There's a Broad Consensus Among Activists Across the Country — Is Social Change Around the Corner?

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/kevin-zeese-and-margaret-flowers/54396/theres-a-broad-consensus-among-activists-across-the-country-is-social-change-aroun

There's a Broad Consensus Among Activists Across the Country — Is Social Change Around the Corner?
Social Justice and Activism
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers | February 23, 2014 - 10:07am

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Political and economic leadership continues to go in the opposite direction of what people want: cutting the social safety net and doing little to invest in re-building the economy while the costs of energy, food, healthcare and other necessities rise. People across the country are acting on their own to build an economy that will serve them.

The building of the new economy, sometimes called a ‘solidarity economy,’ has been developing for many years, particularly in other areas of the world such as Latin America. As a result we can now see reports of its success. A fundamental belief of economic democracy is to build from the bottom up, starting with local communities. A report this week from the Institute for Self Reliance found that communities with buy local programs have seen local businesses grow three times as fast as communities without such programs and businesses report a 75% increase in customer traffic.

One key aspect of buying local is our food supply. The International Forum on Globalisation reports that “the average plate of food eaten in western industrial food-importing nations is likely to have traveled 2,000 miles from source to plate.” Around the country people are working to change that. Two programs that were in movement news this week were “Our Harvest” and “CropMobster.”

Our Harvest comes out of a 2009 agreement between the United Steelworkers and the Mondragon Co-op to create union co-ops. Our Harvest is a produce farm and food hub for aggregation and food processing. The goal is to re-create this model around the country to provide local foods and good jobs in union co-operatives.