“99% Spring” Organizes Occupy’s Momentum to Fight Inequality and Corporations

The Occupy movement received a major boost from the progressive establishment which will impact American society and the upcoming elections.   The 99% Spring movement has arrived and is already creating a stir at shareholder meetings and in the streets.  This article provides full details on the 99% Spring (including their recent national trainings and links to their tools.)  I also summarize media articles about the debate over whether the two movements are compatible. I believe they clearly are given that many of the same people and groups are involved with each.  Read on in order to learn how and why to get involved with future actions.

I attended the three-hour training session in Durham, NC on April 12, 2012 (and have reviewed the entire seven-hour workshop training guide.)   About 25 people were there – with only a few folks under 40.  The training was well-designed and well-received.   We gained important insights and skills – even from this abbreviated session.  To provide a context, during my 25 year tenure as Sociology Professor at North Carolina State University, I designed and conducted similar training sessions and produced companion documents and videos (e.g., team-building, social change, community organization, and watershed management.)  I also have written extensively about the Occupy movement since its beginning.  

Click below to learn how you can join this important initiative.

Hippies Deserve Respect for their Values and Vision

The Occupy Movement owes much to the Hippie Movement of the sixties.  Now, the right wing has predictably started another round of “Hippie Bashing.”   The hippie subculture was a youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and was largely gone by 1973.    The word hippie is from hipster (used to describe kids who flocked into San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.  Hippies inherited the counter-cultural values of the Beat Generation.  They also created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as marijuana and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness.  Above all, hippies were promoting the idea of peace, love, unity and freedom.

Hippie fashions and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts.  Since the 1960s, many aspects of hippie culture have been assimilated by mainstream society.  The religious and cultural diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance.  Their adoption of Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts has now spread to a wide audience.  The hippie legacy can also be observed in contemporary culture from health food, to music festivals, to contemporary sexual mores, and the cyberspace revolution.  It is also clear that the well-established environmental movement owes a lot to the hippies (i.e., tree-huggers.)

This article includes recent reflections on the hippie movement in light of the occupy movement.  Original writings about the hippies from the sixties are also included.  This article includes quotes from Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Eldridge Cleaver and others. Finally, there are links to the best hippie videos on Youtube.   Click below to learn more about why the hippies are more important now than ever.

Why Barack is Best – Read His Own Words

Over the past year I have watched and recorded all of Barack Obama’s televised speeches and debates.  I am also reading his awesome book “The Audacity of Hope.”  Now I have collected some of his key quotes for your reading pleasure.  Truly he is the smartest and most eloquent person to run for president in my lifetime.  The quotes are organized into four main topical areas:  American Dream and Values; Change We Can Believe In; Politics and Policies; and Solutions Through Social Service.

Hope you find these gems to be informative, inspirational and influential.  He clearly understands what our country needs for the future.   Enjoy all the “bumper stickers” that I found on the Internet.  Truly there are as many positive reasons to vote for Obama-Biden as there are negative reasons to vote against McCain-Palin. Now that the Obama campaign is fighting back I will shift more of my writing to the positive changes we can expect under an Obama administration.  Truly his election represents the best and last HOPE we have to save our country and the planet.

My Research Shows that Food Creates Both Comfort and Confusion

In this column I present myself as a lifelong scholar of and advocate of farming and food. My graduate research during the 1980s focused on ways to encourage farmers to take better care of their soil and water resources. My professor job at NC State University focused on the social and environmental impacts of farming and food production. You can read all about that in the first part.  Then read a new column I just wrote that ties together food, spirituality and the hippies.  I also include some cool pix and quotes. In addition, read the review I wrote of the fine film “The Future of Food,” by Deborah Koons-Garcia.

To start with I invite you to read how my views on the subject of food biotechnology (a.k.a., GMOs) has changed over the past decade. These changes in attitudes about my profession ran along with some major transformations I have also made in my personal, political, and philosophical lives!!  I have spent over 30 years studying and working to change the food production and distribution system to become more sustainable and successful.  Americans do enjoy an unbelievably cheap and abundant food supply – that has been under serious threat since the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s and Chemical Revolution of the 1950’s.