North Country Co-op

Mao in the Co-ops

Mao in the Co-ops

Interviewing many co-op founders, it has been striking that so many young radicals of the time were so inspired by Mao and the Chinese revolution. While the glum bureaucracy of the Soviet Union was hardly compelling, the apparent energy of the Chinese revolution, along with the Marxist revolutions throughout the Third World, seemed like a viable alternative to American capitalism and imperialism...

Two Ways to Peace: Draft Resistance and Co-ops

Two Ways to Peace: Draft Resistance and Co-ops

Many of the people who started the first natural food co-ops had cut their teeth in, or at least been inspired by, two other movements: the Civil Rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War. Dave Gutknecht, longtime editor of Cooperative Grocer, was instrumental in the Twin Cities Draft Information Center, which was founded in 1967 and destroyed by a bomb blast soon after...