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Ethical Action
The Ethical Culture movement
attributes unique dignity and worth to every human being.
The movement, therefore, promotes a wide variety of Ethical
Actions based on its humanist tenets. Many members of the
Ethical Society of Boston are active in projects,
organizations, and causes that help individuals or promote
social justice.
The Society's Ethical Action
Committee helps to facilitate and coordinate these efforts.
This page presents editorials and letters on issues of
importance that members have acted on. There are also links
to other organizations that promote causes members
participate in or support.
Events
Topics
Activist Links
Special Projects
Events
Ethical
Action Committee Meeting
The Ethical Action
Committee meetings are currently in hiatus. Call Michael Bleiweiss at
(978)689-2874 for more information.
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Activism
HR 676
and SB703
-- Federal Single Payer Healthcare
Support federal legislation for national single-payer
healthcare. There are currently 86 cosponsors in the House
from the 110th Congress who have been sworn into the 111th
session. Contact your
Congressional Representative to thank them for their
sponsorship or to urge them to sign on.
HB 2127
-- State Single Payer Healthcare
Support legislation for single-payer
healthcare in Massachusetts. Contact your
State Representative to to urge them to sign on
or support this bill.
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Shaw Fund 2010 Gift
by Mildred Siegel & Carol Foley
The Shaw Fund was established in the early 1990s in memory of
Naomi Shaw’s husband, Louis, with a $5,000 gift from their sons.
The interest from this gift is to be used for scholarships to
organizations serving needy students.
While living in New York Naomi Shaw was President of the
National Service Conference of the American Ethical Union in the
1970s. She and her husband moved to Boston in 1990 and joined
the Ethical Society of Boston. At this time Naomi volunteered
for many years at the Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD).
One of the projects at ABCD was a yearly three- week Bus Tour
for High School Seniors. The object of the tour was for the
students to visit colleges they might go to, and for them to
learn first-hand about the history of the Civil Rights Movement.
The students brought their high school records with them and had
the opportunity of talking with the college admission staff at
the Colleges. From the time the Shaw Fund was set up the yearly
interest was given to the Bus Tour Fund.
When this program was closed the next recipient was Project
HIP-HOP (http://ProjectHipHop.org).
Project HIP-HOP is a youth-led organization. Through the study
of hip hop culture and the history of social movements the
project engages young people in a process of critically
analyzing the past and present so they can take action to make a
better future.
We have been looking for another recipient for these funds and
this year one of our Board Members, Lorraine Lavoie,
investigated a number of organizations. She became very
enthusiastic about the Cambridge Housing Authority’s Work Force
Program and the Board agreed with her.
This year, the Ethical Society of Boston bestowed an $1,800 Shaw
Fund scholarship award to the Cambridge Housing Authority's Work
Force Program. This comprehensive educational enrichment and
work-readiness program has been in existence for 25 years. It is
for low-income teens in Cambridge public housing. Each year an
8th grade class is admitted largely on a first-come first-serve
basis at all program sites. Participation requires only that
students live in public housing and are enrolled in school. The
Work Force has helped 130 to140 low-income teens annually to
broaden their horizons and develop the wide range of
competencies necessary for long-term success. Their unique
approach provides participants with sustained networks of
learning and support over a developmentally significant
five-year span: from the eighth grade through their senior year.
This program has been so successful that it has been replicated
in other cities across the country.
For more in depth description of their program, go to their page
at http://chworkforce.org
or
http://www.clpha.org/cambridge_housing_authority
s_workforce_program
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Special Projects
Environmental Buyer's Guide
The
Ethical Society of Boston has developed a booklet called A
Consumer's
Guide to Wise Choices for You and the Environment.
This is an informative
compact guide to what is proper and what is dangerous in regard
to Appliances, Household Cleaners, Food and Health, Toiletries
and Cosmetics, Pet Products, Lawn and Garden Products, as well
to infants and children. Wide-ranging but not too
technical, it recommends Best Buys, National Reports, Ways to
Prioritize, Actions to Take, and many other matters you will
want to learn about.
The
booklet may be obtained for only $5 by contacting us at P.O. Box
38-1934, Cambridge, MA 02238.
Carbon Footprint Reduction Project
This year we offer you a step by step plan that involves
personal behaviors that you can change and that individually
and collectively can significantly decrease the amount of CO2
that we contribute to the atmosphere. We plan to track, month
by month, how much CO2 we save
and we will tally the total effect of the Ethical Society of
Boston over the course of the year.
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Topics
American Ethical Union Approves Resolution
on Global Warming
The 2010 Assembly of the American Ethical Union approved a
resolution to have the AEU Board of Trustees and members of the
Ethical Societies write a letter to members of the Obama
administration that acknowledges their actions on global warming
to date and urges them to issue stringent controls on greenhouse
gasses by the end of the year.
The associated sample letter is given below. It can also
be sent electronically at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20006
Dear President Obama:
I congratulate you and EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson for the
victory in the Senate, June 10, 2010, upholding the EPA's
authority to regulate green house gases.
I also applaud you and Ms. Jackson for taking steps to phase in
new regulations and I fully support the EPA's actions to:
Regulate carbon emissions from cars, light and heavy trucks;
ease rules for manufacturers to sell fuel conversion systems
allowing vehicles to run on alternative fuels; retire
permanently coal-fired power plants in violation of the Clean
Air Act; stop mountain-top removal of carbon; and start in
January 2011 to phase in new requirements for large facilities
emitting green house gases, and in July 2011 to extend such
requirements to smaller facilities.
Furthermore, if Congress fails to act I urge you to use all of
the constitutional power vested in the executive branch to take
more comprehensive steps to keep our air free of pollution and
our planet free of the drastic consequences of global warming.
Sincerely,
CC: Administrator Lisa P. Jackson
Environmental Protection Agency
Ariel Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460
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Anti-War Curriculum
For the past few years, a member
of the Ethical Society of Boston has been developing a
curriculum for children to inoculate them against war. The
details of this program are given at the link above.
At the 2009 annual Assembly of the
American Ethical Union , the following resolutions were
approved:
Resolution on
Climate Change
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Activist Links
Economic Justice -
Government
- Health Care -
Human Rights -
Labor Issues -
War on Terror and Iraq
Economic Justice
United for a Fair Economy:
Works to focus public attention on economic inequality in
the United States and its implications for American life and
labor.
Alliance for Democracy:
Works to reduce corporate domination of politics, economics,
the environment, culture and information.
Co-op America: A
national nonprofit organization providing the economic
strategies, organizing power and practical tools for
businesses and individuals to address today's social and
environmental problems.
Alliance for
Retired Americans: Works to improve the lives of the
elderly and people of all ages. It is one of the leading
activist voices for older Americans and is one of the
largest organizations today representing senior citizens and
their families.
Massachusetts Coalition for
Healthy Communities: A nonpartisan organization whose
purpose is to defend the economic, social, and democratic
foundations upon which healthy communities are built. The
Coalition provides networking and coordination services to a
diverse array of public interest groups who are working for
community protection and improvement.
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Government
United States Senate:
Official U.S. Senate Web site
United States House of
Representatives: Official U.S. House of Representatives
Web site
Commonwealth of
Massachusetts: Official Web site for the state of
Massachusetts
Massachusetts Legislature: Official Web site for the
Massachusetts state legislature.
Ethical Action Reports: A newsletter produced by the
Ethical Action Committee of the Washington (DC) Ethical
Society on proposed or pending legislation in Congress.
Common Cause: A nonprofit, nonpartisan citizen's
lobbying organization promoting open, honest and accountable
government and opposing corruption and big money special
interests.
Citizens for Participation in
Political Action (CPPAX) A democratic, grassroots
organization that works for justice and peace through
political action.
Center for Responsive Politics:
A research group that tracks money in politics and its
effect on elections and public policy.
Progressive
Secretary: Sends progressive e-mail letters on your
behalf to Congress, the President and other officials on
peace, ecology, civil rights and other issues. You are asked
to approve each letter or you can send the letters yourself.
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Health Care
Health Care for All:
Provides assistance and advocacy for people without health
insurance and lobbies for universal, single-payer health
care.
Mass-Care: A
consortium of organizations working for single-payer health
care.
Families USA: A
national nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to
the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care for
all Americans.
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Human Rights
AEU National
Service Conference The American Ethical Union's
non-governmental organization representative to the United
Nations
Religious Coalition for
Reproductive Choice: A national interfaith coalition
representing the mainstream, pro-choice views of people of
faith and countering religiously-based anti-choice
arguments.
Amnesty International:
An advocate for the freeing of political prisoners and
prisoners of conscience all over the world.
Criminal Justice Policy
Coalition: An organization dedicated to the advancement
of effective, just, and humane criminal justice policy in
Massachusetts.
The Earth Charter
Campaign: Pushing to promote a world-wide dialogue on
common values and to craft and implement a People's Earth
Charter to secure a sustainable future based on justice,
equity, peace, and ecological security.
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Labor Issues
Fair Trade
Federation: An association of fair trade wholesalers,
retailers, and producers whose members are committed to
providing fair wages and good employment opportunities to
economically disadvantaged artisans and farmers worldwide.
War on Terrorism and
Iraq
United for Peace and
Justice: A listing of events and actions that are taking
place to oppose war around the world
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