Act: Inspiration

The Occupy movement builds democratic learning/action communities

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Occupy Wall Street gatherings on Oct. 15 at around 1500 sites in some 80 countries revealed a global uprising for building democratic learning and action communities. People were joyous to be together in streets and parks, on church steps, outside banks, and elsewhere—playing music, chanting, and exercising their freedoms. They sat in circles, paraded around with bands, and fed each other in dramatic outpourings of anger, aspiration, feelings, energy, humor, yearning, and wisdom.

Letter to a dead man about the occupation of hope

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Dear young man who died on the fourth day of this turbulent 2011, dear Mohammed Bouazizi, I want to write you about an astonishing year — with three months yet to run. I want to tell you about the power of despair and the margins of hope and the bonds of civil society. I wish you could see the way that your small life and large death became a catalyst for the fall of so many dictators in what is known as the Arab Spring. We are now in some sort of an American Fall. Civil society here has suddenly hit the ground running, and we are all headed toward a future no one imagined when you, a young Tunisian vegetable seller capable of giving so much, who instead had so much taken from you, burned yourself to death to protest your impoverished and humiliated state.

Why I’m sad about leaving Bank of America

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I know I shouldn’t be at all emotional, but honestly, I find myself a bit verklempt about moving my bank accounts out of Bank of America. Yes, it’s a hassle, but it needs to be done, as the Move Your Money Project makes amply clear. Since they’re a national bank, the biggest part of every dollar I deposit with Bank of America goes into the financial system and leaves my community. And if B of A uses my deposits to fund reckless speculation, fat bonuses for their execs or donations to Tea Party Congressmen, then my money will be harming America. And as a Transitioner trying to relocalize my area’s economy, I’ve felt especially guilty staying with a big corporate bank.

Jubilee!

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The US manifestly needs a new financial system, and one that as Richard Douthwaite has pointed out, is not debt-dependent. None of us want to see a purely centralized economy, of course, but neither do we want to maintain the status quo. My suggestion is that we put American ingenuity to work to create an American-Idol like show that creates new financial institutions for the US.

Community renewable energy finance 2.0

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In a world where income disparity is increasing and social regression is inherent in the current structure of the UK’s Feed-In Tariff (FIT), we need to rethink how community renewable energy projects are structured & financed to ensure full community benefit lies at the heart of the process and that energy reduction is still focused upon as part of a community “power down” process.

Going back to diversity?

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When we’re young, as Tod and Copper were when they became friends, we simply don’t see the differences the world has created between us. We have to learn the divisions that set people apart. In the global north, we learn that black is a colour of danger and negativity and that white is a colour of purity and light. We are taught how to divide people up according to their accents, their clothes, their jobs. We learn that the so-called “middle-class” culture is the one that gets people places. And before we know it, talking about “us” and “them” has become so second nature that we’ve no idea how to get back to the wholeness that we were born with.

Peak Moment 203: Soccer mom prepares for the unexpected

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“I have a ball preserving food with my friends!” And at the same time Kathy Harrison is making sure her kids can eat if storms knock out power or roads. The author of Just in Case: How to Be Self Sufficient when The Unexpected Happens gives practical tips on storing food without getting overwhelmed. She looks at dehydrating, canning, and root cellaring; finding and preserving local food, and buying food at discount. For Kathy, preparedness is an empowering, community activity.

Occupy Wall Street’s consensus process [VIDEO]

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This mini-doc shows in some detail how the general assembly – the heart of the occupy movement – operates. They make decisions by consensus and anyone can join the assembly. Through this process, the occupy movement models its own radically inclusive political economy and thus demonstrates that it’s more than a protest movement. It’s many things, but what may be overlooked is that it’s a social process through which people can experience being a fully heard citizen, and maybe for the first time. It gives an opening through which people can experience first hand what’s possible when a diverse citizenry works together.

Talk amongst yourselves

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People working in the City of London have played a starring role in creating the global economic crisis. Since our representative institutions have thus far failed to address this crisis in a way that is both sensible and just, it is only fitting that we should use the City as a place in which work on solutions ourselves.