Collect your people

One request I’ve been hearing often, from Black anti-racism educators to those of us white people who are aspiring to be anti-racist and abolitionist, is “Collect your people.” An expression that means when someone in your group is misbehaving, you have a duty to try to talk sense into them. In this context, when the fellow white people in our lives say and do racist things, we need to call them in. Explain why it’s problematic.

As opposed to huffily writing these people off as “my hopelessly racist friends and relatives.” It all starts with us; we are ground zero for shining a light and calmly but firmly explaining. (As opposed to self-righteously and theatrically “calling-out,” which is a bad approach.) We can’t go saying, about white people behaving badly, “Oh, I don’t claim them! I’m not like that!” Collecting our people is really important and I’m working on getting better at it.

Ally Henny, Portia Noir, White Woman Whisperer, and other antiracist educators I’ve mentioned on this blog are urging us white people to please do this. Go listen to these Black women’s videos, read their writings. They make things make sense, that I’ve never been able to make sense of before about the world of whiteness. And how we can help fix things.

And here’s a bit of reading I just now found by googling “Collect your people.” Hope you find these helpful! Google is our friend!

(What does dismantling systemic racism have to do with the climate crisis and re-greening the planet, you might ask if you are new to this blog? Everything!! Two words for the root problem are: “colonizer culture.”)

collectyourpeople.com “For my white folks, with love”

The White Allies’ Guide to Collecting Aunt Linda (medium.com)

Stop working; stop spending money

A lot of people, and not just people in the Degrowth movement, are saying various versions of this. Here’s one very compelling voice. (And follow her: @theoriginalsilverfoxx on TikTok.) Here’s another. (And follow her too: @arcanecraven on TikTok.)

Mutual aid, grassroots caring is key to all this. White people including myself have been very bad at building community. Not because we’re bad people but because hyper-individualism is a hallmark of our colonizer culture.

We need to get good at being members of community; at not being the center or the boss; at advocating beyond just ourselves and our immediate families. And a really good place to start is listen to Black women. And amplify their voices. I am, every chance I get! If you want to help build a safe, sane society, listen to Black women.

“But wait — I can’t just stop working; can’t just stop spending money.”

I get it, really! Just go listen to the two Black women linked above. Hear what they have to say.

One idea for shifting the culture: Housewife posters

(WARNING: This post contains raunchy language.)

Some years back, I did a World War II-style cartoon poster about carpooling to save gas. Now I want to start doing “vintage housewife” -style posters poking fun at lawn obsession; promoting the idea of using our spaces to grow food and support wildlife.

I’m not great at drawing people but there is public-domain art available. A fellow permie who does great artwork (Mike Hoag of Transformative Adventures) suggests doing a search on “royalty free stock image.” I’m going to put that on my to-do list.

In the meantime, starting a list of “housewife lawn poster” ideas:

— Did you not hear me, sweetie? I said get rid of the f****** leaf-blower!

— Gee honey, I wish you enjoyed doing laundry and cooking as much as you enjoy fussbudgeting the yard; then maybe I could grow something useful around here!

— Did you not hear me sweetie? I said back away from the f****** wildflowers!

— No, honey, I’m not running away with our divorce lawyer! I’m running away with a permaculture food-forest guy!

— Who do I have to blow around here to get some damn fruit trees?

etc etc etc

Other good poster genres for humorously promoting cultural shift, besides the aforementioned WWII and 1950s housewife styles, include Roy Lichtenstein -inspired images.

Jacking-down the economy

When I say the economy is jacked-up, I mean that it’s becoming harder and harder for people at the bottom income rungs to even get their most basic needs met. Food, housing, health care, transportation and so on. While in the middle rungs, people are scrambling to have more more more. More money, more house, bigger retirement fund growing by a bigger percentage. It’s motivated by fear and insecurity. Like, it feels dangerous and precarious to not earn more, and stockpile more money. Because something might happen — what if the car breaks down, what if you get sick etc., and you don’t have enough money saved? The problem is, it’s never enough. It’s a moving target. Trying to talk people out of this pattern is probably not going to work.

What might possibly work is getting a few people interested in jacking down the economy. This is not the same as crashing the economy; there’s no intent to precipitate collapse, destroy anyone’s livelihood, etc. Rather, it’s a voluntary deceleration, which slows the treadmill down so people at all levels can have a good level of comfort for less money and less work.

As I see it, jacking-down the economy would be a bottom-up movement started by people who are at the bottom income rungs and yet are somewhat privileged in certain ways (education, for example; and being brought up to think outside the box) and have an attitude that there is little or nothing to lose. Creativity and risk-tolerance are definitely good attributes. It’s probably a good fit for artists and revolutionaries.

Some things that jack-up the economy: Inflation from a rise in energy prices. Out-of-town money coming into your community buying up houses and land. The “retirement” obsession (people being driven to try to save up “enough” money to take them through decades of later life without working). Income inequality, which has gotten more and more extreme, definitely jacks-up the economy.

Well, how would a person jack-down the economy? One way would be to pare one’s expenses to the bare minimum. Don’t live alone; share housing. Do without a car or share a car. And, work as little as you can get away with. When I say “work,” I mean the stuff we have to do to get our bills paid. I’m not talking about limiting the work we do for love of people and planet. Art, activism, and so on.

Rather than strive to amass “enough” money to cover emergencies, finance decades of retirement, etc., think in terms of being able to meet expenses as they come. Like, being able to pick up gigs to pay for a certain expense that’s right now, as opposed to amassing money before the fact for every possible hypothetical future expense. I know it takes a lot of faith (something I’m still working on).

Other than “just in time” gigs, I also think of GoFundMe and other mutual aid mechanisms, particularly for community members dealing with medical crises, funerals, evictions and other emergencies.

Not everyone will feel drawn to this idea. And even among those drawn to it, many will not feel that they have the luxury of being able to risk it. For those of us who feel we can, though, it is worth a try.

Basically, it’s creating a pocket of the economy where a different reality prevails. One where we don’t need anywhere near as much money; one where we can get by on working much much less.

Some of us artsy craftsy folks might find ourselves able to get by just on our artwork, writing, eco gardening, etc. The income disparity that’s causing so many problems in society could end up being to our advantage. As a friend of mine once put it, “Rich people make the best customers.” (Actually not always true but I agreed with how he meant it.) People who are long on money and short on time often develop a yearning for art and beauty. This is a healthy yearning. We can help people while earning a good livelihood that doesn’t break our backs.

Or, another approach if one prefers to have a boss and paycheck (without being drained) is to try to arrange things so you only need a part-time job. 10 or 15 hours a week.

Is jacking-down the economy a synonym for degrowth? Maybe. There’s definitely a good deal of overlap.

My personal version of degrowth or jacking-down includes what I might describe as “joyfully embracing the bottom rungs of the economy, and applying my surplus time, labor, & creativity to building resilience into my community.”

On a related note, @housepuritty on TikTok proposes Universal Basic Income as a solution to climate change. Basically, it reduces the stress and labor that capitalism places on people and the planet. As she points out, we saw shades of this pressure-reduction during the pandemic, when people had a bit of the pressure taken off of them by having more time and a bit less financial pressure.

Making degrowth cool and glamorous

Dennis started a wonderful thread in the Transformative Adventures group. I’ve started a new thread in the group by copy-pasting a piece of one of Mike Hoag’s comments on it here because I think it merits a separate thread about how do we make degrowth popular? How do we make it super cool and attractive?

Mike’s comment: “Transition to renewables is not possible. Degrowth and reduced consumption are the only realistic strategies, but our governments will never do this. WE must do this.”

So!! How? (I have lots of ideas, which I post about extensively on my blog & other channels. But Mike’s comment prompted me to start a thread here so we can share ideas & come up with all sorts of plans.)

We could start creating “fake ads” — cool Facebook memes promoting degrowth as a fabulous lifestyle. Get fit! Attract wonderful companions! Make your neighborhood so wonderful you will never need to go on vacation! Attain occupational freedom, tell your crap job to take a hike, experience spiritual growth & liberation! All of this and more is easy by getting on the Degrowth train!!

One older guy’s comment about how he has prepped for TSHTF, and how his kids always know they can come live at his place, prompted me to see a “facetious fake-but-real ad” visual of the type that might help
popularize degrowth. There would be two photos:

1) Typical white Boomer dude asking in a cranky voice, “Why don’t my kids and grandkids ever come visit me”?

2) Atypical white Boomer dude, in his well-equipped permie cabin, as the Zombie Apocalypse is hitting: “Ha! I never have that problem! My kids and grandkids always want to come stay at MY place!” (The images could be done in Norman Rockwell style or … ?)

And thank you Dennis for the original thread on how electric cars won’t save the world. A green lala-land myth that refuses to die because people think just buckling down and making changes is too hard. We have to show them it’s more than worth the effort.

Update: Someone in the thread just shared a great resource. Spoof Ads – www.adbusters.org “We’re in the middle of a guerrilla information war for the future of the planet. Conventional weapons are useless — all we have are ideas. Join us in the meme war.”

Another plug for degrowth

Dennis started an excellent thread in the FB group Permaculture in Action: Transformative Adventures, offering great detail about why electric cars are not going to save the world, as some mainstream environmentalists seem to want to persist in wishing were the case. https://www.facebook.com/groups/238637257015056/permalink/1012728632939244/

I love what Mike said in the comments, 100% concur and have felt this way for a long time: “Transition to renewables is not possible. Degrowth and reduced consumption are the only realistic strategies, but our governments will never do this. WE must do this.”

YES!!!! I have belatedly realized that my entire book and lifestyle are based on my strong belief that degrowth is the only way to go. (I didn’t know that word back in 2017 when I wrote my book. Same with “deep adaptation” — another thing I believe is essential to any possibility of human survival on earth.)

Hashtag #GettingReal

PS. Degrowth is not something we can force on people; it’s something that those of us consumerist-industrial nation folk with the awareness and the conviction and the wherewithal have to undertake, and make it attractive enough that other fellow consumerist-industrial folk will want to do it as well. Or at least will see their self-interest in doing it.

Creeping fascism

Fourteen defining characteristics of fascism

https://www.bremertonschools.org/cms/lib/WA01001541/Centricity/Domain/222/Fourteen%20Defining%20Characteristics%20of%20Fascism%20slides.pdf

  1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
  2. Disregard for Human Rights
  3. Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause
  4. Supremacy of the Military
  5. Widespread Sexism
  6. Controlled Mass Media
  7. Obsession with National Security
  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
  9. Corporate Power is Protected
  10. Labor Power is Suppressed
  11. Disrespect for Intellectuals and the Arts
  12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
  13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
  14. Fraudulent Elections

The USA doesn’t actually have fraudulent elections but at the very least the electoral system has been deeply called into question. Other than this, we are pretty much ticking all the boxes at least in an early way. Read the descriptions in the article; it reads like a snapshot of USA white mainstream culture.

Falling so deeply into despondency that we become paralyzed is not an option. As many others have commented, grassroots movements are key. Also, at the ballot box, we need to vote in some actual progressives. Fellow Boomers, you need to stop idealizing the Democrats as if they are ever really going to fix anything. They’re too deeply invested in the $tatus quo to do anything beyond tinkering.

Also, we are accountable to future generations.

My generation — the USA Baby Boomers demographic — are the most powerful generation in history, in terms of spending-power and other influence. (I’m talking about my fellow white people in this category. Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color of this generation, as of all generations, are still marginalized.) We need to use every bit of our spending-power and influence we can muster for the good now.