By Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah

Published in 1776, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain. (1) 

Remember Paine’s words: “These are the times which try men’s souls.” It was a frank statement about the contentious political issues of the day.

Tell me why we separated from British arbitrary authoritarian despotism only to allow our own home grown variety to treat us worse than King George III’s colonial governors and personal declarations signed in London? Our authoritarian despots would make him blush with their overreach of power and influence. 

As early as 1215, the Magna Carta established limitations on unfettered, royal authority. “During the American Revolution, Magna Carta served to inspire and justify action in liberty’s defense. The colonists believed they were entitled to the same rights as Englishmen, rights guaranteed in Magna Carta. They embedded those rights into the laws of their states and later into the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” (2)

Widely viewed as one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy. 1297 Version of the Magna Carta on display in the new David M. Rubenstein Gallery. Presented courtesy of Davis M. Rubenstein.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt remarked in his 1941 inaugural address, "The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history... It was written in Magna Carta." However, the new gods of profits and materialism tend to negate thousands of years of advances in human spiritual, social, and political thought.

Does the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (3) square with long-understood American principles of democratic government and constitutional due process (“fundamental fairness”)? There are few constraints on today’s multinational corporations owing no particular allegiance to any one nation state, while focused on profit rather than performing a service for a greater public good. For example, the TPP allows private corporations in the treaty’s 12 nations to sue governments on the grounds that their reasonable regulation(s) concerning product or worker health and safety reduces their profits. 

A budget axe severs employment (i.e. number of employees, health, vacation, and retirement benefits), maintenance, costs (quality) of materials used, and environmental protocols when looking at overhead affecting profits. It is a prudent means to exercise restraint in spending and an application of common sense – a matter of what we’ve learned from what we’ve read about, witnessed, or experienced. 

When multinationals move manufacturing offshore to reduce overhead and/or to evade environmental and worker safety protocols, what of their commitment to profits vs. the environment going to be under the Trans-Pacific Partnership? 

What does common sense reveal whether the TPP impacts the environment? Is a regulation requiring workers protective clothing when handling hazardous materials an action against profits? Do we need to wait until “judges” appointed by the corporations under the TPP umbrella rule in a legal action brought against one of the states or the United States? Arguably, there isn’t a ruling involving profits that could go against them. 

Reasonable people don’t need to see an itemized list of the projected deleterious impact of the TPP. The environment already lags far behind the starting line to risk further desecration from profit driven hands. 

When is enough, enough? After more than 250 years of industrialization’s contribution to the degradation of the air, land, and water, what is it going to take for a critical mass of the population to connect the dots of continuing with our unfettered abuse? Do we need to pass an irretrievable tipping point to be sufficiently aroused? 

We have examples, such as Easter Island reaching a tipping point. It was denuded of its resources and rendered uninhabitable. It was too late to protest by then.

It is beginning to dawn on Americans that we need to have bottled water on grocery shelves because our tap water isn’t as potable as it needs to be, as we’re required to adjust to a new normal. Our children are rightfully concerned with news impacting their health about lead in water systems. Pipeline infrastructure failures and actions taken by Energy Transfer Partners’ (ETP) (4) Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) (5) against the Sioux Nation bring (insufficient) media attention to legitimate environmental and social concerns. 

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups and their membership and supporters “get it.” We’re angry and moved to action. Where is public concern for the planet’s well-being and future generations? What will it take to convince government to reverse Citizens United, to pass and enforce reasonable environmental regulations? 

My spouse Alicia and I recently saw “Sully”, an inspirational movie recounting Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew by landing a US Airways flight in the freezing waters of the Hudson River. Nobody responding to the passengers’ immediate needs asked about ethnicity, national origin, a green card, religion, gender, political affiliation – nothing at all – when reaching for those in desperate need of help. 

That’s because an emergency brings out the best in us. A “we’re in this thing called life together” attitude prevails as a natural instinct in response to a crisis. 

In remote Far West Texas, conservative ranchers and tree huggers but a couple years removed from Austin join in actions opposing the Trans-Pecos Pipeline (TPPL) (6) in the Big Bend region of Texas. At Standing Rock in North Dakota, tribes which haven’t had much to say to each other in decades have come together, joined by indigenous people from around the world.

The Tent Revival was an effort dedicated to reawakening the heart of each person under the shade of an old canvas tent, where often the Light shined allowing genuine transformation. Jesus said: “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” (New Testament Matthew 25:45, English Standard Version of the Bible). It is another way of saying: “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” (Luke 6:31)

How does that square with ETP’s use of security dogs against people protesting the DAPL’s incalculable harm to the tribe’s water supply? It leaves as stark an impression as Bull Connor’s police dogs dispersing civil rights marchers in the 1960s, and strikes our sensibilities with the force of Jim Crow’s biased baton. 

Admittedly, appearances can be deceiving, yet the soul sees the God and good in all. It identifies with injustice beyond our door and calls for us to be our highest and best to each other.

Thanks due to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to Kelcy Warren, (7) and to leaders in government and business advancing or condoning earth-defeating practices. 

The new gods’ lust for money and power has eroded the public’s trust in our institutions, thereby providing a necessary kick in the butt – that is ‘impetus’ – motivating many to address legitimate grievances and take our power back through secular and spiritual means. They help us to appreciate that the soul of America is better than the violence against people and planet by multinationals and the petrochemical industry.  

September 13, 2016: The State University of New York at Buffalo (UB) Haudenosaunee-Native American Research Group and The Native Graduate Students Association gathering in support of The Standing Rock Sioux and #NoDAPL. It began with the burning of Indian Tobacco to honor the Great Spirit and open the hearts and minds to changing the hearts and minds of those doing wrong to the planet and open the hearts and minds of those as yet unaware of the harm to the Sioux Nation at Standing Rock and to the environment of the planet.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Regardless of religious affiliation or beliefs, people of good will stand with the Sioux Nation at Standing Rock saying “NO” to the DAPL, the Trans-Pecos Pipeline, and those planned or under construction in the United States (8) and around the world (9).

Doing the secular work necessary to influence the arc’s direction is required. I also find merit to a prayer vigil devoted to changing the hearts and minds of those doing wrong to the planet and open the hearts and minds of those as yet unaware of the harm to the peoples and environment of the planet.

Indeed, these are the times that try men’s and women’s souls. But the last word hasn’t been uttered about the present state of things.

References

(1) From “Thomas Paine, These are the times which try men’s souls”, http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/.

(2) http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/.   

(3) Trans Pacific Partnership, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership; The Sierra Club has a very informative article on the impact of the Trans Pacific Partnership on the environment, http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership; Search under “environmental impact of the Trans Pacific Partnership?”,  http://search.aol.com/aol/search?enabled_terms=&s_it=client97_searchbox&q=environmental+impact+of+the+Trans+Pacific+Partnership.

(4) Energy Transfer Partners, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Transfer_Partners.   

(5) From Energy Transfer Partners, http://dakotaaccessfacts.com/; and from CNN “5 Things to Know About the Dakota Access Pipeline”, http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/31/us/dakota-access-pipeline-explainer/index.html.

(6) From Energy Transfer Partners, http://www.transpecospipelinefacts.com/index.html; and from Mother Jones article “THE PIPELINE THAT TEXANS ARE FREAKING OUT OVER (NOPE, NOT KEYSTONE), http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/05/texas-pipeline-controversy-trans-pecos.

(7) Head of Energy Transfer Partners, builder of the Trans-Pecos Pipeline in the Big Bend region of Texas and the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in the portion of the Bakken Formation in North Dakota.

(8) From Oil Price.com – The Number 1 Source for Oil and& Energy News, http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Crude-Oil-Pipelines-Planned-for-the-Future.html.

(9) From Pipeline and Gas Journal, https://pgjonline.com/2016/01/14/pgjs-2016-worldwide-construction-report/.