Speakers: Suren Moodliar, Paul Shannon and Weimin Tchen

Health care, war, global warming and the economy: These are the greatest problems we’re facing today. The media and our elected officials like to portray them as isolated issues, focusing on blame rather than solutions that are in line with a vast majority of Americans.

The Majority Agenda Project, a new Boston-based initiative, views these issues as profoundly intertwined and, likewise, sees the solutions as interconnected collaborations across labor, peace and climate movements.

Organizers Suren Moodliar, Paul Shannon and Weimin Tchen will lead a discussion on the Majority Agenda Project and offer ways for local people to get involved. They’ll talk about a strategic agenda based on policies that will begin to solve these problems and already have a majority of support among the public.

Thank you to our Sponsors

Majority Agenda Project

Speakers: Kim Denney, owner/operator of Chestnut Farm Meat CSA, cattle farmer Ridge Shinn, author and local food activist Jamey Lionette

All-natural. Organic. Free-range. Grass-fed. Are you a conscientious meat-eater trying to navigate this new terrain of labels and concerns? Are you wondering whether it’s safe and sustainable to eat meat at all? Bring your questions to a discussion with three experts in small-scale meat production — and learn about how you can eat meat responsibly.

About our Speakers:

As a child Kim Denney loved the Little House on the Prairie books and read them all repeatedly. She dreamed of living Laura’s life and credits the hours spent reading with driving her dream of farming. In addition, she grew up with a family that appreciated and valued open space. Her father would often tell her “they don’t make any more land”. As an adult she purchased an abandoned farm and embarked on the path of her dreams. She has enjoyed a decade of life without a furnace and raised three children on one bathroom. For eight years Kim worked as a middle school teacher and school administrator fully believing that nothing is more fun than a thirteen year old. Today, she loves farming full-time and notes many parallels between her former middle school students and current farm animals.

Thanks to our co-sponsors

What’s a time bank?

A time bank is an organization where members have a bank account of time, and exchange time-based services with other members.  It’s a pool of members, and operates like a circle, not a one-to-one swap or barter.  In  a time  bank, for example, Lara makes a cake for Aldo, Keren gives skiing lessons to David, Dianne gives Carol ride to the airport, Carol paints a painting for Louisa, Krystyna lends her vacation house to Alice, etc. You get time credit for the services you provide, and you can spend that time on services that other members offer.

After the economic crisis, more people are bartering with friends and neighbors and forming time banks to share goods and services locally. Come meet local members of the Time Trade Circle, a Boston-area organization with more than 500 members, to learn how you can start participating in this locally-grown and sustainable economy.

This orientation meeting will be followed by a potluck get-together at 5:00 PM, including JP folks who are already members of the Time Trade Circle. If you wish to stay for the potluck, please bring a dish to share.

To learn more about time banking, please visit www.timetradecircle.org

Thank you to our co-sponsors

Time Trade Cirle

It’s under our feet and under our fingernails, but what is it? And how did it get there? Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, find out how industrial farming, mining and urban development have led us toward cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods and climate change. Dirt is a part of everything we eat, drink and breathe. Which is why we should stop treating it like, well…dirt.

Thanks to our co-sponsor

Speaker: Prof. Ruediger Volk

Come learn the inspiring local history of Robert Treat Paine and his work to build affordable housing in the Hyde Square neighborhood. Paine was a prominent business leader and great grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence with the same name. Paine pushed to expand homeownership for working families, organizing alongside the Workingman’s Cooperative Bank.

Thanks to our co-sponsor

Speaker: Steven Greenhouse, New York Times business and economics correspondent

Since the recession’s peak, the U.S. unemployment rate has been hovering around 10 percent. But the challenges to the American worker go beyond the current economic crisis. Steven Greenhouse will talk about how American companies have squeezed millions of workers by clamping down on wages, cutting benefits and violating labor laws. He’ll also offer a practical set of solutions the government, business and labor leaders could implement to help working people.

Book Reviews

“In this shocking and important book, Steven Greenhouse explains and tells the stories of how U.S. workers are paying the price for the lower labor standards and wages that are the result of poorly-managed globalization.”-Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor at Columbia University

“Steven Greenhouse’s brilliant and vividly reported expose shows how employers have been squeezing the life out of American workers through means both legal and illegal. My blood boiled when I read the Big Squeeze. Any presidential candidate-or voter-who overlooks this book will be clueless about what’s really going on in America.” - Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

For more on the book and Steven Greenhouse, please visit www.stevengreenhouse.com

Thank you to our co-sponsors

Welcome to Versailles, New Orleans-home to the densest ethnic Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam. For over 30 years, its residents lived a quiet existence on the edge of New Orleans. But then came Hurricane Katrina, the immense garbage piles and the shocking discovery of a toxic landfill planned in their neighborhood. Watch as they fight back, turning a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance to build a better future.

Thanks to our co-sponsor

Many people hoped that the December’s United Nation’s Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen would generate a decisive global stance to curb the planet’s warming.  With world leaders joining journalists, policy makers, activists, business people, and grassroots stakeholders, the talks were varied and heated.  While some walked away claiming victory, others saw the conference as a failure to make critical changes in global climate policy.

A month after Copenhagen’s conclusion, we gather to talk with three Boston residents, one journalist and two activists, who attended the conference.  Smartmeme’s Doyle Canning, ACE’s Kalila Barnett, and The World’s Peter Thomson will share their stories and photos from both inside the Bella Center, and outside on the streets.

For those of us that weren’t at Copenhagen, this JP Forum will be a wonderful way to learn about what happened and what the next step is to challenge climate change.

Doyle Canning is a strategist, trainer, and organizer with a deep commitment to innovating social change methods and building 21st century social movements for ecological justice. As co-director of smartMeme, Doyle acts as a facilitator, messaging strategy consultant, trainer and coach for grassroots groups and social change organizations. Doyle is a contributor to Letters from Young Activists (Nation Books, 2005), and co-author of Re:Imagining Change - How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change the World (PM Press, 2010).  Doyle served on the advisory funding panel of the Haymarket People’s Fund, an antiracist social change foundation in Boston from 2007-2009. She lives in Jamaica Plain, MA, where she enjoys practicing yoga and singing.

Kalila Barnett has been the Executive Director of Roxbury’s Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE) since February 2009. She was previously a Senior Organizer at Community Labor United and served on ACE’s Board of Directors for 5 years. She is a Roxbury native and lifelong resident of Boston. Kalila graduated from Bates College in 2001 with a degree in American Studies and Spanish. She has also worked at Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation and Madison Park Development Corporation, organizing around community development issues and affordable housing in the Roxbury and Jamaica Plain area. Kalila was also the field director for a local city council campaign in 2005.

Peter Thomson is The World’s environment editor, for Public Radio International.  He works with staff and freelance reporters and the show’s hosts to bring clear and compelling coverage and analysis of global environmental issues to the program’s 2.5 million listeners.  Peter has worked for NPR, WBUR, Boston, and Monitor Radio.  He’s been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy, and is a member of the board of Directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists.  Peter lives in Boston with his co-mortgagee Edith and their cats, Stretch and Mister Softee.

Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE)

This year, we humbly request your support for one reason:The Jamaica Plain Forum offers free, dynamic, politically and culturally relevant programming with the goal of strengthening our neighborhood.

The forum fosters new ways of thinking about ourselves, our communities, our city and our globe.

Please consider making a secure online donation to the Jamaica Plain Forum. With your support, we look forward to a rousing and revelatory 2010 season.

A monthly contribution can both sustain our work throughout the year, and lessen the impact on your bank account. Consider an automatic donation of $10, $30, or $50 each month for 2010 by choosing the “recurring payment.” It’s the sustainable way to give back to your community.

See you at the Forum!

Sarah Schwartz Sax, Liz Wambui, and Chuck Collins

P.S. Here are a few highlights from our 2009 season.

• This fall we hosted a forum on organizing a local Common Security Club. It spawned several new self-help groups to learn about the changing economy, offer mutual aid and take social action.
• Throughout the season, we continued our Sustainability Series with skill-building workshops on topics ranging from Food Canning to Beekeeping and Container Gardening.
• In October, more than 350 of you came to hear Ralph Nader talk about his provocative novel “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us.”
• We explored health care politics, militarism and mountain removal coal mining. On themes closer to home, we also co-hosted a forum about the history of Franklin Park and a candidates forum.

Would you prefer to send us a donation?  Make checks payable to “The Jamaica Plain Forum” and mail to IPS New England Office, 30 Germania St. Bld. L, Boston, MA 02130.