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  • From: "oliver smith callis" <oliversmithcallis@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Why Bother With Permaculture? An essay by Ted Trainer
  • Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:31:11 -0700

I just saw that Bill Mollison posted the following on the Tagari Blog a few
days ago, and thought it is relevant:

*The Permaculture People's Party , by Bill Mollison (Papers and Proposals)

The Clarion Call.*
*
Preamble: Many of us, and all of us trained in good design for houses and
farms, feel disgusted with the present political systems, which seem to
prefer war to peace, and want or hunger to plenty. We feel we must act to
reverse this intellectual decay and consequent global deterioration.
If we gather our friends, and students of good design, we vastly out-number
the few who have joined "left right" parties. We can take control. We can
legislate to restore the earth, to save and generate forests, to secure
water and clean food supplies, and to live to assist all people to survive,
not to war on them.
All permaculture graduates know how to design life-enhancing houses and
farms. Many are involved in aid programmes, or consult with landowners and
builders. We have, in effect, many thousands of people–years of experience
in building sustainable systems. We have served our apprenticeship as worthy
designers of living systems.
Thus, we believe it is time to take charge of legislating for sustainable
living. Why should we, the majority, put up with the stupidities of the
Liberal/ Labour, Republican/ Democrat, Tory /Socialist dichotomies, whose
efforts are to defeat each other, not to assist all people?
No, we must now vote them all out, and start the urgent repair of society
and the earth itself. Oil men, coal miners, and wood chippers can between
them destroy all of us, for greed. In this, they are assisted by "our
government". To tolerate this is madness. To tolerate the use of biocides is
ridiculous, and to subsidise destructive industries is stupidity. We must
act for sanity and earth-care. Permaculture ethics require us to care for
the earth. The permaculture lifestyle requires us to help others to care for
themselves. Our ethics and lifestyle are the very best training for
responsible government.
By supporting public trusts, Holland has greatly reduced and in fact largely
eliminated the 'public service' (read: public stumbling block) to a very few
people, thus, we must see the real function of government not to invent
policies, but to discover existing policies that work well for problem
solutions.
Most politicians arise from sportsmen, public broadcasters, film stars,
lawyers, and businessmen. None of these can be trusted to evolve sensible
policy; almost all of them operate on conviction based on personal beliefs.
(no basis for sustainable society)
No, policy must be based on well-researched, extant, working models, and
constantly refined by feedback from all levels of users or "consumers" of
that policy. For instance, Finland is noted for the excellence of early
education, Denmark for the volume of exports based on research, Sweden for
developing energy systems that eliminate radio active wastes, or the risks
of atomic energy. And so on……….
Bangladesh has a wonderful system for lending to the poor, involving small
loans, support circles for repayments, and good advice. There are very few
'bad loans'. We all need to adopt local cash management, credit unions, mini
banks, economies of fair exchange of services and goods, not taxed
expenditure. We do not live to support public servants and bankers in
luxury, or politicians in great comfort, or C.E.Os in obscene wealth. No, it
takes too much misery to keep a few manipulators too fat. We live to help
our families and neighbours live a sustainable existence. This is what
"policy" must be about. *




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