• From The Leader - Occupy the Courts
• From Around the Movement - Anne Klaeysen - Occupy Wall Stree is Alive and Well!
• Ethical Action - What are you doing for MLK Day this year?
• Community Call - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - Lois Kellerman, Eight Commitments of Ethical  Culture

From The Leader
Susan Rose writes about Move to Amend - Occupying the Courts.

From Around the Movement
To celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, Anne Klaeysen, Leader of the NY Society for Ethical Culture invited participants in Occupy Wall Street for a panel discussion at the NY Society.  As Anne tells us in the introduction, the Occupy movement is alive and well, and we in Ethical Culture can find a variety of ways to "occupy."

ESWoW Community Call 
Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture with Lois Kellerman  This call needed to be rescheduled and now will take place on February 5, 2012.

5pm PT, 6pm MT, 7pm CT, and 8pm ET.  866-740-1260  access code 5766842#.  

Join us to explore these important concepts of Ethical Culture with the developer of Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture, Leader Lois 

Kellerman.  Please let others know about this special opportunity.

Ethical Action 
Maintain U. S. Opposition to Torture

(from the AEU Ethical Action Report)

  Read more »

It will be two years since the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission.  I started to write that it is the second anniversary of this decision, but that sounds too celebratory to me.

I realized that while I understood the key concept of this decision, I wasn't clear on the details. Reading a summary from Cornell Law School reminded me that Citizens United was a non-profit group wanting to use funds from its general treasury to cablecast a movie about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primaries. 

Other reading I did identified Citizens United, not surprisingly, as a conservative group.  What a reminder that how we name organizations and concepts is so important, because on first glance, who would think that Citizens United would be more supportive of corporations than actual citizens. 

The most illuminating source I checked was the website of the Citizens United organization.  This organization has a video posted on its website one year after the decision.  The focus is on free speech, promoting how the CU vs. FEC decision promotes unlimited free speech.  I highly recommend that you watch this video that includes clips from Newt Gingrich and decide what you think about it. 

Given that I don't think corporations should have all the rights that human beings do, I'm more inclined to agree with the viewpoints expressed by organizations that oppose the Citizens United decision and are working to change it. Read more »

  Read more »

January 12, 2012 was the 100th Anniversary of the strike in Lawrence, MA known as the Bread and Roses strike.

Why is this strike important to us today?  Why is it important to make note of this particular labor action?  In learning more about this strike I was struck by several aspects that made this action unique and more importantly, might offer lessons for labor and other organizing now.

This strike against the textile industry  "...started as a wage protest [and] quickly became a fight for better conditions both on and off the job. The strikers angrily complained about mistreatment by overseers and a job pace that made them work "like horses." They also objected to a premium system that held part of their expected earnings hostage to month-long production and attendance standards."

This was one of the first "modern" strikes.  It was the first time there was a strike against an entire industry, rather than just workers in one craft going on strike.  Also notable in this strike was how the International Workers of the World (the Wobblies) were able to incorporate, and give equal voice to workers of more than a dozen different ethnicities, very important in a city of immigrants.

Workers from each ethnic group were represented when it came to making decisions regarding the strike. How could we manage to do something like this today?  Can this concept be incorporated into the Occupy Movement?  (I saw a small example of it at the Occupy Boston Summit meeting last year, held near the Chinatown area, with translation services which allowed full participation to those for whom English is not their first language.) Read more »

• From the Leader:  "(Another) Year of Living Ethically"
• Community Call - Sunday, January 1, 2012
• Dialogue Group Call
• From Around the Movement - Hugh Taft-Morales: "My Lunch with Jesse Jackson"
• Happy New Year!

From the Leader:  "(Another) Year of Living Ethically"
Susan Rose invites you to explore what it might be like to have the intentional purpose of spending a year living more ethically, both in her blog  and in a full Platform (PDF).

Community Calls:
Community Calls are a way for us to connect with each other, get to know each other a bit more, and to learn about Ethical Culture.  We're experimenting with when to have the calls, and welcome any thoughts about when to schedule calls.

For now, we have three calls scheduled for January.  The dates and topics for the calls are as follows: Read more »

It is so easy to say that we want to live ethically, but what do we really mean by that?

Let's explore this important question with each other in our ESWoW Community Call on Sunday, January 8, 2012.

The call will be at 8pm ET, 7pm CT, 6pm MT, and 5pm PT and will last about 1 hour. 

The number for the call is 866-740-1260 and the access code is 5766842#.

We ask that you not drive while participating in an ESWoW call.

Please join us and invite anyone who is interested in exploring what it means to live ethically to join us too.

ESWoW Community Call - Welcoming the New Year

Please join us to say Happy New Year on Sunday, January 1, 2012.   What are your thoughts, plans, and hopes for the coming year?  Our Community Calls are a way to connect with each other across the country and to connect with each other.

The number for the call is 866-740-1260, access code 5766842#. 

For safety, we ask that you not be driving while participating in ESWoW calls.

We hope you can join us.

What would it be like to have an intentional focus to live more ethically for a year? How can we pay more attention to our actions - and reactions, being more reflective in the choices we make when we interact with people, the choices we make in our daily lives, the choices we make as we try to make the world a better place?  Could we do this for a year?  What would we do?

This was the challenge I put to members and friends of the Ethical Society Without Walls (ESWoW) at the beginning of 2011 year, and one I share with you.

Some members of ESWoW have been taking action to live more ethically in 2011.  But just as with any habit, or lifestyle change, living ethically isn't something that you do for a year and then stop.  So we'll be doing another year of living ethically and hope that more people will join us and share their ideas, challenges, and of course, successes.

I gave a Platform Address (rather than a sermon) on this topic at several Ethical Societies which meet in person over the last year, and share the latest version, given in November 2011 at the Essex County Society for Ethical Culture in NJ.  Please click on the link for the attachment to read the full Platform. Read more »

• From the Leader - Ethical Inventories - Loving the Questions
• Community Call - Winter Solstice Celebration  Sunday, December 18, 2011 8pm ET  
• American Ethical Union - Ethical Action Report
• Around the Ethical Movement - Kate Lovelady - Ethical Heroes - Santa
• Supporting ESWoW - With your time and your money

From the Leader - Ethical Inventories - Loving the Questions 
The end of one year, the beginning of the next, is a time when many people reflect on the closing year and make plans for the one ahead.  Susan shares her thoughts and questions and invites you to share yours.

Community Call - Winter Solstice Celebration 
Sunday, December 18, 2011 8pm ET, 7pm CT, 6pm MT, and 5pm PT.  
The number to join the calls is 866-740-1260 and the access code is 5766842#.

In preparation for the winter solstice celebration we will share, I invite you to consider if there is poetry or some other reading you would like to share with the group.  If you plan on participating, it would be helpful to me to know that in advance susan.rose at eswow.org.  I welcome your ideas on how we celebrate the solstice together.

We welcome you to join the call and please invite anyone you know who might be interested in the topic to participate.  For safety reasons, we request that people participating in our calls are not driving.

Pastoral Support Read more »

The Winter Solstice is on Dec.22 this year and we will be having our ESWoW Winter Solstice Celebration on Dec. 18.  The call will be at a different time than our usual community calls - 5pm Pacific, 6pm Mountain, 7pm Central, 8pm Eastern.  The number to join the call is 866-740-1260, access code 5766842#,  

In preparation for the winter solstice celebration we will share, I invite you to consider if there is poetry or some other reading you would like to share with the group.

One advantage of doing this in our own homes is that we can each do some things, or not do some things that feel appropriate to us.  Some possibilities that come to mind - lighting a candle, or not, spreading some pine branches in your living space, or some other greenery, decorating in a way that feels appropriate to you.  It occurs to me that we could take pictures of our own set up and then share them online.  If you create a setting and send me a picture before the 18th, I'll post them on our website if you give me permission, and then we have some visual connection with each other. Read more »