John -
Your memo is, as one would expect, a marvelously creative piece.
A key element in bringing such a concept to life, it seems to me, would be
to have people working on the ground - organizers, facilitators, agents,
whatever - who would know how to put it together, to chase government and other
programs, to raise money, etc. etc. all the bits and pieces.
Where could such people be found - in the networks you have all developed
over the years, both in the U.S. and abroad - among the people you know who have
been involved in successful projects.
And it seems to me, the focus of the networks efforts to help would not be
to raise the capital for the enterprises, but to raise the money necessary to
put these organizers in the field. Where from ? Ourselves,
sympathetic funds like the Heartland fund, Gene Keilin's fund, foundations,
Co-op America, NCEOC, successful progressive enterprises, Ben and Jerry,
sympathetic wealthy liberals, the church, sympathetic unions etc. etc.
I know I have more etcs. in this little piece than solid ideas but it does
seem such an opportunity to me, and such an interesting place, with its own
special character that the whole country would like to preserve, and a people
desperately in need of an instrument or they will simply be pushed aside.
One thinks of Mandragon immediately, in that it developed to serve a need in an
impoverished section of the country - New Orleans surely has the need and the
impoverishment. Can we find the will and the means?
Enough - you are undoubtedly way ahead of me in thinking about how to meet
this challenge, this need, this opportunity.
Lynn