This December 2nd morning I am reading carefully through “Who Is Afraid of Degrowth?” by Celine Keller (over in Germany) … up on a hill in a late-1800s-Alsatian limestone home in Rio Medina, Texas (looking over the Medina Valley).
(My wife Betsy is out in the pasture harvesting Whitetail deer venison.)
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I guess I am happy that Mom (St. Louise [Kneuper]) & Dad Martin, the village of Devine, those ecology books from the late 1800s/early 1900s back in the non-air conditioned library stacks at Texas A&M in the mid to late 1960s, & the teachings of E.J. Dysterhuis, Will Whitcomb, David Pimentel, H.T. Odum, Herman Daly, Jim Hightower & Susan DeMarco, Wendell Berry, et al. and travels to Latin America & Poland/Ukraine, etc. … created a WOKE paul bain martin (pbm).
But not a “Smug-WOKE” pbm, but rather one who could recognizes the wrongs (& the very difficult, intrenched complexities) of disparity, hubristic human-decision-driven/inappropriate-technology-driven/Growth-driven overshoot, and drawdown of the natural resource base & anthropogenic global climate change … and the need for systematic system change from destructive neoliberal capitalism/consumerism/miltarism and the current wave of socio-ecologically destructive Trump-cultism & its compelling but TOXIC!!!, flimflammery (and associated global toxic Right-wing “shenanigans”).
Perhaps a WOKE pbm who hopefully humbly continues to struggle … learnedly, “critical-thinkingly”, sharingly, & cooperatively, and in solidarity with those of John Lewis’ “Good Trouble” … toward:
1. universal, profoundly comprehensive ecological literacy (continued work in outdoor ecological learning activities w/ youth such as w/ Generations Indigenous Ways )
2. banning nuclear weapons & deweaponization/demilitarization (efforts w/ Veterans For Peace w/ which pbm is a member)
3. Degrowth (mostly reading, connecting, & learning … & trying to practice)
4. a quasi-matriarchal lcoal/global agrarian system (teaching, preaching, politicking)
5. equity (struggling towards for all of humanity/biota)
Love y’all,
paul bain martin
7 Ss / VV->^^
