Advice for Virginians: “Get a Grip” and Go “Power Shopping”
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December 17, 2007
Arlington, VA – What's to like about higher poverty rates, climate change, disappearing species and other gloomy topics? The visionary author who wrote "Diet for a Small Planet" in 1971 and co-authored several more books says the good news is that such "gloomy issues" and their solutions already have been identified. All Virginians need to do, Francis Moore Lappé contends, is "get a grip."
Whether it's pollution, political scandals or tainted food, Lappé says the scientific, logical and/or political solutions to those problems are known. But change will only happen, she believes, if regular working people take action.
"I call that sort of choice 'power shopping.' We need go into our purchases with the idea that every one we don't make, and do make, every choice is powerful."
Lappé is traveling the country convincing people they aren't as powerless as they think. She speaks tonight at an event sponsored by the Virginia Organizing Project. She insists that it's easy to point fingers, and say that concentrated political power and wealth are behind the problems, but she says that's no excuse.
"Actually, the real problem is our feelings of powerlessness to do anything about these things, because to every single one of these problems, the solutions are known."
Lappé's talk begins at 6:00 PM at Busboys and Poets in the Village at Shirlington.