THINKING GLOBALLY, ACTING LOCALLY

     Those of us of a peculiar persuasion have long espoused verbally, if not by our actions, this simple aphorism. It is an acknowledgement of our place in the world, and an affirmation that money spent in our local community benefits far more than the farm or business, or restaurant where they are spent. This is known by the coldly scientific term, synergy: to work together. The parable of the "loaves and fishes, from the New Testament, is a good example of synergism. The people were hungry, Jesus fed them, and they stayed to marvel at his sermon. But on this subject I am hardly qualified, so I will try some other examples which I may be more qualified to discuss. I will, first focus your attention to the backyard and gradually widen the focus.

     There is no greater connection to the web of life than composting. When done right, composting starts with our non-meat kitchen scraps, coffee grounds and eggshells, combined with the dead leaves of autumn, plant trimming and lawn clippings; stirred occasionally to oxygenate the center, and in a few months you have a rich humus, which nourishes your garden without the use of Petro-chemical fertilizers. It is true, composting requires several infusions of sweat, and a close, sensual relationship between you and your by-product, but there are no Saudi Sheiks in this transaction and no carbon tax to be paid. There is actually a carbon offset. Best of all, the micro-nutrients and micro-organisms important for healthy cell structure in our plants are multiplied by compost infusions; they are weakened by chemical soil amendments.

     Another example of synergy in the plant world would be the story about the planting practices of the Iroquois Indians when the first white settlers came to the New World. When the Puritans settled in Massechusetts to escape the persecution inflicted on them because of the persecution they had inflicted on Catholics and Methodists, they encountered an indigenous culture which had thrived on this land for millennia. The people of this culture welcomed these strange humorless people and showed them how to plant their winter staples: squash, corn, and beans. Some of those Iroquois would survive to regret that. The seeds were planted together in the same hill in ground that was worked only where the hill was dug. This slapdash gardening drove the Puritans to distraction since, as any Englishman knew, the ground must be tilled in tidy rows and set aside by hedgerows or fences. We now know that the beans provided nitrogen to the corn, which used plenty of it. The corn provided a tall support for the beans to climb and the squash kept the ground shaded to prevent moisture loss in the hot summer months. Best of all these plants matured together so they could be harvested and dried for winter consumption.

     Taking a little wider focus on synergistic thinking, let us look at recycling. We have created a system whereby aluminum, tin, glass,  paper, and cardboard can have a second life. In some places, in some states people are using it. Not in states where republicans have the levers of power. By creating new from old, we reduce the mining and cutting of precious resources, and use up less of the land for garbage collection.

     In the 1970s, a chef named Alice Waters opened a restaurant in Berkely, California named, Chez Panisse. Her guiding principle was that everything she served must be grown organically, and produced or harvested no more than a four-hour drive from the restaurant. Within months, bakeries, coffee and tea-shops, cheese shops, and farmers markets had sprung up around ChezPanisse. In the verdant countryside of Marin County, small farms were planted where farms had ceased to be able to compete with agri-business. This inspiration has motivated young chefs all over the nation and led to a boom in small farms. As Water's fame grew, she purchased a small plot of land in front of Berkeley Middle School near Chez Panisse, and gave it to the school for the children to plant and harvest the produce they would eat in their cafeteria. Student chefs would do required community service in the school kitchen, and the children would eagerly eat healthy food. It has been such a success that Chef Waters has started a foundation to encourage healthy school lunches all over California through on-sight gardening.

     In the late 1990s, a banker from India recieved the inspiration to offer small loans at low interest rates to women in third-world villages, to sell goods made with their own hands. These women were able, thanks to the Grameen bank, to pay back the loans while bringing income into their villages.. it was such a success that in 2006 Mohammed Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A banker loaning small amounts of money without usurious interest rates?

     Let us now examine the post-depression through post-WWII economic policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his economic advisor, John Maynard Keynes. When FDR was first elected to the presidency, the US was reeling under an economic depression brought on by political corruption and business-friendly economic policies of the Herbert Hoover administration. To be fair, these policies had existed during the previous four- year term of Calvin Coolidge, and before him, Warren Harding. All three presidents were Republicans, it should be noted. Unemployment had reached 30%, banks were closed for lack of funds, soup lines were everywhere, and the most popular song of the day was,  "Brother, could ya' spare a dime?". FDR with Keynes guidance, immediately set to work to implement a new and radical economic stimulus package which put people to work. The Civilian Conservation Corps, The Works Progress Administration, The Rural Electrification program, and other innovative programs of what became The New Deal, built roads, forest trails, tourist meccas like Timberline Lodge, and dams. Yes, they borrowed money to finance these programs, which put us deeper in debt, but these programs were income generating. The dams opened the southwest for agriculture, and brought electricity to rural areas. The roads allowed the emerging automobile industry more areas to sell their cars, the tourist resorts and mountain trails brought people in those cars to purchase food, lodging, fishing and recreational supplies in the isolated communities nearby. 

     When WWII started, we had a healthy manufacturing sector, and a healthy population to enlist in the military, and to build the machines of war. We became, seemingly overnight, a world force to be reckoned with. When the war ended, we borrowed more money to help the returning veterans buy homes, find jobs, and get schooling. They had union-wage jobs with safe working conditions and benefits. In short, we had a strong middle-class which, had we not become involved in the Vietnam war, would have paid back the borrowing for the New Deal and war loans by the 1960s, a scant generation later.

     After WWII, FDRs successor, Harry Truman, and Keynes, pushed through Congress a package of Bill's to rebuild Europe and Japan; this became known as the Marshall plan, after General George Marshall. Under the Marshall Plan, the countries of Europe and Japan were loaned money to rebuild their bombed-out cities and manufacturing facilities, with their own people paid fairly and honestly. The result was strong cultural and economic ties with the US, and a strong bulwark to confront the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe that has lasted into the present. We should note that, at present cracks are forming in this coalition encouraged by President Vladimir Putin of Russia and his client, the current US president Donald Trump, supported by his republican party.

     The Keynesian economic model was loved by nearly everyone but a few dyspeptic followers of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics. They believe that business should be released from the economic straitjackets of fair wages and workplace safety regulations, as well as consumer oversight. They eventually became the dominant economic force in the US and imposed their policies on Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Indonesia, The Phillipines, and many other emerging countries, culminating in Ronald Reagan's "trickle-down" economics here. We are still waiting for those benefits to trickle down after forty years, a recession, and a world-wide pandemic that Reagans successors have been unable to quell. We are now on the verge of the same economic collapse and totalitarian government in the US that afflicted those other countries. 

     This November, we have a choice between the proponent of change and hope, in the party of FDR; or the proponent of no hope, no jobs, no change, and endless war from the party of Herbert Hoover. Do we try synergistic thinking, or do we continue with entropic thinking as proposed by Vladimir Putins client in the Whitehouse? God help us!