[Kate Parker Adams]

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