seven [7] because of my respect for the recognition of this number, seven, by some indigenous nations as a sacred number which represents world order to its fullest. … But I could have easily added “living in solidarity.”)
Anyway, there are policies and actions we should be taking, such as:
- individually and collectively lessening our ecological footprint and living in concert with nature;
- sharing toward equity and opening borders;
- realizing positively ethical applied ecology across curricula & campuses of all human organizational entities;
- pacifism, including the abolishing of the death penalty vs. guns, arms, & War;
- realizing appropriate applied agroecology through a matriarchal agrarian society; and of course …
- anti-growth and development of a more appropriate political system.
All of this is a big bill to fill.
But here in Clean, or Real Seguin, we could truly get real, show solidarity, practice an ethical art of encounter, and begin to do just a little more good than we currently are … in the following ways …
- honoring the black human-sector of our ecological community through removing the John Ireland monument at Central Park, Seguin, Texas,
- as a show of respect for Tejanos, the owners of the Aumont building, Seguin should remove the Texas Ranger mural on the north wall of that historical building,
- we Seguinites should erect a monument at Central Park to the wonderful indigenous peoples we drove out and killed into genocide, who had lived in relative concert with native pecans, acorns, deer, prickly pear cactus and other good foodstuffs and gathered relatively sustainably for thousands of years in this land of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Watershed,
- not using disposable plastic bags to carry purchased goods from our stores (I would propose that HEB immediately terminate the silly immoral use of of disposable plastic bags, and soon quit making disposable paper bags available,),
- collectively learning to compost organic materials from our homes and local landscape … and effectively use on local Land this organic and nutrient-laden “Gold.”
- closing of some of Seguin (eventually much of Seguin) to private automobile traffic as well as to make the city more bicycle friendly in other ways!
These actions here in Seguin might eventually result in intelligent and robust communication and policies and accomplishments toward anti-growth & sustainable ecological community!
(There’s more of these sorts of suggestions on pages 235-7 and others in our little book on applied ecology, Games We Play (kite.pub) . Moreover, British ecological economist Kate Raworth does a great job through her illustrations of doughnut economics in her intellectually smart book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist – Wikipedia . She clearly demonstrates how growth and increasing needs of the human component of Eaarth (or Earth in the Anthropocene), exacerbates the serious ecological problems of exceeding limits for what was and can be a wonderful living, relatively natural Earth with rich topsoils, clean water & air, and a healthy biodiversity including robust photosynthesizers.
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I must emphasize in this final paragraph that what has made living on this Eaarth particularly pleasurable … is song. Music, song, and the arts has contributed so very much to quality life. And it can even be song which is more brutally honest than joyful:
“I don’t doubt for a minute
someday we’ll all learn to start livin’ together
…
We’ll save a little green
A place for birds to sing …
…
someday we’ll all stop
and realize what we’ve got before it’s all gone
someday we will
but I wonder if the world can wait that long
…”
Wonder If the World Can Wait That Long
By Adam Wright
(2609) Wonder If The World Can Wait That Long by Adam Wright (lyric video). – YouTube
pbm
7 S’s / VV->^^
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