Common Assets
So now we're getting our best policy recommendations from hip-hop artists. Hip-hop artist Russell Simmons said the following yesterday: "And what we’d like is for the people to control their future," Simmons said, describing the constitutional amendment he is supporting that would ban private donations for U.S. politicians running for federal office. "We want to believe that the politicians are making decisions on the part of the people who elected them. And that’s what’s the flaw, fundamental flaw, in our democracy."
That kind of sums up the problem in a nutshell doesn't it. You would never hear anything like it from our bought and sold national politicians. But here's the problem. The public doesn't buy it either! I have...
Common Assets
This inspired blog post from an #OccupyPhilly resident connects the dots between the #OccupyWallStreet movement and the idea of the Commons that we've been championing here are Vermont Commons for close to six years. Give it a read - and share your wisdom. And to get you in the mood - here's a photo of the #OccuptMontreal encampment. Still standing, as far as I know.
Outside the Circle: Occupation in Philly, Day 20 (October 25)
Commons Not Capitalism
This post about “day 20” is less about a...
Activism, OWS, Economics, Media, Governance, Politics, Common Assets, Sustainability, Vermont99
The occupation of Burlington’s city hall park has entered into a common trend that the nation wide movement of occupations share now, becoming a refuge for the homeless. This issue made it to the attention of Vermont’s mainstream media today Nov. 9th on WCAX after a letter was mailed to Burlington’s Mayor Bob Kiss, stating that the city’s at-capacity Homeless Shelters were referring people to the encampment and the occupiers didn’t have the training nor means to correctly provide assistance to the homeless.
In the WCAX report (VIDEO), The Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS) is quick to deny the...
(Video below) Vermont guerilla gardeners at Occupy Wall Street plant Organic seeds from the grassroots Vermont based seed company High Mowing Seeds. These activists, though not affiliated with High Mowing, are fulfilling their philosophy:
"we believe in re-imagining what our world can be like. We believe in a deeper understanding of how re-built food systems can support health on all levels – healthy environments, healthy economies, healthy communities and healthy...
Come be a part of this "Bill McKibben + Viperhouse + Moving People = Moving Planet" production, assembled in conjunction with HigherMind Mediaworks, performed LIVE on the Vermont Statehouse lawn in Montpelier on Saturday, September 24 @ 3:00.
...And support raising awareness on behalf of 350.org.
Thanks for Robin Lloyd, founder of Vermont's Peace And Justice Center and member of Vermont Commons' Editorial Board, for sharing this amazingly insightful essay from Charles Eisenstein. See the September issue of Vermont Commons for a book review on Eisenstein's work by Ron Miller.
This article explains clearly why the so-called "stimulus" and other Keynesian economics concepts often held up by my fellow Progressives as essential actually make our situation worse. The infinite-growth paradigm and debt-based money MUST end, for it is destroying our ecosystem and enslaving all of humanity in perpetual debt-servitude. There is another way. There are alternatives.
Suppose you give me a million dollars with...
9/11 was the transformative event of our time, for ill, not good. It sparked multiple wars producing more of them, as well as repressive domestic crackdowns.
It also launched a Global War on Terror (GWOT), another on truth, human and civil rights, social justice, rule of law principles, and democratic values wherever America and its NATO partners show up.
9/11 is the U.S. of Empire's grand epistemological experiment - how do you actually know what you know about the events of that day, and what does the evidence suggest?
"The Gods of the Empire are not the Gods of Vermont...
There I was---hand washing my clothes in a bucket in the front yard—when a friend of mine pulled in the driveway. She’d been raised in the inner city of Detroit and still carried a big ole' ugly chip on her shoulder about that. She took one look at me and quipped: “One woman’s voluntary simplicity is another woman’s poverty.” I thought about it for a minute and replied, “I dunno, they’re both just ‘washing clothes’, aren’t they?” And, there you have it: utopia.
So, what I am trying to say here is that any concept of utopia as a literal space in time is pretty far-fetched....
Irene blew through Vermont just over one week ago.
Thanks to all of you who have contacted us @VermontCommons from all over, asking how we in Vermont are doing, and asking for news.
We shipped the new fall issue off to press just as Irene hit, and have been focused on Irene ever since.
I've sent many of you who have been asking to Anne Galloway's VermontDigger - she and her crew are doing a fine job of aggregating press releases, official government response documents, and original reporting there.
Our Mad River Valley, where Vermont Commons is based, got walloped by Irene.
This past week, Gaelan Brown (our VC business manager...
Common Assets
Apologies for not blogging much this past week. We've been knee deep in Post-Irene clean-up efforts in Mad River Valley. Here's my media colleague Eva S. painting a video picture of the flooding. It's a disaster up here, but Vermonters are strong, resilient, and helping one another through this hard time.
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