Tag Archives: Community-Based Economics

People’s Film Festival Upcoming Shows

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As always, the People’s Film Festival is held at First Unitarian Church, 31st and Harney streets, Omaha, at 7 p.m. Note that the schedule has changed from Tuesdays to Mondays.

1913: Seeds of Conflict (Thursday 3/24): 1913 examines a critical yet overlooked moment of transformation in Palestine, long before the Balfour Declaration and British Mandate period usually considered the matchstick for today’s ongoing struggles. It was a time when identities were fluid and few Arabs or Jews living there could imagine the conflict that would engulf their region for the next century.

Feeding Frenzy: The Food Industry, Marketing & the Creation of a Health Crisis (Monday 4/4): Over the past three decades, obesity rates in the U.S. have more than doubled for children and tripled for adolescents — and a startling 70% of adults are now obese or overweight. The result has been a widening epidemic of obesity-related health problems, including coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes. While discussions about this spiraling health crisis have tended to focus on the need for more exercise and individual responsibility, Feeding Frenzy trains its focus squarely on the responsibility of the processed food industry and the outmoded government policies it benefits from. It lays bare how taxpayer subsidies designed to feed hungry Americans during the Great Depression have enabled the food industry to flood the market with a rising tide of cheap, addictive, high-calorie food products, and offers an engrossing look at the tactics of the multibillion-dollar marketing machine charged with making sure that every one of those surplus calories is consumed. Features industry analysts, health experts, and advertising scholars, including Marion Nestle, Kelly Brownell, Sut Jhally, Brian Wansink, and Michele Simon.

Call of Life (Monday 4/18): Call of Life is the first feature-length documentary to fully investigate the growing threat posed by the rapid and massive loss of biodiversity on the planet. Featuring leading scientists, social scientists, environmentalists and others, the film explores the scope, the causes, and the predicted global impact of a mass extinction occurring on a scale not seen since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. If current trends continue, scientists warn that half or more of all plant and animal species on Earth will become extinct within the next few decades. Entirely caused by human activities, this contemporary mass extinction is disrupting and destroying the complex, interconnected biological systems that support life on earth. Through interviews with eminent biologists and ecologists, the film examines the primary drivers of species loss: habitat destruction, global warming, pollution, and invasive species, all compounded by the expanding human population and our consumption patterns.

GMO-OMG (Monday 5/2): This provocative documentary follows one father’s search for answers to the question “What are we feeding our families?” and examines the risks of consuming genetically modified foods, or GMOs. Features Jeremy Seifert.

Charles E. Richardson: 1935-2016

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Founding Co-chair of the Nebraska Green Party, Dr. Charles Richardson, died on Monday, March 7, 2016, in Hastings. Thank you, Charles, for your early Green Party support, your tireless District 3 work gathering hundreds of signatures in each petition campaign, convening meetings, and providing NGP visibility where we needed it most. Members of the Nebraska Green Party extend sympathy to your family and friends.

Read Charles’ obituary.

Super Tuesday: The empire strikes back, but the rebellion lives

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From Jill Stein and Jill2016.com:

Super Tuesday was a big win for oligarchy, as the Democratic Party establishment delivered over 60% of available delegates for Hillary Clinton and billionaire demagogue Donald Trump stomped to victory in 8 states.

But despite the dominance of Clinton and Trump, the millions of votes for Bernie Sanders show that Americans are hungry for sweeping changes to a broken system that’s throwing workers, students, the middle class and the poor under the bus.

I agree with Bernie and his supporters that we must take our democracy back from the billionaires, win economic justice for the 99%, confront the existential threat of climate meltdown, adopt an improved Medicare For All healthcare system, provide a welcoming path to citizenship, and end racist violence in our criminal justice system.

On many issues, we must go further – for example, by canceling all student loan debt, urgently transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, nationalizing the Federal Reserve, and reforming the electoral system with measures like proportional representation. And we must roll back the military-industrial-surveillance complex that is undermining our liberty and security while bankrupting us financially and morally.

Read more at Jill2016.com.

Action Alert: Oppose exemption for corporate hog farming

Action Alerts,

From BOLD Nebraska:

Our tradition of family farming in Nebraska is under attack right now. A bill (LB 176) that could come up for a vote any day now in the Nebraska Legislature would allow meatpackers — like the Chinese-owned meatpacking company Smithfield — to own pork in Nebraska. This would put family farmers out of business.

If the meatpackers own our livestock, corporate-raised pork will dominate our grocery store shelves. This means less care for the animal, more water pollution, and lower-quality food. LB 176 also gives the vertically-integrated corporate “factory farming” system more economic power over Nebraska’s family farmers.

Read more and sign the online petition.

Two upcoming events with Open Harvest Co-op Grocery in Lincoln

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KZUM Donation Day

  • Wednesday, January 27, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
  • At Open Harvest Co-op Grocery, 1618 South Street, Lincoln.

Did you know KZUM started in Open Harvest’s basement many years ago? On Wednesday, January 27th, we are sending some noise their way by organizing our first ever KZUM Donation Day. It’s really simple: at the end of the day, 5% of the store’s net sales will be donated directly to KZUM. You don’t have to do anything, except stop by Open Harvest and pick up the food that you love. Come shop with us on this special day, and support two long-standing community organizations at the same time. It’s a win-win. Please help spread the word.

Seed Swap

  • Saturday, January 30, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
  • At 2 Pillars Church, 1430 South Street, Lincoln.

The Open Harvest Co-op Grocery and Community Crops Annual Seed Swap falls on National Seed Swap Day, January 30th. We will be hosting a space for the Lincoln gardening community to bring their seeds saved from last year and swap them. This is a great opportunity to see what everyone has been growing and maybe branch out and try planting something new. Hope to see you there!

Read more at www.openharvest.coop/events/

Elevating agriculture in the city

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From the Lincoln Journal Star and written by Tim Rinne, Nebraskans for Peace State Coordinator:

After all the fine cooking we just feasted on over the holidays, I’m probably not the only one carrying around some unwanted extra pounds. It’s hard to restrain yourself when the food’s right in front of you, smelling and looking heavenly, just crying to be sampled.

And yet, with all these calories having gone straight to my waistline, there’s something about this annual rite of indulgence that more and more leaves me mystified.

How is it we so utterly relish the food but evince such little regard for the farm? (Because you can’t have the one without the other.)

Yet that’s what we do. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, I oftentimes stuffed myself so much I felt bloated, but couldn’t have told you where a single one of those calories came from.

We never think about the farm being the source of our food. We city dwellers, pulling up at the drive-thru or pushing our carts down the grocery aisle, are so barricaded from the process of food production that the closest most of us ever get to a farm anymore is driving past one on I-80. We prefer not to think about our grains, vegetables, nuts and fruits having grown in dirt or that our meat came from animals that pee, poop and bleed. We like our food attractively packaged, without any of the actual backstory.

The corn and soybean operations we see outside our car window, though, don’t give an accurate picture of where all that food we eat originates.

Read the full column.

Dr. Jill Stein: People’s State of the Union

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From jill2016.com:

The Precarious State of Our Union: A Bipartisan Disaster We Can Fix

From the viewpoint of everyday Americans, the State of our Union, in point of fact, is not strong. In reality, we are in a state of historic crisis – for our economy, ecology, democracy and security.

Thankfully, these crises are still eminently solvable. With a majority of Americans disapproving of both establishment parties, there is unprecedented momentum for a new way forward, based on principles of democracy, justice and peace, towards an America and a world that works for all of us.

Republicans have long been recognized as unabashed servants of the economic elite, leading the charge against the public interest. But they have not been alone.

Democratic priorities were clear when President Obama had two Democratic Houses of Congress to support him, as the party went to bat for trillions in Wall Street bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, job-killing corporate trade agreements, austerity budgets, health care reform that locked single payer out and private profits in, mass deportations of hardworking immigrants, privatization of schools, expanding wars for oil and regime change, climate-killing “all of the above” energy policies, and unprecedented assaults on privacy and press freedoms.

As a result of this bipartisan assault, we have not had a recovery by any measure.

Read the full People’s State of the Union.

TransCanada sues U.S. and files NAFTA claim for KXL rejection

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From the Lincoln Journal Star:

TransCanada has filed a lawsuit and a $15 billion NAFTA claim seeking to recover costs and damages in response to President Barack Obama’s rejection of a permit for its Keystone XL pipeline.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court in Houston and says Obama’s November decision to deny a cross-border permit for the $8 billion pipeline violated his power under the Constitution.

The Calgary, Alberta-based company spent $3.1 billion trying to bring the project to fruition. The $15 billion figure takes into account what it says is the lost value of its investments and its lost economic return.

Read the full story.

People’s Film Festival Dec. 15: ‘Consumerism & the Limits to Imagination’

Events,

The People’s Film Festival (now monthly) will be held next Tuesday, Dec. 15th at 7 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 3114 Harney St., Omaha. This month’s film is described below, and as always, there will be an opportunity for discussion after the showing.

The December film will be Consumerism & the Limits to Imagination.

Consumer capitalism dominates our economy, our politics, and our culture, even though a growing body of research suggests it may be well past its sell-by date. In this illustrated presentation based on his latest critically acclaimed book, media scholar Justin Lewis makes a compelling case that consumer capitalism can no longer deliver on its promise of enhancing quality of life, and argues that changing direction will require changing our media system and our cultural environment. After showing how consumer capitalism has become economically and environmentally unsustainable, Lewis explores how our cultural and information industries make it difficult to envision other forms of human progress by limiting critical thinking and keeping us locked in a cycle of consumption. And he argues that change will only be possible if we take culture seriously and transform the very way we organize our media and communications systems.

Attend the 2015 Nebraska Conservation Summit

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From the Nebraska League of Conservation Voters:

Held on the afternoon and evening of Dec. 7 in Omaha, this year’s Summit is centered on the theme of Water. We will explore how the global water crisis impacts Nebraska and how we can act to ensure water sustainability for future generations.

By attending the Summit, you will learn about some of the greatest threats to Nebraska’s water supply and what Nebraskans across the state are doing to address them. You will discover how different industries depend upon and manage water and how water is governed in our state. The goal of the Summit is to inform you about the issues facing water and to help you get involved in finding the solutions.

Why You Won’t Want to Miss The 2015 Nebraska Conservation Summit:

  • The event features eleven of Nebraska’s top water experts, providing you with the chance to learn, ask questions, and discuss solutions.
  • Our Keynote Presenter is Dr. Peter Gleick, known world-wide as a leading expert, innovator, and communicator on water and climate issues. He has literally written the book on water (multiple, actually), and he travels across the globe to discuss the most pressing water issues in any given locale.
  • Networking opportunities and a cocktail hour have been incorporated into the event, providing you with the opportunity to meet with other Nebraskans who care about water sustainability.
  • You will discover action steps that you can take as an individual to help ensure water sustainability now and in the future.

Read more and get tickets.