COMMONS MAGAZINE
From a bicyclist’s perspective, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Randstad—a part of the Netherlands encompassing Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague—seem to have little in common. There’s hardly a hill anywhere in this Dutch region, while a trip around the Bay Area feels like a roller coaster ride. But a closer look shows plenty of similarities. The places are almost identical in population (7 million), and both stand as forward-looking places dedicated to making bicycles an integral part of their transportation systems—although the Dutch have a 30-year head start.
Giiwedinong means “going home” in the Anishinaabeg language- it also means North, which is the place from which we come.This is a key problem that modern industrial society faces today. We cannot restore our relationship with the Earth until we find our place in the world. This is our challenge today: where is home?
I returned to the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota about twenty-five years ago after being raised off-reservation, which is a common circumstance for our people. White Earth is my place in the Universe. It’s where the headwaters of the Mississippi and Red Rivers are.
When hundreds of people took up the banner of “Occupy the Farm” on April 22nd and laid claim to a patch of urban farmland owned by UC Berkeley, it was not the first time this 5-acre parcel had become the flashpoint of a struggle between the University and local communities. But it was the first time anyone had done something as brash as simply taking the land without asking.
After winning the Illinois primary, Mitt Romney delivered a victory speech in which he deplored America’s lost “can do spirit”. Unsurprisingly, he blamed it on government. If elected he promised, “We’re going to get government out of the way”. Then he offered a few examples of what he meant. “We once built the interstate highway system and the Hoover Dam. Now we can’t even build a pipeline.”
Today’s emergent commons often grow out of a community’s desire and need to re-orient its relationship to a resource(s) toward more sustainable use and greater shared benefit. The spark for that reorientation often comes from people or a person able to see beyond ‘what is’ and envision ‘what could be.’ These people—who we call commons animateurs—look at problems differently, ask different questions, and engage more people in solution making.
New social movements always start first as a new subculture, consisting of people who invent new social practices. The Swedish online filesharing communities that lay at the root of the Swedish Pirate Party simply consisted of music lovers who wanted to share their music and discoveries.
Here at On The Commons, we believe that fostering a healthy relationship to the food we consume and the land we live on is central to a functioning commons-based society.
The founders of the United States embraced the commons when it came to ideas. They understood that the best fresh ideas are generated out of previous ideas, and therefore should remain in the public domain (a cultural commons). Indeed, copyright and patent law in the early days of the nation expressly aimed to move new cultural creations into the public domain as soon as possible. In 1790, copyrights lasted fourteen years with a chance to renew for another fourteen.
Clean drinking water and wastewater treatment are basic services that societies and governments provide. Water is a necessity for life, and safe water and sanitation are crucial for public health.
In July 2010, the United Nations declared access to clean water and sanitation to be a human right. But recognizing the human right to water does not explain how to deliver this right to households. Even with this historic commitment to enhance water delivery and safety, an estimated 884 million people worldwide lack access to safe water, and 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation.
Many people recognize that we are currently in a “movement moment.” As our social, financial, and ecological systems spiral into crisis, new visions for our future and strategies to achieve them are beginning to emerge.
A while ago Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) who is retiring from the House this year, gave a memorable interview to New York magazine in which he criticized President Obama for aggressively pushing health care reform. Frank says he warned Obama the Democratic Party would pay “a terrible price.”
The revival of the commons as a way to fairly use and preserve the resources we need to share is a critical antidote for the times in which we find ourselves—times of growing inequity, unchecked consumption, ecological crises, and privatized resource control.
Central to the history and practice of the commons is the idea of equitable sharing. That equitable sharing takes three distinct forms: shared use/benefit, shared stewardship, and shared responsibility or decision-making.
Introduction
May Day is the missing holiday in America. It’s noted on the calendar as Law Day, and remembered as either a spring celebration with pagan roots (think maypoles and may baskets) or the international workers’ holiday (observed most conspicuously in the Soviet Union with huge military parades) mostly by those old enough to recall where they were on Nov. 22, 1963.
Great Lakes Need Great Friends:
Protecting The Great Lakes Forever
8 City Tour – May 2012
Join Maude Barlow and other guests to celebrate the Great Lakes—a common heritage that belongs to the Earth, other species and future generations as well as our own. Hear how we can collectively protect them from private interests and government complacency and restore more democratic control over them.
Details to be updated as available.
May 15 – Toronto
“A commons arises whenever a given community decides that it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with a special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability. It is a social form that has long lived in the shadows of our market culture, but which is now on the rise.” —David Bollier
Principles
On the Commons designed this workshop to introduce the commons to a group of people. It should by led by a facilitator.
“A commons arises whenever a given community decides that it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with a special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability. It is a social form that has long lived in the shadows of our market culture, but which is now on the rise.” -David Bollier
We have used these questions both with hypothetical stories and with real situations that face a community or organization.
1. What are the resources at stake that we want to lay claim to?
As interest in the commons rises everywhere, OnTheCommons.org is adding more practical information you can apply in your own community .
Take a tour of the new www.OnTheCommons.org to see the changes—and stay tuned for more to come in the following weeks. You’ll discover Commons Work, a handy online resource center, along with Commons Magazine, packed with news and ideas from around the world.
Mark Lakeman is an architect fired up by the belief that our neighborhoods can become more than places where we hang our hats and park our cars.
Taking a break from his practice a few years back, he traveled through Central America and Italy, falling in love with the piazzas, plazas, zocalos where everyone gathers to talk, play and simply hang out. Although most of these people are poor by North American standards, he recalls, they enjoyed a richness of community life missing in most of our lives.