Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Ron Paul for president of the United States of America

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Ron Paul for president of the United States of America
  • Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:43:36 -0500

I live in Texas, I'm somewhat familiar with Ron Paul from roughnecking on oil rigs in his Congressional district some years ago, and I would vote for the common fascists running as Republicans a long time before voting for Dr. Paul, a wealthy ultraconservative physician Libertarian whose political project embodies the social values of a 17-year-old boy. Yes, he opposes the war in Iraq, but WHY? On what grounds? He may advocate policies that sound good, on their surface, but the most minimal scratch beneath that surface reveals an unconsidered agenda. Articulation is not proof of consideration. The ecological wisdom from which permaculture arises is absent from Libertarianism. Libertarian dogma sets free every antisocial motivation one can think up, legitimizing social chaos in the name of some half-baked idea about liberation that fails moderately rigorous inquiry.
Liberation, as Paulo Freire taught in /Pedagogy of the Oppressed/, occurs as a result of praxis, a conscious practice of taking action, reflecting on that action, taking another action based upon that reflection, and continuing the process until liberation is realized. Freire, a Brazilian, was a man of the same sort as the creators of Permaculture, a man of careful, informed thought. Praxis and Libertarianism have nothing in common save words themselves.

Permaculture concerns observing the land to learn its lessons. Libertarianism concerns loosing monster boy (immature Warrior archetype) frat rats to ravage the land. In other words, we get a deepening of the ubiquitous ecological and social destruction of the current illegitimate junta sitting in power over the people, if Dr. Paul is elected President. I caution people to observe Libertarian dogma carefully before thinking about endorsing this thought-challenged man or his policies.
70% of the US population has never stepped foot in a college classroom, thus never encountered Logic, Ethics, or Rhetoric. This is a matter of policy. The ruling elite of which Dr. Ron Paul is a member saw in California what happens when the state offers free college educations. Where the average US citizen read on a 10th grade level in 1970, they now read on a 6th grade level. Creating the most ignorant electorate in the industrial world benefited someone. The Presidential ambitions of Ron Paul certainly benefit. No one possessing even the most vague familiarity with ecological wisdom would consider voting for what he represents, in my opinion.
I'm an educated Green who votes Democratic as long as there are only two national political parties in the US with a prayer of governing. Actually, that's one, as the Republican Party, representing a minority of the US electorate (perhaps as low as 12% of the eligible voting population, considering 50% don't vote), seeks to rule rather than to govern.

Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page