permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

On Aug 9, 2010, at 5:37 AM, kevin skvorak wrote:
> 
> 
> my concern is that you and geoff and others that are working with violent
> non-PC instituions like the US military, might be "shitting" in the
> downstream social-ecology of other permies.  i would hate to see some (as
> yet future and hypothetical) permie across borders folks with the courage
> and integrity of medicines sans frontiers get their heads chopped off by the
> resistance forces somewhere because that resistance has already made the
> connection between permaculture and their oppressors/elites etc
> 

I think this is a reasonable point. And I know an Israeli woman who utterly 
refused to work with Geoff Lawton because he had worked with some Jordanian 
farmers, whom she called "the people who are out to destroy Israel."

But following Kevin's logic, if permaculturists work with resistance groups 
and violent "insurgents," perhaps no government agency such as ag depts or 
state universities, or any religious group, or conservative farmers, or 
businesses will be willing to work with us. That, too, would be a huge loss, 
possibly one greater than offending resistance groups. 

If you're doing significant work, you're going to offend someone. And many of 
the people involved in permaculture were born into the Western elite, so 
we're already going to be damned by those who hate the elites.

From what I know of Medicins sans Frontiers, they work with governments, too. 
They've apparently resolved the issue. 

I tend to follow Mollison's basic tenet: Go where you are invited. 

Toby