SFUAD is at a crossroads. We can push forward quickly and miss an opportunity to address gentrification and inequity in Santa Fe, or we can do something special. Let’s do something special. Plus more on NYT’s Planet Issue.
Yesterday, I posted about today’s City Council meeting today, but the time I had been given for the meeting was not correct. The correct time is 7pm tonight. Below I provide the call to action from our ally, Chainbreaker Collective. It does an excellent job of framing how important today’s decision is.
This is one of those times when it is essential for YOU to move beyond being frustrated and angry at the direction of our nation, state and city and taking some time to take action for equity. Please read on and act TODAY.
Human Nature or Capitalist Greed. Just a quick note on Monday’s blog. I referenced the NYT’s Sunday magazine’s article about Losing the Planet. While excellent in many ways and both a timely and important clarion call (I should say yet another call), as Naomi Klein very clearly delineated in a response to Nathaniel Rich’s NYT piece, the reason we have failed to implement necessary changes to address climate change is NOT human nature. Nathaniel Rich posited that it was human nature and human’s inability to address immediate conditions when they require sacrifice and that it is human nature to put off sacrifice for today and leave it to other future generations to make the sacrifice.
As Klein points out, Rich draws this conclusion without any other examples of human nature having this propensity and entirely ignores how indigenous populations for centuries lived in harmony with the earth, respecting the need to nourish it and live in balance. She also points out that the real reason we failed to heed the call of scientists in the 1980s is that our burgeoning understanding of the implications of climate change coincided precisely with the explosive growth of globalization, neo-liberalism and the spawning of a capitalist drive to control government and the media, all in the quest for immediate short-term profits at any cost to the planet. The oligarchy initiated a multilateral strategy to undermine science, to subvert possible binding international agreements and to promote pro corporatist policies and treaties such as the Canadian Trade Agreement and NAFTA to handcuff any and all efforts to respond to climate change.
Who is really to blame has much to say about how we move forward. If, as Rich suggests, it is human nature to blame, then perhaps the planet is already lost, as it is unlikely we can re-engineer human nature in the time we may have. But if the problem is capitalism then we can find hope in the array of anti-capitalist movements spreading internationally.
I will provide excerpts and go more deeply into Klein’s article in a future blog, but if you want to read an excellent piece, click here.
Expand Outreach & Input on Santa Fe University of Art & Design. City Council Decision Time. Wed. Aug 8, 7:00pm. City Hall. 200 Johnson St. TODAY!! Call/Email Today. Attend Tonight
Contact Information. Even if you can’t make the meeting on Wednesday, calls and emails will have an impact.
Below is contact information on all the City Council members and our Mayor.
Mayor Alan Webber: (505) 955-6590. mayor@santafenm.gov
- District 1.
- Renee Villarreal, (505) 955-2345, rdvillarreal@santafenm.gov
- Signe I. Lindell, (505) 955-6812, silindell@santafenm.gov
- District 2.
- Carol Romero-Wirth, (505) 955-6815. cromero-wirth@ci.santa-fe.nm.us
- Peter Ives, District 2 Councilor, (505) 955-6816, pnives@santafenm.gov
- District 3
- Roman “Tiger” Abeyta, (505) 955-6814 rrabeyta@santafenm.gov
- Chris Rivera, (505) 955-6818, cmrivera@santafenm.gov
- District 4
- JoAnne Vigil Coppler, (505) 955-6811 jvcoppler@santafenm.gov
- Micheal Harris, (505) 955-6817, maharris@santafenm.gov
Join us at City Council and pack the room in support of these amendments and for equitable planning in Santa Fe!
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 8, 7:o0 PM8,C ity Hall, 200 Lincoln Ave8, Santa Fe, NM
Categories: Economic Justice, Community & Economic Development, Local-State Government & Legislation
The City Council made their priories clear, they believe that we need even more Fast Food Restaurants. they gave lip service to Chainbreakers, but they really do not comprehend the problem. They are just too out of touch. They get wined and dined by the business interests, none of them care about the “little people.” They have already aliened most of the community, they made it clear they have nothing but contempt for low income people. You really ought to look at how this is covered by our limited local news sources. The very same ones that patronize and belittle the “little people.”
There is nothing new here or innovative. Developers already have their sights on the SFUAD Campus. They will do the same old green-washing, and sustainability PR nonsense, while figuring out how to get the city to subsidize them. The only predictor of future behavior is the the past. This is really like watching a train wreck. Each and every one of them is owned by the real estate and development industries.
It is always Groundhog Day around here! The people who could have been involved are too beaten down to even contribute to this. A lot of my friend are either dead or work too hard to participate. The number of people who moved to outlying areas,have not been counted either. In Santa Fe an unheated mobile home out in the sticks, is many peoples retirement plan. A friend of mine died from diabetes in a camper in Santa Fe. That is how the community treats it’s members. I see homeless, sick and mentally ill people all of the time, while people gush over the wonderful Foundations, religious groups and charities. They are still humiliating people, while posting themselves on Social Media.