permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

On 8/14/2010 11:42 PM, Jono Neiger wrote:
> Wow...well said Rafter. And I do appreciate Kevin and others for delving
> into this hard topic and sticking with it. We do benefit -as a movement if
> thats what this is-from the conversation.
>
> I do hear a need to clarify the ethics/values of this movement. I dont
> imagine a consensus arising so I dont know what this looks like. But there
> are communities that may be using permaculture strategies, using the name
> permaculture, and are definitely not within the ethics we hold to. Movements
> get co-opted, watered down, and infiltrated. One defense (besides our own
> military) is to be in discussion, move towards consensus, and know when its
> not permaculture.

Bringing the people/groups Kevin objects to "allowing in the 
permaculture movement" into the fold may well neutralize their
unpleasantness as opposed to excluding them and causing alienation,
giving them a reason to feel persecuted or discriminated against and 
making them worse and for a longer period of time.

I think a lot of the right wing fascists are more bark than bite as 
basically they are like everybody else with the same basic needs, i.e. 
they are more like sheep than wolves and there is no need to fear or 
resent them. By creating a regulatory "platform" excluding them you 
would only be doing exactly what you accuse them of, being 
discriminatory, narrow minded bigots.

White and blue collar workers who are the ones mostly associated with 
the right wing extremist/radical splinter groups Kevin refers to are the 
people who contributed the most to all the US war efforts and also 
started and kept alive the Victory Garden movement, farmland 
conservation, wildlife conservation, permaculture-like homesteading and 
so much more. Now is the time to bring them to permaculture, not 
alienate them. I very much object to Kevin's "proposal for new 
permaculture platform" to exclude them from the movement. Sounds just 
like something Stalin would have done, or any other totalitarian 
dictator. Such a proposal suggests some control freak on a power trip 
wanting to cause a lot of trouble for others. Time to wake up; we are 
seeing just this sort of behavior in US politics; witness SB 510, raids 
on health food stores and farms and who knows what is yet to come. We 
need to be inclusive as a permaculture community, not exclusive, seriously.