2001 Common Ground Country Fair Speakers

Ronnie Dugger, Founder of The Alliance for Democracy
Friday at 2:15 on the Common

Jim Hightower, Radio Talk-show Host, Journalist and Former Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of Texas
Saturday at 11:00 on the Common

Dr. Vandana Shiva - Anti-Globalization Activist and Founder of the India-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology
Sunday at 11:00 on the Common

Penobscot Nation Chief Barry Dana

Barry Dana, Chief of the Penobscot Nation, has been a long-time friend of the Common Ground Country Fair. Since the early years of the Fair, he has shared his skills and knowledge of traditional Penobscot culture with thousands of fairgoers, and has helped educate all of us about the truly native people of this bioregion. He was instrumental in developing the Fair's Native American Arts and Education Area. Chief Dana will speak about the importance of our environment from a Native American perspective. We are fortunate to have Barry joining our line-up of featured speakers at this year's Fair.

Dana grew up on Indian Island on the Penobscot River. His family and elders provided cultural guidance for him, and encouraged self-respect and determination to overcome the many social and environmental threats facing his community. He learned traditional Penobscot lifeways such as plant identification and herbal medicine, sweetgrass and brown ash basket making, dancing and drumming. He was also a great athlete at Old Town High School, and later at the University of Maine at Orono (UMO). He graduated from UMO in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in education and an associate's degree in forest management. In the years since college, he has dedicated his life to teaching people, particularly children, about the traditional lifestyles of the Wabanaki, or "People of the Dawn."

The Wabanaki Tribes in Maine include the Penobscot Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribes, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, and Passamaquoddy tribes. Wabanaki ancestors have inhabited the region for more than 12,000 years. The tribes, as all indigenous cultures in the Americas, have experienced horrible betrayals, wars, disease, genocide, ecological devastation and near cultural annihilation. A copy of a 1756 proclamation from George II of Britain, requiring his subjects to pursue Penobscot Indians, and to bring in their scalps for bounty money, hangs in Chief Dana's office.

Now, the Wabanaki people, under the vibrant leadership of people like Barry Dana, are working hard to regain control of their culture and ancestral lands.

"Now is our time to use our newly acquired skills to unite our history with our future, time to unite our people, time to bring home the many Penobscots living away from Indian Island, time to reconnect with the land," Dana explains. "By maintaining this unity we preserve our identity. We stay focused on the perspectives and values that are unique to being Penobscot. We are a sovereign people. We still live on our ancestral homeland, where our ancestors are buried."

Last fall, Dana was elected Governor of the Penobscot Nation (the tribal council has since changed his title to Chief). While responsibilities and challenges are vast, Dana manages to continue his educational mission throughout Maine and out of state. At his base camp on the Kennebec River -- the Center for Wabanaki Arts and Culture -- Dana teaches drum making, birchbark canoe making, shelter building, native gardening, basketry, fire making, stalking, clay pottery and natural firing techniques.

Dana started the education center on the Penobscot River but had to relocate when he realized that the water pollution was giving his students headaches and rashes. The Penobscot is home to many of the states industrial plants, particularly pulp and paper mills, which have discharged heavy metals and organochlorines into the air and water for decades.

Contamination of waterways in the state, particularly the Penobscot River, is at the forefront of Chief Dana's concerns. Last year, the Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe contested an effort by the state of Maine's Department of Environmental Protection to control issuance of federal wastewater discharge permits. The tribes wanted the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to maintain this responsibility, feeling that the EPA would require more stringent standards than the State agency. In response to the tribes' appeal, three paper companies -- Great Northern Paper Inc., Georgia-Pacific Corp., and Champion International -- requested documentation of water quality testing carried out by the native communities. Asserting their sovereignty, the tribal leaders have refused to share the paperwork. This has led to multiple hearings in the Maine Superior Court and Maine's Supreme Court.

"The final conclusion by the [Maine] Supreme Court is that when the Tribe conducts it's own meetings internally then all documents... are internal Tribal matters and not subject to the Maine Freedom Of Access Law," Dana explains. "However, when the Tribe corresponds with outside agencies, i.e. the Federal EPA, than those documents are open to the non-Indian public, including Georgia Pacific, Great Northern and International Paper."

"I view the mills persistence to view our documents and the state's treatment of us as municipalities as continued acts of racism," Dana asserts. "We are indigenous to this land with our own form of government and neither the mills nor the state is recognizing or respecting who we are. I can only hope that this will change."

As this paper goes to press, the Wabanaki people await a determination about whether the U.S. Supreme Court will hear its case. Tribal elders face enormous fines and possible imprisonment.

Once again this year, Chief Dana will participate in the Native American Arts & Education Area of the Common Ground Country Fair. There Fairgoers can learn more about Maine's indigenous people, and see the beautiful handiwork of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance (MIBA) and other local Native American artists. There will also be traditional singing and drumming by members of MIBA. Refer to the Schedule of Events for specific presentations and demonstrations.

Contact Chief Barry Dana at:
Penobscot Nation
6 River Road
Indian Island, ME 04468
Phone: 207-827-7776

Founder of the Alliance for Democracy, Ronnie Dugger

Ronnie Dugger is a reporter, writer, editor, social-structure activist, and founder of The Alliance for Democracy. In a talk entitled, "What Has Happened to Our Country and What We Can Do About It," Dugger will assert "how the continuity of the the American Republic has been ruptured by the Supreme Court, preventing the completion of the presidential election and designating the President, rendering our government illegitimate for the first time." He will share the Alliance's assessment of the general situation that carried us through last year's election, and will suggest what we all might do about it.

Dugger was raised and educated in Texas except for a time at Oxford University. After a couple of years in Washington, he returned to Texas and in 1954 founded, with the support of a group of liberals in the state, The Texas Observer, "an independent liberal weekly newspaper," which is now a biweekly identified as "A Journal of Free Voices." During Dugger's editorship, the Observer broke many scandals and initiated dialogues on neglected issues of social and economic policy, racial justice and civil liberties. In the 1960s he became the journal's owner and publisher. In 1994 he passed it on to the nonprofit Texas Democracy Foundation, whose directors include Geoff Rips, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins, and Dugger. The Observer is widely recognized for combining high journalistic standards with unflagging commitment to progressive values.

The University of Texas Press published, in 1967, Three Men in Texas, a book Dugger edited from special issues of the Observer on three literary elders in Texas. The first book Dugger wrote was Dark Star: Hiroshima Reconsidered (1967), a biography of a Texas pilot who had helped bomb Hiroshima and had been seeking punishment for the mass death he helped cause there. As Lyndon Johnson moved into the White House, Dugger wrote a book on his life and career, The Politician, published in 1982 by W.W. Norton. In Dugger's book Our Invaded Universities, a case study of corporate penetration and domination of the University of Texas published by Norton in 1974, he advanced a general theory for the reformation of American universities. In 1983, McGraw-Hill published his On Reagan, a densely factual policy biography of Ronald Reagan.

Dugger has taught at various universities and has received a variety of fellowships and grants. He was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard in 1996 and was a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at the Harvard Divinity School in 1998-1999. He has written many hundreds of articles for various publications; for example, on presidential fundraising and on the nuclear weapons business for The New York Times Magazine and on discrimination against African-Americans on death row for Life. His 26,000-word article on the dangers of counting votes by computer appeared in The New Yorker on November 7, 1988.

Dugger's "Call to Citizens" article, published in The Nation (August 14-21, 1995), launched a nationwide populist, anti-giant-corporation movement, the Alliance for Democracy, "to free all people from corporate domination of politics, economics, the environment, culture and information; to establish true democracy; and to create a just society with a sustainable, equitable economy."

The Alliance has launched more than 55 chapters in 21 states. In Maine we are lucky to have a chapter in Temple, coordinated by Mabel Dennison. The founding national convention of the Alliance was held in 1996 in the Texas hill country, where 19th-Century American Populism began. The second convention at Atchison, Kansas, recommended a set of twelve national action campaigns to the members, who ratified them by mail ballot. At Boulder, Colorado, in the third national convention in 1999 on the theme, "Ending the Corporate Century, Launching the People's Millennium," the Alliance narrowed its national campaigns down to three: against corporate-governance of international trade treaties; for public financing of all federal elections; and for the transformation of the corporation to subordinate it completely to democracy.

Contact Ronnie Dugger and the Alliance for Democracy at:

Alliance for Democracy
681 Main Street, 2-16
Waltham, MA 02451
Ph: 781-894-1179
Fax: 781-894-0279
Email: peoplesall@aol.com
Web: www.thealliancefordemocracy.org

Alliance for Democracy - Maine
PO Box 538
Temple, ME 04984
Ph: 207-778-2513

Jim Hightower

We are thrilled to welcome back National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates, Jim Hightower. His address to the 1989 Fair got rave reviews. It is a joy and most fitting to have him back to help us celebrate the 25th Fair.

Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the "Powers That Be" on behalf of the "Powers That Ought To Be" -- consumers, working families, environmentalists, small business, and just-plain-folks. Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower believes that the true political spectrum is not right to left, but top to bottom, and he has become a leading national voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer find themselves within shouting distance of the Washington and Wall Street powers at the top.

Hightower is a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message of progressive populism all across the American grassroots:

--He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 60 commercial and public stations, on the web, and on Radio for Peace International. --Each month, he publishes a populist political newsletter, "The Hightower Lowdown," which has more than 40,000 subscribers and is growing rapidly. The Lowdown recently received the Alternative Press Award for best national newsletter. --Constantly on the hustings, he delivers more than 100 speeches a year to students, union meetings, environmental groups, citizen rallies, farm and food organizations, social justice gatherings, teachers, legal activist, community groups, and others. --His newspaper column is carried in more than 30 alternative newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

A bestselling author, his latest book, If the Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates, has just been completely updated and released in a paperback version by Harper Collins. His previous books are: There's Nothing In the Middle Of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos; Eat your Heart Out, and Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times.

He frequently appears on television and radio programs, bringing a hard-hitting populist viewpoint that rarely gets into the mass media. In addition, he works closely with the alternative media, and in all of his work he keeps his ever-ready Texas humor up front, practicing the credo of an old Yugoslavian proverb: "You can fight the gods and still have fun."

Hightower was raised in Denison, Texas, in a family of small business people, tenant farmers, and working folks. A graduate of North Texas University, he worked in Washington as legislative aide to Senator Ralph Yarborugh of Texas; then he co-founded the Agribusiness Accountability Project, a public interest project that focused on corporate power in the food economy; and he was national coordinator of the 1976 Fred Harris for President campaign. He then returned to his home state, where he was editor of the feisty biweekly, The Texas Observer. He served as director of the Texas Consumer Association before running for statewide office and being elected to two terms as Texas Agriculture Commissioner (1983-1991).

During the nineties, Hightower became known as "America's most popular populist," developing his radio commentaries, hosting two radio talk shows, writing books, launching his newsletter, giving fiery speeches coast to coast, and otherwise speaking out for the American majority that's being locked out economically and politically by the elites. As Molly Ivins says: "If Will Rogers and Mother Jones had a baby, Jim Hightower would be that rambunctious child -- mad as hell, with a sense of humor."

Describing himself as a Luddite with a Web site, Hightower provides updated information about his newsletter, radio commentaries, books, speaking schedule, and other work at www.jimhightower.com.

Hightower can be reached at: 1802 W. 6th Street, Austin, TX 78703. Phone: 512-477-5588. Fax: 512-478-8536. Email: info@jimhightower.com

Founder of the India-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology

Dr. Vandana Shiva spends much of her time these days speaking at public conferences and educating people around the world about the dangers of globalization, particularly about the effects of large-scale international agribusiness. We are very fortunate to have her at Common Ground this year.

Sixteen years ago, Dr. Shiva, an Indian physicist, founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, as a "small independent initiative to do research in a participatory mode with people, not on them - and to do research with an interdisciplinary approach -- reflecting the interconnections in the web of life, not teaching them apart with reductionist violence." The Foundation has evolved over the years, and now focuses on Biodiversity Conservation, Food Security, Globalization, Economic Liberalization, Impact of Structural Adjustment in India, Patenting and Intellectual Property Rights, Biopiracy, Biotechnology, Biosafety, Toxics and Hazardous Wastes, Aquaculture, Plant Breeders' Rights and Farmers' Rights over their seed, Sustainable Agriculture, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

The Foundation has been involved in a variety of issues related to the loss of genetic material and women's role in the environment. It has coordinated movements against the efforts of multinational seed companies, notably Monsanto, to impose genetically engineered seeds on Indian farmers.

It has also run campaigns against the patenting of traditional Indian herbs and plants. These include neem, ginger, turmeric and a variety of lesser known pulses and seeds. Many of these have been subjects of research abroad and several have been patented. The Foundation also works for the conservation of biodiversity also. It has helped farmers in different parts of India grow crops using their traditional seeds instead of hybrid seeds widely available under India's agrarian revolution. In doing so it has conserved traditional varieties of crops as well as improved yields. It has also drawn attention to the fact that the farmers, and not multinational food and seed corporations, have the intellectual property rights to these crops.

Through Navdanya, the Foundation distributes the products of these farmers, thus encouraging them to use traditional varieties of crops. It has compiled a list of traditional herbal remedies that shows how plants that are now being patented have been used medicinally since time immemorial.

The Foundation has done extensive research on how globalization has affected the livelihood of farmers in different parts of India. In some parts it has been bad enough to drive them to suicide after crop failure, often a result of using hybrid seeds and an excess of fertilizers and pesticides.

An accomplished scholar, Dr. Shiva has worked, studied and campaigned at the local level in Indian villages as well as at the international level with non-profit social and environmental organizations and policy makers. She has inspired hope and activism among some of the most poverty stricken communities of the world, while significantly influencing development plans of national heads of state.

"These 16 years of participatory, action-oriented, ecological research have brought deep fulfillment - and triggered some changes in paradigms," says Shiva. "Diversity is fast moving into the defining metaphor in place of monocultures of the mind. Ecofeminism has emerged as a serious challenge to Cartesian reductionism and the Baconian "rape of nature" as the "masculine mode" of knowing. Globalization is however threatening to the ecological gains of the past few decades. It is therefore the defining context of our new engagements."

Shiva has written extensively on the topics of biodiversity, globalization, food security, intellectual property rights, biotechnology, and gender and environment. In this year alone, she has released: Patents: Myths & Reality; Diversity The Hindustan Way: An Ecological History of Food and Farming in India (Volume I); Sharing Earth's Harvest - Creating Abundance or Scarcity: An Ecological History of Food and Farming in India (Volume II); Yoked to Death - Globalization and Corporate Control of Agriculture; Seeds of Suicide: The Ecological and Human Costs of Globalization of Agriculture; Ecology and the Politics of Survival - Conflicts over Natural Resources in India; and Intellectual Property Rights and Patents: An Activists' Handbook. Her work has a clear emphasis on global and regional trade agreements and how they impact ecological systems and local sovereignty.

"We are concerned with the impact of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on life forms as extolled by TRIPs (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) under GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)," says Dr. Shiva. "This is one of many issues put forth from the viewpoint of India's two-thirds economy - the rural poor, who are experiencing further marginalization as 'beneficiaries' of India's structural adjustment program dictated by the IMF and World Bank."

In the course of work on sustainable agriculture, seed and biodiversity conservation, and research on the impact of liberalization and free trade on agriculture and livelihoods, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology/ Navdanya has initiated and participated in numerous campaigns.

"Today, the world is on the brink of a biological diversity crisis," notes Shiva. "The constantly diminishing store of biodiversity on our planet poses an enormous environmental threat - of which far too few people are aware. We here in India, are working towards increasing awareness to the importance of conserving our valuable genetic heritage, while challenging and opposing the forces responsible for its rapid erosion and usurpation."

Small-scale organic farmers the world over are facing similar threats and challenges. We look forward to hearing about the struggles and successes that Dr. Shiva has witnessed, and hope to build relationships with her great network of concerned citizens.

Contact Dr. Shiva and the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology at:

A-60 Hauz Khas
New Delhi, INDIA
Ph: 91-6968077, 91-6853772
Fax: 91-6856795
Email: vshiva@vsnl.com

Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA)
Common Ground Country Fair
PO Box 170
Unity, ME 04988
Phone: 207-568-4142
Fax: 207-568-4141
Email: cgcf@mofga.org