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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] 'celebrating' Grameen, Nobel, and capitalism

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  • From: David Travis <blissett@optonline.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] 'celebrating' Grameen, Nobel, and capitalism
  • Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:47:04 -0500


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






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