It all started with a little girl who wanted to fix a broken world…
Verdant Square Network is the creation of Grateful Dread Peace Media, an independent media outlet founded by writer/editor/activist Natalie Davis in 1996 to serve the peace-left community in the public interest. Over the following two decades-plus (of a 40-year mainstream and alt-media broadcasting and print journalism career) we have won honors and earned respect for our enterprise, investigative, and public service reporting, blogging (from our still-missed All Facts & Opinions), interviewing, progressive/LGBTQ+/anti-racism activism, and singular broadcast offerings. Motivated by a dangerously polarized nation in desperate need of people- and planet-centered solutions, we continue working to fix this broken, white-supremacist country and capitalism-strangled world with determination and an always unwavering devotion to truth, facts, humanity, and fairness, plus our own commitment to promoting radical kindness and Revolutionary Love, green living, citizen action, and pacifist socialism within the frame of small-d democracy. Additionally, our focus covers our jnsistence on the eradication of white supremacy, whitegaze, systemic racism, and all associated philosophies.
Mission
The mission of Verdant Square Network and all its parts is pretty much the same one Grateful Dread Peace Media has devoted itself to since 1996; if the tone has changed, it’s because the problems of what is, in effect, Plantation Nation, have only worsened:
To educate, inform, challenge, entertain, and inspire by presenting and producing peace-left-green-themed news and culture multimedia content, resource information, and programming in the public interest. To amplify voices and views maligned and/or ignored by the corporate media and mainstream society. To stand as a relentless, education- and history-focused rejection of white supremacy, theocracy, and inhumanity. To work with laser focus to stop the greed- and fear-based elevation of an Unwarranted Default and to bring an end — FINALLY — to more than 400 years of intolerable US-mandated and society-enabled oppression. To spread the ethos of Revolutionary Love.
Right now, we’re busily revamping our multimedia leftist/pacifist information center and broadcast/stream studio offering news content, arts and lifestyle coverage, building our own Grateful Dread Mastodon fedipost, The Armchair Activist‘s Mastodon-based action alerts, our obituary service on the fediverse, Rest in Paradise, our cannabis information and community effort, The CannaClub (yes, on the fediverse), and preparing for the nth revamp of our 24/7 streaming community service radio station, Verdant Square Radio (soon come). We’ll get there over time with the help of those who share our principles, see the need, value the services we provide and the work we do, and want to partner in the effort in whatever way they can. To borrow a bit from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), it’s still all about #NotMeUs.
The VSquare Newsroom is already at work presenting aggregated and original news reports and commentary on issues of political, social, and cultural consequence to lefties throughout the US, and by extension, Canada, the UK, and the world. While the 5Ws journalism will refrain from bias (though we reject false equivalences and will speak truth) and conform to Associated Press style, our commentary comes from a peace-left but nonpartisan/antiduopoly viewpoint. Unlike organs like the New York Times, we reject white-supremacist givens, including those inherent in the type of lazy and/or evil whitegaze, racist, Christianist, ableist, heterosupremacist, “both-sides-are-always-equal,” lesser-evil promoting journalism the Old Grey Lady continues to practice.
Commenting: Kindness Leads
All are welcome to comment on articles where commenting is permitted (pending registration and moderation) or to contact us, regardless of political or ideological stripe. Only civil responses, however, will see print/air or receive a reply.
And that’s another thing: While we are beyond through with the mandated faux civility, bigot coddling, and inappropriate equivalencies demanded by mainstreamers, centrists, the Unwarranted Default, and a political establishment that does not represent yet seeks to exploit pacifists and leftists, Verdant Square Network will be led by kindness. Though the site is openly leftist and socialist, HERE and on the @VerdantSquare Twitter feed and other social media, we will do our best to treat everyone with respect and empathy. We will not hold back, however, in discussing factually what they are doing, saying, and promoting, and talking about history and facts to
The philosophy we employ is a tweak on Gandhi: We will speak out and say what’s TRUE, what’s INTENDED POSITIVELY, and what NEEDS to be said. There is a corollary: Sometimes snark is needed and sometimes a call-out is required. We hope to have fun here as well, when possible and appropriate. Leftists often fail at self-care: Verdant Square Network also hopes to encourage us all to do better in this vital area of life so that society — once it becomes decent — can thrive and we can as well, both while we’re working for a better future and once we arrive in the Green New World.
Submissions
If you are interested in submitting a guest article, artwork, or commentary to Verdant Square Network, we would love to consider it for publication. Send a pitch to our editor, and use SUBMISSION as your subject header.
Republishing and Remixing
If you wish to republish original GDPM/VSN material, you may do so under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you wish to republish aggregated material, check for information regarding sharing and republishing at the end of the article, which will include a direct link to the source material. Any questions, check with the original source of the article to ensure that you ethically may reuse and/or remix it.
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