The Revolution

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Probably about eight-nine years old?

THE REVOLUTION IS ABOUT

Selling homegrown tomatoes. In fact, it's about all backyard organic gardening and gardeners, who obtain for a season freedom from agribusiness. Many of us can't afford to buy organic produce, but we *can* afford to grow and share it. We can grow in our backyards, and offer space to our friends who don't have backyards to grow in. Backyard agriculture works.

Making a central place for children, ours or others, in our homes and businesses. It is more than an old saw that children are  our future; it is the literal truth. The people who are born today shape the world we will grow old in, and we are the people who shape them. Children and elders are pushed aside in today's pre-Revolution society; we must end that cycle. Making it possible for children to be welcome in the workplace is a small step toward a society of kindness toward others.

Knowing our neighbors. Neighborhood associations are merely a nod toward the real goal of KNOWING by face and name every person who lives on your street, and on adjoining streets. Spend time with your neighbors. Organize a block party. The safest and best neighborhoods are those where everyone knows everyone else. Our friends may not be near us in an emergency; our neighbors are. We must be ready to help our neighbors, and to protect them as needed.

Buying local. Not just from a local store, but from a local craftperson. The highest form of capitalism means a human being is able to make a real product and sell it, face-to-face, to another human being, and to prosper by the work of their own hands. In our corporate society, few people earn their worth; buying from local crafters and cooperatives makes it possible for more people to earn a decent living through their own efforts.

Selling the products of your own labor. Everyone has a skill or talent useful to somebody else, whether it be gardening, sewing, singing, cooking, proofreading, or any one of hundreds or even thousands  of other things. Most of us severely underestimate the worth of our own skills, or fail to recognize them at all. Next time a friend expresses admiration of something you do, instead of dismissing it as "easy", take another look at it. It may be "easy" for you, but worth a lot to someone else who lacks the skills, time, or interest to do what you find intriguing, fun, and simple.

Barter. Take your skills or goods and trade them for someone else's skills or goods. Most people already do this on a small scale, bringing a friend dinner in exchange for mending a shirt, or canning a friend's homegrown tomatoes in exchange for a cut of the harvest... take it a step up and explore what you can earn from other local craftspeople in exchange for your special abilities or products.

Refuse to work for less than a living wage. The Mininum Wage is a low est legal wage, to pay beneath which is criminal. It is NOT a suggested living wage,  yet many employers treat it as if it is. Refuse to accept jobs which do not pay a LIVING wage for your area. In Portland, Oregon that wage is around $10.00 per hour. Ask for that wage, or more, in interviews, and explain that your skills are worth that much so you cannot accept employment for less... at the very least, employers may start to get the idea. This works in other areas of compensation too; if you don't want to wait 90 days for health benefits, explain that you must have those benefits from the beginning in order to accept the position. You may be surprised at how well this can work, and the more people start using their own value as a negotiating tool, the more people it will work for.

Live as if indigenous. Most of us aren't indigenous to this continent, and the suggestion is by no means that anyone make a mockery of Native traditions by attempting to co-opt and practice spiritual ways not of their own heritage, but on a purely secular basis there is a lot to be said for living as if we belong to this land. Good stewardship of the land is a fundamental principle of most intact religions worldwide; we can reverse the physical and spiritual death this cultural regime is bringing upon us by doing everything we can to treat our earth with respect. The details don't need to be spelled out here; we all know what we need to do. It's just a matter of changing bad habits and instilling good ones.

The Revolution is about much more than this, but this is a beginning. Look at this list and explore what you can do for yourself, and add your own ideas. Share this list with your friends. It is an ever-expanding, ever-changing group of ideas, and it is what every person does in their own way to promote the Revolution that will end in a changed society.



Inexplicably, I wrote this at around the same time. Why?

SOME FACTS ABOUT YOUR PROPERTY AND TREES
Increase your property value by 15%
slow traffic
Reduce basement seepage
lower blood pressure
lower heating/cooling costs
improve your area's desirability
sell your home faster
Reduce traffic noise
Provide habitat for birds
beautify your neighborhood
reduce runoff


I found that, but I can't find my essay "The Future of Wildlife Tracking Devices in the Retail Environment".

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Nicely said Nigel!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Thank you!

[Messier Undertree]

I'll just go ahead and build a tree in my rented council flat then.

And I'll compost my pizza boxes and empty beer cans.

And let's say hypothetically I have a wife and kids to provide for.

I'll let them starve until I can find an unskilled job that pays over £8 an hour.

You see, the thing with both the mainstream green movement and libertarianism is that it caters to the middle classes and conveniently ignores the majority of people who don't have a farm in their backyards. Assuming they have a backyard at all.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Meh. The point was that here are some things people can do. Not MUST, but if they are able, CAN.

I came from a pretty hideous background of poverty, so you shouldn't make assumptions about my perspective. I am comfortably middle-class now, but when I wrote that I was very, very poor, with no formal education and no marketable skills. Not only that, but I was myself unable to attain many of my own suggested objectives for many years... pregnancy, poverty, single motherhood, lack of education, and other obstacles stood in my way. And I'm one of the lucky ones.