This week’s “Conversation” is heavy. It needs—NEEDS! an introduction.
An introduction to the discussion of This Civilization IS FINISHED: Conversations on the end of Empire—and what lies beyond by Rupert Read and Samuel Alexander
You can read the whole argument at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340538684_This_civilization_is_finished_Time_to_build_an_ecological_civilization
You are warmly invited to join in CV Conversations which will be more—conversational; represent a diversity of perspectives on topics of interest to Comox Valley residents. We don’t know how this will turn out—It’s and experiment! We’re going to make up the rules as we go and we thoroughly hope that others will want to join the conversations and contribute new ideas as to how the conversations can evolve.
If you are interested in being part of CV Conversations for one issue or for all posts or have some thoughts on how this conversational blog could be even more relevant/interesting send me a note at nreynolds at shaw.ca. We, the founding members of CV Conversations, see this as a natural progression for a participator centred local community website.
Given earlier polling that found enthusiastic support in the affected CVRD areas for a curbside collection of household and yard waste as well as a pick up of recyclable materials(74%) it seems obvious there was an organized effort by a few vested interests to defeat the new collection service by a failed AAP.
Given the Conservative record under Harper it is hard not to understand the reluctance of Canadian voters to abandon the Liberals by default thinking—even when they don’t like Liberals.
Given the Conservative record under Harper it is hard not to understand the reluctance of Canadian voters to abandon the Liberals by default thinking—even when they don’t like Liberals.
What I failed to adequately consider is that the Fairy Creek watershed of southern Vancouver Island is part of Tree Farm License 46, a 59,000-hectare timber harvesting tenure within the unceded territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation whose band council wants to proceed with logging the old growth in their territory. If one were to do as I suggest and “meet all demands unquestioning…”one would have to permit whatever logging they wish to do “unquestioningly.”
What if rather than wrangling over who/what party to support we come up with an easy/objective evaluator of who to support for a “Just and Sustainable Canada”? What if we make up a list and promote the list in big and small ways—road signs/hand outs due to cost of media advertising.
Now I remember why I so publicly burned my BCNDP membership card in 1993. I was fed up with a NDP government that, under Mike Harcourt, promised meaningful reform in BC forestry policy, however, once elected, quietly assumed most of the policies of the Socreds.
Today the gig is up. It is time to put away the pretenses and platitudes. It is time for settler governments, complicit in this hideous death and cover up of so many children, to capitulate—to meet all demands unquestioning; to come to a settlement that recognizes past horrors and points a way forward where we can finally put this grim past behind us and move forward with a meaningful and implemented justice for all.
So this week I want to expand the idea of participatory journalism by asking you, readers of this column, to share links to the websites/news media that you feel carries the most trustworthy, most insightful coverage of news/views from around the world—and especially in our own backyard/country. If you trust it and it fascinates/informs you, please share it.
What I didn’t realize when I wrote the previous post is that people are not only “willing to switch” but—I soon learned from enthusiastic email–those who have tried ebiking quickly become passionate promoters of this new environmentally sound transportation.
It may seem a daunting task but it is hardly more difficult than nonviolently expelling the British from India. It’s about having the gumption to say no to our atmosphere polluting planes and automobiles and say yes to the healthy for people and planet transportation by bicycles. The thing I like most about this ride a bike; save our Earth and its peoples idea is that we don’t need anyone to organize us or tell us it is ok to act now or organize us. We can just go do it!
As I sat down to write this post about Facebook and its ubiquitous searching/analyzing of human communication for commercial/political vulnerabilities of all of its 3 billion subscribers my thoughts kept coming back to Tolkien’s story of the ring and its magical ability to “bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
For over twenty years a small group of people in the Comox Valley managed a list serve (A Sustainable Comox Valley—ascv)that promoted respectful conversations about all aspects of sustaining healthy people on a healthy planet. Unfortunately that listserve came to an end when Yahoo Groups decided that list serves are simply not profitable and dropped the service.
If you share with me the view/longing in your heart to see our Comox Valley community be about more than Big Box Stores, Big Box Consumerism and a lengthy strip mall that has no more community to it than every other strip mall in North America, then you will find this Youtube video most interesting
Having just read the 1200 page The Rise and fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer, I am amazed and terrified at the parallels between the buffoon, would be dictator to the south, and the Third Reich’s disastrous leader that left so many dead people while destroying nations in his wake.