The issues go well beyond food security. We are constantly told that there is no alternative to industrial agriculture, to the corporate global economy, or to using U.S. military power to impose order on the world. Your work contributes to demonstrating that we do have choices:

• Between dead food and living food.
• Between dead agriculture and living agriculture.
• Between a suicide economy and a planetary system of living economies.
• Between American empire and Earth democracy.
  

I will speak briefly of each of these choices, as they relate to your work.

Corporations have created a system of dead agriculture subsidized by our tax dollars that kills the planet, destroys families and communities and alienates us from the earth to produce dead food that poisons our bodies. Dead agriculture poisons and depletes our soil and water; reduces the nutritional value of our food; destroys families, family farms, and communities; and alienates us from the earth. It provides an abundance of top of the food chain delicacies to the rich. It offers nothing to the poor. It leads to houses without dining tables or even kitchens. Grab a TV dinner or take out and sit down in front of the TV. Dead agriculture. Dead earth. Dead families. Dead communities. And dead democracy. Economists on corporate payrolls tell us it’s the most efficient system of agriculture ever known. We ask, “Efficient at what?”

Food and the soils that grow it are the foundation of life and community. Food nurtures our souls, as well as our bodies. The bonding of family, friends, and community has long centered on sitting together at a table to share food. Food and agricultural practices distinctive to place are a foundation of the sense of identity and social bonding that make a community more than a place where we go after work to watch TV and sleep.

This is why your work on local food security is so important. It is about restoring the healthfulness of our foods, bodies, communities, cultures, and ecosystems. Now that is a deal you won’t find at Wal-Mart or McDonalds.

At any given moment hundreds of groups are holding similar meetings all over the world, people joining in an effort to reclaim their connection to farm, food, and life. The powers that be constantly repeat the mantra: We must export food to feed the hungry of the world. We must import food to provide the poor with badly needed jobs. The poor of the world do not benefit from being dependent on our food and our jobs. The only beneficiaries are the global agribusiness corporations that control the trade. We best help the poor of the world by giving them back their land so they can grow their own food.

Your work is at the forefront of the global effort to displace a corporate dominated global suicide economy that destroys life to make money for the already wealthy with a planetary system of life-serving local living economies devoted to meeting the basic needs of people, strengthening community, and healing the earth. The intention is to liberate economic life from the pathologies of absentee ownership and the unaccountable concentration of economic and political power manifest in the publicly traded, limited liability corporation. Local living economies are comprised of human-scale enterprises — like family farms — locally owned by the people who have a direct stake in their life-serving function.

I urge you to take a look at the current issue of YES! magazine, which is filled with stories of living economy initiatives. You can find it on the web at http://www.yesmagazine.org/. A new national organization, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), is forming chapters around the country, including here in Seattle to advance the formation of local living economies. Find it at http://www.livingeconomies.org/. There are many opportunities for alliance building between the Community Food Security Coalition and BALLE because the BALLE chapters find that rebuilding local food economies is the essential starting point of their work.

Spreading awareness of corporate globalization’s assault on life and democracy gave rise to a global resistance movement. Originally it was incorrectly named the anti-globalization movement and it was identified in the public mind primarily with street protests. We now call it global civil society and are coming to recognize it as a global movement to advance the cause of justice, democracy, and life everywhere on planet Earth. Our friends in India call it Earth democracy. Its values are spelled out in the Earth Charter, a remarkable document produced through consultations over a period of several years with thousands of persons of virtually every nationality, race, religion, and ethnic grouping on the planet. Its preamble opens with these prophetic words:

"We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future."

Last month those in control of the administrative branch of the U.S. government issued a new “National Security Strategy” for the United States that publicly declares their intention to use the full force of America’s military power to impose a new imperial order on the world with zero tolerance for any challenge to U.S. supremacy.

That act gives a new clarity to the larger dimension of the political and economic choice before us: American empire or Earth democracy? Two wholly different visions of the human future: one leading to global self-destruction through an escalating spiral of violence against life and the devastation of living systems. The other leading to a new human civilization grounded in deep democracy and the love of life.

The choice between American empire and Earth democracy is a contemporary manifestation of an epic struggle between empire and democracy with deep roots in the human psyche that extends back to the earliest human experience. It is embedded in two sharply contrasting world views. And it leads to dramatically different visions of the human future.

The dominator relationships of empire follow naturally from a perception of the world as an inherently hostile and competitive place filled with human and natural enemies that must be controlled or destroyed by physical force. This perception gives rise to a fear of life itself and a desire to control or destroy life as an act of self-protection. It stems in part from a deep inner fear of our own unruly impulses.

Empire is associated with a belief that life is a zero-sum competition. Be a winner or be a loser, rule or be ruled, kill or be killed. These are life’s choices, so be a winner and go for the gold. Trust, compassion, and cooperation are for fools and cowards. It is the responsibility of the smartest, toughest, and most rational players to seize and hold power by whatever means available to impose peace and order on life’s unruly forces. Justice dictates that those who bear the responsibility of imposing order be rewarded with great wealth and privilege. The values and worldview of empire find expression in dead food, dead agriculture, a life-destructive global suicide economy, and the American Imperium.

The partnership relations of Earth democracy flow easily from a perception that the world is inherently nurturing, compassionate, and overflowing with creative abundance and opportunity. Earth democracy is grounded in a deep love of life, with all its creative uncertainty and possibility. From this perspective, violence and conflict are irrational, because they are self-destructive, and wrong because violence against life is violence against the sacred spiritual unity from which all life flows. Meaning and purpose are found in equitably sharing power and resources to secure the well-being of all and engaging in the cooperative exploration of life’s infinite creative possibilities. The values and worldview of Earth democracy find eloquent expression in living food, living agriculture, living economies, Earth democracy, and the extraordinary social movement we know as global civil society — of which we are all a part.

Individuals and societies differ as to which one of the competing tendencies — domination or partnership — is more prominent in their lives, but both tendencies reside in each of us. So we ask: Where lies truth? Is the world inherently hostile and dangerous or inherently caring and compassionate? The answer is — it depends on us — on we the people of planet Earth — because we have the knowledge, technology, and organizational capacity to create the world we choose. We need only the vision to see the possibility of a caring and compassionate world and to choose to live it into being. This is a deeply empowering insight that liberates us from the self-limiting and pessimistic belief that there is no alternative to dead food, corporate monopoly, war, and the police state.

Our species adolescence has been manifest in an Era of Empire spanning many thousands of years. Humanity is now being called to take a bold step to maturity. It has been a long journey and we give credit to Empire for many positive contributions to human progress, including melding us into a single planetary society faced with the imperative to bring the Era of Empire to a close as we live into being a new Era of Earth democracy.

The underlying dynamics of empire compel it to continuously expand its dominion through conquest and exploitation. With few remaining frontiers left to conquer and with economic, social, and environmental breakdown accelerating beyond the limits of social and environmental tolerance, we have reached the End of Empire.

The confrontation between empire and the social and environmental limits of our finite living planet is more than historic. It is an evolutionary event that compels us to develop new relationships with one another and the planet. The further along we are with getting the foundations of a new world order of Earth democracy in place before the final fall of Empire the less tragic the consequences will be. Rebuilding local food economies is an essential centerpiece of this work.

The scandals of corporate accounting fraud unfolding around us and the announcement by our political leaders that the projection of U.S. imperial power is the new centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy and national purpose send a clear message that we cannot look to the institutions of Empire to lead the way to Earth democracy. Leadership, by default and necessity, falls to We the People.

Another extraordinary evolutionary development new to the human experience is the emergence of a new planetary social organism we call global civil society. It is the largest, most international, and potentially powerful social movement in human history, yet it is not identified with an individual leader. It is a mutually empowering movement in which every one of the millions of participants is a leader in his or her own right. Rather than mobilizing around an ideology, it is converging around the emergent values consensus articulated in the Earth Charter. It gains its power from the fact that it is an expression of deeply authentic values that flow from the awakening of a new cultural and spiritual consciousness deep within our being.

The emergence of global civil society points the way to the human possibilities that lie ahead — in particular a previously unknown human capacity to self-organize on a planetary-scale with an unprecedented inclusiveness, respect for diversity, shared leadership, individual initiative, and a deep sense of responsibility for the whole of life. Global civil society’s rapidly expanding capacity for mutual learning, consensus convergence, and global coherence suggests the qualities of an emergent planetary consciousness or brain. It manifests a human capacity for democratic self-governance beyond anything previously known. We are only at the beginning of understanding its nature, let alone its full implications and potential.

This social organism is living into being a spiritually grounded, values based planetary culture. Millions of carriers of the new culture are forming local alliances to create thousands of cultural zones of freedom within which people are growing into being the living economies and living democracies of a new Earth community.

Economically, as noted earlier, our goal is to replace the corporate dominated global suicide economy with a planetary system of life-serving local living economies.

Politically our goal is to replace the dead democracy of money with living democracies of engaged citizens. In a democracy, sovereignty resides in the people. When politicians lead we call it dictatorship. When private economic interests lead we call it corruption. When dictatorship merges with private economic interests in pursuit of imperial expansion we call it Fascism. Only when the leadership comes from “We the people” can we truly speak of democracy.

The work of politics is negotiation and compromise to achieve the possible within the context of an existing political reality. The work of civil society is to create new possibilities by changing the political context. For democracy to come alive, We the Peoples of the Earth community must organize ourselves to provide this leadership, which is what you are doing here as others are doing around the world.

These insights have especially important implications for those of us who enjoy the extraordinary privilege and responsibility of being American citizens. Our country has been taken over by forces not of our choosing for ends contrary to the great ideals of liberty and justice for all on which it was founded — founded I might note in a rebellion against empire and a king named George. We take justified pride in America as a beacon of freedom and democracy to the world. We can shine that beacon bright and clear as a source of hope and inspiration for all. Or we can expand and consolidate the global dominion of the new American empire by military force.

American empire or Earth democracy? That choice is now very much before us.

Generations ago our forbearers rejected the institutions of monarchy in favor of the institutions of representative democracy. Democracy, however, remained an unfinished project, because the institutions of wealth concentration — in particular the institution of the publicly traded, limited liability corporation — remained in place. Although there is much work to be done on our political institutions, our economic institutions have become the primary instruments of our subordination to values and priorities not our own. It falls to our generation to carry forward the project of democracy by democratizing the economy to achieve an equitable distribution of economic power and to establish accountability to the needs of life.

Most efforts to hold economic institutions accountable to the public interest have centered on appeals to the conscience of corporate managers, state ownership, regulatory reform, or some combination thereof. Because these measures establish varying degrees of public oversight and control, they look to some like meaningful alternatives. They are, however, only variations on the imperial theme of the central concentration and control of economic power. For this reason they rarely provide more than marginal improvements in accountability and responsiveness to life needs. The world needs a truly democratic alternative.

The goal of political democracy was not to create a more accountable monarchy; it was to replace the institutions of monarchy with new institutions appropriate to democratic societies. We need a similar approach to economic democracy. The appropriate goal is not to reform the institutions of corporate rule. It is to replace them, through an emergent process of succession and displacement, with systems of economic relationships that distribute power by localizing ownership and control. Ironically, given America’s professed commitment to market economies, it means creating economies that actually honor real market principles — which corporate capitalism, with its drive to monopolize markets and externalize costs — systematically violates.

The underlying principle of the strategy might be characterized as “walking away from the king” because it centers not on confronting the authority of the king, but on walking away — thereby withdrawing the allegiance and the life energy on which the king’s power depends. Think of it as a conversation along the following lines.

“Yes, Mr. King, you have your game. It’s called Empire. I have no quarrel with you. It’s just that the game that works for you doesn’t work for me. Please, no hard feelings, but I’ll be leaving to join with a few billion others for whom the game of Empire isn’t working either. We are going to create our own game based on democratic rules and values. You’re welcome to join us as a fellow citizen if you are willing to share your power and wealth and play by new rules. In any event, we wish you good health and happiness.”

I believe the values of Earth democracy as codified in the Earth charter are universal values shared by the vast majority of people in America and the world. If indeed that is true, our work speaks to the values of a New American Majority — the foundation of the New American Politics we and the world so desperately need if we are to free ourselves and the world from the deadly hand of Empire.

Those of us who are engaged in the active practice of progressive citizenship have for too long thought of ourselves as representatives of an embattled fringe minority. It is time we begin to think and act like members of the new majority we are — an Earth democracy majority engaged in the creation of a new economy and a positive human future.

Your work in this great undertaking is to create a New American Agriculture — not just one percent or five percent or even ten percent, but the whole thing.

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These are turbulent and frightening times. There is good reason to feel despair. Therefore it is important to remind ourselves that we are privileged to live at the most exciting moment in the whole of human history. For this is the moment when we are being called by the deep forces of creation to awaken to a new consciousness of our own possibilities and to embrace the responsibilities that go with our collective presence on the living jewel of life called Earth. We have the need and the means to create a true Earth democracy. The choice is ours. The time is now. We’re the one’s we’ve been waiting for.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the wonderful and important work you’re all doing.

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Dr. David C. Korten is board chair of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, president of the People-Centered Development Forum , and author of the best selling When Corporations Rule the World and The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism.