Recording Artist in Residence

John Newlands Song-of-the-Week Series

by Rachael Charbonneau

Introduction to Series

Shoot The Dye

In this song, John is interested in the courage whistleblowers manifest to protect the public trust. He is particularly interested in the comforts whistleblowers surrender to protect this trust. Whistleblowers have varied material existences, but they all risk everything that is comfortable to them to expose injustices. Tim DeChristopher is serving two years in prison. Bradley Manning has endured long-term torture, and he may be put to death.  Julian Assange has been tried by the media for crimes he has not yet been charged with. These individuals were motivated by their conscience and they allowed their consciences to dominate their decision making process even though the risks were very high.

It seems to me this path whistleblowers take to protect the public trust is connected to the challenge we are facing to meet the CO2 crisis. As the climate science mounts, we are coming to understand that the planet cannot sustain industrial civilization. We have to scale back very significantly, very quickly for the living world to survive. This idea is unsettling to many people. We'll have to help each other find the courage to be motivated by our conscience and not our comfort. Not everyone can be a whistleblower, but we can all be environmentalists. And the heritage of whistleblowers and environmentalists would be a fully empowered will of the people expressed as a healthy, vibrant ecosystem.

 

bar baz