• soil is decontaminated • water is retained for irrigation •!sewerage is reformed • irrigation is efficient • harvest is processed • harvest is stored • transit is expanded Urban orchards have a long history. For example, Southern California was once known as the Orange Empire, hosting 100 million orange trees, just 60 years ago. Orchards 15 miles long and 8 miles wide spread across the basin. In 1910, the walnuts of southern California had a total value greater than all other nuts grown in the United States. The cities of Walnut, Pomona (Roman goddess of fruit trees, gardens and orchards), Gardena, Hawthorne, Bell Gardens and Orange recall those years. Even within the City of Los Angeles, assuming orchards on two-thirds of the 50% total acres allocated to crops, we could plant 67 million food trees. That’s 22 trees per resident. In Pasadena nearby, the Dervaes family grows 6,000 lbs/year of 350 varieties of foods on a lot just 66’ x 132’. In Austin, Texas, TreeFolks Urban Orchard Project plants orchards and teaches planting skills to neighbors and schoolchildren. In India, one quarter of all city trees yield fruit. Prague and Stockholm fill open space with apple, pear and plum trees. And over in Philadelphia, without knowing how to plant a tree, I started the Philly Orchard Project. Began by making a display, went to public parks, collected names and emails of supporters, found board of directors, To date, POP has planted over 25 orchards. To promote POP, I broadcast the following manifesto:
From Food Co-op to Food Corp
The Woodstock Generation started food co-ops in the 70s to provide healthy food cheap, by pooling labor. They confronted capitalism, hierarchy, and agribusiness' abuses of human health, labor, nature and animals. They sought community control of capital, for local benefit. As the Boomers aged they became America's landowners, landlords, executives and investors. Their food co-ops likewise gradually gentrified, becoming New Age convenience stores less committed to low prices, bulk food staples, whole foods, non-corporate brands, member labor, member committees. Food co-ops became job machines whose greatest priority is the payroll. Today, co-op wealth leaves town when 401(k) retirement plans plow staff benefits into global stock markets. Likewise, sales of corporate organic brands such as Hain (Bearitos) send local cash to Monsanto, ExxonMobil, WalMart, Citicorp and McDonalds. This has been done in the name of "professionalization," to ensure co-op survival in a capitalist world. There is a difference between professionalization and corporatization, however. Co-op Grocer magazine promotes corporate "industry standards" and the costly consultants who reinforce these. They endorse "Policy Governance," which explicitly disparages membership committees. It also requires the co-op board of directors to "speak with one voice," blocking minority board views. Such governance relegates directors to broad discussion of goals and values. Meanwhile their General Managers must interpret lofty goals narrowly, as payroll pressures grow. Co-op Boomers have thus abandoned their children and grandchildren to a brutal debt-ridden economy with depleted
natural resources, without truly affordable safety nets for food, health and finance. While Boomers fade and drain Social Security, Busters will need to revive genuine co-op traditions to meet their needs. They can professionalize without corporatizing. This means their new co-ops will stay lean and green, by hiring only those who live simply-- more excited by mission than money. New co-ops will need to avoid mortgages and slash utility bills by rehabbing marginal properties with member labor and deep insulation; relying on community credits and barter; stocking low-markup bulk staples grown regionally; starting affiliate health co-ops, housing co-ops, revolving loan funds, and regional stock exchanges. These mutual aid programs, and community solidarity, will be their social security. _______________________________________________
CONTROL OF
HEALTH
Healthy Rebellion: League of Uninsured Voters (LUV)
For 99 years the campaign for universal health coverage has relied on conferences, panel discussions, petitions and rallies.! These vent moral indignation but lack power.! Today, 51 million Americans without medical insurance and 30 million Americans paying for inadequate coverage will not get prompt affordable health care through polite legal means. That's because Congress and insurance companies are now significantly owned by multinational investment firms.! Thus policy is made in remote board rooms that maximize profit and minimize people.! These stuffed suits and their puppets have no concern for suffering Americans, slick advertisements notwithstanding. Therefore, to take effective control of medical care, the uninsured and our allies have begun organizing to damage the profitability of insurance investments, while building a new American health system. The League of Uninsured Voters (LUV) embraces the American tradition of rowdy confrontation that ended slavery, gained votes for women, won the eight-hour workday, pressed for social security, demanded civil rights, secured AIDS funding, and established the nation.! Through LUV, we uninsured take leadership to expand Medicare to all.! Liberal campaigns need our initiative, because moral indignation is less powerful than desperation.! Our successful confrontations require calculating the needs and vulnerabilities of of insurers and their investors, in order to frustrate them until we win.! There are several ways to