building resilient societies

The Problem is the Solution: how Permaculture-Designed Household Isolation can Lead to RetroSuburbia

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A home-based lifestyle of self-reliance, minimal and slow travel does not provide protection against getting a virus as infectious as COVID-19, but it provides a base for social distancing and isolation that is stimulating and healthy rather than a place of detention.

John’s Interim Program for a New World

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Since April 1 in some parts of the world is a traditional day for playing tricks and elaborate jokes (mostly on one’s friends), I found myself musing about the world I would like to see and had some fun taking about five minutes to jot down the following list (without rethinking it and in no particular order, except for the final line) in about five minutes.

Coronavirus Spells the End of the Neoliberal Era. What’s Next?

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We are all inside the crucible right now, and the choices we make over the weeks and months to come will, collectively, determine the shape and defining characteristics of the next era. However big we’re thinking about the future effects of this pandemic, we can think bigger.

Hello? Is There Anybody Out There?

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With the coronavirus pandemic stalking the asylum seekers waiting nervously in camps and shelters all along the border and in the overcrowded jail cells of the US justice system, inspiration from the border is very hard to come by these days. Thanks to the Angry Tías and Abuelas for shining a light in the darkness, and to London journalist Sarah Towle for sharing their story, and other tales of humanity and heroism from her 2,000-mile journey along the US-Mexico Border.

Coronavirus and the Three Bears (Episode 18 of Crazy Town)

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Here at Crazy Town headquarters, we’ve been calling for pretty drastic changes to the economy to make it fair, resilient, and sustainable. But changes don’t materialize just because you want them–usually you need a crisis to get people thinking and acting differently.

Coronavirus: the Need for a Progressive Internationalist Response

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This pandemic health crisis exposes the injustices of the global economic order. It must be a turning point towards creating the systems, structures and policies that can always protect those who are marginalised and allow everyone to live with dignity.

The Horror Films Got it Wrong. This Virus has Turned us into Caring Neighbours

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There is no guarantee that this resurgence of collective action will survive the pandemic. We could revert to the isolation and passivity that both capitalism and statism have encouraged. But I don’t think we will.

Nafeez Ahmed on Synchronous Failure and Post-Pandemic Systems Change

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How many recognize that this pandemic—or some other shock to our interconnected and brittle global systems—could trigger a massive “phase change,” and utterly remake the world as we know it?

I spoke with investigative journalist and systems thinker Nafeez Ahmed about these critical questions.

Commoning as a Pandemic Survival Strategy

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 Commoners and allied movements, disillusioned liberals and social democrats, people of goodwill must thwart the many retrograde dangers that threaten to surge forward under the cover of fear. But we must also, simultaneously, demonstrate the feasibility of new forms of commoning, infrastructure, finance, and commons/public partnerships. Rarely have needs and opportunities been so aligned!

No New Normal

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The greatest enclosure of the commons is that of the mind: our capacity to imagine better worlds, to be kinder to each other and to the Earth. This will not be an easy or straightforward process. We need to hold each other through the loss and pain. We need to keep finding the others among all of us, until there are no more.