permaculture

[Lee Flier <leeflier@comcast.net>]

Wow.  I go out of town and come back to find this discussion going on.

If there's one thing I know about permaculture, it's that it requires us 
to begin where we are.  Zone 1 starts outside our front door.  It 
doesn't require that we wait until conditions are ideal before we act - 
in fact, it seems to require exactly the opposite.

Where we are now is that we have troops deployed in places where the 
land and people are extremely fragile.  While we Americans can certainly 
do other things at the ballot box and elsewhere to try to change that, 
right now this is where we are.  And if there's a chance of any lives 
being saved because our troops have some knowledge of permaculture, then 
it should absolutely be taught.  Would you advocate denying a soldier 
first aid training, which could save lives, because you disapprove of 
what that soldier is doing otherwise?  Because permaculture is first and 
foremost first aid for the earth.  We as permaculturists may be 
powerless for the time being to stop the damage of war entirely, but if 
there's any damage committed through ignorance that we can minimize, or 
any healing of the land or people that can be done if our troops just 
had a little knowledge, then I think it's imperative to teach our 
soldiers if we have the opportunity, as Scott does.  I think it's 
imperative in fact to teach anyone willing to learn, regardless of the 
compromised circumstances under which we all have to work.  Working to 
change the system from the inside is just as valid a pursuit as any 
other - and maybe more thankless since we often get flack from within 
our own ranks.