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  • From: Woody Wodraska <wodraska@mac.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] For the liberation of Seeds and Humus by Kent Whealey
  • Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:56:10 -0700

Lawrence this is in no way current, lots of stuff on the web regarding the split up of SSE with their new head Amy Goldman.
it is definitely worth knowing about these things as the seeds and humus are at their farthest point from being liberated now.
Barbara and Woody
Woody Wodraska
wodraska@mac.com
http://www.soulmedicinejourney.com
Deep Gardening: Soul Lessons from 17 Gardens, Biodynamic Memories now available at http://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000138866



On Aug 11, 2010, at 6:33 AM, permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. For the Liberation of Seeds and Humus by Kent Whealy
(Lawrence F. London, Jr.)
2. I was interviewed on national radio today (paul wheaton)
3. Re: ethics and the First Earth Batallion (wenshidi@yahoo.co.uk)
4. on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US military)
(Nicholas Roberts, Permaculture.coop)
5. Re: on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US military)
(Lawrence F. London, Jr.)
6. Re: on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US military)
(Cory Brennan)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:14:58 -0400
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [permaculture] For the Liberation of Seeds and Humus by Kent
Whealy
Message-ID: <4C61DD72.9020203@bellsouth.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed


from - http://www.primalseeds.org/rescuingcrops.htm
<http://www.primalseeds.org/OTHERSTUFF/new/rescuingcrops.htm>

For the Liberation of Seeds and Humus
By Kent Whealy , director of the Seed Savers Exchange.

We live in a beautiful area on the Iowa-Minnesota border. We are in the
heads of valleys as they start to drain toward the Mississippi River. It
is called the "driftless area." The glaciers split and flowed around it
so they didn't grind everything flat as they did the rest of Iowa.

My wife's great grandparents came from Bavaria in the 1870s and settled
in the area around St. Lucas, Iowa. My wife's grandfather would tell me
stories about when they were courting. Her father was very stern and
would really give her trouble if she came home in the horse-drawn sleigh
and would sit too long outside. He could always tell the next morning
how long they had been sitting there by the pile of frozen horse manure.
Grandma and Grandpa Ott had a good life: They had nine children; he
farmed with his father; they cleared 40 acres with World War I dynamite;
he ran a sawmill; drove a cream route; he was a homestyle vet. Although
it was a hard life, it was a really full life.

I met Grandma and Grandpa Ott 57 years after their marriage. Grandpa had
leukemia but wanted to live out his days on the farm so we went back to
make sure that happened. He was an incredible story teller--the
orneriest old man I think I ever met.

My wife was carrying our first child when we first were back, so I asked
him what it was like when they had kids. Grandpa told us a story about
the old German midwives who would come by. I repeated the story to some
folks the next day and one fellow just laughed at me and said, "You go
back and ask that old man again." He said the story around here is that
Grandpa would always tell Grandma he called the doctor, but he wouldn't
and by the time she found out it was too late and he would deliver the
baby himself and save the money. So the next time I saw him I said, "I
heard you delivered all your kids yourself." "It's just like pulling a
calf," he replied, "But you know, the twins fooled me."

These folks were really different than you or I. They worked harder than
we can probably imagine; they were the farm folks who built this
country. They were just as tough as nails. I've seen this old man sit in
his rocking chair and sew up a cut on his own hand with needle and
thread. Yet it always surprised me, rough as he was, he just loved flowers.

During the year we stayed with him he gave us the seeds of a couple
garden varieties his parents had brought over from Bavaria. One of these
was a little purple morning glory that has a red star in its throat. He
also gave us seeds of a huge pink German tomato. We've grown this up to
nine inches across. The German folks use it as a slicing tomato.

Diane's grandfather didn't make it through that winter. We knew if his
seeds were to survive it was up to us. About that time we came across
the writings of several geneticists who were trying to warn the public
about the dangers that we were going to face if we continued to let the
breeding material for the food crops of the future die out at such a
rapid rate. Dr. Garrison Wilkes, professor of biology at the University
of Massachusetts, wrote:

The reason for alarm and concern about the loss of native strains is the
irreplaceable nature of the genetic wealth. The only place genes can be
stored is in living systems; either living branches such as the budwood
of apple trees or in the living embryos of grain and vegetable seeds.
The native varieties become extinct once they are dropped in favor of
introduced seed. That extinction can take place in a single year if the
seeds are cooked and eaten instead of saved for seed stock. Quite
literally, the genetic heritage of a millennium in a particular valley
can disappear in a single bowl of porridge.
Dr. Jack Harlan, retired professor of plant genetics, University of
Illinois, concurred:
These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale
we can not imagine. In a very real sense, the future of the human race
rides on these materials. The line between abundance and disaster is
becoming thinner and the public is unaware and unconcerned. Must we wait
for disaster to be real before we are heard? Will people listen only
after it is too late?
We were lucky to come across these writings when we were young and
idealistic and wondering how we could make a difference in this world.
We decided to see if we could find other people who were also keeping
heirloom seeds. We found there is an tremendous heritage of this type of
material in this country; that whenever farmers or gardeners immigrated
they invariably brought the best of their seeds with them. It was a link
with the old country and allowed them to enjoy the foods they knew well.

There are some areas very rich in these materials; usually its really
"backwoods" areas; especially mountainous areas, "poverty pockets" if
you will, where people don't really have the money to buy seeds. These
can be real treasure-troves of heirloom varieties. We've found isolation
can be religious as well. Traditional people such as Mennonites, Amish
and Hutterites are also keeping quite a few heirloom varieties within
their communities. I've also been pleased that as trust has grown in
Seed Savers, a lot of Native American people are starting to offer their
seeds through the exchange. This has been really gratifying to me. Many
Native Americans don't share their seeds because they believe they are
sacred--as well they should because seeds are the sparks of life that
feed us all.

What Diane and I have done these past 21 years is to put together a
network of some 8000 people who are now working to collect, maintain and
distribute heirloom varieties. In 1986 Seed Savers purchased a farm near
Decorah, Iowa. The collection of seeds we have now is sort of out of
control. We have 17,000 varieties right now including over 4000
tomatoes, 700 peas, 700 lettuce, 120 watermelons, 600 potatoes....It is
getting to the point where we have already seen almost everything coming
into the collection from North America. We regrow about 2000 varieities
a year for their seeds. Last summer we grew out our entire lettuce
collection; four heads of each variety. We photographed each one so we
would know what we have in the collection.

Most gardeners in this country don't have a clue as to what their true
heritage as gardeners really is; most have never seen this type of
diversity and when we bring people into our garden and show them 2000
plant varieties and tell them it is because of gardeners just like
themselves that all this material is still available then they really
understand the problem and are willing to help.

In the past five years we've been doing quite a bit of collecting in
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. When that material started
flowing into the collection it was so different it was just amazing.
Some of the tomato varieties have foliage that looks like a carrot. We
have been getting into quite a few tomato varieties from Russia that are
black. They have an enzyme under their skins that turns darker and
darker with the sun and the heat.

We are keeping a large selection of garlics from Eastern Europe. The
collection in Georgia has just been flattened by civil war.
Nationalistic fighting is really taking a toll. For instance, the
international potato collection in Peru had to be evacuated in small
aircraft because Shining Path guerrillas were knocking off their staff.

We had a fellow from Azerbaijan over. He worked for the Institute of
Genetics and Selection in Baku. He and other scientists had collected
all over Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is in the Caucuses south of Russia. It
is an incredibly rich country; it runs from 14,000 feet elevation on the
west to sea level on the east; the whole country is in this monstrous
mountain valley. The micro climates through it all would be the
equivalent of southern Minnesota to northern Florida. It is so
genetically rich it is just incredible. After they collected all over
the country the scientists made the mistake of storing the material in
an agricultural institute in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave
engulfed in vicious fighting since 1991. The Armenians first used the
agriculture station for their troop headquarters and before the Russians
ran them out, they cut down the orchard collection so the Russians
wouldn't have it for food. Then the Russians occupied the station and
all of the collection has been lost.

We are going to see more of this kind of thing in the years ahead. Who
knows what will be left of the genetic resources of the former
Yugoslavia when all the fighting is done? While we see the televised
carnage on the evening news, what we don't see is the silent erosion of
the genetic material that is taking place in the background. These are
varieties that might have helped save the world from famine.

N.I. Vavilov was probably the greatest plant collector the world has
ever known. He started his first collecting expeditions in 1908 and
before the second world war he had personally collected 165,000 seed
varieties. Vavilov taught there were "genetic homelands" for different
crops. Vavilov was one of the first ethno-botanists. He wasn't concerned
with just the seed; he also cared about the cultural context.

Vavilov was imprisoned right before World War II. He had come into
conflict with Stalin over the flawed genetics of a pseudo-botanist named
Lysenko.

During the 900 day siege of Leningrad 600,000 Russians died. People were
reduced to eating rats and glue from furniture joints and wall paper;
whatever they could find. During this time 14 scientists of the Vavilov
Institute died of starvation at their desks rather than eat any of the
tons of edible seed stored around them. They didn't think they had the
right to deprive the future of the genetic resources.

Seed Savers is funding collecting expeditions involving the scientists
at the Vavilov Institute. While Seed Savers has been very successful in
North America collecting heirlooms from a fragmented ethnic patchwork
surrounded by mechanized agriculture, there are areas of the world much,
much richer genetically. I started going to Russia in 1991 and I've made
nine trips to Eastern Europe since then. The extent of genetic resources
that still remains in the former Soviet bloc is pretty well dependent on
the extent of Stalin's collectivization efforts. In 1928 he began to
sweep the Soviet Union clean of peasants and landowners. He starved
millions to death in the Ukraine and shipped millions of others, mostly
farmers, to Siberia and let them die of starvation there. After he swept
the countryside clean he put huge collective farms in place; 50,000
acres; whole villages farmed them.

But there were places too rough for collective farms. In Romania only
half the farms were collectivized; in Poland only a quarter. In the
unaffected areas traditional agriculture goes back to the very beginning
with all seeds still being produced by gardeners and farmers. When you
have the type of situation with a really wet mountainous climate with
thousands of microclimates, the genetic diversity is just dazzling. But
what is happening right now is that agriculture technology is flooding
into these areas, along with American, Japanese and Dutch seeds. The
diversity is going to be gone so quickly it will be unbelievable.

We funded a woman who is head of the vegetable department at a Polish
university. She was wonderful. For $1500 she collected for 30 days in
the southern mountains, on the north side of the Carpathians. I know she
was just living in her car and eating sausage. She would go into remote
mountain villages and say, "I want you to introduce me to the old woman
who still supplies you with the old seeds." Invariably she'd find some
elderly woman who had huge collections of vegetable and flower seed. But
even in 1993 she was running into salesmen from Cargill selling rye and
other agriculture seeds door-to-door in the most isolated places.

This last May we carried in about $20,000 in hundred dollar bills to
fund three different collecting expeditions: the area around the Aural
Sea, the Volga Valley and in Ukraine against the backside of the
Carpathians.

Right now is a real critical time for all this material, whether you are
talking about heirloom varieties in the U.S. with older people on the
farms still maintaining seeds and all of the young people having moved
to the cities; or whether you are talking about half way around the
world where this material is going to be lost so quickly. This is all
the material we are ever going to have to breed food crops for the
future. Think of this as an evolutionary race with the plants in one
lane and pests and diseases in another. When we dose the plants with
massive amounts of pesticides we breed pesticide-resistant pests. We are
going to need all the genetic resources we can possibly muster to
overcome what we are going to face in the future. We really believe we
are stewards of an incredible heritage and its going to be disastrous if
all this material dies out in the next decade or so mainly because of
short term economic considerations. We would really be pleased if any of
you would like to join us to keep this material available.

Kent Whealy is the director of Seed Savers Exchange, a grassroots
network of over 7000 gardeners, farmers, orchardists and plant
collectors who maintain and distribute endangered vegetable and fruit
varieties. Kent has spent eight years developing Heritage Farm, an
educational facility near Decorah, Iowa that maintains and displays
extensive collections of heirloom vegetables, apples, hardy grapes and
rare live- stock. SSE's genetic preservation projects are the model for
similar projects and organizations in more than 30 countries. This
article is taken from his keynote address at the Tilth Producers Annual
Conference last November. Seed Savers Exchange, 3076 North Winn Road;
Decorah, Iowa 52101.



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:20:55 -0600
From: paul wheaton <paul@richsoil.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [permaculture] I was interviewed on national radio today
Message-ID:
<AANLkTi=jjiPakBeVQ00cVuSG8_DeCQ1msA7CymogtHYd@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

part of a program about sustainable agriculture

http://attra.ncat.org/audio/radio.php#8_10_10


------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:19:43 +0000 (GMT)
From: "wenshidi@yahoo.co.uk" <wenshidi@yahoo.co.uk>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] ethics and the First Earth Batallion
Message-ID: <506005.66174.qm@web25405.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Just a quick thanks to all the listers in this thread who have turned me on to Lt Col Jim Channon and the First Earth Battalion. Although the section about Earthworks in his field manual was quite short, the rest of the book was still fascinating. I am surprised more permies have not mentioned his name to me before. Certainly the biggest thinker that I have come across since I first discovered Bucky Fuller when I was a teen.

Thanks again.

Chris






------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:18:36 -0700
From: "Nicholas Roberts, Permaculture.coop"
<permaculturecoop@gmail.com>
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [permaculture] on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US
military)
Message-ID:
<AANLkTikvZD052rK_5J_+xs9y8zJLGOqyxpa08U1zB8Se@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

you might want to ask permaculture activist Joshua Fattal who has been
arrested by the Iranian government and accused of espionage whether it
would help him or others like him that "permaculture" is now
celebrated as a US army reserve "hearts and minds"
counterinsurgency/sustainment technique



? 1. Re: on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US military)
? ? ?(Toby Hemenway)



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.


as to whether the US military using "permaculture" and how that might
effect the social ecology for grassroots permaculture activists around
the world

"Josh was an old friend from the States who was just joining them in
the Middle East, and has been described as someone who is ?deeply
committed to issues of ecology and truly democratic politics,?
including ?issues such as sustainable agriculture, food justice, and
permaculture.?
http://www.counterpunch.org/amster05252010.html


as to the ethical question, its impossible for the Fair Share or
People Care ethic of permaculture to be fully satisfied by a military
industrial sustainability complex.

there is a big difference between permaculture fair share/people care
sustainability and a security state sustainment

the Marshall Plan was not the perfect military-industrial solution to
reconstruction of Europe, but it has set the model for sustainment...
first you destroy it, then you rebuild it with more perfect control...
the supply of logistics, infrastructure, engineering and materials is
sustainment.. via corporates and the army engineers


maybe also search for Human Terrain System and compare to US army
reserve permaculture

The Human Terrain System (HTS) was established to assists Army Brigade
and Marine Corps Regiment Commanders and their staffs in Iraq and
Afghanistan better understand local cultures and social structures to
improve their units' operational effectiveness. This is sometimes
referred to as 'Human Terrain Mapping' (HTM).[1] The HTS utilizes
personnel with BAs, MAs, and PhDs in a social science including
(anthropology, sociology, political science, geography), regional
studies, and lingustics. HTS provides military commanders and staff
with an understanding of the local population by conducting
participant observation and interviews. That information is
interpreted and archived in various cultural information and knowledge
databases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Terrain_System

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) is an independent ad
hoc network of anthropologists seeking to promote an ethical
anthropology.
http://sites.google.com/site/concernedanthropologists/

having said all this, Steve Cran (x AUS army), of Global
Sustainability Corps, does extreme permaculture in war/disaster zones
Timor, Uganda, Aceh working with former-combatants
http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org - have been suggesting he come to
the states and work with veterans and maybe the mil


its interesting to read the sustainment documents below and look at
the history of this kind of humanitarian imperialism .. also if you
read the book The Men Who Stare At Goats, it gives a disturbing take
on the original idealism of bringing the New Age to the US mil...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Earth_Battalion

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will
they train for war anymore. ? Isaiah 2:4 & Micah 4:3




from the US Military Doctrine*

Democratic Sustainment document
http://www.disam.dsca.mil/pubs/v.22_1/Ramsey.pdf

USA Counterinsurgency Doctrine
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

Sustainment document
http://www.tradoc.army.mil/PAO/viwebpage/Pam%20hq%20pdfs/FM%204_0%20single%20pg%20hq.pdf




i've written a bit about this in the past

Climate War: Apocalypse, Sustainment and Liberation
http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/climatewar/blog/2009/06/09/climate-war-apocalypse-sustainment-and-liberation/

Climate War: just as the Cold War subsumed and defined the peace after World
War 2, the Climate War subsumes and defines the period after the Cold War.
The Cold War ideology on the US side was anti-communism. The Climate War
ideology (shared by most central governments) is anti- environmentalism, with
communists being replaced with terrorists and increasingly eco- terrorists.
Green is the new red, the FBI?s most wanted is an eco-terrorist.
Insurgencies have always been embedded in a place, and so, in reality, all
terrorists are fighting for rights to control an environment. The Climate
War is the Cold War within the context of climate change, peak oil, peak
debt, indeed peak everything. The US framework for managing the world,
within the context of Climate War, is Sustainment.

Sustainment: sustainment is an extension of the military term describing the
supply and operations of maintenance to military operations. Sustainment is
military-industrial supplied sustainability.

In the latest US
Counter-Insurgency military doctrine, Sustainment leads all
counter-insurgency operations. Within the Human Terrain System, hearts and
minds are won by the the supply of infrastructure and utilities. Sustainment
leads operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ?civilian surge? is
sustainment. With the increasing instability of the climate system, the
global economic and geo-political system, sustainment will be supplied with
the strongest aspect of US national power; the military industrial complex.
Within the neo-liberal environment, the military-industrial compex is
increasingly privatised and fragmented.

As Noam Klein describes in Shock
Doctrine, disaster capitalism profits greatly from crisis, real or imagined,
and as the Climate War becomes the dominant organising principle for the
planet, through real and imagined crisis, sustainment supplied by
corporate-state military industrial system. This military industrial system
will seek to profit and expand from both the crisis of conflict, of
destruction of war and the maintenance of peace, and the rebuilding of
damaged systems.


------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 03:12:53 -0400
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US
military)
Message-ID: <4C624D75.9000108@bellsouth.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

On 8/11/2010 2:18 AM, Nicholas Roberts, Permaculture.coop wrote:
you might want to ask permaculture activist Joshua Fattal who has been
arrested by the Iranian government and accused of espionage whether it
would help him or others like him that "permaculture" is now
celebrated as a US army reserve "hearts and minds"
counterinsurgency/sustainment technique

Between a rock and a hard place kind of issue, eh?
Much better that permaculture is used and promoted by the military.
Its not the US military's fault but the Iranian government's.
For them to not use permaculture as a tool would be a win for the Iranians.

"Josh was an old friend from the States who was just joining them in
the Middle East, and has been described as someone who is ?deeply
committed to issues of ecology and truly democratic politics,?
including ?issues such as sustainable agriculture, food justice, and
permaculture.?
http://www.counterpunch.org/amster05252010.html

It is not the US' fault that Josh got caught by the Iranian fools. He
should not have let himself get into a vulnerable position or play a
Jesus Christ role to make his point; his fault entirely. That applies to
anyone in any country.

as to the ethical question, its impossible for the Fair Share or
People Care ethic of permaculture to be fully satisfied by a military
industrial sustainability complex.

That's totally politically correct ranting to hear yourself speak and is
completely untrue. See my comment above. Better that they not use and
promote PC at all eh? Ridiculous. You're just not thinking.

there is a big difference between permaculture fair share/people care
sustainability and a security state sustainment

There's nothing new about that and is all the more reason for the
military to use and promote permaculture as a tool for reaching
and connecting with the indigenous populations in the countries where
they are engaged militarily. The terrorist elements, like the morons in
Iran, would love for us to back off such a strategy.

the Marshall Plan was not the perfect military-industrial solution to
reconstruction of Europe, but it has set the model for sustainment...
first you destroy it, then you rebuild it with more perfect control...
the supply of logistics, infrastructure, engineering and materials is
sustainment.. via corporates and the army engineers

Maybe you'd like to explain that in full with accurate references.
Again, I think you're ranting to hear yourself speak as your comments
don't seem to add much to the discussion.

maybe also search for Human Terrain System and compare to US army
reserve permaculture

"
HTS is a new proof-of-concept program, run by the U.S. Army Training and
Doctrine Command (TRADOC), and serving the joint community. The
near-term focus of the HTS program is to improve the military?s ability
to understand the highly complex local socio-cultural environment in the
areas where they are deployed; however, in the long-term, HTS hopes to
assist the US government in understanding foreign countries and regions
prior to an engagement within that region.

* HTS was developed in response to identified gaps in commanders?
and staffs? understanding of the local population and culture, and its
impact on operational decisions; and poor transfer of specific
socio-cultural knowledge to follow-on units.
* The HTS approach is to place the expertise and experience of
social scientists and regional experts, coupled with reach-back,
open-source research, directly in support of deployed units engaging in
full-spectrum operations.
* HTS informs decision making at the tactical, operational and
strategic levels.
* The HTS program is the first time that social science research
and advising has been done systematically, on a large scale, and at the
brigade level.
"

I don't see anything wrong with this. I suppose you'd prefer they not
use PC or HTS at all?

The Human Terrain System (HTS) was established to assists Army Brigade
and Marine Corps Regiment Commanders and their staffs in Iraq and
Afghanistan better understand local cultures and social structures to
improve their units' operational effectiveness. This is sometimes
referred to as 'Human Terrain Mapping' (HTM).[1] The HTS utilizes
personnel with BAs, MAs, and PhDs in a social science including
(anthropology, sociology, political science, geography), regional
studies, and lingustics. HTS provides military commanders and staff
with an understanding of the local population by conducting
participant observation and interviews. That information is
interpreted and archived in various cultural information and knowledge
databases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Terrain_System

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) is an independent ad
hoc network of anthropologists seeking to promote an ethical
anthropology.
http://sites.google.com/site/concernedanthropologists/

having said all this, Steve Cran (x AUS army), of Global
Sustainability Corps, does extreme permaculture in war/disaster zones
Timor, Uganda, Aceh working with former-combatants
http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org - have been suggesting he come to
the states and work with veterans and maybe the mil

http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org/

its interesting to read the sustainment documents below and look at
the history of this kind of humanitarian imperialism .. also if you

Ridiculous statement, "humanitarian imperialism"; you sound like a
narrow minded anti establishment weenie with his mind conveniently all
made up with 100% anti-military bias. Maybe you need to break out of
that mold. I've known people like that and they never do anything where
he rubber meets the road, little more than puff more hot air and whine.

read the book The Men Who Stare At Goats, it gives a disturbing take
on the original idealism of bringing the New Age to the US mil...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Earth_Battalion

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will
they train for war anymore. ? Isaiah 2:4& Micah 4:3

from the US Military Doctrine*

Democratic Sustainment document
http://www.disam.dsca.mil/pubs/v.22_1/Ramsey.pdf

USA Counterinsurgency Doctrine
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

Sustainment document
http://www.tradoc.army.mil/PAO/viwebpage/Pam%20hq%20pdfs/FM%204_0%20single%20pg%20hq.pdf

i've written a bit about this in the past

Climate War: Apocalypse, Sustainment and Liberation
http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/climatewar/blog/2009/06/09/climate-war-apocalypse-sustainment-and-liberation/

Climate War: just as the Cold War subsumed and defined the peace after World
War 2, the Climate War subsumes and defines the period after the Cold War.
The Cold War ideology on the US side was anti-communism. The Climate War
ideology (shared by most central governments) is anti- environmentalism, with
communists being replaced with terrorists and increasingly eco- terrorists.
Green is the new red, the FBI?s most wanted is an eco-terrorist.
Insurgencies have always been embedded in a place, and so, in reality, all
terrorists are fighting for rights to control an environment. The Climate
War is the Cold War within the context of climate change, peak oil, peak
debt, indeed peak everything. The US framework for managing the world,
within the context of Climate War, is Sustainment.

Sustainment: sustainment is an extension of the military term describing the
supply and operations of maintenance to military operations. Sustainment is
military-industrial supplied sustainability.

In the latest US
Counter-Insurgency military doctrine, Sustainment leads all
counter-insurgency operations. Within the Human Terrain System, hearts and
minds are won by the the supply of infrastructure and utilities. Sustainment
leads operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ?civilian surge? is
sustainment. With the increasing instability of the climate system, the
global economic and geo-political system, sustainment will be supplied with
the strongest aspect of US national power; the military industrial complex.
Within the neo-liberal environment, the military-industrial compex is
increasingly privatised and fragmented.

As Noam Klein describes in Shock
Doctrine, disaster capitalism profits greatly from crisis, real or imagined,
and as the Climate War becomes the dominant organising principle for the
planet, through real and imagined crisis, sustainment supplied by
corporate-state military industrial system. This military industrial system
will seek to profit and expand from both the crisis of conflict, of
destruction of war and the maintenance of peace, and the rebuilding of
damaged systems.

And so your proposal is to DO exactly what? as opposed to wallowing for
more years in comfy, smug, self-serving
anti-war/imperialism/establishment/military rhetoric.



------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:33:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US
military)
Message-ID: <787778.71595.qm@web52602.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

The thing that Nicholas and others are missing the boat on completely is that permaculture, as a design science, TRANSFORMS SYSTEMS. Which means that if permaculture were truly applied to the US military, it would transform it into something completely different. It would no longer exist as it exists right now.

Start slow and small is a principle of permaculture. Transforming even one National Guardsman or US Army Corporal will create ripples and connections that can start undermining the unsustainable aspects of the system.

It is IRRELEVENT to Josh's cause whether permaculture is used by the army or not. All he has to do is tell people that it is a design science, that is apolitical, non-religious, and non-racist or classist and can be applied by any group - to the degree that it is applied, there will be LESS SUPPRESSION of those he is trying to help.

If he can't get that across, then the people he is working with DON"T UNDERSTAND PERMACULTURE. So what the hell is he doing then? He isn't doing anything with permaculture if the insurgents or whoever don't understand that it transforms systems. If they get hung up on the army using it, then they don't get it and wont' benefit from it anyway so he may as well give up.

Having worked in Haiti, Pine Ridge reservation, and South Central Los Angeles, I have found that activists working against oppressive systems have NO PROBLEM understanding how permaculture can benefit them regardless of who uses it. They do not get hung up or turn against it because some establishment figure uses the word for some reason. Jesus, give these people a little credit for having some intelligence, Nicholas. How stupid do you think they are that YOU have to protect them from misunderstanding the subject by denying others opportunity to learn the science? Why do you feel you have the right or authority to dictate personally who gets to have permaculture and who doesn't? Who are you to say who can benefit, who should benefit, or where it will do the most good?

Why don't you stick to getting it across to those you want to work with, and let other grown adults and responsible people do what they feel is right in their own hearts? It is truly arrogant for you (or anybody else) to second guess what a competent, experienced permaculturist like Scott, Toby, et al, is doing or why. It is quite a condescending attitude, and neglect of the first principle of permaculture which is OBSERVE THE SYSTEM. Look at the results before you jump to judgment of others. That is basic people care - your judgment of these men and what they are doing shows a lack of understanding of people care, from my viewpoint.

Best, Cory

--- On Wed, 8/11/10, Lawrence F. London, Jr. <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net > wrote:

From: Lawrence F. London, Jr. <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] on an ethics of Mr Pittman (and the US military)
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2010, 12:12 AM
On 8/11/2010 2:18 AM, Nicholas
Roberts, Permaculture.coop wrote:
you might want to ask permaculture activist Joshua
Fattal who has been
arrested by the Iranian government and accused of
espionage whether it
would help him or others like him that "permaculture"
is now
celebrated as a US army reserve "hearts and minds"
counterinsurgency/sustainment technique

Between a rock and a hard place kind of issue, eh?
Much better that permaculture is used and promoted by the
military.
Its not the US military's fault but the Iranian
government's.
For them to not use permaculture as a tool would be a win
for the Iranians.

"Josh was an old friend from the States who was just
joining them in
the Middle East, and has been described as someone who
is ?deeply
committed to issues of ecology and truly democratic
politics,?
including ?issues such as sustainable agriculture,
food justice, and
permaculture.?
http://www.counterpunch.org/amster05252010.html

It is not the US' fault that Josh got caught by the Iranian
fools. He should not have let himself get into a vulnerable
position or play a Jesus Christ role to make his point; his
fault entirely. That applies to anyone in any country.

as to the ethical question, its impossible for the
Fair Share or
People Care ethic of permaculture to be fully
satisfied by a military
industrial sustainability complex.

That's totally politically correct ranting to hear yourself
speak and is
completely untrue. See my comment above. Better that they
not use and promote PC at all eh? Ridiculous. You're just
not thinking.

there is a big difference between permaculture fair
share/people care
sustainability and a security state sustainment

There's nothing new about that and is all the more reason
for the military to use and promote permaculture as a tool
for reaching
and connecting with the indigenous populations in the
countries where they are engaged militarily. The terrorist
elements, like the morons in Iran, would love for us to back
off such a strategy.

the Marshall Plan was not the perfect
military-industrial solution to
reconstruction of Europe, but it has set the model for
sustainment...
first you destroy it, then you rebuild it with more
perfect control...
the supply of logistics, infrastructure, engineering
and materials is
sustainment.. via corporates and the army engineers

Maybe you'd like to explain that in full with accurate
references.
Again, I think you're ranting to hear yourself speak as
your comments don't seem to add much to the discussion.

maybe also search for Human Terrain System and compare
to US army
reserve permaculture

" ???
HTS is a new proof-of-concept program, run by the U.S. Army
Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), and serving the
joint community. The near-term focus of the HTS program is
to improve the military?s ability to understand the highly
complex local socio-cultural environment in the areas where
they are deployed; however, in the long-term, HTS hopes to
assist the US government in understanding foreign countries
and regions prior to an engagement within that region.

? ? * HTS was developed in response to identified
gaps in commanders? and staffs? understanding of the
local population and culture, and its impact on operational
decisions; and poor transfer of specific socio-cultural
knowledge to follow-on units.
? ? * The HTS approach is to place the expertise
and experience of social scientists and regional experts,
coupled with reach-back, open-source research, directly in
support of deployed units engaging in full-spectrum
operations.
? ? * HTS informs decision making at the
tactical, operational and strategic levels.
? ? * The HTS program is the first time that
social science research and advising has been done
systematically, on a large scale, and at the brigade level.
"

I don't see anything wrong with this. I suppose you'd
prefer they not use PC or HTS at all?

The Human Terrain System (HTS) was established to
assists Army Brigade
and Marine Corps Regiment Commanders and their staffs
in Iraq and
Afghanistan better understand local cultures and
social structures to
improve their units' operational effectiveness. This
is sometimes
referred to as 'Human Terrain Mapping' (HTM).[1] The
HTS utilizes
personnel with BAs, MAs, and PhDs in a social science
including
(anthropology, sociology, political science,
geography), regional
studies, and lingustics. HTS provides military
commanders and staff
with an understanding of the local population by
conducting
participant observation and interviews. That
information is
interpreted and archived in various cultural
information and knowledge
databases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Terrain_System

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists (NCA) is an
independent ad
hoc network of anthropologists seeking to promote an
ethical
anthropology.
http://sites.google.com/site/concernedanthropologists/

having said all this, Steve Cran (x AUS army), of
Global
Sustainability Corps, does extreme permaculture in
war/disaster zones
Timor, Uganda, Aceh working with former-combatants
http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org -
have been suggesting he come to
the states and work with veterans and maybe the mil

http://globalsustainabilitycorps.org/

its interesting to read the sustainment documents
below and look at
the history of this kind of humanitarian imperialism
.. also if you

Ridiculous statement, "humanitarian imperialism"; you sound
like a narrow minded anti establishment weenie with his mind
conveniently all made up with 100% anti-military bias. Maybe
you need to break out of that mold. I've known people like
that and they never do anything where he rubber meets the
road, little more than puff more hot air and whine.

read the book The Men Who Stare At Goats, it gives a
disturbing take
on the original idealism of bringing the New Age to
the US mil...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Earth_Battalion

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their
spears into
pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against
nation, nor will
they train for war anymore. ? Isaiah 2:4&?
Micah 4:3

from the US Military Doctrine*

Democratic Sustainment document
http://www.disam.dsca.mil/pubs/v.22_1/Ramsey.pdf

USA Counterinsurgency Doctrine
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

Sustainment document
http://www.tradoc.army.mil/PAO/viwebpage/Pam%20hq%20pdfs/FM%204_0%20single%20pg%20hq.pdf

i've written a bit about this in the past

Climate War: Apocalypse, Sustainment and Liberation
http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/climatewar/blog/2009/06/09/climate-war-apocalypse-sustainment-and-liberation/

Climate War: just as the Cold War subsumed and defined
the peace after World
War 2, the Climate War subsumes and defines the period
after the Cold War.
The Cold War ideology on the US side was
anti-communism. The Climate War
ideology (shared by most central governments) is
anti-environmentalism, with
communists being replaced with terrorists and
increasingly eco-terrorists.
Green is the new red, the FBI?s most wanted is an
eco-terrorist.
Insurgencies have always been embedded in a place, and
so, in reality, all
terrorists are fighting for rights to control an
environment. The Climate
War is the Cold War within the context of climate
change, peak oil, peak
debt, indeed peak everything. The US framework for
managing the world,
within the context of Climate War, is Sustainment.

Sustainment: sustainment is an extension of the
military term describing the
supply and operations of maintenance to military
operations. Sustainment is
military-industrial supplied sustainability.

In the latest US
Counter-Insurgency military doctrine, Sustainment
leads all
counter-insurgency operations. Within the Human
Terrain System, hearts and
minds are won by the the supply of infrastructure and
utilities. Sustainment
leads operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
?civilian surge? is
sustainment. With the increasing instability of the
climate system, the
global economic and geo-political system, sustainment
will be supplied with
the strongest aspect of US national power; the
military industrial complex.
Within the neo-liberal environment, the
military-industrial compex is
increasingly privatised and fragmented.

As Noam Klein describes in Shock
Doctrine, disaster capitalism profits greatly from
crisis, real or imagined,
and as the Climate War becomes the dominant organising
principle for the
planet, through real and imagined crisis, sustainment
supplied by
corporate-state military industrial system. This
military industrial system
will seek to profit and expand from both the crisis of
conflict, of
destruction of war and the maintenance of peace, and
the rebuilding of
damaged systems.

And so your proposal is to DO exactly what? as opposed to
wallowing for more years in comfy, smug, self-serving
anti-war/imperialism/establishment/military rhetoric.

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