permaculture

["Margaret L. Wilson" <booldawgs@frontiernet.net>]

Just my $.02
I just came home from a month in Los Angeles, parts of S. California and SE 
Arizona.  I just got a good dose of reality.  I had forgotten how bad it 
really is.  I am a former peace officer (CA State Humane Officer) and my son 
is a city cop in California.  You need to educate yourself about gangs.  I 
am, personally, very well-armed and believe me I do not have the firepower 
of the gangs in the cities.  The biggest reality is that gangs do not exist 
only in the cities.  They are fueled and funded by Meth and it is 
everywhere.  It is cheap and easy to make.  It is the scourge of rural 
America.
I live in the "whitest" area that I have ever lived in.  Our local news had 
a series on the growing gang problem here.  There was not a person of color 
shown in the entire program.  They were all white/Caucasian.   It is a very 
complex issue and I have no easy answers.  I grow enough food to share with 
my neighbors as well as for my loved ones that live in the cities.  I also 
have a "pack" of big dogs that gives me security from the local druggies 
that steal to support their addictions.

Margaret
http://farfarawayfarm.blogspot.com/


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ben Martin Horst" <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] conservatism/food/references requested


> Harmon Seaver wrote:
> > But there's something else that cities have now that wasn't the case
> > back in the Depression -- gangs. Sure you had bootleggers back then, but
> > not that numerous. Gangs in the US already outnumber the entire US
> > military and all police forces by a very large number. They are becoming
> > very organized and networked, even internationally. They use cellphones
> > and computers, and could, in most larger cities, effectively wipe out
> > the police force almost overnight. Even now, look what's happening in
> > Brazil, where gangs attack the police stations.
> >
> > When the times get really tough, gangs will rule the cities. They
> > will move out from the ghettos and take over the better neighborhoods
> > with impunity.
>
>
> This statement smacks of white, privileged, middle-class paranoia
> about poor people of color. Note that I'm not accusing Harmon in
> particular of racism, but pointing out racist undercurrents in this
> sort of reasoning. "We've got to guard our nice neighborhoods against
> the brown people in the ghetto." Forget that the entire structure of
> US society has conspired for centuries to oppress brown people and
> ensure they stay poor. And why no concern about all the rural
> right-wing Michigan Militia types who are going to go crazy and start
> slaughtering all the hippies and gays as soon as times get really
> rough? They scare me a lot more than any urban gangs ... and they're
> at least as well armed.
>
> If the collapse comes, I don't see any reason, practical or ethical,
> to side with the cops over gangs. In many cities, the cops are at
> least as dirty as the gangs they supposedly police, and depending on
> what sort of government we end up with, the cops are as likely to end
> up as agents of repression as they are to be protectors. Sure, gangs
> are hardly composed of nice people... but if you've got global
> economic collapse, then you're going to have at least a partial
> collapse of the international drug trade, and most of the dirty money
> goes out of the equation. For gangs to survive, they'll have to start
> representing at least some of the interests of their communities.
>
> Of course, the best option is to side with neither the cops, the
> gangs, or the militias, but to build alternative structures based on
> something other than the violent assertion and maintenance of power.
>
> -Ben
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