On April 9, 2020, the Public Banking Institute released a short and pithy economic relief plan for real people (not corporate “people”) and local economies. In its Open Letter to Congress, PBI outlines four immediate actions. Last night (April 13, 2020) during a City Council meeting (being held virtually because of social distancing), I made […]
Transition to real democracy
On April 5, 2020, I sent this email to 50+ residents and business owners in my hometown — Evanston, Illinois. The email was a cover letter to my proposal for getting some quick cash to all Evanston residents during this first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal is in a separate blog:COVID Cash: Emergency […]
How local community banks can turn into temporary “public” banks, for the benefit of everyone. U.S. people and local economies are going to be in need of a lot of emergency cash in the next few months. The 2020 growing season is just getting started for U.S. farmers in the Upper Midwest. We need to […]
This informal newsletter features timely Evanston-connected information in bite-sized formats. The purpose of this newsletter is fourfold — growing our community consciousness, creating a real democracy, restoring our natural resources (air, water, soil, ourselves), and supporting each other economically — one event, one person, one project, one epiphany at a time. Special note to those who are […]
I recently sent a version of this blog to some food-and-farm colleagues as a possible idea for “big picture” system change, without reinventing the wheel. This is basically a re-purposing of two U.S. institutions, to the benefit of both and for the benefit of all Americans—rural, urban, suburban, including non-humans (soil, water, air, plants, animals, […]
Slightly edited version of a posting made to three major U.S. food-and-farm listservs: COMFOOD (Tufts Univ.) Food Policy Networks – FPN (Johns Hopkins Univ.) Regeneration Midwest (serving 12 states) CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 2. Beginning an IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY 3. QUESTIONS FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES 4. PRESIDENTIAL PLATFORMS on food-and-farm 5. PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES 6. INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE ANNOUNCES 1. […]
Ever since the leadership of the women’s march organizations had some meltdowns (late 2018), I’ve been hoping that some new U.S. organization would arise to fill the vacuum — to build on the women’s marches of 2017, on the elections of 2018, and the on-going women’s conversations on social media. Perhaps Supermajority might be that […]
On Monday night, Dec. 10, 2018, the Evanston City Council voted 9-0 Monday night to honor the citizens’ referendum to save Harley Clarke by taking imminent demolition off the table. They did this by voting down an appeal of the Preservation Commission’s unanimous rejection of a certificate to demolish. Watching the proceedings via livestream TV, […]