COMMONS MAGAZINE
The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor.
Thomas Donohue, Former President AFL-CIO
Today, we got our shoes dirty. We visited two very different types of farms outside this bustling agriculture town of Lucas do Rio Verde. One, struggling to survive, the other seemingly thriving. One small, one large. One growing all food, the other nearly all agricultural commodities. The stories of both farms reflect the challenges and promises of Brazilian agriculture.
A controversy over the commons has erupted in the streets of New York. At issue are the streets themselves, which in principle belong to everyone. But some New York drivers don’t want to start sharing them with pedestrians and bikes.
New York is America’s least auto-dependent city—more than half of all households do not even own a car (75 percent don’t in Manhattan). And the city is nearly flat as a pancake.
So New York ought to be a paradise for biking and walking. Well, except for the traffic, which is world-famous for being treacherous.
If you pass by Toby’s Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station, California – a small town bordering the Point Reyes National Seashore — there’s a good chance you’ll encounter Jonathan Rowe. Rowe spends a lot of time at Toby’s coffee bar, a spot that he calls his “commons office.” Amid the hay bales and sacks of chicken feed, he writes on his laptop and surfs the Web while welcoming friendly interruptions from anyone in town.
As the home of America’s most famous commons—the site of political rallies, community happenings and spontaneous socializing since 1634—Boston made an obvious choice for OTC’s first commons convergence.
At a recent meeting of a common security club in Boston—one of many groups around the U.S. where people come together to discuss ways to help each other get along in these shaky economic times—someone raised the idea of a tool exchange. Neighbors could take inventory of who owns a snow blower, wheelbarrow, extension ladder, drills, shovels, rakes and other gear that folks could share.
The term “commoning” has been popularized by historian Peter Linebaugh, whose book The Magna Carta Manifesto shows that the founding document of Anglo-American democracy repeatedly affirms people’s right to use the commons to fulfill their basic needs. A majority of English people, known as “commoners,” derived at least part of their livelihoods from the commons before the brutal onset of enclosures by wealthy landowners. Hence the word “commoning” describes people living in close connection to the commons.
On The Commons is sponsoring a commons celebration in Boston Friday March 4, at 7:00 PM at the First Church in Jamaica Plain Unitarian Universalist, 6 Eliot Street.
This is the first of a series of Commons Convergences around the country throughout the year coming to Minneapolis, Portland and other cities.
The event will showcase innovative commons projects in the Boston area, and a presentation by Jay Walljasper, author/editor of “All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons”:http://www.onthecommons.org/all-that-we-share.
Not only is Wisconsin governor Scott Walker using the budget deficit as ploy to flatten unions, he also quietly inserted a clause into this Budget Repair Bill that would sell off state owned power plants without taking bids.
The protests in Wisconsin over workers’ rights and state budget cuts are sparking national action. While not every governor will recklessly attack collective bargaining, all states are facing major budget constraints.
The eyes of the nation have focused on Wisconsin twice this month—once when the Packers, the only community-owned NFL team, won the Super Bowl, and now as thousands of workers occupy the state capitol to resist governor Scott Walker’s direct attack on the American middle class and union rights.
Like in so many other Latin American countries, Brazil’s national history is rooted in colonialism, exploitation and class warfare. After emerging in 1985 from a 20-year dictatorship, the newly democratic Brazil was faced with the social upheaval caused by structural adjustment policies attached to loans made from the World Bank.
The New York Times recently reported on a controversy rippling through the art world: deaccessioning, which means a museum selling off works from its permanent collection.
It’s a growing trend. The Chicago Art Institute is hawking two Picassos, a Matisse and a Braque at Christie’s in London, while the Cleveland Art Museum has 32 old masters up on the auction block. The J. Paul Getty museum hopes to unload 15 paintings, and the Pennsylvania Museum of Fine Arts and the Carnegie Museum of Art, five each.
JP FORUM
MARCH 4, 2011. 7:00PM, First Church in Jamaica Plain, Unitarian Universalist
6 Eliot Street
Join us for a special evening of inspiration and conversation to celebrate the emerging commons movement around the country and right here in Boston! Book signing and refreshments to follow the presentations.
Featuring: