Mark Johnson's blog

The following opening comments and then the poem were presented as a part of the Convergence to Action in Syracuse, New York at the Hancock Air Force Drone training and operational base by Mark Johnson, executive director of FOR.  220 participants walked in solemn procession to the gates of the base and 31 were arrested as an act of civil resistance protesting the use of drones by the US M

“That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.”

The above quote by Aldo Leopold, the late American scientist and environmentalist, speaks to the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s steadfast commitment to “reverence for all creation.”

Now what? From Newtown to Boston what do we know? What do we do now? We know that violence will break out with vicious and unpredictable reality many places in the world every day. We know we can tell stories that place this violence in many different narratives of justice and injustice.

Three sociologists, an economist, two Rabbis and a Unitarian are riding in the back of a paddy-wagon. No joke. So what do they talk about? Carbon caps and carbon taxes, distributive justice, no-growth economic models, the environmental consequences of war, the state of the Movement, faith-based organizing, monkey-wrenching. Almost everything under the sun and the sun too.

I write from Washington, where tomorrow I will risk arrest in front of the White House. Together with other members of the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC), at noon on Thursday I will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience to make clear to President Obama that his inspired pledge to halt the destruction of the Earth from climate change requires that he take bold and courageous actions, including rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

As religious leaders and individuals, we recognize the moral imperative of taking unified, visible action to ensure that our national leaders act responsibly to address climate change.

So we have called on people of faith to join us in Washington for “Palms, Matzah, Our Planet, and the White House” or to hold an Interfaith Healing Seder for the Earth in your own community.

This Wednesday I was in Albany, New York, standing with other environmental activists in front of the capitol during Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State address, calling on the governor to oppose hydro-fracking.

It is with excitement and a sense of accomplishment, tinged with a hint of sadness, that I write to you today.

It happened the first time President Obama was elected. In the days after that historic vote, we heard hysterical appeals to save the banks that were “too big to fail.” What did we get? A trillion-dollar, unaccountable bailout of banks that subsequently foreclosed on millions of Americans while making a few men richer.

A faculty member from George Mason University’s World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution program intimated the sentiment most closely, as we boarded the bus after the inaugural ceremony at the Hofburg Palace to return to the Stadtpark Hilton Hotel in Vienna last night.