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.

Israel Convicted Of Genocide At People’s Tribunal In Rio De Janeiro

November 17, 2024 Brasil De Fato, People's Dispatch. Create! arms embargo, Brazil, Gaza, Genocide, International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israel, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Palestine, People's Tribunal

Israel was convicted of genocide against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip on Friday, November 15. The ruling was made by the People’s Tribunal, which brought together jurists, lawyers, and activists at the Fundição Progresso in Rio de Janeiro (RJ) to judge the crimes of capitalism. “In the case of the genocide of peoples, the evidence in the case file reveals that the people of Palestine, particularly in Gaza, have been subjected to colonialism for 76 years and have been suffering genocide for 409 days, openly practiced by the State of Israel with the complicity of the United States, Germany and other European and Western countries,” says the sentence read out by judge Simone Dalila Nacif, from the Brazilian Association of Jurists for Democracy (ABJD), who presided over the session.

Historical Block Conference Proposals To Help Economic Transformation

November 17, 2024 María Eugenia Rodríguez, Orinoco Tribune. Create! Finance and the Economy, Participatory Democracy, Socialism, Transformation, Venezuela

The vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, reported that the proposals coming out of the Great Congress of the Bolivarian Historical Block will help in the construction of the economic transformation program that Venezuela requires. During her speech at the opening ceremony of the Congress, Thursday, November 15, at the Convention Center in Simón Bolívar Park in La Carlota, Caracas, the Venezuelan vice president also highlighted the over 100 proposals that had been submitted. “I welcome these more than 100 proposals that have been raised … because they will help us to build the economic transformation program that Venezuela needs, in order to become a powerful country,” she said.

Agricultural Design Studio Working To Build A Food-Sovereign Detroit

November 14, 2024 Samya Overall, Next City. Create! Agriculture, Detroit, Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Urban Farming

Driving down Monterey Street on Detroit’s westside, there are more abandoned and vacant houses than occupied ones. Sidewalks are overgrown with grass, and stretches of land as long as football fields separate the homes that remain. About midway down the block, between Wildemere and Lawton streets, is Fennigan’s Farms. You can’t miss it from the tall towers of bright yellow sunflowers waving in the wind. As you walk up, there’s a table with tomatoes and a sign that reads “Free Produce.” Amanda Brezzell is the co-founder and creative director at Fennigan’s Farms. Brezzell says the farm and design firm’s mission is to be a resource to the community, helping Detroiters achieve food sovereignty by providing fresh, accessible food, some at no cost.

Raising Chickens, Ducks, And Bees Allowed In Detroit

November 13, 2024 Steve Neavling, Detroit Metro Times. Create! Detroit, Food and Agriculture, Livestock, Michigan, Urban Farming

Detroiters will soon be able to keep chickens, ducks, and honeybees in their backyards under a new ordinance passed by the Detroit City Council on Tuesday. The council voted 5-3 in favor of the measure, which goes into effect in January 2025, marking a shift in urban agriculture regulations and allowing residents to raise certain animals for fresh food production, including eggs and honey, within city limits. Advocates see the new ordinance as a way to combat food insecurity and improve access to healthy, local food. Urban agriculture can also raise property values and encourage homeownership in surrounding areas, they say.

Adapting Employee Ownership For Truly Democratic Businesses

November 12, 2024 Kosta Juri and Tej Gonza, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Democracy, ESOPs, Globalization, New Economy, Worker Ownership

The form of globalisation that has prevailed – one that primarily serves the interests of financial and corporate elites – is, to a large extent, a political and legal artefact, not an inevitable outcome of an increasingly interconnected global economy. More specifically, it is primarily attributable to the commodified nature of the business enterprise, which is essentially a human organisation but legally treated as a commodity in our economies. A prime example of the damaging effects of business commodification is the private equity industry. Private equity firms typically acquire businesses with growth potential (often through a leveraged buyout, a mechanism originally devised by Louis Kelso in the 1950s for worker buyouts), restructure them to maximise profitability, and then sell them for a profit.

Baltimore Is Setting A National Standard For Diversifying Its Economy

November 8, 2024 Ilana Preuss, Next City. Create! Baltimore, Local Economy, Manufacturing, Maryland, Worker Rights and Jobs

One of the crucial economic lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is the importance of diversifying local economies, even in America’s largest cities. New York City continues to struggle with an economy too heavily reliant on tourists and commuters; Las Vegas saw its entertainment industry shut down when out-of-state visitors stopped traveling; vacant storefronts are prominently visible in major business districts and on main streets nationwide. Diversifying often implies attracting new industries by luring them from elsewhere – often a zero-sum game, if the industries are simply shifting locations within the United States.

Want More Equality Of Opportunity And Social Justice?

November 6, 2024 Omar Ocampo, Inequality.org. Create! Education, Equality, Massachusetts, taxation, Wealth Tax

This past summer, the Governor of Massachusetts Maura Healey signed a budget bill that guaranteed universal access to in-state community colleges. No matter age or socioeconomic background, irrespective of the degree or certificate sought, the tuition and fees at these fifteen institutions of higher learning are waived. The $117 million public investment allocated to the MassEducate program was made possible two years ago when, in an exercise of direct democracy, Bay State voters defied the tenets of neoliberal ideology. They approved a landmark progressive tax bill – known as the Fair Share Amendment – that imposed a four percent surtax on annual incomes above one million dollars.

How Bike Lanes Slow Drivers And Save Lives

November 5, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! Bicycle Lanes, Bikes, Road Safety, Transportation

In 2022, 1,360 people in the U.S. died preventable deaths while riding a bike. One of the most deadly, and most common, types of bike crashes is known as a right hook: A driver turns right directly into the path of a cyclist going straight through an intersection, hitting them or causing them to crash. Researchers at Rutgers University wanted to test if installing bike lanes at an intersection could reduce vehicle speeds, particularly for drivers turning right. Using chalk paint spray, traffic cones and plastic bollards, they installed temporary bike lanes near an intersection in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

The Globalized, Industrialized Food System Is Destroying The World

November 4, 2024 Helena Norberg-Hodge, Counter Punch. Create! climate crisis, Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Local Economies

We can thank small farmers, environmentalists, academic researchers, and food and farming activists for advancing ecologically sound food production methods. Agroecology, holistic resource management, permaculture, and other methods can address many of the global food system’s worst impacts, including biodiversity loss, energy depletion, toxic pollution, food insecurity, and massive carbon emissions. These inspiring testaments to human ingenuity and goodwill have two things in common: They involve smaller-scale farms adapted to local conditions and depend more on human attention and care than energy and technology.

Bioregional Fibersheds And New Fashion Commons

November 3, 2024 David Bollier. Create! Commons, Fashion, Sustainability

Look behind the glitz and glamour of global fashion, and you will find an ecologically harmful, anti-social industry largely unable to shed its capitalist dynamics. Its factories generate huge amounts of pollution and rely on underpaid, abused sweatshop labor. Fast fashion fills up landfills with mountains of cheap clothing discarded after a few uses. To keep consumption and sales going, fashion's relentless marketing machine peddles fantasies of luxury, rail-thin bodies, and sex appeal.

Claudia Sheinbaum De-Privatizes Two Major Oil And Energy Companies

November 2, 2024 Pablo Meriguet, People's Dispatch. Create! Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Big Oil, Claudia Sheinbaum, De-privatize, Energy, Mexico

On October 30, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum made a very clear anti-neoliberal gesture in her morning press conference: the de-privatization of two emblematic Mexican energy companies. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will now be fully controlled by the federal government. The government also signed a decree for the Mexican State to regain full rights over passenger railroads. This was achieved through a constitutional reform approved by Congress, in which MORENA has a majority. Although Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Sheinbaum’s predecessor) sent the proposal several weeks ago, the current president takes the most important credit for having concluded the process.

Co-Op Rhody Introduces Equity Into Cannabis-Based Business Model

November 2, 2024 Malikia Johnson, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cannabis, Community, Cooperatives, Marijuana, Racism

Co-op Rhody is a grassroots coalition of worker-entrepreneurs and organizers from local groups such as UFCW Local 328, Reclaim RI, and Break the Cycle Cooperative Hub. It also includes national cooperative and industry specialists who share a commitment to the vision of a worker-owned economy in Rhode Island. We had a conversation with Co-op Rhody members Andre Dev, David-Allen “Bear” Sumner Sr., and Emma Karnes discussing their journeys into the worker cooperative movement, the complexities of implementing social equity in the cannabis industry, and the need for hope that is strategic and withstanding.

Clark Atlanta University Launches New Black Southern Labor Institute

October 31, 2024 Mirtha Donastorg, Portside. Create! Atlanta, Black America, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs

Clark Atlanta University has launched a new institute focused on labor issues and training a new generation of leaders to help Black Southern organizing and collective bargaining efforts. Jobs With Justice, a nonprofit network of labor unions, community groups and activists, is partnering with Clark Atlanta on the new Institute for the Advancement of Black Strategists, which was announced in late September. Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, said policies against organized labor disproportionately impact Black workers because more than half of Black Americans live in the South.

How To Build An Ecological Economy

October 30, 2024 Patrick Mazza, Resilience. Create! Communities, Community, De-growth, Food Security, Green Economy

This is the second part of a scenario for how a city comes together to address the multiple economic, social and environmental crises facing our world. The first part of the scenario is here. It covers how the city creates basic frameworks of life. How it gains control of its own finances and local economy through creating a public bank. How it ensures everyone has shelter through creation of social and community housing. How clean energy is supplied while energy use is reduced through creation of community energy cooperatives. In this part, the scenario will cover how the city develops the basics of an ecological economy not dependent on endless economic growth.

BRICS Grain Exchange Would Depoliticize Global Cereal Market

October 27, 2024 Sputnik, Orinoco Tribune. Create! BRICS, Depoliticisation, Food and Agriculture, Grain, Multipolarity, Russia

Russia proposed creating a BRICS grain exchange that would serve as a new trading platform for the world’s largest producers and consumers of food grains. The measure could help depoliticize global markets and eliminate intermediaries in the form of Western exchanges, according to experts consulted by Sputnik. The dominance of the United States in the world economy did not start with the dollar. After the Second World War, the US became the leading supplier of wheat and corn. As a result, the entire modern infrastructure of the global grain market has been shaped by Washington. Thus, the benchmarks are made by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), and the US dollar is primarily used as the settlement currency.

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