Rebecca Solnit

Mad, passionate love — and violence: Occupy heads into the spring

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When you fall in love, it’s all about what you have in common, and you can hardly imagine that there are differences, let alone that you will quarrel over them, or weep about them, or be torn apart by them — or if all goes well, struggle, learn, and bond more strongly because of, rather than despite, them. The Occupy movement had its glorious honeymoon when old and young, liberal and radical, comfortable and desperate, homeless and tenured all found that what they had in common was so compelling the differences hardly seemed to matter.

Until they did.

Occupy + Commons: The beginnings of a beautiful relationship

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The Occupy movement is beginning to discover the commons, and the result could be a rich and productive collaboration. This was the lesson that I took from a three-day conference, “Making Worlds: A Forum on the Commons,” hosted by Occupy Wall Street in Brooklyn this past weekend. Rarely have I seen so many ordinary people from diverse backgrounds embrace the commons idea with such ease and enthusiasm.

Tilling the soil in 2012, parts 1 and 2

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Where once American plowmen had merely to contend with unpredictable weather, infertile soil, inaccessible water supplies, poverty, accidents and disease, today’s food producers face a further cornucopia of sophisticated and bewildering attacks from all sides. That fewer than one percent of Americans want to wrestle a crop from abused soil, while attempting to anticipate how global warming or ailing honeybees may thwart them, should surprise no one.

Occupy vs. the global race to the bottom

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In addition to Wall Street speculators, the other dominant forces of the U.S. economy over the past three decades have been global firms like General Electric, Exxon Mobil, and Apple. These firms spread their global assembly lines and resource extraction to countries like Mexico, China, and the Philippines where, in a quest for cheaper costs, they can more easily evade worker rights and environmental regulations. This global corporate economy pits U.S. workers and communities against poorly enforced Third World worker rights and environmental rules in a “race to the bottom” in terms of rights and standards. These global firms simply say to governments and workers: lower your wages and standards or we will move our operations elsewhere. They either get what they want or they move.

Art into Action

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In Extraenvironmentalist #36 we discuss art and activism with Steve Lambert. Steve describes how his work as an artist has allowed him to create temporary utopias that prompt people to question the fundamental assumptions of society. We ask Steve how his varied work experience has helped him understand our education system and barriers to reform. What if the people around us aren’t lazy and are just optimizing where their agency can have an effect?

Water – Feb 20

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-Humanity’s Growing Impact on the World’s Freshwater
-Uncharted waters: Probing aquifers to head off war
-Drought summit: Why not pipe the water from north to south?
-Jordan’s Green Fairytale- ‘Once Upon a Water’ Campaign
-Thailand’s economy shrinks 9% after flood disruptions
-Food security v energy security: land use conflict and the law

Cheater Economics

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Cheaters are lurking in the U.S. economy, corrupting what should be an honest game of production, commerce, and trade. “Cheater economics” refers to the corporate welfare system in which corporations are given special tax subsidies and granted access to loopholes for avoiding tax payments. Cheater economics drains away needed tax revenues, leaving governments with the lose-lose choice of running up deficits or reducing services, or both. Often this means cutbacks in environmental, health, and safety protections. Thanks in no small part to the cheaters, the debate on public finance in the United States has shifted to deficits and the need for cuts. To those seeking funds for worthwhile programs, the answer is, “Sorry, we’re broke!”