Shop for Peace This Holiday Season

The ever-helpful Madison Activist Calendar (see here for the online version and instructions on how to subscribe to the email version) has some great resources for people wanting to align their holiday shopping with their political values.

First off, buy local! Through December 16, you can take part in Wisconsin Partners for SustainAbility's online Holiday Auction. The auction includes a range of products, from coffee to hotel stays to flowers to food and gift certificates, all from green and local businesses. Go to www.wiscpsa.org to find out more.

Another great online resource is the Dane County Buy Local Initiative, at www.danebuylocal.com.

Support family farmers and delight even the most apolitical of friends or family members with delicious Family Farm Defender holiday giftboxes! Wisconsin cheeses, sausage, popcorn, wild rice, fair trade chocolate and coffee, and other goodies fill the classic Grazers Choice, Cream Puff Special, Organic Delight, Breakfast Brunch, and Something Wild giftboxes.

New this year is a Katrina solidarity box, featuring smoked andouille sausage, mayhaw jelly, hot sauce, wild rice, jalapeno pepperjack cheese, and fair trade French Roast coffee. Proceeds from the Katrina solidarity box benefit the New Orleans Food Farm Network; proceeds from all boxes benefit family farmers! You can download order forms from www.familyfarmdefenders.org, call 608-260-0900, or stop by the Family Farm Defenders office at 1019 Williamson Street (the Nature's Bakery building).

If you prefer gifts from farther afield, how about products made in Argentina's worker-occupied factories? The Working World website, at market.theworkingworld.org offers shirts, shoes, glassware and other fine products.

By getting rid of corporate management, big marketing budgets, and middlemen, the workers themselves receive the vast majority of the sales price. If you saw the documentary film "The Take," by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, you know that distribution systems and sale volume are among the biggest challenges faced by the worker-run factories. So support this exciting fair trade alternative!