permaculture

[David Travis <blissett@optonline.net>]

A few thoughts...

> Why is it called an anticapitalist movement? Why do the 
> leftists/socialists/marxists/communists have
> to inject their political ideology into a stuggle of people in the throes of 
> trying to survive?

> This only gives the thugs and death squads an opportunity to breed snitches 
> to turn in folks labeled
> communist, same old scenario repeated over and over. Just call it a permaculture-based survival movement and let it go 
> at that.

The thugs you're talking about have aptly demonstrated that they will 
label and attack anything that threatens their material and political 
interests, regardless of whether or not a resistance movement actually 
identifies with socialism or Marxism. It's not about names. It's about 
money and politics and power. If your movement is offering any kind of 
stiff resistance to the crunch of global capitalism, regardless of what 
you call it, the big multilateral trade organizations, the corporate 
financiers, their allies in foreign governments, the state department 
officials, the various corporate and state media organs, and everyone 
else involved in the mix are going to label you a communist, a radical, 
or a dissident regardless of how cooperative, open-to-dialog, 
non-violent, and innovative your solution is.

So I don't see why observers, much less anyone actually engaged in these 
struggles, should shrink away from the term "anticapitalist". The 
capitalists certainly aren't afraid to recognize it as such, so why on 
Earth should we?


> What's wrong with being a capitalist? Calling someone a "good little 
> capitalist" is insulting and demeaning.
> Teach them permaculture, farming and alternative energy and architecture and 
> forget the stinking politics.
> I expect these people already know more about communalism, sharing and 
> cooperation than 49000 roiling, fevered
> "leftists". They have been living that way for centuries and using a common 
> land ownership system.


I think automobiles are what's wrong with being a capitalist. I think 
global warming is what's wrong with being a capitalist. I think 
pollution, mountaintop removal, overfishing, and farming with poison are 
what's wrong with being a capitalist. I think the promotion of 
dictatorships, death squads, state censorship, and repressive political 
regimes in the pursuit of profit are what's wrong with being a 
capitalist, I think genocide is what's wrong with being a capitalist, 
and I also think the extraction and squandering of the majority of the 
world's resources in order to provide flimsy consumer products to a 
chosen few is what's wrong with being a capitalist. Capitalism has won 
the distinction of being the most reckless, destructive, inhumane, and 
irrational resource-allocation system man has ever developed; you 
couldn't develop a more immoral, wasteful, and nonsensical economic 
platform if you tried. You literally couldn't. Capitalism is an 
unmitigated and total disaster.

So I think saying "good little capitalist", or anything else, is being 
pretty charitable given the circumstances. I don't think the expression 
was meant to be insulting as it was used, but if it were, I certainly 
wouldn't complain.

If this it a little over-critical, it's entirely my fault. It's 
cognitively impossible for me to divorce issues sustainability and 
ecological harmony from the cynical and exploitive economic system that 
gave birth to the various disasters we're all trying our best to address 
with permaculture.


- David Travis