Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Now that the current phase of the Occupation movement—one that involved camping out in public places—is drawing to a close, thoughts turn to other, even more effective venues and exploits. Occupying the front lawns of mansions owned by the 1% would certainly send a message, although a very brief one, since trespassing happens to be illegal.
And then it hit me: Occupy flotillas floating up to crash swank exclusive seaside gatherings.
…This turns out to be one of the key aspects of relocalization, new forms of local investment that “catalyze the transition from a commerce of extraction and consumption to a commerce of preservation and restoration.” This means, especially, investing in local farming, and in the enterprises that are needed to support a healthy food and farming system. Woody Tasch is teaching us about “Restorative Economics,” following the core principles of carrying capacity, cultural and biological diversity, sense of place, care of the commons, and nonviolence. This may be one of the most significant economic visions to land on this planet in recent decades. It’s radical, truly revolutionary, and you need to read it. Fortunately, you’ll love reading it. It’s pure inspiration, and highly poetic.
– 2012=1968? (good article)
– Organizing Principles for 99 Percent Clubs
– Arundhati Roy: ‘The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution’
– NYT: Camps Are Cleared, but ‘99 Percent’ Still Occupies the Lexicon
– Why Naomi Wolf got it wrong
Old school letterpress printers Hatch Show Print of Nashville, Tennessee have been in continuous business since 1879. They do everything by hand from carving plates to setting type to inking and then hand cranking their print rollers. Their business model offers an excellent example of the kinds of jobs of the future communities need in addition that go beyond food production and farming.
We live in a fragmented landscape. This would matter a lot less if human populations were sparse and ecosystems across the globe were in a healthy state. However, the exact converse is the case today: human numbers have exceeded seven billion with the fastest rates of growth in developing and often already environmentally-stressed countries, and the UN’s authoritative Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provides solid evidence that virtually all major habitat types across the planet are substantially degraded with alarming implications for their continued capacity to support human well-being into the long-term future.
They clearly do not want us in the parks. That much is clear after a national crackdown on park occupations throughout the United States. With violent police interventions from Portland to Oakland to Philadelphia to New York (and a lot of other places), this particular tactic may have run its course as the spatial organizing principle, at least for now. We’re also headed into December, and in New York at least, an outside occupation was going to go the way of Valley Forge. So rather than be demoralized, I’d like to see our removal from the parks as an opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, police beating people is never “a good thing,” but it forces us to imagine other ways to channel this energy. Here are some ways people have thought of occupations beyond the park.
Tested in lion country in the African bush, Allan Savory is still in the top 11 for the $25 million dollar Virgin Earth Challenge to find a harmless way to remove carbon from the atmosphere. In Vermont, carbon farmer Abe Collins follows that lead. Then we hear how to create a functioning local food system – even in hard times. North Carolina county organizer Aaron Newton was recorded at ASPO 2011 in D.C. All this new agriculture can function in a super-low oil economy – but can we handle change?
The fact is our rulers, gods or government, corporate CEOs, the 1%, however you like to look at it, want to keep the fire for themselves. They like to govern over the people, but they do not like the people. They do not like you. Some part of you doesn’t like you either. That’s the hard part. Psychologists and mystics can chip away at that part for years, and yet the only thing that transforms us is doing the one thing it is terrified of: connecting with the heart.
Mop and vinegar spray in hand, cleaning up and restoring household order after two Thanksgiving feasts (one with my family, and another with my dh’s extended family), a multitude of seasonal reflections tumble out…
Inspired in turn by Swift, I want to suggest that we put in motion a similar undertaking: on January 16th, Martin Luther King Day, citizens from around the country should gather at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. Let’s call this macabre gathering — with luck and even worse times, it should be mammoth — “We Surrender” or “Restore Debtor’s Prisons” or “De-Fault Is Ours” or “Collateralize Us.” And plan on a mirthful day of mourning.
A group of low-income San Franciscans has come up with a positive, long term solution to the housing crisis that is causing millions of Americans to be evicted and some to embrace the “Occupy Homes” movement: buy the buildings. In October 2011, residents of the Columbus United Cooperative (CUC) in San Francisco celebrated final approval of the ownership of their building as a permanently affordable, resident-owned limited-equity housing cooperative. The residents can now purchase “shares” in the co-op for only $10,000 in the heart of San Francisco (where housing starts at $500,000) to become cooperative homeowners, though most earn less than 50 percent of area median income.
It’s a brisk Autumnal Monday morning. I’m at Edible Landscapes London, an offshoot of Transition Finsbury Park. This is the cutting edge of no-dig, agroforestry, predominantly perennial and definitely low-maintenance gardening and our practice challenges conventional gardening wisdom. I’m talking about deeply ingrained habits of digging and tidiness. Tell a trad gardener that they’re working too hard, that they don’;t need to dig every year or remove every weed to the compost heap and it’s like whipping the (strictly manicured) lawn from under their feet. They wince and clutch onto the spade handle more tightly.
