Editorial

by Vicki Oldham

Community gives us a support network, a collective of individual strengths, skills and resources that empower us to make our own choices about our work, money, food, health, government and environ-ment. It asks for cooperation, work, sacrifice, generosity, communication and tolerance. Community is family extended; it gives, it needs, and for better or for worse, it is our own.

Socially, environmentally and politically we are in crisis. Faceless, nameless corporations are gaining greater control over our daily lives. They dictate the terms of political debate, control the media and buy politicians. Big business, big military and big cities are all tenuously held together by a big government that no longer protects the best interests of its citizens.

In this issue, we find people in our community turning crisis into opportunity by solving problems and making changes. We find them preparing for Y2K, starting community gardens, using local currency and standing up to corporations. They are working together, sharing resources and forming coalitions not just for themselves and their immediate families. They are laying the foundations of new community and are inviting us all to work with them, to become the change we want to see in the world.

Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited


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