Editor's Note

Dear Reader,

A great thinker of our time, Mike D of the Beastie Boys, once gave a rallying call for the people of our generation to faithfully defend our “right to party.” While his plea was mostly di rected at oppressive parents who went to the Cape for the weekend and only left 20 dollars for food, Mr. D in all his eloquence recognized a truth that is not always self-evident. The reason we call something a right, or have to fight for it, means that there are people around the world who do not have it.
Thirty thousand children die each day due to poverty. Over 1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Over 36 million Americans live below the poverty line. Numbers like this should sound familiar to anyone who has ever tuned in to the nightly news, or listened to George Clooney on Oscar night. Globalization is bringing us face to face with the 6 billion other people inhabiting this planet. As everyone seems to be getting a cell phone or an invitation to Gmail, these statistics are a reminder of the many people who have not shared the wealth technology is creating. On page 4, “I Came, I Saw, iPod,” examines how this technology is changing our relationships with each other against a backdrop of inequality.
In this issue of common ground, we listen to the voices around the world that are mobilizing to defend their fundamental human rights. This might be a foreign concept for Americans. We think of human rights violations as torture and genocide, happening in some other country we will never visit. In “Finding the Third World in the First World,” the article shows how injustice exists in our own back yard. These violations happen, whether we choose to watch them on CNN or unknowingly contribute to them in our daily routines, as “We’ll be Wearing T-shirts When They Come” warns.
Rights are not passive, simply waiting to be protected or violated. They require a commitment, and someone to fight for them. This publication explores the different conceptions of the rights we have in our own lives. Hopefully these pages will serve as an inspiration for readers to examine what must be defended to live dignified, meaningful lives.

Sincerely,
William Brode
Caroline Graham
Adriane Lesser

Letters to the Editor

Letters in response to common ground, Volume VII Issue 2 Fall 2006.

To the Editor:
The Fall 2006 issue of Common Ground highlights the creativity that already exists in many local efforts to find or keep a sense of dignity despite threats of prescribed versions of democracy.
Democracy does not have to indicate a “choice between Coke and Pepsi,” as Rubio says is often the case (p10); nor should it simply mean that the “benefits” go to the “majority,” as indicates Ratsuwan in support of the potential potash mining in Udon Thani (p14). Farmers did not have to stop at free trade, and I hope they will not stop at fair trade.
Humans, let us use our creative capacities and surpass monotonous, mainstream, imperfect concepts, so that globally we can experience a true, democratic development.

Vanessa Moll
Washington, D.C.

To the Editor:
Having finished the article “Learning to Think” by Arianne Peterson and Eric Jamieson, I am struck by the universal applicability of the lesson that learning is “a process synonymous with living,” not an exercise that stands apart from or serves some purpose other than to aid our existence as social beings. The most effective teachers understand that their students grasp more quickly and appreciate more deeply those principles that are demonstrated by what the students see in their own physical and social environments. Globalized lesson plans will almost certainly fall short on this score. They will seem something apart and be less likely to communicate to young people that their time and effort in exploring, learning, and growing can serve themselves, their community, and potentially the greater world.

Leonard Gerardi
St. Johnsbury, Vermont

To the Editor:
I was incredibly interested in Tabitha Sprigler’s article “Humanizing the Demonized: Sex Work and Legitimacy.” I think there is an important and fruitful discussion surrounding the nature of sex work and its place in society, and this discussion should go beyond simply addressing the stigma and the criminalization of sex work. There is for me an ongoing issue about sex work, and women’s sexuality more broadly, and that is the idea of consent versus coercion. I believe there is no clear distinction between what women consent to do sexually, and what they are coerced to do as a result of economic and social inequalities. We must look more carefully at the economic and social structures that are accountable for the sheer number of women relative to men going into sex work.
Expanding the economic and social options for women may have an effect on the number of women entering sex work. Sex work may always be a legitimate and desirable option for some women, but we must make sure it is not the only perceived option for women. In the meantime, it makes little sense to punish or villify a group of women who are merely participating with an already established economic system.

Katherine Rushfirth
New York, New York

I Came, I Saw, iPod: Personal Responsibility in an Age of Individualism

by Caroline Graham

    I have 2, 307 songs on my iPod. When I’m in the subway, I listen to Frou Frou. At the gym, I listen to Kanye West featuring Twista’. Twista’ raps fast and I use my short strides to keep up to his beat. When I study, I listen to Chopin Nocturne in G minor. I like to walk through crowded areas and watch peoples’ lips move. There is a man in a business suit. A woman in a Dunkin’ Donuts uniform hurries past me. They are singing Van Morrison or Ben Harper. I tune out the bearded man on the corner. There could be a bomb on Madison Avenue, but I only hear the vibrations from my ear buds.
    New York State Senator Carl Kruger is hoping to pose a bill that bans individuals from wearing electronic devices when crossing streets. “You can’t be fully aware of your surroundings if you’re fiddling with a BlackBerry, dialing a phone number, playing Super Mario Brothers on a Game Boy, or listening to music on an iPod,” he says. According to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, cell phones or other electronic devices used by drivers were the cause of 29 accidents involving pedestrians in New York State in 2005. Conveniently, BMW released the first iPod automobile interface, allowing drivers of newer BMW vehicles to control their iPod using either the built-in steering wheel controls or the radio head-unit buttons.
I drop my gym bag and watch my Nikes spill out onto the floor. I walk through the apartment fatigued with the idea of the coming day. In my beeline to the bathroom, I peer at the kitchen sink disparagingly. A tower of dishes creeps over the side of the stainless steel basin. Some have pools of water collecting with bubbles of oil colliding into each other. I look at the glass on the table and it’s empty. All the forks seem to be somewhere in the sink. I keep walking. I haven’t eaten anything at home for weeks. Take-out is so much more convenient. I used a fork once, but those plates are definitely not mine. I am not personally responsible for the pile of dishes in the sink.
    I am listening to Sufjan Stevens. I am on the 4 train from Union Square to Grand Central. It’s 7:30 at night and the rush hour is over. I am standing because the benches are full enough. Sitting can be suffocating. The awkward occasional knee grazes or elbow rubs. I quickly mumble, “Ahem, sorry...” to the receding hairline of a man trying desperately not to make eye contact with me. So I swagger from stop to stop. Around 23rd Street, I see out of the corner of my eye a homeless man fling open the steel door. He slowly strolls down the car. He bobs from one seated individual to the next. The man in the pinstriped suit buries his head further into the New Yorker. The mother discretely nudges her stroller closer to her knees. I lean back and press my shoulders into the crease of the door and steel pole. He walks past me and stops. I look down and press my index finger against the scroll button. The man is
now kneeling in front of me. I look up and anxiously scan the crowd for help.
This is uncomfortable. I don’t have any money. Well, only big bills. So I figure I will just take a lesson from my pinstriped friend. My iPod becomes the most interesting device I have ever come into contact with. Oh the scroll option! Oh it lights up! Look at all these silly names for playlists. He’s still there. I see his mouth open and close. I can’t hear what’s coming out, but it’s not words. He is missing a tooth and I concentrate on that for a bit. The pinstriped man is now looking up sheepishly. The mother is staring, and her stroller slowly scoots further from her. I feel eyes on me, pressed into the corner. I scroll my finger slowly and the volume decreases a few bars. He’s singing. Loud. His eyes are fixed on mine and he is belting out, Al Green? The benches are laughing and the pinstriped man claps and smiles. His magazine sticks out of his briefcase, stored away minutes ago. I blush. This affection from a homeless stranger is embarrassing. He continues to sing, belting out the hook.
    The train halts at 42nd Street. I momentarily look at the man on the floor. I hear the dull buzz of my ear buds. I left them in the entire time. I smile. I step out of the car and feel everyone watching. I’m not sure what they expected me to do. I am flattered but I have nothing to help this man. He could have been singing his sorrows. But then again, I couldn’t hear him. He’s just another dish in the sink. He is just one of 100,000 New Yorkers who experiences homelessness each year. In the face of injustice, I am listening to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s “First of the Month.”
   I consider myself socially conscious, even progressive. I volunteer at the Knox County Drug and Alcohol Clinic. I signed the petition to end world hunger. I’m even a vegetarian! But this man, missing a tooth, spoke to me in a different way. He made me turn down my iPod. I care. I really do. But giving him twenty dollars would not address his sorrows.
   Just outside of New York City in Long Island, a bustling family center, more and more individuals are choosing to live alone. From 1980 to 1990 more than 50,000 new single resident homes popped up. With an increase of people living alone outside of the city, there are fewer around to see the individuals living alone in the city. Around 740,000 people live alone in Manhattan, a number rapidly rising. And each night, over 38,000 homeless individuals sleep in the New York City shelter system. This includes more than 16,000 children and 8,000 single adults. Thousands more sleep alone on city streets and in other public places.
   Sociologists from Duke University and the University of Arizona have compiled a study that makes it clear that isolation is perpetuating itself. From 1985 to 2004, the number of individuals reporting that there is no one with whom they discuss important matters with nearly tripled. “Almost half the people around you have at most one person they feel they can speak with about what is most important to them,” the study reports. One in four Americans report they have no confidants, family or non-family. In these 20 years, the types of meaningful relationships that decreased the most were neighbors and members of voluntary associations. And that’s exactly it. I see the injustice. I feel the burden in the commuter’s frantic attempts to tone out every homeless person every day. But his problems are so isolated from mine. In handing over a twenty-dollar bill, we wouldn’t have to talk or look each other in the eye. Or share. Or talk about music. But we do share the subway. And we do share the fundamental right to dignity. And even though I didn’t use those dishes, I’m not going to let them continue to pile up. It may not be my responsibility, but it’s still my problem.
    All social movements and progressive social change are built by the consciousness of the people. An individual cannot single-handedly take on injustice. Change comes from the community. As the philosopher Tocqueville said, “Feelings are renewed,the heart enlarged, and the understanding developed only by the reciprocal action of men one upon the other.” In other words, a change cannot truly come from an individual; only a group of interacting individuals can bring life to change. Movements occur from Pinstripe confronting injustice. In his confrontation, he is creating a network for change with his fellow commuters. Voices are louder when singing together.
   “Stand clear of the closing doors please.” I swear that voice haunts my dreams. Where did the Metropolitan Transit Authority find this guy? The homeless man pulls himself up. The New Yorker is back in action– Pinstripe invests himself in the witty texts of his own world. The abrasive lights of each car spot down the track. We live in a parallel existence, boasting our rights and liberties all the while isolating ourselves from each other. I alleviate my discomfort through my prized gadget. Ryan Adams “Come Pick Me Up” seems appropriate. I walk up the stairs and
get onto the Metro North to Bronxville, alone.

Our Secret Forest: Paths For Community Land Use

By Adriane Lesser

    Panting, I folded my little legs beneath my tutu and settled on the bank of a stream dividing a field from a forest. I reminded Mom that I hated going with her on errands, especially when she tricked me and drove somewhere other than home after ballet class. “What if this were home?” she asked. I stopped dragging my fingers through the silt and actually looked at the trees, dirt, and shadows in front of me. I set scenes from “The Secret Garden” to the tune of the forest chatter and nodded vigorously. “You mean my own forest?”
    When we made the move from one suburban town to another, I brought the idea that my new house came with my very own forest. This idea didn’t last long. The previous owners of the house and land were elderly and stayed indoors — they knew nothing about what went on behind the trees, where our neighbors had become active over the years. The first week my parents uprooted a marijuana patch growing in our woods, wondering which of the hikers or horseback-riders passing by might have harvested it. Not long after, my mother confronted a local elementary school teacher swimming naked with her lover in our pond. As she picked up her clothes and beer cans, she protested that she had been coming here for years, and had no intention of changing her habits. As we discovered in the coming months, many of our neighbors felt similarly. I had to give up on having my own forest, all to myself.
    While my family holds the land title, the fields and woods that surround my house are actually shared by many in the community. Some of these relationships are mutually beneficial for us and the forest; the beekeeper who puts his hives among the wildflowers in our yard gives us honey, the hobbyist who builds duck boxes by the pond is preserving the local ecology, and the Hunt Club that gallops in uniform through the trails in mock pursuit of fox helps pay to mow the fields once every couple of years. Other relationships are mandated, such as the easement on the land that the natural gas company holds so it can access its pipes and provide energy to the greater Boston area.
    Some don’t make formal requests to use the land but rather wander into the forest for recreation or to pick wild blueberries, grapes, asparagus, and cranberries. We would never think to press trespassing charges on these harmless but uninvited wanderers. Yet if I see a stranger traipsing out of the woods with a big bucket of berries or fish (or the occasional Christmas tree), I might give him a suspicious glance as a reminder that the land does not belong to him, after all. In recognition of our property rights and their tacit infringement, most wanderers try to keep their visit a secret by skulking out through a hidden way.

SUPERMARKET SWEEP
    Villagers in Northeast Thailand don’t skulk out of the forest like my neighbors. Boonruang Yangkreu, the headman of a village within the Kok Yai forest, says it is different here. Private landholders expect and accept others will come onto the land to gather mushrooms and firewood for themselves, using the “forest as a supermarket.” When villagers cultivate their fields during the rice-growing season, their grazing cows freely meander between community and private land. Convinced that such land use was important for the quality of life of the villagers, Boonruang helped create and heads a committee to defend these practices.
    The Community Forest Committee oversees private and community forest land in 14 villages within the Kok Yai forest. The Committee coordinates with substantial private landholders, other villagers, and the local government to build understanding and cooperation among these groups for sustainable forest management. As we talk, I stare at the scrawny trees and bushes pushing up from the exposed pale and sandy soil. I don’t notice any mushrooms. Boon- ruang gestures at the landscape and reminisces about a once-thriving forest before addressing the reality: “It looks the way it does now because the government didn’t consider Kok Yai to be an official forest, and anyone was allowed to come and use it as they pleased.”
    Boonruang’s dedication to conserving the Kok Yai forest began over two decades ago when he noticed villagers (who had moved in recently under encouragement of a development plan) had cut down all the big trees for building houses and as firewood for salt-boiling operations. Following policy promotions, villagers turned the stripped land to small “cash-crop” farms. But Boonruang noticed villagers weren’t making much cash, largely since the cost of inputs like chemical fertilizer were high and increasing annually. Boonruang posed his question to the Kok Yai communities, “If we have nothing to show for having destroyed the forest and our ability to benefit from it as a community, why not let the forest return to its former state?”
    It took Boonruang five years to convince people in the surrounding villages that the way they treated their private property was important to preserving the way of life of the communities. He leans back and sighs when he says “five years,” as if it were a long time to get people to change their ideas and habits. In addition to preserving public community forest land, there is now an agreement among the communities that people will not cut down big or slow-growing trees on their private land without permission from the Committee.
    Not everyone is content to make private land meet the needs of the community, especially when this means restrictions on how they can use their own land. One man, angry he couldn’t cut down his trees for profit, had Boonruang arrested on defamation charges. Boonruang explains, “Some people or investors who have lost their benefits [to profit from their land] hate me. But these people are afraid to cut their trees for fear their public image in the community will suffer.” Even though self-interest remains, overall community consensus motivates individual cooperation.

QUEEN OF THE FOREST
    "But who does the forest belong to?” I ask Boonruang, as if I hadn’t made up my own mind at age five standing at its edge in my tutu, wanting it to myself, even if I did grow up and learn to share. I expect (and receive) an unhelpful answer about it belonging to both everyone and no one. Anyway, ownership doesn’t determine the health of a forest; it is responsibility I am concerned about. I re-phrase, “Who do you trust to take care of the forest?”
    Despite the relative success of the Community Forest Committee in achieving local awareness and cooperation, the villagers overtaxed the Kok Yai forest in the first place. And Boonruang worries the loose agreement they now share will become tenuous as more investors move in looking to grow eucalyptus, rubber trees, and other cash-crops. This has already become a threat, as he recounts that “When [Prime Minister] Thaksin came to power, he wanted to turn everything into assets and people started to forget what we had promised together.” Villagers are responsible for how they treat their natural resources, but government is responsible for the incentives and messages it provides about how villagers should manage these resources.
    Public forest land under more direct control of the Community Forest Committee endures similar mistreatment. Boonruang gestures at a charred section of scraggly trees and mentions two recent fires that got out of control on the community land. He believes one was started by a man wanting to burn the tall grasses so his cows could graze more easily, and the other by a man who thought a fire would leave a stripped field where no one would object to his planting rice. This mix of unawareness and greed in public land use is often tempered (though never completely averted) by the rest of the community – which in both cases turned out en masse to put it out together. That is, until the fire trucks came to finish the job.
    It makes sense, then, that Boonruang doesn’t believe the villagers can preserve the forest on their own, but rather need government help. The Committee tries to engage local government officers in their meetings, because they are likely to give funding for forest awareness campaigns and camps. Involving local government officers also strengthens networks between communities. Boonruang is fond to tell me of the Queen of Thailand’s visit to the forest 11 years ago. He asked her for funding so the Committee could build 14 public ponds (one for each village in the area) to provide water access for livestock and agricultural purposes. He was taken aback when the military showed up soon after to dig 151 ponds — a certain improvement for the villagers, even if 151 ponds could not eliminate their reliance on the municipal fire department. But even the Queen’s generosity is characteristic of the often inconsistent and forceful government aid for community forests. Boonruang finishes his story, “The government just sets up some committee and leaves. In theory both of us must work and plan together... but ultimately I think the government should let communities take care of themselves more and not be over-controlling.”

INSTINCTIVE CLAIMS
    I had experienced the results of applying too much control the previous day while visiting Sam Pak Nam village. It is a controversial community because of its location inside national park borders. Passing the park checkpoint and information center, I noticed the same species of tree stood in uniform rows along the road. As we drove past the government-owned land and entered the village boundaries, Somjit Eakwaree, president of the Sam Pak Nam community forest, scoffed at the formation. “The forest is not like the military; trees don’t have to stand in line.” As opposed to the national park protocol, Somjit said the management plans of the village worked towards “true diversity in the forest.” He did not want or trust government help in caring for their community forest land. The government was equally distrustful of the villagers, forcibly evicting them in 1991 when establishing the national park.
    Somjit pointed out the diverse tangle of bamboo and trees on our visit to see the village monks at the temple, proud how the health of the community forest had improved since their protests won them the right to return to the land. I asked if the villagers’ success in forest management wasn’t motivated by their fear of being evicted again. “That’s part of it,” Somjit agreed.
    The community forest has rules, but unlike national park regulations, the rules emphasize the interactions between villagers and the environment rather than restrict them. For example, villagers are allowed to harvest mushrooms in the community forest, but they must use a basket rather than a bucket so that some of the spores can sift through the holes and develop. Despite asserting the success of the community in managing their forest, Somjit seemed acutely aware that the villagers would be blamed first should the health of the national park forest decline. I shared with Somjit and the monks a little bit about the national park system and the use of public land in the United States.
    They were surprised to hear that in our urban and suburban American communities, the “look but don’t touch” principle regulates much of the public access we have to nature. One of the monks replied, “That’s not enough. By just looking you can’t learn enough about the balance between nature and people.” My childhood in a private-turned-community forest taught me that in fact this isn’t enough— when given the opportunity, our instincts are to plant and harvest, to swim, to raise bees and collect honey.
    In the United States, we no longer expect these opportunities. We are very lucky if we live near a forest or other land we can use this way. Ironically, the fact that my family land is privately owned is the key to it being a community resource; were it public land, I can’t help but think it would either have been sold to developers, turned into yet another set of soccer fields, or else cordoned off to be viewed only through trails and from picnic benches. Yet having neighbors depend on my family to share our land is not a real solution, because we reserve the right to sell it, destroy it, or place our own restrictions on its use. Alternatively, a true public domain would fall under regulations decided by the community that uses it together.
    Boonruang feels the key to successful community forest management is getting the community to feel joint ownership over their resources. In a long, late-night conversation in Sam Pak Nam village, Somjit responded to my waning attention by shouting, “Do you think this world only belongs to you?” Under his stare in the harsh fluorescent light, I again felt like the little girl sitting in a tutu, hands in stream silt and eyes on the woods ahead of her, claiming it as her own. In the end, however, the forest is better off in the hands, beehives, and baskets of neighbors. And we, in its company, flourish.