Create!

Along with direct action and other forms of resistance, a transformational movement must also have a constructive program that builds new institutions based on the values that the movement aspires to achieve. These may eventually replace the old systems. From small, worker-owned cooperatives to national advocacy groups, hundreds of thousands of people around the country are working to create democratic and sustainable systems that meet the basic needs of all people.

In Philly, The People’s Budget Increases Civic Engagement And Moves Money

June 24, 2024 Ryan Moser, Next City. Create! City Government, Participatory budgeting, Pennsylvania, People's budget, Philadelphia

If you’ve walked through LOVE Park during May and June the last two years, you have undoubtedly seen a long shipping container anchored in the northwest corner of JFK Plaza, a cherry-red beacon sitting in the shadow of Philadelphia’s historic City Hall. Part public art installation and part information center, the corten steel box is the temporary office of The People’s Budget, one piece of an initiative led by artist Phoebe Bachman of Mural Arts of Philadelphia, and funded by the City of Philadelphia. Founded in 2020, The People’s Budget empowers Philadelphians to participate in the city’s yearly budget process and join the conversation to decide where city funds are spent.

We Are All Nicaragua: The Sexual Diversity Community

June 23, 2024 Becca Renk, Workers' World. Create! Human Rights, LGBTQ, Nicaragua, Regulations, Sandinista Revolution

In 2008, following the Sandinista party’s return to power, a law was passed overturning the penalization of homosexuality and making it illegal to discriminate against someone based on sexual orientation. Since then, the Sandinista government has also passed laws specifically guaranteeing equal rights and opportunities for the LGBTQ+ community. Additionally, public institutions have administrative regulations in place to ensure that no one faces discrimination for their sexual orientation or gender identity. “If I compare Nicaragua with other countries in the world,” explains Julio, “we have regulations, public policy, legal framework and laws that support us.

Tompkins County, The Finger Lakes Hub Of Sustainability

June 22, 2024 Dave Rollo, Resilience. Create! Environment, Local Economy, New York (NY), Sustainability

The Finger Lakes region of western New York State is distinguished by a series of long and narrow glacial valleys, dammed by moraine, that now contain lakes. Glacial scouring created some of the deepest lakes in North America, including Seneca, Cayuga, and Skaneateles lakes. These spectacular natural features give the region its identity. The region features ample farmland and forest and a relatively sparse population. Tompkins County, in the heart of the region, has experienced a steady 0.5% per year increase in population. But nearly all the surrounding counties have stable or slightly declining populations.

In Colorado, Renters Earn Cash Back For Paying Rent

June 22, 2024 Roshan Abraham, Next City. Create! Affordable Housing, Colorado, Equity, Housing, Rebate, Tenant Rights

Danielle Rickards is a 30-year-old single mother and a full-time caretaker to her 5-year-old daughter, who has a rare heart condition. For many Americans in similar circumstances, the pressures of affording rent and daily expenses are a constant and crushing burden. But she counts herself lucky: She found an affordable two-bedroom apartment in Grand Junction, Colorado, where rent is subsidized by the local housing authority. On top of that, she also receives a rare financial bonus, part of an experimental program to build equity for affordable housing tenants in Colorado. On the 18th of every month, Rickards receives a small cash stipend – $21.62 – in exchange for paying her rent on time.

An Eco-Socialist Education Agenda

June 21, 2024 The Last Farm, Resilience. Create! Conflict Resolution, Ecosocialism, Education, New Economy, Outdoors

Our education system is a mess. The reason is obvious: it’s being eroded by capitalism. This erosion takes many forms, from the privatization of schooling itself to altering curricula to meet the demands of employers to undermining the state’s capacity to deliver universal public education, and so on. It’s one of many ways that capitalism shreds our social fabric, keeping us in a constant state of crisis and anxiety. For the same reason, there is also a great dearth of education for adults and the elderly. Instead of a lifetime of learning and enrichment, adults are lucky to get job re-training after a layoff and the elderly might get to learn a new card game after being shipped off to the old people warehouse.

Social Currencies In Prosumer Communities And Networks

June 19, 2024 Roberto Spano, Resilience. Create! Anti-capitalism, Bartering, Communities, New Economy, Social Currencies

This practice consists of creating a community of prosumers who exchange products and services, creating a process of eco-social regeneration around the local economy, thanks to the exchange facilitator that is social currency. It serves to regenerate the local economy and local communities, to weave trust in the act of consumption, to weave the economy around local production and the real needs of communities and finally to support productive processes that are regenerative for the ecosystemic environment. In the communities and networks, different ways of exchange and social currencies are practised:

Why Does The Government Borrow When It Can Print?

June 18, 2024 Ellen Brown, Web Of Debt. Create! Budget Deficit, Congress, Finance and the Economy, Trillion Dollar Coin

In the first seven months of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, net interest (payments minus income) on the federal debt reached $514 billion, exceeding spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). The interest tab also exceeded all the money spent on veterans, education, and transportation combined. Spending on interest is now the second largest line item in the federal budget after Social Security and the fastest growing part of the budget, on track to reach $870 billion by the end of 2024. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal budget deficit was $857 billion in the first seven months of fiscal year 2024.

Technology Cooperatives In The Movement: Where Are We Now?

June 18, 2024 Micky Metts, Keegan Rankin and Benjamin Melancon, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Technology, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

Cooperatives have many benefits to their members and communities. The transformation of the economy to one that works for all, likely requires a much greater role for cooperatives—worker owned cooperatives perhaps most of all. Marxist economist Richard Wolff has gone so far as to posit that the critical failing of past socialist revolutions has been not democratizing the workplace. Certainly, catalyzing a solidarity economy network will require as much of the economy and public infrastructure as possible to be under people's direct control. Tech worker cooperatives have the potential to provide particularly crucial infrastructure for the communication and coordination necessary for a liberatory movement and a robust and just economy.

Re-Farming And The Right To Plant

June 18, 2024 Chris Smaje, Resilience. Create! Environment, Farming, Land Conservation, Rewilding

The word ‘rewilding’ has had its day and now needs to slip gracefully into retirement. That, at any rate, is the polite suggestion I’m going to make in this post, which is the last in my recent mini-series on ‘wrecked’ land and what to do about it. It’s not that, for the most part, I object to a lot of the practical activities that are done in the name of rewilding by conservationists, land managers, farmers, ecologists and so on. In that sense, I agree with most of what Ian Carter says in this recent article, except for his concluding remarks endorsing the term. I got to thinking about this when I gave a Q&A talk recently and made a flippantly negative reference to the term while making the case for low-impact, peopled, agrarian landscapes.

ʔÁLʔAL A Place For Connection, Healing, And Growth

June 17, 2024 Rae Rose, Last Real Indians. Create! Indigenous Activism, Indigenous culture, Seattle, Washington

The Chief Seattle Club, CSC, has long since tended to and nurtured the seeds for growth, sowing opportunities, and holding space for healing. It is an important center we need for our Indigenous communities to survive and hopefully thrive in this urban Coast Salish territory of Seattle Washington. For me CSC has always stood as a place our Indigenous Urban community can find resources, give support, and or/ just be, no façade or mask necessary. This is CSC’s foundation, a place for us Urban Indians to connect or reconnect in an otherwise isolating urban setting. My own memories here at CSC go back decades, sitting in talking circles, filming, and learning from amazing indigenous teachers.

Indigenized Education: Reclaiming Language, Culture And Land

June 16, 2024 Brandy Calabaza, NDN Collective. Create! Education, Indigenous culture, Oceti Sakowin, Residential Schools

When you walk through the doors of the Oceti Sakowin Community Academy (OSCA), you are greeted as a relative. The school opened its doors to kindergarten students in the fall of 2022. It is the first of its kind, built on a foundation of Lakota language, culture, and philosophy. Everything that students learn – math, reading, writing – is taught through and with the traditional language of the Oceti Sakowin, giving its students an education that centers their identities. OSCA was developed over several years by tribal and community leaders, educators, students, and parents. The basis for the school is to address the need for culturally relevant curriculum, language and culture revitalization.

A Fair Tax Agenda For Wall Street

June 15, 2024 Sarah Anderson, Inequality.org. Create! Economic crisis, Tax Reform, Wall Street, wealth inequality

Financial institutions still extract too much wealth from working families and funnel too much of that wealth into massive executive bonuses that encourage excessive risk-taking – and even financial fraud.[2] And, as we saw with the spate of regional bank failures in 2023, reckless executives can still drive their firms into the ground and walk away with grand fortunes while relying on taxpayer money to contain the damage.[3] Much more needs to be done to ensure our financial system contributes to a healthy economy and focuses on long-term value creation instead of short-term speculation that might pump up CEO pay but does little for the rest of us. Today’s hearing will examine one important tool for guiding Wall Street in this direction: tax policy. Next year, the scheduled expiration of several provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will force a major tax debate in Congress.

A Pandemic-Era Eviction Prevention Program Inches Toward Permanence

June 14, 2024 Marielle Argueza, Next City. Create! Evictions, greensboro, Housing, North Carolina, Pandemic

Courtroom 215, located in Guilford County Courthouse in Greenboro, North Carolina, can feel like a machine, spitting out judgments as quickly as fresh eviction cases are filed. For those unfamiliar with the civil court system, it can be daunting, especially without legal help navigating the process. Unlike criminal court, where defendants have a right to an attorney if they cannot afford one, there is no federally-upheld right to counsel in civil cases. It’s all dependent on the city or county. According to the National Coalition for Civil Right to Counsel, as of March 2024, tenant representation through an attorney is as low as 4% and landlord representation as high as 83%. NCCRC also found that only 14 out of 50 states have a robust right to counsel specifically for eviction proceedings.

A Seattle Urban Garden Models What Community Input Should Look Like

June 13, 2024 Jennifer Caddick, Next City. Create! Community, Environment, Gardening, Parks, Seattle, Urban Gardens, Washington

More than 20 parks across Seattle support urban gardens developed and managed in partnership with local communities. From small community garden plots to large orchards, the gardens provide fresh, healthy food to community members across the city. Seattle Parks and Recreation, through itsUrban Food Systems Program, provides the land and the infrastructure for these projects. But community members are at the heart of each project, determining what to grow and how to plant and manage their gardens. One such project — the Rainier Community Center’s new urban garden — has received the2024 Toro Urban Park Innovation Award.

The Three Key Messages From St. Petersburg To The Global Majority

June 12, 2024 Pepe Escobar, Orinoco Tribune. Create! BRICS, Global Economy, Russia, Vladimir Putin

President Putin, a “European Russian” and true son of this dazzling, dynamic historic marvel by the Neva, delivered an extremely detailed one-hour speech on the Russian economy at the forum’s plenary session. The key takeaway: as the collective West launched total economic war against Russia, the civilization-state turned it around and positioned itself as the world’s 4th largest economy by purchasing power parity (PPP). Putin showed how Russia still carries the potential to launch no less than nine sweeping – global – structural changes, an all-out drive involving the federal, regional, and municipal spheres.

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