The Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota is building community and prosperity by building windmills. Other Native Americans are doing the same, harnessing wind and sun.
Local businesses in Utah, threatened by corporate big-box stores, have created a "Buy Local First" campaign with tremendous success.
A major California winery has done well by going organic and urging others to do the same.
Trailing Europe but catching on, the United States now has about 300 worker-run businesses. If anything can encourage democratic behavior outside the office, I would think it would be democracy within it.
These stories and more are told in "Building the Green Economy," interspersed with theory, analysis, vision, resources, and tips on what an individual can do to get involved. I would add one more tip: Recycle your television and read some books like these. Those of us focused on national approaches can use the fortification of learning about successes, and need to remember the connections between local and national work. Those focused on the local level may want to consider this overview and pause to reflect on how their steps forward can avoid the two-steps back that Washington is always trying to hand them.
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
There is such a thing as good old American entrepreneurship, and it comes to the fore when elements entrenched power try to run the board. Sometimes it seemed as if entrepreneurship was dead in this country, but it was just being discouraged.
If all the transnational corporations did a Bear Stearns today, well, it would hurt, but it would not be the end of the world. It would just be the end of the transnational corporations. American entrepreneurship would spring up to fill the vacuum in remarkably short order.
by
John Sanchez Jr. (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 1174 comments)
on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 8:22:17 AM
It's damn sure the international corporations do not pay their share for the benifits of operating in our country. They get away cheap by their 'donations' to various congressman's campaign funds. Where it is that these payments are not considered flat out bribes is to me only nomenclature. We the people pay billions to support the rich, who seemingly don't actually need our help that much. They rake it in because they can.
by
Roger (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 359 comments)
on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 11:47:18 AM
Thanks for the heads up on Jim Hightower's latest book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." It sounds like a great read.
Sometimes it is easy to get discouraged when our leaders are unresponsive to the people they are supposed to serve. And the MSM makes truly note worthy stories vanish down the rabbit hole.
Here's to everyone working hard and making a difference!
Thanks for all you do, and for OpEd News!
by
August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 442 comments)
on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 6:51:34 PM
4 comments
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