Living Democracy, Feeding Hope

It was a Martin Luther King Day like none other! Via videos , both Barack and Michelle Obama movingly called us to get out and make it a National Day of Service. I was thrilled, hearing of millions of Americans connecting in common purpose — many, for the first time. But I sense a surprising misfit between this call for “service” and the Obamas’ own work empowering communities, as well as what our hurting nation most needs. Might this be the perfect moment to reflect on “service”? My own hesitation about the service frame is simple: If I serve, someone else is being served. If I serve, I act, but the other — the beneficiary — does not. Making ourselves servants, we might also ignore our own legitimate needs as well as be tempted to imagine we already know what others’ needs are. In any case “service” seems to create two classes: the givers and the receivers. And that’s a big problem. Doesn’t this dichotomy help blind us to the reality of the human condition that Martin Luther King, Jr. called us to see? In his “ Letter from Birmingham Jail ,” he wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. ”The strong communities we need in order to rebuild our nation, and our own lives, arise, I believe, only as we focus on Dr. King’s “network of mutuality.” Through this lens, we realize that in serving others we serve ourselves. And that’s good: all self-interest is relational. A study of over three thousand people found a “helpers’ high,” with fully 95 percent of volunteers reporting they feel better emotionally and physically — with more energy and serenity — after helping others. But these rewards may be the thinnest layer of our “receiving.” For through the lens of “networks of mutuality,” we realize that the quality of our lives depends on the liberation of talents* of all other members of our communities. Just think for a moment of the doctors, teachers, and scientists lost to America today because almost a fifth of our children are growing in life-stunting poverty. A recent study found that childhood poverty costs our country yearly about $500 billion; and dollars capture but a fraction of the real value of which we’re robbing ourselves. The service frame also fails to capture the deeper, almost universal human need for efficacy, for power. In the service mode it’s easy to forget that the recipients of our acts have just as great a need for efficacy — including the need to give — as we do. But if we shift the frame to one of co-creating power — problem-solving power — much changes. Most important, we perceive those we want to “help” as key to the solution. Both Michelle and Barack were part of community organizing networks grounded in these truths. In the 1980s Barack led one of the (now) forty-five affiliate groups of the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation network. Gamaliel defines its philosophy of “civic participation” as enabling all to “participate in shaping the community in which they live.” The Gamaliel network operates in seventeen states and in three provinces of South Africa — all supporting grassroots leaders in low-income communities. They do not commonly use the term “service. ”This ecumenical congregation-based network is just one of a half dozen nationally that involve roughly three million Americans, all working on foundational questions of democracy — from school reform to health care to immigration policy. One, for example, Greater Boston Interfaith Organization , comprising sixty-five congregations and other organization affiliates — and linked with the national Industrial Areas Foundation network — is widely credited as among the most powerful forces moving Massachusetts closer than just about any other state to universal health coverage. Gamaliel calls its approach a “practice of hope,” and speaks of “organizing hope” as its goal. I love that. But the practice of hope you can’t plug into through one or even several days of service. It rests on relationships of trust and skill built over time — relationships of “mutuality. ”Unfortunately, focusing just on calls for service can help to keep these and similar citizen empowerment networks invisible to most Americans. Because they are not widely known and appreciated as examples of “living democracy,” it’s possible for fear-driven misrepresentations easily to spread. Just google “Gamaliel,” and you’ll see what I mean. The Obamas have lived and taught the truth to which Dr. King’s words call us. So let us hold them and ourselves to what they and we know — that our real task is engagement in building strong communities because we do indeed live within “a single garment of destiny.” This is the work of hope. Frances Moore Lappe, of the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, is the author or co-author of sixteen books, including Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad. *The “liberation of talents,” in the words of political philosopher Harry Boyte, is the very essence of freedom. Originally published by Huffington Post on 2/19/2009

The vote is in. Health insurance rules and options will now offer Americans some greater protection. But in recent weeks opponents’ charges have gotten so wild — “Idolatrous Statism!” “Totalitarianism!” — and hate-filled acts so egregious — the spitting of racial slurs at black Congressmen — many wonder how a nation so bitterly split can move forward. It is hard to imagine any democracy working in which so many citizens seem to hate government, a cavernous divide separates public opinion, and a fringe even calls for secession. In a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey 56 percent agreed that the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it “poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.” Among Independents and Republicans, between six and seven out of ten hold this view. Some see anti-government sentiment simply as the American way. “We love our country, but we’ve never liked government,” Thomas Cronin wrote recently in the New York Times . Not true. Over the years, Americans’ feelings about government have varied greatly. During the New Deal and again during the Kennedy years and much of the Great Society era, many Americans had strong positive feelings about government. A lot of us jumped at the chance to join in government-sponsored civic efforts — the Peace Corps abroad, for example, and anti-poverty initiatives at home. To the question of whether one trusts the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time, three out of four responded positively in 1964. By 2003, only slightly more than half of us felt that way. Much depends on how questions are framed. According to a 2004 Pew Research Center poll, for example, 69 percent of Americans held a favorable view of the federal government. There was also wide agreement on its responsibilities: Defense comes first but also among the top seven responsibilities — with two-thirds or more agreeing — were these: regulating big corporations, guaranteeing good public education, protecting the environment, and ensuring equal opportunity. Guaranteeing health care for all garnered 60 percent support. So, while our government may have a credibility problem today — as it should, with corporate influence ever-more evident — it’s critical to get one thing clear: The vast majority of us aren’t congenitally anti-government. Partisan political nastiness and deadlock are the media’s most common explanations as to why Americans’ opinion of government seems to be sinking. But this diagnosis begs vastly more questions than it answers. We’re not encouraged to ask, Why? Why, suddenly, did our political leaders become less civil? Did their mothers stop teaching them manners? Probably not. What is a more likely explanation? The fall off in public goodwill toward government might be tied to the decision by some to redefine the democratic process itself. Growing up, I learned that democracy meant the coming together of different perspectives to deliberate over what’s best for all, and then compromising until a path is chosen. But in the 1980s, another school of thought took hold. The goal of politicians, in this view, is not to win a public debate or “make a deal” to achieve a legislative solution; it is to destroy the other side. “Politics is war conducted by other means. In political warfare you do not fight just to prevail in an argument, but to destroy the enemy’s fighting ability. . . .In political wars, the aggressor usually prevails,” wrote David Horowitz in “The Art of Political War,” a pamphlet distributed by Republican congressman Tom DeLay to Republican colleagues in 2000. (Later, Horowitz produced a book by that title.) Plus, many Republicans apparently discovered that making government itself the “problem” (a la Reagan’s famous quip), rather than any particular policy, was a great strategy for winning elections. And if that’s your platform, why not prove it? Make government fail. Drive it into deficit, cut back powers and personnel necessary to enforce standards, and block legislation so nothing happens. Claim that almost any government action is socialist or communist — and will destroy America. Then decry government ineptitude. The consequence of the approach is bitter political division. Reinforce that with a devoutly partisan Fox News and the spread of AM hate radio (with most of the rest of the media failing to call out its lies and distortions), and it is easy to assume that we, the American people, are incorrigibly divided, too. But when we look beyond the shrill, wild claims, we find, for example, that 86 percent of us agree that corporations already have too much power in Washington and 80 percent disapproves of the January Supreme Court ruling giving corporations even greater political influence. On solutions, too, we are strongly united: While our politicians could not agree on health insurance reform, according to a recent Newsweek poll, among the American people “73 percent want government to require businesses to offer insurance, almost 80 percent favor requiring insurance companies to cover everyone, regardless of their health, and 81 percent like the idea of insurance exchanges.” Interestingly, when opponents of the president’s plan were told that all of these provisions are in it, few were moved. Isn’t this a sign that partisan media so fogs our lenses that we can’t see unity where it exists? Almost two thirds of Americans believe “the gap between rich and poor should be reduced, even if it means higher taxes for the wealthy.” Two thirds agree that “America must play a leading role in addressing climate change...complying with international agreements on global warming,” according to 2009 surveys. The most significant common ground, lost in the view that we’re hopelessly divided, is this: Progressives and conservatives alike see concentrated, unaccountable power as dangerous . Progressives focus their fear on corporate power, while conservatives worry more about government power. Yet, in many respects, these two are joined at the hip — two faces of one underlying problem, privately held government. Imagine if Americans really began talking to each other and joined to challenge both. Originally published by the Huffington Post on 05/22/2010

The Republican national committee seems to think they’re socialist. Dick Cheney dubbed them part of, you know, the “Old Europe,” suggesting they’re locked in a useless past. In any case, they’ve nothing to teach us, right? Not so fast. In a world searching for answers to multiple assaults, it’s probably not a bad idea to take off the blinders and look for what is actually working. I just spent two weeks in Germany and after I got accustomed to Hamburg’s wide, well-groomed biking and running trails and rest stops on the autobahn that look like swank New York cafes - embarrassing my German friend by taking photos of the salad bar - I looked further. Crisscrossing the country in 10 stops, touring for my latest book Getting a Grip - in German, Packen Wir’s An ! (Let’s go for it!) - I passed groves of tall wind turbines in every part of the country. Looking graceful and powerful, to my eyes, some stood just in front of old, sagging power lines. I drove by at least a few fields, called “solar parks,” blanketed with photovoltaic panels. I rode my first solar-charged electric bike. Wind installations near Steyerberg I could now see, literally, why Germany has earned its place among world leaders in clean energy - with over 15 percent of its electricity now coming from renewable sources. This shift didn’t happen spontaneously, of course, but by using a legislative tool creating a win-win-win: for citizens, for the earth, for the nation. It is Germany’s “feed-in tariff“ law, upgraded about a decade ago. And it’s real simple - the law rewards any household, business or utility for becoming a renewable energy generator. It guarantees that you, the generator, can feed your power into the grid and that you’ll be paid a price good enough to quickly recover your installation costs. And, that good price is assured for 20 years. The locked-in premium offered is reduced each year so the sooner you get started, the more you gain. Costs are spread across all rate payers and come to a few dollars a month. In Germany, I’m told, this one law has generated about 280,000 new jobs. (Proportionally, in the United States that would mean almost a million jobs.) It’s such a simple and effective tool that it’s already spread to over 64 countries, states, provinces and municipalities. My first day home, on NPR’s “Living on Earth,” I learn that Gainesville, Florida, is a recent convert. There, households pay about 13 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity, but they can now earn 32 cents a kilowatt hour for generating electricity. Not bad. Apparently, about a quarter of U.S. utilities, those that are public or cooperative, would find it attractive and could adopt the approach just by deciding to do it without legislative action. But my most enduring impression of Germany was nothing I could see in whirling blades, generous bicycle paths, or mouthwatering food at highway rest stops. It was a feeling - less stress, less fear; more trust. The day I got home, the New York Times reported that German unemployment is significantly less than it was in 2006, even though I know Germany is hurting in the global crisis. German employers in a downturn can get help from the government to keep workers employed. Hmm. Isn’t this approach a sensible complement to “unemployment” benefits that just pay jobless people to stay home or search for a new job? Germans aren’t losing homes like we are because they didn’t experience our housing boom or bust; and unemployment benefits there offer about two-thirds of previous pay, compared to less than half in the U.S.; and they last much longer. And, as with their “rewarding renewables” approach to clean energy, Germans are innovating their way around the broken money system, too. They’ve created virtually hundreds of complementary currency systems , roughly 30 of which serve whole regions by keeping money circulating in the region and promoting regional goods and services. The greater ease I felt among Germans might also reflect less stress of, and less fear of, poverty. The share of Germans who are poor — living below 50 percent of the median income — is not even half the share of Americans who are in the same situation. And in the U.S., the probability of dying before your 60th birthday is 35 percent higher than in Germany. And it’s worth noting that Germans achieve their quality of life using roughly half the energy per person that we do. One particular scene stays with me. I am waiting for a friend outside a beautifully appointed women’s restroom in the lower level of the main Cologne train station. People walk briskly by through a long, wide corridor of shops. My eyes land on two little girls, maybe 5 and 7, talking and playing across from me. I watch for a few minutes, and then it dawns on me that there’s no parent in sight. Their mom has left them here to wait for her. I realize that at home I’d probably never see this ordinary scene of public trust. No culture can expect to look to another for answers, wholesale. But wouldn’t it be tragic if we let mindless labels and manipulated stereotypes block us from inspiration and practical ideas just because they arise elsewhere? After all, these positive glimpses are of a country that in the last 100 years has experienced two wars on its soil, Fascism, genocide, and, for a huge portion of its people, totalitarianism enduring 40 years. Germany has not only survived but is working in many important ways. It might have just a little something to offer the world. Children at the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum presented me with “The Peace Dove“ while in Berlin. There are 30 traveling around the world as part of the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. More information may be found on Feed-in Tariffs in Powering the Green Economy: The Feed-in Tariff Handbook , Miguel Mendonca, 2009, Earthscan. Originally published by Huffington Post on 6/30/2009

I’m relieved that our country’s taken a first step in getting a grip on health insurance for all, but we’re sunk unless we can now get a grip on our health. With diet implicated in much of our nation’s disease burden, it makes a lot of sense to reverse the forces that have turned food itself into a national health threat. That’s why I’m thrilled today, March 31, to take part in the launch of a national campaign to retire Ronald McDonald, who for almost fifty years has enticed youngsters into eating habits with horrific life-long consequences. Did you know that one in three American children is now predicted to be stricken with diabetes? Corporate Accountability International , a global leader in securing the first global public health treaty—the 2005 Global Tobacco Treaty—is today announcing its campaign to halt marketing unhealthy food to children at a press conference in New York City. McDonald’s targets the most vulnerable among us- our kids. We need to stand up for them and target McDonald’s- arguably the company most active in marketing unhealthy food directly to children. I hope you’ll go now to Retire Ronald and stand up for kids and help end these practices. Our kids need us. At the press event, I’ll be with my three-year old granddaughter, Josephine, as a reminder of what’s at stake. Here’s my statement: We know Ronald McDonald is everywhere. By 1998, almost 89 percent of kids younger than eight were visiting McDonald’s at least once a month. And since, the company has said its goal is 100 percent, and has boasted to its shareholders about “[a] slew of new promotions...targeted at kids as young as two.” Former Vice President of Marketing R.J. Milano does not mince words. He’s said: “I’m going to own every kid transaction out there.” Why is this a problem? Because it’s not about reaching adults, whom we trust to make decisions — good or bad — for their bodies. Ronald is about targeting kids. Why kids? For starters, kids under twelve command up to $50 billion in direct purchasing power, and influence a total of $670 billion in family purchases. McDonald’s knows that the surest way to parents’ wallets is through their children’s stomachs. The more cynical answer is that kids are the perfect advertising audience: Very young children don’t even know they’re being marketed to. Plus, brand loyalties created in childhood persist into adulthood. Children aren’t just little adults. As their minds are still forming, they are more impressionable than adults; and therefore more vulnerable to marketers’ manipulation. Children under the age of eight simply cannot grasp Ronald’s persuasive intent. The American Academy of Pediatrics is clear: “Advertising directed toward children is inherently deceptive and exploits children under eight years of age.” McDonald’s also works to get around “gatekeepers,” the term executives use for parents and educators who are just trying to make healthy choices for kids. A good example of Ronald’s going around parents and marketing directly to their kids is the “McSpellit Club” in which McDonald’s rewards children with free burgers and Chicken McNuggets for meeting educational goals. In one Michigan elementary school McDonald’s installed a mural of Ronald as well as a “Mini McDonald’s” restaurant where students could redeem academic achievement awards for their favorite fast food. Ronald also tries to win the trust of gatekeepers through corporate responsibility programs like “Go Active! with Ronald McDonald,” which are really just marketing by another name. So that’s where we are today: Parents can watch out for their kids. They can monitor their television use. They can monitor what they read and who they hang out with. But McDonald’s marketing team continues its clever strategies to get around parents who are just trying to do their job. That’s not right. How pervasive is McDonald’s striped marketing arm? Let me give you an example: I was talking with my 3-year old granddaughter Josephine yesterday and I asked her: “Do you know how McDonald’s gets kids to eat unhealthy foods?” Her answer? “Toys.” It’s true. In fact, McDonald’s is one of the biggest toy distributors in the world. Surprised, I asked her whether she’d ever been to a Mcdonald’s. She hadn’t. “Then how did you know?”, I asked. She just pointed to her head. If a three-year old child who’s never been to McDonald’s can figure it out, then it should be pretty clear to the rest of us. Enough is enough. It’s time to retire Ronald . Originally published by the Huffington Post on 05/31/2010

Mother’s Day is a great time for lightening the burden on moms. I mean, we’ve been cast as way too responsible for how our species has turned out. “[O]ur line of apes is in a class by itself,” argues anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, in Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding . Our roots, Hrdy posits, must lie with a line of primates who brought up their offspring quite differently than do today’s Great Apes. From this line, we became distinctly “cooperative breeders”—a far cry from other primates who don’t trust others to care for their young. Among hunter-gatherers, it is dads, siblings, aunties, grandmas, and friends who help care for babies from birth, Hrdy reports. Among the Efe in Central Africa, babies enjoy attention from an average of fourteen caretakers in the first days of life; and as they grow, someone other than the lactating mom holds an Efe baby for 60 percent of daylight hours. Hrdy notes that “shared suckling is not observed among wild apes but occurs at least occasionally in 87 percent of typical foraging societies.” In societies where moms have many helpers, they can “devote energy to producing more and bigger babies.” And their children have the “luxury of growing up slowly, building stronger bodies, better immune systems, and in some cases bigger brains... “ In cooperating to rear our babies, we gained a “combination of empathy and mind reading,” without which “we would not have evolved to be human at all,” writes Hrdy. In a word, we can thank our helpless, demanding babies — and the teamwork they called forth — for our distinctly cooperative nature. So, as we celebrate Mother’s Day, let’s remember our roots. It’s all those mothers’ helpers, too — creating deep, trusting bonds, that made the best in us possible. Originally published by the Huffington Post on 05/09/2010

We’re almost home when a big hand-drawn plywood sign on the side of the street catches our eye — “Hooray Arizona.” My partner Richard Rowe is puzzled, murmuring that he didn’t know an Arizona team had played today. “It’s immigration the guy is angry about,” I say. And we both moan. I am to do a live radio interview in 15 minutes, so we just keep driving home. Afterward, I come down to the kitchen and learn, to my big surprise, that while I’d been upstairs talking about democracy, my partner had been doing it. Here’s what I mean: Dick had driven back to the rough-hewn sign in a working class stretch of Belmont, Massachusetts. And when at first he didn’t see the fellow who’d been there earlier, he waited. Soon the man appeared from his double-decker house. Dick walked up and introduced himself. “It makes me feel bad,” Dick told Joe. “This doesn’t help. It just makes the problem worse.” “But all Arizona is doing is implementing the law,” Joe responded, “because the federal government isn’t enforcing the law. It’s all about politics. They’re coming in with drugs and killing Americans.” “Why are they coming here?” Dick asked and answered. “We’re creating the market for the drugs. We’re making it harder for Mexican farmers to survive. Our NAFTA treaty meant American taxpayers have been subsidizing big U.S. agribusiness to drive Mexican farmers under. I think we should go back to the McCain immigration bill that he’s backed away from.” “That’s amnesty,” Joe retorted. “It’s not,” Dick said. “They have to qualify. They have to work hard to get it. They have to earn their way.” “My father was an immigrant,” said Dick. “My grandfather was an immigrant,” said Joe. “So we both understand the advantage of coming to America. (About then, a passing car beeped approval of Joe’s sign.) Dick and Joe, a contractor, talked for about 45 minutes. When Joe’s wife began calling him to dinner, it was clear he didn’t want to stop. He wanted to keep on going, to engage. “When I saw that sign I really felt sad,” Dick repeated. “I’ve got to do something. What can I do?” Joe asked. “First you get in touch with your congressmen and push them to pass the immigration bill.” “They are all corrupt,” said Joe. “More and more people are upset and want to see change. Women, elderly, young people are fed up, fed up with government because they are corrupt.” “But this doesn’t solve the problem. It just inflames the problem.” said Dick. “I have got to say something. Tell we what I should say.” “How about: Fix immigration?” “Okay. I will. Come back tomorrow and you’ll see. It will say that,” Joe said. “We shook hands,” Dick told me, “and we left as friends with far more in common than we’d ever imagined.” Dick said he felt hesitant as he had approached the house, with no idea who they were or how the sign maker would react. “I imagined being yelled at or ridiculed,” he said. “What is clear is that Joe didn’t want to sit back any more. He couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. He was engaged.” Listening to Dick’s story I feel braver myself. I feel a bit more confident that I could do this, too — more convinced than ever of the power of following our impulse to engage. A lot of media make it harder, though — often portraying people with Joe’s views as too angry to talk. But if we start with the premise that we all have reasons to be angry, and if we share our feelings as well as our information, who knows what can happen. Originally published by the Huffington Post on June 28, 2010

In Paris, sixty years ago today, the U.N. General Assembly passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Access to food is the right of “everyone,” says its Article 25. Yet, a new World Public Opinion poll reports that one in four Americans still rejects its premise — that it is government’s responsibility to protect citizens’ right to eat. The extent of America’s depend-on-yourself-or-die stance may be unique: In eighteen of the twenty-one nations surveyed, at most one in ten respondents shares this view. Cliches abound as to why the U.S. stands alone. The positive spin chalks it up to the “rugged individualism” of our “frontier spirit.” I’m not so sure. Consider the less romantic, more recent power of the steady drip, drip, drip of market ideology from the Reagan era onward, telling us to shrink government’s responsibilities. But then, in 2008, the drip suddenly stopped and that ideology seemed to be spiraling down the drain. When the depth of our financial crisis began sinking in, even a dazed Alan Greenspan acknowledged that his self-regulating market may require public action. As the crisis spreads hunger at unprecedented speed, an estimated one in ten Americans now depends on food stamps, and the number of hungry people world wide jumped by 40 million just this year, the U.N. said this week. So nearly a billion people face hunger today — roughly twice as many as the early 70s when hunger first hit the international marquee. And in a time when there is no shortage of food, period. If citizens’ having real choice is the heart of democracy — and no human being chooses to go hungry — we might ponder: Isn’t hunger’s very existence proof of a deficit of democracy? If so, this anniversary day might be a perfect moment to rethink what it could mean to shift the frame to food as a human right. Consider what difference it made in Brazil’s fourth largest city, Belo Horizonte, when a new administration was elected there in 1993 on a food-as-a-right platform. Drawing diverse sectors into common problem-solving, that new administration’s stance spawned dozens of innovations: Farm stands on public plots linking local growers and inner-city consumers. (With middlemen removed, farmers’ profits grew even though the government capped prices.) Two huge public restaurants daily serving 12,000 people nutritious meals for the equivalent of less than 50 cents each; bus stop announcements alerting citizens where to find their best basic-food buys; produce markets where prices for twenty-five items sell for a third less than the market price; nutritious “waste,” including egg shells, ground into flour for school kids’ daily bread; extensive community gardens, and more. Within a decade Belo Horizonte had cut its infant death rate — the best measure of hunger — in half. And the cost? Less than 2 percent of the city budget, or roughly one penny a city-resident per day. Like the citizens of Belo, Americans can come to see that access to food as a right does not necessarily mean more public handouts. It can mean redefining the “free” in “free market” as the freedom of all to participate in it and the freedom of new businesses to enter, unblocked by global oligopolies now dominating every major sector. It might mean, as in Belo, citizen-government partnerships driven by values of inclusion and mutual respect. To move toward that possibility, we Americans can seize this historic shift in presidential philosophy to recommit to democracy by removing the power of private wealth over public decision making — consider the $16 million a day spent last year lobbying Congress — and opening new avenues for the voices of millions of citizens to be heard. Only then will new rules emerging from today’s economic ruins get shaped in the interests of all, including our interest in eating. In imagining food as a right of citizenship, please note: No change in human nature is required! Through most of human evolution — except for the last few thousand of roughly 200,000 years — Homo sapiens lived in societies where pervasive sharing of food was the norm. As food sharers, “especially among unrelated individuals,” humans are unique, writes authority on hunter-gatherer food transfers, Michael Gurven. Except in times of extreme privation, when some eat, all eat. In that spirit, I’m happy to report a victory last week for those who harvest our food but often go without themselves: The Coalition of Immokalee Workers — farmworkers in Florida — reached an agreement with Subway, the third largest fast-food chain in the world and the biggest fast-food buyer of Florida tomatoes. Subway agreed to help improve wages and working conditions. When these farmworkers began organizing in the 90s, their wages had not increased in twenty years. (I’ll be saluting their victory at our Small Planet Fund Gala Wednesday night in NYC, where the Immokalee Worker’s Lucas Benitez will be our guest of honor. To join us, visit the site .) In 1948 Eleanor Roosevelt led the charge for universal recognition of essential human rights. Let us now, finally, catch up with our ancestors, both recent and ancient. Frances Moore Lappe, of the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute , is the author or co-author of sixteen books, including World Hunger: Twelve Myths and Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad. Originally published by Huffington Post on 9/01/09

Outcries against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision , extending corporations’ 1st Amendment rights, point to many advantages giving corporations the edge over natural persons: “Limited liability” protects company owners from personal responsibility for business debts; and corporations are virtually immortal — a big advantage. Mostly, though, critics point out the obvious: that a corporation’s resources — Exxon Mobil earns $1,300 per second — typically dwarf those of ordinary mortals. But whatever one’s stand on “free speech rights” for corporations, what seems inarguable is that once the Court — notably in its 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision — began conflating spending and speech corporations and the wealthiest among us have been the big winners. Their vast resources enable them to morph into ear-shattering bullhorns drowning out regular citizens. And, from this thought, I’m compelled to ask the “tree falling in the forest” question: Do I still have free speech if no one even knows I’m speaking because a tiny minority of “corporate voices” can produce a cacophony so loud that it cancels out the sound of mine? Put another way, without any recognition of a right to be heard, does our 1st Amendment lose its power to protect the interchange of ideas — foundational to democracy — and permit instead the transformation of public discourse into a one-way gusher from the most powerful? Earlier Courts took this danger seriously. In 1969, for example, in a decision written by moderate justice Byron White, the Supreme Court noted in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC that: “It is the purpose of the 1st Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market...” To me — and, I believe, our Founders — democracy depends, moreover, on citizens’ right not just to be heard but a corollary, a right to hear diverse points of view necessary to make informed choices. In 1787 Thomas Jefferson wrote that “[T]he basis of our governments...[is] the opinion of the people...” and stressed therefore that we must “give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, & to contrive those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people...” Jefferson believed so strongly in the importance of a citizenry informed by diverse views that he continued : “[I]f it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.” Today, remaining true to Jefferson’s insight, many Americans appropriately assail China and other totalitarian regimes for denying precisely such freedom of access to information. If, in our Founders’ vision, a Republic depended on the capacity of educated citizens for reasoned consideration over public matters, then surely “spending as speech” is a body blow to our Republic. And there’s more to weigh here, for just as corporations are not natural persons, neither are they, nor can they be, citizens. By their legal structure, corporations have no loyalty to our country. Between 2009 and 2011, for example, thirty-five big U.S.-based multinational companies, including Wal-Mart Stores, International Paper Co., and Honeywell International Inc., added jobs much faster than others. But nearly three-fourths were overseas, noted the Wall Street Journal last spring. Additionally, “ at least 60 percent “ of U.S. corporate cash stockpiles are now held abroad. Corporations’ loyalty is not to the American worker or to the broader community but to shareholders, wherever they be. So of course corporations cannot pledge allegiance to the United States of America. With the exception of the several hundred firms now incorporated as “ Benefit Corporations ,” legally obligated to serve the community’s wellbeing, corporations’ charters commit them to the opposite: to narrow self-seeking. Thus, while most Americans recoil at the idea of “corporate personhood” because of the obvious power corporations enjoy compared to living-breathing mortals, just as important may be their differing responsibilities. And, I don’t mean only the obvious, that citizens but not corporations are obliged to vote and required to serve on a jury and respond to a military draft. I mean something broader: Our Founders envisioned a Republic of citizens committed to, and capable, of participating in self-government. They emphasized that such self-government could only work as we humans, flawed as we are, cultivate certain Republican “virtues” — especially the capacity to consider not merely one’s own personal gain but to protect democracy itself. They grasped that self-government could only survive as long as we citizens —in step with the Founders’ wisdom in creating a federal structure of countervailing powers — work to keep concentrated power in check. Jefferson put the danger colorfully: “If once they [citizens] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves .” Thus, what the Supreme Court betrays in its 2010 Citizens United’s decision, and previous rulings affording corporations personhood rights, is our Founders’ concept of citizenship, and thus democratic self-government itself. Surely, given today’s crises from poverty to climate chaos, we can’t wait for a constitutional amendment to put corporations in their place. We must build toward that goal, I agree, but we must work for change we can effect now. As citizens We have power to begin to check the political power of corporations — holding elected officials accountable for requiring transparency regarding a corporation’s political spending by passing the DISCLOSE Act and the Shareholder Protection Act . We can vote for those committed to creating a system of citizen and/or public-funded elections so that candidates can win public office without depending on corporate coffers. For our rights as citizens to hear diverse views, we can also call for a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine , in place from 1949 to 1987, that obliged those holding licenses to public airwaves to “ operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of issues of public importance.” In so doing, we will be reviving the very best in the never-finished journey of our Republic. Claiming our first responsibility as citizens seeking the common good, we can refuse to allow our voices to be drowned out by private entities seeking only the corporate good. Originally published in the Huffington Post on 08/16/2012

If you’ve followed the controversy over the January Supreme Court decision giving corporations the right to unlimited election spending, you’ve probably gotten an earful about “corporate personhood.” It’s a legal doctrine giving corporations certain rights of real people (adding to their privileges, such as “limited liability,” beyond those of real people). But corporations are obviously not real people: they can’t, for example, vote, sit on juries, be drafted, or legally marry. Moreover, in granting corporations the rights of people to electioneer, the Supreme Court majority overlooked something else pretty obvious, also with momentous significance: Neither are corporations citizens. The oath required of naturalized citizens logically conveys the meaning of citizenship in our country: “I will bear true faith and allegiance” to the United States. No corporation could take this oath. The allegiance of a corporation is not to our country. It is to its shareholders. That allegiance is clear as corporations happily move operations overseas if it is to their advantage, depriving U.S. workers of jobs, or set up offices in Bermuda deliberately to deny our country desperately needed tax revenues. Between 1996 and 2000, 61 percent of U.S. corporations paid no taxes. As non-citizens, corporations also lobby our Congress for special favors, often in direct conflict with what is best for citizens. I grew up learning in civics class that in democracies the essence of citizenship is accepting the responsibility to deliberate and vote for what is best for the polity as a whole. In fact, Americans often do make political decisions according to what they believe is in the country’s interest — not just what will directly and personally benefit them. Our advances, for example, in civil rights, directly benefiting a minority, would have been inconceivable unless this were true. Right now in Congress are three legislative approaches to counter this dangerous error — the Supreme Court’s granting unlimited political spending power to entities whose legal structure, among other traits, make them non-citizens. They are the: 1. Fair Elections Now Act , in both Houses, enabling congressional candidates to choose to run for office with public funds and small citizen donations, eschewing corporate funding freeing themselves from corporate dependency; 2. The Disclosure Act , requiring these non-citizens to identify themselves on any advertising they sponsor. 3. And the Shareholder Protection Act , requiring corporations to secure approval of shareholders before spending money in campaigns. Each is critical. They will not reverse the Supreme Court’s anti-democratic decision (ironically dubbed “Citizens United”), but they blunt its impact. They are essential because they give us time to engage in a national debate about what is democracy itself: whether it requires, among other important prerequisites, that those who engage in our political process are able to put the interests of the nation first. Originally published on the Huffington Post on June 23, 2012

Eighteen months ago I read a book that changed my life. Yeah, yeah, I know... sounds corny. But it’s not what you think. This book changed my life not because of what it said but because of what it didn’t say. On a nothing-special summer afternoon in 2010, I sat in the Cambridge Public Library preparing a speech on something I’d been studying for decades. I plugged “world hunger” into the library’s computer. Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know popped up. Perfect, I thought. I knew I would have differences with the book because I’d just read a critique of the views of its author, Robert Paarlberg, by my daughter Anna Lappé on the Foreign Policy website. But I’m always eager to know how those with whom I disagree make their case. Noticing that Food Politics was published by Oxford University Press, I felt confident I could count on it being a credibly argued and sourced counterpoint. So I began reading. “I couldn’t believe my eyes” doesn’t do justice to the shock I experienced. The book’s subtitle suggests coverage of essential food issues and its back cover indicates Food Politics is not just another example of “conflicting claims and accusations from advocates,” but rather “maps this contested terrain.” Yet, I was finding only one piece of the “map” with key issues at the center of the global food debate omitted altogether. But what was jaw-dropping for me was that Food Politics lacked any citations for the book’s many startling claims. What? Why would the gold standard of academic presses, Oxford University Press, release such a work and misleadingly promote it, to boot? The UK Oxford University Press website says that “all books are referred to them [the Delegates, i.e., selected faculty of the university] for approval. ” The Press’ USA website stresses its peer review process. But how, I wondered, could a book on any serious topic be evaluated in the absence of citations? I soon learned that Oxford University Press had published other books on vital public concerns, including nuclear power , with no citations. Hmm, I thought, even high school students are required to provide sources. Then I got to the author’s defense of Monsanto. He cites the “political stigma” that has been attached to GMOs, which “dried up investment” in GMOs in Europe, as a reason that the company now dominates the industry. The claim seemed so wild that my suspicion was piqued. From there, a quick search on Monsanto’s website showed that the author had been an advisor to the company’s CEO. In the book’s opening, moreover, Dr. Paarlberg thanks the Gates Foundation, among others, for supporting his independent work, without noting that the foundation is itself an investor in Monsanto. My journalist son Anthony Lappé has always stressed to me the absolute rule of “full disclosure” of ties that could influence, or appear to influence, one’s reporting. Surely, Oxford University Press grasps that such transparency is a foundation of democratic discourse; and how especially critical it is to uphold in a work on the life-and-death matter of hunger. I had to act. After all, almost every speech I give ends with a call for greater boldness. I argue that humans are “good enough.” It’s our courage we need to stoke. So what could I do? I began reaching out to scholars, and others whom I trust, to present a constructive challenge to Oxford University Press, asking it to hold the line on academic standards. Some weren’t moved, saying, “Oh, Frankie, why don’t you just publish a critical review yourself somewhere?” Or, “You’ll never get anywhere going to the Press.” Their reactions spurred me on. My alarm was not about Dr. Paarlberg’s views, for they can be addressed in fair debate. My distress was about the threat to democracy itself in Oxford University Press’s choice to lower its standards. OK, that might sound overblown. But not to me. Democracy depends on honest, fair, accurate debate. Without it, we can’t possibly meet today’s challenges. And if academic presses don’t hold the line — when fair discourse in the wider culture is in collapse — who will? In time, six distinguished, courageous scholars and leaders in the field of food, hunger and ecological farming, who share my alarm, joined me. First we sent our critique to the leader of Oxford University Press in New York City, Mr. Niko Pfund. We asked to meet to discuss straightforward remedies. At first, I truly believed top leadership at the Press would be distressed that this book had slipped through and would recommit to uphold basic standards. Instead, after several weeks, we received a letter saying that Food Politics met its standards and no one would meet with us. (On the particular point of lack of disclosure, the Press told us that Dr. Paarlberg did not accept payment from Monsanto and therefore disclosing his advisory role was not required. However, we’d never said that he was paid by Monsanto. Our position is the widely accepted standard that any association, which could appear to influence a writer’s coverage of his or her subject, must be disclosed.) OK, we thought, what about the home base of Oxford University Press in Oxford, England? Surely, there, where two dozen faculty of the university, known as the Delegates, have final authority, we’ll find leadership who shares our dismay. Calls and offers to travel to Oxford for discussions got nowhere. Finally, the office of Oxford University Vice Chancellor Andrew D. Hamilton, speaking for the Press, wrote to affirm the position of his New York office: The book met Oxford University Press standards; and no one would discuss the matter with us. With those channels closed, we launched a petition campaign. And here’s where we need your help! On April 25th, I’ll arrive on the steps of Oxford University Press in Oxford, England. And we would love to have your signature on the petition I’ll deliver. The petition asks for just three basic standards to be upheld by Oxford University Press: citations for evidence-based claims, full disclosure of potential conflicts of interest (whether financial or other associations), and accurate promotion of publications. Is not each of these three — transparency about sources, disclosure of conflicts of interest, and accurate promotion — precisely the type of standard that distinguishes an academic press from, say, a Fox News? We believe our appeal goes to the very heart of democracy itself; for, absent transparency and commitment to evidence-based argument (impossible if authors provide no sources for claims!) democracy’s lifeblood — open, fair dialogue — drains away. You can follow our exchange and sign the petition here. If you want to know what happens next, please send us an email: info@smallplanet.org and put “standards at risk” in the subject line. Thank you. It really matters. Originally published by Huffington Post on 4/05/2012

In the late sixties, my life changed forever. I asked, Why are millions of people going hungry? Every other species seemed to have figured this one out — how to feed itself and its offspring. So what’s up with us? Headlines screamed “scarcity,” there’s just not enough! But lo and behold, as I added up the figures, one truth jumped out. There was enough food for all; and, today, it’s even truer— with at least 30 percent produced for each of us . So over the decades after Diet for a Small Planet came out, I tugged away at layer after layer of “whys,” and, finally, I came up with a sound bite I loved, “Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but by a scarcity of democracy.” And what does it mean? Simply that, at root, the problem is one of the concentrations of social power so extreme that — from far-flung fields to the global supermarket — they deprive people not only of food but of dignity, of confidence in their own proven capacities. Okay. My sound bite made sense to me, but what good was its “truth” without examples of people actually acting on it? Without real-life proof of people seizing the root and transforming human relationships into true, “living democracies”? Certainly, I knew the weak notion of democracy I’d grown up with — democracy equals markets-plus-elections — wasn’t it. So what did I mean? Where is democracy emerging that’s vital, engaging, and empowering enough actually to get to the root of needless hunger? Actually... in many places — still mostly invisible. But never would I have imagined that one day I’d be sitting and sharing heart-to-heart with leaders embodying multiple dimensions of living democracy and simultaneously ending — not “alleviating” — hunger in their communities. Yet, this fall, there I was. In northern India, I celebrated with Navdanya — its 25 years spreading empowering, ecologically renewing farming practices to hundreds of thousands of farmers. Then, in southern India, a few hours from Hyderabad, I sat surrounded by a dozen women in brilliant saris on a straw mat, gazing at beautifully arranged mounds of diverse seeds from their own fields. These women make up the Deccan Development Society (DDS), a network of 5,000 women in 70 villages, farmers growing organic, diverse food crops, and creating lives of courage, dignity, inclusion, and ongoing creativity. I first asked the most basic questions. What was it like twenty years ago?“ We were so poor that in the rainy season our hut floors would turn to mud and we had to pile up branches to sleep on. We were always hungry. We depended on government ration cards. Sometimes the big landowner would pay us for a job with some grains and that would be the only food for our children. We were so poor we had only one sari — not even a second one to change into when we bathe. My husband was a gambler, he was not ever here. I lived on sorghum and broken rice. Our life was dictated by bigger people. We had to suffer, even if they beat us. It was a dark time.” And what changed? “We started meeting, talking. Every week now, at nine in the evening our sanghams [groups of women} come together and make decisions together. We tell each other our problems. If someone was abused, all of us go together to confront him. And now if there is a conflict in our village, they call on us. Through the sanghams, we’ve reclaimed the land. We don’t use any chemicals. We grow as many as 25 crops on an acre or two.” What about the village food security solution I’d read about — where you come together as a village and reach consensus on storing enough food so the most vulnerable families get what they need in the lean season? “We don’t need to do that anymore. Every family has food security now.” The next day I walk into the fields that these women and their families farm. I learn more about their years of effort to rid the fields of rocks, create water conservation trenches, and establish synergistic cropping patterns. The soil still looks pretty dry and rocky to me, but proof of the women’s deep knowledge of how to make it productive anyway was waving above my head — yellow, white, brown, red millets; and lower down, oil seeds and gram. There, too, were essential plants for natural pest control. Like two-thirds of Indian farming, there’s no irrigation here. Rain matters a lot. So I asked, “Aren’t you worried about climate change bringing more drought?” “No. We know what to do. If rainfall is cut by half, we know which seeds will work. If it drops more, we have other seeds.” I learn how DDS women enhance biodiversity by saving and sharing seeds; how they create common plots for medicinal plants and learn and teach the healing arts. Their 3,000 member-strong cooperative market is growing by at least 20 percent a year. And DDS women also run their own “media trust,” learning and teaching videography through which they are documenting their journey, as well as their own community radio station that broadcasts tips on ecological farming, health, raising trees, and other relevant information, right along with traditional music. A few years ago, DDS calculated that the women’s leadership has meant the production of almost three million extra meals each year, as well as almost 350,000 additional days of employment in their villages. And that same leadership is re-balancing gender relationships, radically reducing domestic abuse. We have achieved “food sovereignty,” they told me. But what struck me most? These words: “From the sanghams what we’ve gained most is courage.”And with courage comes dignity — there before me in full force in the pride of their gleaming smiles. Today in India 46 percent of children are still stunted by malnutrition, and this state, Andhra Pradesh, has long been known both for its heavy use of agricultural chemicals and high rates of suicide by farmers trapped in debt, because buying seeds, fertilizer and pesticides can typically eat up half a small farmer’s income . All true. But the women of DDS, and millions of people like them in India and around the world, prove to me that there is a solution to world hunger. They live it — what a gift. I see now that it happens when we break free of imposed disconnection, find our courage, and combine our creativity. Then democracy is no longer something done “to us” or “for us.” It is our way of life. Originally published on the Huffington Post on December 26, 2012

Could a narrow focus on Citizens United actually set back our drive for democracy? That’s been a real worry of mine, but my thinking has been fussy. So I was relieved to see Matt Bai, the New York Times Magazine‘s political correspondent, take on the challenge of deciphering what can and cannot be laid at the feet of this awful ruling. In “How Did Political Money Get This Loud?“ Bai suggests that Citizens United mainly “intensified” unintended consequences of earlier reforms. He argues that the burst of political spending in the last two years, while huge, is actually in line with the trajectory of growth in campaign spending since McCain-Feingold reforms in 2002. He stresses that the biggest consequence of McCain-Feingold and Citizens United may not be the staggering scale of spending, but that “candidates don’t really have control of their own campaigns anymore...” With the passage of McCain-Feingold, Bai explains, “parties could no longer tap an endless stream of soft money [unlimited contributions used in a range of party activities not directly asking for votes].” So they turned to another means: “independent groups with their own turnout and advertising campaigns limited in what they could say,” emphasizes Bai, “but accountable to no candidate or party boss...” Then, Citizens United and related Court decisions wiped out most remaining limits, so “[n]ow any outside group can use corporate money to make a direct case for who deserves your vote and why, and they can do so right up to Election Day.” The big outside groups today are “social-welfare groups” (including, believe it or not, Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity) and Super PACs, and the difference between them? Super PACs must disclose donors’ identities, but social-welfare groups generally don’t. Many will likely debate Bai’s analysis, but my concern is what it misses altogether: “That there are solutions we can realize at least in part in the foreseeable future.“ We can move democracy forward even before a new Supreme Court majority reversing Citizens United or victory in a long battle for a constitutional amendment. Wonderfully, Americans are united across political divisions in our anger at big money’s control of politics. Sixty-seven percent of us favor “voluntary public financing” of elections, already enabling regular citizens to run for the legislature in three states. And two-thirds of Americans also support disclosure of large contributors. So let’s get on with building a bipartisan uprising of voters with the guts to insist that candidates we support in November pledge to back DISCLOSE Act and Fair Elections legislation — now being refined in Congress — and that, once in place, they use this system, not private wealth, for their campaigns. (Under the “fair elections” bill, a candidate raises a specific number of small, in-state contributions — each no bigger than $100 — to qualify for significant public funds, both a lump sum and five dollars for each small-donor dollar up to a cap.) And let’s demand that candidates we support denounce any unaccountable electioneering bodies, whether backing them or other candidates. Join with the dozens of groups already on board from Public Citizen to Friends of the Earth at FairElectionsNow.org and reach out to friends and strangers who’ve never heard of this option. Note that the DISCLOSE Act failed last week to achieve the super majority it needed by only nine votes. Nine is an achievable shift this November. We can’t afford to wait for the Supreme Court. We can’t afford to wait for a constitutional amendment. Let’s focus now on electing a president and a Congress who share the majority’s position on these foundational questions. On this path, we begin to reduce the power of concentrated wealth in public decision making as we also build the inclusive citizen pressure necessary to reverse laws and rulings hindering solutions to all our biggest national challenges. Originally published by Huffington Post on 7/29/2012