Saturday, October 19, 2019

Bioneers Day 1: Grief, Love, and the Power of Independent Media

2019 Bioneers Conference

Action Items

Turn Inspiration Into Real Change

Bioneer,

Today, the first day of the 2019 Bioneers Conference, was immediately transformative. The morning's powerful, emotional keynote addresses carried us into an afternoon filled with ideas and solutions that can guide us into the coming year.

"We are eroding together. We are evolving together," said author Terry Tempest Williams in her keynote address. "This is the place we create from. With love, with courage, in grief, and with anger."

Following are some of the ideas and takeaways Bioneers introduced today.

The Bioneers Team

ACTION ITEMS

Lessons and Takeaways:

Allow your grief to teach you: Nina Simons told us the story of her mother's passing, saying, "The impermanence of life is much realer to me now. Death’s nearness makes living shinier, more crystalline, full moons are fuller, foxes more breathtaking, laughter and wildness and freedom more precious. Read the full text of Nina's speech here.
Take a pass on the labels that polarize us: Professor of Environmental Studies & Politics at Oberlin College David Orr pointed out how the labels we adopt (democrat, republican) have a tendency to make us blind to collaborative opportunities.
Listen to the Earth: Writer Terry Tempest Williams told us how Utah's Castletown Tower vibrates like a heartbeat. "How do we find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts? Hands on the Earth, we remember the source of where our power comes from." (Find an excerpt from Terry's latest book, Erosion, here.)
Acknowledge your sacredness and the sacredness of those around you: "Remember anyone you deal with has a lineage," said co-founder and director of the Sacred Circles Center Jerry Tello. "We must call to our lineage, recognize that when you hurt, I hurt, and when you heal, I heal. We must take the opportunity to bless each other."
Write an apology letter to yourself, from your abusers: Writer Eve Ensler described the relief she felt in writing The Apology (read an excerpt here), which was an imagined letter to her from her abusive father. "I don’t believe that the mandate is ever on the victim to forgive," she said. "But I do believe there is an alchemy that is achieved with a true apology. That your hate and your anger release when somebody truly apologizes."
If you have a platform that can benefit somebody else, give it away: The incredible panelists in the "Grief, Sacred Rage, Reckoning & Revolutionary Love" afternoon session discussed the importance of uplifting others as a tool to combat rage and hopelessness.
Tell stories focused on actual human need: In the Green New Deal afternoon roundtable, Paul Hawken shared how stories about existential threats, such as climate change, don't mobilize people; stories about concrete needs and actions do. (More on that here.)
Support initiatives and candidates trying to get big money out of politics: Several speakers point to this step as one of the biggest moves we can make to carry out several important initiatives.

Campaigns to Follow and Support:

Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition (supporting a need raised by Terry Tempest Williams)
- Mission: "To assure that the Bears Ears area will be managed forever with the greatest environmental sensitivity…where we can be among our ancestors…where we can connect with the land and be healed.”
Sacred Circles Center (introduced by Jerry Tello)
- Mission: "The Sacred Circles Center is a place for people to gather to find and affirm their 'purpose in life,' to release their baggage, and to heal their wounds."
Institute for Nonprofit News (introduced by Monika Bauerlein)
- Mission: "To provide education and business support services to our nonprofit member organizations and promote the value and benefit of public-service and investigative journalism."
News Match (introduced by Marcia Parker)
- Mission: "NewsMatch is a national campaign to encourage grassroots support for nonprofit news organizations."
The Revolutionary Love Project (introduced by Valarie Kaur)
- Mission: "We produce stories, tools, curricula, conferences, films, TV moments, and mass mobilizations that equip and inspire people to practice the ethic of love. Our current projects focus on racism, nationalism, and hate against Sikh, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian American communities."

ANNOUNCEMENTS

For Conference Attendees:

Events like Bioneers often have changes up to the last minute. It’s a dynamic process and we’ll keep this page updated throughout the weekend. Most of these changes are reflected in the online program but we are presenting them here for reference.

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Ban Face Surveillance - Add Your Name!

From Restore The Fourth:

Face surveillance is the most dangerous form of surveillance ever invented, and it’s spreading like an epidemic. [1] Now, CBP are looking to deploy it within 100 miles of the border and at airports.

Our basic human rights are at stake. Tell your lawmakers to ban facial recognition.

More and more police and government agencies are using this invasive technology to monitor us everywhere we go, target vulnerable populations for arrest, and deport migrant families. [2]

Facial recognition is inaccurate in racist ways. It systematically misidentifies women and people of color at higher rates, putting them at higher risk of being falsely imprisoned or worse. [3]

We’ve gotten word from insiders in Washington, DC that Congress is about to introduce bipartisan legislation to address facial recognition. But if we don’t flood lawmakers with emails and calls, it will almost certainly fail.

Click here to tell your local, state, and federal officials to ban facial recognition.

Facial recognition is so dangerous that four US cities have already banned it. Sweden just banned it from being used in schools. [4] And a prominent development in London just abandoned its use after massive public backlash. [5]

People from across the political spectrum can all agree that we don’t want Big Brother tracking us everywhere we go. Facial recognition allows for the automation of discrimination and social control. It can’t be fixed with regulation, we need to ban it.

We’re joining 30 organizations at BanFacialRecognition.com calling on lawmakers to ban government and law enforcement use of face recognition surveillance. Click here to take action and add your name.

For our basic rights,

- Alex.

Citations:

[1] The Guardian

[2] Buzzfeed

[3] MIT News

[4] New Europe

[5] The Guardian

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