While the following was written in response to an e-mail from TrueMajority titled "Our plan for 2009" it is not just directed to TrueMajority; I'm not intending to pick on them (they're actually my personal favorite out of the bunch), because the following is also addressed to MoveOn, Codepink, Democracy for America, Progressive Democrats of America, and the dozens of others who believe that a little "progressive" reform around the edges, taken in slow and easy incremental steps, with heaping helpings of compromise with a system that is anathema to life itself constantly added to the mix, will be sufficient to stave off the collapse and chaos we're heading toward--which is being brought on by clinging to and legitimizing this mindset. Thus, this critique also fully applies to the mainstream environmental groups such as Sierra Club, WWF, NRDC, etc.
Sorry to be so blunt, but until the whole lot of you find the backbone to be honest about the blatant destruction caused by your corporate benefactors, and help dispel the myth that economic growth is necessary for prosperity and progress, your progressive and environmental ideals will remain unfulfilled.
On 29 Dec 2008 at 9:48, Matt Holland, TrueMajority wrote:
> Dear Dave,
>
> What a whirlwind year. In the past twelve months we celebrated
> the election of a new progressive President and witnessed an
> economic collapse brought about by a failed right wing ideology.
Dear Matt,
It would be a whole lot easier for me to support TrueMajority (or any of the other liberal/left issue advocate organizations--please don't feel like I'm singling you out) if it felt like any of you either understood the issues or were willing to support a realistic and viable alternative to their root cause.
Let's take the latest TrueMajority e-mail that triggered my response as a case study. First, Obama is not progressive. He is solidly middle of the road. He wouldn't have been vetted by the DLC for his presidential bid were he otherwise. Second, the economic collapse is the only logical outcome of the Ponzi scheme known as free-market capitalism; right-wing ideology merely hurried the collapse along by exposing its faults to the light of day in a manner that is hard to either ignore or deny. But blaming our current economic situation on the right or thinking that we can "green" economic growth merely shows that stupidity knows no political allegiance.
You almost always take the proper "progressive" stand on issues, but without ever acknowledging that each of these issues is a symptom of a failed cultural paradigm. It is a paradigm of domination; of hierarchies of control that function through power over an other that's assumed inferior. New issues will continue to emerge from this paradigm as long as the inherently faulty analysis of liberalism is being applied. While the left may be more compassionate than the right (speaking only of the political ideology, not the real people who get swept up in it), the fact that compassion continues to be necessary on such a wide-spread scale is proof that a fundamental problem remains--unexamined and thus unresolved.
There is at least one recognized but as yet not well known path to a sustainable future that is based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. As a further incentive in requesting your support to help publicize the alternative I advocate, a sustainable future based on these values will create a culture of peace, something both the political right and left insist they desire.
One core aspect of the process to blaze this path is known as relocalization. It includes the decentralization of vibrant and resilient local steady-state economies that exist in harmony with their bioregional ecosystems. Relocalized communities don't require growth in consumption or energy use to be considered healthy, i.e. they are powered down and prepared for the energy descent the world will be experiencing as the reality of Peak Oil settles in.
The other core aspect of creating a truly sustainable culture is overcoming our separation from the natural world--which includes each other. This entails reconnecting the human spirit and all the rest of our dozens of natural senses to their roots in both the creation and to the creative tendency of life itself to build and nurture relationships of mutual support that are conducive to life in its ever increasing diversity.
While this systemic alternative won't, indeed can't, support infinite economic growth or consolidation of power, it will create the foundation for the quality of life people all over the world say they want. Evidence for this claim can be found in the global acceptance of the values espoused by the Earth Charter. This systemic alternative is also the only rational response to catastrophic climate destabilization and the poisoning of the biosphere by industrialism that I'm aware of. If any of you should know of another, please quit keeping it a secret.
The alternative of reconnecting and relocalizing can create more opportunities to reach the potential the natural bounty a life-affirming planet assures any species that stays within its ecosystem's carrying capacity. This includes the opportunity we have to participate in the creation of sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities based on the natural systems principles from which sustainable ecosystems emerge. It presents a new way of being that is resonate with the natural creatures we actually are, instead of putting us in constant reaction mode to the toxic symptoms the status quo keeps handing us.
Doesn't it make more sense for a national organization such as TrueMajority to live up to its name and champion a different way of being that supports and provides for the majority?
Showing posts with label decentralization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label decentralization. Show all posts
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Friday, April 4, 2008
Relocalization Nuts and Bolts: Part Two of a Three Part Series
This month’s installment explains what relocalization means and what it offers. Next month I will describe what a relocalized economy might look here in the Southwest desert.
To appreciate the potential of relocalization, it is important to first understand that the status quo is causing our personal, social, and environmental crises. While we know that we’re quickly degrading our life support system with the business as usual approach of economic growth, we can’t say for certain how quickly this is occurring, which adverse impacts will reveal themselves first, or how disastrous these impacts will be. However, there is a large degree of agreement among scientists, and growing agreement among economists, that creating a carbon-cycle neutral economy, and making sure that all human activities and effects are included in evaluating that economy, should be our number one priority.
The real inconvenient truth is that the business as usual approach of infinite and unfettered economic growth has created both catastrophic climate destabilization and Peak Oil. Protecting this system worsens these crises, and attempts to reform a system based on faulty assumptions merely postpones the inevitable collapse. Therefore, we must approach change with a new way of thinking to create an alternative without these liabilities. Relocalization is a whole-systems approach to doing things differently -- a process to achieve sustainability.
Relocalization was developed as a response to global warming and Peak Oil. More than just a band-aid for these symptoms, however, it also seeks to address the environmental, social, political, and economic ramifications at the root of these crises. It includes the concepts that we must rebuild our local economies; recapture our sense of place; reclaim our sovereignty; and restore our community support networks.
From a natural systems perspective, a green economy is a local economy. By meeting the requirements to be sustainable from a bioregional carrying capacity perspective, a relocalized community is “naturally” healthy, vibrant, and resilient.
At its core, relocalization is a strategy to move production of food, goods and energy closer to the point of consumption to reduce dependence on long distance transportation and the whims of distant suppliers. The goal is to increase food and energy security, to empower local decisions in the development of currency, culture, and governance, and to restore ecological integrity and social equity.
If you’re familiar with the mission of anti-globalization activists who use localization to protect local economies and livelihoods from the slow drain of an export economy, relocalization goes a step further with a commitment to reduce consumption and improve environmental and social conditions. It is both antithesis and antidote to the emptiness and inherent inequity of corporate globalization.
Reducing consumption is, of course, directly at odds with a growth economy -- but this is not a call for an austerity program demanding great personal sacrifice and suffering. We can reduce consumption by sharing rarely used items with neighbors. We can reduce consumption by only purchasing items that are built to last and be easily repairable. We can reduce consumption by turning off the TV to decrease its stranglehold on our psyche with its mesmerizing story that popularity and self-worth is dependent on being a walking billboard for this season’s corporate fashion. By removing the need to work longer hours to buy all the stuff that never fulfills its promise to deliver happiness, we will have the time to do all those things that do bring happiness.
The reason all aspects of our society must be included in the task of relocalization is quite pragmatic. The ancient Greek oikonomia is the root of economics. It means the management of a household to increase value to all members over time. It is a systemic view that considers all the relationships -- natural, social, values, language, history -- that contribute to our stay as guests in Mother Earth’s home. Oikonomia looks at the social good, not just the parties to a transaction or claims of ownership of a natural resource.
Relocalization and decentralization are concepts that are feared by the ruling elite because it removes power and control from the hands of those who have become addicted, or think they are somehow entitled by birth, to wield it. This is why you hear about agrofuels and carbon capture, but not relocalization and powering down, on the 6 O’clock News. These latter concepts are ridiculed, marginalized, and said to be unmanageable for a mere “working class” either too stupid to take care of itself or without the capacity to understand how the bigger picture “really” works.
Well, the bigger picture works rather simply by the natural systems principles of mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity. It works by self-organizing attraction relationships that make everyone’s life better by making the whole better.
This is what life is all about, and relocalization seeks to return us to it.
~~~~~~~~~~
More information on relocalization can be found at the Relocalization Network, and you're invited to become involved with Tucson's relocalization group, Campaign For Our Lives.
To appreciate the potential of relocalization, it is important to first understand that the status quo is causing our personal, social, and environmental crises. While we know that we’re quickly degrading our life support system with the business as usual approach of economic growth, we can’t say for certain how quickly this is occurring, which adverse impacts will reveal themselves first, or how disastrous these impacts will be. However, there is a large degree of agreement among scientists, and growing agreement among economists, that creating a carbon-cycle neutral economy, and making sure that all human activities and effects are included in evaluating that economy, should be our number one priority.
The real inconvenient truth is that the business as usual approach of infinite and unfettered economic growth has created both catastrophic climate destabilization and Peak Oil. Protecting this system worsens these crises, and attempts to reform a system based on faulty assumptions merely postpones the inevitable collapse. Therefore, we must approach change with a new way of thinking to create an alternative without these liabilities. Relocalization is a whole-systems approach to doing things differently -- a process to achieve sustainability.
Relocalization was developed as a response to global warming and Peak Oil. More than just a band-aid for these symptoms, however, it also seeks to address the environmental, social, political, and economic ramifications at the root of these crises. It includes the concepts that we must rebuild our local economies; recapture our sense of place; reclaim our sovereignty; and restore our community support networks.
From a natural systems perspective, a green economy is a local economy. By meeting the requirements to be sustainable from a bioregional carrying capacity perspective, a relocalized community is “naturally” healthy, vibrant, and resilient.
At its core, relocalization is a strategy to move production of food, goods and energy closer to the point of consumption to reduce dependence on long distance transportation and the whims of distant suppliers. The goal is to increase food and energy security, to empower local decisions in the development of currency, culture, and governance, and to restore ecological integrity and social equity.
If you’re familiar with the mission of anti-globalization activists who use localization to protect local economies and livelihoods from the slow drain of an export economy, relocalization goes a step further with a commitment to reduce consumption and improve environmental and social conditions. It is both antithesis and antidote to the emptiness and inherent inequity of corporate globalization.
Reducing consumption is, of course, directly at odds with a growth economy -- but this is not a call for an austerity program demanding great personal sacrifice and suffering. We can reduce consumption by sharing rarely used items with neighbors. We can reduce consumption by only purchasing items that are built to last and be easily repairable. We can reduce consumption by turning off the TV to decrease its stranglehold on our psyche with its mesmerizing story that popularity and self-worth is dependent on being a walking billboard for this season’s corporate fashion. By removing the need to work longer hours to buy all the stuff that never fulfills its promise to deliver happiness, we will have the time to do all those things that do bring happiness.
The reason all aspects of our society must be included in the task of relocalization is quite pragmatic. The ancient Greek oikonomia is the root of economics. It means the management of a household to increase value to all members over time. It is a systemic view that considers all the relationships -- natural, social, values, language, history -- that contribute to our stay as guests in Mother Earth’s home. Oikonomia looks at the social good, not just the parties to a transaction or claims of ownership of a natural resource.
Relocalization and decentralization are concepts that are feared by the ruling elite because it removes power and control from the hands of those who have become addicted, or think they are somehow entitled by birth, to wield it. This is why you hear about agrofuels and carbon capture, but not relocalization and powering down, on the 6 O’clock News. These latter concepts are ridiculed, marginalized, and said to be unmanageable for a mere “working class” either too stupid to take care of itself or without the capacity to understand how the bigger picture “really” works.
Well, the bigger picture works rather simply by the natural systems principles of mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity. It works by self-organizing attraction relationships that make everyone’s life better by making the whole better.
This is what life is all about, and relocalization seeks to return us to it.
~~~~~~~~~~
More information on relocalization can be found at the Relocalization Network, and you're invited to become involved with Tucson's relocalization group, Campaign For Our Lives.
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