by Bob Banner
[edited for the website]
Hope you enjoy them. Relocalization, which is basically a return to
the LOCAL, is a huge topic right now. With peak oil, climate change and
the trembling cry of globalization, we see the rise and the importance
of Going Local, Buying Local, Supporting Local. We have published
numerous articles that will explain this movement. We have two speeches
by Michael Brownlee and Pat Veesart that set the tone of what is coming
and what we need to do. Judy Wicks is awesome. I call her the national
hero for the local, since she has done so many cool things that we
cannot enter into this movement without acknowledging such a wise
elder, especially since she is the co-founder of BALLE (Business
Alliance For Local Living Economies). In this issue there are a number
of main leaders within BALLE that will give you a more clear idea of
what it all represents, i.e., Michelle Long’s interview and the
interview with Bill McKibben and the review of his latest book, Deep
Economy, and Eric Rumble’s brief synopsis of the burgeoning movement.
We have Barbara Wishingrad reflect on a time past in Mexico where
shopping and being Local was not necessarily an option. It simply
existed as most cultures have existed: local. Local contributor Anne R.
Allen reports on a business in town that did not leave to the opposite
side of the world or get gobbled up by a transnational. Employees
gathered and bought the business. Bob Banner asks the national and
international press to begin to discuss the fossil fuel usage of
transporting magazines all over the country and the world while talking
the talk of Being Local. Adonijah is a remarkable model of a citizen
and a teacher who empowers hope and inspired activity among those who
meet him, transforming minds as well as empty lots into luscious food
forests.
Please remember: this publication comes out every other month, which
means you may have the time to read it in the two months that it sits
near your bed stand or in the bathroom. It’s not meant to be read in
one sitting and tossed. Savor it, mark it up, jot down the films and
books and events, etc.
We finally organized film festivals around the special theme of the
issue. We have created a Localization Film Festival that honors this
movement toward the local as well as having active citizens speak after
each film. We also created a Bike Film Festival that collaborates with
Bike Month. More books, films and music are reviewed to continue our
education as to what is really happening in the world and what we can
do about it. The solutions in this particular issue are truly awesome.
So many people and orgs and cities are coming forward to act, to speak
up, to demand change, viscerally realizing that we need to be acting
more and more while keeping our hearts open wider and wider.
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