Street Roots • Dec 8-14, 2017
ALPEROVITZ, from page 10
unless we build an entirely new politics
around a new vision, we’re always on the
defensive.
A.B.: In the 2016 presidential primary, a
lot o f Americans supported a candidate who
identified as a “democratic socialist. ” That’s
significant, right?
GA.'. It was revealed that a lot of
people didn’t worry about the word
“socialism.” When I was younger, the
word “socialism” was regarded as
something outrageous, and it no longer is,
which is a big gain. Let me say something
about the importance of the “idea
system,” because usually in politics we’re
talking about changing real, material
things, like housing and health care and
welfare programs and payments and
taxes. A good part of politics is also about
ideas and vision and morality, and I think
that’s what (Vermont Senator) Bernie
Sanders’ campaign showed us. The notion
of giving actual words to a different
direction is important because it helps
people mobilize and get together and
think of something very different. The
polls showed that young people are
favorable to the word “socialism,” but
what Sanders did was demonstrate a
much broader appeal.
A.B.: Your book includes numerous
examples o f institution-building projects
already underway in communities across
the country. Are there a couple yo u ’d like to
highlight?
G.A.: The idea that we should have
publicly owned banks so that they can
allocate funds to, for instance, worker
co-ops or land ownership at the
neighborhood-level is exciting, and several
cities are beginning to do that. The state
of North Dakota has had a publicly owned
bank for a hundred years, which came out
of populist socialist movements, and it is
very successful. There are now active
movements for public banks in
Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Santa Fe,
Denver, Los Angeles, Oakland and several
other cities.
News
Another project that has received a lot
of attention and that we (the Democracy
Collaborative) have been involved with is
in Cleveland, Ohio. A group of worker-
owned cooperatives that are quite large in
scale, which include the greenest laundry
in the Midwest, a greenhouse for growing
crops in the winter that produces 3
million head of lettuce a year, and a solar
installation company are linked together
in a neighborhood corporation that is
neighborhood-wide. It’s not just free
standing co-ops because the idea is to
build the neighborhood too, not just the
workers and the work of co-ops. So the
hospitals and universities in the area buy
from this complex of worker and
community-ownership [through a]
neighborhood institution called the
Evergreen Cooperative. Rochester, New
York, is in the process of building
something similar, and there’s also similar
work going on in Richmond, Va., in
Atlanta, Ga., and in Jackson, Miss.
A.B.: Anything else you’d like to say?
G.A.: I think people need to
understand that politics sometimes is a
long-haul game. If you are serious about
politics, the price is decades of work, not
just the next election. I think we’re in a
period of potentially extraordinary
historical change, but it means working
now, looking at the long-haul building
projects, not being disappointed when the
trends don’t change all of the sudden, but
realizing that step-by-step is laying
groundwork, just as the women’s
movement did, just as the civil rights
movement did, just as the early
environmental movement did. People who
are working now are laying the
groundwork for a big transformation, and
I think it’s the hardest and most exciting
and most important work.
To read Gar Alperovitz’s new online book,
“Principles o f a Pluralist
Commonwealth, ” visit The Next System
Project. To learn more about The
Democracy Collaborative, visit their
website, democracycollaborative. org.
Page 11
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F C L IM A T E D IR E C T A C T IO N
The five Valve Turners, left to right: Em ily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, Leonard Higgins,
Ken Ward and Michael Foster. Higgins was convicted o f misdemeanor trespass and felony
crim inal m ischief in M ontana on Nov. 22. In October, Foster was found guilty o f felony
charges for his role in shutting down the pipeline in North Dakota. He is awaiting sentencing.
Ken Ward’s first trial in Washington ended in a hung jury. In July, he was tried again and
convicted o f burglary and sentenced to 23 days. Johnston and Klapstein are on course to go to
trial in Minnesota Circuit Court after the new year.
CHOICE, from page 5
definitely will not support the life we’ve
known and may not support us,” Higgins
said.
ll five of the Valve Turners are from the
Pacific Northwest. Less publicized has
been the Valve Turners’ mature ages: all
in their 50s and 60s. One, Annette
Klapstein, is a member of the activist
organization The Raging Grannies.
“Part of it is the time of life,” said
Higgins, 65. “I’m past the age that my
mother died. My dad went into a long-term
decline. It’s a matter of looking at life the
way I’ve spent it and asking what’s the most
important thing for me to do with the years
I’ve got left.”
Those listening, however, are young.
Some of the journalists arrested are in their
20s, and Higgins and other Valve Turners
have been speaking at colleges across the
nation. The mock trial in Missoula may have
A
been merely an exercise, but it explored the
essential idea of what is happening with our
changing climate.
“I have no idea if doing the sacrifices I’m
doing is going to make a scant bit of
difference with the problem,” Higgins said.
“But how can I live with myself and look
myself in the eye if I do nothing?”
are One moment from his trial he’ll
remember: As he left the courtroom after
his conviction, a group of supporters from
the Willamette Valley formed a semicircle
and began to sing.
“It was just a wonderful expression of
support,” Higgins said.
The song they chose to sing wasn’t the
“Kumbaya” of the ’60s or the hip-hop songs
often heard in today’s resistance actions.
It was “One Foot in Front of the Other,”
by country superstar George Strait. An
anthem for a get-’er-done guy from
Corvallis: “Steady as she goes... just keep on
walking/ We’re heading in the right
direction. ”
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