I hope you’re all thinking about a better future. It’s been a long four years, and there’s been lots of talk about what America’s vision for the post-Trump future could bring that’s better than what was before.
I’d like to offer you an early Christmas gift that might be new — or maybe not. There are a couple of items rich with possibilities for the future that could excite your imaginations and get your creative juices flowing on creating a more perfect union and a truly livable future.
Here are the gifts:
Gift 1 – Citizens First Congress and Arkansas Public Policy Panel
Citizens First Congress is a gift to Arkansas.
Born in Arkansas and still growing after 50 years. Arkansas Public Policy Panel came first, Citizens First Congress came later. The Panel is the educational arm, Citizens First is the lobbying arm. They started out of the “Arkansas Panel of Women,” a very diverse group in Little Rock who went to churches and school board meetings to talk about what it was like to be a member of their race or culture. It was an important calming presence during the Central High crisis. After integration tensions relaxed a bit and most of them kept advocating for civil rights.
At some point Bill Kopsky took over as the director with a new vision. He imagined a Citizens First Congress and then he brought it into being. It’s a progressive advocacy group – lobbyists for progressive causes. Who would’a thought? Only big corporations have such things, don’t they? They’re still the only progressive lobby group of their kind in the state, and they’re unique in the nation. Their lobbying issues are selected democratically in a way that mimics the actual legislative process. They do that because the intent is to train regular citizens to lobby for their own interests in a professional and effective way.
Before each legislative session they hold 2 conferences where member groups like Omni bring issues to share. At the first conference issues are introduced, at the second conference there’s a voting process where the full group democratically selects 10 issues that become the priorities of Citizens First Congress for that legislative session.
How many Southern states have a team of skilled progressive lobbyists who can teach people without power how power actually works? We’re not supposed to know that. That’s a secret from the people. But in Arkansas we have that chance.
If you have a burning issue that needs a legislative solution, you need to get to know Citizens First Congress, and as a member group, Omni can help you. Oh… the process is complete for this legislative session, so you’ll need to save it for 2023. Don’t wait until then though. You’ll find that there’s lots to learn in this power game, and if you start now to figure out how it works, you can be a pro by then.
Even if you don’t have an issue to promote, there’s exciting work to be done helping to make Arkansas law better or pushing back against laws that hurt people and communities that should be stopped. Arkansas has the most regressive laws against renters in the country. We give huge tax breaks to billionaires. South Arkansas has terrible schools…. The list of things that need to be changed is long, and your help is needed.
Take advantage of this amazing gift. Email omni@omnicenter.org and tell us that you’d like to know more. The legislative session is already gearing up to begin in January. You still have time to jump on this train.
Gift 2 – Yes! Magazine
Yes! Magazine is a gift to the world.
This periodical has been around for a pretty long time. It calls itself “Solutions Journalism”. Because it’s writers focus on visions of a positive future and how it can come about. It includes amazing progressive thinkers and writers with good ideas about many parts of our struggling culture.
You can subscribe to the e-newsletter for free and get samples of the wealth of ideas in the magazine.
But it’s just so much nicer having the magazine in your hands.
If you haven’t read it before, you’ll be amazed at how much progressive, positive and productive thinking is going on in this country. Good things are happening, and they’re not sourced by billionaires or geniuses, they’re from smart people just like you and me who took their good ideas and built them into something that helps themselves and their community.
Here are examples from the most recent issue that charged me up. Its theme is “What the rest of the world knows.”
- How Norway built an economy that puts people first
- Truth and Reconciliation: Our way out of a dark past
- Places that decided incarceration is not the answer
- The Mosuo Villages: Where Grandmothers are in Charge
- Buen Vivir: A Reset for Unprecedented Times
- Indigenous foodways: Cranberries are good medicine
That isn’t all…. Just the tasty pop of juice like a ripe cranberry exploding in your mouth
Believe it or not, this is not an advertisement for Yes Magazine. It’s an advertisement for the rise of our full humanity. It’s time, and we’re so ready for that!
And here are some reasons you’ll want take advantage of this gift. There are many ways to live besides the way we in the US locked ourselves to.
- The narrow escape of seeing our country grazed by fascism,
- The ongoing weight of the corporate state,
- Our entrapment in deep racist culture,
- The horrendous threat of climate change on the horizon
This is a list that should be enough to make us start hunting for better ways. Just in time, these great gifts are here for your nurture and inspiration to do that very thing.
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