But the degrowth movement is extremely, astoundingly unlikely to prove politically viable within the political mainstream of the global North (rich countries), which to my mind means we can't put very many of our precious political eggs in that basket. What's needed, with …
But the degrowth movement is extremely, astoundingly unlikely to prove politically viable within the political mainstream of the global North (rich countries), which to my mind means we can't put very many of our precious political eggs in that basket. What's needed, with the fullness of urgency, is a socio-political movement which seeks to institute radical social change in a degrowth direction from well outside of the political mainstream and its bought and owned corporate capitalist governments.
Now, to the ears of most people living here in the USA, where you and I live, Patrick, what I said makes no sense whatsoever. After all, they will be thinking, politics is a game of first getting majority support and then using that majority support to "put pressure on our representatives" ... and all that familiar yada yada. But that's not been working very well for us, now, has it? I mean for the last couple of hundred years, right?
The corporate owned, capitalist-industrial-consumer political system can't and won't turn in time to change course in time. And we all know that. So it's time to begin a serious conversation about what we are to do when we are a large, important, urgently necessary minority without political power in the old-fashioned sense of having hegemony within the establishment's carefully crafted Overton window.
So far, hardly anyone is up for this conversation, Patrick. Are you up for it? I have some good ideas, I think. But they aren't getting much traction, yet. That's because the conversation is what's needed for the traction to occur. Think of what Noam Chomsky said about concision in the film, Manufacturing Consent. Familiar ideas get easy traction. Unfamiliar ideas tend not to -- and especially when the billionaires and corporations own and control the media, etc.
As I wrote, the politics of the issue have made me skeptical about degrowth. But I’ve worked on this issue so long, and we haven’t changed the trend line. It’s even gotten worse. So what do we do? This new Heinberg piece talks a lot about building community resilience. I think that’s the course you’re on. The conundrum is if we don’t somehow deal with the whole, we will face those chaotic outcomes that swamp our efforts to adapt. Somehow it’s a both-and strategy.
Resilience is necessary but insufficient unto itself. What's required is regeneration AND resilience-building, both.
So here we are in this elevator, Patrick, so I'm going to offer an "elevator pitch". My basic idea, in essence, is that while it's very difficult to start a camp fire after weeks of heavy rains, it's sometimes necessary to do so. So we need to look at how to make a camp fire when most of the small light fuels are soggy.
Another analogy and metaphor is growing a vegetable garden where the soils are relatively poor, water is scarce ... and success would likely lead to the deer and rabbits eating whatever we grow.
In both cases, there are similar (conceptually and theoretically) means of getting to the desired situation -- fire and food.
The elevator is about to bring us to floor seven, so I want to know if I have your attention. Think of a novel. You know if you're going to read this novel after reading a few paragraphs. If the paragraphs are shit, you'll move on to another novel.
If we're going to change our political situation, we have to understand how to create the conditions for fire and successful gardening. That's my elevator pitch. That's the first few paragraphs. Shall we have lunch?
I am up for any conversation on how to overcome the immense barriers facing us and break through to a future that leaves a habitable world for our children. That's a fundamental reason I do The Raven and the unifying theme of this diverse web journal. History shows us that once a power system is locked in it becomes very hard to dislodge it. And that generally happens once the system visibly fails and breaks down in a catastrophic way. Everything points to catastrophic failure of the current system. My fear is that it becomes so catastrophic it drags us all down with it, human society and the biosphere. So how do we create communities and movements that provide survival and resilience, that provide models and a base to make the kind of changes that are necessary to avert that final collapse?
Patrick, I believe it would be best for us to hold our conversation -- by email text -- outside the present forum, then publish it both in The Raven and The R-Word.
I thought of making this request private, by email. But that would have left a gap in the conversation here. So you can reply in private if you wish.
“…… What's needed, with the fullness of urgency, is a socio-political movement which seeks to institute radical social change in a degrowth direction from well outside of the political mainstream and its bought and owned corporate capitalist governments.….”
What you say is true.
But it’s going to be grim.
Take the example of Germany where a longstanding supposedly “green party” is now in Government and showing their true colours as warmongers and capitalists. What is happening to this outside opposition that you speak of, while the “Green party” is in power? See here:
Die Grunen is particularly disturbing. I speak from the standpoint of being one of the original co-chairs of the US Association of State Green Parties, the predecessor to the current Green Party US, and coauthor of the Global Greens Statements to the 1997 Kyoto and 1998 Buenos Aires climate conferences, endorsed by green parties on all continents including Die Grunen and the European parties. What seems to have happened is the corruptions of power that began back in the 1990s. Petra Kelly wanted the greens to remain an anti-party out of the system, but supposedly she was murdered by her partner. Seeing what happened later, I have dark suspicions about what really might have happened. She would have opposed the trend led by Joschka Fischer who took the party into coalition with the SPD and supported the bombing of Serbia by NATO. Yes, it's going to be a long, hard road, and the initiative will come from the outside and the margins. How long do we have? That's the key question.
"We have to consider degrowth."
Boy, now there's an understatement!
But the degrowth movement is extremely, astoundingly unlikely to prove politically viable within the political mainstream of the global North (rich countries), which to my mind means we can't put very many of our precious political eggs in that basket. What's needed, with the fullness of urgency, is a socio-political movement which seeks to institute radical social change in a degrowth direction from well outside of the political mainstream and its bought and owned corporate capitalist governments.
Now, to the ears of most people living here in the USA, where you and I live, Patrick, what I said makes no sense whatsoever. After all, they will be thinking, politics is a game of first getting majority support and then using that majority support to "put pressure on our representatives" ... and all that familiar yada yada. But that's not been working very well for us, now, has it? I mean for the last couple of hundred years, right?
The corporate owned, capitalist-industrial-consumer political system can't and won't turn in time to change course in time. And we all know that. So it's time to begin a serious conversation about what we are to do when we are a large, important, urgently necessary minority without political power in the old-fashioned sense of having hegemony within the establishment's carefully crafted Overton window.
So far, hardly anyone is up for this conversation, Patrick. Are you up for it? I have some good ideas, I think. But they aren't getting much traction, yet. That's because the conversation is what's needed for the traction to occur. Think of what Noam Chomsky said about concision in the film, Manufacturing Consent. Familiar ideas get easy traction. Unfamiliar ideas tend not to -- and especially when the billionaires and corporations own and control the media, etc.
As I wrote, the politics of the issue have made me skeptical about degrowth. But I’ve worked on this issue so long, and we haven’t changed the trend line. It’s even gotten worse. So what do we do? This new Heinberg piece talks a lot about building community resilience. I think that’s the course you’re on. The conundrum is if we don’t somehow deal with the whole, we will face those chaotic outcomes that swamp our efforts to adapt. Somehow it’s a both-and strategy.
Resilience is necessary but insufficient unto itself. What's required is regeneration AND resilience-building, both.
So here we are in this elevator, Patrick, so I'm going to offer an "elevator pitch". My basic idea, in essence, is that while it's very difficult to start a camp fire after weeks of heavy rains, it's sometimes necessary to do so. So we need to look at how to make a camp fire when most of the small light fuels are soggy.
Another analogy and metaphor is growing a vegetable garden where the soils are relatively poor, water is scarce ... and success would likely lead to the deer and rabbits eating whatever we grow.
In both cases, there are similar (conceptually and theoretically) means of getting to the desired situation -- fire and food.
The elevator is about to bring us to floor seven, so I want to know if I have your attention. Think of a novel. You know if you're going to read this novel after reading a few paragraphs. If the paragraphs are shit, you'll move on to another novel.
If we're going to change our political situation, we have to understand how to create the conditions for fire and successful gardening. That's my elevator pitch. That's the first few paragraphs. Shall we have lunch?
I am up for any conversation on how to overcome the immense barriers facing us and break through to a future that leaves a habitable world for our children. That's a fundamental reason I do The Raven and the unifying theme of this diverse web journal. History shows us that once a power system is locked in it becomes very hard to dislodge it. And that generally happens once the system visibly fails and breaks down in a catastrophic way. Everything points to catastrophic failure of the current system. My fear is that it becomes so catastrophic it drags us all down with it, human society and the biosphere. So how do we create communities and movements that provide survival and resilience, that provide models and a base to make the kind of changes that are necessary to avert that final collapse?
Patrick, I believe it would be best for us to hold our conversation -- by email text -- outside the present forum, then publish it both in The Raven and The R-Word.
I thought of making this request private, by email. But that would have left a gap in the conversation here. So you can reply in private if you wish.
Agreed. I will be awaiting your opening email.
Expect my email soon. And thanks!
“…… What's needed, with the fullness of urgency, is a socio-political movement which seeks to institute radical social change in a degrowth direction from well outside of the political mainstream and its bought and owned corporate capitalist governments.….”
What you say is true.
But it’s going to be grim.
Take the example of Germany where a longstanding supposedly “green party” is now in Government and showing their true colours as warmongers and capitalists. What is happening to this outside opposition that you speak of, while the “Green party” is in power? See here:
https://apnews.com/article/climate-germany-protests-fd24a7b21e72684c39789ce5eb251c2e
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-italy-climate-change-nationwide-raid-on-climate-activists/
In the biggest economy in the world, the US, there NO ONE who will put themselves on the line the way that those young people in Germany are doing.
Oh and in the greatest hypocrisy, the German “green party” policy is:
“do what we say”:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/germany-alarmed-detention-vietnam-climate-activist-warns-coal-99896036
“not what we do”:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/17/us/greta-thunberg-detained-germany-climate/index.html
It’s going to be a long road to battle this.
Die Grunen is particularly disturbing. I speak from the standpoint of being one of the original co-chairs of the US Association of State Green Parties, the predecessor to the current Green Party US, and coauthor of the Global Greens Statements to the 1997 Kyoto and 1998 Buenos Aires climate conferences, endorsed by green parties on all continents including Die Grunen and the European parties. What seems to have happened is the corruptions of power that began back in the 1990s. Petra Kelly wanted the greens to remain an anti-party out of the system, but supposedly she was murdered by her partner. Seeing what happened later, I have dark suspicions about what really might have happened. She would have opposed the trend led by Joschka Fischer who took the party into coalition with the SPD and supported the bombing of Serbia by NATO. Yes, it's going to be a long, hard road, and the initiative will come from the outside and the margins. How long do we have? That's the key question.