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  • From: kevin skvorak <k.skvorak@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] on an ethics of permaculture (and the us military)
  • Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 10:22:35 -0400

hi folks,


first, if an apology to LL is in order, i am sorry! i could not post or
access the mailing list for sometime, and i assumed i was (again) kicked off
and was reluctant to suffer the further indignities from you it seems to
require to have access! i hope that this email remains subscribed without
problem, as i greatly value the opportunity to engage on this list.

i want to respond with a little bit of detail about the military question,
as i think the current thinking on it remains a bit muddled, in my opinion.

my main observations on this would be:

1) of course there are many good and decent people in militaries
everywhere, including the US. these are fine people, most often victims of
the same economic and social pressures (from the same caste or class) of
the people they are fighting and killing. i have no doubt that many of
these people, as individuals, will benefit from an exposure to PC ideas. in
this regard, the work scott and all the others involved in this have
provided a valuable service to these men and women, and by extension their
families, communities etc.

ok, that being said:

2) we are systems thinkers and designers, no? the US military and all
militaries are parts of complex social/economic/ecological etc systems.
they are not just groups of individuals. to reasonably expect state
militaries to transform into permaculture armies, actually facilitating the
values of permaculture across a landscape is, imho, so unrealistic as to
qualify as "magical thinking" The same thing goes for expecting some PC
training to provide the impetous for a smedley butler ( "war is a racket")
moment amongst the military elites. these are questions of systems people.
Systems. Social ecologies. This is not rocket science, but it is, imo, the
very stuff of permaculture.

3) on the question of social ecology, the trainining of the soldiers did
not go on in a vacumm. there is a context, a context with an extremely
complex social ecology - a war and occupation. an occupation in which the
people on the ground in afghanistan see the US military with absolute and
reasonable suspicion. not a very promising context in which to reach the
hearts and minds of afghan people with PC ideas delivered by that military..
now it may well be that no harm has been done and that no negative
outcome will come from it in the social ecologies on the ground there.
this is very possible. I do believe tho that this concern (aligning PC
ideas with non-PC institutions like the US military) is dangerous and
potentially counter-productive for PC at large. it requires and deserves
careful consideration. i hope people understand my point here.

i want to offer another short example, and i know people will see this as a
personal attack, but be that as it may here goes.

a few yrs ago Geoff Lawton was working on another effort in Jordan. In this
case a USAID funded effort that required, in order to get the funding, that
it be an effort that included israeli participation. (the project as i
understood it was something to do with "plant quarantine" and i suspect the
Israeli and US interest was in access to genetic material from arab
countries traditional drought resistant varieties for israeli GMO
programs) it turned out that Geoff at al were not able to persuade very many
Jordanian NGO's to partner in the effort, something that should have been
obvious to him as first glance at the proposal, yet it was something he
didn't seem to want to think about. he just seemed to want to remain blind
to the social ecology involved, much less the potential consequences to the
PC movement for being identified in the minds of jordanian and arab folks on
the ground as being aligned with a project like this.


so, for me, this question of "ethics" it is about effectiveness in the
movement. if an average arab, afghan, US, any person anywhere has their very
first exposure to PC being a press release from the Pentagon about their new
green PC intiative to 'help' the people of afghanistan, (or whatever the
latest military effort is) do you believe this is going to advance, or
setback the movement of PC ideas into these communities?


That's enough for now. I realize this is somewhat challenging stuff.

I don't believe tho that any of what i have written should be characterized
as personal attack. i do not want to engage in personal attacks, flame
wars, or online abuse., nor do i want to suffer it myself. i do believe
these are legitimate and needed conversations for everyone involved in PC if
we are to grow in our effectiveness.

with respect,
kevin




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