The Fair Sharing of the Common Heritage Award

Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored Announces
The Fair Sharing of the Common Heritage Award

Nominations are being accepted for the Fair Sharing of the Common Heritage Award. These submissions can be published or unpublished articles, or works in progress that express the ideas behind the original economic and social theories of Alfred Frederick Andersen. Andersen believed that every sentient being – human and non-human – has a right to the fair share of the material and economic benefits of the Common Heritage Wealth. Included in this Common Heritage are all earth’s natural resources: such as land surfaces, sub-surface minerals and fuels; water and air, as well as cyberspace; indeed the entire physical environment.

The Common Heritage Award articles should propose and describe ways in which such sharing could be accomplished. Andersen’s work is recognized by the Media Freedom Foundation and Project Censored as an annual award to be given to the person that best reflects how the Fair Sharing of the Common Heritage can work in our culture. An example of such sharing would be the promotion of an idea that natural resource extractors would be required to pay the value of the resources into a Common Heritage fund for all living things.

First place winner will receive $3,500 award
Second place winner will receive $1,500 award

Winners will receive their award at the annual Media Freedom Foundation/ Project Censored Awards Ceremony in Berkeley, California, February 5, 2011. Transportation costs to Berkeley will be available to the winners.

To submit a nomination send no more than a one-page summary of completed articles and specific URL to the original article to: commonheritageaward@gmail.com. For unpublished articles, submit full copies to:

MEDIA FREEDOM FOUNDATION
The Common Heritage Award
P.O. BOX 571
COTATI, CA 94931

All nominations must be received by January 5, 2011. Winners will be announced and notified by January 10, 2011. Winning articles will be linked to the Project Censored website and published online. Dorothy N. Andersen and family have provided funding for this award. Judges are comprised of family members and board directors of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored (www.projectcensored.org). The decision of the judges is final and appeals will not be accepted. No late entries will be considered.

We look forward to the process of honoring the values of Alfred and Dorothy Andersen. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Alfred Frederick Andersen: 1919—2010

Biography

Alfred Frederick Andersen dedicated his life to the philosophical pursuit of ideas that became manifest as the Fair Sharing of the Common Heritage which is a principle, which states that income from land, resources and the inventions of past and current generations be fairly shared. His overall concern was the creation of “sustained justice for all sentient beings.” His ideas are as compelling and revolutionary as when Alfred first began developing them.

Alfred was born on June 27, 1919 in Bridgeport Connecticut. Al’s studies in nuclear physics ignited a profound passion to study philosophy and holistic thinking regarding community and global challenges. He received a degree in civil engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and studied philosophy at Harvard, Columbia, Ohio State and Lincoln University. He is the author of, Liberating the Early American Dream and Challenging Newt Gingrich Chapter by Chapter. He taught math at the junior and senior high school levels and philosophy of science at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and philosophy of education Simon Fraser University in Canada. And he believed with a great passion that everyone should have a fair share of the Common Heritage.

He was convicted of refusing induction into military service during WWII. He was sentenced to two years in prison and released after eight months for “good behavior.” After his release from prison, he began attending meetings with the Yellow Spring Ohio Friends and other subsequent Friends Meetings. He and his family joined a community of thirty other families at the Tanguy Homesteads in Pennsylvania. He was an avid supporter and participant of intentional community living. He did not pay federal income tax on the basis of his deeply felt philosophical values.

Alfred demonstrated unusual creativity, resourcefulness and inventiness in his approach towards supporting himself and his family. He was a professor, teacher, salesman, inventor, and philosopher. He managed his father’s machine shop, worked as a groundskeeper, ran a bakery, was a lecturer, and Dean at Oakwood Friends School. He invented and patented a ratchet wrench the rapid grip. Alfred also designed, manufactured and sold a kitchen flourmill. He was a man of vision who created wealth for his family but whose conscience was also invested in ideas which would create wealth for all sentient beings.

Alfred authored two books and several pamplets. Howard Zinn commented on his work, Challenging Newt Gingrich Chapter by Chapter stating, “Alfred Andersen has performed a valuable task for all of us. In this timely, thoughtful dissection of the right wing agenda, he not only takes on Newt Gingrich with painstaking clarity, but suggests an alternative agenda for achieving justice in America.” This alternative agenda for justice was not only addressed in books but in the public forum as well.

In 1976 Alfred traveled to Vancouver, Canada to participate in a forum of non-governmental organizations associated with the United Nations Special Sessions on Habitat and Human Settlements. He helped compose a concluding statement proclaiming that housing, basic services, energy, land use, participation, and financing problems can only be solved by a global and integral approach which has to go to the heart of the matter and transform the economic, social and political structures which cause them.

Al’s life was a reflection of his values. A friend said, “I have never seen (or imagined) such devotion as his to the principles of justice and community. They were woven into the fabric of his soul; he spoke of them with the upmost depth and centrality of feeling, I know he lived by them and it was always touching to hear him voice how vital and seriously urgent they were for him.”