Pamela Perrott

The Elimination of Racism

That the elimination of racism, in particular the racism aimed at people of Black African heritage, be actively made an ongoing, central piece of the work of the Re-evaluation Counseling Community.

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Originally adopted as Goal 1 by the 2001 World Conference.
Reaffirmed by four World Conferences and modified by the 2022 World Conference, and reaffirmed by the 2026 World Conference.

William M. Loving

Ending Classism

That members of the RC Community, to move toward a rational society free of exploitation, commit to the following:

• building connections with and learning from members of economic classes that are underrepresented in our Communities yet represent the majority of the world’s people—the sector of the working class engaged in the direct production of goods and services, and people living in poverty;
• getting the theory and practice of RC into their hands and encouraging, supporting, and following their leadership;
• facing, discharging on, and challenging any distress that causes us to believe that some lives are more important than others, to seek economic advantage over other people, or to be preoccupied with irrationally seeking comfort and security; and
• discharging toward a full understanding of the class society and its inherently destructive nature, and communicating this understanding to others in our own way.

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Originally adopted by the 2017 World Conference
Reaffirmed by the 2022 & 2026 World Conferences

Damien Cook · Red-Necked Avocets

Young People and Young Adults

That members of the RC Community commit to creating a world in which the thinking of young people and young adults is respected and at the center of any decisions that affect their lives and the world.

That we make getting the theory and practice of RC into the hands of more young people and young adults a significant part of building the RC Community.

That young people and young adults challenge the internalized oppression that separates them from adults and from each other and that keeps them from taking initiative, leading, and building the RC Community.

That adults, and young adults, discharge on and recognize the powerful role they can play as allies in young people’s liberation.

That we in the RC Community commit ourselves to developing and supporting young leaders across the Community.

That adults work to eliminate the distresses that prevent them from connecting with younger people and backing young leaders.

That all Co-Counselors heal from their own experiences of young people’s and young adults’ oppressions and stand against these oppressions in the present.¹

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Originally adopted by the 2017 World Conference
Reaffirmed by the 2022 & 2026 World Conferences

George Partlow

Ending Genocide and
Honoring Indigenous Sovereignty

That ending the genocide of Indigenous, Native, and Tribal peoples and the continuing ways in which they are made invisible, and honoring and restoring their full sovereignty² over their lands, waters, subsurface rights,³ air, and all other rights be made an active, ongoing, central part of the work of the Re-evaluation Counseling Community.

Steps for action and discharge include:

• Building relationships with Native people where you live. Outside of RC, reading, listening to, and watching perspectives from Native-produced sources; attending Native cultural events and visiting reservations, reserves, territories, villages, etc. If you decide to visit museums⁴ that are not managed by Native people, view with a critical eye the information and the way things are presented.
• In RC, getting the theory and practice of Native liberation into our Communities by inviting Native leaders and their designees into your Community, reading the Heritage journal and other Native writing, connecting Native Co-Counselors with existing Native leadership, and supporting attendance at Native workshops.
• Developing an interest in Native issues and discharging about your imposed unawareness. Facing and discharging where you personally have benefited from the genocide of Native people or the appropriation of Native culture.
• Discharging on restoring full Native sovereignty over lands, waters, subsurface rights, and air.

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Originally adopted by the 2022 World Conference
Modified by the 2026 World Conference

Dan Nickerson

Growth

That members of the RC Community put increased effort into sharing the tools of RC with large and diverse populations.

That we make a thoughtful and sustained effort to reach out to the people we already have caring and committed relationships with, along with building new and diverse relationships.

That we assist interested people to use RC tools for themselves and, when appropriate, to become members of the RC Community.

That in order to pursue this goal, we keep discharging the distresses that hold us back from openly sharing what we find useful about RC.

That Areas, Regions, and Developing Communities organize classes, gather-ins, support groups, workshops, and other events to assist in achieving this goal, while continuing to support the existing members of the RC Community.

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Originally adopted by the 2022 World Conference
Reaffirmed by the 2026 World Conference

Pingjun Chen

Ending All War⁵

That members of the RC Community commit to:

• discharging any distress recordings that interfere with our thinking about the continuum of war: calls for war, seeing other humans as our enemies, and our power to end war;
• listening to and learning from those whose lives have been directly or indirectly impacted by war (the effects of which can last for generations), including those who are targets of war as well as those who are sent to war;
• informing ourselves about
  • the role of war in keeping the class system in place, including the real reasons and motives for war (dominance and profit), which are often hidden behind other rationalizations or pretexts;
  • the role of war in increasing sexual violence, especially against women and girls;
  • the circumstances that can lead people to take up arms against oppression; and
  • industries that profit from war, which include defense and weapons manufacturers, surveillance and satellite technology companies; private military companies; oil companies; the prison-industrial complex; and the prostitution, trafficking, and sex industries.
• contributing to the creation of peaceful, just, and inclusive societies by joining others to build strong, unified mass movements that take bold action to end all war and its causes.

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Adopted by the 2026 World Conference

Unified Goal on the Climate

We in the RC Community commit ourselves to encouraging and supporting every one of us to act against and discharge any distress that might keep us from playing an active role, as large and radical as necessary, to resolve the climate emergency. For most of us, this will involve uniting with others to publicly oppose irrational policies and visibly support rational solutions.

Humans are functioning in unsustainable ways that put at risk most of Earth’s life forms, including ourselves. The path we are on was created and is supported by destructive irrational policies carried out by governments, institutions, and industries—policies that are based on oppression, the exploitation of people and resources, and the endless pursuit of profits and growth.

We envision a world in which people work cooperatively to ensure that everybody’s basic human needs and the fundamental requirements of all lifeforms are met, in a respectful and harmonious relationship with the Earth. To make this vision a reality, we must solve the climate crisis by working for a global just transition⁶ to phase out fossil fuels. We must simultaneously work to end oppression, exploitation, and war. We must transform the current economic system into one that respects and sustains all life and ecosystems. And we—especially the globally dominant and more industrialized nations—must significantly reduce consumption and conserve energy.

At the root of the exploitation that fuels the climate crisis are distress recordings that include oppressive attitudes and thoughtless, patterned desperation for more. These recordings must be discharged fully, but we cannot wait before taking large actions. The climate is deteriorating too rapidly, and the changes we need must happen now.

Working simultaneously on oppression and the climate crisis requires that we support and follow the leadership of Native and Indigenous people, Global Majority⁷ people, and other oppressed groups—working together with individuals and organizations to build a united force that welcomes everyone to end the climate emergency.

As we work to end all oppressions and all forms of humans harming humans, we need to understand the ways in which they intersect with the climate crisis and one another. Specific goals reflecting the intersection of some oppressions with the climate emergency (listed in the order added to the Unified Goal) can be found below and here.

Ending racism

We cannot end the climate crisis without ending racism. Racism and patterns of domination, colonization, exploitation, and extraction have created the conditions for the climate crisis. Also, Native and Indigenous and Global Majority communities and nations have been and are being exposed to far more climate and other environmental hazards than are the vast majority of white-dominated communities and nations.

The RC Community commits to creating opportunities for everyone to do the following:

• implement the strategies for Goal 1 (Ending Racism⁸);
• more fully understand the connection between racism and the climate crisis;
• discharge on the patterns and practices of white domination that have enabled and continue to enable rich countries to get rich at the expense of Native and Indigenous and Global Majority communities and our Earth; and

• discharge feelings of powerlessness and any other feelings that would stop us from acting to end institutional and systemic racism and white supremacy culture.

Ending genocide and honoring Indigenous sovereignty

Protecting and caring for the Earth is central to Indigenous, Native, and Tribal sovereignty and to sustaining all forms of life.

The RC Community and wide-world projects (e.g., Sustaining All Life) commit to listening to, centering, and following Indigenous leadership.

The Goal on Ending Genocide and Honoring Indigenous Sovereignty is above.

To achieve this Goal, develop, outline, and link to specific strategies to end the genocide of Indigenous people.

Ending classism

Those who produce goods and services (Direct Production Workers) and people living in poverty bear the brunt of the climate crisis and the exploitative class system. To end the climate emergency and class exploitation, the RC Community commits to the following goals:

• that the theory and practice of RC be put into the hands of Direct Production Workers and people living in poverty;
• that Direct Production Workers and people living in poverty be at the forefront of any program to save life on our planet;
• that Direct Production Workers and people living in poverty be protected from economic harm in the transition to sustainable sources of energy;
• that people of the world living in poverty be assured that necessary resources that have been stolen or withheld from them through colonization and exploitation will be restored; and
• that the middle and owning classes and people of the wealthy countries of the world reduce their disproportionate consumption of resources.

These can only be done with great respect and humility, uniting people of all classes to create a rational, sustainable society.

Ending sexism and male domination

Women and girls are among the most powerful forces in ending climate devastation. They hold vital knowledge as caregivers, land and resource stewards, and leaders of communities. They offer their societies long-practiced, sustainable, community-based solutions.

The exploitation of women’s reproductive work, caregiving, and agricultural and factory work (along with poverty) leaves women disproportionately exposed to climate change and other environmental shocks. Also, their lack of material resources with which to adapt to and mitigate climate impacts puts them at greater risk of sexual exploitation and male violence.

Females of all ages are significant members of the working class and of Native and Indigenous and Global Majority people. We recognize the intersection of all their oppressions and the work needed to end their internalized oppression.

The RC Community commits to ending the divisions among women and to building a united sisterhood—while also welcoming and working with men and boys to end the exploitation of all women and girls and the environment.

Ending the oppression of young people

Young people can and are playing an important and active role in solving the climate crisis, and they are facing its present and future effects.

Young people’s oppression creates the earliest hurts of disempowerment that discourage humans from taking action to transform society. The RC Community commits to discharging the hurts from and ending young people's oppression. This will involve creating opportunities for:

• young people to take leadership on the climate crisis,
• adults to discharge hurts in their way of closely and wholeheartedly supporting young people, and
• people of all ages to unite in addressing the climate crisis together.

Ending anti-Jewish oppression

The RC Community actively commits to understanding anti-Jewish oppression and its rise worldwide, and to recognizing its divisive role in weakening liberation work, antiracism movements, and the climate movement.

Jews have been singled out, blamed, and targeted for many of the world’s difficulties, and then subjected to isolation, mass extermination, pogroms, expulsions, and genocide. In these times of growing inequality, the targeting continues.

Anti-Jewish oppression diverts the attention of people living in poverty and working-class people away from fighting against the real holders of power: polluting corporations, elites, and those amassing fortunes and exploiting all of us and the environment.

We will take an active role to ensure that anti-Jewish oppression is addressed in all liberation programs, and to end the use of anti-Jewish oppression to disrupt liberation movements. This includes a specific focus on the ways that anti-Jewish oppression gets used to divide the climate movement.

We commit to discharging and acting against all anti-Jewish patterns that have been installed on us.

Ending LGBTQ+ oppression

Historically and in the present, the oppression of LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, gender non-conforming, and non-binary) people has been used to divide and derail liberation movements and the climate movement.

The RC Community commits to understanding and ending LGBTQ+ oppression, discharging and acting against all oppressions that target LGBTQ+ communities, and taking an active role in ending the use of LGBTQ+ oppression to disrupt progressive movements.

Ending the oppression of disabled people

Disabled people are part of a large community of vibrant people who have fought hard for their rights. But they are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis and are more likely to be displaced, injured, or killed. Although many live full and active lives, they are often the poorest of the people living in poverty around the world. The crisis will result in more illness and disability.

Disabled people also model the cooperation and connection essential to addressing the climate crisis and assuring the future of humanity.

The RC Community commits to ending the oppression of disabled people by discharging the hurts that devalue disabled people’s lives and limit our view of what it is to be human. We also commit to building connections with and learning from disabled people.

Ending anti-immigrant oppression

Immigrants enrich every nation, bringing a diversity of skills and talents, cultures, and languages. Throughout history, they have been exploited for their labor and often scapegoated and blamed for the failures of those in power. They are pitted against each other and against other oppressed groups.

As climate change makes more and more land areas uninhabitable, the number of people fleeing their homelands is increasing. Tens of millions of "climate refugees," mostly from the Global South, have been forced each year to move in search of more hospitable environments due to climate change. Millions more have been displaced by war, poverty, and violence—fueled by capitalism and imperialism.

Many governments stoke anti-immigrant, racist, and xenophobic fears to build support for their agenda of undermining civil and human rights in favor of authoritarian, antidemocratic rule. Backed by the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests seeking greater profits, these governments promote climate denial and a fossil-fuel-based economy, thereby deepening the climate crisis.

The RC Community commits to welcoming and supporting immigrants and moving against the targeting and oppression of immigrants displaced by climate crisis, war, and economic exploitation. We will do this by discharging and acting to end the xenophobia and racism that have been used to restimulate, scare, divide, and scapegoat immigrants in every country.

Ending anti-Muslim oppression

Muslim liberation is the work of ending the systemic targeting, isolation, and dehumanization of Muslim people, while supporting them to reclaim their full humanity, leadership, and connection. Muslims are impacted by global forces, including war, racism, and the climate crisis, that distort both how they are seen and how they experience themselves.

Muslims have been scapegoated and made the “enemy” in order to: (1) restimulate and distract local populations from exploitative policies within their home countries; (2) keep non-Muslims from organizing with Muslims toward their common liberation, and (3) justify wars to gain access to natural resources, such as oil and gas.

Muslim liberation is essential to RC’s Unified Goal because genuine unity cannot exist while any group is scapegoated, feared, or treated as expendable. By prioritizing Muslim liberation, strengthening Muslim leadership, and building alliances across communities, we interrupt divide-and-conquer dynamics and create the conditions for unity and liberation for all people.

Ending the oppression of elders

Elders—people who have lived, loved, worked, and played for many decades—are a triumph for humanity. We want every human being to have the opportunity to live such long lives. The climate crisis and human distress threaten this possibility.

Elders are disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, which puts them at increased risk of being injured or killed.

Elders make and have made a big contribution to the fight for the survival of our planet and to building the foundation of climate justice and sustainability. Many have put themselves on the front lines of protest and have been arrested. They are determined that the next generations will have a future.

The RC Community commits to ending elder oppression by

• ending classism and its segregation of people by age, and the pitting of one generation against another;
• standing against the dismissing and discarding of elders; keeping them at the center of community, where they can thrive and where their wisdom and leadership can continue to benefit humanity.

By doing so, people of all ages can, together, build vibrant, multigenerational communities where everyone has the opportunity to live long, good lives.

Ending the oppression of men

Ending the harsh conditioning and oppression of men is a necessary step toward ending all oppression, and an important part of resolving the climate crisis.

In class societies, men are one of the groups set up to oppress another group (women and girls), and are also oppressed—not by any other group, but by the oppressive society overall.

Men’s oppression and internalized oppression include large amounts of domination, violence, exploitation, blame, and suppression of discharge. Plus, men are expected and conditioned to exploit and dominate women, and to play active roles in many other oppressions. This combination of being oppressed and being set up to oppress others is very damaging to men.

Large numbers of men work in industries that significantly contribute to the climate crisis. Understanding and reaching these men is a key part of uniting to transform our societies into ones that sustain all life. The industries include fossil fuels, war, military supplies, construction, corporate agriculture, and some forms of transportation. Men also make up the majority of those who own, fund,⁹ or profit from these industries.

Therefore, the RC Community commits to discharge and act to help end the mistreatment and oppression of all male human beings. This includes communicating about the goodness of boys and men, and working to change the practices and institutions that are very hurtful to men, and that make men vulnerable to becoming hurtful to others.

Ending “Mental Health” oppression

 “Mental Health” oppression (MHO), as a tool of the oppressive society, is being used to target and divide activists by labeling us as “crazy” and discrediting us. When taking big actions against the causes of climate change, we are seen as too bold or radical, or showing too many feelings, and we are seen as unreasonable or irresponsible.

People targeted with "mental health" oppression are being used to keep other people silent and afraid to challenge hurtful and oppressive policies. The suppression of discharge is a key part of MHO that targets every person. The “Mental Health” system actively uses MHO to scare and suppress all people from both showing our thinking and using the discharge process.

Through “mental health” liberation we can reclaim our discharge and healing process, decide to take complete charge of our minds, and support each other to keep taking action with fresher thinking.

Ending war

Wars must end permanently because:

• Wars destroy people;
• Wars destroy the valuable work and accomplishments of people;
• Wars are a key tool for maintaining an exploitative class system, including capitalism;
• Wars play a role in keeping oppressive governments in power;
• Wars are used to restimulate, confuse, and keep people divided;
• Wars increase sexual violence and sexual exploitation of women and girls;
• Wars create displaced populations and refugees, which in turn provide a pretext for oppressive forces to turn people against each other; and
• Wars are a major contributor to the destruction of the climate. The world’s militaries and war are major sources of carbon emissions. We cannot end the climate crisis without ending militarization and war.
• Funding and human resources that could be used for climate remediation go to war.

The RC Community commits to working to end war alongside our work to end the climate emergency. (See the RC Goal on Ending All War.)

The Draft Program on Care of the Environment includes articles that explain the relationship of climate change to all oppressions and other resources.

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Originally adopted by the 2022 World Conference
Modified by the 2026 World Conference

¹ A Young People and Young Adults' Strategic Plan was drafted in 2017. It serves as a draft program to move young people’s and young adults’ liberation work forward in the RC Community. The Strategic Plan can be found at  rc.org/ypya_plan

² Sovereignty: Indigenous, Native, and Tribal people around the world have been organized as sovereign nations since long before colonization impacted their lands and people. As with any other sovereign nation, Native sovereignty involves the determination of citizenship, implementation of nation-to-nation agreements, and other acts of governance. There is no one word that can be used worldwide to define Native people because they all have their own words in their languages to identify themselves and define their sovereignty. (See Present Time No. 214, January 2024, An Introduction to Native American Sovereignty and Treaties in the United States.)

³ Subsurface rights can include but are not limited to groundwater and aquifers; minerals such as gold, diamonds, uranium, and copper; industrial minerals such as cobalt, sand, and iron ore; fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas; and geothermal energy. Subsurface rights can be owned separately from surface rights. Their ownership and regulation vary depending on the country and local laws.

⁴ Museums have been used by colonizing governments and countries to erase Native people. Much of the history and symbolic representations and materials have been stolen. Museums often erase Native civilizations by excluding current information as well as the message that they no longer exist. There are very few museums that offer accurate and respectful representation that are not established or curated by Native communities.

⁵ In this goal, the term “war” includes armed conflict and military action, acts of aggression, sanctions, civil war, and the threat of nuclear war.

⁶ A global just transition is one that redresses inequities around the world. A just transition ensures that no worker, community, or country is left behind. It is a unifying set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive to a regenerative economy.

⁷ The peoples of Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, and Latin America and those descended from them comprise over 80 percent of the global population. These people also occupy most of the global land mass. Using the term “Global Majority (GM)” for these people acknowledges their majority status in the world and interrupts how the white-dominant (U.S. and European) culture assigns them minority status. Many Global Majority people living in white-dominant-culture countries have been assimilated into the dominant culture by force, in order to survive, in seeking a better life for themselves and their families, or in pursuing economic, political, or other inclusion of their communities. Calling these people “Global Majority” contradicts the assimilation.

⁸ See “Strategies for Goal 1: Ending Racism”

⁹ Such as bankers, investors, or insurers.