[Pil-pc-oceania] Permaculture People's politics

[Dick Copeman]

G'day,

I believe that forming a new political party to promote permaculture will
not work and will take energy from where it is needed most, at the
grassroots, building our presence and influence on the ground in local
communities.

Political parties and their politicians who seek to have their say in a
representative democracy can never, by definition, promote new agendas; they
can only represent already established groups of people. In other words,
successful political parties can only represent people, not ideas. It took
100 years from the formation of the first unions for the Labor Party to
emerge as an effective political force. The Greens have struggled to
establish themselves, mainly because they do not have a big enough
constituency whose interests they represent.

Permaculture is going pretty well in slowly building our own constituency,
and the pace is picking up, but we still have a long way to go. Once we have
a big enough constituency, a successful Permaculture Party may well evolve,
but we are a long way short of that point yet.

I agree with Robyn that rather than a political party, we need some form of
national grouping that has enough surplus to put time and energy into
advocacy and influencing policy at all levels. But I don't think we should
rush that one either. As we continue to build from the grass roots, the
links and networks and advocacy are gradually evolving.

Let's not get too hung up on the role of governments. Sure they do have a
big influence on what happens, but only by default because the grassroots
are weak. In the Solomons, when the government collapsed a few years ago, I
have heard life in many of the rural areas actually improved in many
respects.

Dick

Dick Copeman
17 Lindon St, Dutton Park  4102
Ph 07 3255 0731, Mob 0439 728 992, Fx 07 3411 5530

-----Original Message-----
From: pil-pc-oceania-bounces at lists.permacultureinternational.org
[mailto:pil-pc-oceania-bounces at lists.permacultureinternational.org]On Behalf
Of pacific-edge
Sent: Wednesday, 4 July 2007 9:38 AM
To: pil
Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] Permaculture People's politics

Hi

Great discussions over this issue. I only get to look at the discussion now
and again on Russ's emails. I'd really miss the conversation if it went onto
another listserv. I tend to hit the delete button if I'm not interested in
the conversation.

Like most issues there is a flurry of discussion then it dies down.

It was great to here from Colin Ball on this issue. He and his team gave an
workshop on their urban permaculture work in SA at the 1984 International
Permaculture Conference. They inspired me to be involved in permaculture so
thanks Colin.

...Fiona


On 4/7/07 7:54 AM, "kerry dawborn" <kdawborn at bigpond.com> wrote:

> Well, I'm very grateful to Fern for cross-posting between the lists, and
> I agree with Ian that it would be a good idea to have a dedicated
> discussion forum for ppp stuff. I have no idea how this can be done or
> where to begin, but I'm willing to work with others on it. For now will
> watch and see what happens...
>
> cheers,
>
> Kerry
>
> permaculture at apollobay.org.au wrote:
>> Well, I know for me, it just creates more emails... that's why I'm only
on
>> the PIL list serve... (oh, and a couple of others like the Food Security
>> Network...)
>>
>> PRI/ Geoff Lawton's site is not a list serve, it's a internet forum where
>> you can visit and look at the posts whenever you like, instead of having
>> your inbox full of list serve emails.
>>
>>> From what I see, there is a strong division between those who know and
use
>> the PIL list serve and those who use PRI's discussion forum.
>>
>> Tamara first posted the PPP thing on the 24th of May.  It wasn't brought
up
>> on the PIL list serve until I posted it on June 29th (and no one from the
>> PIL list serve seemed to have heard about it).
>>
>> There is a strong need for the permaculture network to be more united,
more
>> aware of each other and of the history of permaculture, and not just the
>> history according to one person, but to have history from all it's
aspects.
>>
>> PcM when it had it's 25th birthday the other year, was going to publish a
>> book on it's history... from what I know, interviews were undertaken,
>> articles were written, but the book didn't eventuate.
>>
>> I've posted the load of PPP posts from the this list serve onto PRI's
forum
>> site.
>> I've pointed to those interested, to join the PIL list serve... but maybe
>> they don't won't to have their inbox full of PIL list serve.  I won't be
>> doing any more cross posting or joining another list.
>>
>> Cheers!
>> Fern
>>
>> Original Message:
>> -----------------
>> From: Ian Lillington livpermaculture at internode.on.net
>> Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 22:39:24 +0950
>> To: permaculture at apollobay.org.au,
>> pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
>> Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] Permaculture People's politics
>>
>>
>>
>>> What! another bl**dy list!
>>>
>>
>> i don't see lists as at all fragmentational.  I am sure
>> there are many users of both lsits who don't want to read
>> any of this political debate.  why not have one cohesive
>> place for it?  especially as most posts are lengthy.  If
>> soemone wants the role of forwarding posts across both lsits
>> that's fine by me, but i'd ask again, why not a new spot for
>> this list .  Saves a lot of cross-posting.
>>
>> Ian
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>> mail2web LIVE  Free email based on Microsoft(r) Exchange technology -
>> http://link.mail2web.com/LIVE
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Pil-pc-oceania mailing list
>> Pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
>> http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/mailman/listinfo/pil-pc-oceania
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Pil-pc-oceania mailing list
> Pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
> http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/mailman/listinfo/pil-pc-oceania


_______________________________________________
Pil-pc-oceania mailing list
Pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/mailman/listinfo/pil-pc-oceania