Solidarity Economy – What & Why [Recording]

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4AV2p4FsBI

The California Progressive Alliance believes that a better California is possible by reclaiming our government from the corporate interests that have overshadowed the voice of the people.

The US Solidarity Economy Network has developed a candidate questionnaire to advance 5 key policy proposals that can help us achieve our goals: Worker-Owned Cooperatives, Public Banking, Participatory Budgeting, Community Land Trusts, and Local Energy.

Join California Progressive Alliance in conversation with David Cobb and Emily Kawano. David Cobb is a “people’s lawyer” who has sued corporate polluters, lobbied elected officials, run for political office himself, and been arrested for non-violent civil disobedience. He believes we must provoke—and win– a peaceful revolution for a peaceful, just, sustainable and cooperative society if we are to survive. In 2002 David ran for Attorney General of Texas, and in 2004 was the Green Party nominee for President, demanding recounts in New Mexico and Ohio that helped to launch the Election Integrity movement. In 2010 he co-founded Move To Amend, and in 2016 he served as the Campaign Manager for Jill Stein’s presidential campaign. David currently serves as an advisor to the California Progressive Alliance, is on the Board of Directors of the US Solidarity Economy Network (USSEN) and is a co-founder of Cooperation Humboldt.

Emily Kawano is Co-Director of the Wellspring Cooperative Corporation, which is seeking to create an engine for new, community-based job creation in Springfield, Massachusetts. Wellspring’s goal is to use anchor institution purchases to create a network of worker-owned businesses located in the inner city that will provide job training and entry-level jobs to unemployed and underemployed residents through worker-owned cooperatives. Emily also serves as Co-Coordinator of the United States Solidarity Economy Network. An economist by training, Kawano served as the Director of the Center for Popular Economics from 2004 to 2013. Prior to that, Kawano taught economics at Smith College, worked as the National Economic Justice Representative for the American Friends Service Committee and, in Northern Ireland, founded a popular economics program with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.