Hi Brian,
Never had a mangle wurzel but growing pumpkins is fun and we should all now seek to plant a few more trees each year. ( I used to be a temporary assistant gardener at Manchester University and the trees I planted then have grown to the skies)....*
Most of the academics I know are working harder and longer than ever..and in the peace research field, this has become the busiest period of our lives.
What is unfolding in the Middle East is an astonishing affirmation of a Muslim's Peoples power and they have been consciously using Gene Sharp's works on non-violence as well as adopting current tactics of exploring how the social networking media can obviate state censorship. We can learn from them and nature. Last week I showed our first year students a TV programme on swarming and how naturally animals, birds and insects swarm to avoid vicious predators. It needed no analysis - the students could witness how difficult it was o pick off individuals in the mass with any degree of inpugnity. We don't have the full stories of citizen bravery from Libya yet but enough has emerged to demonstrate people's unbelievable courage in facing down ruthless mercenaries and overwhelm them at some considerable human cost.
I'm convinced now that the major eco problem is western civilisation and its temporary dominance of our collective consciousness. Any tinkering and geo-engineering designed to support its continuance is in my view akin to providing arms to Gaddafi. The alternatives are barely discernable. Most of us on his site rightly wearout our brains examining the scientific and technical dimensions and are perplexed by what can only be viewed in retrospect as corporate-political folly. The Libya analogy with a grim maniac and his dynasty grimly hanging on to power no matter what the cost to ordinary Libyans can easily be transferred to the climate change challenge... I think what we are about to see in his spate of new and unanticipated spasm wars in a need to make connections and work out which side of the power equations we are on and offer support. More than anything now we need a dialogue between the civilizations and cultures to make common cause. What we can expect in the first stages is a dialogue of bullets and structualy many personal and professional pensions in the UK will depend on Britain's role as the No 2 arms dealer. Maybe Caroline Lucas is right when she says that only the Green Party in he UK has an adequate moral agenda to make a workable future? But the alarm buttons ringing in my brain is not that the economic crisis is equivalent to ecological crisis but that it represents a security crisis too. Raw fear can propel people into learned helplessness as their "happysville" dreams are corroded and that makes many of us ripe candidates for manipulation in the securitization of almost eveythin.
Steve
* Or we could be inspired to watch V for Vendetta again .....
________________________________________
________________________________________
From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Brian Orr [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 26 February 2011 11:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Economic Crisis <----> Ecological Crisis
Hi Steve,
Very interesting reply to my three hour day proposal. (Three hour week
an even more interesting proposal,
presuming that one could put in the remaining three hour days, less
Sunday, working for oneself - growing mangel-wurzels
perhaps.)
You are right, of course, that even as the world literally crumbles as
it's tectonic plates groan under the mega-forces
of climate change and the weight of the oceans increases the pressures
on what we refer to as 'solid earth', the political,
economic and social forces will still be embroiled in continuous
struggles for some person's, or some group's or some nations
supremacy.
Black and red ants fighting it out on a log floating down a river a
few hundred yards from a waterfall.
More and more frequently I hear reference being made to most of the
mega-problems we face being 'structural'. In Tunisia,
Egypt, Libya??? we've seen the basic controlling structure being
brought down. Will our Arab cousins seize an opportunity
to create a model that will give the rest of the world's 'put upon'
hope, or will the way nature seems to have programmed us
throw up another variation on the theme that has brought the rest of
us to the end of the current road?
Brian
On 25 Feb 2011, at 13:47, Wright, Steve wrote:
> Hi Brian,
>
> I truly love British eccentricity...but the events are actually
> processes..and delightful though it might be to share our working
> hours..the rest of the world will not forget how we got our ill
> gotten colonial gains and infrastructure. The Chinese still remember
> that we were willing to addict their populations to opium for a
> quick profit and now it is their turn at empire building. And the
> only way to buy off their masive poor peasant base outside of he big
> mega cities is expand, expand, expand, growing imperials supply
> arteries te way through infrastructure building in Africa, Asia and
> even the West.
>
> Americans might even relish a three hour week if their economy loses
> its wizard of oz chimera and the rest of the global community sees
> it as a failed state with a zillion dollar national debt. The
> processes have a momentum of their own and tinkering wont do the
> job.... If our role as watchers for the time being is to bear
> witness to some historic tectonic changes in the Middle East then go
> figure....Why would a peacemaking PM go with an entourage of arms
> dealers whilst British stun grenades, plastic bullets and machine
> guns teach people on the streets lessons in the current morality of
> international relations. Lets squirm as cabinet ministers try to
> defend and explain away the fact that the UK is no,2 arms dealer
> after the US and the weapons are largely used against non state
> actors and most of the victims will be civilians. Watch the fuel
> price rises over the next few weeks create demands for strategic
> intervention in the oil producing states and spot the patterns.
>
> Even if we altruistically started to share our "benefits" as
> workers, one major terrorist attack on strategic assets in a
> Western city would see it all undermined as military, police and
> intelligence budgets siphon resources out of the wider economy at
> every level to pay for it. My guess is it is time to stop being
> passive spectators and join the growing army of public and private
> sector workers who say along with their Middle eastern compatriots,
> up with that I shall not put...as the recent library demonstration
> shave demonstrated, all generations can participate in social
> resistance, even if it is in three shift patterns. Even us
> eccentrics are going to be forced to learn the new syllabus of
> political jiu-jitsu -
> Steve
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [[log in to unmask]
> ] on behalf of Brian Orr [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 25 February 2011 11:21
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Economic Crisis <----> Ecological Crisis
>
> To the two Christophers,
>
> In the medium term, say, a 10 year time horizon, this debate will just
> be history because events*, dear boy, events*, will
> have taken over: finding a way to survive will have displaced
> consumerism for the vast majority of us. (Some may be
> in a position to retreat into gated communities paying for armies and
> serfs out of their ill-gotten gold.)
>
> The only worthwhile question relating to the last 50 years of
> economic/
> ecological folly is why were 99% of us taken in by the
> insanity on offer. Was it that we were too stupid, or that we didn't
> think, or that we weren't taught to think?
>
> In the short-term, the next two to five years, we will be engulfed in
> accommodating the mad axe-man "Camersborne"
> where the name of the game should be sharing out the work-load as
> fairly as possible, meaning shorter hours. Factories
> and offices could still operate 18 hours a day, but based on 6 hour
> shifts, or if the country's economic competitiveness really
> drops precipitously,we could have 3 hour shifts. Would mean a lot of
> people moving hither and thither - on their bikes - but the
> main problem for public transport for the moment is peak-hour travel.
> Problem divided by 3 if my brain-wave is implemented!!!
>
> Brian Orr
>
> *Anybody willing to take odds of 10 to 1 that we'll have lost the
> Arctic by 2020?
>
> On 25 Feb 2011, at 10:14, Christopher Shaw wrote:
>
>> Agreed. The issues are very simple, a real no brainer. The research
>> shows stuff does not make you happy. The research shows more equal
>> societies are happier societies.
>>
>> The only question is how to make the elites surrender their power
>> and privileges and end the ceaseless propaganda onslaught designed
>> to shield these facts from the non-sociopathic mass of humanity.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> ] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: 25 February 2011 09:50
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Economic Crisis <----> Ecological Crisis
>>
>> I think the essence of the problems we face is the nature of
>> production. If you have a look at the film 'The story of stuff' it
>> shows how "our enormously productive economy demands that we make
>> consumption our way of life".
>>
>> And we have to design stuff to be obsolescent, either through
>> technological means, or through fashion etc.
>>
>> We could instead produce stuff which lasted for generations, and have
>> more than enough for our material needs by working much shorter
>> hours.
>>
>>
>>
>> Our children our now being deserted by both parents, who are out
>> working making profits for the capitalists, with the result we have
>> the
>> unhappiest children in the developed world. This is not to advocate
>> women being chained to the kitchen sink again, but both parents could
>> work part time, so people could spend more time on their own
>> interests,
>> and seeing more of their friends and family, rather than owning more
>> stuff
>>
>>
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>>
>>> ----Original Message----
>>
>>> From: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>> Date: 24/02/2011 10:15
>>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>> Subj: Re: Economic Crisis <----> Ecological Crisis
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Have a look at this ten minute film. It might be a good starting
>> point: http://www.workersoftheworldrelax.org
>>>
>>
>>> T
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [mailto:CRISIS-
>> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Luis Gutierrez
>>> Sent: 24 February 2011 08:03
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> UK
>>
>>> Subject: Economic Crisis <----> Ecological Crisis
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Would this be the right place to have a discussion on the current
>>
>>> economic crisis and the impending ecological crisis?
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Can anyone recommend a good comparative analysis of both? I am
>> looking
>>
>>> for a good synthesis or survey-type paper, 5000 words or so, that I
>>
>>> could publish/reprint in my modest e-journal.
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Luis T. Gutiérrez, PhD, PE
>>
>>> The Pelican Web of Solidarity and Sustainability
>>
>>> Mother Pelican: A Journal of Sustainable Human Development
>>
>>> A monthly, Creative Commons license, free subscription e-journal
>>
>>> Home page ~ http://pelicanweb.org
>>> Current issue ~ http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv07n02page1.html
>>>
>
> To view the terms under which this email is distributed, please go
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