Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] conservatism/food/references requested

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Margaret L. Wilson" <booldawgs@frontiernet.net>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] conservatism/food/references requested
  • Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:45:58 -0800

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
_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
Google command to search archives:
site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring








Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page