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In recent times it has become apparent to me that many members of my social demographic (college-educated Boomer white women who think of themselves as liberal) are not as far left as they think they are.

Why does this matter?

Thinking of ourselves as progressives, as opposed to recognizing that we are more conservative than we realized, has led us to finger-pointing at the so-called 1% and billionaires. When in fact we and our wallets are having a lot more influence than we think, and not always for the good.

Also, we end up deceiving ourselves into thinking we actually even have a two party system in the USA still. We need more than two parties, but the two mainstream parties we do have are not enough, by far, to cover the full spectrum of political views.

If we think we’re at a far leading edge, it can lead to complacency. And it can also lead to discouragement — like, are we really as far left as it gets? No worries though, there are lots of very left lefties even in the senior age groups.

I actually never thought of myself as a leftist until maybe a couple years ago, when I took a test called the political quadrant test. I had always thought I was a libertarian, as in right of Republican. Sometimes when I’d be going to vote and I would pass by the Republican information table, I would tease them by saying “Oh, no thanks, you guys are too into big government for me.” And I would wink at them. And because I identified as a libertarian rather than a Democrat, they could at least sort of smile at me..

My reexamination of my political label started a few years back when a couple of Boomer, dyed-in-the-blue-wool Democrat women online were “mansplaining” me, telling me I am a Democrat, and I was trying to tell them no I am not a Democrat I am libertarian.

When I took the test, I found out that what I am in fact is an anarchist. And a rather far leftist one. In any case, not a Democrat.

I didn’t know it, but of course once I saw it laid out it made a lot of sense. There are right-wing anarchists (think Ayn Rand) and left-wing anarchists (Gandhi, Hanna Arendt, Emma Goldberg). We left-wing anarchists can find a fair amount of common ground with some Democrats, which is why we are sometimes mistaken for Democrats.

Also, a lot of us environmentalists get mistaken for Democrats. People automatically assume that no conservatives can be environmentalists, which is absolutely untrue.

I also found out from the political quadrant test that Biden and Trump are very close together in the upper right quadrant, the authoritarian / capitalist quadrant.

In other words, people who think they are progressive liberal just because they vote for Biden are actually just a slightly milder flavor of authoritarian conservative.

The other day, on the page of an account I follow via my deep green Facebook page, a boomer woman was defending some authoritarian attitudes regarding the protesters at Columbia and other campuses. This woman’s profile bore the description that she is a “raging crone” who is so far left that she even embarrasses her progressive liberal friends.

Several people jumped on and called her a bootlicker, to which she took great offense. I posted a comment in response to all that:

1) Well, in fairness, you are talking like a bootlicker in this moment. You are saying the kind of things bootlickers say.

2) Contrary to your profile, you don’t sound lefty at all, let alone so lefty that your extreme leftiness embarrasses your progressive friends.

I am in your same “crone” age group, and I know a lot of other white women our age who consider themselves really super left who are actually not very left at all. It seems to be a pretty widespread phenomenon.

It could be because a lot of us haven’t met that many actual leftists in the course of our daily lives, since we have tended to hang out in the “safety” of established power structures. A kind of blindness sets in, and we end up defending/upholding those structures instead of dismantling them, which actual leftists work to do.

This is a long comment, and I realize it’s risky to communicate sensitive ideas by text w strangers in a thread, because things can end up generating heat rather than light. But maybe some of this will hit a note of truth. Or maybe not.

Oh, I almost forgot
3) We shouldn’t ever go on Black women’s pages and expect them to “defend their stance.”

My words might sound harsh because we are part of a culture that is not used to speaking in a confrontational way unless it’s to fight. But I don’t mean to sound mean.

Peace to you, and may there actually be peace among all the nations someday sooner rather than later. And three cheers for the young people on the campuses!!!

If we “Woodstock Boomers” had stuck with it back in the 1960s and 70s and dismantled the toxic structures, instead of allowing ourselves to get derailed by shiny-shiny in the 1980s, we wouldn’t be dealing with what we’re dealing with today.

<emoticons: green heart, earth, blue butterfly, peace sign>

She didn’t reply to my comment but it got a few likes so at least it’s helping a few people if only to offer emotional validation, solidarity.

Regarding a lefty litmus test, I thought of a one-stop test. It’s from an ongoing issue in my neighborhood. A vacant four-plex keeps getting broken into by squatters. I am sympathetic with the squatters, secretly cheering them on, and frustrated with the absentee property owner.

Meanwhile most neighbors are more focused on getting the cops and code enforcement to keep out the squatters, than they are about getting the absentee owner to fix up the place and make it available to tenants. Or sell it to someone who will live there.

I would say that a person’s feeling on this matter could possibly constitute a quick “lefty litmus test.” Let me know your thoughts on that. And below, I’m posting the link to the political quadrant test. Hope you enjoy it!

OK, here it is. It’s actually called the Political Compass Test. By answering the questionnaire you can learn which political quadrant you fall into, and see some famous people from present and past who share your quadrant, and see some famous figures who fall into the other quadrants.

And finally, if you are adamantly anti-war and discouraged by the “pragmatic” stance of Democrats around you, check out Veterans for Peace. Lots of good company there. There’s even an organization within VFP called the Granny Peace Brigade.

Just building a loose collection of links on this topic. I believe that informal settlements are information-rich places and probably my ideal kind of place to live. We had some aspects of an informal settlement in the RV park in Austin, and I have created some aspects of informal settlements in my house and yard where I live now.

Unfortunately, despite the economic and social collapse that is in progress as we speak, the extractive institutions of industrial/capitalist culture always seems to reserve plenty of energy to meddle with the beautiful and community-building improvisations of informal settlements. The only leverage we really have against “them” (centralized PTB) is labor. They need our labor.

Still, at this juncture, the fact that it’s really hard for people to keep a roof over their head at today’s rents does not induce government to allow people to build their own simple structures on the margins and collect their own water and so on. This guy is a very real topic that we probably have not talked about enough in Degrowth and Deep Adaptation circles. Centralized institutions are failing to meet people’s basic needs, but when people try to route around them — build a parallel grassroots economy to meet their basic needs their own way (including many of the techniques we learned in Permaculture design class) — the boot of centralized authority (code enforcement, zoning, compulsively cop-calling neighbors etc.) comes down very quickly.

•Theresa Williamson: “Sustainable Favelas: The Key to Climate Justice and Thriving Cities?” (a keynote presentation at The Nature of Cities Festival 2024). Dr. Williamson is director of an organization called Catalytic Communities. My favorite takeaway from her presentation (and I had many! as her presentation, and informal settlements in general, are right up my alley) is, “An overly managed city is a dead city.” She talked about the sweet spot, where government is helping without quashing creativity and innovation. I believe the presentation recording is only available to people who attended the festival. However, you can find lots of Dr. Williamson’s work online.

• A quote from one of Dr. Williamson slides at TNOC 2024: “Could it be that those favelas that reach a ‘sweet spot’ of complexity and are then able to solidify their qualities without escalating into dysfunction hold a key to vibrant and sustainable urbanization?”

•Another of Dr. Williamson’s slides from her keynote from TNOC 2024 lists the qualities of Rio’s favelas that urban planners struggle to achieve. The list includes high use of bicycles & transit, pedestrian-centered “no cars, no strangers,” high rate of entrepreneurship, efficient & responsive architecture, affordable housing in central areas, low social isolation, strong mutual-support networks, mixed-use development, intense cultural incubators.

• YouTube video by Cities@Tufts: “Rethinking the future of housing worldwide: Favelas as a sustainable model, with Theresa Williamson”. BTW Cities@Tufts does a lot of good webinars.

• Searching on informal settlements reveals many good articles and videos. Here’s one from a past TNOC. “They are not ‘informal settlements.’ They are habitats made by people.” (Lorena Záwate, Ottawa; April 2016, on the TNOC website).

• Informal settlements, or decentralized habitats, are places of great cultural richness and living skills. But they tend to be criminalized, as Lorena Záwate explains in the article linked above: “In academic and government documents, “informal settlements” is the label typically applied to these areas. That those communities are not in compliance with building norms and property and urban planning regulations is often given as the main reason for qualifying them as “informal”. Also defined as “irregular”, they can easily be called “illegal”, and their inhabitants subsequently criminalized, displaced, and persecuted. From India to South Africa to Ecuador, legal and administrative changes have been made in recent years to give special/ad hoc inspection and demolition powers to local, provincial, and national governments to deal with these neighborhoods and, in theory, to prevent them from growing (in many cases, environmental laws and regulations or urban projects are used as excuses for destroying these settlements).”

• Festivals, such as the Kerrville Folk Music Festival and some small regional Burner events (I’m just naming ones I have directly experienced, although there are many more, such as Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, the main Burningman, and so on), have been joyful experiments in creating what I realized were temporary cities. There’s no reason why they couldn’t be permanent. There are many important caveats to help keep things from descending into the bad kind of chaos. But when it works, it really works. People build a wide array of regenerative skills both “hard” and “soft” at these festivals. Skills ranging from conflict resolution, NVC, acupuncture, counseling; to improvising shade structures, harvesting rainwater, gardening, arborculture, flood-control micro-earthworks, and generating electricity.

• Christiania Free Town in Copenhagen Denmark is a longtime famous informal settlement/anarchist community. I heard that in recent years, though, they found themselves overwhelmed with drug dealing and other violent crime, and they ended up calling in the police and other central authorities to try to manage things. This may have just been a reflection on the creeping authoritarianism in greater society. Fear drives us to seek central authority. I even feel the tendency in myself at times. On a personal note, when I was living in Tokyo in the early 1990s, I met a wonderful couple who had come from Christiania. They were so creative, open-hearted, and compassionate.

My response just now to someone in the Degrowth group who commented to the effect that we all have the right to speak sarcastically and rudely to people, in the name of having a productive sharing of ideas:

I understand the definition of “civil” as in civic. In this context here on this thread, I am using another common definition of civil, as in being basic polite and not rude to people.

I understand how the circumstances in the world can induce bitterness and sarcasm in any of us. But it’s best to not use it on each other. Not only for the reason of basic human decency, but also for the very pragmatic reason that it stifles the sharing of ideas. If people think they’re going to get their heads bitten off, fewer and fewer people are willing to share a thought.

I have witnessed this pattern in more groups than I can count, as I have co-adminned many groups and simply been a very active participant in many more.

When I start to write a comment to an internet stranger and realize my comment sounds harsh, I try to pretend I’m talking to a friend or sister. And I edit accordingly.

I strive to convey the same substance, but with the tone and wording that I would use on somebody I know and love. It takes a little extra effort but it seems to be working well so far.

Degrowth is not a cult. But we are a grassroots movement, a kind of in-group, and people need to be able to have civilized discussions with one another. If we can’t even talk with each other, there’s not much hope for us to communicate with “civilians.”

•It’s possible to express anger politely. It’s possible to express despair without taking it out on others.
•It’s possible to express intellectual disagreement without being rude or condescending.
•Same with expressing skepticism.

We are dealing with a lot of deep-seated emotions in this movement and in related movements. Our challenge is to avoid taking it out on each other as we move forward.

Self-explanatory emergency water-station in my front yard. People can keep the cups, or toss em in the basket to be washed and reused.

Beloved Coleman jug courtesy of my parents and the 1960s. Vintage stuff ftw!!!

At first I was thinking of this as an example of the second ethic of Permaculture design, care of people and all other living things. But then I realized that it has ALL THREE of the Permaculture ethics.

•Care of the earth: using durable everyday items that are still good, and refraining from purchasing new unnecessarily. (The plastic cups were on their way to landfill; a friend who gets boba tea every day gave them to me and I have tried to find a use for them.)

•Care of people and all other living things: trying to help do my part to make sure people stay hydrated, and also, any water that splashes onto the ground is helping other species.

•Limit consumption and share surplus: I’m sharing a resource that I have extra and can spare. And I am voluntarily self-limiting my consumption by not purchasing a separate thermos jug just for me. Instead, sharing my same old one with the community. Another surplus resource I’m sharing is time. Since I work mainly at home and in my immediate neighborhood, I have the luxury of time to be able to monitor this water station.

In addition to being a good example of all three ethics … This water station also embodies the permaculture design principle of “stacking functions.” One of my favorite of the 12 permaculture design principles. Everything in my yard not only serves its direct purpose, but also additionally serves as a demonstration site for my permaculture design & education services. I sometimes refer to my yard as my 3-D business card or design showroom.

Another function I’m stacking here is emotional/mental wellbeing. By being surrounded with many beloved everyday objects from our childhood that I find beautiful, I get a lot of joy and comfort. Also in the realm of emotional well-being, the various little micro-amenities in my yard help me keep an eye on the emotional and mental health of my neighborhood and community.

Notice how I get personal benefits and they don’t take away from any of the community benefits. And vice versa, the fact that there are multiple community benefits doesn’t take away from my personal benefits.

As I mention in the videos that I recently posted on my TikTok and YouTube channels, this is one of many low-stakes experiments in my front yard. What I call “porous property.” It includes things like the corner benches, and the little beach-toy lending library. Helping to raise the level of trust and compassion in our society, where it often seems like people’s willingness to trust is on the wane nowadays.

Doing things like this takes a little bit of leap of faith. You have to trust that most people won’t vandalize or steal. And also, you have to be willing to face the possibility that that is what might happen. But if we start with low stakes like this, it’s not as risky.

Wow, it’s amazing how much ended up coming out of just a little water-station. What we do makes a bigger difference than we think. Feel free to share your examples! And thank you so much for following my page.

You can see pictures of my super simple community hydration station setup right here. On my DEEP GREEN Facebook page.

#porousproperty #hydrationstation #peoplehelpingpeople #heatemergency #socialpermaculture #thistooispermaculture #peoplecareethic #water

Warning! Extra salty post ahead.

Starting a file of answers for questions with unwinnable answers. In no particular order.

This question was prompted by constantly being asked by so-called environmentalist, so-called liberals constantly asking me how did you get here, did you ride your bicycle here, etc.

And I was constantly answering them with an irritating diatribe that usually included the idea that “if you — being the people with the clout and the wallets — had been pushing for public transportation and walkable neighborhoods all along instead of moving out to the rich, fake-environmentalist suburbs, you would not be treating nonmotorists as some kind of novelty. Which is really fucking offensive by the way.”

And you need to stop NIMBYing out the apartments and townhouses as soon as possible, because you are going to be needing those people to clean your giant houses and wipe your asses in the next few years if you keep insisting on living out there in the Home Creepo zone.

Anyway! Fellow activists, anarchists, middle-class dropouts, and other associated misfits: Some all-purpose answers for you in case you need them in your own exchanges with the perennially irritating “liberal environmentalist” tribe.

PS. Extra demerits for you if your housing development has “plantation” or “preserve” in the name.

Why do you want to know?

There’s no answer I can give to that question without making things worse.

I’m not here to be your sideshow freak or zoo animal. Satisfy your curiosity elsewhere.

I give out that information on a need to know basis.

I have stopped answering that question because people keep getting the wrong idea.

Stop it. I’ve already talked to you about this.

Mu.

MU!!! Which part of “mu” did you not understand?

You’re asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is…

No. I do not need a ride. With you. Ever.

Further Exploration:

• “The Japanese word Mu,” by Robert Pirsig. “Mu becomes appropriate when the context of the question becomes too small for the truth of the answer. When the Zen monk was asked whether a dog had Buddha nature he said “Mu,” meaning that if he answered either way he was answering incorrectly.”

Over the past couple of years I have been refining my wording in order to be able to get my point across better. Here is one example. A person across the state has persistently invited me to an event that I love the sound of but do not want to physically travel to. (I have helped them boost their social-media posts as I often do with like-minded people and events.)

I stacked functions by making the response public — responding in a comment to the post instead of responding privately by DM — and tagging other public permaculture people.

Here is what I said:

That’s really nice of you to think of me as an artist that you would want to invite to your event. And extra sweet of you to offer overnight hospitality to a person who does not have a car and would be arriving by public transport.

But that would be a very long and energy-expensive trip for me. (Talking about human energy here, not just fossil energy.)

And, I stay busy with art events & other events in my local area. And also I need to save my carbon/eco-footprint budget for the long train trip to see my family.

However, I will be happy to keep my ears open for local artists for you. If I hear of anyone in your part of the state who is looking to participate in art events I will tell them about your event. And I bet <fellow permie teacher activist person> and <other fellow permie teacher activist person> know lots of potential people as well. Also possibly <yet another FPTAP> would know some artists if he is still living in the area.

And, although I believe both <yet another FPTAP> and <yet another FPTAP> have moved away from the area, I imagine they may still know some people who are artists and /or connected with the art community. Who would probably be very interested!

Or how we can get our groove back. This is a work in progress. Just posting here because I am decluttering my Notes app. And also because things can be useful even in rough draft mode. (Note, if anything sounds totally weird or nonsensical it’s because I missed something while proofreading my talk-to-text.)

Woodstock boomers revival manifesto

This is for all my fellow what I would call Earth Day boomers or Woodstock boomers, who are genuinely horrified and distraught at the state of the planet and the effect it is having on people and all other living things.

This might be a manifesto, might be a kind of Ted talk, we will see what it turns into.

We spoke up against the war in Vietnam. We Spoke up about environmental crisis.

Then, fast forward to the 80s, somehow we became tame and venal. Caught up in affluence and prosperity. Some of us didn’t last for long and dropped out. But no judgment on those who didn’t drop out; we all get caught up in things sometimes. And some people had kids into the equation and that weighed in favor of them taking the corporate route.

But, now it is now.

I see a lot of my fellow boomers crying out against climate change, pollution, but then not being willing to do the things that will actually help unravel the structure.

In no particular order.

First and foremost that came to my mind, we need to acknowledge that the way we went about our war protests was wrong. Spitting on veterans and calling soldiers baby killers was wrong. Our focus needed to be on the government that was doing the wrong, not on the people who were conscripted and not able to take the college loophole.

Or, not on the people who felt like they were doing the right thing by signing up because they didn’t want to just leave it to someone else.

So we need to make some kind of amends to veterans. Saying thank you for your service is problematic in a lot of ways, as others have already pointed out. What we could do is join Veterans for Peace; donate to organizations that provide mental health care for veteran; and other services. And, we can also refrain from persuading our young people to join the military. We never wanted to live in a world where the best chance that a kid has for a stable life is to sign a contract where he promises to kill on the orders of the government. That is no deal. And we need to stop being all happy when our nieces and nephews and grandkids etc. I thinking of that as a path. We need to support them in their hearts path.

I also want to talk about the smug memes that we are posting. Oh look at the simple life we lead, look at the dangerous stunts we did on the bicycle. And yet now we won’t even let go of our fourth house, or take our 401(k) off of Wall Street. And order the others they simply have something like a basic life.

Some steps we can do.

We can stop the consumerist travel. Yes we can just stop. Most of the fun we’re having is on social media, not in the reality. We are old as dirt and we need to start just being happy at home like our sensible grandparents did.

We can stand up to our husbands about the lawns for god sake. Seriously? We’re going to tell our grandkids that we let the planet die because our HOA wouldn’t let us have a wildflower yard. Or our husband liked to mow? What the hell is wrong with us. Tell the man to stay the hell out of the wildflowers.

We don’t get to have it both ways. We don’t get to think of ourselves as some kind of cool revolutionary, and not be doing any of the work right now.

We can stop being members of so-called “liberal” congregations who ridicule people who actually walk the walk.

another big thing, we need to stop making ourselves wrong and saying that we were being unrealistic and impractical and idealistic back in the 60s and 70s. We were not wrong. The way that we went about a lot of our stuff was erroneous in various ways, but we were not fundamentally wrong and we need to stop making fun of hippies and saying that we were impractical and then finally we grew up and now we’re being practical. Because we are not being practical, we are being basically murderous with our habits.

Yes, we got caught up in drugs, and some of that involved sexual exploitation. but there have always been hot hippie boys that made a mini harem or cult around themselves. We needed to deconstruct the patriarchy and we did not, now we can.

We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater as it says.

I used to wonder why my dad was so contemptuous of hippies. Toward the end of his life he told me that we never should’ve been in Vietnam. That was not what I expected to hear from a 22-year career Navy officer, but I found out after he passed that he and many of his classmates that Annapolis has opposed the war. So if you feel a certain way but you/squash your heart’s voice, what are you going to do but be contemptuous of people who are acting on their heart?

We can stop living in car dependent cities and suburbs. We need to move where we can walk to our needs. Or else we need to invite people to live with us. We cannot keep being these entitled elders who expect everyone to wait on us hand and foot.

And we need to stop NIMBYing apartment complexes and town houses out of the neighborhoods. Hey who knows, a lot of these people might end up being our home health care or yard care.

And we need to stop pretending that our fancy electric cars are going to save the world. That is bullshit.

Not facing the truth makes a person cranky. I know, I’ve done it. Done it both ways.

We can protect our grandkids from getting into college debt. Encourage them to pursue a trade, pursue their heart. The so-called practical path is not practical it has made us into a murderous society.

Further exploration:

• “Decades after Kent State shooting, the tragic legacy shapes its activism” (Jonathan Edwards; Washington Post). “The university where 13 student protesters were killed or injured during the Vietnam War era worries that other schools have learned nothing from its history.”

•“How to support student protests; the history of Cinco de Mayo; environmental hazards in Gaza; and the racist history of the filibuster.” (Nicole Cardoza and guest writers; Anti-Racism Daily 5/5 weekend edition). “Over 2,000 students and faculty have been arrested as student-led protests grow at college campuses across the U.S. Many of these demonstrations are being misinterpreted as generic acts of solidarity with communities in Gaza. But, in reality, students have clear and comprehensive demands from their universities – and they’re not budging. Although each school has it’s own focus, here’s what’s common throughout their demands. …”