Media Firestorm
Tonight I did an interview with Douglas Rushkoff on his WFMU show out of New York called Media Squat. He’s a “bottom up” proponent and thinker who is coming out with a new book about corporatism entitled Life Inc. I’m looking forward to it.
His path to Small is Possible came via the PLENTY, which is our newly revitalized local currency. In the chapter “Financing Ourselves,” I accidentally did two things. First, I wrote about our locally owned Capital Bank. Local readers became enamored with the idea of banking locally and started opening accounts there. They got a copy of the book to find out what their new customers were talking about. The founder of the bank bought some copies. I accompanied him to his wife’s book club at Mrs Lacy’s Tea Room in Sanford, North Carolina. For a moment there I was the darling of Capital Bank.
Secondly Small is Possible was picked up by BJ Lawson, who was running for Congress. In “Financing Ourselves” I told the story of the PLENTY–which was a currency I had supported and used for many years. Monetary theory is a hobby of BJ’s. One day at lunch a group of us kicked around the idea of breathing fresh life into the PLENTY organization. It was one of those idle conversations where one person says “I could do the website,” and another says I could do “this” and my suggestion was that I might be able to “get a bank.”
We did all of those things, the new PLENTY was launched and it turns out “Local Bank Accepts Local Currency” became international news.
It started with a misquote in USA Today which said, “We are a wiped out little town.” That led to a local burst of media, followed by the national guys. I headed off to Democracy Now. Next thing we knew our mayor was on FOX news, and Melissa was on the BBC, and CNN trucks were rumbling through our little town. Then came the Russians, and the Polish TV crews. Then Inside Edition. It’s been nuts.
I confess to being at a deep disadvantage on the TV front. Having not owned one for 18 years I have never seen many of these shows.
One of my favorite sidebars to this story is that of Janine Saunders. She was raised at Blue Heron Farm–which is an intentional community in Pittsboro–written about in the chapter “Housing Ourselves.” Janine moved to New York, hired on as an assistant with Rushkoff, and was given the task of getting me on the show. I love it. Rushkoff has thought deeply about currency and capitalism, and I am thinking it might have come as a surprise to Janine that in order to get “the story,” from Manhattan she would need to start back in her home town of 2500 souls…