Table of Contents

Introduction to the Lies that Build Empire 4

Studying Empire Together 7

Session A: Getting Wise to the Lies; Strengthening our Resilience 8

The Just World Fallacy by Garold Stone (with comments by Mushim Ikeda, Katie Loncke, Robert Fettgather, & Rachel) 9

Dear Jambolan Tree (a Letter from Võ Hai) 11

Inner and Outer Dissonance by Rachel Buddeberg 13

What’s the Point? By Edith Lazenby Trilling 14

My Lover, Monsanto by Nathan G. Thompson 15

Session B: Logics of Empire & Imperialism 17

Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing by Andrea Smith 18

The Greater Common Good by Arundhati Roy 25

The Fraud of Jobs by Stephen Fortunato 26

Session C: Challenging Power; Taking Action 30

Can Mindfulness Change a Corporation? by David Loy 31

Are Justice and Enlightenment Incompatible? The Yoga Journal / Hyatt Controversy by Katie Loncke 36

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 2 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media BPFer Dharma Talk on DC Climate Change Rally (Audio) by Taigen Dan Leighton 40

From “Action Strategy: a how-to guide” by The Ruckus Society 42

Session D: Resisting Empire and Domination in our Groups 45

Study Group Guidelines and Embracing Debate by Dawn Haney & Katie Loncke 46

Commitment to Dismantling Oppression compiled by Dawn Haney and Jacks McNamara 47

Session E: Overview of the Lies that Build Empire 50

Practice Exercises 51

Sponsors’ Corner: Introduction to The Pachamama Alliance 53

About Buddhist Peace Fellowship and The System Stinks 54

Permissions & Photo Credits 55

With Gratitude 57

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 3 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media The Lies that Build Empire

The Buddha Dispelled Some Big Lies

As if it weren’t enough to rediscover eternal truths of dharma, during his lifetime the Buddha also dispelled a few socially significant lies.

Born into the luxury of royal life, it wasn’t until his early adulthood that the Buddha discovered the false safety of opulence — the illusion that wealth will protect us from old age, sickness, or death. But upon discovering the reality of a wider, poorer world (no doubt the birthplace of his childhood servants or courtesans), Prince Gautama took off for the forest, leaving behind a now desiccated courtly comfort.

Even more significantly, the teachings of an enlightened Buddha flew in the face of a socially deterministic society. Offering the possibility of freedom based on individual effort, the dharma rejected caste ranking as a determinant of spiritual potential in this lifetime. Although the Buddha did not act out of political motivations, exposing this lie was a big deal: it challenged an entrenched power structure. And though it earned the Buddha a few enemies, it also opened a mighty way forward for countless buddhas of the lower castes. Even today, many Dalit followers of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in India embrace Buddhism instead of religious traditions that relegate them to an oppressed “untouchable” status.

Can We See Through Today’s Lies?

We still have many more lies to dispel, for the sake of all beings. Some lies we may be aware of: the fantasy of infinite natural resources; the idea that free markets are fair markets (or even truly free in the first place); myths of meritocracy; beliefs that women are naturally subservient or inferior.

Some lies we take on as “useful fictions” because we think they make life simpler or safer (for some of us). National borders. Binary gender. A biological basis to race. The notion that disabled bodies are flawed because they don’t fit the cogs in the machine of capitalism. The idea that prisons, cops, and wars make us safer. The promise that mindfulness makes kinder CEOs, or that peace and justice must be achieved without ruffling any feathers.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 4 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Other lies may lie half-conscious in us, like internalized oppressions. One could even argue that the notion that “lies build empire” is itself a misconstrual, and that what really builds empires are not ideas but material relations, which then shape and form dominant ideas!

Why “Lies That Build Empire”? BPF Members Suggest Further Reading

As students of both the dharma and global The Limits of Power by Andrew Bacevich movements for justice, we (Dawn and Katie) The New Military Humanism by Noam Chomsky chose to frame our questions about these The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman structural lies within the context of empire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire We were curious to learn what our fellow Blowback by Chalmers Johnson political Buddhists had to say about Confronting the Third World by Gabriel Kolko imperialism, as we felt it to be an important The Accumulation of Capital by Rosa Luxemburg dynamic to understand as we build for true Against Empire by Michael Parenti peace. Neither of us are experts on the Earth Democracy by Vandana Shiva history of imperialism and colonialism — and in any case, “expertise” in an analytical sense Make your suggestions at: does not automatically engender an http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/what- understanding of how the effects of classic-texts-would-you-like-to-see-for-lies-that- imperialism live in the body, in the mind, in build-empire/ the heart. Instead we offer this framing of “Lies That Build Empire” out of our commitment to learning. Not only learning for learning’s sake, but for the sake of liberation from structural harms. We appreciate you joining us both as our fellow learners and as our teachers.

What are Some Ways We Can Understand Empire & Imperialism?

Contributors to this first theme on Turning Wheel Media have covered a range of lies undergirding empire, in the broad sense of empire as a dominating mode of economics and government — a way of interacting with beings and the earth. Empire tells lies about job creation; empire tells lies about feeding the world through monocultures; empire tries to relegate First Nations to the history books, in order to continue exploiting their lands.

One starting definition of imperialism is the practice of one country or government growing stronger by taking economic and political control over other countries or territories that have important resources — whether raw materials, consumer markets, investment opportunities, or strategic geographical location.

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Using this definition, we can see that despite the “successful” revolutions of many nations colonized during an historical Age of Imperialism, imperialism is far from over. Through military force, economic incentives to local governments, new settlements, and propaganda insisting on cultural superiority, imperialist governments and corporations still foster parasitic or outright deadly relationships with peoples and lands throughout the world. The struggles of Native American, Pacific Islander, and First Nation tribes in the United States and Canada, Palestinian people trying to survive an expanding Israeli state, and Tibetans opposing Chinese rule all characterize their resistance as against imperial power.

Imperialism as “the Globalizing of Capitalism”

In addition to land grabs by particular nations, in today’s imperialism, we see land and resources taken over in “the globalizing of capitalism” (Childs & Williams, An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory).

“The contemporary international division of labour is a displacement of the divided field of nineteenth-century territorial imperialism. Put simply, a group of countries, generally first-world, are in the position of investing capital; another group, generally third-world, provide the field for investment.” (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’).

In this iteration of imperialism, resource grabs are supported not only by the military strength of individual nations, but the collective might of a global body -- the United Nations. Political philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri would in part blame peace-lovers like our own Buddhist Peace Fellowship for giving such power to the UN. The UN Security Council “has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” Yet the choices of which conflicts to intervene in never seem fully based on compassion. Instead, they seem to support the maintenance and growth of resources/power for countries already powerful enough to have a strong military force. In today’s version, "Empire is formed not on the basis of force itself but on the basis of the capacity to present force as being in the service of right and peace" (Hardt & Negri, Empire).

In addition to military force, this globalized version of empire is still driven by economic incentives (from the World Bank and their severe structural adjustment policies), resettlement (this time of globalized corporations, made easier through free

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 6 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media trade agreements), and exported propaganda insisting on cultural superiority of “First World” people. Under today’s imperialism, land and resource theft is still happening, both by nation states and also by global political entities and global corporations.

A Bodhisattva Practice to Resist Empire?

As political Buddhists and bodhisattvas-in- training, how can we apply the Buddha’s lie-busting vision to the castes and power structures of our time? What lies of empire have impacted us through our ancestry? How do we see through the lies and justifications of global empire, and be advocates for the liberation of all beings?

Realities are quite complex, but like the Buddha, we take courage and do our best to observe, to study, to learn, to understand. Fostering relationships with you, with other people working for liberation, we hope to promote freedom across time — from ancestors, to present fellow beings, to future generations — by studying the processes and effects of imperialism. Please share your knowledge, experience, and wisdom with the rest of us, as you feel moved to! May it help us to heal collectively from dysfunctional systems, which have different impacts on different beings but affect us all in one way or another.

~ Katie Loncke & Dawn Haney, Co-Directors, Buddhist Peace Fellowship

Studying Empire Together

We encourage you to explore these ideas with other political Buddhists, whether in your local area or online. For more tips and conversations about how to start study groups, see the Study Group Support Guide: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Study- Group-Starter-Guide-v2.pdf

Depending on how often your group meets and what you are interested in, you can choose one or more of the following sessions to dig in to! Feel free to start with whichever session draws you in most.

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Session A: Getting Wise to the Lies; Strengthening our Resilience

Empire isn’t just a concept “out there” - it’s embedded within our lives. We all have stories of encountering the lies of empire, the ones we’ve learned and internalized. Let’s learn about each other’s lives, both the places where we’ve been disillusioned and the bases of our strength to resist.

Session Goals:

 Share our stories of how we came to connect spirituality and politics  Investigate how imperialism is intertwined with our lives

Discussion Questions:

In the discussion of Gary Stone’s note on the Just World Fallacy, people began telling stories of when their belief in a just world was shaken. What’s your story: Have you ever believed in a just world? If so, was your belief shaken? Tell a story about what that was like for you.

Võ Hải speaks both of the dislocation of imperialism, and his efforts to care for and connect with the Jambolan tree as a way to resist empire. What helps you be resilient in the face of empire?

Hải, Rachel, Edie, and Nathan offer us poetic takes on how empire is intertwined in our relationships with the earth, with other people, and with our own minds. Where do you experience imperialism connected to your daily life?

What helps you I write letters to be resilient in the the Jambolan tree face of empire? -Võ Hải

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The Just-World Fallacy

In my humble opinion and beyond my limited ken …

Many of the “system-level lies” listed in Turning Wheel’s call for submissions for this theme seem to me to be instances of the commonly held (incorrect) world view of the “Just-World Fallacy” (JWF).

JWF seems to be a general template for various system-level lies (memes) that blame the victim and insidiously teach victims to blame themselves for original sin or for past sins of commission or omission (remembered or not, intentional or not) which they purportedly had committed.

Under JWF, Karma would be reduced to a simplistically linear “what you sow is what you reap” — popularized in the TV show “My Name is Earl” and in some celebrity-endorsed self-help books.

JWF seems to be in sharp conflict with Buddhist teachings of Samsara, Dukkha, Impermanence, Interdependence, or Liberation.

Likewise, JWF is misused to justify privilege.

Garold (Gary) Stone, Laurel, MD, Retired Sitting with Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center, Silver Spring, MD In the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 9 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Comments:

Mushim Ikeda

I haven’t seen the famous movie, “Hadaka No Shima” (“Naked Island”) in years, but when I saw it 30 years or so ago, it punched a big hole in my JWF. And it’s probably meant to represent a culture that is Buddhist. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjVtXe2pLaU

Katie Loncke

Ooh, nice — adding it to my list of films to watch. Thanks, Mushim!

I remember in high school, something that “punched a big hole in my JWF” (love that way of putting it) was when I realized, at an embarrassingly late stage (senior year), that my public high school was financially segregated: parents could donate money specifically to the magnet program I was in (with advanced and college prep classes) without spreading it around to fund the whole student body. In my naíve zeal I wanted to write a story for the student paper, interviewing students in “regular” classes and in the magnet program, ‘exposing’ the fact that the non-magnet students were receiving an inferior education. Luckily my journalism teacher talked me out of biting off more than I could chew.

It’s not so much that I thought that students in ‘regular’ classes deserved fewer resources, or were there because they were somehow lazy or less smart, but I was so focused on my own studies and social group and life (literally sectioned off from the rest of the 2,500-student school, with a whole wing of the building reserved for the magnet program and language classes) that it simply never occurred to me that there might be structural disparities within my pubic school. To this day, I’m a little haunted by how blinkered I was. My JWF made me complacent, just accepting as normal a situation that favored me.

Robert Fettgather

Very insightful to invoke Lerner’s Just Worlc Hypothesis (JWH) . The hypothesis is generally regarded as false, hence (JWF). A status quo mindset, Invoking JWH, minimimizes cognitive dissonance over injustice with the false presupposition that folks get in life what they deserve. Believers sleep well amidst the suffering. Victims of a stinky system are thus dismissed. Beyond Lerner, the JWH also assumes the righteousness of Victimizers. My work in the mental health system over 4 decades, while deeply gratifying over helping people out, usurped my own JWH: that government,profit and non profits always work toward the well being of disadvantaged persons. A system that pays bureaucrats to care for especially vulnerable populations (e.g., elders with dementia, people with severe intellectual impairment or severe mental illness) is prone to exploitation. This system tends toward objectification of these often voiceless groups. Care becomes neglect or in the case of Sonoma Developmental Center, serial torture. Careerists who victimize in this system collect their paychecks and, it seems to me, bask in the JWH illusion that they must be caring, rather than harming, innocents. To the BPF I submit that people with severe intellectual impairment may be among those most hurt by a system that stinks, and among the least understood and supported.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 10 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Rachel

Thanks to this post, i finally understood why i have not been enjoying TED talks anymore… They seem to be full of just-world fallacies… Why are there so few women in the upper levels of the business world? Sexism? No, women drop out. If they’d just stay, there would be more! So says Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html (admittedly, i didn’t watch the whole thing… I got too sick to my stomach after the first 5 minutes or so…)

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/the-just-world-fallacy/

Dear Jambolan Tree (A Letter from Võ Hải)

Chào cay trâm mốc/Dear Jambolan tree,

I hear from a Vietnamese elder in the town that I grew up in in the US after the diaspora that you are a rare species in this, to you, foreign land. I also hear that your leaves and branches get cold and shiver in the winter compared to sweating and basking in the glorious humidity of the east of Asia, where you grow abundantly and are not so rare.

I, too, shiver in the winter. There are many of me’s that grow abundantly and are not so rare in the east of Asia, too. Like you, this land is foreign to me. We are part of the diaspora together, me and you, trying to find home, trying to evolve and ground our roots, making sense of it all.

So just like how I get excited when I meet other Vietnamese in the diaspora, I get excited when I find rarities like you. That same elder has birthed from one of your seeds more of you, planting one of you in a public sidewalk — to share the prosperity and to heal ecosystems while also resisting the corporatized, industrialized, globalized food system.

This corporatized, industrialized, globalized system doesn’t want you — your prosperity, your healing. Over 90% of seeds — the very substance that begins to give life, life — are controlled by a few companies that’re changing how you prosper, how you heal — changing the very things that make you, with the help of the sun, water, biodiverse soils, and other plants and animals — your fullest self, that make you beautiful, that make you, you.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 11 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media How can this food system feed the world when it favors monopolies — the growth of only a few crops (wheat, corn, and soy to name some) — but the world is home to an abundance of life and diversity? I find irony.

I also find the touch of your leaves gentle like a plum tree, the smell of your bark a bit milder than an oak’s. I’m excited for you.

Kind and gentle cay trâm mốc/jambolan tree, I have yet to taste your fruit because you have to yet to blossom. I am patient. I read your fruit gifts bare sweet, bitter, astringent, and acidic tastes. I want to reciprocate — a give- and-give cycle that I find in all of life — give to your nourishment and growth with the hopes that you will give more life to other plants and animals. Is this what raising and/or helping raise children is like?

I hope to be more rooted like you someday, to take care of more of you, to return to that mindful and manifesting bliss of prosperity and healing. I’m doing that by reclaiming land for you and your fellow siblings to grow your next generations, collecting seeds of you and your fellow plant friends, and stewarding soil that you call home, nourishing you every moment of the day.

Mến và hoà bình/Love and peace, Võ Hải Hải Võ là người Mỹ gốc Việt. With ancestry in present-day Việt Nam, Hải was raised in Southern California, by way of birth sponsorship in Iowa, by way of refugee camps in the Philippines. Hải, a queer-identified second-generation Vietnamese- American helps organize youth (food) justice initiatives. Hải is passionate about traditional food(ways), (e)advocacy, popular education around food sovereignty, and returning to Việt Nam in the very near future. @nuocmamca. nuocmamca.tumblr.com.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/dear-jambolan-tree/

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 12 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media

Inner And Outer Dissonance

I was born into the wrong life: Unconventional ideas with a conventional lifestyle. I can see things clearly without the inner strength to change them. I can see how to live without the courage to live it. I got a radical brain and conventional habits. It’s tearing me apart. Eating me alive. I don’t know how to break free. Glimpses of freedom are quickly covered again by the voices of norms. I never learned how to do this and the dissonance is pulling me apart. Longing to find the support to bring inner and outer into alignment and don’t know where to look. Even there are the stories of convention preventing me from seeing and acting.

Rachel A. Buddeberg is a feminist philosopher, freethinking humanist, and student of meditation and Buddhism. At 45, she is

trying to perfect the art of failing and hoping she’ll fail at it! Thus she is leaving behind the inner normative voices that bind her to a

life of servitude and fighting for outer freedoms so that everyone can thrive! Her journey is uncovering what this looks like. You can follow it and other meanderings at http://www.rabe.org/.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/inner-and-outer-dissonance/

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 13 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media

“What’s The Point?”: A Poem

The breaking point isn’t a point. I make tea and forget the water. Yet there’s direction. I got lost driving today. I feel the moon, but cannot see. I was terse about using a bathroom. I found my way home. I meditated this morning. I went for a walk, snapped a photo, Ducks floating on water. I don’t float. I look out to look in. The point is one of many. The studio was locked. I lost a phone number. Kids waiting in the hall. I think I breathed. Someone helped. How do I help? I have entered Carolyn’s Castle of Teresa of Avila. The reptiles rule The first mansion. But in mine they’ve Crawled upstairs. She offers a candle In every room. There’s always a letter. This is the Castle of the soul. My mother-in-law says intimacy here is hard. I say I have poems. I find my next class of beginners. I learn I am screaming. I step back. I apologize. I think of fun things to do, To loosen the fetters in my voice, The tightening around their hearts. I try more Carolyn. I cannot listen to Carolyn now. Fear teases into a whip That snaps my heart into a hissing snake. I watch Madmen. I burst into tears. Now sits on my shoulders Like a friend who is too shy to move. I think am in the fourth mansion, where Bodies float. Mystical love is a force. Mystical love is not about need. Mystical love is God’s grace.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 14 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Yet I am holding a snake. I must charm it. I must not look in its eyes. In this Castle demons curl my toes And flick sparks into my reflection. The refraction started on the lawn in college. It was finished in Boston. I was nothing but fragments. No one knows the insides are shattered. I hold onto this life with unspoken prayers. I keep it together until I don’t. My body moves, my voice speaks, I go to work, pay bills, And get lost to find my way. How do I know I am holding on Until I let go? How do I know when these edges That frame my soul will sharpen into fine By Edith Lazenby Trilling

Shards of glass and those I don’t Bleed because I cannot feel what’s broken. I gather now for tomorrow. I get ready to meditate. I am someone who loves to share and I might have to leave the Castle yet my soul thrives on being with others. My craft Has learned enough to understand ego’s whittles moments into meaning and Need no longer serves me. eases my heart. I learn best by listening. I I ask you, how do teach yoga and I write. Life is challenging I navigate if my lens cannot see but simple. My kitties make me happy. Past mist and shadow? My husband is my best friend. Check my All I want, is to be touched by grace, in living blog: edieyoga.wordpress.com In a world where amen is an ending when in truth, It is only the beginning of many beginnings?

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/whats-the-point-a-poem/

My Lover, Monsanto

My lover, Monsanto, who owns the garden who does me well by choosing the seeds, is out in the fields, sweeping the dead away so that our love can grow some more.

Who owns the garden? my lover, Monsanto,

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 15 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media who is out in the fields poisoning the soil so the food will grow.

Who does me well? my lover Monsanto of course, who is out in the fields as I lie here in waiting for the August winds to blow in the September harvest.

“By choosing the seeds,” my lover Monsanto tells me, “we take the soil by force, grow gigantic vegetables, and feed the entire world.”

Out in the fields still, my lover Monsanto makes me wait in our chambers, naked and ready to ripen, fall, and be carried, just like the crop, by the strong hands that facilitate the harvester.

“Sweeping the dead away,” my lover Monsanto tells me, “is easier after the sun Nathan G. Thompson is an activist, writer, has cooked the bodies down to a skin so thin and lover of the Earth from St. Paul, that even the slightest wind Minnesota. A long time member of Clouds could take them away in Water Zen Center, he received the if it wanted to.” dharma name Tokugo (Devotion to Enlightenment) in 2008. He is the author of “So that our love can grow some more,” the spiritual and social justice blog he tells me, stuffing my mouth Dangerous Harvests, and has written with his freshly washed broccoli. articles for a variety of online and print “So that our love can grow some more,” publications, including a regular column at I echo back, as I devour his corn, the webzine Life as a Human. The very thing that replaced the prairie milkweed, and emptied the skies of nearly every, last monarch.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/my-lover-monsanto-and-other- poems/

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Session B: Logics of Empire & Imperialism

What makes empire and imperialism tick? Why are these important concepts for socially engaged Buddhists? Where do our ideas about imperialism converge and diverge?

Session Goals:

 Explore concepts of empire & imperialism, using classic texts, new analysis, and our own experiences  Learn about the different ways we understand empire  Connect imperialism to other issues we care about

Discussion Questions:

How would you define empire or imperialism? (If you don’t know where to start, it’s okay to go look it up to find a definition that makes sense to you, for now!) How do your definitions compare to the dynamics discussed by Andrea Smith, Arundhati Roy, and Dawn & Katie’s introduction?

What examples of imperialism do you experience in our world today, and how do these connect with the Three Pillars of White Supremacy that Andrea Smith discusses?

In Arundhati Roy’s piece, she describes the conflicts arising as the government of India takes over people’s lands to build dams, displacing tens of millions of people for the “greater common good” of the country. She also mentions foreign investors backing these developments. Who or what do you think is responsible for driving these development-related conflicts? Can you draw a “power map” depicting some of the main groups and interests described in the article, and how they relate to one another?

“The Fraud of Jobs” raises questions about whether all people are entitled to basic necessities and a decent standard of living, even if we don’t have jobs. What do you think about this argument? Do you think it would be possible to create a worldwide society where everyone’s needs are met regardless of employment? Do you think this is connected to peace work, or does it seem like a separate issue to you?

Tell us more about an issue you care deeply about (like climate change, war, education, prisons, or reproductive justice). How does this issue connect with imperialism?

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Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy

Rethinking Women of Color Organizing by Andrea Smith Reprinted with permission from Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

Scenario #1 A group of women of color come together to organize. An argument ensues about whether or not Arab women should be included. Some argue that Arab women are "white" since they have been classified as such in the US census. Another argument erupts over whether or not Latinas qualify as "women of color," since some may be classified as "white" in their Latin American countries of origin and/or "pass" as white in the United States.

Scenario #2 In a discussion on racism, some people argue that Native peoples suffer from less racism than other people of color because they generally do not reside in segregated neighborhoods within the United States. In addition, some argue that since tribes now have gaming, Native peoples are no longer "oppressed."

Scenario #3 A multiracial campaign develops involving diverse communities of color in which some participants charge that we must stop the black/white binary, and end Black hegemony over people of color politics to develop a more "multicultural" framework. However, this campaign continues to rely on strategies and cultural motifs developed by the Black Civil Rights struggle in the United States.

These incidents, which happen quite frequently in "women of color" or "people of color" political organizing struggles, are often explained as a consequence of “oppression olympics." That is to say, one problem we have is that we are too busy fighting over who is more oppressed. In this essay, I want to argue that these incidents are not so much the result of "oppression olympics" but are more about how we have inadequately framed "women of color" or "people of color" politics. That is, the premise behind much "women of color" organizing is that women from communities victimized by white supremacy should unite together around their shared oppression. This framework might be represented by a diagram of five overlapping circles, each marked Native women, Black women, Arab/Muslim women, Latinas, and Asian American women, overlapping like a Venn diagram.

This framework has proven to be limited for women of color and people of color organizing. First, it tends to presume that our communities have been impacted by white supremacy in the same way. Consequently, we often assume that all of our communities will share similar strategies for liberation. In fact, however, our straregies often run into conflict. For example, one strategy that many people in US-born communities of color adopt, in order to advance

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 18 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media economically out of impoverished communities, is to join the military. We then become complicit in oppressing and colonizing communities from other countries. Meanwhile, people from other countries often adopt the strategy of moving to the United States to advance economically, without considering their complicity in settling on the lands of indigenous peoples that are being colonized by the United States.

Consequently, it may be more helpful to adopt an alternative framework for women of color and people of color organizing. I call one such framework the "Three Pillars of White Supremacy." This framework does not assume that racism and white supremacy is enacted in a singular fashion; rather, white supremacy is constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated, logics. Envision three pillars, one labeled Slavery/Capitalism, another labeled Genocide/Capitalism, and the last one labeled Orientalism/War, as well as arrows connecting each of the pillars together.

Slavery/Capitalism One pillar of white supremacy is the logic of slavery. As Sora Han, Jared Sexton, and Angela P. Harris note, this logic renders Black people as inherently slaveable -- as nothing more than property. That is, in this logic of white supremacy, Blackness becomes equated with slaveability. The forms of slavery may change -- whether it is through the formal system of slavery, sharecropping, or through the current prison-industrial complex -- but the logic itself has remained consistent.

This logic is the anchor of capitalism. That is, the capitalist system ultimately commodifies all workers -- one's own person becomes a commodity that one must sell in the labor market while the profits of one's work are taken by someone else. To keep this capitalist system in place -- which ultimately commodifies most people -- the logic of slavery applies a racial hierarchy to this system. This racial hierarchy tells people that as long as you are not Black, you have the opportunity to escape the commodification of capitalism. This helps people who are not Black to accept their lot in life, because they can feel that at least they are not at the very bottom of the racial hierarchy -- at least they are nor property; at least they are not slaveable.

The logic of slavery can be seen clearly in the current prison industrial complex (PIC). While the PIC generally incarcerates communities of color, it seems to be structured primarily on an anti- Black racism. That is, prior to the Civil War, most people in prison where white. However, after the thirteenth amendment was passed -- which banned slavery, except for those in prison -- Black people previously enslaved through the slavery system were reenslaved through the prison system. Black people who had been the property of slave owners became state property, through the conflict leasing system. Thus, we can actually look at the criminalization of Blackness as a logical extension of Blackness as property.

Genocide/Colonialism A second pillar of white supremacy is the logic of genocide. This logic holds that indigenous peoples must disappear. In fact, they must always be disappearing, in order to allow non- indigenous peoples rightful claim over this land. Through this logic of genocide, non-Native peoples then become the rightful inheritors of all that was indigenous-land, resources, indigenous spirituality, or culture. As Kate Shanley notes, Native peoples are a permanent "present absence"

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 19 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media in the US colonial imagination, an "absence" that reinforces, at every turn, the conviction that Native peoples are indeed vanishing and that the conquest of Native lands is justified. Ella Shoat and Robert Stam describe this absence as "an ambivalently repressive mechanism [which] dispels the anxiety in the face of the Indian, whose very presence is a reminder of the initially precarious grounding of the American nation-state itself .... In a temporal paradox, living Indians were induced to 'play dead,' as it were, in order to perform a narrative of manifest destiny in which their role, ultimately, was to disappear."

Rayna Green further elaborates that the current Indian "wannabe" phenomenon is based on a logic of genocide: non-Native peoples imagine themselves as the rightful inheritors of all that previously belonged to "vanished" Indians, thus entitling them to ownership of this land. "The living performance of 'playing Indian' by non-Indian peoples depends upon the physical and psychological removal, even the death, of real Indians. In that sense, the performance, purportedly often done out of a stated and implicit love for Indians, is really the obverse of another well-known cultural phenomenon, 'Indian hating,' as most often expressed in another, deadly performance genre called 'genocide." After all, why would non-Native peoples need to play Indian-- which often includes acts of spiritual appropriation and land theft -- if they thought Indians were still alive and perfectly capable of being Indian themselves? The pillar of genocide serves as the anchor for colonialism -- it is what allows non-Native peoples to feel they can rightfully own indigenous peoples' land. It is okay to take land from indigenous peoples, because indigenous peoples have disappeared.

Orientalism/War A third pillar of white supremacy is the logic of Orientalism. Orientalism was defined by Edward Said as the process of the West defining itself as a superior civilization by constructing itself in opposition to an "exotic" but inferior "Orient." (Here I am using the term "Orientalism" more broadly than to solely signify what has been historically named as the Orient or Asia.) The logic of Orientalism marks certain peoples or nations as inferior and as posing a constant threat to the well-being of empire. These peoples are still seen as "civilizations" -- they are not property or "disappeared" -- however, they will always be imaged as permanent foreign threats to empire. This logic is evident in the anti-immigration movements within the United States that target immigrants of color. It does not matter holy long immigrants of color reside in the United States, they generally become targeted as foreign threats, particularly during war time. Consequently, orientalism serves as the anchor for war, because it allows the United States to justify being in a constant state of war to protect itself from its enemies.

For example, the United States feels entitled to use Orientalist logic to justify racial profiling of Arab Americans so that it can be strong enough to fight the "war on terror." Orientalism also allows the United States to defend the logics of slavery and genocide, as these practices enable the United States to stay "strong enough" to fight these constant wars. What becomes clear then is what Sora Han states -- the United States is not at war; the United States is war. For the system of white supremacy to stay in place, the United States must always be at war.

Because we are situated within different logics of white supremacy, we may misunderstand a racial dynamic if we simplistically try to explain one logic of white supremacy with another logic. For instance, think about the first scenario that opens this essay: if we simply dismiss

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 20 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Latino/as or Arab peoples as "white," we fail to understand how a racial logic of Orientalism is in operation. That is, Latino/as and Arabs are often situated in a racial hierarchy that privileges them over Black people. However, while Orientalist logic may bestow them some racial privilege, they are still cast as inferior yet threatening "civilizations" in the United States. Their privilege is not a signal that they will be assimilated, but that they will be marked as perpetual foreign threats to the US world order.

Organizing Implications Under the old but still potent and dominant model, people of color organizing was based on the notion of organizing around shared victimhood. In this model, however, we see that we are victims of white supremacy, but complicit in it as well. Our survival strategies and resistance to white supremacy are set by the system of white supremacy itself. What keeps us trapped within our particular pillars of white supremacy is that we are seduced with the prospect of being able to participate in the other pillars. For example, all non-Native peoples are promised the ability to join in the colonial project of settling indigenous lands. All non-Black peoples are promised that if they comply, they will not be at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. And Black, Native, Latino, and Asian peoples are promised that they will economically and politically advance if they join US wars to spread "democracy." Thus, people of color organizing must be premised on making strategic alliances with each other, based on where we are situated within the larger political economy. Thus, for example, Native peoples who are organizing against the colonial and genocidal practices committed by the US government will be more effective in their struggle if they also organize against US militarism, particularly the military recruitment of indigenous peoples to support US imperial wars. If we try to end US colonial practices at home, but support US empire by joining the military, we are strengthening the state's ability to carry out genocidal policies against people of color here and all over the world.

This way, our alliances would not be solely based on shared victimization, but where we are complict in the victimization of others. These approaches might help us to develop resistance strategies that do not inadvertently keep the system in place for all of us, and keep all of us accountable. In all of these cases, we would check our aspirations against the aspirations of other communities to ensure that our model of liberation does not become the model of oppression for others.

These practices require us to be more viligant in how we may have internalized some of these logics in our own organizing practice. For instance, much racial justice organizing within the United States has rested on a civil rights framework that fights for equality under the law. An assumption behind this organizing is that the United States is a democracy with some flaws, but is otherwise admirable. Despite the fact that it rendered slaves three-fifths of a person, the US Constitution is presented as the model document from which to build a flourishing democracy. However, as Luana Ross notes, it has never been against US law to commit genocide against indigenous peoples -- in fact, genocide is the law of the country. The United States could not exist without it. In the United States, democracy is actually the alibi for genocide -- it is the practice that covers up United States colonial control over indigenous lands.

Our organizing can also reflect anti-Black racism. Recently, with the outgrowth of "multiculturalism" there have been calls to "go beyond the black/white binary" and include other

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 21 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media communities of color in our analysis, as presented in the third scenario. There are a number of flaws with this analysis. First, it replaces an analysis of white supremacy with a politics of multicultural representation; if we just include more people, then our practice will be less racist. Not true. This model does not address the nuanced structure of white supremacy, such as through these distinct logics of slavery, genocide, and Orientalism. Second, it obscures the centrality of the slavery logic in the system of white supremacy, which is based on a black/white binary. The black/white binary is not the only binary which characterizes white supremacy, but it is still a central one that we cannot "go beyond" in our racial justice organizing efforts.

If we do not look at how the logic of slaveability inflects our society and our thinking, it will be evident in our work as well. For example, other communities of color often appropriate the cultural work and organizing strategies of African American civil rights or Black Power movements without corresponding assumptions that we should also be in solidarity with Black communities. We assume that this work is the common "property” of all oppressed groups, and we can appropriate it without being accountable.

Angela P. Harris and Juan Perea debate the usefulness of the black/white binary in the book, Critical Race Theory. Perea complains that the black/white binary fails to include the experiences of other people of color. However, he fails to identify alternative racializing logics to the black/white paradigm. Meanwhile, Angela P. Harris argues that "the story of 'race' itself is that of the construction of Blackness and whiteness. In this story, Indians, Asian Americans, and Latino/as do exist. But their roles are subsidiary to the fundamental binary national drama. As a political claim, Black exceptionalism exposes the deep mistrust and tensions among American ethnic groups racialized as nonwhite.”

Let's examine these statements in conversation with each other. Simply saying we need to move beyond the black/white binary (or perhaps, the "black/nonblack" binary) in US racism obfuscates the racializing logic of slavery, and prevents us from seeing that this binary constitutes Blackness as the bottom of a color hierarchy. However, this is not the only binary that fundamentally constitutes white supremacy. There is also an indigenous/settler binary, where Native genocide is central to the logic of white supremacy and other non-indigenous people of color also form "a subsidiary" role. We also face another Orientalist logic that fundamentally constitutes Asians, Arabs, and Latino/as as foreign threats, requiring the United States to be at permanent war with these peoples. In this construction, Black and Native peoples play subsidiary roles.

Clearly the black/white binary is central to racial and political thought and practice in the United States, and any understanding of white supremacy must take it into consideration. However, if we look at only this binary, we may misread the dynamics of white supremacy in different contexts. For example, critical race theorist Cheryl Harris's analysis of whiteness as property reveals this weakness. In Critical Race Theory, Harris contends that whites have a property interest in the preservation of whiteness, and seek to deprive those who are "tainted" by Black or Indian blood from these same white property interests. Harris simply assumes that the positions of African Americans and American Indians are the same, failing to consider US policies of forced assimilation and forced whiteness on American Indians. These policies have become so entrenched that when Native peoples make political claims, they have been accused of being white. When Andrew Jackson removed the Cherokee along the Trail of Tears, he argued that

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 22 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media those who did not want removal were really white. In contemporary times, when I was a non- violent witness for the Chippewa spearfishers in the late 1980s, one of the more frequent slurs whites hurled when the Chippewa attempted to exercise their treaty-protected right to fish was that they had white parents, or they were really white.

Status differences between Blacks and Natives are informed by the different economic positions African Americans and American Indians have in US society. African Americans have been traditionally valued for their labor, hence it is in the interest of the dominant society to have as many people marked "Black," as possible, thereby maintaining a cheap labor pool; by contrast, American Indians have been valued for the land base they occupy, so it is in the interest of dominant society to have as few people marked "Indian" as possible, facilitating access to Native lands. “Whiteness" operates differently under a logic of genocide than it does from logic of slavery.

Another failure of US-based people of color in organizing is that we often fall back on a "US- centricism," believing that what is happening "over there" is less important than what is happening here. We fail to see how the United States maintains the system of oppression here precisely by tying our allegiances to the interests of US empire "over there."

Heteropatriarchy and White Supremacy Heteropatriarchy is the building block of US empire. In fact, it is the building block of the nation-state form of governance. Christian Right authors make these links in their analysis of imperialism and empire. For example, Christian Right activist and founder of Prison Fellowship Charles Colson makes the connection between homosexuality and the nation-state in his analysis of the war on terror, explaining that one of the causes of terrorism is same-sex marriage:

Marriage is the traditional building block of human society, intended both to unite couples and bring children into the world … There is a natural moral order for the family … the family, led by a married mother and father, is the best available structure for both childrearing and cultural health. Marriage is not a private institution designed solely for the individual gratification of its participants. If we fail to enact a Federal Marriage Amendment, we can expect not just more family breakdown, but also more criminals behind bars and more chaos in our streets."

Colson is linking the well-being of US empire to the well-being of the heteropatriarchal family. He continues:

When radical Islamists see American women abusing Muslim men, as they did in the Abu Ghraib prison, and when they see news coverage of same-sex couples being "married" in US towns, we make this kind of freedom abhorrent-the kind they see as a blot on Allah's creation. We must preserve traditional marriage in order to protect the United States from those who would use our depravity to destroy us?

As Ann Burlein argues in Lift High the Cross, it may be a mistake to argue that the goal of Christian Right politics is to create a theocracy in the United States. Rather, Christian Right politics work through the private family (which is coded as white, patriarchal, and middle class)

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 23 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media to create a "Christian America." She notes that the investment in the private family makes it difficult for people to invest in more public forms of social connection. In addition, investment in the suburban private family serves to mask the public disinvestment in urban areas that makes the suburban lifestyle possible. The social decay in urban areas that results from this disinvestment is then construed as the result of deviance from the Christian family ideal rather than as the result of political and economic forces. As former head of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, states: "'The only true solution to crime is to restore the family," and "Family break- up causes poverty." Concludes Burlein, "'The family' is no mere metaphor but a crucial technology by which modern power is produced and exercised.”

As I have argued elsewhere, in order to colonize peoples whose societies are nor based on social hierarchy, colonizers must first naturalize hierarchy through instituting patriarchy. In turn, patriarchy rests on a gender binary system in which only two genders exist, one dominating the other. Consequently, Charles Colson is correct when he says that the colonial world order depends on heteronormativity. Just as the patriarchs rule the family, the elites of the nation-state rule their citizens. Any liberation struggle that does not challenge heteronormativity cannot substantially challenge colonialism or white supremacy. Rather, as Cathy Cohen contends, such struggles will maintain colonialism based on a politics of secondary marginalization where the most elite class of these groups will further their aspirations on the backs of those most marginalized within the community.

Through this process of secondary marginalization, the national or racial justice struggle takes on either implicitly or explicitly a nation-state model as the end point of its struggle -- a model of governance in which the elites govern the rest through violence and domination, as well as exclude those who are not members of "the nation." Thus, national liberation politics become less vulnerable to being coopted by the Right when we base them on a model of liberation that fundamentally challenges right-wing conceptions of the nation. We need a model based on community relationships and on mutual respect.

Conclusion Women of color-centered organizing points to the centrality of gender politics within antiracist, anticolonial struggles. Unfortunately, in our efforts to organize against white, Christian America, racial justice struggles often articulate an equally heteropatriarchal racial nationalism. This model of organizing either hopes to assimilate into white America, or to replicate it within an equally hierarchical and oppressive racial nationalism in which the elites of the community rule everyone else. Such struggles often call on the importance of preserving the "Black family" or the "Native family" as the bulwark of this nationalist project, the family being conceived of in capitalist and heteropatriarchal terms. The response is often increased homophobia, with lesbian and gay community members construed as "threats" to the family. But, perhaps we should challenge the "concept" of the family itself. Perhaps, instead, we can reconstitute alternative ways of living together in which "families" are not seen as islands on their own. Certainly, indigenous communities were not ordered on the basis of a nuclear family structure -- is the result of colonialism, not the antidote to it.

In proposing this model, I am speaking from my particular position in indigenous struggles. Other peoples might flesh out these logics more fully from different vantage points. Others might

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 24 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media also argue that there are other logics of white supremacy are missing. Still others might complicate how they relate to each other. But I see this as a starting point for women of color organizers that will allow us to reenvision a politics of solidarity that goes beyond multiculturalism, and develop more complicated strategies that can really transform the political and economic status quo.

Arundhati Roy on The Greater Common Good

Arundhati Roy's moving essay, "The Greater Common Good," is rather long, so we're not including it directly in the Study Guide (you can follow the link below), but it's well worth the read, if you can find the time. Here's a sample, to give you a sense.

"Many of those who have been resettled [to make way for development] are people who have lived all their lives deep in the forest with virtually no contact with money and the modern world. Suddenly they find themselves left with the option of starving to death or walking several kilometres to the nearest town, sitting in the marketplace (both men and women), offering themselves as wage labour, like goods on sale.

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Instead of a forest from which they gathered everything they needed – food, fuel, fodder, rope, gum, tobacco, tooth powder, medicinal herbs, housing material – they earn between ten and twenty rupees a day with which to feed and keep their families. Instead of a river, they have a hand pump. In their old villages, they had no money, but they were insured. If the rains failed, they had the forests to turn to. The river to fish in. Their livestock was their fixed deposit. Without all this, they’re a heartbeat away from destitution.

In Vadaj, a resettlement site I visited near Baroda, the man who was talking to me rocked his sick baby in his arms, clumps of flies gathered on its sleeping eyelids. Children collected around us, taking care not to burn their bare skin on the scorching tin walls of the shed they call a home. The man’s mind was far away from the troubles of his sick baby. He was making me a list of the fruit he used to pick in the forest. He counted forty- eight kinds. He told me that he didn’t think he or his children would ever be able to afford to eat any fruit again. Not unless he stole it. I asked him what was wrong with his baby. He said it would be better for the baby to die than to have to live like this. I asked what the baby’s mother thought about that. She didn’t reply. She just stared.”

It’s long (33 pages!) so we didn’t include here, but interested and ambitious studiers can read all of “The Greater Common Good” online at: http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html

The Fraud of Jobs

by Stephen Fortunato

Lies abound. There are the mostly benign “white lies” of the insincere compliment or the fabrication to avoid a social obligation, and there are the grander and more poisonous ones that can shape and undergird an entire political culture, or at least its dominant class. Some lies eventually assume the status of myth or religious doctrine: for example, the United States is always a force for good in the world; or that favorite of political panderers: that the common sense and basic decency of the American people will triumph over any adversity.

A current lie that is as dangerous as it is fantastic, and which mesmerizes the two major political parties as well as the punditocracy and the public, is that the creation of jobs and “putting people back to work” is the motivating objective behind all economic policy. This lie is repeated as a mantra in stump speeches, legislative debates and op-ed pieces in ways that always mask its deeper and more metaphysical premise that it is only economically productive

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 26 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media labor performed for a wage which entitles a person to the resources that will allow for a life of dignity and contentment. Poverty and privation necessarily become the only alternatives for the millions of people who perform no such work or are compensated meagerly for the jobs they have.

Put another way, the managers of the current economic system — whether it is called capitalism or globalization — insist that the unemployed seek jobs even when not enough exist for everyone and the jobs that remain available after outsourcing and automation often pay less than a living wage. Anyone who has shopped for food or rented an apartment knows that the federal minimum wage of $7.25 is a joke as cruel and fraudulent as the poverty demarcation line of $23,050 for a family of four.

The detritus of the departed manufacturing base is observable everywhere in the form of abandoned factories, desolate towns and aisles in megastores filled with imported goods, most of them shoddy. And the assault on human labor by automation and robotics is ubiquitous as well, from the self- checkout scanners that convert customers into unpaid replacement employees to the cranes and containers in our ports that have decimated the ranks of longshoremen.

This state of affairs, with cybernetic machinery relentlessly displacing workers, was predicted more than a half-century ago by economists and social critics in a sadly ignored document titled The Triple Revolution (full text available at www.educationanddemocracy.org) which was submitted to President Lyndon Johnson and other political leaders. Its conclusion that work as it had been known for centuries was changing qualitatively because of technological innovation should be no surprise when the core principles of capitalism are considered. The animating force of free enterprise is the maximization of profits but this is no more a moral precept than its corollary of minimizong the costs of production. Because labor is usually the major cost of any capitalist enterprise and therefore an impediment to profit growth, the elimination of this “problem” through locating a cheaper labor supply or, better still, by substituting a machine for workers suits the capitalists’ goals just fine.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 27 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media It should not be forgotten that for more than two centuries the United States economy, as well as that of other empires, was built largely by slaves, the classic unpaid labor force. Today, modern forms of wage slavery in such places as China, India, Mexico, and the United States — for agricultural and menial workers — is the model applauded by contemporary economic buccaneers who, far from being the job creators their political apologists claim they are, employ every opportunity to exploit, and ultimately eliminate, labor.

Nowhere in the capitalist universe is there anything approximating the Buddhist precepts to save all sentient beings and to act with compassion toward all including one’s self. Nowhere in the capitalist universe are there found any rudimentary notions of social justice as taught by all of history’s prophets and poets.

So the Big Lie is that everybody is obliged to contribute toward production, though jobs are too few and many pay inadequate wages, or else face a marginalized existence of poverty and privation. And a significant footnote to the Big Lie is that production can be of anything, regardless of social benefit and even if the methods of production degrade the environment or endanger the worker, or both. The Lie, once exposed, thus presents the question: What must be done?

The answer must be explored along two channels: individual and social. Individually, through meditation and activities with the sangha, or other small groups, an awareness arises that lasting contentment comes not through the accumulation of things inspired by advertisers manipulating desires, but rather through simple joys like cooking, gardening, making art, or activism. The simple, non-acquisitive life is something taught by the Buddha and modern guides such as Thich Nhat Hanh, and sages from other times and places as well, from Horace and Seneca, to Ryokan and Thoreau, to Dorothy Day and Helen Nearing.

To address the question of the political and plutocratic demand that work is an absolute

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 28 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media prerequisite for sustenance, if not survival, is more difficult; but there is a growing movement pressing for a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) which would, in essence, provide each individual with an annual government stipend without any work or means-test requirement.(See,e.g., www.usbig.net and www.basicincome.org.) Though current political discourse would lead one to think otherwise, the United States committed to the notion of BIG in theory when it signed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Article 25 of that international agreement provides that governments must assure that all people have

a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself [sic] and of his [sic] family,” and declared importantly that this minimum must be guaranteed even when a person experienced a “lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his [sic] control.

Needless to say, the BIG contemplates a significant rearrangement of budgetary priorities, not to mention a tectonic shift in political consciousness and will. Surely the megabillion defense budget requiring bases and the stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction along with personnel, public and private, to maintain the Empire will have to be cut back; and a tax system that encourages the concentration of great fortunes in the hands of a few while necessary services like education and fire protection are curtailed must be reconfigured. And activists, whether in Occupy and Living Wage organizations, or the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, must educate the public and their elected leaders about the obvious: among the vaunted, inalienable rights that inhere in all people are the rights to food, shelter, healthcare, and a dignified existence allowing for educational and spiritual growth, regardless of any so-called productive labor performed at a “job.”

Some may object that these demands are utopian. My response can only be that the prevailing ludicrous insistence that people obtain jobs that do not exist — or which are being phased out into oblivion — is a cruel fabrication that will result in nothing but the continued dystopian consequences of poverty, marginalization, and oppression.

Stephen Fortunato was a trial judge on the Rhode Island Superior Court for thirteen years after serving as a civil rights lawyer for more than two decades. He has been a Zen practitioner for at least forty years.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/job-creationism/

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Session C: Challenging Power; Taking Action

What can we do in the face of empire? What actions are effective in challenging its power? Using three examples - a picket of a Yoga Journal conference held in a boycotted hotel, a letter to mindfulness proponent and Goldman Sachs/Exxon Mobil board member William George, and a DC rally against the Keystone XL pipeline - we will explore strategy and tactics in political organizing.

Session Goals:

 Strengthen political organizing skills by analyzing strategy & tactics for actions  Learn about group members’ preferences for different kinds of action

Discussion Questions:

Why do you think spiritual activists chose William George, Yoga Journal, and President Obama as the targets for their actions? Are these effective and appropriate targets?

Describe the strategy and tactics used in these three examples. Do you think they were effective in achieving a goal? What other strategies or tactics might you try?

What next steps would you suggest? How could you harness not just your individual power, but the power of collective action?

What kinds of actions have you participated in? How were the strategies and tactics used similar or different than these actions?

As Buddhists and spiritual activists, do we understand the effectiveness of compassionate actions in terms of material successes (i.e. stop the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline) and in other ways, as well? How do we balance these inner and outer, personal and social transformations? Boycott Writing a Best tactics for letter Putting my body our strategy? on the line Participating in a mass rally Strike!

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Can Mindfulness Change a Corporation?

The letter that follows is self- explanatory. Last October I sent it to Mr. George three different ways – to two email accounts and by post to his office. Unfortunately, he has not responded, so after some deliberation I’ve decided to express my concerns publicly.

I want to emphasize that the issue is not personal: that is, I’m not attacking Mr. George himself, who (according to what I’ve read and heard about him) seems to be a nice, well-intentioned fellow. The basic problem, it seems to me, is that one can be well-intentioned and yet play an objectionable role in an economic system that has become unjust and unsustainable – in fact, a challenge to the well-being of all life on this planet. Mr. George is an important figure in the “mindfulness in business” movement: as well as being a professor in Harvard’s MBA program, he has written some influential books that emphasize the importance of ethics and mindfulness in the marketplace. His position therefore highlights some concerns I have about the role of the “mindfulness movement,” and also has broad implications for socially engaged Buddhism generally. I’ve written elsewhere about the fact that today the traditional “three poisons” of greed, aggression, and delusion have become institutionalized as our economic system, militarism, and the media. If so, what does that imply for our engaged Buddhist practice?

David R. Loy www.davidloy.org

16 October 2012 William George George Family Office 1818 Oliver Ave. S. Minneapolis, Minnesota 55405

Dear Mr. George,

We haven’t met, but I’m taking the liberty of contacting you because you are in a position to contribute in a valuable way to an important debate that is developing within the Buddhist

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 31 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media community in North America. (I’m a professor of Buddhist and comparative philosophy, and also a Zen student/teacher.)

The UK Financial Times magazine of August 25‐26 included an article on “The Mind Business” that begins: “Yoga, meditation, ‘mindfulness’… Some of the west’s biggest companies are embracing eastern spirituality – as a path which can lead to bigger profits.” You are mentioned on p. 14.

William George, a current Goldman Sachs board member and a former chief executive of the healthcare giant Medtronic, started meditating in 1974 and never stopped. Today, he is one of the main advocates for bringing meditation into corporate life, writing articles on the subject for the Harvard Business Review. “The main business case for meditation is that if you’re fully present on the job, you will be more effective as a leader, you will make better decisions and you will work better with other people,” he tells me [the author, David Gelles]. “I tend to live a very busy life. This keeps me focused on what’s important.”

I was initially struck by your position (since 2002) as a board member of Goldman Sachs, one of the largest and most controversial investment banks. Researching online, I learned that you have also been on the corporate board of Exxon Mobil since 2005 and Novartis since 1999. I also read that you participated in a “Mind & Life” conference with the Dalai Lama and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, on “Compassion and Altruism in Economic Systems.” These discoveries led to my decision to contact you, in order to get your perspective on what is becoming a crucial issue for Western Buddhists.

The debate within American Buddhism focuses on how much is lost if mindfulness as a technique is separated from other important aspects of the Buddhist path, such as precepts, community practice, awakening, and living compassionately. Traditional Buddhism understands all these as essential parts of a spiritual path that leads to personal transformation. More recently, there is also concern about the social implications of Buddhist teachings, especially given our collective ecological and economic situation. The Buddha referred to the “three poisons” of greed, ill will, and delusion as unwholesome motivations that cause suffering, and some of my own writing argues that today those three poisons have become institutionalized, taking on a life of their own.

I do not know how your meditation practice has affected your personal life, nor, for that matter, what type of meditation or mindfulness you practice. Given your unique position, my questions are: how has your practice influenced your understanding of the social responsibility of large corporations such as Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil? And what effects has your practice had personally on your advisory role within those corporations?

Those questions are motivated by the controversial – I would say problematical – role of those two corporations recently in light of the various ecological, economic, and social crises facing us today. As you know, the pharmaceutical giant Novartis has also received much criticism. (In 2006 Novartis tried to stop India developing affordable generic drugs for poor people; in 2008 the FDA warned it about deceptive advertising of focalin, an ADHD drug; in 2009 Novartis declined to follow the example of GlaxoSmithKline and offer free flu vaccines to poor people in

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 32 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media response to a flu epidemic; in May 2010 a jury awarded over $253 million in compensatory and punitive damages for widespread sexual discrimination, a tentative settlement that may increase to almost $1 billion; in September 2010 Novartis paid $422.5 million in criminal and civil claims for illegal kickbacks.) However, my main interest is with your role on the corporate board of Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil, and how your meditation practice may or may not have influenced that.

Since you have been on the Goldman Sachs board for a decade, you are no doubt very aware of the controversies that have dogged it for many years, and especially since the financial meltdown of 2008. There are so many examples that one hardly knows where to begin. In July 2010 Goldman paid a record $550 million to settle an SEC civil lawsuit, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. In April 2011 a Senate Subcommittee released an extensive report on the financial crisis alleging that Goldman Sachs appeared to have misled investors and profited from the mortgage market meltdown. The chairman of that subcommittee, Carl Levin, referred this report to the Justice Department for possible prosecution; later he expressed disappointment when the Justice Department declined to do so, and said that Goldman’s “actions were deceptive and immoral.” Perhaps this relates to an ongoing issue: a “revolving door” relationship with the federal government, in which many senior employees move in and out of high‐level positions, which has led to numerous charges of conflict of interest. It may be no coincidence that Goldman Sachs was the single largest contributor to Obama’s campaign in 2008.

In July 2011 a suit to fire all the members of Goldman’s board – including you – for improper behavior during the financial crisis was thrown out of court, for lack of evidence.

Controversy ignited again this year when a senior Goldman employee, Greg Smith, published an OpEd piece in the New York Times on “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs” (March 14, 2012), writing that “the environment [at Goldman Sachs] now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.” He blames poor leadership for a drastic decline in its moral culture – which is especially interesting, given your own teaching emphasis on the importance of leadership. In just the few months since that OpEd, however, Goldman has been fined in the UK for manipulating oil prices, and in separate U.S. cases has paid $22 million for favoring select clients, $16 million for a pay-to-play scheme, $12 million for improper campaign donations, and $6.75 million to settle

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 33 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media claims about how it handled option claims. Such fines seem to be acceptable as simply another cost of business, rather than a spur to change how the company conducts business.

Please understand that I’m not criticizing you for these illegal activities. Being on the board, you are not usually involved in day-to-day management. However, I would like to know how you view the “toxic environment” at Goldman Sachs, and the larger social responsibilities of such a powerful firm, in light of your own meditation practice. And since you have been on the Goldman board since 2002, how do you understand the responsibility of a board member in such a situation, and what role have you been able to play in affecting its problematical culture?

I am also curious about your position as a board member of ExxonMobil since 2005. It is reportedly the world’s largest corporation ever, both by revenue and profits. According to a 2012 article in The Daily Telegraph, it has also “grown into one of the planet’s most hated corporations, able to determine American foreign policy and the fate of entire nations.” It is regularly criticized for risky drilling practices in endangered areas, poor response to oil spills (such as the Exxon Valdez in 1989), illegal foreign business practices, and especially its leading role in funding climate change denial.

ExxonMobil was instrumental in founding the first skeptic groups, such as the Global Climate Coalition. In 2007 a Union of Concerned Scientists report claimed that between 1998 and 2005 ExxonMobil spent $16 million supporting 43 organizations that challenged the scientific evidence for global warming, and that it used disinformation tactics similar to those used by the tobacco industry to deny any link between smoking and lung problems, charges consistent with a leaked 1998 internal ExxonMobil memo.

In January 2007 the company seemed to change its position and announced that it would stop funding some climate-denial groups, but a July 2009 Guardian newspaper article revealed that it still supports lobbying groups that deny climate change, and a 2011 Carbon Brief study concluded that 9 out of 10 climate scientists who deny climate change have ties to ExxonMobil.

Even more important, the corporation’s belated and begrudging acknowledgement that global change is happening has not been accompanied by any determination to change company policies to address the problem. Although there has been some recent funding for research into biofuels from algae, ExxonMobil has not moved significantly in the direction of renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind power. According to its 2012 Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040, petroleum and natural gas will remain its main products: “By 2040, oil, gas and

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 34 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media coal will continue to account for about 80 percent of the world’s energy demand” (p. 46). This is despite the fact that many of the world’s most reputable climate scientists are claiming that there is already much too much carbon in the atmosphere, and that we are perilously close to “tipping points” that would be disastrous for human civilization as we know it.

In response to this policy, I would like to learn how, in the light of your meditation practice, you understand the relationship between one’s own personal transformation and the kind of economic and social transformation that appears to be necessary today, if we are to survive and thrive during the next few critical centuries. How does your concern for future generations express itself in your activities as a board member of these corporations (among others)? Are you yourself skeptical about global warming? If not, how do you square that with your role at ExxonMobil?

Let me conclude by emphasizing again that this letter is not in any way meant to be a personal criticism. From what I have read and heard, you are generous with your time and money, helping many nonprofits in various ways. What I’m concerned about is the “compartmentalization” of one’s meditation practice, so that mindfulness enables us to be more effective and productive in our work, and provides some peace of mind in our hectic lives, but does not encourage us to address the larger social problems that both companies (for example) are contributing to. Today the economic and political power of such corporations is so great that, unless they became more socially responsible, it is difficult to be hopeful about what the future holds for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.

What is the role of a corporate board member in critical times such as ours? I would much appreciate your reflections and your experience on this issue.

Sincerely yours,

David Loy 646 Quince Circle Boulder, CO 80304 www.davidloy.org

David Robert Loy is a professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. His writings and workshops often focus on the interaction between traditional Buddhism and the modern world, especially the social implications of the Buddhadharma.

Top photo: Blue board room by zen Sutherland

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/can-mindfulness-change-a- corporation/

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 35 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media

Are Justice and Enlightenment Incompatible? The Yoga Journal / Hyatt Controversy

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.

From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks*

Yoga Journal’s recent decision to hold a conference at the SF Hyatt Regency, despite an ongoing union-led boycott of the hotel chain, has prompted some spiritual activists to pipe up — Buddhists included.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 36 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Can Crossing A Picket Line Be Right Action?

Advocating for a model of business that can “align with our deeper, spiritually-based values and ethics,” Nathan Thompson of Dangerous Harvests shares some facts and figures challenging YJ’s claim that they “couldn’t afford” to break their Hyatt contract and change locations to support the workers’ struggle. Hyatt Hotels Corp doesn’t get a pass, either. As an alternative, Nathan points to possibilities of grassroots conferences, maintaining that “in addition to resisting injustice, more of us have to embody and create the liberated, just world we desire.”

Writer and acupuncturist Rona Luo observes, “prob is we don’t identify as workers anymore… picketing workers are a ‘they’ rather than a ‘we.’”

Indeed, not only are many yogis workers, but some Hyatt workers also have yoga practices of their own. They joined a group of Bay Area practitioners who took their asanas to the picket line to demonstrate compassion through solidarity.

Cyber-side, as well, scholar-activist and dharma student Be Scofield has created an online pledge to help supporters from all over encourage YJ to respect the boycott in 2014, if it is still in place.

The pushback seems to be working on some level, as celebrity teachers like Seane Corn have publicly vowed not to join next year’s conference if it means crossing a picket line.

Although Yoga Journal itself has not significantly changed its position, they seem to be grappling, at least somewhat, with the alleged hypocrisy. How can a wellness industry undermine workers’ struggles for safer job conditions?

And yet, yoga is more than a wellness industry, isn’t it? It’s a spiritual path. And herein lies a deeper question; one familiar and acutely relevant to political Buddhists. Does a spirituality of acceptance and non-preference, of liberation from suffering, have something to say about justice? About good and evil, wrongdoing and rightdoing?

Transcendantal Demonstrations

Commentator Eric Walrabenstein, quoted in a Yoga Dork article highlighted by dharma practitioner and political comedian Manish Vaidya, lays out his take on the paradox:

Dear Yoga Friends,

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 37 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Let me start out by saying that I do in fact care about the disenfranchised. I do work to see a more just and compassionate world. And if I were in charge of the Yoga Journal conference, I would very likely change venues in support of those who are seeking a fair shake from the global giant Hyatt.

And thus, I stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are voicing their disappointment in Yoga Journal for deciding to hold their conference at the San Francisco Hyatt.

But I do so in the name of this opinionated and imperfect character Eric Walrabenstein—not in the name of yoga. Certainly not.

To voice our outrage about Yoga Journal’s decision to on the basis of yoga—or their affiliation with it—is to, frankly, not understand the purpose, or practice, of yoga. And quite colossally so.

Here’s the thing:

-Yoga is not about standing up for what’s right, while going to war with what’s wrong. It’s about transcending right and wrong all together.

-Yoga is not about aligning ourselves with those who do good and against those who do not. It’s about being liberated from the self all together.

-Yoga is not about standing up and fixing the problems of the world. It’s about sitting down and seeing the innate perfection that has always already been.

This war against reality is the ego’s game, not yoga’s—and certainly not your truest self’s.

So, by all means stand up for the causes that you believe in: Rail against injustice, fight for the disenfranchised, champion the good and assault the bad. It is your right, and some would argue your responsibility, to make this world a better place in which to live.

But please don’t drag yoga into your war against God’s perfection.

Yoga is about creating unconditional stillness; yoga is about accessing the perfection of what is; yoga is about recognizing who you truly are—beyond the one filled with outrage and self-righteousness.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 38 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media If you wish to truly do something in the name of yoga, sit, breathe, and smile.

Love & blessings… E

P.S. I have no doubt that this idea will ruffle a great many feathers; particularly those of the spiritualized, feel-good crowd who confuse temporarily satiated egos for some sort of spiritual progress. I understand. I get pissed at things too, whilst trying to remind myself that this too is part of the inherent perfection of what is.

Sound familiar, BPFers? It’s one of the thematic questions we’ll continue to revisit throughout the year in The System Stinks: how do we accept the world as it is, and fight like hell to change it?

There’s no easy answer (which is why it’s a great question to keep coming back to!), but dharma teacher Mushim Ikeda shared some relevant insights yesterday:

The Buddha said, “Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by non-hatred alone is healed.” Gil Fronsdal, Buddhist teacher and translator, has said the word “love” in English is not a good translation of the Buddhist term for “non-hatred.” I have been meditating for many years now on how agape (Christian term) or metta (Buddhist term), which both mean unconditional loving friendliness, is a stance of non-hatred and a way of being that is nonviolent. Can we envision a love that is not in any way personal or conditioned or conditional? I believe that was what Dr. King was pointing towards; when we are able to directly tap into the realm of the Unconditioned, there is enormous, unending power and energy to keep moving forward toward what is good, what is beneficial, what is wise, and what is compassionate — and, I think, what is JUST.

When we remember how to dwell in a way of nondualism, we may find ourselves becoming intimate with unconditional love. And though I tend to agree with Be Scofield that this unconditional love is probably ethically neutral, I think it can spur us to think and to act for what is just. To try our best, for the good of all beings. To keep discovering what “the good of all beings” might actually mean. To work with the details, the minutiae, the history, nuances, the practicalities of choices and change.

Take the opening poem of this post, widely credited to Rumi. The words are beautiful. They speak to anatta, no-self. To the unconditional love that can exist there. (There which is nowhere and everywhere.) And the love I feel from this poem inspires me to learn about the route by which it comes to me. Which, as it turns out, has to do with the controversial “translations” of Rumi’s work by the non-Persian-literate, English-language poet Coleman Barks. What the Sufi poet Rumi actually wrote may be very different from the words I read, from the works that sell so well in the U.S. today. And this matters. It is political. It relates to human history, to our ancestors, to colonization, imperialism, and orientalism. Not saying it’s right or wrong (that would be a post for a different day), but just saying: It Has A Political Existence. One that deserves some investigation.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 39 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media And skillful investigation doesn’t mean selectively scrounging for convenient examples to back up our beliefs. As Mushim reminds us through her thought-diversity work, and as many a good scientist will tell you, investigating well means being open to data that might contradict our opinions. Facts that might complicate our view of things. Even in the case of the Hyatt boycott, for example, it’s not clear to me that the Unite Here union is a hero in this fight. Unions are no panacea in class war, and counter-claims by Hyatt that this union is not interested in fully representing all Hyatt workers might have some truth to them. While honoring righteousness, let’s not be satisfied with reductive approaches.

Perhaps the spiritual does not need to be separate from the mundane, from the political. Perhaps the spiritual can help guide us in approaching the mundane, the political, with loving attention, thoughtfulness, courage, enthusiasm, and openness to discovering new truths within the specifics.

Beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. This makes me wonder: was this field once a commons? Has it been privatized in a racist capitalist land grab?

Katie Loncke, born in Sacramento, California, and now living in Oakland, is the curly granddaughter of Negros and Jewish refugees. She started organizing in high school with a Lesbian Gay Straight Alliance, and currently organizes with workers, tenants, and homeowners in a solidarity network. Following her graduation from Harvard, the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center offered Katie a warm, life-altering introduction to Buddhism. Her writing on Buddhism and politics has appeared in The Jizo Chronicles, The Buddhist Channel, make/shift magazine, Flip Flopping Joy, and Feministe, as well as her personal blog, Kloncke.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/are-justice-and-enlightenment- incompatible-the-yoga-journal-hyatt-controversy/

BPFer Dharma Talk On DC Climate Change Rally (Audio)

BPFer Taigen Dan Leighton of Chicago kindly shared with us his dharma talk reporting back from the Forward On Climate Change rally last week. Have a listen! Lots of useful information, including in the Q&A discussion at the end. (Sorry, we don’t have a transcript for this one…)

From Dan himself:

This was a rally opposing development of the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been described by NASA scientist and leading climatologist James Hansen as “game-over” for climate change.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 40 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Close to 50,000 people attended from all over the country to urge President Obama to block this pipeline. I decided to participate and took a 12 hour overnight bus ride Saturday evening to get there, and a 12 hour overnight bus ride back to Chicago Sunday night, organized by the Sierra Club, because this seems to me the key moral issue of this time. The future of our species, if not a habitable planet, is at stake.

A crucial point about the Keystone XL pipeline issue specifically is that the decision does not depend on congress, or the Supreme Court, but solely on President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry. As a leading scholar of Fossil Fuel has said, “Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. It could determine the fate of the Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being of the planet.”

It is crucial for all future generations that we pressure our government and policy makers to adopt a sane energy policy that addresses the climate change happening around the world, and shifts rapidly from fossil fuel to sustainable energy sources. We still have time to lessen the suffering now arising from climate and environmental damage.

As [350.org] founder Bill McKibben has carefully documented, the business plan of the fossil fuel industry will certainly release far, far more carbon into the atmosphere in the next several decades than will sustain human life. He has likened this industry to the Tobacco industry, and now along with the Sierra Club is organizing to stop the Keystone XL pipeline; and also to encourage universities and other institutions to follow the successful example of divestment from South Africa, and stop investments in the fossil fuel industry, and eliminate all such investments over five years.

My talk below includes much more detail about Sunday’s demonstration.

President Obama will face great pressure from the extremely wealthy fossil fuel industry, but if you want to support and encourage President Obama to stop the Keystone Pipeline, please call The White House comment line at 202-456-1111; submit comments at www.whitehouse.gov/contact; or write: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500.

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/bpfer-dharma-tal-on-dc- climate-change-rally/

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 41 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media

From “Action Strategy: a how-to guide”

The Ruckus Society defines direct action as the strategic use of immediately effective acts to achieve a political or social end and challenge an unjust power dynamic.

Usually, actions take place within campaigns, and campaigns take place within social movements. A social movement is made up of different groups, networks, and individuals moving toward similar systemic goals. Social movements are powerful because their impact is greater than the sum of their parts. If your actions and campaigns synergize and align with others, it can create exponential change. Smart actions and campaign strategies complement the campaigns other groups are working on and amplify impact. Remember, no campaign operates in a vacuum, and your work or actions will impact and be impacted by the work of many others.

Many campaigns start with investigating the problem and setting goals. Education, such as hosting workshops, often comes next. Early on, campaigns also engage in organization building, forming alliances with new allies, establishing a group, and recruiting members. Groups often negotiate with the target in the hope of easily reaching an agreement. Campaigns then tend to start using low-level confrontational tactics, such as speaking at city meetings or wheat pasting. High-level confrontational tactics and resource intensive actions follow, such as rallies, lawsuits, and civil disobedience. Campaigns usually subside when a group negotiates a deal with the target, although it’s common for groups to reapply pressure to ensure the agreement is implemented. This handout is about the confrontational actions that occur in the middle of a campaign.

Strategy: A smart strategy considers the goals, niche, and capacity of your group. For instance, a student group might want to achieve the goal of helping pass legislation to reduce student debt. The group decides their strategy will consist of a series of direct actions targeting elected offcials across the state. They decide upon this strategy because a) the group is skilled at organizing actions, b) they want to organize with student groups across the region, and c) other groups in the state are lobbying and taking to the courts to pass the law. This group is embracing its tactical niche.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 42 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media

Vision: the way we think the world should Smart strategies are consistent and responsive be. Visions are big-picture, transformative, to change. Consistency lets you build upon compelling, and deep. E.g., We envision a your efforts. For example, a company boycott Canada where First Nations have the right to grows powerful if a group’s tactics are all say “no” to industrial activity on their land. about executing the boycott, from sending a Campaign goal: what we think we can letter to a company’s customers to protesting achieve to solve our problem. E.g., End at the retail outlets of one high profile unwanted logging by Weyerhaeuser on the customer. A group’s energy becomes too diffuse if members are running the boycott territory of the Grassy Narrows First Nation. AND trying to pass legislation. Our actions Campaign strategy: our plan to get from should be in keeping with our strategy, and point A (where we’re at now) to our goal. the work we and others have done before this E.g., Boycott campaign against time, and intend to do moving forward. Weyerhaeuser. Action: a tactic taken to execute our On the other hand, it is critical you strategy. E.g., Protest outside an Office Max continually meet and reassess the store to encourage people to buy elsewhere effectiveness of a strategy, asking questions (as Office Max buys Weyerhaeuser paper). like 'is this the best thing we can do with our time?', and 'what new political developments or changes are affecting our work?'

If we don’t have the resources or time to execute a complete strategy, then we can choose to collaborate with other groups and together execute a strategy.

Actions have a target. A target is often the group or people who have considerable power over the issue and who are actively opposing you, such as a mining company. But the actions in your campaigns are not just about pressuring your target; campaigning is also about building relationships with other stakeholders affected by or involved in the issue. The “Spectrum of Allies” diagram (which was created by Training for Change) is a useful aid to help us identify and assess the stakeholders involved in an issue. When identifying stakeholders, be as specific as you can, identifying both groups and influential individuals.

Most groups choose one or two priority stakeholders to “move” in a campaign. It’s a positive thing when a stakeholder moves even a little closer to our side. We might prioritize a stakeholder because they don’t get a lot of attention from other allies, we already have some credibility with or access to them, or we know they’re sympathetic to direct action tactics. When designing an action, it’s useful to ask how will our action affect and involve these stakeholders? Who are we targeting? Will our action help us do outreach to, recruit or partner with groups that share (or could share) our strategic priorities? Remember, some actions might unintentionally move key groups in the opposite direction.

It is sometimes wise for tactic ideas to be discussed with other groups. It is considered respectful for frontline or impacted communities to have some influence over the goals and tactics of groups working on campaigns that affect their daily lives. For example, some members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation were concerned they would experience greater harassment from

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 43 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media residents at the nearby town following a blockade of the TransCanada Highway to draw attention to unwanted logging on their land. As a result, community members asked non-Native allies to be spokespeople at the blockade to divert blame and attention from Native organizers.

Case Study: SNCC

In 1964 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a major driver of the civil rights movement, and at the time they were registering black voters in the South. SNCC found they had a lot of passive allies who were students in the North: they were sympathetic but had no entryway into the movement. SNCC sent busses up North to bring folks down to participate in the struggle for the summer through organizing and action. It was called Freedom Summer. Locally, SNCC collaborated with other allies in church groups and others to make sure that the influx of outsiders reinforced their work and didn’t jeopardize it. Students came down in droves and for the first time witnessed lynching, violent police abuse, and angry white mobs—all simply for trying to vote. So a shift happened – a large group of passive allies became active allies. Then they wrote letters home to mom and dad, who suddenly had a personal connection to the struggle. So another shift happened: their parents became passive allies. And they brought their workplace and social networks with them. Some of those students went back to school in the fall and proceeded to organize their campuses. More shifts. The cascading waterfall of support helped turn the tide in the struggle, all because of a strategic set of actions. The landscape in the U.S. changed.

Full guide available: http://ruckus.org/article.php?id=821

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Session D: Resisting Empire and Domination in our Groups

Without conscious effort to make them otherwise, our study groups can be a microcosm of the larger dynamics of empire and domination that exist in our world. How do we prepare ourselves to name and dismantle the unequal power dynamics that will show up in our groups - especially those painful institutionalized forms of inequality, like racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism? How do we learn to challenge each other with debate, while being open and welcoming to a diversity of perspectives? How can our experiences in an engaged Buddhism study group be a “friendly laboratory” for transforming how we interact with groups in the world?

Session Goals:

 Agree to group guidelines or ground rules that resist domination  Explore different forms of oppression and domination

Discussion Questions:

What guidelines do you find helpful in a successful discussion group?

Looking at the list of guidelines our group has generated, which ones might privilege dominant perspectives? Is there a way to reframe them?

We all live within a matrix of oppression, on some dimensions we experience unearned privilege while on other dimensions we experience oppression. Dimensions like disability, race, class, sexual orientation, gender, immigration status, & age. Which of these are you familiar with, from personal experience and/or study? Which ones do you want to learn more about so you can contribute to this group being more inclusive?

How do you feel about debate? Being open to a diversity of perspectives? How do these relate to feelings and experiences you have around confrontation, anger and vulnerability?

How will the group balance the more reticent and the more talkative members? How will group time be distributed? Are there differences between some who prefer discursive conversation to more feeling-oriented conversation? How can the group work with this?

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Study Group Guidelines

On the surface, organizing a gathering to discuss shared readings may seem simple, but complexities are bound to arise. There are no G.L.I.M.M.E.R. real safe havens of comfortable conversation; Guidelines for getting along in a group toxic culture permeates everywhere, often in subtle ways. Our particular theme is Give space after a person has spoken, not tricky. Though the characterization of a jumping in immediately. (This can vary “stinking system” is somewhat playful, the depending on the culture of a group, and harms of systemic violence and structures of how well everyone knows each other.) domination are real, and as we gather together Listen actively: respect others when they to study them, we may find ourselves coming are talking. (Maybe use the “one mic” rule.) face to face with unpleasantness and pain. This is no reason to be discouraged, Intend to appreciate and respect the others though: difficulties can be part of learning for in the group. Demonstrate respect verbally liberation, along with times of joy and ease in and nonverbally as well. (Nonverbal collective discovery. gestures can say as much as words!)

Many groups find it helpful to establish a set Make a commitment to learn from others. of guidelines or ground rules about how the Make a clear commitment to be in the group will communicate with each other. A group and attend meetings. good exercise during your first meeting would be to talk about guidelines that feel important Ecology of Time: Pay attention to the to you within the group. We offer these ecology of time - be mindful of taking up guidelines as a starting point for encouraging too much or too little space compared to positive connection within study groups, and others in the group. we hope they may help all of us feel better Recognize our own and others’ privilege: equipped and more confident to engage each When entering a space and speaking, be other, that we may enrich one another’s aware of privilege based on race, age, perspectives. experience, sex, gender, abilities, etc.

Embracing Debate While we want to cultivate respect, kindness, generosity, and deep listening in our groups, we also want to acknowledge that disagreements and even debates are compatible with these wholesome qualities! Here are a few tips for keeping debates fruitful.

 Speak from the heart and share your own experience as much as possible. Some people find that using "I" statements makes this easier.  Instead of invalidating somebody else's story with your own spin on their experience, share your own story, experience, and analysis.  Generally give advice only when another has asked for it.

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 46 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media  Do not be afraid to respectfully challenge one another by asking questions, but refrain from personal attacks — focus on ideas.  Maintain confidentiality: share what was learned, rather than who said what.  Agree to air and attempt to resolve difficult feelings with another person.

As you discuss ground rules, your group can investigate how proposed ground rules might subtly reinforce the dominant culture.

“For example, in a dialogue about race, white participants will often support ground rules meant to keep anger out of the discussion — ground rules focused on keeping them comfortable. When we consider who is protected by ground rules like ‘do not express anger,’ it becomes apparent that, intentionally or not, they protect the participants representing privileged groups.” - Paul Gorski

Can your group get creative with ground rules that resist micro-practices of empire? Share your group’s guidelines and any interesting discussions you had, so we can all learn from this process and add to the collective pool of wisdom: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/study-group- discussion-commitment-to-dismantling-oppression/ (password: thesystemstinks)

Commitment to Dismantling Oppression

We’ve started collecting a resource guide for us to learn about forms of domination that we may be less familiar with. We’ve focused on “101” level resources as an entry point, which are generally directed toward folks who have a level of privilege within each particular system of domination. Have a favorite resource you’ve found helpful in your own education? Add your resources in the comments: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/study-group- discussion-commitment-to-dismantling-oppression/ (password: thesystemstinks)

How Oppression & Domination show up in groups To equalize power among us http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org- handouts/to%20equalize%20power.pdf Common Behavioral Patterns that Perpetuate Relations of Domination http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org-handouts/patterns%20.pdf Creating an Atmosphere in which Everyone Participates http://www.toolsforchange.org/resources/org-handouts/social%20power.pdf

Class Where are you in the class system? http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&view=finish&catid=1&cid=44& Itemid=31&m=0

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 47 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media The Ruling Class & the Buffer Zone http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=23:article&id =81:the-ruling-class-and-the-buffer-zone&Itemid=15

Race The Benefit of Being White http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexic ontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=89:the- benefit-of-being-white&Itemid=16 Examining Race & Class http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexic ontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&id=126:examinin g-class-and-race&Itemid=16 Catalyzing Liberation Toolkit: Anti-Racist Organizing to Build the 99% Movement http://collectiveliberation.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/06/catalyzing%20liberation%20too lkit.pdf

Disability Making Space Accessible is An Act Of Love for Our Communities http://creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com/making-space-accessible-is-an-act-of-love-for- our-communities/ Creating Fragrance Free Spaces http://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/fragrancefree.html Creating Accessible Events: A Checklist for Programmers, Organizers, Advertizers, Speakers and Event Attendees http://blackbrokenandbent.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/creating-accessible- events-a-checklist-for-programmers-organizers-advertizers-speakers-and-event-attendees/

Gender & Sexuality Larry Yang on LGBTQ folks finding refuge in the Dharma http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry- yang/towards-freedom-and-enlig_b_1173926.html The Benefits of Being Male http://www.paulkivel.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=24:exercise&i d=90:the-benefits-of-being-male&Itemid=16 Breaking through the binary: Gender explained using continuums http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/breaking-through-the-binary-gender-explained- using-continuums/

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The Genderbread Person v2.0 http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/03/the-genderbread- person-v2-0/ Tips for Talking to Trans, Genderqueer and Gender Non-Conforming People http://www.basicrights.org/resources/trans-justice-resources/tips-for-talking-to-trans- genderqueer-and-gender-non-conforming-people/ Glossary of Gender-Related Terms http://online.sfsu.edu/ctate2/genderglossary.html How to refer to trans and genderqueer persons: pronoun resource http://thomascwaters.com/2012/01/14/trans-pronoun-resource/

Intersectionality Ain’t I a Woman? speech written by Sojourner Truth (read by Alice Walker) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsjdLL3MrKk “Intersectionality” is a Big Fancy Word for My Life - Mia Mingus http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/%E2%80%9Cintersectionality%E2%80%9D- is-a-big-fancy-word-for-my-life/

Join the conversation: http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/study-group-discussion- commitment-to-dismantling-oppression/ (password: thesystemstinks)

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Session E: Overview of the Lies that Build Empire

Can’t pick one topic to delve into yet? Not sure what folks in your group are most interested in? These questions can help you broadly explore the Lies that Build Empire with your group.

Session Goals:

 Explore the Lies that Build Empire in a broad way  Get to know the issues that are of most interest to group members

Discussion Questions:

What piece of media did you find inspiring or engaging?

What piece of media did you find challenging? What was difficult about it?

How did this media help you think about the world more systemically?

How did this media relate to the theme “The Lies that Build Empire”?

Readings: Anything in the study guide (or beyond!) that interests you!

If you work hard enough, you What are the lies can be somebody.

that build Strong people don’t cry. empire?

Prisons, wars, and bank Good immigrants follow bailouts make civilians safer. the rules and wait in line for citizenship.

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Practice Exercises

Feeling Tone Practice

Imperialism, though devastating to billions of people and other species, still leaves cracks, room for resistance, and sometimes even complex cultural formations that we might experience as pleasant. Things are complicated. If we’re going to be serious about tearing down imperialism, we need to know the appeal of it (and to whom it appeals), as well as its brute force.

A meditation on “feeling tone” comes out of the teachings on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, taught regularly in Theravadan traditions of Buddhism. In this meditation technique, the teaching is to simply notice whether the tone of your experience is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. You might start by grounding yourself in noticing the breath or whatever you find helpful to anchor your awareness. Bring to mind an example of imperialism that is entwined in your daily life (though not the most painful one! It’s good to practice with something simpler before working your way up to more difficult examples). You might choose an example that feels complex or confusing to you.

When do I feel strongly the pain of imperialism’s destruction? Does this give me resolve to help end it? Does it impact me in other ways?

In my culture, are there types of food, music, clothing, cities, or other products of a colonial history that actually make me feel at home or feel pleasant in some way? How do I handle these complex contradictions? Do I, or does anyone I know, experience joy in resisting imperialism? What does that resistance entail?

Are there aspects of imperialism I experience as mundane? Disguised as normal and unremarkable, where do I not have strong feelings either way? Are there dimensions of imperialism I tend to ignore?

Instructions on practicing with feeling tone: Joanna Harper (audio, 1+ hour): http://www.againstthestream.org/audio/item/jt12- feeling-tone Rob Burbea (audio, 20 minutes): http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/10642/ Open Dharma (written): http://www.opendharma.org/static.php?left=blue&content=teachings/instructions/

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 51 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media mindfulness/feelingtone&title=feeling%20tone Silent Mind, Open Heart (written): http://silentmindopenheart.org/articles/feeling.html

Re-engaging with history & nature

The logic of imperialism is very future oriented. It demands the devaluation of indigenous ways of life (save what can be commodified and sold), and it often relies on the rhetoric of “progress”: including standardization that can decimate natural diversity, along with efficiency-driven industrialization that separates humans from the rest of the natural world.

How can we ground in historical practices — whether of Buddhism, of our families, or of learning about the histories of the places we live? Without romanticizing the past, can we poke holes in the historical amnesia of imperialism?

Grounding yourself in what knowledge you already have about the history of your region and the people who have lived there, do some research to deepen your knowledge even further. Go outside and get to know local geographical formations, native and non-native plants, and the world around you. What is your version of the Jambolan tree?

Imperialism: The Game (group practice): Pull out the board games or video systems, it’s time for a game night! What games have you played that subtly or not so subtly educate us about imperialism: Settlers of Catan, Risk, or Monopoly? There’s even a board game called Imperial and a video game called Imperialism. And this re-envisioned imperialist Monopoly board that gives insight into Lenin’s assessment that “imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.”

What happens when we play these games mindfully, paying attention to the subtle and overt mechanisms of empire? While you play, you might share stories about playing these games as children or among adult friends, or narrate aloud the internal feelings that arise when your army invades a neighboring country or when your property gets foreclosed on by the bank. How can we counteract the 'rules of the game' as we play? Like, when the sheriff shows up to evict you from your foreclosed property, what if you refused to leave, backed up by 100 supporters?

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Sponsors’ Corner: Introduction to The Pachamama Alliance

The System Stinks would not be possible without the generous support of BPF members. You made this idea into a reality, and we are excited to see where it takes us, as an international sangha of spiritual activists. We would like to express special gratitude by highlighting this message from TSS sponsors Chris and Barbara Wilson. If you would like to shout-out an organization in a future volume of TSS, send your brief note to [email protected], Subject: Shout-out for System Stinks, and you just might see it in an upcoming PDF (space is limited). Thank you!

Dear fellow BPFers,

We invite your active involvement with The Pachamama Alliance (pachamama.org). This organization was founded to empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture. For over ten years Pachamama has worked with the Achuar tribe of the Ecuadorean Amazon to build a coalition of rainforest tribes strong enough to prevent drilling for known oil reserves in their territory. They have been successful in this struggle for over ten years, including getting a provision in the new Ecuadorean constitution that guarantees that nature itself will be represented by special legal counsel in any litigation that threatens significant environmental impacts. In addition, the leaders of the Achuar (a dream-guided shamanic culture) asked The Pachamama Alliance to do something to “change the dream of the North” — that is, to awaken the peoples of the Northern Hemisphere to the harm their obsession with fossil fuels is doing to the rainforest and indigenous peoples. To this end, the Pachamama Alliance has developed an interactive immersion seminar to motivate systemic change. Several thousand facilitators have been trained and the seminar has been presented in over 30 countries and languages. We strongly urge BPF members to support these efforts and explore volunteer opportunities with this extremely effective and well-run organization.

For the well-being of all,

Chris and Barbara Wilson

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About Buddhist Peace Fellowship and The System Stinks

Aware of the interconnectedness of all things, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship cultivates the conditions for peace, social justice, and environmental sustainability within our selves, our communities, and the world.

The mission of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), founded in 1978, is to serve as a catalyst for socially engaged Buddhism. Our purpose is to help beings liberate themselves from the suffering that manifests in individuals, relationships, institutions, and social systems. BPF’s programs, publications, and practice groups link Buddhist teachings of wisdom and compassion with progressive social change.

The Buddhist Peace Fellowship works for peace from diverse Buddhist perspectives, embracing a triple treasure of compassionate action: learning, speaking, and doing. Co-Directors Dawn Haney and Katie Loncke have been at the helm together since Spring 2012, steering BPF in its newest incarnation as a mostly-online network of Buddhist activists.

ABOUT "THE SYSTEM STINKS"

"The System Stinks" (TSS) is a year-long curriculum and dialogue aiming for a return to the roots of BPF, posing a loving challenge to engaged Buddhism to deeply explore what it takes to build for true peace and social justice in today's world. How can our political work benefit from ancient understandings of human suffering and its causes? How can our spiritual understanding of suffering and liberation benefit from analysis of the social structures that shape and form us? By creating a space to ask such questions, we hope to develop a wide network of leaders able to bring our dharma practice into conversation with theories of radical social change and on- the-ground collective action.

Copyright © 2013

By Buddhist Peace Fellowship PO Box 3470; Berkeley, CA 94703 Email: [email protected] Website: www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org

Requests for permission to reproduce any materials in this curriculum should be directed to Buddhist Peace Fellowship

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 54 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media

Permissions & Photo Credits

Cover photo: Andrew Cardoza

Page 4: "Buddha." Photo by Marco Abis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matley0/4094623441/

Page 5: "Oh Canada, Our Home ON Native Land" by Toban Black http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/2769692138/

Page 6: UN Peacekeepers in Haiti entered take control of a neighbourhood after 3 hours fighting armed gangs. Credit: MATEUS_27:24&25: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mateus27_24- 25/6083943911/

Page 7: American Buddha by Rob Schouten via Portland Insight http://www.portlandinsight.org/

Page 9: Sloping field (source unknown)

Page 9: Gold medal stand by Brian Taylor

Page 11: Jambolan Tree by Võ Hải

Page 12: Jambolan Seeds (source unknown)

Page 13: giuseppe http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbmunny

Page 14: “Frustration” by Peter Alfred Hess http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterhess/

Page 16: My Lover, Monsanto field by Paulo Fridman/Bloomberg/Getty

Pages 18-25: “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing.” Andrea Smith. Reprinted with permission from Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. South End Press.

Page 25: Arundhati Roy via Occupied Wall Street Journal

Page 26: Supermarket checkout signs by Jessica Hill/AP

Page 27: Fast Food Forward via www.fastfoodfoward.org

Page 27: Checkout machines

Page 28: At the port now via AP

The System Stinks: The Lies that Build Empire 55 Buddhist Peace Fellowship/Turning Wheel Media Page 28: At the port then via www.portseattle100.org

Page 28: Cooking, cleaning & caring is work via Reuters

Page 29: Day laborer hiring (source unknown)

Page 31: "Blue Boardroom" by zen Sutherland http://www.flickr.com/photos/zen/3880484715/

Page 33: Goldman Sachs protest by SEIU International

Page 34: Board room by Shawn Kelly

Page 36: Yoga Journal protest (source unknown)

Page 37: Nama-stay meme (source unknown)

Page 38: Seane Corn meme by Be Scofield

Page 41: Keystone XL by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Page 42: The Ruckus Society

Page 44: Civil rights lunch counter sit in, Atlanta, GA, 1963; via Ruckus Society

Page 48: Catalyst Project cover, designed by Design Action Collective

Page 49: The Genderbread Person 2.0 by Sam Killermann

Page 52: Neo-imperial Monopoly by m0burg3r http://m0burg3r.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/monopoly/

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With Gratitude

We would like to express our tremendous gratitude to people who have given time, skills, energy and resources to make this curriculum possible. Its mistakes and flaws are our doing, and its strengths are due to the efforts of many people.

For critical feedback and editing that is at once firm, kind, and not infrequently brilliant, we thank Kimberly Alidio, Rachel Buddeberg, and Mushim Ikeda.

For the cover's illustration, we thank Andrew Cordoza.

For all the original media contributions featured on Turning Wheel Media and here in the Study Guide, we thank the wonderful media makers.

For donating photography work, we thank Hozan Alan Senauke, Roshi Joan Halifax, Aneeta Mitha, and Nopadon Wongpakdee.

For giving of their time and wisdom as teachers of the Dharma, we thank Bhante Buddharakkhita, Joanna Macy, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Hozan Alan Senauke.

For amazing behind-the-scenes work and helpful thinking partnership, we thank Erin Brandt, Stephen Crooms, David Nelson, Jenn Biehn, Mia Murrietta, and Tyson Casey.

For the video that expressed our aspiration and helped bring the right people together to make it happen, we thank Virginia Brisley.

For indispensable support, guidance, and fundraising magic from BPF's Board of Directors, we thank Chris Wilson, Anchalee Kurutach, Belinda Griswold, Kathleen Rose, Scott Woodbury and Michaela O'Connor Bono.

For the legacy inspiring this curriculum, we thank Diana Winston, Donald Rothberg, Tyson Casey, and others for their work on the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement (BASE).

To YOU, all the BPF members whose contributions support our Right Livelihood, and make this work possible, we thank you so very much.

We are all fortunate to have encountered the teachings of Buddha in this lifetime, and we aspire to work together to use this good fortune for the benefit of all beings.

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