| Powerful Ideas, Practical Actions |
August 2011 :: Movement Building |
|
|
In this newsletter, a preview of the new issue of YES!
New Livelihoods
How We’re Building the Do-It-Ourselves Economy
The jobs crisis has slipped off the political radar, but to ordinary Americans, jobs and the economy are top issues. How can we build strong local economies that sustain us in an era of ecological limits? What can we do to support each other in challenging times, and how can we rebuild the American Dream?
|
|
|
|
|
|
The YES! Interview
Want Jobs? Rebuild the Dream
by Sarah van Gelder
Van Jones is leading a national mobilization to rebuild the middle class—through decent work, fair taxes, and opportunities for all.
With politics in D.C. hitting new lows, few progressives look to either the Obama administration or the two major parties for leadership in restoring the middle class and transitioning to a green, just economy. Instead, many are returning to a strategy that actually brought real progress during the last century: building strong, unified, and sustained people’s movements.
Van Jones is one of those working to build people power today. Jones is a co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green for All. He was appointed as a White House advisor on green jobs, but an attack led by Glenn Beck of Fox News led to his resignation in September 2009. Jones is currently a senior fellow on green jobs and climate solutions at the Center for American Progress and a visiting fellow at Princeton University.
YES! Executive Editor Sarah van Gelder spoke to Jones shortly before he launched the movement to Rebuild the American Dream. With groups involved ranging from MoveOn.org to organized labor, could this be the 21st-century movement that makes hope and change relevant again?
READ THE INTERVIEW ONLINE…
|
|
Video
The American Dream, Reloaded
It’s happening: The movement to rebuild the dream means owning our stories about how it went wrong—and finding our own ways to make it right.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How To Build a People’s Movement
Now’s the time to challenge economic orthodoxy—but only a massive social movement can turn things around.
by Seth Borgos
The United States is entering the fourth year of its deepest downturn since the Great Depression. The official unemployment rate is rising again, and labor force participation among many groups has plummeted to historic lows.
A stillborn economic “recovery” has distributed 88 percent of its benefits to corporate profits and one percent to wages and salaries. The financial press is full of warnings that we have forgotten the causes of the collapse and are doomed to repeat it. Ordinary Americans, pollsters tell us, have little faith that the economy will improve, and attribute hard times to the misdeeds of capitalists.
If ever there was a time to challenge economic orthodoxy, this would be it.
READ MORE …
|
|
|
| Jump In Together: An Invitation to No Impact Week |
|
|
Sometimes the hardest part of changing our lives and world is believing that it’s possible.
Colin Beavan on finding a place to start.
by Colin Beavan
There was a period, right around the time we discovered that American soldiers had been torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, when I felt paralyzed with fear and anger.
If you’re concerned about the world, there’s nothing worse than that feeling of powerlessness: the idea that we are all victims of outside circumstances; that catastrophe might occur at any moment; that the world is capricious. I don’t want to live in that world.
I want to live in world that I can do something about.
READ MORE…
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
What We Could Lose Unless We Change: Remembering Ray Anderson
by Paul Hawken
“Reimagining the world was a responsibility for Ray, a gift to a future that is begging for selflessness and vision.” Paul Hawken honors the life of a green business pioneer.
|
|
How Change Happens: A Three-Fold Strategy
by David Korten
Successful social movements are emergent, evolving, radically self-organizing, and involve the dedicated efforts of many people, each finding the role that best uses his or her gifts and passions.
|
|
How The Impossible Becomes Ordinary
by Rebecca Solnit
If you’re tempted to feel powerless and passive, remember that the bogeyman we call “they” wants you to feel that way. And then don’t.
|
|
Saying Goodbye to the P.O.
by Shannon Hayes
Thousands of small-town post offices are on notice for closure. Radical homemaker Shannon Hayes on what that will mean for the communities who love them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Highlights from the last newsletter:
:: What the Outside Can Do for the Inside
Family, community, and the world of ideas help prisoners cope and prepare for life after incarceration. Eight outreach programs that make a difference.
:: How to Liberate America
How is it that our nation is awash in money, but too broke to provide jobs and services? David Korten introduces a landmark new report, “How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule.”
:: “I’d Rather Have a Life than a Pile of Money”
Peter Buffett, Warren Buffett’s son, on his family wealth, his music career, and his commitment to social justice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In July, Adam MacKinnon handed over the newsletter editing reins to me when he moved to California. It is with great joy and humility that I greet you as the new Online Marketing Manager. Our Fall 2011 issue on New Livelihoods is a perfect beginning for me at YES! Magazine because of my background and passion for building local living economies.
As a co-founder, developer, project manager, and finally sales & marketing manager at Web Collective, I was part of the team that implemented the YES! Magazine website in Plone back in 2009.
But at this point in my life, I’m looking to be more than just an “IT guy,” and use my skills and passions to play a more direct role in creating a better world, and this role at YES! fits that bill perfectly.
Let’s build a positive future together!
In community,
Derek Hoshiko
Online Marketing Manager
YES! Magazine
|
|
|
|
|
$12 SUBSCRIPTION
Get a year of YES! Magazine for just $12.
+ A BONUS ISSUE :: 63% OFF
NONPROFIT. INDEPENDENT. SUBSCRIBER-SUPPORTED.
GIVE THE GIFT OF YES!
to a friend
BACK SET
Treat yourself to 15 years of inspiring stories from YES! Magazine.
|
|
|
|
|
The Page That Counts
Percentage of Americans who think college is affordable for most people today: 22
Percentage of American college presidents who think college is affordable for most people today: 42
:: MORE PAGE THAT COUNTS
|
|
|
|
|
