Little Steps

found @ http://blogs.haverford.edu/goinggreen/2008/09/

Good Morning all! I'm taking a little bit of a new tack here. Part of what holds me back from making more posts is feeling that i need to come up with some great topic of significance and then often there is time spent in research and certainly time spent in writing and editing a post. And then there are the pictures. I always feel that I need to come up with a pertinent image and that can take some time to find or generate. As I currently work full time and commute to work, it can be a struggle to take time away from my other home and family tasks to do this on a regular basis. 

It occurred to me this morning that you might just be interested in hearing about the small steps that we are taking toward turning our property into a permaculture paradise in the changable climate of New England. I'm calling these posts "Little Steps".  So whenever you see "Little Steps" before the post title you will know it is one of these. As you saw in Self Absorbed we made some real progress this spring in the food forest. Also in that post I put out a challenge for all of us to make a small change in our lives that can help to reduce our impact. Our 30 days are up so I just wanted to see how we all did. My small change is to stop eating processed snack food in plastic containers or bags. It took me a few days to look at my habits and decide this was going to be my step and a few more to reach full implementation, but I made it within our 30 day window and I'm going to keep it going forward.  I hope everyone was able to find some small thing they could do. Feel free to post and share in the comments. I'd love to hear about what you are doing. 

Keeping it 'little'; I'll sign off by sharing this link from Permaculture Principles about using small and slow solutions.  Small steps really can make a big difference, especially when we are all making them together. 

Vote! Whenever You Get the Chance

My nephew turned 18 last week. I made him a card that said "Yippee you're 18!" on the outside flap. Lifting the next flap revealed the message... "You can vote." And lifting the final flap revealed some cash and the message "So, can a buy yours?" The fact that I should be inspired to give him such a card is a sad commentary on the state of our political system. We talk about clean elections and claim that other countries have more corruption than we do, when the sad fact is, we have simply institutionalized corruption and bribery through our campaign finance laws and supreme court rulings. Perhaps even sadder though was his reaction, and that of his mother. He said "I'm not going to vote," and she said "I'm not voting in national elections anymore." Both feel that they can't make a difference and there is no point in voting. Too many people feel this way now, and perhaps with good reason. 

So how do we change this trend? And how do we change the system so that people feel empowered rather than disenfranchised? Well I'm not going to lie to you. It's going to take a lot of hard work from a lot of people. It is going to take every single one of us getting really and truly involved in the political process, The first thing we need to do is to remember that ultimately the government answers to We The People.  Next we must take up our right and RESPONSIBILITY as citizens to vote at every opportunity, and to be an educated and informed electorate. We need to ignore the TV ads and look at voting records. We need to vote based on what we know is right not just for this minute and ourselves, but for the future and for everyone. 

More people need to start voting with their conscience than their pocket books. We need to be writing to our elected officials and telling them exactly why we are voting for or against them. Perhaps some of those letters should even be shared with the press.   We need to push for congressional term limits to reduce cronyism & the power of wealthy special interest groups. We urgently need to pass a law that will overturn citizens united.. Perhaps we need a constitutional amendment that states the corporations are NOT people and they cannot donate to campaigns. 

I think that only citizens should be permitted to donate and that candidates should be prohibited from know who donated to their campaign.  Any time that a politician is placed in a position to feel beholden to any group other than the citizen constituents of his home district, there is a chance that his policy decisions will be influenced more by the wants of big corporate donors than the needs of his constituents and the nation as a whole.  I suspect we are a long way off from getting these reforms put through. Perhaps many feel that we can never achieve these goals. What I know is that we can never achieve what we never attempt. And these goals are certainly worth working for. 

Most importantly if we want our government to be accountable then we need to hold ourselves accountable for our political action or lack thereof, and then we need to hold our elected officials accountable by exercising our right to vote! If government does not serve the people then it must be served notice by the people. If our elected officials will not exercise the will of the people, then the will of the people must be exercised through their votes to elect new officials!