Theme: Eco-nomics
Saturday, December 5th
In the words of the great climate scientist James Hansen “We can’t fix the climate until we fix our democracy.” That does not mean, however, a return to some mythical past, but taking a large step toward democratizing society and organizing governance according to the “original instructions” drawn from the best practices of earlier systems and of our own most compelling visions of the future. The Haudenosaunee (Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy) is one example of effective democratic governance. Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal for a “Second Bill of Rights” (1944) is another, one adapted to industrial democracy. We do not lack for powerful ideas and practical examples, but fulfilling the promise of democracy in our time will require systemic changes that: (a) serve the public good, not the interests of the powerful and wealthy; (b) render the economy subservient to society, not its master; and (c) extend unalienable rights and due process of law to future generations and nature. Hosted by Monika Bauerlein, Co-Editor of Mother Jones. With: David Orr, founder of the State of American Democracy Project; Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Onandaga nation, Haudenosaunee; Maine State Senator Chloe Maxmin.
December 5th | 12:30 pm to 1:45 pm
Panelists
David Orr
Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics (Emeritus) | Oberlin College
David W. Orr, a Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics (Emeritus) at Oberlin College, is a pioneering, award-winning thought leader in the fields of Sustainability and Ecological Literacy. The author and co-author of countless articles and papers and several seminal books, including, most recently, Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency, he has served as a board member or adviser to many foundations and organizations (including Bioneers!). His current work is on the state of our democracy
Monika Bauerlein
CEO | Mother Jones
Monika Bauerlein is the award-winning CEO of Mother Jones, one of the most important and impactful investigative journalism institutions in the U.S. Born in Germany but widely traveled, she had an extensive journalistic career as a writer and editor until coming to Mother Jones in 2000. Under her and now Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery's leadership, MOJO has become one of the rare success stories in contemporary independent journalism, winning three National Magazine Awards.
Oren Lyons
Faithkeeper | Onandaga Nation, Haudenosaunee
Oren Lyons, a Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan who serves as a Member Chief of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs and the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy (i.e. the Haudenosaunee peoples), is an accomplished artist, social and environmental activist, and author; a Professor Emeritus at SUNY Buffalo; a leading voice at the UN Permanent Forum on Human Rights for Indigenous Peoples; and the recipient of many prestigious national and international prizes including The UN NGO World Peace Prize. Oren also serves on the boards of several major nonprofit organizations and social enterprises; is founder and Principal of One Bowl Productions, a purpose driven film and TV production company; and is an All-American Lacrosse Hall of Famer and Honorary Chairman of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team.
Chloe Maxmin
State Senator | Maine
Chloe Maxmin, hailing from rural Maine, is a Maine State Senator just elected in 2020 after unseating a two-term Republican incumbent and (former) Senate Minority Leader. In 2018, she served in the Maine House of Representatives after becoming the first Democrat to win her rural conservative district. Chloe is seeking to develop a new politics for rural America, and she and her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, are currently writing a book for Beacon Press about their electoral success and political goals.
Sunday, December 6th
Since the founding of the U.S., a core battle has raged between two irreconcilable forces—democracy and plutocracy. Wealth in the U.S. today is over “two times as concentrated as in imperial Rome, which was a slave-and-farmer society.” If billionaires were a nation, they’d be the world’s 3rd largest economy. Today, mammoth monopolies have once again captured the government and rewritten the law to amass the greatest concentrations of wealth and power in American history, but strong anti-trust movements are rising to break up monopolies, change the law, democratize the economy, and institute democratic governance. Along with efforts afoot in Congress, some of the most important and successful initiatives are now happening at local and state levels. Come learn about the deeper history of this clash that has led us to today’s plutocracy and about the movements and political strategies now gaining momentum to reclaim democracy and distribute power and wealth building. With: Thom Hartmann, author, broadcaster and scholar; Stacy Mitchell, Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, author, and formidable campaigner to break up Amazon; Maurice BP-Weeks, Co-Executive Director of ACRE (Action Center for Race and the Economy) who works with community organizations and labor unions to create equitable communities by dismantling systems of wealth extraction that target Black and Brown communities. Hosted by Kenny Ausubel, Bioneers CEO and co-founder.
December 6th | 12:30 pm to 12:50 pm
Panelists
Thom Hartmann
Progressive Talk Show Host
Thom Hartmann, the top progressive talk show host in America for over a decade and a four-time Project Censored Award-winning journalist, is the author of some 30 books, including the international bestseller, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (about the end of the age of oil), used as a textbook in many schools and colleges. Thom, a former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, has also co-written and been featured in 6 documentaries with Leonardo DiCaprio.
Kenny Ausubel
CEO and Founder | Bioneers
Kenny Ausubel, CEO and founder (in 1990) of Bioneers, is an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author and filmmaker. Co-founder and first CEO of the organic seed company, Seeds of Change, his film (and companion book) Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime helped influence national alternative medicine policy. He has edited several books and written four, including, most recently, Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.
Maurice BP-Weeks
Co-Executive Director | ACRE (Action Center on Race and the Economy)
Maurice BP-Weeks, based in Detroit, has many years’ community organizing experience in such areas as housing, policing, incarceration, corporate accountability and education justice. Co-Executive Director of ACRE (Action Center on Race and the Economy) where he works with community organizations and labor unions on campaigns to create equitable communities by dismantling systems of wealth extraction in Black and Brown communities, he also serves on many boards, including those of: Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, National Institute for Money in Politics, Investors Advocates for Social Justice and the National Black Workers Center.
Stacy Mitchell
Co-Director | Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Stacy Mitchell, the Portland, Maine-based Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which produces research and develops policy to counter corporate control and build thriving, equitable communities, has written extensively about the dangers of monopoly power, including for The Atlantic,Bloomberg, The Nation, and The New York Times. She's the author of a book, Big-Box Swindle, and several influential reports, including "Amazon's Stranglehold" and "Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business."
Saturday, December 12th
In a world on fire with multiple, epochal crises, how do we nurture hope, build power and contribute meaningfully? How do we catalyze and sustain the personal and collective transformations this immense planetary challenge calls for? Though the problems seem larger than life, our greatest power may in fact lie in our closest communities, in small daily acts of courage and conviction, in small groups of unstoppable world-changers, and small gardens that revitalize communities and reconnect us to nature’s operating instructions.
December 12th | 10:49 am to 11:04 am
Keynote
Trathen Heckman
Founder and Director | Daily Acts Organization
Trathen Heckman is the founder/Director of Daily Acts Organization, a non-profit dedicated to “transformative action that creates connected, equitable, climate resilient communities.” He also serves on the convening committee for Localizing California Waters and the advisory board of Norcal Resilience Network, and he has helped initiate and lead numerous coalitions and networks including Climate Action Petaluma. Trathen lives in the Petaluma River Watershed where he grows food, medicine and wonder while composting apathy and lack.
Many Americans sense that fundamental change is occurring in our country. At one level, the Trump era has undeniably brought intense divisions and trauma, but at a very different, deeper level, in communities nationwide there has been a steady but explosive growth of practical new, transformative and reparative economic, ecological and institution-building initiatives. This outline of a “next political-economic system” is quietly building just below the radar of everyday media awareness, just as what became the New Deal was, in fact, built upon new thinking and experiments developed in state and local “laboratories of democracy” in the decades before Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. This panel with 4 leaders of The Democracy Collaborative, an R&D laboratory for the democratic economy, will present an overview report from the frontlines of this dynamic movement, which promises to usher in a new era of radical, system-altering change. Hosted by Gar Alperovitz, co-founder. With: Isaiah Poole, Vice President of Communications for The Democracy Collaborative; Johanna Bozuwa, Co-Manager of the Climate & Energy Program; Thomas Hanna, Director of Research and specialist in public ownership.
December 12th | 12:30 pm to 1:45 pm
Panelists
Gar Alperovitz
Co-Founder | Democracy Collaborative
Gar Alperovitz, Ph.D., co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative and co-chair of the Next System Project, has had a distinguished career as a historian, political economist, professor, scholar, activist, policy expert, and government official. A former Fellow of King's College, Cambridge University, and a founding Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, he has served as a Legislative Director in both the U.S. House and Senate, and as a Special Assistant in the Department of State. The author of many critically acclaimed books, including seminal tomes on economic inequality and atomic diplomacy, his articles are widely published in leading news outlets, and he has frequently testified before Congress.
Isaiah Poole
Vice President of Communications | The Democracy Collaborative
Isaiah J. Poole, who has 30+ years' experience in journalism and was a founding member of both the Washington (DC) Association of Black Journalists and the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, is the Communications Director for The Democracy Collaborative. He was previously Communications Director for People's Action and for the Campaign for America's Future.
Johanna Bozuwa
Co-Manager of the Climate and Energy Program | The Democracy Collaborative
Johanna Bozuwa, M.Sc., Co-Manager of the Climate and Energy Program in The Next System Project at The Democracy Collaborative, focuses on the transition from the extractive, fossil-fuel economy to resilient, equitable communities based on climate justice and energy democracy in her work. Her writing has been widely published including in The Nation, The Hill, and Progressive Review. She has organized around climate justice in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, from campaigns to eliminate the social license of fossil fuel companies such as Shell to fights for utility justice and public power.
Thomas Hanna
Research Director | The Democracy Collaborative
Thomas M. Hanna, Research Director at The Democracy Collaborative and a leading expert on democratic models of ownership and governance, is the author of several books, including, most recently: Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States. A dual U.S./UK citizen, he has advised the UK Labour Party and has served on the advisory boards of several national and international initiatives, including two European Research Council-funded research projects.
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