Essential Estrogen

A new website to highlight the need for sustainable communities and working with government to bring about progressive change.

Former state lawmaker Ed Fallon and longtime activist Lynn Heuss sent a letter to supporters this morning about the public launch of the site -- www.IMforIowa.com -- as part of an initiative he began during his gubernatorial campaign in 2006.

"One of the key strategies of our 'Independence Movement' is to advocate for sustainable living," Heuss said in the announcement. "What we mean by that is: we believe in supporting communities and neighborhoods that support themselves -- that have a vibrant downtown or shops within walking distance from housing with locally-owned businesses that provide goods and services to residents. Not only does this have a significant and beneficial impact on the local level by supporting the people who own the businesses who then support the community, it is where we all have the opportunity to address national and global problems like reducing our use of fossil fuels if we aren't driving as far to shop."

Fallon, a former representative from Des Moines, and Heuss request that site visitors provide contact information for businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants, barbershops, hardware stores, pharmacies and more in their community. The businesses, however, must be locally owned and "big box" stores are excluded.

The goals of the initiative, however, are loftier than just creating a list of locally owned businesses. The group plans to actively advocate for progressive legislative changes and progressive legislators -- especially in the realm of Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections (VOICE), local control over factory farms and universal health care.

In an earlier letter to supporters, Heuss, also of Des Moines, explained how she came to believe working from within government system was the best way to bring about change.

"My greatest cause of frustration," she wrote, "was the seeming lack of compassion and concern by those in politics for the well-being of the poor. I had, up until my conversation with Ed, simply believed that one could work more effectively for justice through religion. Naively, I didn't anticipate the level of politics involved in our religious institutions. That, then, is what led me to jump back into governmental politics with both feet, including working on Ed's gubernatorial campaign, as his clerk for the 2006 session, and now I'M for Iowa. If it takes getting involved in the system to change it -- I decided I wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem."

As stated on the organization's website, I'M for Iowa is developing a network of Iowans working for:

• Independence from special-interest campaign contributions
• Independence from poverty, injustice and discrimination
• Independence from fossil fuels
• Independence from government subsidies for big business, from risky ventures that waste our tax dollars while failing to deliver on promises of economic prosperity, and from national chains that exert a stranglehold on our communities
• Independence from government officials who operate without the public's interests in mind, often behind the closed doors, and with a lack of integrity and accountability

To tackle that agenda, I'M for Iowa plans to recruit and assist progressive candidates, provide grassroot support for legislative initiatives to enact VOICE, provide leadership to encourage changes in personal habits and public policies related to global warming, broaden the base of the movement through public speaking and media events, and to network with Iowans concerned about these issues.