Getting a Grip on Money & Politics, Part II
admin February 27th, 2008
Getting a Grip on Money and Politics, Part II from Anthony Lappe on Vimeo. Meet Frances on tour or hear her on the air. Watch Part I here.
Talking democracy on-line …
admin January 17th, 2008
(Frances) This afternoon I got to field questions in an on-line discussion set up by the Study Circles Resource Center whose work in bringing democracy to life I’ve valued for decades.
Some questions were pretty challenging. One I had fun with was, What should we ask the candidates? Here are my responses: Continue Reading »
The mother of all issues? Whose voices are heard…
admin January 7th, 2008
(Frances) I’ve lost too much sleep lately watching the primary returns and debates.
My stomach tightens when I realize how little voters and media are focused on what to me is the mother of all issues—the role of corporate influence in elections and in law-making.
Money will continue speak louder than our collective common sense and we’ll be unable to address our deepening local-to-global crises unless our next president seriously tackles this problem, pushes unrelentingly for public financing of elections, and refuses corporate money. Continue Reading »
New Year…a wake up call for our democracy?
admin January 1st, 2008
Outside, the snow is falling. Hmm… what will I say?
Could this year be the beginning of the wake-up? Enough people finally realizing that blaming George Bush or even replacing George Bush — that neither is enough. Instead we can go to the root: We can change the system that corrupts our political choices—the system that generates 61
In Getting a Grip I argue that elections plus a market do not a democracy make. Continue Reading »
Celebrating poor Brazilians’ triumph warms a cold New York night …
jess December 17th, 2007
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In a Times story about charitable giving, run the night before our Small Planet Fund gala, esteemed food and nutrition expert Marion Nestle responded to the question: How to decide which group to support?:
“People have to pick their issues, and I think there are plenty around.” And the story continued: “She selects the groups she helps on what she calls ‘a friendship basis.’ That is, she knows people who support an organization or, in the case of the Small Planet Fund, the founder herself.
The fund — founded by Anna Lappé and her mother, Frances Moore Lappé, author of the best-selling Diet for a Small Planet — gives grants to people like Vandana Shiva, who helps farmers in
My good news and Krugman’s gift…
jess December 10th, 2007
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Okay, I admit, I’m not too tired to call a good buddy to tell her the exciting news that my book just made the San Francisco Chronicle quality paperback bestseller list.
Still pinching myself about that!
But the flight goes surprisingly fast because of a fabulous book by my hero, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. His title Conscience of a Liberal suggests the book might be an overly nice, preachy essay. But it isn’t. Continue Reading »
Congratulations and Reflections
admin December 6th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) Today and tomorrow, the 2007 Recipients of the Right Livelihood Award are being honored in Stockholm. Often called the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” the Right Livelihood Prize “celebrates and supports people of vision. People who have ideas and apply them in concrete initiatives for the public good. They give hope for tomorrow, for a world in peace and balance. They demonstrate how we can overcome oppression, war, poverty, the destruction of our environment, and a widespread sense of meaninglessness and fear.”
This years laureates are: Christopher Weeramantry (Sri Lanka), and Dekha Ibrahim Abdi (Kenya), both engaged in promoting understanding between Islam and Christianity; Percy Schmeiser (Canada), who together with his wife Louise fights against Monsanto’s abusive marketing practices; and Dipal Barua (Bangladesh), Managing Director of Grameen Shakti, which has installed more than 120,000 solar home systems in rural Bangladesh.
Our congratulations to this year’s recipients also spur reflection, as today marks the 20th anniversary of Frances’ selection for the Right Livelihood Award. In 1987, only the fourth American to win the prize, Frances was given the award for her “vision and work healing our planet and uplifting humanity.”
Peace, Mark
Rethinking power—our own
jess November 28th, 2007
(Frances) Sitting here just after sunrise in a Sonoma, California coffee shop, I’m filled to the brim with the presence of the extraordinary people I’m encountering on this tour.
The themes of power and peace surround me. Just two nights ago, at San Francisco’s legendary City Lights bookstore, there in the front row were Jan and Dave Hartsough—friends of 30 years. I was overjoyed to see them. Dave is a founder of Nonviolent Peaceforce — a nonpartisan and unarmed peacekeeping force of trained civilians. In conflicts, members use proven nonviolent strategies to help protect human rights, thereby enabling local peacemakers to carry out their work.
Getting a Grip on Technology, Government, and Change
admin November 28th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) Bernie Sanders posted an interesting article on global heating on The Nation today. It’s worth a visit, but the gist is: we can fix our climate problems with new technology.
“[T]he situation is by no means hopeless.”
I resonate with the content of Sanders’ article, especially the need to keep a positive frame of mind and to strive after solutions that are substantive, not what Frances calls “random acts of sanity,” but which are genuine efforts made with every belief that we are, indeed, hope in action. Still, there is an even deeper need I fear Sanders doesn’t address.
The Invisible Revolution: a special feature
mark November 26th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) Here is a special feature. In 2002, Frances and her daughter, Anna, collaborated to write Hope’s Edge. In the process, they traveled far and wide, seeking out examples of Living Democracy. This is a “trailer” of sorts, an introduction and an invitation to explore their work and the world they witnessed.
Learn more about the book at the Small Planet Institute. Support their continuing work through the Small Planet Fund.
Peace, Mark
“Be the change…”
admin November 19th, 2007
(Frances) We’re just above Nova Scotia, says the flight map on the seat-back facing me, so I’m nearly home after an exhilarating week in England.
An hour ago, I was totally exhausted, but then I started reading the book they handed me as I left last night’s extraordinary 3rd annual Be the Change gathering in London’s Central Hall, where the response to the message of Getting a Grip moved me deeply.
The book – also titled Be the Change - that’s picked me up on this long flight is simply a collection of the voices of people who’ve spoken at previous “Be the Change” events, each telling their story—from Taddy Blecher, who started a free university in South Africa (simply by inviting poor students to apply and taking it from there!), to Gill Hicks, whose legs were blown off by the London “tube” bomber, and who loves her new life working for the organization PeaceDirect to teach everyday people the skills of peacemaking all over the world.
I am not doing the book justice…just trust me! If you want to start bouncing off your seat, order Be the Change, and whenever you start to slide down, read another of its amazing first-person stories.
Central Hall was super-charged last night. I arrived to deliver the next-to-last speech, just before Vandana Shiva’s. The excitement of the young people in the hall thrilled us both. We we’re both members of the co-sponsoring organization, the World Future Council, earlier in the conference had shared its campaign to spread the reward-renewables model legislation that has proved itself in Germany, moving 12.6% of the country’s electricity to renewal sources in only 7 years!
That morning I’d had enjoyed a three-hour train journey with Vandana from a gathering at Schumacher College in Devon. She described for me her organization’s stop-the-farmer- suicide campaign in central India.
Vandana and me
