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We Are Greater Than Fear

October 26, 2018 By Megan Smith

Whether we are white, black or brown, have been in the United States for 10 generations, or are a newcomer here, we all want to leave future generations a healthy and beautiful Minnesota.

We all share and depend upon this Earth, and this election season we cannot let divisive and harmful rhetoric from certain politicians and lobbyists deliberately distract us with fear mongering and keep voters from paying attention to what really matters.

The “Greater Than Fear” campaign calls out against racist language that harms hard-working Minnesotans and future generations. We know that by treating one another as we would like to be treated and working side-by-side, we are far more powerful.

Let’s join together and vote Greater than Fear on November 6. 

Land Stewardship Action Fund leaders like Jennifer are already speaking out:

“My name is Jennifer and I live in Brainerd, Minnesota. I am #GreaterthanFear. I love Minnesota because people take care of each other. Right now there are people trying to divide us, trying to distract us with their fear mongering. Trying to make us afraid of immigrants and refugees and anyone who is different.
Well, I refuse to be afraid. I’m not afraid of people who look and live differently than I do. I am not afraid of people who walk across the desert in search of a better life for their babies.
Some people blame immigrants for our hard times.
I blame greed. I blame corporate CEOs who make millions while their workers barely make it at all.
I love Minnesota. I love the people here. We care about each other, and we all want the similar things for our families: health, happiness, education, safety.
This November, I’m voting for candidates who offer hope for our communities because I know that Minnesotans are greater than fear.”


Check out this Greater Than Fear video and remember to vote Greater Than Fear Nov. 6. For more information on the Greater Than Fear campaign, e-mail Emily Minge at eminge@landstewardshipaction.org

 

https://landstewardshipaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/20180925_MinnesotaNice_v3.5.mp4

This is an independent expenditure prepared and paid for by Land Stewardship Action Fund, 821 E 35th St., #200, Minneapolis, MN
55407. It is not coordinated with or approved by any candidate nor is any candidate responsible for it.

Filed Under: Greater Than Fear, Minnesota, Racial Justice

Migrants are Not Expendable Commodities

June 25, 2018 By Brian Devore

By Amy Bacigalupo

Recent revelations that at least 2,300 migrant children have been separated from their parents under U.S. President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy highlights an ugly fact: this country’s immigration policies are inhumane, divisive and unsustainable, and they have been for a very long time. The atrocity of tearing young children from their parents is a further step in the wrong direction, a step that must be stopped and never repeated.

The Land Stewardship Project’s mission is to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, promote sustainable agriculture and develop healthy communities. We care about people and the land. We are striving to build communities where farmers care for the land and water and produce food that is healthy and available to everyone. We want a future where families and children are valued and where immigrant families trying to build a better future for themselves and their families are not threatened by racist and inhumane policy that divides families, communities and the country. A broken, inhumane immigration system that allows children to be separated from their families is not only unjust, it is highly immoral.

LSP recently released “A Vision for Rural Minnesota.” This document was developed from input given by hundreds of rural Land Stewardship Project members during the fall of 2017. One core value included in A Vision for Rural Minnesota is: “Every person has value that can’t be earned or taken away.” A “zero tolerance” policy that separates children from their families and isolates them in detention centers does not value human life.

Although President Trump has signed an executive order ending, for now, the separation of families at the border, this situation highlights the fact that migrants are treated as expendable “inputs” that help keep corporations wealthy and powerful enough to control all aspects of our society, including rural communities. For example, our current immigration policy enables large-scale corporate-backed factory farms to suppress large portions of the migrant workforce, driving down wages not only for them, but for others living and working in rural communities. Factory farm owners think they are above the law, in some cases stealing wages owed to workers, all while threatening these workers with deportation if they complain. Because of their ability to exploit a vulnerable workforce, factory farms are profitable and powerful enough to consolidate land, dominate markets and influence public policy—all to the detriment of small- and medium-sized farms and the communities that rely on them.

In a sense, the current debate over migrant families is one more example of how corporate control over our economy, politics and government undermines the financial, social and environmental fabric of rural communities, all while promising short-term “economic gains.” It’s not just factory farms that benefit. As a result of documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, it was recently revealed that several rural communities are being targeted for establishment of Wall Street backed for-profit immigration detention centers. At least two of those communities are in Minnesota—Pine Island in the southeastern part of the state and Appleton in western Minnesota.

Private companies that operate such facilities earn big money and benefit from Wall Street investors. The business of housing, transporting and watching over migrant children detained at the southwest border is a billion-dollar business. Because of the President’s “zero tolerance” policy, that business has the potential to get a whole lot bigger. The vast profits from these businesses don’t go to rural communities but rather to the shareholders, fitting with the overall corporate model of extracting wealth from rural areas at the expense of the environment, human health and community well-being.

Our rural communities need to be revitalized with the kind of economic activity—farms, small businesses, public institutions—that generate long-term wealth while maintaining the integrity of those people who are doing the real work of producing goods and services. Utilizing the misery of migrants, and their children, as sources of income, whether through cheap labor or as detainees, is not part of the vision for rural Minnesota the Land Stewardship Project’s members hold in high regard.

We must call on our public officials to put in place policies that not only protect rural communities from the damage caused by corporate-controlled “economic development,” but support the kind of sustainable business development that can inoculate these communities against opening the door to activities that rely on treating land and people as cheap, throw-away commodities. With that in mind, LSP will continue to work for the kinds of policies that, whether it be on the local, state or national level, treat every person with value and dignity.

Land Stewardship Project organizer Amy Bacigalupo farms in western Minnesota.

Filed Under: Minnesota, Racial Justice Tagged With: factory farms, immigrant, immigrant children, Pine Island detention center, racial justice, rural economies, Vision for Rural Minnesota

There Are No Healthy Communities Without Racial Justice

April 23, 2018 By lsaction

By Laura Frerichs

NOTE: Land Stewardship Project board of directors member Laura Frerichs spoke April 24 at the National Press Club during the People’s Action Rural & Small Town Organizing Cohort Gathering. Below is the text of her talk:

My name is Laura Frerichs. I’m an organic vegetable farmer from rural Hutchinson, Minn., where I farm with my husband, Adam, and our two young boys, Eli and William. About the time we started farming, I got involved with the Land Stewardship Project, a people’s organization of approximately 4,000 households, primarily white rural Minnesotans. LSP’s work mirrors what we are trying to do at our farm: build a sustainable food and farming system and resilient rural communities.

In the last nine years, LSP has committed itself to working for racial justice as an essential element in advancing a just food and farming system and healthy, prosperous communities across our state. That is one of the main reasons why I joined the LSP board last year, and why I wanted to be here today.

It’s clear to me that within our agricultural system there are a lot of inequities. I see it in my community of Hutchinson and I saw it growing up in rural Minnesota. Not a lot of people of color are landowners—they are more involved as laborers, not as farmers and owners. For us, this is a core value; we can’t move forward if we leave so many people behind.

We need to end deeply embedded systems of racism, and instead fully open up to farmers of color as well as white farmers like me access to land, credit and markets. We need to do this in order to improve our food and farming system, and our communities. There is no sustainable agriculture, there are no healthy communities, without racial justice.

These are difficult conversations to have in the community, but there is an openness and potential when we do it in the context of relationship.

Here’s LSP’s basic approach. There are four components:

• Organize white rural Minnesotans, leading with values and making a difference on issues that matter to them, building deep relationships while being explicit that we stand for racial justice.

• Conduct ongoing racial justice training, education and action with LSP’s member/leaders and staff.

• Engage in the larger movement—forming deep relationships with organizations of color and Native American organizations. Out of those relationships jointly identifying the work that LSP can do that will be of value to the strategies chosen by communities of color to advance racial equity and dismantle structural racism, and that also advance LSP’s mission and goals.

• Show up and stand with communities of color and Native American communities that come under attack.

We are doing these things—you can talk to me later about our experience, if you like.

Thank you all for being here—we are here to learn, to share, and to move forward together.

 

Filed Under: Minnesota, Racial Justice Tagged With: community, Laura Frerichs, People's Action, racial justice, rural

Land Stewardship Action Fund

Prepared and paid for by the Land Stewardship Action Fund, 821 E. 35th Street #200 Minneapolis, MN 55407. It is not coordinated with or approved by any candidate nor is any candidate responsible for it.

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Emily Minge, Political Organizer eminge@landstewardshipaction.org

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821 E. 35th Street #200
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