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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Similarities between the Jesus Movementatitsorigin and the
  • Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 07:21:46 -0800 (PST)

Vital,

The relief is all on my side! Thanks so much for replying in such detail.
Can't reply in equal detail just now, my daytime job is keeping me busy.

Our present political system has all kinds of faults, especially in the
"sustainability" department, but since in history most utopian projects
have required the implementation of some sort of dictatorial regime,
I think that, on balance, our pluralistic type of system provides a better
chance of survival than most systems. The consequences of wrong
decisions, of which there will always be plenty, are spread more evenly
than in a political model based on some leading principal. And politics
there always is, even on the "settlement" level.

With the current World population, a back to the country movement
is unlikely to be realistic for most, and as much as I admire individual
permaculture achievements, I can't really see it as more than a fringe
movement. Also, not being a farmer by training, I have had some first
hand experience of just how difficult it can be to grow one's own food,
let alone making a living by farming with all that entails in the
developped world.

My family name is very common in Germany, and the famous person
you probably thought of is spelled "Brandt" not "Brand".

Sorry, again for not being able to reply in detail right now.

Dieter

Vital Scherrer <vital233@hotmail.com> wrote:
Dieter,

LIQ (laughing in quiet=relief)! I was afraid that I really upset you.
But anyway, a honest thank you for your reply of (almost) whatever nature it
may be - as it is kind of frustrating not to get any feedback - as well as
for any irony and humour, as the contents of the postings in this mailing
list are unfortunately, due to the incomprehensible (amount of) "bullshit"
some people create, too often very grave and "chilling".
And sorry, if I didn't express myself clear enough.

"Romantic notions of utopian societies where the lamb
will sit alongside the lion are all very fine as far as they
go, yet things never work out quite like that, do they?"

Sure, but that was not exactly what I was writing about. I just think that
pemaculture as a "method of human SETTLEMENT" may not necessarily resolve
all the problems we face today, nor may it be the ultimate, most nature
friendly and most enjoyable way of life. Of course for now this may seem the
way to go (meaning the settlement part).

Also, the true utopian society is what we have got now, if one thinks of it
in the long-run (Utopia meaning an unrealistic ideal society that is
impossible to realize), if its consequences are thought to the end: One that
is based on an economy which depends on unlimited growth on a limited
planet. But for the readers of this mailing list there is no need to say
more.

"Don't you think that the founders of socialism didn't have
the highest ideals and (at least in their opinion) the best
way of achieving paradise on Earth? They certainly didn't
intended it all to culminate in Stalin's Gulag or to end
in the massive waste of state planned socialism."

I certainly hope so, at least its authors! But again, that was not what I
refered to. I meant an improved and sophisticated "hunter and gatherer"
lifestyle, which actually may be more of a (semi-?) nomadic "food-jungle
caretaker and gatherer" culture.

"It is the prerogative of youth to live out an idealistic élan,
yet reason is needed to keep it all from degenerating into
chaos and destruction, of which there are too many
examples in history for me to list here."

Now you are giving me rather little credit. - I hope you don't mind a more
personal question: Are you by any chance a relative of a famous person of
German history? Not that it would necessarily explain anything. This
question just popped up somehow. Please excuse my curiosity.
Okay, let me call my intention by its name: What I was going on about was a
stable and balanced way of life which is truly and genuinely based and
rooted on natures principles. - This might fit better into the "permaculture
and politics" thread. - Then again with a lifestyle that is based on natures
principles, politics may be discarded, except for communal, local self
governance. An ethnologist who knows about the commonalities of governance
of tribes who are still living as nomadic hunters and gatherers, might be
able to give some quiet interesting insights.

Or we might want to learn something from our closest relatives, the Bonobos,
which "govern" their social conflicts with sex. Though the sex drive of our
female population is probably too fluctuating for this to work. But it
surely could mean a substantial enrichment, if we just could feel
comfortable with it, this might be worth a shot or more :-).

"You want to give every unemployed a piece of land?
Get real! I live in a region that used to be home to a great
number of small farmers. There is hardly anybody left."

That's due mainly to the E.C. agriculture policy, which financially favours
industrial-size farms.
If you would ask for example the expropriated American Indians or the
Australian Aborigines, whether they would rather have a sufficient amount of
arable land or the payments, I believe they would pick the land. Certainly a
respective expert psychologist would tell you that the land will also give
them back their dignity and self-reliance.

Also, would anybody have thought it would be possible to expropriate all the
landowners of the communist countries. Such things can be implemented, if
there is enough support or force backing it up.
When the time is right and the people are ready for it, and maybe most
importantly, when they believe in it, believe that it can and must be
changed, permaculture principles can become part of the legislations within
days. I'm "afraid" that the more the earth gets devastated, the closer we
get to this time. Let's just hope it won't be too late.

"...They all leave for the city as soon as they can get a buyer
for their land, many even before that. The young certainly
don't want to stay on the land. Much too hard to make a
living..."

...A living with materialistic affluence. When they get unemployment
payments, they certainly don't want to work on the land. - I know about two
women who spent their state payments on alcohol until they died as a result
of that abuse.

Besides that, if the farmers would organize themselves properly, they would
be the rich guys, as they, by being at the very source of the base of life,
have this advantage and untapped power potential, with which they could rule
the world. Instead they let themselves order about by subordinating
themselves to a subsidy-system, which apparently does a lot of harm to the
poorest in the third world too. All I can say is: Farmers stick together,
grow crops which will make you independent and tell the folks in the fancy
suits and their sympathizers to eat their money or pay a fair price for the
products! - Meaning a price based on time and energy input of the farmers,
paid in equal relation to the time and energy input of the rich man's work.

To all of those who are still with us: Sorry that I took such a hike off the
thread.

In neighbourly friendship too,

Vital


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