I landed in Cochabamba this morning to attend the World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, called by Bolivian President Evo Morales in the wake of the failed (and underwhelming) Copenhagen Climate talks last December.

From the cmpcc.org website:

• “On April 19-22, 2010, over 15,000 people and up to 70 governments from all over the world will gather to attend the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The event is in response to the failed COP15 in Copenhagen and aims to highlight the central role of peoples movements and social movements in the climate struggle and the critical alliance that must be forged between movements and progressive governments.”

I flew overnight from Miami with a delegation organized by the Bolivian UN Mission in NY. The flight was full of Climate Justice leaders. I had the opportunity to connect with new folks and touch base with peeps that I’d been with in Copenhagen. We joked that we were flying “Activist Air”!

I spent a groggy but gorgeous morning with friends from the Southwest Workers Union and the Indigenous Environmental Network, as I am also here to support the Grassroots Global Justice/IEN/Movement Generation delegation.

We traveled to the village of Tiquipaya where the meeting is taking place, and passed through older and newer neighborhoods. Our driver insisted that Cochabamba is “Tranquillo” (mellow/relaxed) and the most beautiful of all cities in Bolivia. I noticed graffiti resisting racism, women selling produce and prepared foods on the street, and many students hanging out (school is out for this summit!). I looked up and was awed by the beautiful mountains jutting up from the mesa.

We took some time getting our accreditations and getting oriented to what’s happening with the meetings. With over 15,000 people and 100 countries in attendance, there are hundreds of workshops and side events and a slew of high profile panels on issues such as the Structural Causes of Climate Change, Carbon Markets and Climate Debt. President Evo Morales Ayma will officially open the gathering tomorrow morning with a speech at the stadium!

There are also self organized side events I want to attend on behalf of smartMeme, such as a session on geoengineering with our friends from the ETC group, and a strategy discussion with members of Climate Justice Action on the next steps for street protest and climate justice strategy post COP 15. There are also meetings of the Climate Justice Now! Network and other formations.

The heart of the conference is really the “working groups.” I am in the Strategies for Action working group, and listening to people from across the world make proposals about how to move forward together: Mass demonstrations, media campaigns, international networks, and supporting Mexican organizations confronting COP 16 in Cancun later this year…This is one of 18 working groups that will develop a proposal to bring to the larger assembly of the conference. Other groups are focused on topics such as Forests, Water, Indigenous Peoples, a Climate Tribunal, A Global Referendum, and how to advance the Rights of Mother Earth.

There are many critical pieces to the Cochabamba conversation:

What is the role of the COP process in addressing climate change? How can advancing the idea of ‘climate debt’ serve to build more resiliencies in the face of climate crisis for the global south? What does a climate debt agenda mean for impacted Northern communities, such as Indigenous Alaskan Nations? Can a “Rights” framework for Mother Earth create a more robust legal recourse for big carbon polluters? Where are things going to land with REDDs? The fate of our worlds remaining forests and the homelands of Indigenous Peoples are hanging in the balance of carbon-offset schemes…Can we build a robust program to protect our climate commons as opposed to a privatization plan for the atmosphere? What about Kyoto, and what can be done to resist the Copenhagen Accord Agenda to kill it? What would Evo Morales’s Climate Criminal Tribunal look like? And what would happen next?

And I guess, the big question…Are we going to make it?

For all of you out there in Internet land, you can keep up with proceedings by tuning into http://www.oneclimate.net/bolivia

There are also community gatherings to participate virtually in the conference if you are in New York, Chicago, and Boston!

This is from the May First folks who are organizing this:

On April 20, 2010, at 7:00 pm Eastern time people in various cities of the United States will gather for a direct interaction via the Internet with participants in the Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre Cambio Climático y Derechos de la Madre Tierra. This multi-city event will be one of the first fully interactive convergences of its type, moving our hemispheric movement forward a step. Many events throughout the next year, including the US Social Forum in Detroit, World Education Forum in Palestine, and World Social Forum in Dakar all plan to use similar organizing strategy and technology.

People in several cities in the US will be able to speak directly with Conference participants and discuss what’s going on in Cochabamba, the issues being raised, the concerns we have, questions, and discussion. A group of people in Bolivia (including many from the US delegation to the conference) will make a short report about what’s going on. The US-based rooms and our participants in Bolivia will then begin a conversation: we will pose questions, suggestions, clarifications, opinions, etc. and discuss the ongoing conference with them Bolivia and between U.S. cities.

A New York-based delegation from the Bolivian Mission to the US is in attendance in Bolivia, which allows US-bound participants a direct link through which to raise issues or questions we might have with the rest of the Conference participants: they can bring us back those responses when they get back home. People from the US will also be joined by delegates from other countries, including Bolivia, to broaden the exchanges and discussions.

Please follow mayfirst.org for additional national locations as they are confirmed. The event will take place in all locations on:

April 20, 2010
7:00 pm

Boston:
encuentro 5 (encuentro5.org)
33 Harrison Ave, 5th floor
Boston, MA 02111

New York City:
The Brecht Forum (brechtforum.org)
451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune Streets)
April 20, 2010

Chicago:
Casa Michoacan
1638 S. Blue Island
Chicago IL 60608

Enjoy some scenes from the 2009 REVerb Summer Camp with the Progressive Technology Project, somewhere in Minnesota!

This 4 day training was 2 days on framing/story-based strategy w/ smartMeme, and 2 days of fun w/ the Flip Cams and Tweet-decks making mock campaign videos and online campaigns, with Jen Caltrider.

Groups at the camp included SCOPE from Los Angeles, Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) from Albuquerque, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Data Center, POWER from the San Francisco Bay Area, NY City AIDS Housing Network, and TN Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition from Nashville.

I took the opportunity to learn more about using final cut pro, an made this video blog about the summer camp!

I had a wonderful time working with all these beautiful, incredible, bold and brilliant organizers - and innovating the story-based strategy curriculum to mesh with viral video production and online campaigning. It was tons of fun, and I learned a ton too.

THANKS to PTP and all who made this amazing training possible!

See also — Pics from the week via Flickr…

A quick reflection on our 2009 convening on climate change, creative actions, social justice and the “Copenhagen Moment”…

I am so thrilled about the “Pause,” a restorative and rigorous retreat we convened last week. I am deeply grateful for all who attended, supported, and donated to make this event possible. It was truly a special occasion, gathering some amazing climate activists who are approaching the crisis from a justice perspective, and working to build movements at the intersections of ecology and social justice. We were also joined by our amazing video team (justinfrancese.com) and kitchen magicians (delicata catering). The beautiful Bluewater Farm in Andover, NH (traditional Pennacook Territory) was generously donated for this event. Check out pics…

The sessions involved narrative power analysis and discussions of the dominant frames on the climate crisis; climate justice principles; the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen later this year; and creative ideas for how to spread memes for climate justice.

We also had a celebration on Tuesday evening, and were blessed with local special guests from the Winter Center for Indigenous Traditions (dedicated to environmental justice, Abinaki indigenous rights and cultural practices), and local CSA organic farmer Katherine Darling, of Two Mountain Farm.

Fireside chats and formal sessions included discussions of the upcoming G20 meeting in Pittsburg, stories from past UNFCCC talks in Bali and Poznan, reflections on race and racism in the environmental field, and visioning for how to build an inclusive movement that addresses the root causes of the climate crisis.

As I write this blog, I am recalling this experience and simultanously struck by the stakes. Listening to this mornings news from the G8 Summit in Italy, I hear the voice of Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA:

“It’s almost diagnosing your child with cancer but not taking the kid to the doctor. It just doesn’t seem like good leadership, and I think people expect better of President Obama and other world leaders.”

Then, the sobering words of Ken Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution (?):

“I think it’s going to be very, very hard to avoid a catastrophe, so I think anyone who looks very seriously at this issue has to say that the future looks very, very sobering.”

Indeed.

The Road to Copenhagen is hot, long, and treacherous. But we make the road by walking…

Below is an excerpt of a report-back on the retreat by some of the participants…

Here is a report-back from a strategy retreat convened by smartMeme that I attended last week (called “The Pause”) to discuss climate justice issues & messaging. There were about 15 or so folks in attendance, all invited by smartMeme or other attendees. The folks who came were connected with various orgs with a major focus on either climate justice or environmental justice: Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), Indigenous Environmental Network, Action Mill, Avaaz.org Climate Action, Katrina to Copenhagen, Global Justice Ecology Project, Rainforest Action Network, The Ruckus Society, Movement Generation, DS4SI and Northeast Action.

The retreat intended to focus on how to do more effective framing and messaging around climate justice, following the smartMeme model of challenging underlying cultural assumptions (you can download their new manual for free at smartmeme.org). On the first day we heard some presentations about smartMeme’s messaging strategy and ‘narrative power analysis’ (see the manual for a more in-depth explanation of this), as well as some strategies that have been used by Action Mill and Design Studio for Social Intervention, a community organizing group in Boston. There were some brainstorming sessions to “get the creative juices flowing,” and some short presentations about Environmental Justice/Climate Justice principles, the COP-15 process, the Mobilization for Climate Justice and other organizing underway.

The second day the group wanted to get deeper into concerns of numerous people present on the watering down of the term “climate justice” and its conflation with climate action, which is not necessarily based in justice (carbon offsetting, for example)…

All in all, while the retreat was not exactly what I expected, it was the unexpected conversations that I found most valuable and thought-provoking. And the facilitators did an excellent job of being flexible and serving the many changing needs of the group. Oh, and I forgot to mention the food was AMAZING. Mainly, it was great just to connect with so many awesome folks, and be able to have some of the hard (but
so necessary) conversations around how to build a movement across boundaries of race, class, and culture. Only by hearing each other and working through this stuff will we ever stand a chance of building the sort of broad-based movement that actually has the power to bring about systemic changes…

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like this economic meltdown moment is a game-changer. The recent firestorm over the “bailout” is the beginning of a whole new conversation about our economic system, the role of the state, and extreme wealth and inequality. It is also clearly not the end of our economic woes, and things are likely going to get worse before they get better.

The recent revelations of economic trouble have produced a barrage of memes in the media and popular culture: meltdown, bailout, rescue package, and Wall Street vs. Main Street. Now, leaders tell us that we are in the midst a new economic reality – a credit crunch, foreclosure crisis, a recession, or another Great Depression.

Even as lawmakers struggle to reframe the $700 billion package as a “Rescue,” the “Bailout” meme remains more potent. The story of free market fundamentalism is unraveling, and the story has changed – but to what?

What does all of this mean for progressive strategy, and what are the stories we can tell about the real impacts and alternatives?

We’ve been glued to the news and talking to friends at partner groups like the Working Group on Extreme Inequality, the Design Studio 4 Social Intervention, and the Rainforest Action Network about what’s happening and what can be done. We’ve been inspired by efforts by groups like City Life/Vida Urbana and the Greenlining Institute. Last week I gathered with members of the Progressive Communicators Network at United For a Fair Economy in Boston to analyze the battle of the bailout story. At the PCN gathering, we also discussed what may come of the bailout and efforts to sway government, and listed the following Possible Outcomes:

• Lives are repaired: Meet needs of impacted people (people in foreclosure get refinancing etc)
• Political change: Obama is elected as a result of Bush’s economic bungles
• Changes in economic systems: Regulations are put in place, rules are changed, new definitions of economic progress are adopted
• Movement Emerges: Grassroots social movement gains ground

We had widespread agreement on these as potential goals for work in this period, and specifically discussed how these goals are not incompatible. We agreed that if we get into debates about which of these should be the most important goal, we lose sight of the gravity of this moment. All of the above is on the table. Everything could change.

The following is a rough narrative analysis of the landscape around the economic crisis using the battle of the story tool. We’re obviously just scratching the surface. I have also created a PDF VERSION battle of the bailout story for easier printing. PLEASE use this work in ways that are useful, and let us know what you think!

________________________________________________________________________________________________

PART I:

Power Holder Story: Collapse vs. Rescue
* This story uses fear to motivate action, and uses the “blame the few bad apples” frame to gloss over systemic problems.

The US way of life is threatened, and so we must act immediately. Democratic capitalism is the greatest system, and America is the greatest nation, and so even though we believe in the free market, we must intervene to save our economy. We must put partisanship and electioneering aside and make this rescue deal now – or face economic collapse.

Yes, there were some greedy individuals on Wall Street and some rouge lenders who went too far. Liberals like Barney Frank and big government caused this problem. With laws like the Community Reinvestment Act and the quasi-public Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government forced banks to make risky loans to minorities and low-income people who had no business buying houses. People irresponsibly borrowed to buy big houses that they just could not afford, and were living far outside of their means. Now these mortgages are troubled assets for the nation’s major financial institutions, and this means that everyone is in danger in this financial crisis.

This is not just a bailout for Wall Street. There is a crunch in the credit market, and so we are all in the same boat now. Small businesses that borrow money for payroll or holiday inventory are having trouble getting loans they rely on each year. The Dow is dropping by the day and the trading floors are reeling. Banks are hoarding cash and we’re facing the highest inter-bank overnight loan rate ever. Markets in Asia and Europe are affected. We cannot listen to these constituents who don’t understand the complexities of the economy and are mis-interpreting this plan. We all need access to credit and if we don’t pass this rescue package, the experts say that the gears of the economy will stop turning and you could lose your job. The US could lose our standing in the world as the major economic power, and our nation could be thrust into an economic recession akin to the Great Depression. Besides, since the package is to buy these securities at a low rate, the taxpayers can even make the money back when the housing market rebounds.

Conflict –
Collapse vs. Rescue
The US way of life is threatened
Things just got out of hand, and we must act now

Characters –
A few greedy, corrupt Wall Street bankers
Irresponsible borrowers living outside their means
Ignorant, reactionary taxpayers
Expert Economists
Bush-Paulson-Bernanke
Barney Frank & Nancy Pelosi: Bipartisans = Heroic selfless politicians
Warren Buffet
Liberal Congressmen: forced lenders to lend to people who shouldn’t be borrowing

Images –
Lehman Bros offices closing – bankers with cardboard boxes of their stuff packed up
Bad Paper = Toxic Waste
Banks in Crisis – hoarding cash
“Black Box” of investments
Meltdown
Desperate chaos on the Trading floors
Graph of market going down by the hour
DC gridlock around the clock– lawmakers up all night with pizza and Thai takeout

Foreshadowing -
Great Depression
Economic Collapse
We’re all to blame, we’re all in this together, and we’re all going to benefit

Core memes –
Meltdown
Rescue (or Bailout)
Economic Collapse
Crisis
Buy in (not Bailout)

Underlying Assumptions -
We need Wall Street
It’s Now or Never!
The market will fix itself (after the $700 billion)
This is a crisis of confidence, and the rescue will reestablish confidence
It’s everyone’s problem now
It’s like a natural disaster, coming out of nowhere; no one could have predicted it
US is entitled to be a superpower and take drastic action to protect our privileges
You’re either with us or against us
A bunch of poor people/people of color/stupid people had no business buying houses and ruined everything

________________________________________________________________________________________________

PART II: Change Agents Story
Casino Capitalism (risk) vs. American Dream (security)
Greed Economy vs. Green Economy
* This story attempts to explain why the crisis came to be, and tie solutions into a larger progressive agenda. It’s a little long, and repetitive, but attempts to offer some ways to explain the situation in a larger context.

While a handful of billionaires have been getting very rich playing in the Wall Street casino, real wages for the rest of us in the real economy have stagnated, and personal debt has ballooned. The economic growth of the last several decades has been bubble/debt driven, rather than based on real increases in wages – and this has been Washington’s policy. While honest people have been borrowing to get by, Wall Street has been seeking high returns on speculative high risks, and has been biding their time in a dangerous game of game of chicken. Bear Sterns cried out first, and by the time AIG said “uncle”, Bernenke was there with a $700 billion bailout for the entire financial sector.

But our livelihood is not a game, and this crisis didn’t happen overnight: the $700 billion dollar bailout of the bankrupt banks was a predictable outcome of decades of policy driven by greed and an ideology that says “government, get out of the way.” Drastic action is needed – but we can’t throw a trillion dollars at the people who made the problem and expect them to fix it. We need to modernize our economic system and launch the next (green) new deal – a massive reinvestment in job creation, clean energy, and opportunity that can save the American dream from foreclosure.

The cascading implosion of major banks is the result of decades of flawed policy based on the myth that greed on Wall Street is good for everyone. This myth has shaped the economic policies of Regan and Bush, and drove Clinton to deregulate investment banks to link mortgages to the stock market and repeal Depression Era reforms designed to protect us from the risks of financial speculation. It is tempting to blame the financial crisis on a few greedy hedge funders, or even on the millions of debtors in over their heads with sub-prime mortgages. But the culprit is an ideology that has had a death grip on our country for the last 20 years, and allowed this pyramid scheme of predatory lending to spiral out of control under the Bush Administration.

The problem is more than “no one was minding the store.” The fat cats bought off their friends and Washington and turned the store into a casino. There was so little government oversight that they could shred the rules, and make up new ones as they went along. In a capital-induced frenzy, they invented new games, new ways to bet, and gambled other people’s money to profit hand over fist. The government not only let this happen – it made it all possible and celebrated it as progress.

Now the Wall Street casino has been exposed as a house of cards atop mountains of debt. As their pyramid scheme comes crashing down it threatens to devastate the real economy that provides jobs, food and opportunity for the rest of us. Bailing out America means more than buying banks – it means keeping Americans in our homes, offering a health care system that doesn’t bankrupt our families, building thriving local economies that provide honest work, and retro-fitting our nation to deal with the energy crisis.

We face an economic crisis in the midst of two wars, global warming, and a health care system in desperate need of repair. As the proverb goes – in crisis there is opportunity. Now is the time to change course: re-regulate, re-invest, and re-finance to build a green economy that houses, insures and employs every American.

Conflict -
Casino Capitalism (risk) vs. American Dream (fairness & security)
Reckless Speculators vs. Honest everyday Americans
Greed Economy vs. Green Economy
Out-of-control/recklessness vs. stability/responsibility
Crisis vs. Opportunity
Wall Street vs. Main Street (this frame is about who gets the money, not about why the crisis is happening)
Real Economy (Life Values and Community Needs) vs. Speculative Economy (Money Values and Corporate Greed)

Characters -
Wall Street - Greedy Hedge Funders
Predatory mortgage brokers
2 million people in foreclosure
Impacted people: unemployed, uninsured, over stretched, in debt
Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II

Images -
Game of Chicken
Saying Uncle
Casino / games / gambling
Liquor cabinet of capital
Top-heavy system falling over
Implosion
Debt bubble: House as ATM machine
Families forced out of homes
Imaginary money
Foreclosure Pickets
House of cards
Mountains of debt

Foreshadowing -
Next New Deal – people working in jobs that matter: energy overhaul (windmills, weather stripping, solar, rail)
Real Economic Recovery
Turn the Countrywide office into a job training facility
Micro credit lending; tell stories about people investing in people; micro-enterprises that create good jobs in local communities

Core Memes –
Next New Deal
Green New Deal
Pyramid scheme
Casino capitalism
Predatory lending
Honest work
House of cards
Crisis = Opportunity

Underlying Assumptions-
This is a crisis of capitalism
This crisis embodies institutional racism, and the predatory sub-prime market targeted communities of color. Efforts to lay the blame on borrowers is a play on racist assumptions.
People in power always manage the economy – this was deliberate mismanagement
We share collective responsibility for the well being of all – solutions must address the needs of everyone
This is a pivotal moment that could mean opportunity to overhaul the financial system and change stories on related issues: global warming, health care, ending the occupation, economic inequality, etc.
This crisis is also an ecological wakeup call. If we don’t change the real bubble that will pop is our planet…

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Brainstorm: Possible Points of Intervention for nonviolent action

Production: Organizing workers in the financial institutions

Decision: Action in Washington, Protest at the Capitol, Birdogging on the Campaign Trail, Appearences by financial industry execs

Destruction: Picketing foreclosure proceedings

Consumption: Action at the storefronts of major banks

Point of assumption: Telling a new story on Wall Street (dramatic actions at the Bull). Transforming sub-prime lender storefronts into something more helpful for communities. Launching major people-to-people micro-credit exchanges in public spaces. Exposing the assumption that hard times are the result of individual circumstances—bringing people together to share stories and find common experiences, forming alliances of mutual aid.

?

Are you hungry for justice? Do you love local, organic, delicious food?

Bring your passions together at the table, and join me and smartMeme board member Shana Mc-Davis Conway at the First Annual Gathering of the newly launched Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI): September 18-21 at the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds in West Allis, Wisconsin.

Food connects culture, health, the land, and the people - but in this fast food nation (where food is getting more globalized, genetically-modified, high carbon, and expensive), we’ve got to step up and strengthen the movement to bring food back to an ecological, human scale. The inspiring trend is that farmers markets are re-emerging in many communities, and organic food is the fastest growing segment in the food industry - but the critical question is, who can (and can’t) afford it?

In the age of global warming, and in a time where 12.6 million children are going hungry in the United States, the future demands that we nourish the Earth and our bellies with a re-imagined food system built on the principles of ecology, and racial & economic justice.

This upcoming gathering is 3 days of doing just that. We are looking forward to delicious, local food — critical conversations about how racism shapes the food system — stories from community-based organizations who are doing something about it — and seeing YOU there!

The Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative (GFJI) is

a new network aimed at dismantling racism and empowering low-income and communities of color through sustainable and local agriculture. The network views dismantling racism as a core principle which brings together social change agents from diverse sectors working to bring about new, healthy and sustainable food systems and supporting and building multicultural leadership in impoverished communities throughout the world. The vision for this initiative is to establish a powerful network of individuals, organizations and community based entities all working toward a food secure and just world

A main course of workshops includes:

What It Means to Be White: Working towards full-awareness of white- privilege in community food security work: Judging by a quick scan of the demographics of people leading urban agriculture projects in low-income communities of color around the country, white women seem to be particularly drawn to this type of work. Within the good intentions of many white women (and men) often lie unexamined negative assumptions. This interactive workshop will explore cross-class and/or inter-racial partnerships…

Grassroots Leaders Fight for Justice in the Food System: The experience of racism in the food system can best be lifted by those who have lived it. We also are the ones on the ground finding solutions in an unjust system. Our multicultural panel will briefly describe our experience, work, barriers, achievements, and plans, with emphasis on successful work led by people of color in the food system….

and our smartMeme workshop -

Re-Framing Food, Changing the Story for Justice: People just buy junk with Food Stamps. Genetically modified crops will feed the poor. Community Gardens are for white hippies/Organics are for yuppies. America means justice for all. The intersecting narratives of poverty, race, and food create a complex mine-field of messages in the dominant culture that all of our work must struggle to re-frame and transform. We will use story as a method to approach framing our issues, and have an honest conversation about our successes, and what is holding back our efforts to create change…

Hungry for more?

A keynote from Winnona LaDuke (Founder White Earth Land Recovery Project and Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band. She has won numerous awards for her indigenous rights work, and written five books including Last Standing Woman and All Our Relations.)

and a potluck of great ideas from smartMeme community friends like:

Marc Rodrigues, organizer with Student/Farm worker Alliance; John Kinsman John E. Peck, from the Family Farm Defenders and Rafter T. Sass of the Liberation Ecology Project

The conference is filling up so register now! See you in Wisconsin!

A cool contest to name the economic era of these years 2000’s…
Hey smartMeme community! If anyone can do this, you can! We are collaborating with the Working Group on Extreme Inequality to educate and mobilize around the extreme concentration of wealth and power that is strangling opportunity in our country. The top one percent of households received 22.9 percent of all pre-tax income in 2006, more than double what that figure was in the 1970s. Meanwhile, 36.5 million people were below the official poverty line in 2006. This is the greatest concentration of income since the Gilded Age of 1928, when 23.9 percent of all income went to the richest one percent.

What is happening in our country right now needs a name! What should we be calling this era of extreme inequality we’re all living through? The Second Gilded Age? The Age of Excess? The SubPrime Period? Or do you have have a better idea? Enter our new Name Our Epoch contest by July 31 — and Barbara Ehrenreich, Walter Moseley, and Howard Zinn will chose the winner!

Naming the moment is a key narrative strategy to answering the question everyone is asking - What is going on in this country right now? Gas prices through the roof, Bear-Stearns execs on the run, home foreclosures on an exponential rise…and a waiting list for custom mega yachts? In order to achieve social justice, we must both fight poverty at the bottom of the ladder, and challenge the extreme wealth and power that control the tippy top.

Enter the contest and join the conversation