Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

If you've seen my previous comments on transition then I'll try not to plow 
the same ground. You mention building community between people and their 
governments. This angle on transition seems naive. The powers that be, the 
money and ownership by the elite 1% in the US, is not about to turn it all 
over to the unwashed masses (including yours truly). If we learn anything 
from history it's that the hierarchy of great wealth fights any change that 
limits or undoes their control of property and resources and people. Here's 
the man who said it best, before the disastrous Civil War:
   "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will. Show 
me the exact amount of wrong and injustices that are visited upon a person 
and I will show you the exact amount of words endured by these people." -- 
Frederick Douglass

Consider the land itself, the soil and water. Who controls how land and water 
are used, what they produce, and who profits? Almost all land and more and 
more of the water is corporate owned for profit (except federal land mosly in 
the West, which is also largely used for profit). And transportation - who 
builds the rails, roads, airports, freeways? Government. Who makes the cars, 
trucks, trains and planes? Corporations. Who profits? Corporations. Who owns 
the medicine, the fossil fuel industry, the solar and wind power 
manufacturers? All corporate. Who profits? Corporations. Who owns and 
controls the entire manufacturing base and banking and credit business? 
Corporations. Who profits? Corporations. Who controls the most powerful 
military machine the world has ever seen with hundreds of bases all over the 
globe? Our government. Who pays for it? We do. Who profits? Corporations.

Now the question becomes: which part of this system is going to give up their 
legal obligation to stockholders and go out of business so sustainability can 
take over? Which corporations will give up control of their lands, water, 
tollways, trains, planes, cars, trucks, fossil fuels, medicines, power plants 
and the entire manufacturing base of this country? So what does that leave 
the rest of us? Very little that we can control for our own use to live 
sustainably as we see fit

Transition towns and ecovillages mean well. But they have yet to go 1% of the 
distance. They still have to operate within the financial system that covers 
the country. They mostly drive cars to get to and from work (usually for 
corporations) and finance ecovillage property through banks. They must pay 
the corporate power grid or pay financial corporations to get solar or wind 
power. And they grow part of their own food. When it's fair weather. Changing 
light bulbs is a bad joke. So is a $200 solar setup that'll light one 45 watt 
bulb - when the sun is shining. Oops, not at night! No, it's not that easy. 
We have to let Nature take its course and try to adapt as we can.

Most of our garden beds are planted now, mostly mulched, with soaker hoses 
from China, sold by OneStop corporation. Today we have to get the old van 
towed to the shop over a tension pulley. It would take half a day to get 
there on a horse, but we don't seem to have a horse.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


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

On 6/23/2010 at 12:00 PM Tommy Tolson wrote:

>Joseph Tainter's /The Collapse of Complex Societies/ is excellent source
>material backing your statement.
>Transition (www.transitiontowns.org) intends to build community between
>people and their governments in order for people to recover their power
>to run their lives as they see fit so they can build the Post Petroleum
>social infrastructure that corporate rule (especially the fossil fuel
>industry) has effectively prevented for the last 40 years.  There's also
>a lot of good information at www.transitionculture.org, Rob Hopkins'
>blog site.  Transition is my work, when my health allows it, growing a
>just, sustainable world.
>Thanks for /Small is Beautiful/.  I'm reading it again, too.  Great book!
>
>Smiles.
>Tommy
>
>On 6/23/10 11:26 AM, paul@oneseedling.com wrote:
>> Thoughout history we have suffered collapse of civlization. Isolated
>> groups of families have survived by banding together for common
>> defence and food related activities. Thus it will be in the future.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jun 23, 2010, at 9:32 AM,<pbunch@cox.net>  wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
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>
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