Jen's Green Journal

Our Buy Nothing Day anti-consumerism caroling went well yesterday, other than a not having a very big turnout. Deanna of Dee's 'Dotes has photos her husband took here.

We weren't the only ones protesting at the Gateway on Black Friday. Animal rights activists were protesting J.Crew's use of fur and there was a Christian fundamentalist street preacher passing out literature there with his two kids. He agreed with our message of toning down consumerism for the holidays, but someone that had talked to him said that he was a big supporter of Bush since Bush's such "a good Christian."

The Gateway is an outdoor mall/condos/offices project in Salt Lake City built by the Boyer Company. It was a very controversial project of mostly middle to high end retailers and restaurants that is likely responsible for helping to drain the life out of downtown's Main Street.

What was interesting at the protest was finding out what part of the multi-block project we could legal protest on. It seems that the sidewalks that run through the Gateway are private property, which leaves the narrow streets that run through it and a few feet at the corners as the only public property. That puts pedestrians not wishing to walk around the huge complex at a disadvantage if they do anything that mall security would find disagreeable.

Salt Lake isn't a stranger for selling away public property rights, as it sold the Mormon church a whole block of Main Street back in 1999 for $8.1 million. The church built a plaza on the site disrupting traffic flow and restricting behavior to Mormon standards for pedestrians who don't want to add to their walking time and distance by walking around it.

I find the trend to privatize sidewalks in Salt Lake City to be a bit disturbing. There may not be too much of it going on right now, but this trend could lead to very little rights for pedestrians in the long run. I hope we never see the day where we have to pay tolls or have shopping validations to walk through these privatized zones.

{Years ago I was involved with some New Age spiritual groups. While I don't follow any particular ideology any more, some of it has stuck with me. Something about the ideas of karma and universal energy still sort of resonate with me. We seem to be stuck in some kind of a karmic cycle as a nation for the past 500 years.}

Many of us in the U.S. would like to see ourselves as a shining beacon of all that is good in a nation. We like to believe that "God" blesses us above all others, and that we must meet with "God's" approval for our actions or we wouldn't be the most powerful nation on earth. I know how this feels -- I once believed it.

This dangerously blind pride in my country first started to fall away when I learned the truth about Columbus, this person that we honor with a holiday each October. I was appalled as I read accounts of the slave trade that Columbus started with the natives he encountered in the Americas; the torturing, maiming, rape and killing of natives that Columbus and his men committed. 

I wondered why we celebrated such an evil person, who really couldn't have even discovered America, as millions had been living here for thousands of years previous to 1492.

In more recent times we see how our government is not above torture, giving lie once again to our claim to be the greatest of all nations. Almost every day I see headlines about the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo Bay. 

Wars we have started and military action we have taken on behalf of multinational corporations have caused horrendous suffering for hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.

Our military runs a school (paid for with our taxes) that teaches Latin American soldiers torture techniques, which have been turned upon their own civilian populations. More info here on the school formerly known as the SOA.

It's almost as if we are somehow karmically acting out the blood thirsty destruction used by Columbus and his men again and again.

And again and again, there are so many people who turn a blind eye. So many people who need to believe that we are a "good and chosen nation" so badly, that they choose not to see what it is we are really doing. Their desire to protect their national identity is much greater than the need to do what is right and just for their fellow human beings.

I wonder if we'll ever break out of this cycle violence. I don't see that happening until more of us stand up and let our "leaders" know that torture is unacceptable, that war and violence are unacceptable.

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A good place to stand up to those who think that torture is okay is the protest to close the SOA coming up next month at Fort Benning, GA where the SOA/WHINSEC is located. There is an estimate that there could be as many as 20,000 people participating this year. More info here on this exciting event.

If you can't attend the event this year, you can help by calling  your congress person and encouraging them to co-sponsor (or at the very least support) HR 1217 which will shut down funding for the SOA.

The world bank is trying to undermine the debt forgiveness deal for poverty-stricken countries.

http://www.jubileeusa.org/jubilee.cgi?path=/press_room&page=release080305.html