Don’t get me wrong. I love all that stuff. But, ten years later it was all forgotten. The cynic in me thinks that we are all trapped in a fashion cycle driven by the marketeers.

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/01/blackboard_idea.html

When I go to wholefoods and decide not to use a bag, this decision is reflected in a “bag credit” on my bill. I think its a 10 or 15 cent discount or refund. Whatever the details, while small, it is something along the lines of what you were thinking.

SUSAN DAVIS: “I think in this world, it’s not rights deigned from on high. I think rights are only real when, in fact, people can exercise their rights. And so, what you see here is a very practical solution about people being able to organize for power and being able to also give voice to the various needs….

In order to respond to the horrible water problem that existed with arsenic in the water, you actually don’t have the capacity if everybody is acting in an atomized, fragmented way. And I think you would agree that organizing people so that they can promote their own collective interest is the way to actually realize the rights that may be on the books, de jure, but are never going to be enforced, de facto, unless people have some means of power.

So first, they have to stabilize their own household. They have to be able to eat every day. They have to be able to imagine that they have a future. And then they are able to actually take action in a social and political and economic spheres, so that we’re talking about full citizenship for every person.”

Shiva responds, recognizing that Davis’ view assumes that capitalism is the end all and be all of socio-economics.

VANDANA SHIVA:” I think the assumption that the deepening capitalist order entering every sphere of our life, determining how water will flow on this planet, whether it will flow according to the law of gravity or against the law of gravity walking upwards to money, or biodiversity and seeds, whether they’ll be seen as gifts of nature and a commonwealth to be shared and protected or treated as the property of giant corporations under the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement of the WTO, I think each of these issues needs something beyond capitalism. I think — and it’s not an issue of creating another future, it’s an issue of defending the future that is in people’s hands right now.

People in Rajasthan have made rivers come alive by working together to conserve water. And I think we need to recognize that there are those other means of organizing. I think we need to recognize that there are systems beyond capital and at least for maintaining the ecological processes of this planet and defending the commons on this planet. It is not capitalism, but countering the logic of capitalism that will make sure we have an atmosphere, that’s now getting so degraded that climate change is wiping us all out, that the seeds being sold to peasants are renewable and not with terminator genes. I think accepting the logic of capital in these vital areas of life is something that makes life impossible. And we’ve seen that with climate change.”

http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/

I’m good for at least 10 seedlings this year (I hope more), and care of the rest I’ve already planted. Anyone care to join in?

But… maybe that’s the image for this disscusion after all. Up against globalized corporate/military power, climate change and a population careening out of control… it’s good to remember that a stubborn little guy still has a shot at success.