Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Local Economy, Locavore, Loca-cology,
Call It What You Will…It’s Swadeshi
http://www.countercurrents.org/wessington200910.htm
By Morgana d’Wessington
20 September, 2010

Call it what you will, but after reading many, many Countercurrents.org 
articles on the energy/economic issues facing this tired old world, 
especially Rand Clifford’s recent article about Dr. Feynman’s now famous 
quote: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public 
relations, for Nature cannot be fooled”, I feel compelled to write this brief 
and simple plea.

My husband and I have always answered techno-freaks and politico’s who make 
empty promises: “You can’t trump biology” and “Biology is the bottom line, 
not your pocketbook”; of course, we iterate this with resulting snorts and 
retorts from our audience. We don’t mind that part, we just keep repeating 
ourselves over and over, and try to take ourselves in hand - and go local.

I truly believe that the answer has been in front of us, well, for centuries, 
but most boldly, at least since the life of the Mahatma - Mohandas Karamchand 
Gandhi. His ‘swadeshi” movement was the answer - ok, maybe not all the world 
can sit and spin - BUT: local craft, local food, local - local - local. That 
is the true revolution which I believe needs to take place. I think that this 
is also inherent in the recent essays by Paul Kingsnorth (if I may be so 
bold, Paul).

If we can convert our own awarenesses and habits to locally bred, grown, 
woven, built, crafted, etc., and concentrate our personal energies in this 
direction, we can achieve swadeshi - and , I believe, the way out of these 
“Dark Times” which, if our species does survive into any future, is what I am 
sure our descendants will call these years.

Converting our attentions to creating locally-oriented EVERYTHING - what 
would that do to corporate-government? I can think of nothing that could 
scare the pants off of a politician faster than the people “going local”, for 
it likely would (Gasp!) result in local control of economy, politics, 
ecology, food, information - you name it. If swadeshi were achieved, we 
wouldn’t need corporate-government that is centralized in cities of power 
where the poor are crowded, starving and overlooked. Or even in rural areas, 
where despotism in local government prevails, and corporations such as 
Monsanto ride the farmers hard. Ho! We might even achieve Kropotkin’s ‘Mutual 
Aid‘!

The only obstacle to achieving this is in our minds and it‘s name is FEAR. We 
fear, at least here in America, the loss of sources of cheap energy and 
actual self-governance; dare I say it, we don’t want to work for ourselves, 
as our ancestors did. The fear is palpable; you can smell it on people. We 
want it easier. But is anyone finding anything easier these days? I doubt it, 
except perhaps for the Koch’s, the BP’s, Shell Oils, Halliburtons and others 
of their ilk, including their lackeys, usually referred to as our politicians.

The word “Locavore” has suddenly roared into popular parlance. It’s a start, 
and it owes it’s meteoric and popular rise simply, to people growing and 
eating locally produced food - one form of swadeshi. It’s a great start, and 
now we need to have the faith to expand that ‘locavore’ ideal into other 
areas of our daily living. The possibilities are infinite. Our current 
courses of living are not infinite as we deplete our Mother Earth, heaping 
score after score of insults upon Her.

We need to face our fears before we destroy what is left whilst marching 
blithely toward destruction; let’s march instead toward swadeshi. Each 
community needs to define that for themselves, but it can be done. This I 
firmly believe. And then we shall be free. Once we are free, we can begin to 
heal the wounds we have perpetrated upon one another in the name of the 
unsustainable, as well as the insults to Mother Earth. To quote the Mahatma: 
“Any country that exposes itself to unlimited foreign competition can be 
reduced to starvation and therefore, subjection if the foreigners desire it. 
This is known as peaceful penetration. One has to go only a step further to 
understand that the result would be the same as between hand-made goods and 
those made by power-driven machinery. We are seeing the process going on 
before our very eyes…This displacement of village labour is impoverishing the 
villagers and enriching the moneyed men. If the process continues 
sufficiently long, the villagers will be destroyed without any further 
effort. And the tragedy of it all is that the villagers are unconsciously but 
none the less surely contributing to their own destruction. To complete the 
tale of their woe, let the reader know that even cultivation has ceased to be 
profitable. For some crops, the villager does not cover even the cost of 
seed.” (1) (This last is no where truer than in Gandhi’s home country, where 
Power in the guise of Monsanto, is taking control of the seeds of life; and 
has recently been beautifully expressed at the Right Livelhood Awards by 
Award-winner Percy Schmeiser, a canola farmer from Canada [see Democracy Now 
9-17-10 interview]). Now if you translate “village” into “community”, “city”, 
“county”, or the regional definition of your choice, this quote expresses 
quite nicely many of the premises that we read here often in CounterCurrents.

I admit that I, myself, have not done enough towards this goal. But I am 
getting there as fast as I can, because it is now imperative, as we used to 
say when I was young, to “be there, or be square”.

1] M.K. Gandhi; “Village Industries”, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 
India.