Hopedance

by Bob Banner
Many national magazines critique globalization and support the local. But what example are they giving us if they are being distributed the same way food travels, thereby using lots of petroleum.


There have been national and international publications supporting the return to the local, not only about food and its various by-products but about local clothing manufacturing, energy, housing and transportation. Some of the periodicals include Resurgence, Ode, The Ecologist and Yes. Recently Yes magazine did a remarkable special issue on “Go Local.” None of these publications have ever addressed their own obvious contradiction: Speaking and encouraging the local yet maintaining business as the usual corporate-initiated style of periodical distribution. They distribute their printed content thousands of miles throughout the country or the globe, ignoring the vast fossil fuels that contribute to global warming. Very much like the food traveling an average 1500 miles to our dinner plate, no mention of the vast miles of transportation and the fossil fuels needed to handle the load of national and international publications has emerged in these periodicals.

I totally understand the obvious reticence. Not only is it easier to complain and criticize the corporate model of distribution, in food, energy and housing resources, etc. It is always more challenging to see what resources we use, how we use them in order to get the word out, as publishers. Also, what is embedded in the system of progressive publications not going local is the fear that we could not make it financially if we simply relied on local. Much of the excuse of going national is that: 1) everyone else is doing it, 2) there’s not enough money to do a local publication of progressive causes, 3) a local publication must inevitably be free to compete with all the other local freebie publications, and 4) we can’t possibly do other things to add to the financial foundation to keep the paper alive and thriving.

I have not seen any concerted effort from any of those publications to make the shift to the local (or at least begin a dialogue about it). However when Utne initiated the salon effort in various cities years ago, that was a good sign. When I contacted them as to how many subscribers were in SLO County, they responded with “12.” This is when I realized I simply could not afford to stay in one county to keep a local progressive publication alive. However that was ten years ago, and things have changed, and I’m getting ahead of myself.

HopeDance started as a local publication focusing on the local, sustainability, simplicity, progressive politics, transformational spirituality, a green ethic and mindfulness. That was ten years ago. I definitely needed to expand into other counties to at least break even. I had done a national publication previously for ten years and knew the hassle of the mainstream as well as the alternative-publication distribution network, which is a form of advertising for subscriptions and advertisements, albeit a pretty expensive venture.

About three years ago I was tempted to go national. The motivation was similar to anyone else who wants a broader audience. One believes that what one is saying or singing or performing or manufacturing needs a broader audience, needs more attention, more sales. Why is it that we do not simply accept that our market is good enough? In any event, I proceeded with the national distribution. After a year and a half of basically throwing money away AND after witnessing first hand that the copies I was sending to the New York distributor were being shipped to California to be sold in the Bay Area, Santa Cruz and LA. I decided to stop the ambition and return to my local rots and focus on where the energy is rather than acting like any patriotic American capitalist businessman whose mantra is to expand and outreach and expand; the inevitable momentum of development and growth. I stopped. I wanted to be the example that I was seeking in others. I had to do it so I could sleep at night and hopefully become a model for other print publications that truly sought models to complement their values.

I want to make it clear that I love the publications I refer to. They are wonderful pioneering publications to keep my inspiration and hope enlivened and empowered. They are not going to change overnight. However, we need to be able to self-reflect, expose the contradictions, and support each other in the transition. Food is a major one; commodities for all our other needs are also going to be challenging. What can one produce locally that is purely local? What’s the percentage of what is genuinely local and what is not? We need not be purists, but we need to see the transitions and be willing to act on them. Do we buy organic tomatoes shipped from a thousand miles (grown monoculturally) or buy locally fresh produce from a family farmer or CSA? One need not get bogged down in these matters, but it is healthy to have discussions about them. Another added ingredient to this discussion is that more and more people are getting on the sustainability train, which means we will have an eager audience to pay more attention to genuine solutions. See our issue on “How cities are preparing for global warming and peak oil.” More and more collaborations of seemingly opposite values are happening, all in the name of averting global warming.

Here are some brief notes of a model for a more genuine local publication.
1. Print locally
2. Advertise local businesses
3. Use local writers, rather than always publishing the “movement” leaders.
4. Give it away freely so ideas are out there in the public domain
5. Establish local contacts so people can gather together for fun, serious conversation, eating, parties, films, and presentations.
6. Interview local people who truly represent local tradition and local flavor.
7. Do other activities to keep the publication alive. Don’t view the publication as just a publication but as an outreach for a movement that will involve interbreeding with green businesses, premiering films, collaborating with numerous progressive organizations.

With more and more people jumping on the sustainability bandwagon, they will bring the necessary advertising dollars to the publication so it can be an example of a genuine local publication advocating the local, the buy local campaigns, the slow food movement, the attempts from government agencies to get out of their cars – all the sustainable solutions to curbing our fossil fuel usage.

In the film “End of Suburbia,’ some of the solutions advocated by peak oil researchers were local ones. James H. Kunstler thought he might have to start a local paper. And recently, Matt Simmons spoke about radically curbing the incredible transportation use when it comes to Americans going to work. We need to live closer to our work, become more local.

The local papers in most cities tout the typical corporate gibberish, the “inevitable economic growth” mantra, as if there are no limits to our resources. They often mimic the news coming out of the Pentagon or the White House; the ads and stories dumb us down to consumer living rather than empower is to implement our ideals of democracy. Other local papers are the weekly ones that mostly focus on entertainment, all the more to distract ourselves from the inevitable. Occasionally the weeklies will feature investigative reports that deal with a specific item or issue that is hot at the moment, but rarely do they connect the dots to our foreign policy, consumer lifestyle or a deep spiritual insight that might become the foundation for radical change. Other tabloids deal with various fluff – new age fantasies, local political controversies or are left wing rags that are so left leaning and full of victimhood that they often fall on deaf ears or do a disservice to genuine progressive thought. Others that deal with diverse issues, such as family, ethnic, homeless, or gender issues do contribute to the overall flavor of a diverse community, which the mainstream either cannot or will not pay attention to.

HopeDance has been a bi-monthly focusing on subjects that range from local food production, natural building, affordable housing, alternative energy sources, alternatives to the car, etc. Since we cannot possibly survive in one county, we are now in five counties, establishing an avenue for people to speak their voices when it comes to our basic theme: sustainability.

We often don’t primarily focus on local issues. For instance, in the sustainable and affordable special issue we did, there was no one doing anything in our area. The reason we do special issues on what may NOT be happening is to seed the local with possibilities that are often found elsewhere in the hopes that people and organizations will jump on a progressive activity or business venture in their localities.

Because of the popularity of Al Gore’s film, we are seeing an increase in the number of cool solutions happening in all sectors, businesses as well as the government. This is good news so that local media that focuses on sustainable solutions can expand to actually thrive in a mainstream media that often still doesn’t have a clue.

With more events happening (classes in canning, solar, organic gardening, permaculture design courses), films screened by grassroots people, businesses with eco and green products, fair-trade and locally-manufactured products to be spotlighted and advertised, these can all help create a new media focusing on the truly local, the truly local living economy. The money stays in the community versus leaving the area with the transnationals and chains.

This discussion does not include other progressive aspects of the media: TV (public access), radio (either low-powered or local talk shows and NPR focusing on how we are going to get out of this mess of global warming/peak oil. And the internet (with more and more national successes like eBay and Craigslist, featured for specifically local areas, and more local green directories online.

The question remains: how can the aforementioned national publications transition to the local, assuming they wish to become the model they write about?

The model of HopeDance may be a start in the dialoguing process. Or perhaps they can experiment with something like a newspaper for their local areas while keeping the national one alive. Or do the national online and have the local one in a printed format. I’d also recommend that they alter their non-profit status that in my opinion is basically a sophisticated way of begging. Why not enter the real world of advertising? With more and more green and eco-friendly necessary products coming to market that need to be highlighted. Also communication between neighborhoods will be vitally important to keep the local area abreast of the blossoming creativity that will flow when people are spending more time at home figuring out ways to eat, survive, play, enjoy each other, make things, trade things... etc. Just start imagining what your neighborhood might look like in the transition toward a post-fossil-fuel economy. Check out the articles in this issue that give you more than just glimpses of what are happening. The new paradigm is all around us, bursting to gain more light. Another world is possible, because it’s already happening. The old structures of corporate money tied in with politics and media will become extinct. Do you want to participate in the birth of something new? Do you want to leave the corporate world and start new? The fall from the old to the new is becoming less painful every day.

As the new paradigm emerges and as more people get on board of the just and sustainable future train. we will need a truly local media that can keep up with all the incredible goings on of the various movements that coalesce into practical perspectives.

As the weaning away from the destructive impacts of industrial agriculture toward a genuinely local one, so too will media become more localized, regionalized, especially in the print media. Of course we will always have the national and international media online, but progressives need to take this opportunity to jump on the transition for a local media to genuinely support these progressive ideas and plans and actions that are so desperately needed in these urgent and most exciting times!