My wife was telling me on the way home this afternoon (after seeing hundreds of our people in South Chicago carrying flowers, teddy-bears, baskets and candy), that if we just gave up one holiday or event, and instead dedicated those funds to independent community development, we’d have full employment for all of our un/underemployed youth and adults within a year.
She asserted that it didn’t even have to be a major holiday, she’d leave Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and New Years alone, she only wanted Valentine’s Day, or St. Patrick’s Day, or even the Superbowl party funds, or 4th of July fireworks funds; if we just kept our pockets closed for one holiday or event and gave that money over to cooperative economics, we’d be on our way, as a people, she speculated.
I came home and looked at some of the expenditures for various holidays, and I think we’d have to handover one major or two minor holidays, but if we had that level of collective intelligence and discipline, we could have cooperative businesses, local/cottage manufacturing, collective property ownership and management, sustainable food production and processing, waste reclamation and processing, commercial composting, etc.; there are countless, labor intensive, cooperative enterprises we could fund with Holiday Divestment Funding.
My Goodness! What a brilliant idea!
Well, it’s out there, I’m gonna look further into it through Bloom Cooperative Enterprises.
If you think this might be something you are interested in pushing forward, give me a shout.
