COMMONS MAGAZINE
At the Hyatt Lodge Hotel on the McDonald’s corporate campus in Oak Brook, Illinois, June 24, the other wingtip dropped.
It happened at a conference called “It’s Not Privatization: Implementing Partnerships in Illinois”, organized by The National Council for Public-Private Partnerships and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce with assistance from the Metropolitan Planning Council .
The Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, home to such renowned companies as Ferrari and Ducati as well as the world’s oldest university in Bologna, boasts one of the highest living standards in all of the European Union and one of the lowest unemployment rates. It also has the strongest cooperative economy in Europe, with employee co-operatives representing 30% of the GDP and involving 57% of the population.
The Great Lakes are the heart of Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) territory. In Anishinaabe culture, women are the water’s caretakers, responsible for protecting the water.
This responsibility tugged at the conscience of elder Josephine Mandaamin as she watched the water throughout her homeland become increasingly degraded. Her concern about the fate of the lakes eventually led her to undertake an epic walk around Lake Superior—about 1500 miles. That 2003 journey marked the first Mother Earth Water Walk, now an annual event.
The streets are commons that belong to everyone. So imagine diverting traffic from a major street in your neighborhood, then welcoming families on bikes, families on foot, babies in strollers, people in wheelchairs, toddlers on training wheels, grade schoolers on skateboards, teenagers on single-speeds, hipsters on fixed gears, grandparents on recumbents, couples arm-in-arm and even yoga classes in the middle of the road. What would happen?
If your neighborhood is anything like mine—which I am sure it is—get ready for a massive outbreak of smiles.
When Sergio Lub, a small business owner in Walnut Creek, California, submitted public testimony to the Banking and Finance Committee on May 2, 2011 supporting the creation of a state-owned bank in California, he wrote from personal experience:
In all the talk about the federal deficit, why is the single largest culprit left out of the conversation? Why is the one part of government that best epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government—- waste, incompetence, and corruption—all but exempt from conservative criticism?
“I don’t think there’s any conceivable way, under current circumstances, that any Republican would vote for any kind of tax increase whatsoever.”
—Bruce Bartlett, former economic adviser to President Reagan
This interesting sentence appears in the April 2011 issue of the Christian Science Monitor, in an excellent article called Budget Stalemate: Why America Won’t Raise Taxes by Liz Marlantes.
Gas prices have zoomed past $3.50 a gallon for the second time in three years. So it’s more crucial than ever to find quick, enduring ways to free the U.S. from overdependence on oil.
Millions of Americans suffer when prices at the pump rise, because they have no alternative to driving almost everywhere they go. We need to create a transportation system that will not be held hostage by volatile fuel prices. The streets are a commons belonging to all, and we must level the transportation playing field between pedestrians, bikers, transit riders and motorists.
The New York Times this week ran an intriguing article about efforts in European cities like Zurich, Barcelona, Paris, London, Munich and Stockholm to level the playing field between motorists and everyone else on city streets. It appeared on page one with the inflammatory headline: “Across Europe, Irking Drivers is Urban Policy.”
There is an exciting trend underway: Investors are supporting social and ecological initiatives through investments with lower annual returns now more than ever. They’re also increasingly willing to explore innovative approaches for financing the local food movement. Yet most of these new investment strategies are available only to large, accredited investors. At On the Commons, we believe that many more individuals want the same ability to invest in their local food system as they invest in their futures.
Saving the Earth will take more than merely adjusting our actions—polluting less here, conserving more there, moving toward sustainability within the confines of today’s prevailing worldview.
Saving the Earth will take more than merely adjusting our actions—polluting less here, conserving more there, moving toward sustainability within the confines of today’s prevailing worldview.
The results are in, and Italian citizens overwhelmingly opted to overturn laws promoting water privatization.
Ninety six percent of Italians voted to keep their water services public in a referendum that attracted 57 percent of the electorate. The success of the referendum in Italy is a true display of the power and potential of grassroots activism. The Italian Forum of Water Movements and Italian citizens managed to mobilize an entire nation and raise awareness that water is a basic human right.
In Haiti—but not just in Haiti—donors and politicians love infrastructure projects. They’re tidy packages with a clear start and a finish—or so they appear. First a blueprint. Then cement. Mix it up and repair a drainage ditch, build a rock wall to retain soil or a school. The sponsoring agency—be it CARE, the European Union, USAID, World Vision or a long list of others—then can erect a billboard announcing the project. Cut the ribbon and snap the photo. Pass the new infrastructure over to the beneficiary. Voila la modernization!
Conservatives would have us believe the public sector can’t compete with the private sector. The private sector itself knows better. Nowhere is this more evident than in the telecommunications sector.
Italy’s historic Emilia-Romagna region in the Po Valley of Northern Italy is home to the world’s oldest university in the world, University of Bologna, and the likes of such renowned companies as Ferrari, Ducati and boasts some of the highest living standards in all of the European Union. They are also the most cooperative economy in Europe, with employee co-operatives representing 30% of the GDP and involve 57% of the population.
I-Thou
The headlong stream is termed violent
But the river bed hemming it in is
Termed violent by no one.
The storm that bends the birch trees
Is held to be violent
But how about the storm
That bends the backs of the roadworkers?
—Bertolt Brecht, “On Violence”
In Haiti—but not just in Haiti—donors and politicians love infrastructure projects.
They’re tidy packages with a clear start and a finish—or so they appear. First a blueprint. Then cement. Mix it up and repair a drainage ditch, a rock wall to retain vanishing soil, a school perhaps. The sponsoring agency—be it CARE, the European Union, USAID, World Vision or a long list of others—erects a billboard describing the project and the amount spent. Cut the ribbon and snap the photo. Pass the new infrastructure over to the beneficiary. Voila la modernization!
Jay Walljasper, OTC Senior Fellow and author of All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons, outlines three tenets of the commons in a video interview with The UpTake, a Minnesota-based website focusing on “citizen fueled news.”
“See it Here”:http://blip.tv/the-uptake/finding-sustaining-solutions-by-reclaiming-the-global-commons-5238439