permaculture

["Grifen" <grifenhope@gmail.com>]

Hi Cris, yeah we can do it alright! I suggest we look to the chaordic
institute to have these conversations...perhaps we can somehow integrate
these lists etc into the chaordic wiki...you will note that it is open to
all of us to design the institute...needs participation. In that place we
can record, update and edit the various conversations we are having...and
perhaps begin to define what is our common sense, our common ground. Maybe
we can play a role in leading the way towards an effective global movement.
As Copenhagen again demonstrates - we are losing! 
As yet we can't even really define ourselves as a movement.I refer you to
Trainer and Fotopoulos debating whether or not the global ecovillage /
permaculture / alternative movement is a real movement, and if not can it be
the source of a movement -
http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol8/takis_reply_to_trainer.htm
Apparently we are not a movement because;
1. There is no common organisation covering our activities.
2. There is no common worldview characterising our diverse groups.
3. We never put forward any kind of common program with shared goals,
ideology and strategy.
So, are we serious about trying to build a response to the madness of
capitalism, or are we collectively resigned to doom?
´´...we need a new strategy that constitutes a synthesis of the old Marxist
approach which is based on the creation of an antisystemic movement to fight
against the present system, the anarchist approach of ‘prefiguring’ i.e.
building the new within the old and, finally, the democratic forms of
organisation and direct action activities  proposed by the ‘new’ social
movements (feminist, Green etc). This implies creating a democratic
organisation with clear antisystemic goals and means which will fight for
the creation of a new massive antisystemic movement for an inclusive
democracy, a movement that will combine the fight against the present system
with the parallel struggle to create a new system within the old. Building
inclusive democracies at the local level, as an integral part of an
antisystemic movement explicitly aiming at the institution of a confederal
inclusive democracy,[14] is perhaps the only way leading to the creation of
a genuine alternative society (which does not necessarily involve overt
conflict as I mentioned above) rather than an easily reversible variation of
the existing one.´´
Im up for it. My hand is in the air.
Love from Chile,
Grifen
-----Mensaje original-----
De: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] En nombre de Chris Watkins
Enviado el: Wednesday, 23 December 2009 1:00 p.m.
Para: permaculture
Asunto: [permaculture] Permaculture wikis & making a major impact

I see that permaculture.info as some activity again, and the spammers seem
to have been pushed back - this is great.

I work with Appropedia.org, knowledge sharing for sustainability. (Note I
"work" rather than "get paid" but it's my passion and I'm sure many of you
understand what I mean). This is a very active sustainability and
development wiki, covering all topics in green technology, green living,
design, agriculture, appropriate
tech<http://www.appropedia.org/Appropriate_technology>,
covering topical info, best practice, projects, how-tos... you name it. It's
the biggest such site, and is growing, with student classes in North America
and individuals around the world creating useful content and sharing their
distilled knowledge and their wisdom.

I have a few hours before I'm offline for a few weeks, so I'll be direct and
throw this out there:


To make a real difference in the fate of humankind and our environment, we
need to be having not even 100 times the current impact of Appropedia, but
1000 times. There's so much fluff and hot air in the media, when what is
needed is to create more and more of substance, and get that in front of the
public.

I believe this is achievable, but not by working separately.

All of us together will help build something that stands out, above the sea
of greenwash, green commercialism, hot air (looking at you, Copenhagen
conference) and misinformation, and provide the knowledge that the world
needs.

Appropedia has around 3-4000 visitors per day. But looking at the importance
of the work we're all doing here, a site like this should have the traffic
and the prominence of a major newspaper and have hundreds of thousands of
visitors per day, at least. And we can do this.

So my suggestion is to merge our permaculture efforts, put it on the one
site with all of our related info. We could keep the
permaculture.info"branding" and use navigation bars for the
permaculture pages - we'd have to
talk through the details (permaculture is such a broad term after all) but
doing something like this would bring a lot more synergy, and many more eyes
to this open knowledge resource on permaculture.

The alternative is to continue our fragmented work, each spending time
maintaining a separate wiki (instead of developing content), and losing
visibility due to being spread across several different domain names.
Meanwhile commercial sites with influence get celebrity and political
endorsements and gain the public's attention.

I know which I want. Let's multiply our impact. Can we do it...?

Pardon my directness - I look forward to your comments! (Apologies if I
can't answer till ~Jan 6.)
-- 
Chris Watkins

Appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.

blogs.appropedia.org
identi.ca/appropedia
twitter.com/appropedia
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