A friend of mine recently started a group called CLUC. Citizens of Lombard for Urban Chickens. She wants people in that city near Chicago to be able to raise chickens and have the means to produce their own food. And she's making quite a bit of headway with the city council, with a great showing of support in the city of Lombard and a growing membership in her organization.
My father has helped several families thwart unjust and illegal home foreclosures.
Yesterday, david78209 wrote a diary about his/her personal advocacy on behalf of a woman with treatable leukemia, who may be cut loose from life-saving treatment for lack of health insurance.
And remember teacherken's diary series about volunteering to help out in a traveling dental clinic in appalacia?
One by one, on the ground, people are dragging their corners of America in more progressive, more sustainable directions.
I believe it in my guts. We ARE the change we've been waiting for. And I fell in love with this online community because I found here an inspiring group of people who weren't waiting. People who were personally, actively, working to fix the world.
Yes.
Washington DC is screwed up.
And in the city of Braddock Pennsylvania a man and other visionaries looked at a literally crumbling city, whose population had plummeted by 90% and saw a surge in crime and murder and drug abuse, and chose not to let the community just die. They've been striving to help the community create something they can be proud of. They've turned empty lots from abandoned buildings and turned it into farmland. They took empty houses, repaired them, and gave them to homeless teens.
Individuals in Muskegon have leveled abandoned, condemned homes in the most impoverished parts of Muskegon and have turned them into for-profit urban organic farms, creating sustainable jobs and access to fresh vegetables.
A rapidly growing organic farmer's market called the Sweetwater Market was started by a man who saw a dangerous and unsustainable food industry and wanted to foster a market specifically to raise awareness of and access to foods created through healthy and sustainable practices.
Last year I saw bloggers go after Glenn Beck's funding, making the show actually operate at a loss.
I saw bloggers organize thousands in a push to advance the boundaries of Health Care Reform.
I saw bloggers push environmental issues to the forefront.
I saw a friend make his own wind turbine from a water pump motor and hook it up to marine batteries to power his garage.
I saw hundreds of children bringing bags of food to the elementary school twice a month to help people who needed food.
I saw high school students stand up and make an international example of the Mona Shores School District for denying a trans-gender boy the right to be the popularly elected home-coming king.
I have been so inspired by this here online community, and so inspired by people who go out and do Good Things, and so inspired by the notion that WE are the change we've been waiting for that a group of friends and I worked hard to successfully drag a 150 MW wind farm to the Muskegon area, which should be online by 2013, with parts made right here in Muskegon...and many of the commissioners, by the way, who have helped to do this are die hard Republicans.
A lawyer, defending a man in a foreclosure suit uncovered the robo-signer scandal that ground thousands, millions of foreclosures to a screeching halt and gave a new weapon to lawyers across America who needed leverage to defend people getting kicked out of their homes.
I do believe we are the change we've been waiting for.
And I believe that phrase is a call to arms. Washington and our leaders will have their heads up their asses. We all know that. And while we're screaming at them to remove their heads from their asses, there's work to be done. Work that can be done. Work that transforms this nation and our communities in very real, very tangible ways. Work we don't have to ask permission to do, or wait for Washington to do.
We do what the Labor Movement did...we drag the powers that be kicking and SCREAMING in the direction we want it to go...doing the work that needs to be done.