Think global, drink local

As I was driving to work the other morning, there was a truck from one of the local wine-growers co-ops in front of me with a marketing tagline that caught my eye, so I made it the title of this post. While the marketing folks certain thought it was cute, there is actually more to the saying than first meets the eye.

We live in an increasingly globalized world. Like anything else, there are up- and downsides to the process. Massive, impersonal, transnational, country-independent corporations are one thing, and they certainly do their part to ensure that mom-and-pop on the corner get pensioned down Memory Lane. By the same token, the global reaction to this phenomenon is also not all that different from place to place. There are increasing numbers of people worldwide who are beginning to ask themselves just what advantage the big players have. In other words, local awareness is being stimulated at the same time.

The more we feel that we're being overwhelmed and overrun by "outside forces", the more we also feel the necessity to circle the wagons a bit closer to home. This is reflected in the various strivings for national independence, be it the Kurds or the Sudanese or the Sri Lankans, the various Balkan states, or anyone else who thinks it's time they had their own country. All of these are, to my mind, a simple reflection of the desire within all of to have just a little more to say about what happens to us, to be just a little more involved in decisions that directly affect our lives.

This is what the vast majority of politicians can't get their heads around. Anonymous decision-making processes being sliced, diced, and compromised perhaps thousands of miles away by people who've never been to our town or our neighborhood just don't make the kind of decisions we make around here.

We've been long told, by parents, teachers, preachers, community leaders, that we need to take charge of our own destinies, but the whole system has mutated away from all that. We've stood by and watched our power simply get sucked away to some anonymous center that isn't the center of anything anymore. Maybe it's time to rethink all this.