Photograph by D.W. Lech

Women and Children First!: Mama Collective and kids, from left to right: Adler Blaze, Lila Cugini, Xenia Burlison-Craft, Dani Burlison-Craft, Ava Burlison, Terrie Samundra-Girdner, Ceili Samundra-Carr.

Crisis and Opportunity

Santa Rosa’s Mama Collective rises to the challenge of the GOP

By Michael Houghton

The three women sitting across the table from me don’t exactly look like wild-eyed radicals. But according to the mainstream media, that’s what they are. Dani Burlison-Craft, Lila Cugini and Terrie Samundra-Girdner are three of the estimated 1 million liberal “fringe element” that are planning to “invade” New York City in early September to protest the Republican National Convention.

Sure, they look young and hip, with stylish hair and Portland-chic secondhand clothes. And sure, Burlison-Craft has a frenetic swirl of tattoo creeping kudzulike down her arm. But there’s one thing that messes up the image. The only time they look particularly “wild-eyed” is when they’re laughing about how Xenia, the oldest of Burlison-Craft’s two daughters, is in the other room shouting at a broom that she’s been trying to levitate with her mind, thanks to Harry Potter.

Burlison-Craft, Cugini and Samundra-Girdner are single mothers and the backbone of Santa Rosa’s Mama Collective, a group they founded last year, they say, “to support single and partnered mothers who are involved in artistic expression and activism.” Their first official activity has been to produce a zine by the young single mothers of the North Bay, the first issue of which will be out soon. But another, less tangible result is that, with each other’s support, the Mama Collective’s members are feeling more confident about taking risks–personally, artistically and politically.

“[In art and protest,] there’s a lot of fear that you’re going to get ridiculed and that you don’t have support. You feel really alone,” says Samundra-Girdner. “It can be really lonely parenting. You can feel really isolated, and it’s good to have a support system.”

“Part of a collective,” says Cugini, “is that people individually are shy about making art or making political statements. But collectively if there’s even one other person, or two other people, then there’s strength in numbers; people aren’t as shy.”

Now that the Mama Collective has set its sights on protesting the Republican National Convention, there’s just one problem. “We’re single mothers,” Samundra-Girdner says, stating the obvious. “We’re not exactly rich.”

“We need to raise money,” continues Burlison-Craft, “at least for our air fare, which is going to be around $1,000.”

To do so, the Mamas have planned a fundraiser for Sunday, Aug. 1. On sale will be baked goods and art, as well as a rummage sale. Tables will also offer voter registration, and of course, more information. “My main focus of going to the RNC,” says Burlison-Craft, “is obviously to support the cause–to feel that sense of global community and to know that there are thousands of people out there fighting for justice right alongside me–but we’re also going to document everything. The plan is to come back and report on what happened. I’ll write articles, Terrie will be working on a film and we’re going to have an anti-Bush art show before the November elections.”

“We’re also planning on connecting with other mothers’ groups from different areas,” says Samundra-Girdner.

The women also plan to highlight what they see as the GOP’s manipulative choice of the location and timing of the event.

“This is the first time they’ve held [the RNC] in New York in the last 150 years,” points out Burlison-Craft with obvious frustration. “And on top of that, they’re holding it two months later than usual, just a week before the anniversary of 9-11. The GOP is using it as propaganda. They’re playing on people’s emotions and their fears; it’s ridiculous how blatantly obvious what they’re doing is: exploiting the grief and tragedy of 9-11–again.”

But most importantly, the Mamas are going to New York because the policies of George Bush are affecting their children, now and in the future.

“There are these wars being waged on impersonal slogans like ‘war on terrorism,'” says Samundra-Girdner. “I don’t want to live with that fear. I’m going there as a mother because this is a burden that our children are going to carry, they’re the ones who are going to have to live with it.”

“The Bush administration has been a complete nightmare,” adds Cugini. “A nightmare for civil rights, a nightmare for national security, a nightmare for the environment . . .”

“When Bush was the governor of Texas,” adds Samundra-Girdner, “there were times when children couldn’t even go out to play during recess because the air was so bad. That’s why I’m going–because I want to stand up for the kind of life I want for my child.”

Even closer to home, George Bush’s tax cuts are directly affecting some of the Mamas’ livelihoods and those social programs that help single parents.

“I was working for a nonprofit social services agency that deals directly with subsidized child’s care,” says Burlison-Craft. “The funding got cut so badly that they were thinking about closing the agency. I got my hours cut in half and ended up leaving. The first program to get cut was the respite program for kids that are at risk.”

Burlison-Craft can literally rattle off a long list of Bush policies that are directly affecting her ability to raise her child. “The subsidized housing assistance I count on to help me to afford my house is being threatened. Medi-Cal services are getting cut way back. Public schools are constantly doing fundraising because their art programs and pretty much everything is getting cut.”

But in the end, these women are going because they hope to make a difference.

“It may seem minor to some people,” says Samundra-Girdner, “but it’s a really big deal to us. This is what we can do on a small scale, on a local level.”

“I talk to my mom a lot about what’s going on,” says Burlison-Craft, “and she’s really freaked out about me going out to protest in New York because of what she sees all over the news about how dangerous it’s going to be. I try to explain to her, it’s like this Chinese proverb I have next to my desk: ‘Crisis and Opportunity.’ Every crisis carries two elements–danger and opportunity. No matter how bad things are, no matter what huge crisis you’re in the middle of, there’s always some opportunity for something good to come out of it. So for me, the fact that things are just so insane right now in our country–I think there’s a huge opportunity for people to build a stronger community network and to actually do something to make a change.”

The Mama Collective fundraiser is planned for Sunday, Aug. 1, 9am-3pm. Sonoma County Peace and Justice Center, 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa. For more information, contact the Mama Collective at ma************@***oo.com.

From the July 28-August 3, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Grass Is Greener: Should GMOs be banned in Marin and Sonoma counties?

Growing Concern

Sonoma and Marin County initiatives challenge genetically manipulated crops

By Joy Lanzendorfer

Splice rice with a daffodil gene to reduce blindness. Cross potatoes with mice and jellyfish genes so that they’ll glow fluorescently, allowing satellites to see when they need watering. Gift a goat with the gene of a spider to produce a half-web, half-milk substance that scientists hope will be stronger than steel.

These are just a few of the weirder examples of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) currently under development, and illustrate the nearly unlimited potential of the process. Already, some 60 percent to 70 percent of processed foods in the United States contain GMOs. Most of us, whether we know it or not, eat some sort of genetically modified food every day.

But critics say the enormous potential of genetic manipulation also comes with risks–risks that so far have not been presented to the public, particularly in the United States. While many nations, including most of Europe, Japan and Mexico, have banned GM foods, few areas of the United States had said no to GMOs until last spring, when Mendocino County passed an ordinance banning the cultivation of GM crops within its boundaries.

Now Marin and Sonoma counties are considering following Mendocino’s lead. In November, Marin will vote on whether to ban GM crops. On July 27, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors will decide whether area residents will also have a chance to vote on the issue in November.

Currently, no GM crops are grown in either county, but organizers say that’s why it’s important to move ahead now.

“We have a unique opportunity right now to keep Sonoma County uncontaminated,” says Dave Henson, director of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. “We won’t have that in a few years–once GMOs get into our ecosystem, it will be impossible to get them out.”

In late April, people from nine counties attended a workshop led by Els Cooperrider, leader of the anti-GMO measure in Mendocino County. There, attendants learned how to start an initiative to ban GMOs in their own area.

Organizers from Marin County found support for the ban immediately. With only 100 volunteers, they gathered 15,000 signatures in five weeks, well over the 9,000 needed to get the initiative on the November ballot.

Sonoma County took longer to craft its ordinance, and only gathered signatures a week before they were due. Still, volunteers managed to get 1,700 people to sign the petition. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors will decide whether to put the initiative on the November ballot, hold a special March election or wait.

In Marin, organizers are bracing for retaliation by trade associations like CropLife International. CropLife poured an estimated $750,000 into a public-relations campaign against the Mendocino measure.

“There were these outrageous radio spots that said something like the garden police are coming to rip up your garden in the middle of the night, the garden gestapo,” says Frank Eggers, mayor of Fairfax, an anti-GMO organizer who was in Ukiah before the county voted on the measure. “But it didn’t work. The people saw through it.”

Marin is raising $100,000 to put out a campaign to circumvent any similar attempts by CropLife in its county.

“We’re going to fight fire with fire,” says Eggers.

Genetically engineered means that genes are removed from one organism and inserted into another organism. It differs from traditional plant breeding, because the exchange crosses species barriers, something that could never occur in nature.

Both the Marin and Sonoma initiatives would make it illegal to plant and cultivate GMOs, though it would not stop the sale of genetically modified foods coming into either county. Exemptions would be made for medical research–new drugs and treatments are being developed through genetic engineering–as long as the research was contained in specially designed buildings.

Sonoma’s initiative is more tech-friendly than Marin’s. It allows for other scientific research, could be overturned by the Board of Supervisors if a new technology’s benefits outweighed its problems, and would come up for review in 10 years.

Critics of genetic engineering say that one of the problems is that the technology is unregulated. The FDA does little testing and the state does no testing of GMOs. There are no independent studies on their safety, and no testing, period, on their health effects. The only people who provide information on the technology are the same companies that sell it, and they are not required to publish their results.

“We’re not hearing about this technology from the scientists who develop it, but from the best PR firms out there,” says Mark Spears, a co-owner of Good Earth Natural Foods who helped organize the Marin initiative. “The scientists don’t even know what to look for, and yet they are ramming it into the food chain.”

Organizers say there are good reasons to be concerned about the health effects of GMOs. For one thing, to combine genes from different species, scientists have to also put bacteria and viruses into the genes to trick them into combining. The long-term effect of eating bacteria or viruses–not to mention the pesticides and other toxic materials inserted into some plants–are unknown.

Environmental issues are also a concern. In Mexico, pollen drifts of Bt corn–corn with a chemical that wrenches the guts of moths and butterflies that feed on it–bred with native corn plants. The results have left environmentalists concerned about the butterfly population.

“Never mind what a chemical like Bt would do to my guts after I eat it for 30 years,” says Henson. “How would it affect something like the monarch butterfly that migrates [north from Mexico] every year, munching Bt corn on the way? How do monarchs affect the ecosystem?”

GMOs also threaten organic farms, because if the technology breeds with organic crops, farmers could lose their licenses.

But proponents of genetic engineering say that banning the technology could hurt nonorganic farmers. The promises of the technology–reducing pesticide spraying, yielding bigger crops and feeding the world–are impressive.

“These initiatives would cover something like grapevines modified to be resistant to Pierce’s disease, which is under development,” says Lex McCorvey of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, referring to a virus spread by the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a dire vineyard pest. “In that case, pollen drift wouldn’t be an issue, so cross-contamination wouldn’t happen. These bans shouldn’t put all the technology under one big umbrella.”

With so many countries banning GM foods, planting them could also affect sales. California is the second biggest producer of rice in the United States. The rice industry’s biggest customer–Japan–has said it will not buy from California if GM rice is planted here.

But economic advantages or disadvantages aside, for some, the potential dangers of GMOs outweigh any benefits.

“I come from a county with the highest breast cancer rate in the country and one of the highest prostrate cancers. I am abiding by cautionary principles,” Eggers says.

“Until it is proven safe, I don’t want it.”

From the July 21-27, 2004 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.