21 April 2011
Quinebaug Valley Greens Local
Attendees: Daphne Stevens, Maureen Doyle, Gus Steeves
Since this was our first meeting, we did not have an agenda.
-We talked about Jill’s recent phone call to us and about registering for Doodle.com
-We talked about the conference’s four goals: 1. Green economy, 2. Single-Payer health care,3. Instant Runoff Voting, and 4. Peace
-We talked about the proposed wind turbines for Charlton, MA , solar projects in Southbridge, and the wind turbine in Worcester (at Holy Name High School) in regard to the Green Economy.
--how can we support these projects? Cable projects?
--we talked about attending the upcoming public hearings: on May 4th, the Bay Path Wind Turbine hearing in coming before the Charlton Planning Board
Food Issues: Daphne’s church is donating food to the Worcester Food Bank(canned goods and boxed items) and light bulbs. There was a speaker at her church who spoke about how the Worc. Food Bank works. She’ll find out the name of the person. Can we, as a local, participate? We discussed a meeting that Gus and I attended where Charlene C. talked about the length of food supply we have in this area. Would she be willing to speak out here again? We talked about butchers in the area; what sort of a food supply do they have? Linda F. could speak about how CSAs work and Chris S. could talk about container gardening.
Other potential speakers (about green issues in general):
Linda C. (re-elected to the Board of Health in Sturbridge; she seems very “green” in her positions)
Ted
Kathleen W. (Charlton Selectwoman)
Ian L. (pastor from Brimfield)
Mike S. (knows a lot about composting and gardening)
Scott B.
John G.
Brad K. (head of maintenance at Old Sturbridge Village; he does not use pesticides)
Peter P. (pastor from Southbridge)
Russ
Other ideas:
Approaching local businesses about how they use things, like Styrofoam. Can we change that? Can we educate folks.
Work on individual town clean-ups. Southbridge has a clean-up, organized by the Future of Southbridge. Do other towns?
Community Gardens (http://acga.localharvest.org/garden/M2138)- getting one started here and a potential speaker
Press release to send to the area papers and cable services Stonebridge Press (Southbridge Evening News, the Villager Papers, Sturbridge, Charlton, Webster Times), Turley Papers ( tkane@turley.com;
Town Common http://www.thetantasquatowncommon.com/, Quabog Current http://quaboagcurrent.com/index1.html), Leicester (web only),
Ecosystem of the Quinebaug Valley:
Spencer
Sturbridge
Southbridge
Webster Dudley
Charlton
Holland
Wales
Brookfields
Next meeting: May 5th, 2011 at the Joshua Hyde Library in Sturbridge at 11am
GUS: share info received disputing the flicker effect
DAPHNE: research green solar field research and the Norfolk solar field project
MAUREEN: Contact Sandy Q., from Sturbridge. Sturbridge had a presentation about solar hot water recently
EVERYONE: work on creating our own education about these issues
EVERYONE: register on doodle.com (It is easy!! I did it and you can, too! J)
MAUREEN: Contact Charlene C. about speaking about the food supply.
DAPHNE: Find out the name of the person from the Worcester Food bank.
GUS: Do you have contact at the Worc. Food Bank also?
GUS: You offered to write a press release
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
May 5th minutes
5 May 2011
Quinebaug Valley Greens Local
Meeting at the Joshua Hyde Library , Sturbridge, MA
Attendees: Maureen Doyle, Gus Steeves, Daphne Stevens
Time: 11:30a
--Gus read his press release , seeking comments from the other members of the local. We discussed wording and phrasing. We agreed on one and Gus will submit it. We talked about getting it translated into Spanish and will ask Nancy (from Lit volunteers or Rick Purcell)
--Setting up a GMAIL account: This will be accessible to all three of us. We decided we will try for the account name of: quingreens@gmail.com
-- a patron in the library came over to talk to us; she seemed in sync with many of our views and shared her information. Please include on our email list and contact list.
--add Sturbridge Times to our list of places we want to list our meetings: www.sturbridgetimes.com
508-347-7077
--Southbridge Fest (june 4th): should we table there? No- it will cost us to reserve a table. Backpack? Clipboard? Yes- we could just walk around with info.
--next meeting: we walk to accommodate more people; should it be in the evening? Afternoon? We talked about a tentative date being May 19th at 11am. Gus is going to talk to Nancy S. as she expressed interest in our group. Whenever she can make it on that day we will try to accommodate (so the 11 am time is totally flexible).
--should we pair up with the last green valley? http://www.tlgv.org, Phone: 860-774-3300
From last meeting:
GUS: share info received from Dimitri’s step mum disputing the flicker effect
DAPHNE: research green solar field research and the Norfolk solar field project
MAUREEN: Contact Sandy, from Sturbridge. Sturbridge had a presentation about solar hot water recently
EVERYONE: work on creating our own education about these issues
MAUREEN: Contact Charlene C about speaking about the food supply.
DAPHNE: Find out the name of the person from the Worcester Food bank.
GUS: Do you have contact at the Worc. Food Bank also?
This meeting:
GUS: register on doodle.com
GUS: Please submit the press release that you wrote.
GUS: Contact Nancy S. and invite her to a meeting.
Quinebaug Valley Greens Local
Meeting at the Joshua Hyde Library , Sturbridge, MA
Attendees: Maureen Doyle, Gus Steeves, Daphne Stevens
Time: 11:30a
--Gus read his press release , seeking comments from the other members of the local. We discussed wording and phrasing. We agreed on one and Gus will submit it. We talked about getting it translated into Spanish and will ask Nancy (from Lit volunteers or Rick Purcell)
--Setting up a GMAIL account: This will be accessible to all three of us. We decided we will try for the account name of: quingreens@gmail.com
-- a patron in the library came over to talk to us; she seemed in sync with many of our views and shared her information. Please include on our email list and contact list.
--add Sturbridge Times to our list of places we want to list our meetings: www.sturbridgetimes.com
508-347-7077
--Southbridge Fest (june 4th): should we table there? No- it will cost us to reserve a table. Backpack? Clipboard? Yes- we could just walk around with info.
--next meeting: we walk to accommodate more people; should it be in the evening? Afternoon? We talked about a tentative date being May 19th at 11am. Gus is going to talk to Nancy S. as she expressed interest in our group. Whenever she can make it on that day we will try to accommodate (so the 11 am time is totally flexible).
--should we pair up with the last green valley? http://www.tlgv.org, Phone: 860-774-3300
From last meeting:
GUS: share info received from Dimitri’s step mum disputing the flicker effect
DAPHNE: research green solar field research and the Norfolk solar field project
MAUREEN: Contact Sandy, from Sturbridge. Sturbridge had a presentation about solar hot water recently
EVERYONE: work on creating our own education about these issues
MAUREEN: Contact Charlene C about speaking about the food supply.
DAPHNE: Find out the name of the person from the Worcester Food bank.
GUS: Do you have contact at the Worc. Food Bank also?
This meeting:
GUS: register on doodle.com
GUS: Please submit the press release that you wrote.
GUS: Contact Nancy S. and invite her to a meeting.
Minutes From 16 June
16 June 2011
Quinebaug Valley Greens Local
Meeting at the Joshua Hyde Library , Sturbridge, MA
Attendees: Maureen Doyle, Gus Steeves, Daphne Stevens
Time: 11:00a
We discussed the article that will appear in Sturbridge Times.
We discussed the regional Peace Meeting that occurred in Worcester last Saturday. Gus and I attended. We recapped the discussion on the People’s Budget, Gordon’s ides, and Chris Horton’s foreclosure idea.
We revisited and reinforced our decision to set up a GRP local, the Quinebaug Valley Greens. So, we looked at the MA Green Party Organizing Manual again. We reviewed some goals:
--”in short, a good group will be effective, fun, and participatory.”
--is there a curriculum at Bay Path about agriculture?
--contact Charleen Cultler, from the Last Green Valley, about doing programs on food (specifically, growing local food)
--founding a Grange
--connecting with Quinsigemond College: can we host a speaker or present a program there?
--Daphne suggested creating a list of local farmers and farmers’ markets; talk to them and find out the requirements of each. To promote them
--working on allowing backyard chickens (working with town zoning boards, what should a local ordinance look like? The number of chickens allowed, not allowing roosters, etc) , local gardening and fruit tree.
--would local farmers have input into these town/city issues?
--there is a man who spoke recently to the Worcester City Council about backyard chickens; what happened? Gus has his name and number.
-- http://www.tlgv.org, Phone: 860-774-3300
From first meeting:
GUS: share info received from Dimitri’s step mum disputing the flicker effect
DAPHNE: research green solar field research and the Norfolk solar field project
MAUREEN: Contact Sandy Quigley, from Sturbridge. Sturbridge had a presentation about solar hot water recently
EVERYONE: work on creating our own education about these issues
MAUREEN: Contact Charlene Cutler about speaking about the food supply.
DAPHNE: Find out the name of the person from the Worcester Food bank.
GUS: Do you have contact at the Worc. Food Bank also?
From the last meeting:
GUS: register on doodle.com
GUS: Please submit the press release that you wrote.
GUS: Contact Nancy Shields and invite her to a meeting.
From this meeting:
GUS: update on press release and getting it translated into Spanish
EVERYONE: has anyone gone on the email account or looked at the blog?
GUS: do you have the name and number of the man who spoke before the Worcester City Council?
GUS: Talk to Michelle Buck (The Town Planner from Leicester and Spencer); what is their situation like (regarding backyard chickens and goats)
GUS and MAUREEN: send monthly MDAR mailing to Daphne
DAPHNE: Call the registered Greens from your town list
GUS: Contact the Holistic Health and Raw Food Counselor whom you met recently
Next meeting: Two weeks from last meeting
11am, Thursday, June 30th at the Joshua Hyde Library, Sturbridge
Quinebaug Valley Greens Local
Meeting at the Joshua Hyde Library , Sturbridge, MA
Attendees: Maureen Doyle, Gus Steeves, Daphne Stevens
Time: 11:00a
We discussed the article that will appear in Sturbridge Times.
We discussed the regional Peace Meeting that occurred in Worcester last Saturday. Gus and I attended. We recapped the discussion on the People’s Budget, Gordon’s ides, and Chris Horton’s foreclosure idea.
We revisited and reinforced our decision to set up a GRP local, the Quinebaug Valley Greens. So, we looked at the MA Green Party Organizing Manual again. We reviewed some goals:
--”in short, a good group will be effective, fun, and participatory.”
--is there a curriculum at Bay Path about agriculture?
--contact Charleen Cultler, from the Last Green Valley, about doing programs on food (specifically, growing local food)
--founding a Grange
--connecting with Quinsigemond College: can we host a speaker or present a program there?
--Daphne suggested creating a list of local farmers and farmers’ markets; talk to them and find out the requirements of each. To promote them
--working on allowing backyard chickens (working with town zoning boards, what should a local ordinance look like? The number of chickens allowed, not allowing roosters, etc) , local gardening and fruit tree.
--would local farmers have input into these town/city issues?
--there is a man who spoke recently to the Worcester City Council about backyard chickens; what happened? Gus has his name and number.
-- http://www.tlgv.org, Phone: 860-774-3300
From first meeting:
GUS: share info received from Dimitri’s step mum disputing the flicker effect
DAPHNE: research green solar field research and the Norfolk solar field project
MAUREEN: Contact Sandy Quigley, from Sturbridge. Sturbridge had a presentation about solar hot water recently
EVERYONE: work on creating our own education about these issues
MAUREEN: Contact Charlene Cutler about speaking about the food supply.
DAPHNE: Find out the name of the person from the Worcester Food bank.
GUS: Do you have contact at the Worc. Food Bank also?
From the last meeting:
GUS: register on doodle.com
GUS: Please submit the press release that you wrote.
GUS: Contact Nancy Shields and invite her to a meeting.
From this meeting:
GUS: update on press release and getting it translated into Spanish
EVERYONE: has anyone gone on the email account or looked at the blog?
GUS: do you have the name and number of the man who spoke before the Worcester City Council?
GUS: Talk to Michelle Buck (The Town Planner from Leicester and Spencer); what is their situation like (regarding backyard chickens and goats)
GUS and MAUREEN: send monthly MDAR mailing to Daphne
DAPHNE: Call the registered Greens from your town list
GUS: Contact the Holistic Health and Raw Food Counselor whom you met recently
Next meeting: Two weeks from last meeting
11am, Thursday, June 30th at the Joshua Hyde Library, Sturbridge
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Viral capitalism
"... I was working in an orchard/ that grew the strangest fruit;
It wasn't Mother Nature that made those trees/ take root.
Your children cannot hear you/they only want your loot ...
They never believed you were in distress.
Now you've gone and left them with Tristesse..."
~ The Church, "Tristesse" (from "Heyday" 1985)
The way we're going, that could be the theme song for the year 2030, maybe even earlier. What's sad is that they saw it 26 years ago ... and others did so even before that.
What does that say about our culture's ability to change?
Obviously, something as big as a civilization has a lot of inertia, and it doesn't make the process of change any easier when a relative handful of people are making unbelievable quantities of money because of the path we're on. Even though the vast majority of us aren't in that group, those who are depend on the rest of us for their position and wealth. Without us, they'd be nobody.
Our system does everything possible to deny that basic fact, driven as it is by the dogma of the uber-individual. But since the very first day some courageous proto-human walked out of the trees and realized there's an enormous savannah out there with some large, salivating carnivores just waiting to eat him (or her), it's been our communal abilities that have kept us alive. Granted, some people ARE stronger, more creative, more organized, smarter -- whatever superlative you can think of -- than the average human, but that person usually needs to be very lucky to be in the right place and time where their talent or new idea can take root and, most crucially, to have people around them who believe in that idea and their talents. Let's call it the Great Widget, but remember it applies as much to the paper clip as to Microsoft.
Capitalism -- especially the current, globalized Wall Street/corporatist version of it -- neglects those "little people," rewarding the idea person far out of proportion for the actual amount of work they put into making the Widget possible. At the same time, it largely under-rewards the various labors of the many that made it possible to bring the Widget into existence, sell it, transport it, etc. During the process, it gives smart but unethical people who have talents that can be profitably commoditized in this kind of culture (which is not the only one humanly possible) an excuse to be greedy and grossly antisocial, allowing them to use their luck to abuse other people and, even worse, convince those other people to abuse Earth herself for short-term gain.
Inevitably, any such gain will be short-term -- maybe not in the sense of an individual lifespan, but, as we're beginning to see all around us, certainly in the sense of human longevity as a species. A lot of the talk in environmental circles is still, after decades, about "saving the planet," but by taking strong action to heal Earth's distress, we're saving OURSELVES. Doing that means making major changes to the capitalist system, quite likely by killing it off as we now know it, but definitely by greatly reducing the quantity of wasteful and polluting Widgets we make.
First and foremost, we need to separate capitalism from the concept of democracy -- the two did "grow up" together to some degree, but that was more historical chance than because they're kin. They're not. Capitalism has actually served to mutate democracy's development by corrupting or outright preventing the electoral process (depending on the country) and laying minefields in the way of real reforms that would allow more human beings to be involved in government (as opposed to the inhuman non-people called corporations). That's because capitalism's primary aim has always been two-fold: concentrate wealth and political power in the hands of the few while using virus-like rhetoric of individualism, opportunity and competition to divide the common people. Even Adam Smith saw that back in 1776, although he didn't phrase it that way.* In some periods, those common folks have been able to take a few steps up the capitalist ladder, but only when a strong, honest and responsive government has been able to counter the system's monopolistic tendencies.
Unfortunately, now is not one of those periods; both major U.S. parties are corrupt (especially at the federal level), and the capitalist doctrine has infected most other governments, including nominally communist ones. The big corporations often don't even pretend to be loyal to any nation anymore, because they're wealthier than many nations.** They're only loyal to the dollar (or yen or yuan or euro, whatever the dominant currency of the day is).
Apologists will say corporations have a legal duty to maximize profit for their shareholders but that's not really true. Nothing prevents a company from using profits for socially- and ecologically-beneficial purposes (far more, I mean, than the token percentages most global players currently spend, amounts that are vastly dwarfed by what they spend to TELL us how "beneficial" they are.) It could be reasonably argued that doing so would, in fact, BE paying the shareholders their dividends, since cleaning up the huge mess the profit system has made of Earth in the last several decades will have a much more positive impact on shareholders' future than any money. Likewise, such apologists will claim a majority of Americans hold stock in some firm or other, and while numerically that's (barely) true, in practice more than 80% of all stock and other investments are in the hands of 10% of the population. Because corporate votes are one stock-one vote rather than one person-one vote, that gives a handful of uber-rich folks total control of and almost all of the profit from those companies.
Such a system is decidedly NOT democratic, but it is what capitalism inherently slides toward when allowed to do what it wishes. It's called plutocracy and, typical of a virus, it is rapidly hijacking our government and our media to make copies of itself, making Earth extremely sick in the process. We need to be Earth's immune system and fight off this infection before it kills us and leaves Earth's ecosystem severely debilitated.
****************
*What he actually wrote was "Merchants ... have an interest to deceive and even to oppress the people." In his time, there were no consumer, child or labor protection laws and no environmental laws, and the Big Business of the period did exactly what it tries to do today -- make as much money as possible with absolutely no qualms about the consequences for workers, land or people. Back then, they were a quite blatant about it, with mercantilist enterprises like the East India Company fielding their own armies to conquer and pillage India, Africa and elsewhere, ostensibly in the name of the Crown.
** A list of the top 100 nations and corporations in 2000 is on page 6 of the linked PDF. Several of those corps have since grown immensely, typically by merger (that date was before the union of Exxon and Mobil, for example) or due to the recently climbing prices for food, oil, etc.
It wasn't Mother Nature that made those trees/ take root.
Your children cannot hear you/they only want your loot ...
They never believed you were in distress.
Now you've gone and left them with Tristesse..."
~ The Church, "Tristesse" (from "Heyday" 1985)
The way we're going, that could be the theme song for the year 2030, maybe even earlier. What's sad is that they saw it 26 years ago ... and others did so even before that.
What does that say about our culture's ability to change?
Obviously, something as big as a civilization has a lot of inertia, and it doesn't make the process of change any easier when a relative handful of people are making unbelievable quantities of money because of the path we're on. Even though the vast majority of us aren't in that group, those who are depend on the rest of us for their position and wealth. Without us, they'd be nobody.
Our system does everything possible to deny that basic fact, driven as it is by the dogma of the uber-individual. But since the very first day some courageous proto-human walked out of the trees and realized there's an enormous savannah out there with some large, salivating carnivores just waiting to eat him (or her), it's been our communal abilities that have kept us alive. Granted, some people ARE stronger, more creative, more organized, smarter -- whatever superlative you can think of -- than the average human, but that person usually needs to be very lucky to be in the right place and time where their talent or new idea can take root and, most crucially, to have people around them who believe in that idea and their talents. Let's call it the Great Widget, but remember it applies as much to the paper clip as to Microsoft.
Capitalism -- especially the current, globalized Wall Street/corporatist version of it -- neglects those "little people," rewarding the idea person far out of proportion for the actual amount of work they put into making the Widget possible. At the same time, it largely under-rewards the various labors of the many that made it possible to bring the Widget into existence, sell it, transport it, etc. During the process, it gives smart but unethical people who have talents that can be profitably commoditized in this kind of culture (which is not the only one humanly possible) an excuse to be greedy and grossly antisocial, allowing them to use their luck to abuse other people and, even worse, convince those other people to abuse Earth herself for short-term gain.
Inevitably, any such gain will be short-term -- maybe not in the sense of an individual lifespan, but, as we're beginning to see all around us, certainly in the sense of human longevity as a species. A lot of the talk in environmental circles is still, after decades, about "saving the planet," but by taking strong action to heal Earth's distress, we're saving OURSELVES. Doing that means making major changes to the capitalist system, quite likely by killing it off as we now know it, but definitely by greatly reducing the quantity of wasteful and polluting Widgets we make.
First and foremost, we need to separate capitalism from the concept of democracy -- the two did "grow up" together to some degree, but that was more historical chance than because they're kin. They're not. Capitalism has actually served to mutate democracy's development by corrupting or outright preventing the electoral process (depending on the country) and laying minefields in the way of real reforms that would allow more human beings to be involved in government (as opposed to the inhuman non-people called corporations). That's because capitalism's primary aim has always been two-fold: concentrate wealth and political power in the hands of the few while using virus-like rhetoric of individualism, opportunity and competition to divide the common people. Even Adam Smith saw that back in 1776, although he didn't phrase it that way.* In some periods, those common folks have been able to take a few steps up the capitalist ladder, but only when a strong, honest and responsive government has been able to counter the system's monopolistic tendencies.
Unfortunately, now is not one of those periods; both major U.S. parties are corrupt (especially at the federal level), and the capitalist doctrine has infected most other governments, including nominally communist ones. The big corporations often don't even pretend to be loyal to any nation anymore, because they're wealthier than many nations.** They're only loyal to the dollar (or yen or yuan or euro, whatever the dominant currency of the day is).
Apologists will say corporations have a legal duty to maximize profit for their shareholders but that's not really true. Nothing prevents a company from using profits for socially- and ecologically-beneficial purposes (far more, I mean, than the token percentages most global players currently spend, amounts that are vastly dwarfed by what they spend to TELL us how "beneficial" they are.) It could be reasonably argued that doing so would, in fact, BE paying the shareholders their dividends, since cleaning up the huge mess the profit system has made of Earth in the last several decades will have a much more positive impact on shareholders' future than any money. Likewise, such apologists will claim a majority of Americans hold stock in some firm or other, and while numerically that's (barely) true, in practice more than 80% of all stock and other investments are in the hands of 10% of the population. Because corporate votes are one stock-one vote rather than one person-one vote, that gives a handful of uber-rich folks total control of and almost all of the profit from those companies.
Such a system is decidedly NOT democratic, but it is what capitalism inherently slides toward when allowed to do what it wishes. It's called plutocracy and, typical of a virus, it is rapidly hijacking our government and our media to make copies of itself, making Earth extremely sick in the process. We need to be Earth's immune system and fight off this infection before it kills us and leaves Earth's ecosystem severely debilitated.
****************
*What he actually wrote was "Merchants ... have an interest to deceive and even to oppress the people." In his time, there were no consumer, child or labor protection laws and no environmental laws, and the Big Business of the period did exactly what it tries to do today -- make as much money as possible with absolutely no qualms about the consequences for workers, land or people. Back then, they were a quite blatant about it, with mercantilist enterprises like the East India Company fielding their own armies to conquer and pillage India, Africa and elsewhere, ostensibly in the name of the Crown.
** A list of the top 100 nations and corporations in 2000 is on page 6 of the linked PDF. Several of those corps have since grown immensely, typically by merger (that date was before the union of Exxon and Mobil, for example) or due to the recently climbing prices for food, oil, etc.
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