By John Steley
An event is in the planning, to be held over several days in August next year, to consider environmental solutions. Because the brutal truth is:
”It won’t be us who pays the ultimate price for our blindness, it will be our children. And theirs, and theirs, on and on and on… until humans cease to exist.”
As CS Lewis said:
“We cannot change the beginning. But we can change the ending.”
To change the ending for the better we need to see the beginning as it is, not as we imagine it.
Amazing Grace – A Call to See Clearly
Grace is amazing because it is love, compassion, and mercy given with no expectation of reward. Like the idea behind the film Pay it Forward. It is a universal concept. Rooted in Christianity, it resonates across faiths and those of no religious faith at all.
The song Amazing Grace was written in 1772 by John Newton. Once the captain of a slave ship, he had an epiphany – a sudden and great realization – and became a vigorous and effective opponent of slavery, contributing to its abolition in England. Hence the powerful words:
“I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”
He acknowledged that he had been blind. Not in a physical sense. It was a failure or refusal to see what is so. And that raises two great questions:
- What stops us from seeing things as they are?
- And what causes us to see where once we were blind?
The things that blind us
Marie Lu, a young Chinese-American author, put it brilliantly:
“It’s pointless to believe what you see, if you only see what you believe.”
The first part is quite confronting: what are you supposed to believe if you can’t believe what you see? The second part provides the answer: we all need to look at ourselves to see the context we are looking from. Then put that context aside and look again.
Annabel Crabb’s insightful program, Ms Represented, showed how males are often driven by their egos. Julie Bishop recounted how she would float an idea only to have it pooh poohed by her male colleagues. Then one of them would make the same suggestion and they would all agree. They stole her idea and confirmed their deluded view that men are superior to women.
When misogyny was in the national conversation, George Brandis claimed his party was “gender blind.” But they weren’t. They were blind to gender issues, snugly wrapped in their male privilege. As female parliamentarians have confirmed.
Indigenous people also have the experience of not being seen or heard. We did not see Aboriginal people from the outset, declaring Australia to be Terra Nullius. And now, more than 200 years later, many still do not see or listen to them. Even now, when the need for sustainability is both obvious. and urgent. And they are the masters of it.
We seem to think we are indestructible. Like Tom Bombadil from The Hobbit, living carefree in a magic forest that protects us from the outside world. But that is a fantasy. We are not immune from nature we are a part of it. And as we are seeing more and more, it has the power to destroy us.
As Sir David Attenborough says:
“We live our comfortable lives in the shadow of a disaster of our own making. That disaster is being brought about by the very things that allow us to live our comfortable lives.”
When we’re driven by ego, vanity, privilege, resentment, greed etc, we don’t see clearly.
Privilege blinds. Ego deafens. Greed consumes. And selfishness isolates.
The best way to see reality is to come from nothing-to clear the mental clutter, the ego, the baggage.
”Minds are like parachutes – they only function when open.”
But there is a crucial step we can all take now – support David Pocock’s Duty of Care Bill.
Let’s be honest: We have no plan!
The Roundtable on the Human Future-28 global thought leaders – recently issued a warning: humanity is facing ten interlinked, existential threats. And we have no plan to address them! Not globally. Not nationally. Not anywhere.
David Pocock, speaking to his Duty of Care Bill, also asserts we have no plan:
Seriously? No plan? So many well-informed people warn us our very existence is under threat, and we have no plan! How can that be? The American actor Woody Harrelson has nailed it:
“We live in a completely corrupted world where every government is just a bunch of businessmen working for a bigger bunch of businessmen and none of them give a damn about the people. The sad fact is no one knows how to change it because no one knows how to take on the corporations.”
There is plenty of evidence to show this is so in Australia. The video, Dirty Power, for instance, is enough in itself:
Political donations have become investments with incredible returns-tax breaks, favourable opportunities, lucrative appointments. And we, the people, are shut out of the room. Not just indigenous people – all of us. Meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
It is “Corruption in plain sight”, corruption allowed by our own laws!
It must end IF we are to leave the best planet we can for future generations. We don’t want to exclude Big Business from the table. But we DO want them and our parliaments to embrace a duty of care, to develop a long-term plan in partnership with the wider community. We want people power to matter as it once did and be considered. We want sustainability to replace growth as our purpose.
David Pocock’s Duty of Care Bill would impose a duty on everyone to act in the interests of our children and those not yet born.
Our parliaments and corporations would be required to act in the long-term interest, as would everyone.
It is an essential step to clear the way to start exploring and implementing real and comprehensive solutions instead of pretend and inadequate ones. Sure, that path may not be easy, but what is the alternative? As Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, has said for several years now:
“The status quo is suicide.”
SIGN THE PETITION HERE.
Please sign the petition: https://adutyofcare.davidpocock.com.au/petition
Please share it widely.
Please stand up for your children and theirs.
Choose grace, pay it forward.
Ask your candidates if they support a Duty of Care.
Vote for those who do.
© @dutyofcarecampaign
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