permaculture

[Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>]

In /The Great Transformation/, Karl Polanyi says that the effect of the 
US Constitution was to "separate the people from power over their own 
economic life" (p. 233-34). The Fed, charged with US monetary policy, 
was/is nothing but an instrument in service to this end.  IMO, it is not 
in our interests to "bring down" anything and leave a void.  The lawyers 
who serve the rich will be on the spot as fast as James Baker III was in 
Florida to make arrangements for the Supremes to pull off the Republican 
coup in 2000, creating chaos in order to obscure regaining control over 
the people by whatever means it takes.  Rather, our interests are served 
by nonviolently seizing legal power over our own economic lives, as the 
Eastern Europeans, Bolivians, Venezuelans, and Ecuadorians modeled for 
us.  Until we do this, we can not stop the ecological destruction 
wrought by the free market.  We in the US do not possess sufficient 
freedom to respond appropriately to our environment, i.e., to protect it 
from further harm.  Until we do, the small group that is served by Dubya 
and the current wars (the rich) will continue their destruction of the 
biosphere that supports life on Earth.  This is why The Fed matters to 
permaculture and why permaculture is a threat to the rich who run the 
US.  Act accordingly.  The designers manual talks about organizing 
societies into ecological arrangements.   Where is the sense in this if 
we do not have power over our own economic lives?  Our spending floats 
the US economy but our spending is a small fraction of the total 
economic activity.  The Walton family and Bill Gates may make more money 
per year than all permaculturalists combined.  In Austin, some of the 
people have organized to avoid a 24-hour WalMart SuperCenter in their 
neighborhood.  The local government (liberal by most US standards) 
favors WalMart.   Enough said?  Too much?

Smiles.
Tommy Tolson