Is it an emergency yet?
Well, it has been for a long time, but more people are starting to notice. The symptoms can’t be papered over as easily as they get more severe, frequent, and ubiquitous. Peak Oil… climate derangement… authoritarian movements… rollback of women’s rights… food contamination scares… concentration of media owmership… species loss… water shortages… runaway incarceration… megafires… resource wars… financial meltdowns… Seems like things are going more wrong, more rapidly, more generally than we’re used to. What’s to be done?
A natural response is survivalism: how am I gonna get through this? But there’s more than one kind of survivalism: if you are worried about how your community — your tribe, your extended family, your township, your county, your neighbours and friends are going to get through this together — then we’re working on a radio show for you. The Emergency Wormcasting Network has two basic premises: (a) we believe there’s a real emergency, and (b) we believe there are things you can do about it… both to influence public life to soften the landing, and to safeguard the health and freedom of yourself and your community.
The Emergency Wormcasting Network is just getting off (or into) the ground. Segment Zero was recently completed and is available online, as streaming audio and mp3 download. Segment Zero discusses home food production, the politics of vegetable gardening in the suburbs, why certain social forces like HOAs oppose visible food growing in suburban ‘hoods, why food security is at the heart of autonomy and popular resistance, and many other related issues. DeAnander interviews Stan Goff on his local struggle to save his family’s food garden from the HOA. We’d like to get comments and feedback at the EWN thread at Feral Scholar — what do you think about this segment?
Future topics on the table as of Nov 2007 are: Local Currencies; Sustainable Transportation; Safe Humanure Composting; introduction to the essays of feral philosopher Ran Prieur; Industrialism, Warfare, and Gender… you are invited to suggest some more!
We could respond to this growing state of emergency with gold under the mattress and guns in the attic — or with bicycles in the neighbourhood and veggies in the yard. Adventurism, or autarky? Our feeling at IA and FS is that Option B offers more lasting prospects for resistance and social change. We’re trying to offer the practical and strategic tools, resources, and inspirations for a distributed and growing culture of Option B. Peak oil, environmental degradation, class, capital, gender, race, energy, land, food and water — we’ll try to connect the dots, and help listeners move beyond despair into action.
Posted by DeAnander in Pedagogy, News, Analysis