Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
But it is one thing voicing a spiritual idea and another undergoing it in the real world. One thing to breezily state: well hey, we’ll just go into our cocoon and dissolve!, and another actually allowing those old caterpillar forms to break down, uncomfortably, inside ourselves and our social groups, to forge alliances without allowing our own allegiance to the ancien regime to destroy us from within.
The problem for the NGOs, and for all of us, is that they are trying to modify a system at a time when that system is buckling; nobody really knows what to do next. Governments are paralysed and people feel powerless. No wonder then the attraction of initiatives that are community led and inclusive such as these food projects. They promote notions of resilience and sufficiency and at the same time offer opportunities for meaningful political engagement.
Cities should be doing everything in their power to facilitate localized food production, and a key component of that is enabling urban agriculture and community gardening. Peak oil, the breakdown of our industrial food system, the high cost of sustainably produced food — these and other factors lend to an urgent need to use every plot of available city land for food growing.
Now in its 40th year, the Essential food cooperative presents itself as a viable alternative to the unjust food system, and its worker-owner management model is a inspiring example to anyone who wants to change their social and economic relationship to people and food.
Released in 2011, with an introduction that references this year’s dramatic Tahrir Square and Wisconsin protests, Starhawk appears to have anticipated the broad and unabashed presence of public group processing endeavors in the social movements shaking up the “world order” today.
For money, he does restaurant work, but his passion is photography. He travels by mass transit to Occupy events in the San Francisco Bay Area, documenting them with gorgeous art photos.
– The Atlantic: A Conversation With Rob Hopkins, Transition Movement Founder
– Mark Bittman: Making Local Food Real
– Crowdshare and other events: How to share
– U.N. Envoy: U.S. Isn’t Protecting Occupy Protesters’ Rights
– Occupy’s new grammar of political disobedience
– Hard Times at Occupy Boston
Now that the current phase of the Occupation movement—one that involved camping out in public places—is drawing to a close, thoughts turn to other, even more effective venues and exploits. Occupying the front lawns of mansions owned by the 1% would certainly send a message, although a very brief one, since trespassing happens to be illegal.
And then it hit me: Occupy flotillas floating up to crash swank exclusive seaside gatherings.
…This turns out to be one of the key aspects of relocalization, new forms of local investment that “catalyze the transition from a commerce of extraction and consumption to a commerce of preservation and restoration.” This means, especially, investing in local farming, and in the enterprises that are needed to support a healthy food and farming system. Woody Tasch is teaching us about “Restorative Economics,” following the core principles of carrying capacity, cultural and biological diversity, sense of place, care of the commons, and nonviolence. This may be one of the most significant economic visions to land on this planet in recent decades. It’s radical, truly revolutionary, and you need to read it. Fortunately, you’ll love reading it. It’s pure inspiration, and highly poetic.
– 2012=1968? (good article)
– Organizing Principles for 99 Percent Clubs
– Arundhati Roy: ‘The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution’
– NYT: Camps Are Cleared, but ‘99 Percent’ Still Occupies the Lexicon
– Why Naomi Wolf got it wrong
Old school letterpress printers Hatch Show Print of Nashville, Tennessee have been in continuous business since 1879. They do everything by hand from carving plates to setting type to inking and then hand cranking their print rollers. Their business model offers an excellent example of the kinds of jobs of the future communities need in addition that go beyond food production and farming.
