Last night, as it was becoming incontrovertible that the USA was voluntarily turning from neoliberalism to authoritarianism, about a hundred of us gathered on Zoom for what I reckon was just about the best way to process it: talking about care and kinship, responsibility and entanglement, autonomy and action, together.

On a day like today, I want to share that with all of you, along with some ideas for what’s next.

At our Missing Peace webinar on decolonising and nonviolence, we acknowledged what was happening, and how scary and significant the moment is. And then we discussed ways of being and doing together that are the only genuine path to a survivable future.

The old world is dying, and the new is struggling to be born. Yes, this is the time of monsters. And yes, it’s ancient wisdom from what Mary Graham described as “an incredibly long experiment in human order-making” which provides the most important lessons for midwifing the new world we need.

Mary teased out the difference between conflict and violence, and between fighting on land and fighting over land. She reminded us of how Aboriginal culture is non-hierachical, and balances autonomy and interdependence, creating mutual responsibility without a state to enforce it. And she emphasised that it’s all about doing – acting consistently in ways which align with our values.

Yin Paradies expanded on this last point by comparing the Indigenous culture of honesty with the colonial “culture of bullshit”. He dug deep into the observation that the defence of political violence is that “the ends justify the means”, but in Aboriginal culture the ends are the means and the means are the end. The journey, as I wrote in Living Democracy, is the destination.

And Nidala Barker, whose powerful reflection on kinship I started with, talked with us about how everything comes down to connection, and to culture which truly values and celebrates and ceremonialises connection. The urge to turn against one another, and the susceptibility to rhetoric telling us to do so, comes from disconnection, from feelings of scarcity and fear that come from not belonging. Responsibility to each other depends on cultivating belonging with each other.

This conversation, at a moment like this, is precisely why I am so proud of, and deeply committed to, The Green Institute.

What we do is unique and precious. Creating the space for deep conversations about who we are, who we need to be, in the midst of political crisis. The capacity to step back, to hurry up and slow down at times of urgency. And by doing so, to provide guidance to our movement, and help lead difficult discussions that are more important than ever.

At this moment in history, the Greens’ task is both more vital and more difficult. As the polycrisis arrives, as systems that seemed permanent crumble around us, we are faced with the impossible task of seeking to transform those crumbling systems while operating within them.

We have to make that impossible possible. And the Green Institute is here to support that.

So I hope you’ll consider, as you ponder what happens next, chipping in to help us do that crucial work. Our FroGIs, Friends of the Green Institute, are our backbone, through monthly donations that genuinely keep our doors open. If you can possibly afford to join up, whether it’s $15 a month or $50, now would be a good moment to do so. Check it out here.

I also want to take this moment to strongly encourage you to remember that the best antidote to depression is action, and in a fortnight we all have the opportunity to take action for the climate in a big way, at Rising Tide’s protestival and people’s blockade of the Newcastle coal port.

If you haven’t already registered to join the thousands of us already committed, today would be the day to sign up here. I’m looking forward to running a couple of workshops there on theory of change and power, as well as facilitating some of their “spokescouncil” meetings in a fascinating experiment with direct participatory democracy.

Relevantly, as foreshadowed last week and announced last night, the final Missing Peace webinar for 2024 is now open for registrations. We will be exploring Defending Nonviolent Protest from criminalisation, suppression and lies with a brilliant panel: David Mejia-Canales from the Human Rights Law Centre, Lebanese-Palestinian-Australian academic and activist Dr Lina Koleilat, and WA Greens activist, co-founder of Disrupt Burrup Hub and spraypaint superhero Joana Partyka.

This is, it kind of goes without saying, even more important today than it was yesterday. We’re booked in for December 5. Register here.

If you happen to be anywhere near northern Victoria, I am delighted to have been invited to give the keynote address at the 10th birthday celebrations for Totally Renewable Yackandandah next weekend, November 16. I’ll be speaking about how the grassroots up model of collective action – whether it be renewable energy cooperatives, Greens and Independent politics, mutual aid or direct action – is the only viable solution. I’ll be leaning heavily on “the end of the world as we know it”. Come along if you’re nearby.

And finally, I am both delighted and daunted to have been asked to open the Canberra event in the upcoming eastern Australia tour by the leaders of Standing Together, the Arab-Jewish grassroots peace movement in Israel/Palestine. Standing Together is one of the only things that gives me any sense of hope in that region, and I’m very pleased that the Green Institute’s work on peace and nonviolence has been recognised through this invitation.

If you’re in Canberra, you can get tickets for the event, on November 19, here.

Let me close this email, as I did last night’s webinar, with some incredible words from the incomparable Rebecca Solnit, that she posted last night, riffing off Martin Luther King’s famous phrase:

“Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”

With love,

Tim