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Interest-free banking is a practical tool for building community wealth

JAK Members Bank
JAK Members Bank
JAK Members Bank

I am happy to report that the old saying “there is more than one way to skin a cat” applies to the banking industry as well. Here in the U.S. we’ve been taught to believe that the traditional way of banking is the only way and there are few if any alternative models. Originating in Denmark in 1931, the JAK Members Bank offers banking services on a fee basis, free of interest. JAK is an acronym for Jord, Arbete, Kapital which in Swedish means land, labor and capital, considered to be the primary means of production in classical economics. JAK banks are democratic, member owned, cooperative financial institutions.

The creation of this banking model was based on the belief that assessing interest is a primary factor in economic instability. There are four principles that the JAK operates from, which are:

  1. charging interest undermines a stable economy,
  2. interest is the cause of unemployment, inflation and the destruction of the environment,
  3. interest is a means of moving money from the poor to the rich and
  4. interest tends to favor projects which deliver high profits over a short period of time.

Because the JAKs perceive interest to be such a detrimental force, they operate outside of the capital market and would like to see it abolished completely. In other words they want to see a financial world in which interest is nonexistent. Much like any other bank or credit union the JAK accepts deposits and makes loans all without assessing or paying interest or dividend shares. Their depositors or members earn savings points at a rate of one point for every dollar saved. As a feature of ownership each member is allowed only one vote, regardless of the amount of their deposit or accumulated savings points. Members may borrow money based on the amount of savings points they have accumulated.

For example, if a member has deposits which total $1200.00 (the equivalent of 1200 savings points) they may borrow $1200.00 dollars, at a monthly repayment amount of $100.00 dollars for one year. That same member would be allowed to borrow an additional $600.00 dollars with no increase in their monthly payments, if they agree to save an additional $100.00 per month over the same 12-month period. At the end of the loan period $600.00 of the savings is given to the JAK to satisfy the additional monies borrowed and the balance of $600.00 belongs to the member to use as they please! Over the course of a year the loan is paid off and the member continues to save money. It’s a win/win proposition. Monthly payments are often higher in the JAK than for customers at a traditional bank, however, because JAK members aren’t charged interest on their loans they pay less money over time. This example is illustrative of how necessary saving is to the interest free banking system, in that it insures the liquidity of the bank and also it’s ability to offer loans to many members at any given time. The staff and JAK administrators are all volunteers that donate their time in the spirit of cooperation. They are also the primary recruiters of additional staff and bank members.

The JAK banking system is very appealing to me for many reasons. First and foremost it is a counterbalance to the existing interest-focused system that provides no benefit to the average individual, but favors big business and the majority of the traditional financial services industry. It is a viable alternative to the existing debt driven economy, which we are learning is not sustainable in that it demands never-ending growth and expansion. Last, but not least the JAK Members model is a co-op where members have come together to create and sustain a vehicle that benefits them and serves their needs. The bank is owned by it’s members that pay a membership fee and vote for a board of directors to represent them and their interests. Each member, regardless of the amount of their deposit or accumulated savings points is granted only one vote. I can’t think of a better model of cooperation and democratic control in the financial arena.

More books, not less! Guilford County parents organize to oppose book bans

Guilford County residents protest book banning in our schools.
Guilford County residents protest book banning in our schools.
Guilford County residents protest book banning in our schools.

About a week ago, some Guilford County residents carried a petition with some 2,200 names on it to the School Board, asking to eliminate controversial books from high school reading lists. They targeted certain books, like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Isabelle Allende’s House of the Spirits, objecting to sexually explicit passages and what they saw as anti-Christian themes. Actually, using these books as examples, they asked for the school system to revise the entire way it selects books, so that books like these would not ever again appear on reading lists.

Well, community dialogue and activism is alive and well in Greensboro! In response to this threat of book banning, roughly 30 people marched from the Central Library to the School Board meeting on Eugene Street, carrying signs that read, “More books, not less!” and “Let Our Children Read!” Here’s a picture of some of that contingent when they arrived at the School Board building. Many marchers then entered the meeting, where they addressed the School Board, making sure that the Board knew there was large crew of folks who like the book selection policy just fine.

Book banning is NOT the way to deal with controversy and difference. More democratic dialogue, not less! Hooray!

Read more from the News & Record here.

The Short and Happy Life of the Fund for Democratic Communities

We're spending ourselves out of existence. (photo: 401(k) 2012)
We're spending ourselves out of existence. (photo: 401(k) 2012)
We’re spending ourselves out of existence. (photo: 401(k) 2012)

Here’s something you may not have known about F4DC: we don’t plan on being around after 2020. No, we haven’t subscribed to any end-of-the-world doomsday scenarios. In fact, quite the opposite: we’re thinking that the chance of human survival past 2020, perhaps even into the next century, will be improved if we go out of existence!

At this point, you may be thinking, “Whoa! These folks have a curious view of their destructive potential, not to mention their own importance!”

Let me explain.

The vast majority of charitable foundations come into existence under an assumption that they’ll exist forever — “in perpetuity,” is the legal term of art. Under this model, foundations put their money resources — “financial principal” (never to be confused with “financial principles!”) — into investments that deliver interest or dividends or capital appreciation at a level that allows them to give away some money each year, while preserving or even growing the underlying principal.

By law, foundations have to give away or otherwise spend on charitable purposes 5% of their assets each year. Thus, if a foundation has $8 million in assets (about what F4DC’s assets are valued at these days), the US tax code requires it to put $400,000 each year toward charitable purposes.

Here’s the deal. The world is in a real pickle, and dribbling out $400,000 per year just isn’t going to have transformational impact. And we need some transformation!

The global financial crisis is just one of several deeply disruptive, linked crises that together portend a level of environmental, economic, and social collapse that is already radically altering how we live. Whether we want to change or not, big changes are coming — some of them are here already (Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy!) — due to the intersection of climate change, peak oil, and the non-sustainable nature of a global, corporate capitalism that has driven the world toward the greatest wealth inequality ever experienced by humanity. People are hurting, struggling to support their families and communities, as jobs disappear and wages stagnate. Catastrophic weather events escalate in number and severity, pushing communities past the breaking point. Our representative democracy is under siege from corporate interests who are unelected and unaccountable. And our grasp of direct democracy (that is, our community capacity to dialogue about our needs and decide on collective action to meet them) is shaky at best.

In the face of the failing economy, many people are recognizing the need to build a new economy to take its place: one where people and planet come before profits. Where the rewards of productivity go to the people who do the work. Where communities are enriched, not stripped, by businesses that are rooted in place. An economy built on the principles of cooperation, sustainability and solidarity, not competition and exploitation. At the same time, people around the globe and at home in the U.S. are coming together to demand that the voices of the 99% be heard, and in the process are relearning and inventing from scratch new democratic forms.

We’re at a pivotal moment, a time of opportunity on the one hand and real danger on the other. F4DC is striving to put its resources — both money and people power — in service to the massive project of building a just, sustainable and democratic economy in this critical period. It’s a big project, and it’s sure to last way past 2020. But we think F4DC’s greatest impact—our shot at transformational impact—is in these next eight years.

If you’re wondering where this “eight years” figure comes from: Ed and I actually came to this idea of spending down our resources a couple of years ago. At that time, we gave ourselves a ten-year horizon line. Seemed like that was enough time to hatch and work on some serious projects, but also a short enough time frame to concentrate the mind. We’re two years in now, and believe me, the 2020 deadline does indeed concentrate the mind. Our entire staff is struggling to define what it would look like for us to leave a lasting legacy and evaluating whether our program and grant-making activities are on track to achieve it.

Stay tuned: we’ll have more to say about the legacy we hope to leave in later blog posts. For now, just know we’re working with growing numbers of people in our city, North Carolina, and the Southeast (link to the Federation of Southern Coops and SGEP) in ways that we hope position us all to be around a whole lot longer, even if F4DC is no more.

We picture a web of strong people, versed in democratic arts, who are able to work together to rebuild their communities. We see organizations, institutions, and networks across the Southeast that link and nurture democratically-minded economic and political projects that flow from communities that are usually pushed to the margins: Black folks, poor whites, Native Americans, women, immigrants, young people. Imagine a growing pool of autonomous people and organizations who understand that their well-being is tied to the well-being of all, and have a pretty clear idea of how to build a new economy anchored in vibrant democratic communities. We think of F4DC and its resources as part of the “seed capital” for this new venture.

Sustainability vs. Competition

Competitors in the London 2012 Olympics
Competitors in the London 2012 Olympics
Competitors in the London 2012 Olympics

Building sustainable communities is something we think about a lot here at the Fund for Democratic Communities. Our starting point in these discussions is the economic sustainability of communities and their ability to use their community wealth for their own benefit. The mainstream discourse on sustainability is largely set within the boundaries of the current economic system – one that is based on exploitation of labor and extraction of wealth and resources from communities around the world. True sustainability will likely not be found within this worn out and fundamentally self-destructive system.

I recently attended a large region-wide gathering with people from business, government and the nonprofit sectors. This event firmly grounded itself in the existing economic framework. We were told by several speakers that “competing [with other cities and regions around the country] was no longer good enough – we have to win.” This exhortation to renewed and heightened competition reached a Monty Python-like apex when one individual stated that the competition between the major cities in our area was hindering the region’s ability to compete.

Compete for what, exactly? Many local and state government officials are busy trying to entice businesses to relocate to their areas in need of job growth. As a result most governments are working hard to make their communities attractive to people who do not live in them yet. A huge piece of a community’s wealth is found in it’s “commons.” This is the set of resources, both tangible and ephemeral that we used to protect vigorously for the benefit of ourselves and our neighbors. Today, governments package bundles of these resources and give them to large businesses in the form of tax incentives and free infrastructure in exchange for an investment, a promise of job growth and long-term commitment.

But in a world driven by competition, what value does a promise of long-term commitment carry? Another city or region will merely package a better set of their communal resources and entice that business to pick up and move yet again, chasing a slightly higher profit margin. This happens again and again across the United States and certainly right here in our own community.

An alternative – likely, the only alternative – is cooperation. If local governments took those resources they may give away to attract a business from outside our community to local entrepreneurs right here in our neighborhoods we would see the wealth of our communities start to grow immediately. If we looked to our neighbors to join with us and become the developers of real estate and business we could build the communities we want to live in and retain our wealth instead of facilitating individuals with money and access to power who are not at all interested in long-term community sustainability but only interested in what they can get out of our communities..

I came away from my focus on local sustainability efforts over the past few weeks thinking, I’m not at all interested in competing with someone else for what is clearly a smaller slice of pie. If anyone talks to you about competing for sustainability remind them: races come to an end but cooperation can continue.

The International Summit of Cooperatives: A Battle for the Soul of the Cooperative Movement?

2012 International Summit of Cooperatives

I just got home from the International Summit of Cooperatives, in Quebec City. My head is still grappling with the people and contesting ideas that swirled around me for four days. Generally, I hate conferences, but I am grateful I went, for a number of reasons, not the least of which that I had a chance to meet brilliant, inspirational coop leaders from other countries, especially Canada.

I traveled to the conference equipped with a long list of names of people whom my Southern Grassroots Economies Project (SGEP) friends told me I just had to meet. I copied all these names out on a card in a feeble effort to burn them into my brain, in the hope that somehow, I’d recognize them in the crowd of 2,800. (Believe it or not, I am shy, so this was frightening to me!) I arrived, picked up my translation equipment and sat down, thinking, “Now what? I don’t know a soul here!” I introduced myself to the woman sitting next to me. She was polite and immediately resumed her conversation with her friends to the other side — in French. I was really starting to sweat it, when a woman who was animatedly speaking with two other people walked down the long row of seats and sat down next to me on the other side. Serendipity! It was none other than Hazel Corcoran, Executive Director of the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation (CWCF)! Hazel’s name was the top name on every list of suggested contacts that I received in advance of the conference! We introduced ourselves, and over the next three days Hazel made sure I got a chance to meet with just about everyone who cares about worker cooperatives in Canada and on the international scene. Thank you, Hazel!

Through these personal connections and in the course of a vibrant forum on worker coops on the second day of the conference, I became more solidly convinced of the importance of F4DC’s work in the area of worker coop development, as a primary vehicle for democratic, just, and sustainable economic development. I got lots of exposure to the benefits of consumer coops (especially credit unions—they were there in huge numbers) and producer coops. But it became clearer as the week went on how easy it can be for these kinds of coops to lose the thread of democracy. There is something about the worker coop movement — especially its assertion of the “instrumental and subordinate nature of capital” — that keeps worker coops grounded in the democratic principle of one person—one vote and the idea that humanity’s real power lies in our coordinated, productive labor from which we generate community wealth.

2012 International Summit of Cooperatives
2012 International Summit of Cooperatives

Don’t get me wrong — I learned about lots of principled, successful consumer and producer coops at the conference. But I also saw how many coops are coops in name only, especially some of the very large ones. In fact, the dominant paradigm of the conference, as promulgated from the main stage via a stream of “experts” from McKinsey & Co, Deloitte, Price Waterhouse Coopers and the Harvard Business School, was that coops should do a better job adapting to capitalism, and grow (up) into mega businesses using more or less the same unsustainable business practices of the mega-corps. And that we should accept the current capitalist frame as the only possible economy. Sure, these experts conceded, the global financial crisis (or GFC as many called it) shows us that capitalism has had some problems, and maybe capitalism can learn a thing or two about sustainability from coops. But the cooperative model can only ever be a small portion of the capitalist economy. After all — capital has other plans!

What was really encouraging was the steady growth, throughout the four days of the conference, of a noisier and noisier pushback against this paradigm, coming from this very polite crowd! Sonja Novkovic began the critique on the very first morning, asserting that coops needed to guard against becoming part of the problem by developing new kinds of growth models rooted in values. By the last day, several main stage speakers (Jacques Attali, Felice Scalvini, and Ricardo Petrella in the final panel) cogently and directly critiqued the capital-centric focus, and called on the cooperative movement to establish itself as a revolutionary, new kind of economy that will replace capitalism. Whenever any speaker would make a comment along these more hopeful lines, the crowd applauded wildly!

I return to our work in North Carolina and the U.S. South more hopeful than ever, more convinced we’re onto something vital in our focus on cooperative economic development, and absolutely terrified by the work we have laid out for ourselves. Thank heavens we have some more friends around the globe to help us figure it out!

Congratulations to the people’s movement to end corporate personhood

Rights are for the People on the Supreme Court

The Fund for Democratic Communities wishes to congratulate all the people and organizations that worked hard to see a resolution passed by our City Council opposing corporate personhood and calling on Congress to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

Rights are for the People on the Supreme Court
Rights Are For The People on the Supreme Court

While the City of Greensboro’s resolution will not, by itself, remove the ability of corporate interests to flood our political processes with virtually limitless money, this decision adds our local government to the growing list of municipalities, counties and other government institutions demanding serious action on campaign finance reform.

The Occupy Wall Street movement that began just one year ago shook up the status quo by reminding people across our country and the world that the people hold the ultimate decision-making power. The effort to create and pass this resolution here in Greensboro drew energy from this movement and built relationships with organizations already engaged in similar work. This is an excellent example of how grassroots organizing builds coalitions capable of changing government policies.

We also congratulate the members of Greensboro’s City Council who voted in favor of the resolution. They demonstrated sincere receptiveness to learn about issues brought before them by Greensboro’s residents.

Click here to download a PDF of the resolution passed. Below is a video featuring some of the statements made by council members about the resolution.

Reports

SGEP Celebrates a successful CoopEcon 2012!

CoopEcon 2012 Group Photo

Cross-posted from the Southern Grassroots Economies Project website

People from across the Southeast gathered in Epes, Alabama at the Rural Training and Research Center of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives from July 27-29 to begin the hard work of building democratic ownership in our communities.

Those new to the world of cooperative business development learned what it takes to put together a business that is responsive to the community it grows from. People involved in functional cooperatives gained valuable insight into the steps needed to grow them, make them more sustainable, and contribute to region-wide development.

Read more here.

Greensboro Tenants’ Organization Forming!

Basement for Rent
Basement for Rent
Photo: Pink Moose

We’re psyched to see that Greensboro renters are coming together to organize a tenants’ association! Landlord associations have been active in the Triad for a long time, representing the interests of landlords in municipal affairs. Now a countervailing powerbase anchored in the tenant community is coming together! It’s about time – tenants’ groups in other cities have made a huge difference in issues like these:

  • Wrongful withholding of security deposits
  • Absentee landlords and slumlords who don’t properly care for their properties
  • Minimum Housing Code enforcement after RUCO
  • Utility hikes (water, Duke Energy) in the face of no earning increases
  • Tenants hurt when the homes they rent are caught up in foreclosure

What’s especially cool is that the Greensboro Tenant Association will be run for and by tenants. Tenant advocacy by groups like the Greensboro Housing Coalition is much appreciated, but it needs to be complemented (if not led by) powerful advocacy and organizing by the very folks most affected–renters!

An organizing meeting will be held Saturday, July 7th at 10 am at Spring Garden Bakery, Corner of Chapman and Spring GardenDownload their flyer for more details (pdf).

Developing a Comprehensive Approach to Trash for the City of Greensboro

With helpful feedback from MaryEllen Etienne of Reuse Alliance

We are happy to report that it looks like White Street Landfill is not going to be reopened! Through solid community organizing that garnered allies from across the city to the “Keep White Street Closed” side of the fight, plus a sea-change in the make-up of the City Council, it looks like the idea of reopening White Street Landfill is off the table. We hope for good.

Now what?

There is important work to be done in our city to come up with democratic, just, and sustainable approaches to our trash. That’s right, I claimed it — it’s our trash, and we have to deal with it—all of us, not just the people who happen to live within smelling distance of a landfill.

And it’s not just about where we will put our landfill—we have to think through the whole trash picture, asking questions like, Where does our trash come from? Why are we producing so much of it? And what can we do to reduce our waste stream so we’re not facing a trash crisis again in ten, twenty, fifty, or one hundred years?

We have a rare window of opportunity here, a confluence of events and conditions that make it possible for us to think big about this topic. Our solid waste contracts are up for consideration (regular waste as well as our contract with FCR, the firm that handles our recyclables). At the same time, a new City Council has just been sworn in, a reflection of massive dissatisfaction with the divisive politics waged in the most recent “trash fight.” Plus, across the country and here in Greensboro, there’s a growing sense of openness and engagement, as people start to wonder if “business as usual” is going to work in a time of economic, environmental, and social crisis.

So, instead of “business as usual,” let’s act now to use this window of opportunity to build a whole new approach to our trash, one that is democratic, just, and sustainable.

As part of F4DC’s commitment to deepening our understanding of democracy, justice, and sustainability, we invited people from across Greensboro to visit Catawba County’s Landfill and Eco-Complex on November 4th of this year. Twenty-four people took us up on this offer. We thought we’d learn a lot by seeing how another North Carolina county handles its trash, and we did! But what was perhaps more important was the time we spent together on the van ride to and from Catawba, and getting a chance to relax and talk together over dinner on the way home. New friendships were formed and lots of ideas were exchanged. Here are a few ideas, ranging from concrete policy recommendations to more exploratory suggestions to guidelines for our decision-making process, which I’ve been mulling over since that trip:

  • Extend the current contract with Republic Services through June 2013 to give us time to thoroughly study and come up with a comprehensive approach to solid waste.
  • Negotiate a contract extension with FCR, to give us time to thoroughly study and come up with a recycling plan that allows for a significant decrease in the amount of trash heading to the landfill.
  • Get the new City Council to take a field trip to the Catawba Eco-Complex, both to see what another community has done, and also to get the benefit of thinking together about trash as they ride down and back. F4DC is willing to help organize such a trip, if that is helpful.
  • Appoint a citizen/staff task force on solid waste (perhaps in conjunction with the Community Sustainability Council?) to study and recommend comprehensive approaches to our trash that are governed by “seven generations” thinking—that is, developing an approach to trash that our great, great, great, great grandchildren won’t be sorry for.
  • Learn from other cities that are more progressive/visionary about this than we are. The City of Austin, Texas would be a great place to start, followed perhaps by San Francisco. We shouldn’t limit our search for ideas only to the U.S. either. In some cities around the globe (e.g., Cairo) over 80% of the waste stream is being recycled, lessening the need for landfill space significantly, creating job for hundreds, and making cheap resources available to industry. Why should we settle for 15% recycling, when 80% is possible?
  • Put everything on the table for re-consideration! This includes the implicit and explicit incentives we give to households and businesses about trash. We may not need to move to a mandatory recycling program if we set the incentives correctly. For example, what message do we send when we pick up regular trash once a week, and recycling every other week? If we flipped this arrangement, it might incentivize people to do a better job separating their recyclables. Or, consider a different fee structure for waste pickup, one that rewards the household that creates less waste. Using clever incentives and pricing, Catawba County and other towns have found ways to encourage voluntary recycling and reduce the flow of waste into their landfills.
  • Build trash policy around the “Four R’s:” Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot. We generally concentrate on recycling, but we need turn out attention to the other “Rs” if we’re going to shrink our need for landfill space. We need to educate the public on “reduce” – giving people easy ways to reduce their waste. We also need make residents and businesses aware of existing “reuse” opportunities in Greensboro, and provide resources that help support and grow the reuse sector. And yes, I included “rot” in the list. Organics account for nearly two-thirds of solid waste stream. By keeping food and other organic wastes out of landfills, we can make organic material useful for commercial and residential soil amendments.
  • Think about trash and the costs associated with trash in a more holistic and comprehensive way, considering jobs, economic development, and long-term sustainability as essential parts of the “bottom line,” e.g.:
    • FCR is proposing to invest in high tech mechanization in its next contract with the City, but is this really cost effective over the long run and in the big picture? Such mechanization may result in jobs being lost as machines replace human “pickers.” Some research suggests that human pickers are needed to achieve high recyclable levels (the machines are just not that smart or flexible) and thus reduce the amount of trash heading to landfills. I am not sure of all the trade-offs here, but the City should consider these factors as it designs its next contract with its recycling firm.
    • Consider the triple bottom line benefits (economic, environmental, social) of reuse and recycling in deciding how much to emphasize these approaches in our trash policy. Reuse, in particular, can have a huge economic impact, as can be seen in these statistics: If you take 10,000 tons of materials, and:
      • Incinerate it, you create 1 job
      • Landfill it, you create 6 jobs
      • Recycle it, you create 36 jobs
      • Reuse it, you create 28-296 jobs (depending on materials)
    • Can jobs focused on community education on trash reduction, reuse, and recycling pay wholly or partly for themselves, through sale of recovered materials and reduction in costs associated with landfill trash? Currently, most Greensboro households and businesses are not participating fully in our recycling program, so there is a lot of potential for growth here, if such education led to significantly improved levels of voluntary compliance with recycling.
    • What new community-based businesses can we grow from our trash? For example, are there business possibilities in the rich organic waste from our kitchens (waste that currently creates most of the greenhouse gases coming from our landfills) and the reusable building materials that come from deconstructed buildings? What about specialty businesses that exploit any number of “undiscovered” recyclable materials?
    • Can Greensboro become an innovative leader in developing new markets for recycled materials, and through this attract new business to the region?
    • What role can the City play in reducing the amount of unnecessary packaging of consumer goods, packaging that is taking up space in our landfills? Every ton of packaging that does not go to a landfill saves us tipping fees as well as slowing the rate at which any landfill gets full. Perhaps we can consider packaging bans (e.g. 100 cities across the US have banned Styrofoam).
    • Is it possible for Greensboro to convert its transfer station into an eco-park or zero waste facility# where all of its reusables and recyclabes can be recovered and not exported as waste? This idea is worth exploring.
  • Engage people from across the City in meaningful learning and dialogue about a full range of options concerning our trash. We need to make more use of truly participatory processes, with genuine back and forth dialogue, for identifying issues and trade-offs in the trash debate.
  • Acknowledge and make use of local experts: City staff (the professionals who wear suits to work and the professionals who pick up our trash), university professors, and ordinary citizens who’ve made it their business to understand the science, business, and logistics of trash, landfills, and hauling. One good place to look for grassroots expertise is in the ranks of Citizens for Environmental and Economic Justice, who have had to learn quite a bit about trash in order to make sure the landfill didn’t get reopened.
  • Work to engage everyone in the city—not just people who live near potential landfill sites—in solving the dilemma of what to do with our trash. One possible motto: If you create trash, then you should be thinking about where it goes and doing your part to reduce the waste stream.

Finally, I hope that we will remember that our city, Greensboro, is woven into a larger fabric of people and places who are just as deserving of democratic, just, and sustainable lives as we are. I know there is a lot of discussion about the potential for negotiating a “regional solution” that would have the bulk of our trash going to a facility in Randolph County. While such a solution makes it possible keep the White Street landfill closed, it also lands our trash in another community, one that is just as concerned about their health and quality of life as we are here. It may be a community that has historically been marginalized, just as the White Street community was. Moving trash from one marginalized community to another marginalized community is just not a good enough solution.

It’s a real dilemma – there are lots of places that are suffering economic downturns to the degree that getting a big trash contract might feel like a “good deal,” at least to some people. And there are certainly businesses in Randolph County and other places that would like to profit from our need to do something with our trash. But just because some folks in a different county think it’s a good idea doesn’t make it an idea with integrity. Let’s make sure that the people in such communities have been fully informed and heard in their own city and county deliberative processes. Let’s make sure we know all the details about where our trash might be going and what communities it might impact.

Our collaborative engagement with communities and people—not just businesses—in any place receiving our trash can lead to better landfill design and construction, higher standards on heath and safety, living wages for people just like us, and more sustainable relationships that can help keep the partnership going for a second and third contract. This, in turn, can help us keep White Street closed forever.

Promoting a healthy community

F4DC had the privilege of presenting our work around grassroots economy development to our friends in the Peace and Justice Network and Transition Greensboro at this years PJN potluck dinner.

Ed spoke about using this moment to build a worker-owned economy that will provide stable jobs rooted in local communities as a response to the runaway capitalist concentration of wealth threatening our country’s – and the world’s – future. Dave discussed the amazing growth of grassroots direct democracy around the country that the Occupy Wall Street movement launched. This movement is directly connected to the economic democratization in which F4DC is engaged.

It was a great evening of food, catching up with old friends, welcoming some who are new, and planning for future work together!

Below are the notes from the small group discussions held at the potluck.

– – – – –

SUMMARY OF NOVEMBER 13 POTLUCK DISCUSSION: BRINGING A NEW GREENSBORO TO LIFE

Imagine what a Democratic, Equitable, Compassionate and Sustainable Greensboro would look like

    VALUES

  • Sense of belonging, everyone participates
  • People smiling at each other, less texting, more speaking to “strangers”
  • Peaceful co-existence of faith communities, shared spiritual spaces
  • More organizational cooperation, respect and openness to diverse points of view
  • Build consensus, trust, reconciliation; reduce fragmentation
  • Organize around oppression to build on common humanity
  • Thinking and doing in systems
    CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

  • 75% of people vote in local elections
  • Participatory budgeting, participatory taxation
  • Restorative justice models
  • Marriage equality federal, state and local
    MONEY

  • Local currency, bartering, 60%local banking
    COMMERCE

  • Fair and full employment, living wage
  • Jobs that directly serve the community on all levels
  • Local, worker owned grocery stores, manufacturing businesses and cooperatives
  • Support of local businesses and entrepreneurs
  • Needs based “gift” economy
    WASTE

  • Sustainable waste management: recycle, repurpose and reuse “trash”
  • Greywater systems
    ENERGY

  • Sustainable energy program
  • Localized energy sources
  • Homes with local heat (biofuels)
  • Green architecture
    TRANSPORTATION

  • Bike and pedestrian friendly roads/communities, bike racks everywhere, sidewalks, bus stops, free mass transit
  • At least half the people commute via public transportation and bicycle
    FOOD

  • Food security: access to nutritious local food for everyone
  • Community and roof gardens, local agricultural infrastructure, farmer’s markets
    HOUSING

  • Housing safe and affordable, no foreclosures
  • Shelter for everybody
    HEALTH

  • Affordable, adequate health care for everyone
  • Available substance abuse treatment and mental health care
    EDUCATION

  • Education equitable and responsive, 20 students in a class, holistic curriculum
  • Free higher education
  • Community dialogue about education
  • Re-skilling, new ways of learning
    COMMUNITY

  • Parks and recreation: maintained community areas for exercise, gathering, talking together, eating, celebrating, having fun
  • Singing groups
  • Public art and engagement, street performers
  • More shared storytelling
  • Cooperative child/family raising, more active neighborhoods
    COMMUNICATION

  • Communication network to access resources that have already proven to work
    GENERAL

  • No basic needs unfulfilled
  • No disparate treatment
  • No extremes of wealth and power
  • Immigrants come out of the shadows. No “illegals”
  • Absence of beggars on street corners

What are the first steps to bring our visions to life in Greensboro?

    GENERAL

  • Support current local, sustainable programs
  • Create stronger safety net for vulnerable people
    VALUES

  • Focus on possibility rather than problem
    CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

  • Foster Greensboro pride and ownership, promote local individuals
  • Acknowledge the Greensboro “Massacre”
  • Choose to read COMMUNITY by Peter Block for our One City One Book project
  • Establish connection/dialogue with newly elected city officials to make concerns visible
  • Communicate with city staff about participatory budgeting, food regulations, zoning and building codes, use of public lands for food
  • Use initiative and referendum process in city charter
  • Create/join in public ritual
  • Support Transition Greensboro
  • A congress for democratic Greensboro
  • Support the YWCA and other organizations that feature social justice
  • Join the participatory budgeting process
    MONEY

  • Support the local currency project
  • Put money in local credit unions and banks
    COMMERCE

  • Engage in more bartering, trading, sharing resources
  • Support local businesses and farming
  • Support unionized businesses
    ENERGY

  • Use underused land for passive solar energy
    TRANSPORTATION

  • Promote bike lanes, pedestrian walkways, bus service and ride sharing
    FOOD

  • Use underused land for gardens
    HOUSING

  • Use underused land and buildings for housing
    HEALTH

  • Start neighborhood group savings clubs for particular purposes e.g. health care
    EDUCATION

  • Teach old skills; skill sharing
    COMMUNITY

  • Convene people more: outreach, dialogue/conversation
  • Find ways to allow entry points, promote inclusivity
  • Establish a local space for ALL people to come together
  • Listen to ordinary folks: know and share our stories
  • Support local neighborhood organizations
  • Build relationships in neighborhoods by getting together to share resources, eat, garden and have fun together
    COMMUNICATION

  • Create accessible communication tools for people to share information and insight
  • Research granting sources to support local projects