permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

Nicholas Roberts wrote:

> hi Lawrence
>
> I'd like to think that this is simply just an isolated incident, "a few bad
> apples" or simply a tactical mistake.

Definitely so. Entrenched in the system and in the USDA yet. The Homeland 
Security Atc (or maybe Patriot Act or both)
mandates that every state's agriculture department will monitor and regulate every farmers market and every other place 
a farmer sells his products and they will be supplied with a swat team to enforce said regulations. Of course this
has to with such things as HAACP, raw milk, food coops selling fresh meat to 
their members, etc.

> Perhaps, the last spasms of the Bush presidency as it seeks to rush through
> every ultra-right policy and action it can manage in its last days.

I have read that they are doing exactly that, especially in the environmental 
arena.
It is surprising that they would go after a community food coop because this 
is typically something that the
Christian and home schooling grass roots organizations and community/neighborhood groups particip[ate in and they 
usually vote Republican. It is really a depressing event. Maybe Robert Waldrop would care to comment on this.

> I do suspect, however. that there is a systemic aspect to this that will
> continue during the Presidency of Our Obama. May the Supreme Diety Bless Him
> and Hold Him Safe in Hiss Mission of Ch-ch-ch-Change.

Probably so. Government departments being territorial and acting to preserve 
their funding, i.e. jobs, raison d'etre.

> My guess is that, the financial, economic, and other crisis, will be used by
> the disaster-capitalists to push through much wanted ch-ch-changes... and
> since organics food is now a corporate market - Organic Walmart, corporate
> Biodynamics etc... the same brutal rules of corporate capitalism apply.
>
> I can imagine a lobbyist or donor arguing "look, the damn hippies are
> communists, dop smoking pagans, they have been flouting the laws, there food
> is unsafe, and they dont pay taxes. You can get cheaper, safer organic food
> at Walmart Organics (replace with whatever is the local corporate organic
> outlet). God damn it Congressmen/Representative. We need to shut these
> people down!"

* There are plenty of fascistic types in the US & Canada who fit right into 
that scenario.

> one way to shut-down these independent, local, community projects is
> compliance costs - legal, insurance, accounting, health... another is
> massive interruption like this... a kind of Shock Treatment that would
> almost kill any living thing

That's the scary one. The power to tax (and regulate) is the power to destroy.

> if there is a New Green Deal in the USA, one of the groups in that
> coalition, will be liberal farm groups... and if Obama's history to date
> means anything, that will not involve anyone or any group that has not
> totally bought into the Green-Capitalism paradigm..

As long as he doesn't appoint chem-biotech-ag corporate types to the USDA
(especially the one from Monsanto to be Secretary of Agriculture, God forbid).

> no doubt there will be lots of PR and some small things done for the
> grass-roots organisations, but like under Clnton, Blair, Hawke-Keating
> (Australia) the playing field balance will be quietly and deliberately
> tilted towards the "good greens"... i.e corporate and financial capitalism
> green start-ups and corporations

That will probably still go on as before. The green, sustag nonprofit types 
usually cash in
on this trend, often without earning their keep.
> its interesting, perhaps extremely scarey to note, how this might also be
> conisdered a part of a general domestic terrorism campaign against the
> "watermelons" - green on the outside, red on the inside.. eco-communists...
> these food coops are a hotbed of ecoterrorist activity.. its the Green Scare
> obviously the Amish need to go to, pascifists...

See * above

> to me, this is sounding a lot like the pre-war years in Nazi Germany..

That won't happen but not because there aren't people of that or similar 
mindset.

> remember folks, the Great Depression wasnt ended by the New Deal, it was
> ended by World War 2. Which was started by a formerly liberal democracy,
> that had slowly converted to a totalitarian fascist state

That's a very eye-opening statement. Are we headed into a similar maelstrom?
or can it be avoided, i.e. instead move toward world peace.
> whether we can afford another anti-fascist war within the context of climate
> change ?

The climate change issue will just be considered "a detail".

> obviously, this is heresy, and I will whip myself for my sins against Our
> Obama Fatherland, Bless Him and Save Him and Protect Him from the
> watermelons...

Our elected leaders should be in your thoughts and prayers, for sure
and for many reasons. I look forward to real change in this country, another 
Renaissance
of culture, arts and sciences, technology and preserving and enhancing the 
quality and sustainability
of our food and water supplies and or our environment.

LFLondon