Cornell on Fire Weekly 5/15
Welcome Queen of seasons bright
In all your floral gowns bedight
Fondling Water, Earth and Air
Crowned with Redbuds in your hair
Dear Cornell on Fire,
In the entire history of the world, the Redbud trees were never so beautiful as they were this year. They arrayed themselves in splendor, even around the parking lot that Cornell bulldozed through our community nineteen years ago, in what was once called Redbud Woods. We hope the current cohort of Cornell administrators parked there last week, and saw the Redbuds, and that their hearts were broken open.
With her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer has helped us remember something that we had learned to forget; that the Earth loves us. Loves me, loves you, loves all of us, loves each administrator and trustee of the University. It's why the Redbuds are so beautiful.
It’s easy to understand this when we are children, surrounded and protected by loving kin. The Spring says: “Look at me! Am I not beautiful? I love you, I want you, it pleases me to please you.” Ah, but a little later we learn other lessons that require that we forget the love from which we came.
Marjorie Kelly lays these new lessons bare in her book, Wealth Supremacy. Without quoting, We all can competently paraphrase these lessons. We have been hearing them most of our lives:
You cannot bank on the idea that you are loved. No matter what you have, it is not enough, you must have a plan to get more. Every responsible individual in society is bound to exercise Fiduciary Duty, to maximize returns on investment. The consequences of what we do to achieve this are Immaterial; Externalities, Somebody Else’s Problem. Greed is Good. Those who have the most wealth have it because they are doing these things most effectively; therefore they deserve all their privileges. The wealthy are superior, and that is why they are the ones who should call the shots. Governments exist to protect the wealth of the wealthy.
Corporations are people, money is speech. The highest good is best served, not by democracy, but by corporate governance, in which one dollar is one vote. The employees of a corporation, and the students, staff, and faculty of a university, have no standing to determine the policy of the institution.
This is our Capitalist Way of Life, and there is no viable alternative.
Wealth Supremacy: the title really says it all. It’s the collective and systemic bias in favor of the rich, in favor of wealth itself, to the detriment of everyone else and everything else. When you say it out loud, it sounds as repugnant as all the other prejudices we are slowly learning to disavow.
But when push comes to shove, most of our institutions most of the time are guided by the dictates of wealth supremacy. Cornell University is no exception.
Every person who graduates from Cornell will probably be pursued by fundraising appeals for the rest of their life. If they choose to make a donation, they may well believe that Cornell will exercise fiduciary duty with that gift, maximizing Cornell’s return on investment. The harms caused by that investment will be deemed ‘externalities.’
The climate chaos caused by fossil fuel investments, made by responsible wealth managers on behalf of the endowment, is somebody else’s problem. The genocide being inflicted on Palestinians, using weapons that are manufactured by companies that Cornell invests in and partners with, is deemed immaterial. Decisions about these matters are made by administrators, trustees(43% with careers in finance), wealthy donors, and wealth managers, who can be relied upon to follow the teachings of wealth supremacy.
For example, the current Chair of Cornell’s Board of Trustees is also on the board of military contractor Moog Inc., which boasts that it is “recognized by military forces around the world for its industry-leading solutions, which include turreted weapon systems, counter-unmanned aerial systems, fast ammunition handling, precise missile steering, weapon stores management and quiet undersea actuation.”
Students, faculty, staff, townies, alums, and protesters will have no say over Cornell’s investments. Earth, the Redbuds, the Polar Bears, the Palestinians will have no input.
The land that became Redbud Woods – and subsequently an
unnamed Cornell parking lot – was given to Cornell by Robert Treman, class of 1878, on condition that it remain undeveloped. In 2005, it was our sorrow to see it devastated. Redbud Woods was a microcosm of our Earth menaced by the dictates of what we can now name ‘wealth supremacy.’
Last week it was surprising and delightful to see how many Redbud trees were spared all those years ago through the nonviolent intercession of protesters. Tree sitters had negotiated to save as many as they could from the bulldozers. If not for that, the site would have been scraped as flat as a plate and seeded with fescue.
We have made our appeals to Cornell with academic rigor, and we will continue to do so; however, if facts and reason were sufficient, humanity would have tapered off the use of fossil fuels before any of today’s Cornell students were even born. And so we also work, together with the Redbuds, for the breaking of hearts. It is still possible to unlearn the dictates of wealth supremacy.
We invite you to join our effort, at the risk of the breaking of your own heart.
Kimmerer teaches us: “The earth is asking us to change.” And “the Earth asks of us to raise good children, raise a garden and raise a ruckus when you need to.” She recounts that she posed the following question to a group of her students: “What do you suppose would happen if people believed this crazy notion that the earth loved them back?” The floodgates opened. They all wanted to talk at once. We were suddenly off the deep end, heading for world peace and perfect harmony. One student summed up the responses ‘You wouldn’t harm what gives you love.’”
Join us in working to return Earth’s love:
Thursday, May 16, 6:30-8:00pm: Cornell on Fire Working Group meeting (permanent Zoom link here).
Climate Action Expo at Ithaca High School: Sunday, May 19, 3-6pm
Please sign and share the petition against Cornell’s plan to install artificial turf at the proposed Meinig Athletic Field House. We need 1000 signatures by May 28!
Upcoming summer opportunities to be announced in coming weeks!
May The Redbuds save Cornell’s soul.
Cornell on Fire
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Anonymous reports can be submitted to Cornell on Fire through our whistlelink channel.
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Plurivocality: CoF Weeklies are written by a revolving team of writers. Our movement is diverse, so are our thoughts, and so will be our Weeklies. If you receive a CoF Weekly that you think this is wrong headed, can we still walk together? (We, like you, sometimes write things we later laugh at!)
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