Poverty and Sustainable Economy
DRAFT PROPOSAL
Center for Community Engagement
Paresky 204, 413/597-4849
Williams College
January 25, 2009
CAMPAIGN AGAINST POVERTY & FOR A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY (CAPSE):
CREATING A SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility: a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
President Barack Obama, Jan. 20, 2009
Responding to President Obama’s call for a new era of citizen activism, of spirited and re-energized grassroots democracy, the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) at Williams College proposes to launch a campaign to alleviate structural poverty and to help design and build a sustainable economy, starting regionally in the 1st Congressional District of western Massachusetts (Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties).
The ultimate goal will be to pressure Congress to enact fundamental legislation to eliminate poverty and to build a sustainable national economy, mobilizing public support behind an economic, social, and environmental “Bill of Rights” to empower American citizens to solve our growing national crisis in a comprehensive and holistic fashion. This means that we will need to create, through careful research and extensive public dialogue, a Common Plan to present to candidates for state and federal offices in 2010. The idea would be to secure their pledge to sponsor and push the Common Plan of legislation in Congress and state legislatures—and to hold them accountable once they are elected.
The challenge, Michael Pertschuk writes in the Nation (12/15/2008), is to convert “a grassroots Goliath organized with only the [2008] election in mind into an equally formidable, coordinated and empowered force to transform the public will on the policies that the voters supported into focused political pressure on Congress. And when even a good president strays or caves, hold his feet to the fire.”
We have a long-awaited opportunity to create a working model of such a process of governing from below in the rural counties of western Massachusetts, where the American Revolution began. We are fortunate to have honest, progressive representatives–John Olver (20 years in Congress), state senator Ben Downing, and state representatives like Dan Bosley, all of whom have proven to be unusually responsive to grassroots concerns; as well as, of course, Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, our governor Deval Patrick, and our attorney general Martha Coakley (from North Adams). This is the political equivalent of a World Series baseball team.
CAPSE would not be simply about designing and promoting integrated legislative proposals and prodding politicians. At the same time, CAPSE activists would be involved in initiating and supporting direct efforts to alleviate poverty and rebuild our economy—ranging from growing a CSA farm in Adams to serve low-income people; to marshaling resources to expand fuel aid and to weatherize/insulate low-income homes; to fostering energy efficiency, alternative energy (esp. solar), and a green economy; to helping create a full-service homeless residence in Pittsfield; to supporting the efforts of North Adams Regional Hospital nurses and Sweetbrook Nursing Home care providers.
CAPSE will build upon the successes of the multi-college Berkshire Institute for Student Activism (BISA), based at the Williams CCE, which held regional organizing conferences (involving six campuses) in Nov. 2006 and Feb. 2008. Bringing together into a thriving alliance the activist students of western Mass. colleges (esp. the Five Colleges); the western Mass. organizers and volunteers on the Obama campaign; the legion of long-time community activists (for example, in the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition); and the many newly aroused citizen activists of all ages, will constitute a powerful democratic force with the potential to transform western Massachusetts and beyond.
This is a preliminary proposal for you to think about, and in the context of which to offer your own ideas and suggestions. A first step will be for small groups of students and community members to discuss this proposal, face to face and by email, and try to come up with a stronger and more detailed plan that people will be inspired to bring to fruition over the next few years. Si se puede! Yes we can!
Please send your comments, suggestions, feedback—and whether you would like to discuss the CAPSE proposal in a small group or house meeting—to Stewart Burns at the Center for Community Engagement: sburns@williams.edu
