[Tom Spencer]

Dear Dave (and anyone else who might have read my
earlier email),

Please don't bother to respond to my previous email,
if you were intending to do so. I retract it. Kate is
right to focus on what we can DO instead.

Tom

> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 20:48:32 -0400
> To: Bruce Robertson <the_oil_fish@yahoo.ca>
> From: Kate Parker Adams <kate@dnki.net>
> Subject: Re: [Powderworks] VLMOC: anti-Americanism,
> so-called
> CC: Tom Davies <minuteparticular@yahoo.com.au>,
> powderworks@cs.colorado.edu
> 
> At 06:50 PM 4/15/03 -0400, Bruce Robertson wrote:
> >On the Oils being anti-American, aren't we more
> interested in 
> >understanding what the Oils are FOR? I'm no rocket
> surgeon, but figuring 
> >out what's wrong with the world comes pretty easy
> to me, and I assume most 
> >of us. 'Where do we go from here'  would be a more
> pressing - and 
> >promising - question IMO.
> 
> I think this also ties into the whole boycott thread
> ... misguided and not 
> terribly constructive in a global sense.
> 
> If you listen to Pete's rantings and read his
> website, there is much that 
> he has to say about sustainability, about the web of
> life, about 
> precaution.  Much of that starts with making the
> choice to buy local 
> products and from local merchants whenever you
> possibly can.
> 
> I bought several items today that were made in
> America, and the important 
> thing about all of them was that they were purchased
> from local 
> merchants.  Instead of going to the McDonald's in
> the food court in the 
> hospital area, I bought from the food co-op and the
> local ice-cream 
> truck.  Got my organic fair trade coffee from a
> local coffee house (with a 
> free coupon from the fiery and hip little local free
> paper no less!) 
> instead of being patronized by a latte ventil
> barristro pretentiomonium at 
> Starbuquitous a block away . I bought bike inner
> tubes from a local bike 
> shop, not from a corporate bigbox - they won't give
> me a massbike member 
> discount anyway.  I paid the mortgage at the local
> bank that holds our loan 
> in portfolio five years after we moved in (rare -
> usually, mortgages are 
> sold fast), and made a deposit at my credit union. 
> I did all of this while 
> commuting to and from work on a bike.
> 
> Given corporate hegemony in certain areas, it simply
> isn't possible to 
> totally avoid the merchandising machine.  But you
> don't have to make a 
> perfection campaign out of it, you just have to
> realise that sometimes you 
> have choices, and that buying locally benefits your
> community and buying 
> local goods is usually a vastly more sustainable
> choice due to the 
> environmental costs of transit alone.
> 
> Ken Geiser, a mentor of mine at the Lowell Center
> for Sustainable 
> Production, has been on a positivist kick as of
> late, urging all and sundry 
> to think of how the future should look and work
> toward policies and 
> practices that make it so rather than simply fight a
> multi-front, never 
> ending battle against _____.    As hard as that is
> in the current climate, 
> I think I am attracted to Ken's teachings for the
> same reasons that I am 
> attracted to the Oil's messages.  It is not about
> fighting bad guys - its 
> about building a better world for all and making it
> last.
> 
> Just my $0.02,
> Kate

=====
Put down that weapon, or we'll all be gone.
You must be crazy, if you think you're strong.
         - Midnight Oil

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