Category: People Helping People

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Arts & Entertainment, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice

We have close friends who moved last year from California to New Zealand, because they were concerned about the growing rightward drift in the US–even though they lived in one of the most liberal cities in the whole country.

Well, my wife and I saw “Sicko,” the other night: Michael Moore’s movie about the healthcare crisis in the US–and indepedently, both of us thought, ‘hmmm, New Zealand doesn’t seem so outrageous right now.’

Moore exposes the human cost of the USA’s failed healthcare system: doctors who are paid to deny necessary procedures, 9/11 volunteers who fell between the very large cracks, a cancer patient who had to sell her home and move into a spare room in her daughter’s house, thousands of miles away…and in true Moore fashion he bundles a few of these folks off on small boats to Guantanamo Bay–to demand the same free, state-of-the-art healthcare that the Bush-Cheney government repeatedly brags is offered to the prisoners there.

Of course, he’s turned away there–but finds a very receptive audience within the Cuban medical system, which treats the 9/11 volunteers as true heroes. In a very moving moment, a doctor in Cuba tells Moore that Cuba is a very poor country with few resources, but it has made healthcare a priority for all its citizens–and she pretty much tells him, if we can do it, you can too.

Cuba is not the only place that has made healthcare a priority–just about every First World country except the US offers high-quality free or minimal-cost universal healthcare, and Moore documents this with interviews in Canada, France, and England.

Less strident and more poignant than in some of his earlier films, Moore has made a film that I think could reach mainstream American audiences and show them it doesn’t have to be that way. And why, Moore asks, is “socialized medicine” such a demonized concept in the US? After all, we have socialized police and fire protection, public education, and plenty more. Why isn’t healthcare likewise considered a basic service?

In 1979 and 1980, I worked as a paid organizer for the Gray Panthers. Their biggest platform was the need for single-payer healthcare. Back then, we used to say that the United States and South Africa were the only two industrialized countries to lack this basic right–and South Africa, of course, embraced universal healthcare when it voted out the old apartheid government. So the US is all alone in its insistence that healthcare should be for profit, and not for health. Almost 30 years later, the Gray Panthers’ call is more important than ever.

And will I leave the country just to get affordable healthcare? At the moment, no. Our parents are here, our children are here, we live in Paradise in our antique farmhouse next to the mountain…and at the resent, we’re both in fine health. But certainly, this movie made us consider the option.

The website for the movie is https://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/

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By Posted on Posted in Frugality/Frugal Fun, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized

The other day, I bought a loaf of artisan bread at a supermarket. It even happened to be a locally owned, single-location supermarket.

But then I looked at the label and saw it was made in California. I live in Massachusetts.

I’ve got plenty of stuff in my pantry that made a long trip–but for the most part, it’s stuff for which there is no local source. I can’t get chocolate of any sort, let alone the organic fair trade chocolate that I buy, that’s grown within even 1000 miles of my house. Ditto with olives, Indian pickles, etc. I can buy from local companies that import the stuff, but it will never be locally grown unless global warming happens a *lot* faster than I think it will.

The bread made me feel guilty, though. Within 10 miles of my house there are close to a dozen quality bakers, most of them locally owned and operated. I buy a lot of bread from them.

And part of my belief in people helping people is buying local, keeping money in my own local economy (or the local economy where I happen to be traveling)–as well as, where practical, reducing my environmental footprint. So I shop local a lot. The majority of my food dollars, at least in the summer time, are spent at farmer’s markets, our local Community Supported Agriculture farm store. I’ve even managed to find a local supplier for the recycled paper I feed my computer printer.

But in two ways, I’m not a purist. I do spend a fair amount of money in the local branches of nationally owned food stores, because selection, price, and convenience make that a sensible path for me, at least in the winter. (I’ve been shifting more and more to local markets, however–and when I happen to be in the town 25 miles form me with that local supermarket, I shop there.)

And I’m not yet willing to live the stark and barren life without the stuff that doesn’t grow around here. I want my daily cup of cocoa, my wife wants her black tea, we add those Oriental hot sauces to our cooking.

But bread? What was I thinking?

Resources:
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a nationwide network working on keeping money in the local economy. Website is unintuitive–even s a member, I had to hunt for it: https://www.livingeconomies.org/

Community Involved in Local Agriculture, a group here in Western mass focusing on buying local.

29,10o answers to the question, “Why Buy Local?”

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

FreePress.net sent out this alert yesterday

Imagine having a fast connection to an open Internet wherever you go, without needing a telephone wire or cable modem.

The FCC could make this happen. Instead they’re on the verge of turning over our public Internet airwaves to the same giant phone and cable companies that control high-speed access for more than 96 percent of American users.

Don’t let the FCC give away our wireless Internet to these price-gouging giants. We need to use these public airwaves to connect more Americans to an open, neutral and affordable Internet.

And this is what I appended at the beginning of the comment field:

The idea of using the existing TV spectrum for widely available broadband is tremendously exciting. As a business owner, I could see that this might spark a wave of creative entrepreneurship like the original dotcom boom a decade ago, and create useful technologies we can only dream of currently. Open access is the way to do this, not tight control by a handful of companies.

If you’d like to comment on this, this link brings you to the webform.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

The well-known sustainable business guru Paul Hawken recently wrote that the presence of a decentralized and not-even-connected movement for environmental is not only a powerful force for change, but one for which there’s no precedent.

Hawken actually tried to quantify the number of organizations working to adopt a river, or ease world hunger, or work for peace, or a whole lot of other causes. Small, grassroots groups–collectively numbering about two million organizations, and thus tens of millions of people. There’s no overal leader, no single agenda–but he sees these splintered fractions coming together as a definable movement for environmental and social justice, and having enormous impact.

The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer solutions to what appear to be insoluble dilemmas: poverty, global climate change, terrorism, ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of culture. It is not burdened with a syndrome of trying to save the world; it is trying to remake the world…

And I believe it will prevail. I don’t mean defeat, conquer, or cause harm to someone else. And I don’t tender the claim in an oracular sense. I mean the thinking that informs the movement’s goal—to create a just society conducive to life on Earth—will reign. It will soon suffuse and permeate most institutions. But before then, it will change a sufficient number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied self-destruction.

As someone who has been involved with grassroots movements since I was 12 or 13, I think he’s right. In fact, in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, I devote an entire chapter to the intersection of marketing and social change. I even included a case study about one social movement I started that defeated an extremely inappropriate development proposal–when all the “experts” said, “oh, this is terrible but there’s nothing we can do.” Well, we got thousands of people involved–and beat the “unstoppable” thing in just 13 months. (Note: the website hasn’t been updated in years–but it was a vital tool during the campaign.)

Starting that movement is something I will always feel is one of my greatest accomplishments.

There are a couple of books I want to write about the power of people to create social and environmental justice–and peace. In the meantime, I’m planning to start a high-level Internet discussion group for marketers who want to create social and environmental transformation. If you’re interested, comment here (with a way of getting in touch) or drop me a note at shel [at] principledprofit.com, subject line: Social Change Marketer Group (if you don’t hear back from me, check in again–email isn’t as reliable as it used to be!

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, General Commentary, People Helping People, Uncategorized

Marketing legend Joe Vitale is one of the big boosters of the “think it and manifest it” school (often called “The law of Attraction”), much-publicized in the movie “The Secret,” among other places. Joe is, in fact, one of the people interviewed in that movie.

Today, Joe announced that for the past several months, he’s been dealing with several tumors that were thought to be cancerous.

While I am not without my skepticism about the Law of Attraction as a cure-all, I certainly believe it is an important tool in the toolbag–and reading how Joe approached this illness is simply astonishing.

Whether you’re a complete skeptic or a total convert, this post is worth reading.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Frugality/Frugal Fun, General Commentary, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity, was kicked out in a power struggle, and started another organization to continue the work.

In this powerful interview conducted by Cynthia Kersey, the best selling author of Unstoppable and Unstoppable Women, Fuller discusses his accomplishments and challenges and faith. He comes across as remarkably humble and extremely effective.

I’ve always believed that one person can always make a difference, but that difference is greatly magnified if that person finds others to work with. If you’re not convinced, you need to read this entire interview. If you are convinced, read it for inspiration.

Couple of excerpts:

We thought that the work of Habitat for Humanity would be exclusively in third world countries and in the rural south. And Habitat has grown in third world countries, it’s all over Africa, it’s all over Asia, it’s all over Central and South America. It’s all over the rural south, but Habitat today is in every province in Canada. It’s in a number of European countries. It’s in New Zealand, it’s in Australia.

It is in all of the places we expected it to be, plus a whole lot more. Incidentally, that goal that we wrote about in our minutes of our first meeting was achieved in August of 2005. We dedicated the 200,000th house for the 1,000,000th person in Knoxville, Tennessee in August of 2005.

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many years is that? Twenty seven years?

MILLARD FULLER: We started in 1976, so just shy of 30 years. Currently, Habitat is building about 30,000 houses a year.

* * *

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How many communities took your challenge to eliminate poverty housing in that particular area? As a city wide, not so much just the affiliate, but the city said, “This is what we’re going to do.”

MILLARD FULLER: You mean accept the goal of trying to eliminate poverty housing?

CYNTHIA KERSEY: Yes, exactly.

MILLARD FULLER: That was done here in Americus, Georgia, where we live, with Habitat for Humanities headquarter and where now The Fuller Center for Housing is located. In 1992, I called together a community meeting in Americus; we have a community college here called Georgia Southwestern State University. I called together all of the leaders of this community and I said, “Let’s eliminate poverty housing in this town and in this county, because that’s what we advocate for the whole world, let’s just model it here locally.”

We created an organization called The Sumter County Initiative. We set a goal to end poverty housing by the year 2000. We got organized, we gridded the county. We knew what families lived in each little grid and we wrote all of that down and got a plan in place and systematically, grid by grid, we built every family a house that needed one in each grid, or in some cases renovated houses, or in other cases houses were too bad to be fixed up so they’d just be torn down.

On September 15th of the year 2000, I stood in front of the Thomas family house and we had a big sign out front that said, “Victory House.” I led 400 people singing an old southern gospel song, Victory in Jesus because that house symbolized our victory over substandard housing. We got rid of all of the slums, we got rid of all substandard housing, and we built 35 houses that week. In the last week, we put up the last 35 houses in five days.

CYNTHIA KERSEY: How did that impact the community?

MILLARD FULLER: It had a very, very positive impact, a huge impact. We saw crimes go down, children doing better in school, all of the indicators of what makes for a better community, improved. I might do a fast forward, Cynthia, and I think the people who are on this call would find this very interesting. In December of this past year, I went to the little town that I was raised up in, over in Alabama. It’s the little town of Lanett and Valley, Alabama, two small towns right on the Georgia border and in West Point, Georgia.

Those three towns, West Point, Georgia; Lanett and Valley, Alabama make up what is called the Chattahoochee Valley. Population wise, it’s about the same as here in Americus, Georgia. I was invited over there to meet with a group in December and I challenged them to do there what we did here. They accepted that challenge and they have now created the Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project. On March 16, we will kick off a 500 house build in my little hometown area.

Again, the article is at https://www.healthywealthynwise.com/article.asp?Article=5211.

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