A time of riot: England and the world
An explosion of unrest and looting by young people that began in London and spread to other cities is a particular case of a global pattern with shared roots.
Building Community
Riots, disaster, and recovery – Aug 12
-An open letter to David Cameron’s parents
-Why we need to stop trying to ‘save the planet’ and just realise our place in it
-New Zealand quake: Christchurch ‘to be garden city’
-Riots are no reason to surrender our rights
-Shopocalypse Now
-The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom
-Can the Aftermath of Disaster Be Beautiful?
Transition Fujino — Prospects for a better future
In these difficult months following the 11 March quake and tsunami, it has been a time for reflection and an opportunity to ponder what the future holds in store for Japan. Some hints of what a better future may look like can be found just a short train ride from Tokyo, in a place called Fujino.
Making a living for ourselves
Until millions of Natural Enterprises exist as models that we can visit and learn from to create our own enterprises, we need extensive programs for online and in-community study and for young people to learn hands-on in secondary school. These programs need to be developed cooperatively with local Natural Enterprises in each community — because this learning needs to take place in the community, not in the classroom.
Cotton with conscience
Much of the clothing we purchase every year carries hidden environmental and social costs. Growing non-organic cotton, for example, uses copious amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and water. That’s one concern for people who want to make low-impact, ethical choices as consumers. Another issue is that clothing sold in the United States is often produced in the developing world, in factories with poor wages and working conditions.
Economic crisis or nonviolent opportunity? Gandhi’s answer to financial collapse
The real purpose of an economic system is to guarantee to every person in its circle the fundamentals of physical existence (food, clothing, shelter) and the tools of meaningful work so that they can get on with the business of living together and working out our common destiny. This was Gandhi’s vision, among others’. We can no longer afford to ignore him in this sector any more than we can ignore his spectacular contributions to peace and security.
Smashing the melon of American complacency with the mallet of Russian grit
Dmitry Orlov scares me. But it would be a shame if his fearsome reputation as a relentless doomer scared others off from reading the revised edition of his book that came out this year, Reinventing Collapse: the Soviet Experience and American Prospects. As a foreign-born analyst of the American scene, Orlov is as prescient as Alexis de Tocqueville. But Orlov, of course, is edgier, just like that other analyst of the American character: Gallagher. Yes, that Gallagher, the prop comic we loved in the 1980s for smashing watermelons on stage.
Poetry in the Great Unravelling
England’s cities burn, the financial system continues its inexorable slide towards the pit, taking the real economy with it, socio-economic chaos stalks the declining West, and I am reading a poem.
Licking inflation the homestead way
Even when manufacturers purportedly “hold the line” on prices, inflation wins. The hoe you buy today for nearly the same price as the one you bought fifteen years ago will need repair or replacement twice as soon which means that the inflation occurs not only in your wallet but in the increasing height of the landfill. Or, what is very prevalent right now, the manufacturer holds the line on the price, but when you check the package, it holds somewhat less than it did previously.
Ending the hunger season
What we need are stories about how people are not only avoiding hunger but are living well. Such stories are myriad. Physically joining our own lives to such stories can help us see the abundant way of living we’re each called to embody.
“Nickel & dimed: On (not) getting by in America”: Barbara Ehrenreich on the job crisis & wealth gap
Standard & Poor’s announced Friday it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. The move by S&P, one of three leading credit rating agencies, came just days after Congress approved a $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan. “In some ways, that is in another world from most Americans and their day-to-day struggles. What is it going to mean to you if you have no job now?” says our guest, Barbara Ehrenreich, who has just published the 10th anniversary edition of her book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” In the book, Ehrenreich tells the story of life in low-wage America and tries to earn a living working as a waitress, hotel maid, nursing home aide and Wal-Mart associate. Ten years later, she compares the current situation of low-income U.S. workers to “third-world levels of poverty.”
Panic on the streets of London
I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight.
