Monkeywrench The Machine With La Vida Loca

Another winner from the irrepressible Joe Bageant. And another reminder from me to tune in(to the green subculture and tribal resurgence), turn on (to the spiritual and your Higher Power) and drop out (of the rat race). I also plead with you to stop using the word consumer to refer to people. Use citizen, person or worker instead. The word consumer has a lot of negative baggage, and it is the result of a concerted ad campaign of dark intent and dubious integrity. It is demeaning. (BBC's The Century of the Self argues -- quite successfully -- that we have all been brainwashed to see ourselves as consumers first. It documents how capitalists and politicians in the US and in Great Brittan used psychological warfare to turn the masses in the US and UK from seeing themselves as workers to seeing themselves as buying machines. Freud, his daughter Anna and his diabolical nephew Edward Bernays -- who according to the documentary founded the profession of public relations -- are the villains in this evolving story.)

"But you won't hear anyone complaining. America doesn't like whiners. A whiner or a cynic is about the worst thing you can be in the land of gunpoint optimism. Foreigners often remark on the upbeat American personality. I assure them that our American corpocracy has its ways of pistol whipping or sedating its human assets into the appropriate level of cheeriness."

Our Produce-or-Die Culture Is Killing Us -- And We're Idiotically Grinning and Bearing It by Joe Bageant

Permaculture and You

So far my only notable experiment in permaculture has been a spouse-sabotaged disaster: I planted Jerusalem Artichokes, which came back and were fruitful and multiplied over several years, but my dear husband thought looked "ratty". They eventually fell prey to his prejudice against their appearance, to my deep sorrow and frustration. I was tempted to split the sheets over it. To me they look like lovely tall sunflowers, but hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? We do have a tiny pear tree and a wee baby plum tree in the backyard, which have survived several Nebraska winters and should be about ready top fruit next year, if they survive this winter which Farmer's Almanac is predicting shall be unusually cold.

Here's a really good read on perhaps the most important thing any of us can do to help ourselves, our neighbors and the earth.

From oftwominds.com by Noah Cicero

QUOTE This is why Permaculture is a revolution. It is people working together to bring back agriculture to the normal people. The group dynamic has been lost during three hundred years of industry and capitalism. But we can regain it. We can regain a sense of unity, of control over our lives.
There is an alternative resource, it is YOU! YOU are the alternative resource that can produce your own food. And if all YOU, view yourself as a person that can produce YOUR food, and create YOUR own world. Then you have a collection of YOUs, which make a group. Which make a TEAM. And what do you have then? UNITY.
The problem isn't Peak Oil or inflation or The Republicans or The Democrats or the big oil companies or Saudi Arabia. The problem is that YOU think you can't do it. YOU think you can't do it because all your life people have been telling you to listen to the television for answers, to listen to politicians for answers, to listen to advertising for what to buy and where to go. YOU can tell yourself what to do.
Get out there. Stop constantly reading Peak Oil articles being paranoid, stop being angry about oil companies or Republicans. YOU don't need them. Take control of the situation. Google your city and the word permaculture or grow or garden. Find those people, join them if you know how to garden, learn from them if you don't. Figure out what grows best and can be preserved through the winter. Stop planting stupid ornamental trees and grow some fruit trees in your yard. Instead of letting your kids play video games all day. Get their asses up and have them help you work on the garden. UNQUOTE

Good advice.

LINKS

Lincoln Green Scene

Community Crops

Transition U.S.

A White House Organic Veggie Garden!

John Adams is smiling broadly from the great beyond, as is Jefferson. How sweet is this? The First Family is planting a veggie garden! Cilantro, tomatillos and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. Spinach, chard, collards and black kale. A patch of berries. And herbs for seasoning. A White House carpenter, who is also a beekeeper, will tend two hives for honey. What fun!

QUOTE Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot, in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. (It is just below the Obama girls’ swing set.)
Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs. Virtually the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said with a laugh. “Now Grandma, my mom, I don’t know.” Her mother, she said, will probably sit back and say: “Isn’t that lovely. You missed a spot.”

Whether there would be a White House garden had become more than a matter of landscaping. The question had taken on political and environmental symbolism, with the Obamas lobbied for months by advocates who believe that growing more food locally, and organically, can lead to more healthful eating and reduce reliance on huge industrial farms that use more oil for transportation and chemicals for fertilizer.

Then, too, promoting healthful eating has become an important part of Mrs. Obama’s own agenda. UNQUOTE

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Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the full light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - the light that guides your way. ~ Heraclitus