A New Year
The turning of the year is a time for reflection and recommitment.
Many of us are glad to see 2017 end. As the new year arrives we find ourselves drawing on fragile signs that longings for peace and justice persist, emerging in the resistance to acts of inhumanity that mark those in authority. Throughout the country, people are recreating ways of living together based on values that hold the promise of protecting life and restoring health to our communities and the earth.
These signs of hope are revealing a tension in our country as we confront the limitations of a federal system dedicated to protecting power and privilege while destroying much of what people cherish. Increasingly those in authority disregard the passions of people and the values necessary to sustain life.
As the national political leadership demonstrates petty, greedy, and destructive behaviors, state and local leaders are stepping forward to provide methods of establishing alternative values. People are organizing new forms of democratic practices as communities practice making meaningful decisions about our futures. Local resolutions of resistance, inventive policies confronting real problems, participatory budgeting, and people’s movement assemblies are all emerging as vibrant practices of an enriched democracy.
A fundamental distinction is emerging between us, the people, and the national government… For example, as the US officially withdrew from the Paris Accord on climate change, 20 States, 50 cities and a host of universities and civic organizations reaffirmed a commitment to the Accord's goals for reducing carbon emissions and promoting renewable energy. As limited as these goals are, it is an important step and reveals the weakness in such federal decision-making.
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg explained the new America’s Pledge action saying, “It is important for the world to know, the American government may have pulled out of the Paris agreement, but the American people are committed to its goals, and there is nothing Washington can do to stop us."
Marking a new level of cruelty and fear-mongering, the Trump Administration announced it is considering a policy on immigration separating children from their parents if they are caught crossing the border without documentation. This move, coupled with the recent tweets from Trump announcing his decision to tie protection of young, undocumented immigrant Dreamers from deportation to building a wall along the US southern border highlights the importance of Sanctuary spaces.
California is currently leading the way on how states can create counter-power bases to protect people. The California effort takes effect this week. A recent report noted:
This sanctuary state act contributes to building community and state-level resistance to the White House attacks against the growing "sanctuary" movement among communities, institutions, and local and state governments in California.
As signed, the bill does away with several local deportation practices, such as local police arrests for "civil immigrant warrants", and it helps to ensure that spaces like schools, health facilities, courthouses, and other spaces are safe and accessible to all.
State Senate President Kevin de Leon, the lead author of the bill said, “With today’s signing of SB 54 into law, one of the most important parts of that legal wall of protections is now in place. Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions will not be able to use California’s own law enforcement officials in an effort to round up and deport our fellow Californians.
As we approach this New Year we face a federal government that is increasingly abusive, capricious, and dangerous to life. Confronting it requires our rededication to creating new governmental forms and sources of power that reflect our best hopes for ourselves, one another, and our futures.