[Pil-pc-oceania] Permacultue and politics article on PIL web site

Sun Aug 12 13:01:22 EST 2007

Hi all,

OMG!

I have just read as much of Colin Ball's historical analysis as I can manage in one sitting; my stress levels nearly went through the roof. 
Is there to be a blogzine for reasoned responses to these antiquated marxist diatribes? 

After the wretched Great Global Warming Swindle, I have had more than my fair share of far left commentary on the biogeographical future of the planet. Cynical backward looking Marxist hysteria be damned. Communist nations didn't produce any less pollution than capitalist countries, as the Beijing Olympic Games will aptly demonstrate (more history in the making). Communist countries are just that much better at silencing debate and anti-govt activism (forget political activism, you get bumped off for that.  And Good old Fidel, for all his plusses, locked up everyone he didnt like, including gays.)  Political activism is, and will always remain, the elemental key to preserving essential freedoms, and the ONLY avenue for legislative change...it's time enough for that!.  There has never been a perfect benefic dictator!

Adelaide isn't known to be a parochial almshouse of the loony left for nothing.  But histories of worldwide green politics are far more elucidating to the forward thinking among us.  My mind boggles at the thought of someone actually arguing against the formation of a green political movement. Deciding not to do so oneself is one thing, but arguing against others doing it is unforgivable. But knowing SA as I do, I am not surprised that it came from here. Here, as elsewhere, the communist party split in the mid 80's when feminists and green thinkers exited, leaving behind a few hard liners, who claimed environmentalism was a ...capitalist plot!!. They should have known after 1968 that they were outdated and irrelevant.  Where are the hard liners now?

Coloin's avowed personal preoccupation, "writing history" is indeed what has been produced in this nicely bibliographed justification of his slanted viewpoint. 
But it is merely an attempt at a socio-intellectual rebuttal of an urgent need to move on and deal with political reality as it really is (and it is surely NO UTOPIA). 
You will not find anyone who has serioiusly engaged in our political processes who suggests that it is the path to utopia!  

But doing a Jethro Tull and living in the past is not an option.  Although former 80's SA Labor Premier John Bannon, groomed as the far more worthy Don Dunstan's successor, similarly spends his declining years as ...a professor of history at Flinders Uni, writing the history of Adelaide's Parklands among other things (quaint).  It's a fitting activity for the man who presided over the installation of the Roxby Downs (worlds largest uranium mine), the economic salvation of the otherwise declining SA state throughout the decadent, inflationary and unsustainable 1980's.  

30 years of inspired permaculture activism has done a lot to lead us in the right direction, and is to be applauded, but we urgently need more than a flange. 
We are running out of time for the organic, word of mouth, grow your own vegies approach...now we have climate change to deal with, practically unheard of in 1978..
We have not yet reached the vast majority, and it is the vast majority who need to be moved in the direction of sustainability. 

As in the past, speaking as an intending participant in future political activism, wherever it realistically and sanely manifests, 
I send a message to those who would try to sabotage genuine attempts to influence the formation of this or any other well-intentioned party:
Do not even think of turning up and wasting people's energy by engaging in time-wasting theoretical diatribes (such as the one Colin has written).  
Who said what, where, and whenever in the past, is academic, and totally irrelevant. By a democratic process known as consensus, you may well find yourself excluded.
But seeing as you are so far the most long winded detractor, I am relieved that you are so disinterested in politics (apart from writing) that you will not be engaging.
I recall that as a founding member of PASA, I left because a clause about having 50% female membership was rejected by Colin and his mates, putting up with being relegated to typing proposals, and occasionally coping with sexually harrassment (albeit not from Colin) at meetings. 

Colin, by all means continue to do what you do best, working on the edge of Goyders re-drawn line through the middle of the Clare Valley. 
Latest predictions say that after this current respite from a 10 years climate change induced megadrought, we are in for more, only much worse.  
And in your spare time, perhaps you should get real and read Australia's constitution and study what legal framework makes our government tick. 
Thats what we're stuck with, not Cuba's constitution. Parliament is the only place it can be altered.

Obsessing with the manifest flaws of the major parties, combined with diss-ing alternatives to them, is merely empty self prophecy. The high % of primary votes for major parties is slowly being whittled away, thanks to the rise and rise of the minor parties and independents, the diverse edge where modern democracy continues to thrive.
It isnt a sociology major that's required nowadays, it's a blend of law/ecology.

The future is arriving, whether your redundant historical theorising can assimilate it or not.  But why not file it away in the archive...for persual by academics and historians?.  If you cant handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.  

Deb Guildner
Adelaide

.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: timwinton 
  To: pil-pc-oceania list ; Trusties List 
  Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 9:26 PM
  Subject: [Pil-pc-oceania] Permacultue and politics article on PIL web site

  An in depth article on permaculture and politics titled "Permaculture Politics - New Pythagorean Links" has just been published on the PIL web site at http://www.permacultureinternational.org/Members/pacificedge/permaculture-politics-new-pythagorean-links
  "Synopsis
  This paper considers the history of the philosophical ideas and political connotations of the environmental design system called Permaculture by the co-originators Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.

  Analysis of Mollison and Holmgren's major publications show shared, joint themes; of a change philosophy from consumption to production, an ethical framework, a primary urban focus, the taking of personal responsibility, developing self-reliance and regional self-sufficiency, creating  eco-communities and intentional global affiliations.

  Mollison posits that a new tribalism would become politicised through local lobbying, or by forming the party.  He describes bioregionalism organisation as this new model and possibility.  Is a resource index of ten primary categories a political agenda?"

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