Ring-a-ling, Ring-a- ling, Hello?
Just Pick up the phone and dial the number. Send that email. Just do it. The rest will happen. Had my 3-way conference call Friday with Shannon Biggs co-author of Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grass Roots. Shannon Biggs directs the Local Economy project at Global Exchange. As a former senior staffer at the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) she wrote for and edited IFG publications, and was a lecturer on International Relations at San Francisco State University. She holds a Masters degree from the London School of Economics in economics, empire and post-colonialism.
Building the Green Economy shows how community groups, families, and individual citizens have taken action to protect their food and water, clean up their neighborhoods, and strengthen their local economies. Their unlikely victories—over polluters, unresponsive bureaucracies, and unexamined routines—dramatize the opportunities and challenges facing the local green economy movement.
Drawing on their extensive experience at Global Exchange and elsewhere, the authors also:
* Lay out strategies for a more successful green movement
Describe how communities have protected their victories from legal and political challenges
Provide key resources for local activists
Ben Price, Projects Director for Community Environmental Defense Fund. Ben leads organizing across Pennsylvania where over 100 communities have adopted Legal Defense Fund-drafted laws. Mission Statement:
“Building sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government and the rights of nature.”
“We believe that we are in the midst of an escalating ecological crisis, and that the crisis is the result of decisions made by a relatively few people who run corporations and government. We believe that sustainability will never be achieved by leaving those decisions in the hands of a few – both because of their belief in limitless economic production and because their decisions are made at a distance from the communities experiencing the impact of those decisions. Therefore, we believe that to attain sustainability, a right to local self-government must be asserted that places decisions affecting communities in the hands of those closest to the impacts. That right to local self-government must enable communities to reject unsustainable economic and environmental policies set by state and federal governments, and must enable communities to construct legal frameworks for charting a future towards sustainable energy production, sustainable land development, and sustainable water use, among others. In doing so, communities must challenge and overturn legal doctrines that have been concocted to eliminate their right to self-government, including the doctrines of corporate constitutional rights, preemption, and limitations on local legislative authority. Inseparable from the right to local self-government – and its sole limitation – are the rights of human and natural communities; they are the implicit and enumerated premises on which local self-government must be built.”
Me: I am just an ordinary person in an ordinary community that has for the past 10 years or so been fostering a growing disdain and dislike for GMO’s and their intrusive, invasive, insidious presence in our food chain. As far as I know I am the only person who feels this way. All that is about to change.
I have spearheaded petition drives, writing and calling campaigns, to our State and Federal government to get GMO’s labeled. These were national campaigns. Zero results. Apparently, State and Fed officials have their own agenda. Imagine my surprise. Lesson learned.
Time for a change. After 10 years I get it.
I want results. My son was reading Growing a Green Economy. “Read this.” He said. O.K. I said. Couldn’t put it down. This is a story about changing the way you do things and getting results. It is empowering. It hit a nerve.
Once our Supreme court decided to give Monsanto, AT&T, Blackwater, Walmart, Chevron, Freddie Mac, Wall Street and other such corporations personhood status I got a little worried.
That’s when I contacted Ben and he contacted Shannon and here we are having this three-way conversation. Shannon asked me questions. Are there GMO’s grown in your community? What do the local farmers think of GMO’s? What does the community think about GMO’s? Heck, I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.
So. “Let’s have a meet’ng” with the local farmers, and community members that have a vested interest in a green economy and community and find out what they think and what they need. O.k. I said. O.k. Shannon said, Ben said, fine.
Shannon said she will come and speak to the group. Cover her gas money and a place to stay and she will come and talk. Wow. That’s generous. And that was that. I said I will work on getting the group together and keep in touch by email. She is off to Bolivia this week I believe working on a rice project.
So, that is how the conversation went. I knew nothing going in and learned a lot. Maybe labeling GMO’s is not the way to go. Maybe, banning the production of GMO’s in this community is something we need to look at. I really am not sure where all this is going but I do know the worst of it is over. Getting started is the hardest part.
I have a list of people I am going to contact to get feedback and organizational help from. I am going to contact Melanie Blankenship of Nature’s Touch, Bob Banner of Hope Dance, Elizabeth Johnson of our little seed exchange group, Farmer Bill of Windrose Farms, Hunter Francis, Eric V. pres of a new group of local farmers called CCAN, Kevin Stephen of Huasna Valley Farm and Linnaea and Peter of STEYNBERG gallery.
I am in very good company here. I just contacted Melanie and asked her advise on the idea. We met once. I don’t know if she even really knows who I am. She does a local talk radio show every Saturday. I will wait for an answer. This is how things get started. We are off and running. Thank you both, Shannon and Ben, for your time. Bye for now.
This is good. Made the call, got started and nobody died.
p.s. This just in 04/15/10
Bayer admits GMO contamination is out of Control. ( and yes this is the same company that makes the baby aspirin.)
http://www.naturalnews.com/028585_GMOs_Bayer.html
04/19/10
Mainstream Scientists Finally Admit that GMOs are Environmentally Destructive
By Keith Good, ed.
FarmPolicy.com, April 14, 2010
Straight to the Source
I was able to pass on the information to friends who also are opposed to the idea of GMOs and monsanto’s view of copyright.
Samson was kind enough to put me in contact with Kathy before he left for Austin and I went through your whole website trying to find the video you guys did with Kathy. =) I can’t wait to see it.
Bees are one of the many projects that we’re working on. The main point is to become as close to self sufficient as we can be but also to re-create a 9th century Saxon meadhall in order to be able to hold medieval events in our backyard. =) I know that’s a bit random but we’re looking forward to it.
We’re actually going to have people over this Saturday to help us scythe up our wheat and barley and we’ll finish it off with a bbq using the meat from our livestock. If you’re interested do not hesitate to stop on by, and if you like eggs we’ll probably send you home with some.
Well, you guys are swarming. What an undertaking, 9th century Saxon meadhall in your backyard. Now that is random. And it is just too cool. What a lot of fun. It is going to be spectacular I have no doubt. All the very very best. I would love to see it. Growing your own wheat and meat. You are well on your way to being self sufficient. Thanks for the invite. This Saturday I am in San Miguel with the Rare Fruit Growers though. I hope there will be another opportunity. I will let you know when Samson gets the bee segment done. He is suppose to be working on a Showcase format that has the bees in it. He promised me I would have it for my birthday. That is next month. Thank you both very much.
Thank you so much! We hope you had a great time at the Rare Fruit Growers gathering last Sat. How did that go? What was discussed?
The meeting was about budding citrus. Little different than grafting. I have always wanted to know how to do this. We all got root stock and budded Washington Navels onto it. It was at the annex across from the Mission. Never been there before. Had a little history lesson too. Pretty cool stuff. How did the wheat harvesting go? Jeanne Blackwell jeanne@holeinthefence.net
Just wanted to share some updates on the cases and legislation against Monsanto:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14436.cfm
http://www.foodrenegade.com/supreme-court-hears-case-against-monsanto-gmos/
And NPR in SLO just aired The Trojan Gene on harm that GMOs pose on the environment and the economy.
Love your site and I look forward to reading more.
Thank you for Jed and Rosie. I am sure our readers appreciate the info. I was just going to post the latest news on GMO’s that I have received just today. There seems to be a flurry of activity in this area right now. First. the Codex Conference is taking place and their mission at this conference is to ban the labeling of GMO’s globally. What a feather in Monsanto’s cap if they could get this passed. That would pretty much mean Monsanto has total control over the world’s food supply. Here is a link to the Institute for Responsible Technology. They have a petition you can sign to voice your opposition. http://www.seedsofdeception.com/GMFree/TakeAction/CodexConference/index.cfm.
Also, just today NaturalNews.com attempted to post an interview with Jeffery Smith the founder of Seeds of Deception and Monsanto’s worst nightmare on YouTube. The interview was blocked by YouTube with the explanation that some found the content offensive. The interview was reposted on dailymotion.com I was not to keen on the commerical we had to watch before watching the interview. I don’t know what is up with that. But the interview is there.
And a new study from the Global Justice Project on the Potential Risks of GMO Trees. http://globaljusticeecology.org/stopgetrees.php?tabs=0 They have a take action link and a very informative site.
I would like to urge you pass this information on anyway you can. I have used twitter and FB.
I see you are into BEE’s. I have a friend here in San Luis who is a beekeeper. We filmed her beekeeping process. Have not yet edited the film for posting but can assure you Bee’s are on my to do list for the blog. Do keep in touch and thank you very very much for caring and sharing.