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  • From: "Robert Waldrop" <bwaldrop@cox.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] My election day statement
  • Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 08:41:04 -0600

I am a candidate for mayor of Oklahoma City (I don't remember if I have mentioned this here before). Below is my election day statement (today is our municipal election day).

Bob Waldrop, Oklahoma City

A SPRINGTIME OF HOPE FOR OKLAHOMA CITY
www.bobwaldrop.net

Social justice. Energy conservation. Environmental sustainability. Local economic development. "What kind of whacko candidate are you, Bob?", a good friend gently teased me after reading my website. Indeed, it says something about the modern political context that these simple, common sense, and pragmatic ideas are considered irrelevant to the present era.

If you want to know where I come from, you have to go down to southwestern Oklahoma and back in time a bit. My grandparents went through the Depression and the Dustbowl years as farmers in Tillman County. They didn't get through those hard times by being foolish. They raised nearly everything they ate. They were frugal with their money. They pitched in to help friends and family in time of need. The idea of conspicuous consumption and the "throw-away society" were not part of their vocabulary. Many years ago, I was at my grandparent's house - a home built by my grandfather Glen Waldrop and his brother Fred - and I threw an empty glass jar into the trash. My grandfather picked it out of the trash and said to me, "Bobby Max, you already paid for that jar, why would you want to throw it away?"

I wouldn't have anyone believe that those days were perfect, even in the retrospective view of memory. Tillman County wasn't Walton's Mountain. Racial segregation was a blot on the honor of the community, and the poverty was so deep it ground people into the dust. But the seeds of overcoming lay in the fertile soils and people not only survived, they prospered.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and those basic ideas seem almost quaint in their simplicity. We fancy ourselves as much more complex these days. We are far beyond ideas like local food security and energy conservation - we think - in our 24 hours a day, seven days a week "busyness". But are we actually happier? Are we more secure? Are our prospects as hopeful as theirs? Somehow I don't think so.

I realized a few years ago that I was becoming my grandparents. In our youth oriented culture, some might be horrified by that thought, but I wasn't. I found myself thinking, "This is the way things should be." I am grateful that their basic virtues, including a deep and abiding love for the land and the soil which gives all of us our daily bread, were part of my own life, despite many of my personal efforts to escape that cultural legacy.

Outside of my windows, the peach and the apricot trees are blooming, and asparagus shoots are coming out of the ground, promising a feast of abundance in the future. Spring is a time when farmers and gardeners look forward in hope. The cold of the winter is past, the heat of the summer has yet to come, the wheat is growing, the peas and spinach and potatoes and turnips have been planted. Promise is in the air. It is said that to everything there is a time and a season. Thus, I dare to dream of a springtime of hope for Oklahoma City, a time to put aside the politics of division and hatred, a time to open the doors and welcome all to the table of plenty, a time to remember the virtues of our grandparents and to understand their importance and their utility for the 21st century.

Victory in this election is less an issue of my actual election as mayor and more a realization by people that they can take personal responsibility for their lives and live them with great intentionality and that doing so is a way towards a life of joy and abundance and hope and security. Going along to get along will get us nowhere but the ash-heap of history. Greed and gluttony are the roads to ruin. A secure, prosperous, and vital Oklahoma City calls forth the opportunity for people to do what is right, irrespective of the occupant of the mayor's office or what the city council may or may not do. It doesn't take a city ordinance for people to get out of their cars and walk, ride a bicycle, or take public transportation more often. It doesn't take a mandate from City Hall for people to buy food from Oklahoma farmers, to shop at locally owned stores, to plant fruit and nut trees in their yards and grow their own tomatoes and carrots, to eat at locally owned restaurants, and to put their money in locally owned credit unions and banks. Every person who does these things is participating in the springtime of hope for Oklahoma City and is doing more than all the politicians added together to build a secure and promising future for themselves and their children.

Today is not the end of this campaign. It is only the beginning.

Bob Waldrop

PS. Thanks to everybody for the wonderful support for my campaign. Don't forget to vote! And don't forget to invite your friends and family and co-workers to vote! Don't forget to plant some fruit trees this spring! If you can, come by our watch party tonight, starting at 6:30 PM at 1524 NW 21st (that's the southeast corner of North McKinley and NW 21st. There will be lots of good Oklahoma food on the menu. Bring a dish to share with friends. For more information about the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, visit http://www.oklahomafood.coop . For more information about simple and sustainable living, visit http://www.bettertimesinfo.org . If you need help with energy conservation, go to http://www.energyconservationinfo.org . If you are concerned about local transportation issues, visit http://www.oklahomacityrail.org . If you are a fabric artist, and sew clothes or quilts or other items for sale to the public, I would be happy to list your business for free at http://www.oklahomaclothing.org . For more information about the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House, visit http://www.justpeace.org .





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