There seems to be a trend toward states changing their electoral systems to replace party primaries with open primaries. The latter could be implemented as a single primary open to all voters whereby the top two or three candidates go on to appear on the November general election ballot.
This…
The eco-communitarian movement has been gaining resonance recently due to: (a) apprehensions about global warming; and (b) what the pandemic has revealed in regard to the isolation and loneliness engendered by our society.
Ecovillages will be the lifeboats during The Long Emergency that we face. And they can be the basecamps for the badly-needed transformational movement to green our society.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/21/take-this-job-and-shove-it-the-growing-revolt-against-work/
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/solving-plastic/2021/05/10/why-are-we-expected-to-love-our-jobs
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work/
You know that I advocate living in locally-oriented ecovillages (rural settlements or urban neighborhoods) characterized by:
. communitarian self-reliance
. identity with and commitment to a particular place-on-Earth
. …
https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/410-fall-2021/no-more-mushrooms/
Fifth Estate # 410, Fall, 2021
. . . a review of
No More Mushrooms: Thoughts About Life Without Government
by Kirkpatrick Sale. Autonomedia 2021.
Reviewed by Eric Laursen
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Even some of my best friends just can’t stand it.
In his review Eric says:
Small…
Houston Chronicle 1/21/2022
New cohousing development aims to turn neighbors into ‘extended family’ in Houston’s East End
By Marissa Luck
A long-anticipated cohousing development is finally coming to fruition as a group of Houstonians break ground on what’s being described as the first cohousing development in Texas.
CoHousing Houston is…
East Pikeland Township in Chester County, PA has adopted a Low-Impact Development Overlay ordinance for its Kimberton Village area. On this basis the township is opening the door to the establishment of eco-communities that are socially engaged, environmentally sensitive, and economically diverse. Specifically, it will enable the Altair EcoVillage project to come to fruition in the near future. Construction may begin as soon as the latter part of this year.
http://www.altairecovillage.org/blog/2022/1/18/supervisors-adopt-eco-friendly-development-practices
Altair is planned to be a 29-home age-restricted intentional community. The EcoVillage will support innovative initiatives such as a community car-sharing program, ongoing monitoring of its energy use, and collective stewardship of the property’s natural landscape. The site is about an hour from Trenton.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/voting-rights-democracy-democrats-corporate-donors-politics
All of that comes together to create a “democracy” in name but not necessarily in practice — a country where the “preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy,” as Princeton researchers concluded:
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Yes, it’s too unequal.
But it’s also just . . . too big.
When there’s a Democratic Party administration, the inevitable disappointment . . .
David Sirota:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/voting-rights-democracy-democrats-corporate-donors-politics
. . . motivates some progressives to view the Green Party as the needed alternative:
Howie Hawkins:
(There ought to be a crusade among us to get every Green to consider trying to get themselves on the ballot for some office . . . we run too few candidates.)
California is large enough to be a bioregional sovereignty. If CA started to implement programs like single-payer health insurance coverage and the federal government did not, people could start to identify their citizenry with California instead of the US nation-state. Eventually it would be logical and not all so difficult to secede from the monster. Other states could band together regionally and then, one-by-one, create bioregional commonwealths in North America.
I’m a pretty conscious person, relatively green-oriented and simplicity-minded . . . but I can’t resist the toxic dynamics.
More and more. Driving and accessing and friending and involving and generally expanding and doing and going and using.
I can’t control the hypertrophy.
Clearly we, collectively, can’t control the hypertrophy. So we, collectively, will run into the wall. Then go into a crucible of deconstruction.
Hopefully we’ll come out the other end.
At that other end: There’s no reason why we couldn’t / shouldn’t live like the Native Americans did here on Turtle Island for thousands and thousands of years.
