A tentative plan for listeners of The Work FM.
A 250-Year Campaign for a Stewardship Commonwealth
Launched in the 250th year of the American experiment — Virginia, July 2026
Why 250 Years, and Why Now
America just turned 250 — and the Declaration was written here, by Virginians, as a promise made on behalf of “posterity.” That’s us. We are the posterity of 1776, inheriting both the promise and the unfinished business.
So the campaign frame is simple: the first 250 years built self-government; the next 250 must make it fit to keep a living world. “This Time We Mean It” is a vow to take the founding words seriously — all people, common good, posterity — and extend them to the land, the water, and the generations to come.
The 250-year horizon does specific work: – It’s cathedral thinking: medieval builders laid foundations for spires they’d never see. Oyster reefs, forests, constitutions, and institutions are built the same way. – It echoes the Seventh Generation principle of the Haudenosaunee — weigh every decision by its effect seven generations out. 250 years ≈ ten generations. We’re being more ambitious than the founders and older than the oldest oak we’ll plant. – It outlasts every business cycle, election cycle, and quarterly report — which is precisely the point. A community with a 250-year plan cannot be bought by anyone with a 4-year plan.
The vow (say it out loud at every gathering): > “We, the posterity of 1776, promise the posterity of 2276: we will hand you a commonwealth more alive, more fair, and more free than the one we were given. This time we mean it.”
The Plan: Ten Generations, One Direction
People need to see the whole arc AND their own square of it. The arc:
Generation 1: Reclaim the levers. Money out of Virginia politics (contribution limits, Power Without Politics, Corporate Power Reset). Every electric co-op board contested and member-run. Community ownership normal: land trusts, food hubs, worker co-ops, community banking in every region. Beyond-GDP wellbeing measures adopted by localities, then the Commonwealth. Benchmark: a child born in 2026 turns 25 in a Virginia where “who funds you?” is answered proudly at every debate.
We’ve done it before, with a lot of stress and backsliding, first greed, then racism, then greed and racism and better media tools. From lynchings to burning crosses to red lines to dog whistles. From Macheivelli to Goering to Atwater to Rove the lie machines have ground out our sorry story.
And for what? Seize the moment and do what? Demand power and create wealth to what end.
Everyone reading this knows at some level that we exist because over the billions of years life has evolved on this planet and that we are the most recent example of what nature can do over eons. We can either join the chimpanzees, bonobos if you prefer, or we can work toward that imponderable “something more” that Lincoln and Einstein and many poets have called on.
Granted the Napoleons, Atillas and Hitlers had their day but in the end all they left us is a broken systems that we need to repair. We could have skipped the pain and gone straight to the repair. Or could we?
Hopefully over the next 250 years we will learn to skip the destruction and go right to the better idea.
Oh. There’s the clown show, the dog that caught the bus, the kids in the wheelhouse masquerading as leaders in centers of power.
That will be our first job, to expose the fakes, leaders, appointees, elected representatives, fake votes, fake help and make politics safe for leaders who have human values.
Don’t worry, life always wins in the long run. Stupid has its run, we learn, then we forget and we do it all over again? We need to learn.
As Obama said “We’ve got to stop doing stupid stuff”.
Here are some stories of people who acted in their time when it was tough.
They did it because it mattered. Its our turn,
And Yes, there will be dancing.
Ron
theworkfm
The Story Bank: Local People Who Meant It
Rotate these at gatherings; recruit members to research and tell them (5–10 minutes, no slides). Each is verifiable and each teaches a campaign lesson.
Maggie Lena Walker (Richmond, 1903) — Daughter of a formerly enslaved washerwoman; founded St. Luke Penny Savings Bank and became the first Black woman to charter and lead a bank in America. Community deposits financed Black homeownership across Jackson Ward. Lesson: community-controlled capital is not a new idea — it’s a Richmond idea. The Maggie Walker Community Land Trust carries her name today.
Barbara Rose Johns (Farmville, 1951) — A 16-year-old led 450 students out of Moton High School to strike against separate-and-unequal conditions. Their case became part of Brown v. Board of Education. Her statue now stands in the U.S. Capitol for Virginia. Lesson: one prepared person, however young or “powerless,” can move the nation. Local action IS national action.
The farmers who lit the dark (statewide, 1936–1940) — Private utilities refused to string wires to rural Virginia: not profitable. So farm families formed member-owned electric cooperatives under the REA, dug the pole holes themselves, and lit their own valleys. Thirteen of those co-ops still exist. Lesson: when business declared the community unprofitable, the community organized and did it anyway. Those co-ops are still ours to govern — if we show up.
The oyster and the rockfish (Chesapeake, 1985–present) — Striped bass collapsed; Virginia and Maryland imposed a painful moratorium in the 1980s; the fishery came back and reopened within a decade. Oyster restoration on the Piankatank, Lafayette, and Lynnhaven is now rebuilding reefs acre by acre, with schoolkids and congregations growing spat in cages off docks. Lesson: restraint works. Nature answers stewardship in years, not centuries — results people can taste.
Rassawek saved (Point of Fork, 2021) — The Monacan Indian Nation, recognized federally only in 2018, fought a planned water-pump station on the site of their historic capital at the confluence of the James and Rivanna — and won; the authority moved the project. The Rappahannock Tribe likewise regained 465 acres at Fones Cliffs in 2022 after centuries. Lesson: the oldest Virginians are still here, still winning stewardship fights; ten-generation thinking is their tradition, and they’re natural allies.
The $330 million refund (Richmond, 2020) — Ordinary ratepayers, organizers, and a handful of legislators who refused utility money forced the return of $330 million Dominion had overcharged. Lesson: the money story has a scoreboard, and we’ve already put points on it.
The 1971 Constitution (statewide) — Virginians threw out the disgraceful 1902 constitution and wrote a new one — including Article XI, which declares it the Commonwealth’s policy to protect its atmosphere, lands, and waters for the benefit of the people. Lesson: our own constitution already contains the stewardship promise. The campaign is simply demanding it be kept. “This time we mean it” is literally about Article XI.
Format for new entries: every locality has its own — the mill town that saved its river, the church that solarized, the family that put the farm in easement. Assign one member per month to bring a fresh story from courthouse records, the local historical society, or an elder interview. Publish them: a one-page “They Meant It” story in the local paper or newsletter every month is your steadiest recruiting tool.
Scoreboard Categories (report monthly, celebrate annually)
Dollars refunded or divested to community institutions · lawmakers pledged utility-free · co-op board seats contested/won · acres conserved or returned · oysters/trees planted · Covenant signatures · public comments delivered · new members with a lane.
One-Line Answers for Skeptics
- “250 years is absurd.” — So was lighting rural Virginia, freeing Farmville’s schools, and refunding $330 million. Long promises, kept in short steps.
- “You can’t fight that money.” — Sixty legislators already refuse it. We keep score; look it up on VPAP.
- “Business will just leave.” — We’re not anti-business — we’re pro-business-at-its-right-size: the co-op, the B Corp, the community bank, Main Street. It’s the monopoly that’s the anomaly.
Working document — verify details before print; add your county’s stories.