Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[<mdnagel@verizon.net>]

Inactivism, I like it! :-)

Here's a handy quote that speaks to this:

"You never change anything by fighting the existing. To change something, 
build a new model and make the existing obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA


From: Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>

Well put, Mark. However, let me stress I'm not "challenging" any "economic 
god" as such; I'm ignoring them. I don't need to fight them; I go around 
them. I deprive them of my participation in their scam. I don't buy their 
poisons, their fossil fuel fertilizer or farm machinery; I don't sell at the 
middleman's price and meekly take what they offer. I don't want votes or 
foundation funding or taxpayer subsidies, or licenses or permits or some 
pencil pusher's permission to grow food and sell it to friends and neighbors. 

It's been called "inactivism". Not participating in a system you don't 
approve of. It's not activism, not fighting the system, just depriving the 
system of it's lifeblood - money and warm bodies marching to their tune. 

There I've said it ;-) Or did Gandhi say it first. He was known for 
nonviolence but his "constructive programme" was about localization and 
community empowerment. That was what outraged the Queen. And cost Britain 
its' empire. 
http://aadityaongandhi.blogspot.com/2007/09/relevance-of-constructive-programme-of.html
http://www.mkgandhi.org/cnstrct/cnstrct.htm


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/21/2008 at 10:10 PM mdnagel@verizon.net wrote:

>But Paul, you're missing the point, it's all about "economic growth,"
>that is, growth of the elite's wallets!  If you decentralize the existing
>inefficient system these folks won't be able to "stimulate" the economy by
>buying mansions and jetting around the world!  How dare you challenge the
>economic god! :-)
>
>
>-Mark Nagel
>Everett, WA
> 
>
>From: Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
>
>
>So many clueless columnists, so little time. 
>
>That guy realizes "fertilizer lets farmers raise production but is
>energy-intensive to make. Transporting food great distances also requires
>much energy. So does processing." but he doesn't know fertilizer only
>raises production at the expense of nutrition, and has no idea how to
>avoid fossil fuel-intensive long distance transportation and processing. 
>
>He also thinks tractors raised efficiency, but never includes the cost of
>the tractor and all the workers that go into manufacturing it, or the
>massive amounts of fossil fuel burned in its manufacture. Worse, he thinks
>Monsanto and BASF are innovators. I'd say exploiters of soil, water, and
>people, not innovators. 
>
>He wants better ways of using water and fertilizer, better seeds, and
>better ways of localizing food. We've had those better ways for decades.
>We build healthy soil to be more moisture retentive with no need for
>fertilizer. We have highly productive seeds that have stood the test of
>time, heirlooms. We can grow and sell where we live and work. What's so
>hard about that? Does NY Times pay writers to play dumb?
>
>paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
>On 5/21/2008 at 12:32 AM Tradingpost wrote:
>
>>Rising Ag Prices: The New Mother of Invention?
>>By G. Pascal Zachary The New York Times | 17 May 2008 | 04:30 PM ET
>>http://www.cnbc.com/id/24683608Wheat Fields
>
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