COMMONS MAGAZINE

On the Commons December 2011 Update

December 30, 2011 | By On the Commons Team

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The tremendous and widespread growth of the commons movement over the last year is testimony to the resonance of this ancient concept as a fresh solution to 21st century problems: dire environmental threats, widening economic inequity, out of control corporate power along with increasing privatization and eradication of the public sphere.

How to Boost Biking and Walking in Your Town

December 23, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

After being acclaimed as America’s best city for biking, what can you possibly do for an encore?

Well, in the case of Minneapolis, you do even more bicycling—and more walking too.

People here biked and walked 16 percent more in 2011 than in 2010, when Minneapolis was crowned “#1 Bike City”:http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2011/1114/Lessons-from-America-s-surprising-No.-1-bike-town by Bicycling magazine. The same is true for St. Paul and some inner ring suburbs.

Occupy Giving

December 22, 2011 | By David Morris

This is the giving season and we Americans are prodigious givers. Nearly two thirds of us donate to charities each year. This year we will send more than $225 billion to charities.

In Defense of Hippies & Others Who Live Outside the System

December 20, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

The soul of this country has always been nurtured by people more interested in freedom than in regular baths: revolutionaries, pioneers, cowboys, Henry Thoreau and Walt Whitman all lived in sweat and dirt.

Yet in mainstream media I see a sentiment expressed time and time again: the Occupy movement and other challengers to economic order would be great if it wasn’t just a bunch of dirty hippies.

How to Grow a Healthy Local Food System

December 16, 2011

Homegrown Minneapolis:
Foundational Document for the Creation of the Minneapolis Food Council.
Adopted by the City of Minneapolis, Fall 2011

The Homegrown Minneapolis Local Food Entity Working Group researched, convened a multi-faceted public process, and worked with a design team to envision phase three of Homegrown Minneapolis. The central question for the group was how a leadership entity such as a Minneapolis Food Council could be structured to foster a thriving connection to and standing in the community and be sustained long-term.

Water Belongs to All of Us

December 14, 2011

The Detroit People’s Water Board (DPWB) isn’t waiting for someone else to solve Detroit’s water problems. This community coalition is taking an out-front role on everything from fighting water shutoffs and privatization schemes to helping create a watershed plan for the region.

Occupy Economics Departments

December 13, 2011 | By David Morris

On November 2nd nearly 70 students walked out of an introductory economics class at Harvard in solidarity with the Occupy movement. The mainstream media largely ignored the protest. That’s regrettable since the economics profession has provided the intellectual framework and justification for the inequality and centralization of corporate power the Occupiers are challenging.

Occupy Economics Departments

December 13, 2011 | By David Morris

On November 2nd nearly 70 students walked out of an introductory economics class at Harvard in solidarity with the Occupy movement. The mainstream media largely ignored the protest. That’s regrettable since the economics profession has provided the intellectual framework and justification for the inequality and centralization of corporate power the Occupiers are challenging.

At Last, A New Story for the Future

December 12, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

It was two years before the first Earth Day in 1970 when Garrett Hardin penned the famous essay “The Tragedy of the Commons,” and it fit a certain bleak and despairing mood of the time. Paul Ehrlich had just published The Population Bomb, a Malthusian account of a world overwhelmed by sheer numbers of people. Against the backdrop of that gloom, Hardin’s theory came as another dose of bad news, “proving” that we also had no hope of controlling our appetite for natural re¬sources. Because no one owned the oceans or the atmosphere, we would inevitably fish and pollute them into oblivion.

At Last, A New Story for the Future

December 12, 2011

It was two years before the first Earth Day in 1970 when Garrett Hardin penned the famous essay “The Tragedy of the Commons,” and it fit a certain bleak and despairing mood of the time. Paul Eh¬rlich had just published The Population Bomb, a Malthusian account of a world overwhelmed by sheer numbers of people. Against the backdrop of that gloom, Har¬din’s theory came as another dose of bad news, “proving” that we also had no hope of controlling our appetite for natural re¬sources. Because no one owned the oceans or the atmosphere, we would inevitably fish and pollute them into oblivion.

Foundational Document for the Creation of the Minneapolis Food Council

How We Created a Commons-Based Food Council for Minneapolis

December 12, 2011

Homegrown Minneapolis:
Foundational Document for the Creation of the Minneapolis Food Council.
Adopted by the City of Minneapolis, Fall 2011

The Homegrown Minneapolis Local Food Entity Working Group researched, convened a multi-faceted public process, and worked with a design team to envision phase three of Homegrown Minneapolis. The central question for the group was how a leadership entity such as a Minneapolis Food Council could be structured to foster a thriving connection to and standing in the community and be sustained long-term.

The Real Rationale for Irrational Rhetoric

December 5, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

POP QUIZ: Who said each of the following?

1. The USA is in serious danger of becoming “a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists.”

2. “Corporations are people, my friend.”

3. “What I’m talking about is the order of deportation, the sequence of deportation. It is almost impossible to move 11 million illegal immigrants overnight. You do it in steps.”

If you guessed, in this order: 1. Newt Gingrich; 2. Mitt Romney; and 3. Michelle Bachmann, you are right. (From MoveOn.Org, YouTube, the Nation, and the Washington Post.)

Canoe on Great Lakes

Reclaiming Our Great Lakes Commons

December 1, 2011 | By On the Commons Team

The Need for a Game Changing Strategy

Preface

Beloved Commons That Are Not Actually Commons

November 30, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

A few of the most beloved commons in our lives are not actually commons— at least not technically. They are privately-run enterprises that nonetheless function as common gathering spots which loyal customers feel belong to them.

The One Percent Actually Benefits from Tax Increases on the Wealthy

November 21, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

Here is some straight talk about the need for increasing taxes on the wealthy from the great-grandson of Oscar Meyer (yes, that Oscar Meyer), who admits he was born into the one percent.

From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Your Street

November 19, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

The Occupy movement has done something amazing, getting Americans to start questioning our economic divides. It’s created spaces for people to come together, voice their discontents and dreams, creatively challenge destructive greed. It’s created powerful political theater, engaged community, and an alternative to silence and powerlessness.

You May Already Be a Commoner If...

November 19, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

You may already be a commoner…

1. If you question the prevailing myth that all problems have private, individualized solutions.

2. If you notice how many of life’s pleasures exist outside the money economy—gardening, fishing, conversing, playing music, playing ball, making love, watching sunsets.

3. If you take time to appreciate and enjoy what the commons offers. (As the visionary Brazilian educator Paulo Freire once declared, “We are bigger than our schedules.”)

The Occupy Movement is Too Big to Be Shut Down

November 19, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

Recent headlines chronicle police busting up Occupy encampments in New York, Los Angeles and Oakland. But the movement has spread so far and wide that it can’t be shut down that easily. Two nights ago on a chilly night in Grand Rapids, with the wind howling off of nearby Lake Michigan, I sat down to talk with the young activists of Occupy Grand Rapids, camping out on the plaza of a downtown church.

Reclaiming and Redefining America's Hopes

November 16, 2011 | By Jay Walljasper

The commons is an old value that’s resurfacing as a fresh approach to twenty-first-century crises such as escalating economic inequality, looming ecological disruption and worsening social alienation.

Give to the Max for the Commons

November 15, 2011 | By Ana Micka

Since 2001, On the Commons has sparked collaborations, showcased commons-based solutions at the community and national level, developed approaches for how to share our commons equitably, and inspired commons activists to make a difference in their communities, and the world.

On the Commons is currently involved in a variety of efforts to advance the commons movement. Our work includes:

Organizing commons convergences and meetings with local commoners in communities across the country, as well as connecting commoners to one another to grow our movement.