I have been reading two books simultaneously. I am not done yet so I will be paraphrasing here. The two books are A People's History of the Third World and Wildcard Quilt. Third World is a discussion that argues for nationalism -- yep. The point being that if these third world nations had managed to have sovereignty, they might be able to protect their resources and determine for themselves what price they would get for coffee, cocoa, rubber, diamonds, ore, etc. They rebelled for independence from their colonial masters, but haven't achieved it because we pulled this trade switcheroo on them where we keep them in poverty by determining that they can only get a low price for what they can grow or produce and we blanket them with "food aid" (a lotta corn, but not enough) so they stay down (obliged like a servant -- dependent) and don't stand a chance of competing in the world market. All this is done in a sort of bread and circuses way where Rupert Murdoch makes sure we get one message (that we're OK and they're stupid and poor) while in fact the real on the ground day to day is quite different. (See Black Gold and White Gold.)

Meanwhile in Wildcard Quilt, an environmentalist writer activist moves home to Baxley, Georgia -- population small, rural, Deep South. She misses the urban and town-sized interactions, but notes that we have become separated from understanding our interdependence. She is plopped right back into knowing where the food comes from -- your garden or your neighbors garden, where the child care comes from -- you or your neighbor, where the activism comes from -- you and your neighbors (because there ain't that dang many of yuh). It's a place where favors are returned unasked because you will see that person by the end of the week, month, year, and they will remember the favor they did for you. People in these small rural places started the saying, "I'd be obliged if you would___." And they were obliged. They were and are interdependent in a way that we can escape in cities.

So I began to wonder if the effort toward the independence of nation states, the notions of freedom and the pursuit of personal happiness had trickled down into our interpersonal inter-organizational relationships. If the words had somehow insinuated their meanings onto us so deeply as to be accepted as something they never set out to be, mean, affect?

Is sovereignty of a nation state the same as sovereignty of the individual? If two organizations have the same or similar missions, do they require separate and sovereign infrastructures be funded on their behalves?

Now ponder that for a minute...

Add now that the population (of the first and second worlds) is aging. What better sums up independence than the sight of an elder living alone, shopping alone, walking alone, eating alone, washing up and heading off to bed alone day after day? Have we pushed out and cordoned off our elders and committed them to live out their days in interminable sovereign loneliness? What about the child who is told by society that they must strike out alone, move away from home and create an identity for her/himself at a strange place (college) alone? Have we suggested, as a byproduct of growth and change, that this necessarily means leaving the family? The number of divorcees (and there are many more now a days) who are living alone after feeling dissatisfied in their marriages (the ones that did not meet the fantasy ideal of a made-for-TV movie union) now reach mammoth proportions as more and more people find themselves living alone. 

When does independence turn to loneliness? At what point does rugged individualism turn to isolation? When does it spell economic disaster or the growth of prosperity?  How many Healthy Choice individual servings must be prepared before we can once again sit down to a table and share a meal? How long til we can once again savor a delicious “Stone Soup” together? And (to the point of this response), how many freakin’ nonprofits must have infrastructures funded to meet the mandates and missions we need them to meet? Does there have to be a nonprofit organization for every style and shape and color of the very same endpoint just because one person's ego is too big to accommodate or negotiate or (god forbid) compromise with that of the other?

In the story of Stone Soup, the traveler seeks to be fed, and no one in the town will admit to having anything to eat. Eventually each townsperson brings forth their offering, and in the end, they all share a wonderful meal that is plenty for all. In that scenario, each is sovereign as each has his own possession, his own natural resource to offer, but the combination of the many different ingredients is what makes a hearty meal.

I can see the joining of efforts as creating a bountiful repast. I can see that we are living in silos that we desperately need to escape. Many of us are working and living alone, cut off from our real interdependence by cellophane wrapped vegetables that travel from who knows where, eating meat that we know nothing about, wearing clothes whose makers and harvesters live in shacks with dirt floors suffering with MDRTB.

Going back to small town life, to recognizing our real interdependence one block, one neighborhood, one organization at a time could be reason not for disappointment, but for rejoicing. I am postulating, but it’s plausible -- at least to me.

Let’s set aside disappointment for now and wish the hard working folks at EcoCity and CMNH a bon chance at having a bountiful harvest to share with our region, an ever deeper understanding of our natural surrounds and a stronger voice for reinventing Cleveland as a green city on a blue lake with a verdant valley in which a cleaner Cuyahoga River winds its meandering way to Lake Erie and to the sea. I raise my glass to the possibility of a healthy ecosystem, one that realizes its interdependence and the future’s reliance on the past.