RAIN Quarterly $5 Winter/spring 1992 Volume XIV, No.2 ^^rking Communities Community Supported Agriculture Downtown Community Television WorkLikes and Society Self-Eeliance and Activism in India Eeal and Imagined Communities Cities Against Centralization Respected Local Lakor
About this issue... Contents Cooperative incentives, as opposed to competitive ones, can lead to better quality products and stronger social ties, (see Community Supported Agriculture beginning on page 4, and Making Workbikesfor the Neighborhood on page 14). Such incentives appear only in communities that actively work to assert the value of labor, especially that of local workers who have been marginalized by the global economy. For example, at Downtown Community Television (see page 10) independent producers are given a chance to work on important themes that are unacceptable to network television executives. They have put sweat equity into a formerly dilapidated building, which now acts as a haven from which to do their community work. At Anandwan (see page 22), leprosy patients, formerly rejected by society, transformed abandoned land into a hospital, a self-reliant town and a national center for activism. Cooperative incentives and valued work go hand-in-hand with broad participatory self-government on the community level, where people both decide and carry out policy. This kind of politics has a rich history (see page 32), and must be rekindled if communities are to function fairly and Page 2 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Front Cover: (clockwise from upper left) “Neighborhood controlled food and transport”: communities are better able to examine and fulfill their own needs than is the world market. Here a fellow in Zurich, Switzerland experiments with milk containers and a "Long John" transport bike. The producer/consumer food co-op Topinambur (see page 6) wanted to transport food via human power. A fine modem version of this bike is now available from Oregon: see page 14. “Direct Self-Government”: It is neither necessary nor desirable to hire professionals to administer cities and provide services. People can best do this themselves (see page 32). From a sketch of Pont-Aven, France, circa 1880. “Respected Local Labor”: Here a healthy leprosy survivor works on the community workday at Anandwan (see page 22). The community workday, known as Shram Dan, was an idea of Gandhi's, meant to make community service a regular part of the week. Anandwan is built on abandoned land, free from many economic pressures, where manual labor has as high a value as any other work. Since the town is self-reliant, projects at Anandwan need people more than money to survive. 4 Community Supported Agriculture CSA’s can resolve the waste and insecurities inherent in market agriculture. 6 Ziirich Supported Agriculture CSA's were being defined for the western world during the early 1980's in Switzerland. 8 Sustainable Agriculture projects CSA’s, permaculture and sustainable agriculture. 9 Alternative Economic projects Land trusts. Local currencies, Schumacher groups. 10 Global and Local Cameras New York’s Downtown Community Television (DCTV) has provided video tools for the underprivileged for 20 years, and has incidentally won 8 Emmy Awards for documentaries. 12 DCTV Productions A listing of DCTV's professional videos on problems at home and around the world.
13 Community Productions DCTV helps underfunded activists get these community documentaries on the air. 14 Workbikes for the Neighborhood The social, economic and technical means to transport goods without fossil fuels. 30 Eric Hobsbawm's new book on nationalism. 31 Best books on nationalism; Benedict Anderson's original book. 18 The Bike Column: Bicycling cities, bicycle activism, tours, books, cops on bikes, bike maps, workbikes, trailers, dumptrikes, play streets, recumbents and magazines like City Cyclist and Bicycle Forum. 32 Cities Against Centralization: A brief social and political history of the city 40 The Social Ecology project's book list. 22 Anandwan: The Value of People An inspiring self-reliant village in India, built and run by survivors of leprosy. 28 Real and Imagined Communities Modern Nations are "imagined communities", to use Benedict Anderson's phrase. But what does this have to do with real communities? 41 Greens: schools, projects and publications. 42 Reviews: M.I. Finley; Reynolds' Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900-1300. 43 The Long 19th century, in three volumes, from Eric Hobsbawm. A review. 48 Harris Stone's Hands-on, Hands-off probes the fundamental dilemmas in historic preservation. 49 This season's travel kits from Lonely Planet. 50 Living Longer, Living Better, A new book of opportunities and ideas for creating communities. 51 The greens in New England have produced a new Activist’s Guide to Biotechnology. 52 RUSH: conferences, projects, periodicals and products, all jumbled up. 54 List of available Back issues of Rain. 55 Credits, thanks and raindrops: some news and thoughts from the Rain staff. Back Cover: Erom Punch, 1858. On the horse-drawn Omnibus (hence the modem word bus) space constraints meet Victorian fashion. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 3
Community Supported Agriculture The best way to support local farmers is to become partners with them. If we pay in advance for a year of our food, we share the costs and risks of agriculture. In return we get fresher food, keep good farms alive, and finally know where our vegetables come from. And our new friend, the farmer, can plan just how much to grow without having to fret about how generous the World Market will be this year. This is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a social and economic arrangement that aims to close the gap in the distant relationship between consumer and producer. The CSA model arrived in the US in 1984 from Switzerland [see Jan VanderTuin’s account, page 6] spawning hundreds of small farms growing food for 10 to 100 families each. Some communities are even taking on the ownership of farmland themselves. With permanent land trusts and stable agreements with farmers, they foster community stability along with agricultural and ecological integrity. Because the health of the land and the community is a major issue for those who’ve become involved, and because reliance on distant resources destabilizes local economics, these farms do not use petrochemicals. And since they produce nearly all of a family’s vegetables, the farms tend towards agricultural diversity rather than ecologically destructive monocropping. CSA’s run counter to all modem agricultural thinking, the kind that emerged alongside the global marketplace. The current system hurts farmers and farm workers everywhere, puts great strain on the environment, wastes immense quantities of food, and makes many consumers profoundly suspicious about both their produce and the consequences of growing it. The first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project began outside of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a town teeming with interesting social projects (see pages 8 and 9). A few similar projects already existed quietly in the States, but the idea didn't spread until after the Great Barrington group was picked up by the media in the mid- 1980's, a time of massive US farm failure. In a model CSA, the group calculates the needs of the its members and aims at growing just this amount of food, eliminating the waste in the process of farming for an impersonal market. Waste is phenomenal even among the most careful farmers: poor markets in Oregon this fall left nearly half of all organic produce to rot. The members, also called share-holders, share all the This broccoli is already paidfor. Muslin Creek Farm in the hills surrounding Cottage Grove, Oregon is selling less on the unpredictable open market and more to consumers in neighboring communities who pay in advance for a season’s vegetables. Muslin Creekfarms without petrochemicals. risk as well as the benefits of a farming project. If raccoons or deer eat the com, or if squash are victims of a flash flood, it is understood that there will be neither com nor squash that week. On the other hand, if the cabbage begins to bolt in alternating hot and cold spells, the unplanned bounty will be split among all. If there’s too much food, the groups are large enough, 50-200 people, to be broadly aware of community needs, and they'll donate or sell the surfeit. Since tastes vary, shareholders often barter food among themselves from their twice-weekly allotments. The CSA aims to growjust enoughfoodfor its shareholders, eliminating wasteful overproduction for the impersonal market. This sharing of risk in the partnership between consumer and producer mitigates most of the headaches of modem farming: the need to scrape up capital, fear for an income and worry about bankmptcy. Rather than scrambling Page 4 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
for market share to stay alive, the farmer can enjoy the taste of stability that comes with satisfying consumers directly. Any farm can benefit from having even a small number of shareholders; the extra stability helps even market farmers. When problems arise the share group can help to solve them: if there are too few hands at harvest time the shareholders, feeling committed to help, either take up the slack themselves or make some other group decision. A form of direct democracy can emerge in the midst of what used to be apathetic consumption. To help the shareholders make informed decisions, and begin to learn about problemsolving in agriculture, most CSA’s ask them to come farm for a day or two each year. CSA’s are direct producer-consumer cooperatives, one of the best forms of non-competitive economics. While worker cooperatives are known for mostly equal relations within the company, they often acts as an unaccountable independent unit in the marketplace: cooperative capitalism. In contrast, producer-consumer co-ops have natural limits on size and domain. A small group of farmers must both farm and take care of their membership, so the membership won't vote to thin down their relationship through expansion. The face-to-face nature of the relationship, along with the shared risk of the community, ensures that production in general will be carried out to everyone’s satisfaction. The beauty of this solution is its creation of farmer incentive through social relationships, rather than tlirough a profit motive: people finally are able to thank the farmer and lend a hand in times of trouble. And in regard to product, CSA’s provide for people's needs directly, so optimal use of resources is defined by those affected rather than by a faceless bureaucracy, as in state-communism, or by a corporation, as in global market agriculture. CSA projects are successful despite a number of cultural obstacles. The problem first is convenience. CSA farms drop off produce in town twice a week, so the household shopping isn’t “one-stop”. A convenience compromise is usually made: if the shareholders want to pay extra for the labor to deliver to tlieir homes, they understand the costs, since the CSA hopefully keeps open books. There are other compromises. People aren’t accustomed to paying for vegetables before they see them, so some CSA organizers rename the commitment “subscribing” to vegetables, not quite an accurate description of a face-to- face relationship. But usually a new member changes more than the CSA: for example the modem cook is usually not familiar with seasonal vegetables, so CSA's offer recipes in their newsletters to help them learn about plant diversity. One of the biggest adaptive problems with CSA’s is farmer confidence. Often they end up giving people twice as much as they could possibly eat, trying to compete with the market’s abundance. Fanners also don’t always trust that their consumers will pay cost overmns. In contrast, shareholders tend to tmst the fanner so much that it remains a challenge just to get people to look at the accounts, or visit the farm. To get new customers, farmers often want to be more lenient with payments, but collection schemes take time away from farming. Muslin Creek Farm in Cottage Grove, Oregon (see photos), has reached an interesting compromise with people unable to pay for an entire year’s vegetables at once: monthly payments begin before the planting season, and stop during the fall, providing early capital for seeds, and a late season when vegetables come without payments. The lessons we've all learned from dealing with the harsh instabilities of market economics sometimes lead us to compromise the CSA idea. But if the concept is pursued now in it’s most radical form, perhaps a new generation of farmers and consumers will develop sufficient will and understanding to risk working together. Above: Over the winter CSA shareholders get seasonal vegetables such as Kohlrabi and Kale, salad greens and herbsfrom the greenhouse, and storedfoodfrom the root cellar such as squash, potatoes, onions, and garlic. Muslin Creek CSA is in its second season: ifyou're interested in talking to them, contact Tal Carmi, Leslie Rubinstein or Ross Randrup at 79296 Repsleger Road, Cottage Grove, Oregon 97424, phone: (503) 942-0805. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 5
Zurich Supported Agriculture The Origins of CSA by JanVanderTuin The early 1980’s were inspiring years for Swiss activists. The youth were rebellious, and citizens at large asked questions of the nation that epitomizes capitalism. I saw many evolving solutions to problems that I, coming from the States, had written off as unsolvable. I was working part-time on an organic farm outside Zurich when I heard of an organic agriculture research institute in Basle. I went there with an eye open for alternatives to market agriculture, having felt burned economically as an agricultural worker and farmer in the States. The institute director sent me to Geneva, to a successful project that addressed almost every problem I’d encountered in modem farming. This producer-consumer food co-op in Geneva was founded by a man inspired by the co-op movement in Chile during Allende’s administration. The basic idea, that consumers personally cooperate with producers to fund farming in advance, makes for more efficient use of land, since you know how much to grow, and much less stress for farmers, since you already have money to live for the year. The Geneva group had been mnning for nearly a decade on this principle, with 180 families getting their produce from a small farm outside of the city. They began with small plots around town, producing somewhat haphazardly what they could with what money they got from people in advance. Although the harvests were small, the original investing consumers tmsted that the growers were doing their best and would improve over time. This was the most radical Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group I have ever encountered. They actually sent out questionnaires asking their consumers how much money they made, in the hope that they would pay a share proportional to their income. They were very brazen, but 1 think this made them successful. If they wanted you to become a shareholder, they'd offer the idea to you without compromise. If you didn't “get it”, they left you alone, and maybe you’d discover on your own or from your neighbor why eSA’s were such a good idea. The share-holders included committed families who worked for international development organizations and were looking for ways to live sensibly at home. The project wasn’t perfect; they didn’t have enough land to keep animals, so they imported manure, and they were always struggling with high land rents. Finding farmland is much harder in Switzerland than in the States. On the other hand this makes it easier to find good farmers, because in Switzerland they work hard to keep their limited amount of land healthy. 1 went to two other eSA’s, one in Basle and one in Liechtenstein, both associated with Anthroposophy, the movement that created Waldorf schools. Camp Hill Villages for the developmentally disabled, etc. Most of their share-holders came from this movement. The European Anthroposophics didn’t really promote CSA’s, however, as their counterparts in the States later would. Back in Zurich I was introduced to Christophe, a rather philosophical vendor of organic produce, nuts, cheese and raw milk. He went from quartier to quartier selling on the street out of a cute little French step-van. We collected a small core group, and I organized a meeting of local farmers, organizers from the CSA’s I’d visited, and others who showed interest in At thefarm: Paul, a founding member ofTopinambur in Zurich, and a dedicated human powered utility vehicle enthusiast, prepares to ride for an hour and a halfto deliver about twentyfamily shares. These go to a few communal depots in the families' neighborhoods. Before getting involved with community supported agriculture, Paul was involved in the design ofthe primary computer software for the Swiss tax system. Jan built the trailer. Page 6 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
In the courtyard of Topinambur’s ancientfarm, which had never moved to petrochemical agriculture, sharesfor over a hundredfamilies are packed in Jute bags made by a co-op in Bangladesh. Weighing and dividing of the harvests is done in rotation by Topinambur workers, who also do farming, organizing, harvesting, running the Zurich store and delivering shares to depots. starting a producer-consumer food co-op in Zurich. I was encouraged by Swiss interest in ideas that were unusual, especially since they came from someone who spoke no German. If only all of us could be so open as to accept outside perspectives that willingly. We used the garden at an ancient Swiss farm that was extremely diverse and which had never switched to using chemicals. We set up a storefront in town for the project, which we called Topinambur, French for Jerusalem artichoke. At the storefront shareholders could pick up their share of vegetables twice a week, along with foods like olive oil and citrus fruits from various Italian co-ops we knew. A friend of mine was a doctor for SSR, the big European student travel cooperative, and she sparked off a wave of interest in the Zurich CSA among SSR people. This brought one man, who had been involved in the movement to make Swiss banks more responsible, into the core group, and he managed to bring the project into the ‘mainstream’ of the alternative movement in the city. For me, this success became a problem in some ways as people were no longer joining for philosophical reasons, but because it was a fad. I think this left the project ideologically vulnerable to the ‘free’ market mindset and all it’s subtle accompanying problems. But at the outset, the way the Swiss approached this project was significantly different than CSA's I later worked with in the States. In the States I often felt very frustrated, and embarrassed of my own culture’s barriers to what was common sense thought and behavior in Switzerland. If I could make a few observations I would say: • In Switzerland there is no stigma against thinking for the long-term. In many day to day situations it was apparent that this was a culture where people were concerned about their effect on the community. • The average Swiss has more experience with cooperation in general. In the States people can cooperate, but for most of the population it’s an unusual experience. • The Swiss were interested in the history of the CSA project. In the States it often seems that history bores everyone, so people don’t care to learn from it. • The Swiss paid their annual shares in advance, allowing for almost no bookkeeping and no chasing down of late payments. This isn’t because they all have big bucks: they have a higher rate of savings and a better appreciation of long-term costs. In the States payment plans always creep in, adding to accounting costs and hassles. • The most striking thing in Switzerland was the social commitment to these projects: both farmers and shareholders were sure of each other. In every group in the States that I have seen, the core group seems to lack faith in the consumer’s willingness to pay true costs such as overruns. In Switzerland the organizers and farmers would rather be in another profession than continue to be martyrs and take personal losses while producing for the community. They initiate CSA’s to create sustainability in human resources, not to push farmers to the breaking point. After two years at Topinambur Christophe and I organized another project: a food delivery system based on human power. The result was trailers [see photo left], and the beginnings of my present work [see page 14]. Switzerland has many problems that I wished to help solve, many of them international. The level of energy and commitment among activists there was something I have rarely experienced in the States. Whether I like it or not though, the States are what I know best, and the time came when it seemed impossible to get involved in Swiss change as deeply as I would like. I never doubted that I could start a CSA in the States, and I wanted to introduce the idea through a working example. After returning to the States it took about a year and a half before I found people to start the experiment with. As it turned out it wasn’t in a large city but in the small community of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 7
Community Supported Agriculture: Robyn Van En has taken on the job of national clearing house for CSA materials. Her farm in Massachusetts was the first in the US to be called a CSA. If you would like to know about CSA near to you, she’s a good place to start: Robyn Van En, Indian Line Farm, RR3 Box 85, Great Barrington, MA 01230, phone: (413) 528-4374. Additionally, Robyn has produced a manual, which she sells for $10: The Basic Formula to create Community Supported Agriculture, the best bet for any group wanting to organize CSA on their own. Robyn also sells a CSA Video for $35: It’s Not just About Vegetables, which Jan VanderTuin and Downtown Productions of Great Barrington made in 1986. If you would like a broadcast quality copy for airing on television, contact Mickey Friedman/Jon MacGruer, Downtown Productions, 22 Railroad Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230, phone: (413) 528-9395. Your nearest Waldorf School, or Camp Hill Group may be involved with CSA. The related Biodynamic farm movement has taken up CSA with a passion: for certified biodynamicists in your area write Rod Shouldice, Box 550, Kimberton, PA 19442, phone: (215) 935-7797. Pcrmaculturc: This sustainable agriculture movement is often connected to CSA. In fact CSA in Japan, the teikei movement to supply organic vegetables without government certification, is the current cover story of the Tennessee-based magazine The Permaculture Activist. For information on the permaculture group nearest you, write to The Permaculture Activist, Route 1, Box 38, Primm Springs, TN 38476. While you're at it, subscribe to this eclectic, brass-tacks quarterly at only $ 16/year, $20/year overseas. They also distribute Australia's cutting-edge Permaculture International Journal, for US $20/year ppd. INSAN Newsletter is published in English by the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture in revolutionary Nepal. This lively native permaculture group does excellent research and farm extension work, reported on in detail in this semi-annual. Available for only $5/year overseas, or if you'd like to be a member, $25/year: INSAN, GPO Box: 3033, Baneshore - 10, Kathmandu Nepal, phone: 977-1- 471448, fax: 977-1-524509 Atm: INSAN, telex: 2439 ICIMOD NP Attn: INSAN. The Permaculture Drylands Institute is publisher of Permaculture Drylands, a fine, bioregion-specific sustainable agriculture quarterly ($12/year from P.O. Box 27371, Tucson, AZ 85726). They teach regular courses and hold workshops throughout the year: call (602) 824-3465 for more information. One workshop they're offering this March is entitled Building Your Bale Straw House — To Code! It's a risky game pushing permaculture's ecological design and alternative economics amidst the high-flying capitalist investment plexus of Hong Kong. This group tries to do respectable non-profit consulting to businesses and banks while holding onto its values: Permaculture Asia Limited, 1/F lot 1969 Tai Wan New Village, D.D.3 Lamma Isl., Hong Kong, phone: 852 9820703, fax: 852 9821452. "Skills for a Sustainable future" is the title of a four- day course in March through our local Willamette Valley Permaculture Association. Contact them at 80260 Highway 99N, Cottage Grove, OR 97424, phone: (503) 942- 7065. WVPA offers technical courses like this one, as well as native plant walks, plant and seed exchanges and other mutual support activities for permaculturists. An Urban Permaculture design certification course will run in Houston, Texas from late February through September. Besides standard permaculture training, course participants will set up a Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) for barter, create multi-layered spiral herb gardens from salvaged bricks, produce pond ecologies in huge pots, and terrace uneven yards. Contact Anne K. Devlin-Firth, 213 E. 24th St., Houston, TX 77008. Permaculture/Appropriate Technology internships at the Aprovecho Institute, nestled in the quiet, beautiful hills surrounding Cottage Grove, Oregon, are available for a mere $350 per month for room, board and tuition. Interns must commit to 3 months at first, after which they may be offered an additional 12-month internship. At the end of the 15-month program they will be reimbursed $1,000 to assist resettlement, and the institute will help the graduate find work in this country or overseas. Aprovecho is a beehive of activity, running permaculture courses all through the year. Contact: Aprovecho Institute, 80574 Hazelton Rd., Cottage Grove, OR 97424. Phone: (503) 942-9434. They also print the appealing News F’rom Aprovecho newsletter, available for either $15/yr or 1/10 of 1% of your yearly expenses. Sustainable Agriculture: Siegfried E. Gerber, a horticulturist working hard to change current agribusiness practice in Kenya, writes a concise, 63-page booklet of sustainable agriculture techniques with blunt, onsite critique of African export fanning. Modern Agriculture and its impact on the Environment is available for $5 postpaid from: Siegfried E. Gerber, P.O. Box 30496, Nairobi, 0154-41243 Kenya. AGTALON (meaning "to farm" in Filipino dialect) is a model non-governmental sustainable agriculture school and support group in the Philippines. Their program includes credit assistance, ecological training, co-op marketing, zero- import farming and the teaching of responsible social and economic behavior towards the local community. They would appreciate free copies of any pertinent publications; Agtalon, Nalsian Manaoag, Pangasinan 2430 Philippines. Page 8 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
In Great Barrington, MA, a low- price popular hangout, The Deli, had to move when its lease ran out, but the bank wouldn't loan the proprietor the money needed to renovate the new location. SHARE (see below) helped him issue a ten Deli Dollars note (at right), which he sold at US $9 to customers and friends. This provided him a low- interest loan that he would pay back in preparedfood over the following year. He raised $5,000 in one month. Other community notes followed, side-stepping today's credit crunch and adding the element oftrust to local economics. The Federal Government doesn't care about such local scrip provided it can be exchangedfor US currency, and transactions using it remain taxable. In Kansas The Land Institute conducts extensive research into prairie ecology, and hosts a number of interns every year at their popular school. The results from this well-respected research program are published in an easy-to- read quarterly, The Land Report, available for $ 15/year from: The Land Institute, 2440 E. Water Well Rd., Salina, Kansas 67401. UC Santa Cruz offers an Agroecology Program, which for years has helped organic farms survive despite the nearby agri-business regime in Watsonville. Get their/ree quarterly report; The Cultivar, Agroecology Program, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064. Phone: (408) 459-4140. Land Trusts: The Institute for Community Economics helps non-profits buy land and lease it to low- income homes-owners on the same land, in order to both halt speculation on that property and provide low-income affordable house ownership. The land is common property but the house is yours. This makes your mortgage lower, since it doesn't include the land value, but the trust keeps you from selling too high. For more information contact ICE, 57 school street, Springfield, MA 01105-1331, phone: (413) 746-8660, fax: (413) 746-8862. Farm conservation land trusts having difficulty preserving actual farm activity might benefit from a new booklet published by The E.F. Schumacher Society headquartered in Great Barrington: A New Lease on Farmland: Assuring a future for Farming in the Northeast. It describes the creation of working community agricultural land trusts through partnership. Revolving Loan Funds, CSA’s, Loan Collateralization Funds, local currency financing and non-profit lease management. It’s $6 from: The E.F. Schumacher Society, Box 76, RD 3, Great Barrington, MA 01230, phone: (413) 528-1737. The Schumacher Society has built a Decentralist Library in Great Barrington, and has organized local community projects including Self Help Association for a Regional Economy (SHARE), which captured national media attention in 1991 helping some businesses issue local currency (see illustration). From A New Lease on Farmland: “Two Farm stands in Great Barrington, MA have jointly issued a voucher or coupon which they sell in the late fall when cash is short and redeem in the summer, when cash flow is greater. Called a ‘ ‘Berkshire Farm Preserve Note”, it is redeemable for $10 worth of farm produce at either stand from June through September. Berkshire Farm Preserve Notes are sold at a 10% discount for $9, effecting a low-interest short-term loan from the customers to the farmers.” The Society publishes transcripts of its annual lecture series, including work by Stephanie Mills, Francis Moore Lapp6, Hazel Henderson, Jane Jacobs, Kirkpatrick Sale and Wendell Berry. England’s Schumacher College swings into it’s second year lofted by the previous season’s terrific response. On a dreamy 800-acre medieval estate in rural Devon, the college runs long courses taught by a fine faculty: the likes of Theodore Roszak, James Lovelock, Petra Kelly and David Bohm. Fees are about £1,000 for a month’s course, including room and board. For more information, and a prospectus, write The Administrator, Schumacher College, The Old Postern, Dartington, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EA, U.K., phone: (0803) 865934, fax: (0803) 866899. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 9
The Story of Downtown Community Television After tiring of major media's inconsequential moralizing, Manhattan's homeless produced their own documentary. Over the past 20 years, thousands of New York City's under-funded community groups have learned to use video to tell their stories. A dedicated and impoverished bunch of film-makers at Downtown Community Television (DCTV) made sure they could. Outside their hometown, DCTV is a well-known maverick in the world of professional news journalism. They helped pioneer video v6rit6 and porta-pak documentaries. While risking their lives to film the underreported underside of modem civilization, they won eight Emmy awards. In the 70’s they filmed Cuba and post-war Vietnam for PBS, suggesting to American audiences through straight, unmanipulated images that the US government was seriously misguided to fight these revolutions. PBS blacklisted DCTV after nearly a decade of this kind of radical footage. In the 80’s, working independently for NBC, they covered growing US pollution and poverty. They filmed US sponsored repression in Central America, raising the hackles of conservative network executives. The gmdge of one who became network president made DCTV victim to the most overt censorship within the US media during the Gulf War. AND Local Cameka5 DCTV began in the early 70’s, showing videos on New York street comers from the back of an old van, covering food co-ops, local politics and neighborhood organizing. With their youthful enthusiasm they won one of the first video small grants from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, contracting to hold video workshops, film cultural activities and show the results on the streets. In pushing themselves to fulfill an agreement which was almost beyond them, they impressed the city, which continued to give them just enough money to live with their equipment in a bare studio in the poorer parts of Chinatown. In a few years they collected enough friends, admirers and contacts that their documentaries aired nationally on public television and won awards. They usually were unable to cover their costs while working with PBS, but getting shows out to big audiences was worth sacrifices. After being blacklisted nationally by PBS, a local PBS director, fmstrated with his own system, sent DCTV to a friend at NBC. The network was relatively flush with cash in those days, and the producer was open-minded enough to know the advantages of an independent operation. He admired their willingness to die to get footage, so he sent them into the middle of the Chinese-Vietnamese war. During the 80’s NBC bought anything made by DCTV’s Jon Alpert, whose documentaries were as terrifying as they Page 10 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
Left: DCTV's Jon Alpert interviews a Philippine New People's Army Guerilla. Theirfight against the Marcos Government is chronicled in an Emmy Award-Winning documentary listed on page 12. Photo: Maryann DeLeo. were funny. Comfortable US living rooms became less so when Alpert’s first world camera went places that nice people were supposed to avoid. NBC producers, despite the enormous controversy every time they aired something of Alpert’s, were compelled by the style and effect to continue paying for the honest and uncompromising perspective. Alpert turned the NBC money over to DCTV, to help out the community programs. These expanded widely, strengthening the alternative video scene in New York. DCTV bought and repaired a dilapidated Victorian firehouse in Chinatown {at right), which many of them moved into, and which became a permanent center for community video production and a theatre for forums and video festivals. Such relatively good times couldn’t last, and neither could the patience of the conservatives at NBC. The total news blackout of the US war in the Persian gulf made Alpert and the DCTV folk unhappy. It was obvious that there was more going on than the government wanted known, so they decided to go get the story. After making arrangements to travel with former Johnson administration Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the executive director of NBC nightly news authorized the production. Just as they were going out the door, a call came from a vice president at NBC nastily telling them not to go. DCTV figured the NBC people might have their wires crossed, but in any case they needed to go to the gulf: what was broadcast so far was simply too thin. Jon Alpert thinks he and DCTV were being a little, perhaps willfully, naive. The president of NBC, Michael Gartner, had evidently been waiting for a very long time to shoot them down, and this gave him the opportunity. While DCTV was in the Gulf and Ramsey Clark was condemning the US for war crimes, Gartner cancelled plans to air the results. But when Alpert arrived and showed the tapes to Tom Brokaw, NBC anchor, and other NBC News people, they decided to put it on the air. Two hours before going on, Gartner overruled everyone, denounced Ramsey Clark and dictated that nothing by Alpert would ever be shown again on NBC. End of relationship. If more people in the upper echelons of network news, who consider themselves responsible journalists, had bothered to stand up to their bosses and take the risks Alpert did, this war would have been better covered, and might even have been prevented. That the anchors didn't stand up is a sign that the economic power the company holds over their news staff is considered nearly absolute. Since Alpert’s firing, times have been hard at DCTV, especially since this coincided with massive cuts in grants, particularly to small activist outfits. But the huge support group that DCTV helped build in the New York community has proved very resilient, so the relative poverty is at least stable. Several programs have proven especially useful for the underfinanced community. The “works-in-progress” group, according to DCTV Director of Community Affairs Hye Jung Park, is an effort to foster a cooperative spirit among fledgling documentary producers. Television usually sparks competition for money and air time, an attitude typical of the establishment culture that alternative film-makers fight against. So, on a regular basis producers using DCTV’s facilities, some 400 groups a year, meet to critique each others work, network to get their material aired, and see if they can offer each other a hand with production. These regular meetings are a big hit with the local alternative video community. Competition for money and airtime is usually fierce. In contrast, DCTV's ‘'works-in-progress ” meetingsfoster cooperation among documentary producers. Hye Jung also acts as a kind of agent, a non-profit one, working hard to get videos to audiences, either through cable, at universities or sometimes on broadcast TV. Her success can be seen occasionally on PBS, no longer blacklisting DCTV, where she gives footage to alternative media shows such as The 90’s. Along with other alternative media organizations in New York such as Globalvision and Deep Dish TV, Hye Jung tries to connect technically trained film-makers with organizations that are otherwise unable to put their message in video form. The alternative video community in the city is extremely diverse and active, and DCTV gives their space, equipment and expertise to those who need it. Alpert and the other producers at DCTV continue to make documentaries, though not nearly as many as when working for NBC. Their Emmy Awards have not helped much: the news business is in recession too. NBC president Gartner slashed the news budget severely: why pay for good reporting when the advertising dollars come in without it? This was easier to justify after General Electric's takeover of NBC put financial pressure on the network. The rest of the news industry is in a similar state, which certainly encouraged the complacent reporting of the Gulf war. Despite all this DCTV survives, through the skill and cooperation developed in their local and international activism. The disarmingly honest nature of DCTV’s professional footage, forged in their neighborhood work, makes them sufficiently successful to fund further innovative, grassroots video-making. This is just the sort of radical positive feedback loop required to push America's conscience off the sofa and out into the real world. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 11
DCTV PaoDucTioN5 This is just a small sample from Downtown Community Television's two catalogs, one of professional videos, listed on these two pages, and another of community productions, listed over on page 13. New releases and other alternative video news are found in their newsletter Scanlines. Both catalogs, along with information about facilities, classes, or use of the professional team are available from: Downtown Community Television Center 87 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10013 (212) 966-4510 ^wnrd-Winnini^ Videos year die from occupational diseases, virtually all of which are preventable. This investigative documentary, winner of an Emmy, explores the cobalt related hard-metals disease that can destroy a pair of healthy lungs in three years, and the legal loopholes that allow big manufacturers to go unprosecuted. Urban Indians. Follows Joe, an unemployed Ogala Sioux, from pine ridge reservation to New York City and back again. The personal struggle of Native Americans continues. Juvenile Justice. Most juvenile detention centers teach kids to become better criminals. But this short Emmy award-winning documentary follows three odd, successful approaches to problem kids: putting them in plush prep schools, sending them out camping together in the Texas desert, and teaching illiterate street kids to tell their stories through video. South Dakota Gold Miners. A modem tale of Third Avenue: Only the strong survive. This powerful Emmy winner documents the tough lives of six people who live or work on New York's Third Avenue. Eddie works in an auto junkyard, but to pursue the American Dream he steal cars. Trudy lives with her five children in a bumt-out and abandoned building. Ricky is a young male-prostitute. Joe has lived on the street for a decade and now asks his wife to take him back. Raul is a poor, hardworking, God-fearing man whose seven children are gradually being lured into working the streets. The Pascones own a barber-shop but their neighborhood has cmmbled and there are no customers. But when the family gets together to sing and dance their spirits rise above their troubled life. r - ci -/ jf: rj^- Don't Move -- Fight Back. A landlord stops providing services. Another violently and illegally removes tenants. This tape shows groups fighting for affordable housing, and winning! Hard Metals Disease. In the U.S. 1(X),(XX) people a miners, sick from silicosis, trying to get satisfaction in a company town. Takes place at the mine whose gold helped build the Hearst publishing empire, which years back hired Pinkerton detectives to kill strikers. Chinatown: Immigrants in America. Documents the densest neighborhood in New York, where heavily overworked immigrants struggle in garment and retail businesses. These are controlled by the unofficial government: the Chinatown Consolidated Benevolent Association. The Story of Vinh. An Amerasian Vietnamese immigrant who speaks no English is misjudged by the New York public school system, which believes him to be 15 when he's actually 21. A story of culture clash and a clunky foster-parent system. Vietnam: Picking up the pieces; Talking to the people; Vietnam 1990, DCTV was the first US TV team allowed into Vietnam after the war, and over the years was given unprecedented permission to film anywhere they pleased. These tapes document the problems the US created in former South Vietnam: prostitution, slums, starvation, mines, poisons and broken relationships. The Philippines: Life, Death and Revolution. An Emmy awardwinning look at Philippine social unrest, poverty and the insanity of the US backed Marcos government. Includes a controversial segment where New People's Army rebels ambush a government patrol. Nicaragua '79 — In the Beginning Nicaragua: The Revolution Continued DCTV documents the Sandinista victory over the Somoza regime. They were in the second car of the caravan driving into Managua the day of the triumph. The second tape Page 12 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
documents all the ugliness of the battle between the CIA's contras and the Sandinistas along the Honduras border, and other struggles of a young revolution. Cuba: The People; El Dialogo; Fidel Comes to New York; Cuba 1990. Cuba: The People was the first US television documentary filmed in Cuba after the revolution. Given freedom to go anywhere, they visit factories, crowded bars, lively streets and abandoned buildings from Batista's day. The second tape is of the famous meeting between Fidel and the Cuban exiles that reconciled differences and allow separated Cuban families to travel freely between the US and Cuba. Reagan later stopped such travel. The 3rd tape is of Fidel's 1979 visit to the U.N., and the final tape is an update on Cuba's current struggle to deal with US aggression and the collapse of the Communist International. Trouble at the Border; Revolution in El Salvador; Nowhere to Run. The death squads of this US-backed government does not hesitate to kill reporters. Terrifying footage of refugees chased past the border into Honduras, trying to survive with the help of the FMLN. Nowhere to hide; Inside Iraq. The tapes that destroyed the relationship between DCTV and NBC. Includes the only uncensored report to come out of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. Documents the horrible human toll from wildly inaccurate US bombing. Groups around the country have been showing these tapes to help people understand the consequences of the war. What a way to make a living. Emmy winning collection of short pieces of people struggling, with bare success, to earn a wage in hard times. To arrange an order, please call (212) 966-4510. There is a $10 preview charge. For institutions, prices run around $45 for a rental and $200 for a sale, but DCTV says that no group will be denied access to these tapes because of lack of funds. Community Viden CoCCectvon DCTV helps people produce these documentaries, and then helps promote them. If you want the complete catalog, write to DCTV, 87 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10013. If any of those listed below interest you, call (212) 966-4510 and DCTV will put you in touch with the producers. Inside Schomberg. (18 min.) produced by teenagers near Harlem’s Schomberg Plaza, concentrating on daily life and ongoing communal projects. Soul to Seoul. (17 min.) a youth-produced video investigating the problems between the African-American and Korean communities in New York. The end of an era: small business and the neighborhood. (20 min.) activists explore gentrification and the disappearance of neighborhood business. Gardens in a city under siege (20 min.) The Trust for Public Land has helped create community gardens throughout NYC; here’s how they do it. Street Vendors (20 min.) explores the trials of recent NYC immigrants selling on the street. WAVE Taster; We Care (25 & 33 min.) information about AIDS and giving care to people with AIDS. Stop! In the name of love (24 min.) Improv theatre by & for teens, on sexuality & the risks of AIDS. Attack on Women’s Clinics (27 min.) a dramatic LAMDA Update: Liberty for ail (45 min.): a history of this New York gay and lesbian activist group. Project Lifeline -- A Convoy of Conscience (64 min.) Central American refugees fight to stay in the US. Build Homes not Bombs (18 min.) Homeless activists forge an alliance with the peace movement. Bread and Puppet (15 min.) A portrait of an alternative political circus travelling around the US. Authority versus Majority (75 min.) A theatre play dealing with political oppression in Latin America, with a Colonel who changes sides. Shakur and Morales (23 min.) two ex-US political prisoners talk in Cuba, which granted them political asylum. Biko Lives! (35 min.) From the music and politics festival connecting the South Bronx to South Africa. Travelling at night (22 min.) Children leam the history of slavery in the US and go on a field trip into woods and caves of the underground railroad for escaped slaves. 1, 2, 3 ... freeze (15 min.) A pilot project teaching hospitalized children to create stop-action animation. Litter Critter (20 min.) Story of kids who save New York from the Litter Critter. Christmas, Inc. (25 min.) The Elves are tired of Assembly lines, the reindeer want to go to the beach - Christmas finally happens through teamwork. A musical. Buchhandlenn in New York (19 min.) New York's biggest German bookstore arrived when the Nazi’s closed Mary Rosenberg's Niimberg shop in 1939. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 13
Each day, the average bike is pressed into service carrying groceries, boxes and bags far beyond its designer’s original intentions. At best we hang panniers, baskets, pods and trailers off of it: sometimes frustrating attachments to use and maintain. Better bike designs for hauling loads were first available nearly a century ago, then fell into disuse with the advent of the combustion engine. But today a tiny international network of ecology-minded bicycle engineers is leading a renaissance for workbikes. The old bikes are being brilliantly redesigned with lessons of the past century in mind, including the experience of being overrun by the automobile industry. Today’s mammoth bicycle corporations concentrate their marketing power on recreational and commuting bikes, perhaps unconsciously avoiding the transport territory of motor-driven trucks and vans. The primary exception in the US is New York’s Worksman’s Cycles (see Rain 14:1, p.44), a company making workbikes since the 19th century. The US market for human powered machines shrank as gasoline power caught on, and as a result Worksman ’s has been conservative when investing in new bicycle design. They mostly build massive, heavy-duty bikes for use in industry, made to withstand the disrespectful treatment they receive on the factory floor. Now, Jan VanderTuin of Human Powered Machines has brought more workbike models to the US from Europe, updating their design and broadening the social program for bicycle engineers. His designs are based upon classic European transport cycles, such as the “Long John’’ (or “Long Emma” as it’s known to the British), and the Baker’s Bike, with basket attached to the frame rather than Page 14 Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2
Left, Jan VanderTuin fetches the mail with his utility bike, whose load is on the frame rather than the handlebars. It has a waterproof container designedfor the weather in Eugene, Oregon. The model is used to deliver pizzas to students at the University of Oregon. At right, Jan delivers packages on Manhattan's tough streets using a Long John, designedfor easy manipulation of heavy loads (up to 180 pounds) in tight traffic. (NY Photo: Peter Britton). Both the narrow maneuverability of the Long John and the waterproofing of the utility bike suggest the depth of modification local workbike design could undergo with more support for alternative transport. the handlebars (see photo left). Contrary to current practice, however, good bike design isn’t just a matter of engineering: it must take the rider’s community into account. For example, in Italy and Switzerland many bicycles are built, frame and all, at your comer bicycle shop. Every day a variation on some classic model is built to meet local or personal needs, and the bike is typically repaired and adjusted in the same shop for its lifetime. In fact, it is difficult to get any other bike repaired there. The bike shop is part of your neighborhood, and the relationship between you and your bike builder strengthens over the years. This relationship is now being hurt by mass-produced bikes, designed for the least common denominator among consumers, built by robots, or people forced to act like them, who never get to know the riders. In Italy and Switzerland many bicycles are built, frame and all, at your local bicycle shop. Local economies benefit from decentralizing and personalizing bike production. Custom Italian bicycle frames are famous throughout the world because each Italian neighborhood has bike designers and builders. Northern Italy’s modem economic success owes much to a tight fabric of diverse skills in quick, custom, small-scale manufacturing. Italy has become something like the product idea shop of Europe. In Switzerland a century of molding bicycles to local needs produced a national school for bicycle design and manufacture, a bicycle unit in the Swiss Army, and a fleet of thousands of baker’s bikes for the post office. In their neighborhood bike shops tlie Swiss learn that this Below, Brad Evans rides a Long John with waterproof container on Oregon back country roads: this lightweight workbike is built like a mountain bike to handle rough terrain. Ifyou'd like to order one, see page 17. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 15
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