Skip to content

Create!

create-iconAlong 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.

Participatory Defense Hubs Shift The Power Dynamics In The Carceral System

February 24, 2024 Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. , , ,
When Monica Allison’s son was facing charges and awaiting trial incarcerated on Philadelphia’s State Road, she had no idea what to do. She didn’t know what to expect from the legal process — what the steps were and in what order or what she could expect from her son’s defense attorney, to name a few questions. “Being new to the system and trying to navigate it on your own — that’s the reason for the hub,” Allison says. She’s referring to Philly’s Haddington Participatory Defense Hub, one of over 40 hubs across the country that work with folks facing charges and incarceration, as well as their families.

The Communities Trying To Take Over Their Local Electric Utility

February 22, 2024 Akielly Hu, Next City. , , , ,
Around a dozen communities across the country have launched campaigns to get rid of their investor-owned electric utilities — the for-profit companies that distribute electricity to three-quarters of U.S. households — and replace them with publicly owned ones. Calling their goal “public power,” advocates argue that existing utilities have saddled customers with high rates and frequent outages, while lobbying to delay rooftop solar and other climate policies. Advocates say local ownership of the power grid would lead to lower electric bills, a quicker transition to renewables, and greater accountability to customers.

World Health Organization Endorses Global Health And Peace Initiative

February 21, 2024 Chiamo Seraphine, People's Dispatch. , , ,
The World Health Organization (WHO) has always included in its mandate the imperative to connect health and peace, as stated in the preamble to its Constitution. This commitment has been demonstrated through previous international interventions it has championed, such as the ‘Health as a Bridge for Peace’ concept in the 1990s and 2000s. Building upon this historical foundation, the Global Health and Peace Initiative (GHPI) was launched in 2019 with the support of Switzerland and Oman. The initiative aims to reinforce WHO’s mandate in this critical area. The GHPI aims to integrate the health sector into peace-building efforts, strengthening social cohesion and emphasizing an understanding of peace and conflict dynamics.

Corporate Ownership Of Media Has Failed Canadians

February 19, 2024 Marc Edge, Canadian Dimension. , , , ,
For-profit media ownership has decimated journalism in Canada and continues to gouge us with some of the highest prices in the world for telecommunications services such as cellular phones, cable TV and Internet access in order to meet the ever-greater profit expectations of their owners. The private equity players and US hedge funds that own most of our largest newspapers are now harvesting them for hundreds of millions in cash and stripping their assets, all the while complaining to Ottawa that they’re losing money and need subsidies. Postmedia Network, which owns 15 of our 21 largest dailies, has been laying off journalists relentlessly for the past 14 years in order to drain the company of more than $500 million in debt payments.

Public Ownership Of Housing Could Be Closer Than You Think

February 18, 2024 Mindy Isser, In These Times. , , ,
The housing crisis in New York is the worst it’s been in over five decades, and low-income residents are being hit the hardest. As a result, homelessness is on the uptick and working-class families are being forced out of the city at an alarming rate. In the midst of this emergency, an array of progressive politicians and organizers are joining in an effort to move away from private sector development as the sole tool to address the severe housing shortage. In early February, New York State Assemblymember Emily Gallagher and State Sen. Cordell Cleare introduced a bill to create the Social Housing Development Authority.

As States Limit Black History Lessons, Philly Gets It Right

February 18, 2024 Sierra Lyons, Next City. , , , ,
The culture war in education that began in response to the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020 has had a chilling effect on how race is discussed in classrooms. Since January 2021, 44 states have introduced bills and at least 18 have passed laws restricting or banning the teaching of supposed critical race theory. Just 12 states (Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington) have Black history mandates for K-12 public schools. In addition, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine and Rhode Island have legislated Black history courses or electives during the last two years. But several of the 12 states have new laws on the books that limit their curriculum.

Ancient Wisdom To Face Challenging Times

February 18, 2024 El Habib Ben Amara, Resilience. , , ,
Traditional knowledge held by local and indigenous communities about managing forests and trees is disappearing globally due to various pressures. Policies promoting development often ignore traditional forest management practices that historically provided food security for these communities. The degradation of land, caused by deforestation, overgrazing, or urban development, alters precipitation patterns, impacting the availability of groundwater during the dry season and intensifying floods during the rainy season. However, amid this loss, a glimmer of hope emerges. Flashes of ancient wisdom guide towards reintegrating oasis agricultural techniques. Palm groves, treasures of a forgotten heritage, hold abandoned agricultural knowledge, much like the ruins of ksour settlements.

Nicaragua: Holding Countries Accountable Without War Or Sanctions

February 16, 2024 Becca Renk, Casa Benjamin Linder. , , ,
I was 13 years old the day I got braces on my teeth and the United States bombed Baghdad, launching the “first” Iraq war. “Today, Wednesday the 16th of January 1991, we had just gotten out of the dentist's office and Mom told me the news,” I wrote in my journal. “She started saying, ‘Oh my God!’ and I was silent, wanting to cry and throw up.” My 8th grade class organized a “speak out” in the school library. The students sat cross-legged on the carpet and took turns struggling to express our feelings through the tangle of meaningless phrases we’d heard adults around us using. One of my classmates stood up to say she was worried about her dad; he was a soldier and had been deployed. “I support our troops,” she declared.

Baltimore’s Co-Ops Show There’s Another Way To Work

February 16, 2024 Working People, Grassroots Economic Organizing. , , ,
Baltimore has become what many consider to be ground zero in the emerging “solidarity economy” and the formation of worker-owned, cooperatively run businesses. There’s something important going on here, and there’s a lot that we can all learn from our fellow workers who are in the cooperative space—people who are living, breathing proof that there’s another way to run a business, that there's another way to run our economy, and that there are other ways we can treat work and workers. At a recent event hosted by the Baltimore Museum of Industry titled "Work Matters: Building a Worker-Owned Co-op," Max moderated a panel including workers and representatives from Common Ground Bakery Café, Taharka Bros Ice Cream, A Few Cool Hardware Stores, and the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED).

Defusing The Derivatives Time Bomb: Some Proposed Solutions

February 15, 2024 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. , , ,
This is a sequel to a Jan. 15 article titled “Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?”, discussing the threat of a 2024 “black swan” event that could pop the derivatives bubble. That bubble is now over ten times the GDP of the world and is so interconnected and fragile that an unanticipated crisis could trigger the collapse not just of the bubble but of the economy. To avoid that result, in the event of the bankruptcy of a major financial institution, derivative claimants are put first in line to grab the assets — not just the deposits of customers but their stocks and bonds. This is made possible by the Uniform Commercial Code, under which all assets held by brokers, banks and “central clearing parties” have been “dematerialized” into fungible pools and are held in “street name.”

Solar Nonprofit Shows Patience Brings Results To Lower-Income Residents

February 15, 2024 Frank Jossi, Next City. , , , ,
One installation at a time, a solar nonprofit that matches socially conscious investors’ cash with lower-income homeowners is spreading the benefits of solar in North Minneapolis. Solstar was formed three years ago by solar entrepreneur Ralph Jacobson following his retirement from IPS Solar, the pioneering Twin Cities’ solar company he founded three decades ago earlier. In his entire career, “I hardly ever had Black customers or Black subcontractors,” Jacobson recalled. Solstar is a collective effort for clean energy leaders in North Minneapolis to address those racial disparities. Jacobson, 71, works his network to persuade wealthy individuals to invest in residential solar installations.

Public Pharma For Europe, A Game-Changer For Access To Medicines

February 11, 2024 People's Health Dispatch, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
“It’s time to step up, promote health justice, and meet the real needs of people,” says Alan Silva from the European chapter of the People’s Health Movement (PHM), addressing the need for revolutionizing pharma policies in Europe. A long-time advocate for access to medicines, Silva understands how important it is for Europe to change the way it thinks about research and development, but also production and distribution of health technologies. If the region were able to de-link itself from the interests of transnational pharmaceutical companies, it would be a true game changer, he says. “We need public pharma in Europe so we can stop relying on health solutions driven by profit,” he says.

Individualism Is Making Public Transit Worse

February 11, 2024 Jarrett Walker, Next City. , , ,
When you complain that transit doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to end, and doesn’t go all the time, you’re describing inadequate public transit. With adequate funding and in the context of good city planning, public transit can do all of these things for vast numbers of people, though not for everyone and possibly not for Elon Musk. But Musk’s other point is fundamental. Public transit does expose us to a bunch of random strangers, and this is its superpower. In the most effective public transit, different people with different purposes and destinations find the same vehicle useful at the same time. At its most successful, a transit system’s ridership is as diverse as the city or community it serves.

These Urban Food Forests Do Double Duty

February 9, 2024 Max Graham, Next City. , , , , ,
Below the red-tile roofs of the Catalina Foothills, an affluent area on the north end of Tucson, Arizona, lies a blanket of desert green: spiky cacti, sword-shaped yucca leaves, and the spindly limbs of palo verde and mesquite trees. Head south into the city, and the vegetation thins. Trees are especially scarce on the south side of town, where shops and schools and housing complexes sprawl across a land encrusted in concrete. On hot summer days, you don’t just see but feel the difference. Tucson’s shadeless neighborhoods, which are predominantly low-income and Latino, soak up the heat.

Report Lauds Effects Of Guaranteed Income For Struggling Families

February 6, 2024 Chris Walker, Truthout. , , , ,
A guaranteed income program in Boston, Massachusetts, which began in the summer of 2021, resulted in numerous positive outcomes for recipients, highlights a recently published study by the groups that organized the program. Camp Harbor View and UpTogether, the organizations that dispersed the payments, privately funded the program from a group of 107 donors. Around $750,000 was raised in total, which was given out to 50 families around the Boston area. The families who were chosen to receive funds didn’t already qualify for social safety net benefits, as the program was designed to help those who were “too rich to be poor and too poor to be rich.”
«12345678910»