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 The first article Conserving Communities talks about the effect globalization has had on rural areas, specifically farming communities. He starts the paper by stating that in 1993 the US Census Bureau had stopped counting the number of farmers in America. Farmers used to be a large percentage of the overall population, but that has now dwindled to about 2%. To prop up agricultural communities the author argues that people should buy and eat local produce.  There is some credence to this argument as by buying locally, you are putting money back into the local economy and directly helping local farmers continue their work. However, there are also some issues with this system. Rural economies often have a low median salary, money is stagnant in the local economic system, and people do not have a lot of expendable cash. Thus, it may be hard to buy purely locally as the cost is sometimes higher and puts a strain on rural families that do not have enough income. Also, buying locally does not reinforce any other part of the local economic system other than farmers, and would not help bring jobs or other business back. The second article I thought gave better advice on how to combat globalism and how to support local communities. This article addresses tasks people can do on multiple levels, from local, national, and global to support their communities. Locally, the article recommends buying fair trade items, joining a CSA, and using eco-friendly products. As a worker, the article recommends exercising pension power and forming worker-owned co-ops to funnel money back into the community. I thought this recommendation was interesting as it would bring business and wealth back into the local communities and not to a removed international company. As a global citizen, the article recommends to participate in international exchanges and to travel.

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 The article of "Global to Local" talks about different ways to contribute to your communities. A few ways to contribute is do optional tasks as a local citizen, a national citizen, and a global citizen. As a local citizen, you can take control of global policies, alternatives for your community, attend meetings of your city council, organize cleanups for your neighborhood. As a national citizen, you can an online petition, mobilize voters, have your office to vote, have participation in a phone bank, write letters to Congress, respond to national issues, and be a host of a political salon. Finally as a global citizen, you could learn about the functions of global institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO. Join a movement with people that protests about how companies have been operating, and join that work for social justice. Conserving Communities by Wendell Berry talks about ways on how members: ask about proposed changes or innovations, have local nature always be included, ask locals about supplies, supply local needs first, understand labor saving, develop small scale businesses and industries, have money be paid to the local economy, have the community make investments to itself, and be aware about economic value in neighborly acts.

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I think these were good articles to end the course on. I found Berry's article very entertaining. The man clearly has a very strong bias towards farming and rural communities. Excluding some of that, he still makes some valid points. The book was published in 2010, so over ten years ago (yikes!), but it's still relevant today. I am not quite sure how much I believe Berry's claims that the disappearance of an agriculture community is "NOT an accident", but I do see how some of the factors he talks about lead there. I found the part where he mentions corporations coming in and plundering local communities, only to leave them high and dry, especially poignant. It's something we've seen echoing over the length of this course multiple times in far-away places, but it's a good reminder that this is also happening here. The second article, by John Cavanagh and Jury Mander (not sure if I read the handwriting right there), create a sort of rallying cry around supporting your local community. I can see that ravagement and decline in the agricultural community is something these authors also rail against. I like that they make quite a few lists on how to effect positive change; many of them I can see Berry agreeing with, like joining or a CSA. I do like that the Cavanagh/Mander article has multiple lists on what you can do. I feel like a lot of the rage and discontent Berry's article drums up, gets lost when faced with the "What now? / How?" step of things. I do not think we've reached Berry's prediction of a two-party system that's based on "local vs. global economy" as he thought. I think if that ever comes to fruition, it'll be slowly, and subsumed by one of the two parties we already have. I do see Cavanagh/Manders article as a nice playbook for it, though.