permaculture

[Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>]

Patrick, 

I hear you, thoughtful response. Though we can't depend on corporate CEOs and 
gov't hacks "getting it" I feel we can't afford not to try to reach them. The 
water scene in LA is a good case in point. I found that some of the city and 
state officials were quite hyper aware we need to change our water policies, 
because they've been briefed by scientists on just how dire the situation is, 
and they are genuinely scared. One energy official from the State of Calif 
explained the grim situation surrounding energy use and its impact on the 
environment and told people at a "Green building conference" that either we 
change how we use energy, or the State of California will make us. 
Immediately a couple people stood up and began to protest about their right 
to use as much energy as they wanted.  At a Green Building Conference!  So in 
that case, the gov't was much more conscious than the "greenies" attending 
the conference. 

Some of these guys are really alarmed about the situation - they know the big 
picture, they know how intensely vulnerable the water supply to 17 million 
people in the LA basin is, etc. They also know how much water we waste in the 
stupid canals that run our huge watershed supply straight out to the ocean 
instead of sinking into the aquifer which it used to do. They are struggling 
with the ignorance of the population, finance, political corruption, and 
other factors that prevent them from moving faster.  

There is obviously a difference between an invaded and occupied country, like 
Iraq, and Haiti, where the army went for "rescue" efforts. They aren't in 
Haiti to shoot people and they aren't under attack. We've created quite a 
mess in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, I would absolutely teach National 
Guardsmen going to Afghanistan permaculture if I had a chance. They will come 
back to the states, their term will be over, they may actually be put on 
rebuilding type duties there where they might do some good, which could 
alleviate some of the horrible stuff happening over there. And if even one of 
them truly gets it, he could be the "man who wouldn't eat soup" and create 
enough paradigm shift in his division that the "bad guys" would not be nearly 
as effective. I am definitely an optimist when it comes to the power of 
paradigm shifting realities.  

Yes, corporations will try to fit permaculture into their self-interested 
framework but it doesn't fit, and it will create "edge" and opportunity for 
pioneer ideas to creep in and gain foothold. I agree we need to make 
cooperative business, local economies, etc, a centerpiece of permaculture to 
counteract the monolithic tendencies of these beasts.  

I do not believe that assisting high poverty areas makes things worse. That 
hasn't been my personal observation at all. I do think that handouts without 
long term solutions are very harmful. But I question whether kind slave 
owners were the reason slavery persisted. It is still going on, as bad as in 
the 1800's, all over the world, but more covertly. I feel that slavery is 
some kind of deep seated human aberration that will take a lot of work and 
healing to solve (I say this as a former human rights activist who worked on 
human trafficking issues). 

Cory 

--- On Thu, 8/19/10, Patrick <forgeadams@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Patrick <forgeadams@yahoo.com>
> Subject: [permaculture] more ranting
> To: "permaculture listserve" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Thursday, August 19, 2010, 3:39 PM
> I just corrected a couple typos in
> the last email.
> 
> Corey said-In our PDC at Pine Ridge, isntructor Warren
> Brush just told a wonderful story about how an Iroquois
> managed to get an entire multinational corporation to change
> its policies about polluting water supplies simply by
> touching the heart of one person on its Board of Directors.
> Let's not underestimate the change that can be made by even
> one person making a real paradigm shift in his or her heart,
> in ANY organization.
> 
> Cory, you have some excellent point's. It was not my
> intention to over-generalize about the perils of working
> though existing institutions. I advocate integrating with
> existing social organization in lieu of new organization
> creation, NGOs & otherwise. 
> 
> The appropriateness of training active duty military is not
> a grey area. Permaculture is a matter of tempering pragmatic
> positivism with explicit ethics and design directives.
> Conversion of corporate executives is heartwarming and all.
> It has happend, but is not something anyone can depend on.
> Andy Lipkis talks about the transformation of the
> understanding of watersheds in the water bureaucracies in
> LA, including the Army Corps of engineers. I imagine you may
> be more familiar with that situation than myself.
> 
> Corey said-Ironically, one of the people (a Lakota warrior)
> who occupied Haiti earlier while in the US Army is now the
> head of the permaculture project we're partnering with at
> Pine Ridge reservation and will be hosting Haitians on his
> land at the reservation to learn broadscale ecological
> rehabilitation. 
> 
> That's an amazing story. I really want to see the project
> at Pine Ridge. Have you conversed with MCC? They are in
> Haiti for the long haul. Their agro-forestry nursery and dry
> toilet programs are spot on, your work may complement each
> others. Also, I know other folks working on SRI training in
> NE Haiti. Email offline if interested. If you (or others on
> this list) work in Haiti I suggest you read Stan Goffs's
> first two books, Hideous Dream and Full Spectrum Disorder.
> He was a Marine who "served" in Haiti and a number of other
> places. In the second book he teases apart leftist bias
> against service people, he's very astute. I can even loan
> the books to you if you like. I go down to LA fairly often.
> 
> 
> I am encountering more and more vets who have an interest
> in ecological transition (Jeff Vail in particular, 
> http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-06-30T10_38_57-07_00,
> http://www.jeffvail.net/). It's a refreshing
> counterpoint to the new age hippy dippy types that tend to
> become involved in permaculture. Mollison's curmudgeonly
> gripe about the bane of permaculture being relegated to
> sub-cultural fringes is spot on in my opinion. I believe
> it's essential that permaculturist vocationally train
> veterans. Dmitri Orlov talks about the need to create a
> place in society for these people. If we do not do so the
> informal economy will. Please ponder post-military
> employment opportunities in Mexico. As the american empire
> sinks we should expect a similar happening here. It's going
> to get gritty.  
> 
> Corey said-Perhaps we should give others credit for being
> able to differentiate. Those who can't or won't
> differentiate amongst individuals and individual acts may
> not be the best candidates to implement permaculture design
> in any case (regardless of whether they are army or
> insurgent). 
> 
> As for being attacked, which do you think puts Americans or
> Europeans (permaculturists or otherwise) at most risk in
> countries like Afghanistan?  An Army that is totally
> ignorant and destructive in its activites, ripping apart
> ecosystems that provide food and resources for people,
> creating non-sustainable systems, etc, or an Army that
> actually creates something that is useful to the local
> people, that lasts, that regenerates rather than destroys,
> and can be used by the people to forward their own aims and
> quality of life?
> 
> You can not green genocide. The principle at work in
> Afghanistan is care for pipeline, period. 
> 
> Rosemary (or others with similar experiences), if you any
> insight in to working within countries experiencing
> humanitarian intervention please chime in. I've never worked
> in a war-zone. I would prefer not to man-fact.  
> 
> "The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a
> basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic
> virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim.
> Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to
> their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system
> being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood
> by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of
> things in England, the people who do most harm are the
> people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the
> spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and
> know the life--educated men who live in the East End--coming
> forward and imploring the community to restrain its
> altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like.
> They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and
> demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a
> multitude of sins."-Oscar Wilde
> 
> Patrick O'Connor
> http://oaklandsol.org/wp/
> 
> 
> 
> 
>       
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