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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Politcal talk-Yay or nay

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  • From: Loren Davidson <listmail@lorendavidson.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Politcal talk-Yay or nay
  • Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 08:16:31 -0700

My personal opinion is that I find most political arguments to be repetitive and boring, and they do not accomplish anything. Once it gets to "fuck you," all chance of modifying someone's opinion in your favor tends to sort of vanish with the morning dew. :)

That said...I think that there is definitely a place for a discussion of politics on a Permaculture list, if it is done *in the context of Permaculture*.

A good example might have to do with, say, how work on local food independence or an initiative to reduce private transportation might be encouraged or hindered by making changes to land use/zoning legislation - how do we structure our cities and our transportation infrastructure to reduce the amount of petroleum it uses, reduce the number of wasted hours people spend in traffic that they could spend getting to know their neighbors, reduce the auto exhaust? How do we create urban and suburban spaces for food self-reliance?

Or how can issue X be tweaked in order to support the Pc principles of "Care of the Earth" and "Care of the people?"

A bad example would be one that starts, "Al Franken is a liberal idiot," or "Bill O'Reilly is a conservative idiot." It has zero relevance to Permaculture or associated philosophies/sciences, it's confrontative, and there really isn't a lot of common ground to be had or solutions to be found in it.

The *problem* I see with political discussions is that, even when they *start* with something like "How can we reform land use," they tend to devolve into "Person X is a liberal/conservative idiot." Followed by "*You* are a liberal/conservative idiot." This is partly because many people carry a rather strong emotional charge around their political views, many people really aren't all that tolerant of disagreeing viewpoints, and email is too damn easy to misinterpret.

(Apologies to those who feel that the above example is too US-centric. It's what I know. Please don't start an argument about US-centrism, 'k? :) )

If people can act like mature adults, discuss the issues without judgmentalism, try to relate what you're talking about to Permaculture and Pc principles, and agree to disagree when things warm up, then yeah, we might be able to make it a vital part of the discourse.

But if you're just gonna piss on each other's campaign slogans, do it somewhere else. That's my two cents.

Loren
--
Loren Davidson listmail@lorendavidson.com
Music with tropical attitude - http://www.lorendavidson.com
"There's just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know
that I can't go wrong" - J. Buffett




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