A Different Perspective: Participatory Action Research

Coffee Action! research…

This is the introductory post to my new place for the Summer. I am now in Coopabuena, Costa Rica… about 30 miles from the Costa Rica-Panama border. One thing I am trying to do recently is keep my writing as grounded as possible. It’s too easy to use dogmatisms and concepts and miss real life in writing. See if you notice in this history/diretions post.

Change to the masses

Social systems are very interesting to me.

When we look at society, ecosystems, or our planet on a systems scale, it appears to be resilient, stable. In general, large systems are averse to change, and we’re happy to assume things to be constant. But every so often, catastrophic transformations take place in a very quick time period. Ecosystem collapse builds on itself, and suddenly total species live in a world completely foreign to them. Coral reefs may be going through a mass extinction from climate change within the next few months, as algae are suddenly multiplying thousandfold in the warmer water. If these “rainforests of the ocean” are coming to terms with large tipping points in their lives, what does that mean for the human environment 4 degrees warmer?

I believe that social systems are the same way. If you consider it, the bloom of algae happens once conditions exist for them to prosper. It’s not complex, it’s really simple. The old status quo (old-world economic systems) rely on the same nutrients (resource surplus) being there, and cannot backtrack nor adjust to new realities. The discipline now faces hard issues like backwards-incorporating ecological realities, social equality, or generational risk. While the bottom-liners turn a blind eye, these are the issues we must deal with! And that means the rules of the game have to change. Cultures don’t cut back on their own: As in the barrier reef, new conditions bring organisms to either adapt to the new conditions and multiply, or die with this global crisis, and good riddance. *Obama’s election means that overall this evolution will be positive.*

Socio-economic change: each person [and company] responding to new opportunities in a predictable way brings about systemic, evolutionary-level change.

Now I’m not saying that losing a reef is a good thing, it’s actually quite terrible to see things go and hurts a lot of people. But the example can be a good model for the one thing that can spread like bacteria: human word-of-mouth. Once a new reality emerges, there’s surprisingly little holding the former winners in place. What does this mean? Now will be the time when people question the validity of long-standing military-industrial-government rule, and now we finally have choice in what lives and dies. Even a small preference, shared over dinner/conversation/the web can become a huge impact. During a recession, climate meltdown, internet revolution and world political change following Obama’s inauguration, my bet is on the peasants to make out alive. The silent masses will have a say in the new world order.

For small farmers, why submit to the hierarchy traditionally imposed on you if you can become a natural farmer and change your family, your country and homeland? The answer is often that they haven’t had the choice. If a few leading industries can now make it possible for everyone to be a part of a new worldview, the system will follow. Enough people on the supply and demand side can create a new equilibrium that is more peaceful, sustainable and just.

Change to the masses: it’s coming in more ways than you think.

-Eddie Miller
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/

One to the team!

Just this Wednesday, I got a positive word from a long-time friend Jake Mercer. He studies Economics and non-profit management at Baldwin Wallace college, and is in to make this happen. This brings the team to two currently, and adds valuable fund-raising and farm experience to the venture. Let’s do this, Jake! Thanks for reading!

Things are happening very quickly now. The planning has passed the agriculture test, passed an economic analysis, with me in all the right places to make it happen. Next is deciding the structure: venturing into supply chain and cooperative design. This will be very well suited for my planned 7-month stay in Costa Rica, where I want to start. (For more information on this, visit:
Plan

This is an open invitation: do you want to join the team and work on this? There would be job options domestically or abroad, in any number of areas still to be defined. Please let me know on this, or any advice now before I go.

As an interim project, I’m taking a class with Oberlin College students in January on permaculture, an interesting variant on Organics. More on this soon!

-Eddie Miller
BU ‘10
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/

The Crisis in Darfur

What is happening, and what can we do about it?

Just went to an incredible talk from a Darfur refugee- that means he was a Muslim in Western Sudan when government backed militias destroyed 50 villages in his valley and killed 21 members of his family. That was in 1983. From there, what do you do?

1. He fled to Egypt and organized. Wrote for 6 years to Arab and Muslim leaders, press, all to condone the killing. Nothing.
2. Contacted embassies in Egypt: large-scale internet distribution to amazing world response. Awareness hit international community.
3. Mentioned in US and UN circles, but no International backed action.
4. Now travelling around speaking, crying out for peacekeepers who would be welcomed by the darfuri people. But still no action has been taken.

The story ends on a sombering note: 15 years of genocide and murder and rape, until his people can no longer leave their villages for firewood. International complacency (follow the money…). African Union inefficiency and corruption.

But WHAT to do?

People have been trying to get our government to act. Maybe Obama will. The letters are all in…

International action would be best. UN declares genocide= moral obligation to act. Target=Ban Ki Moon secretary general.

International causes have to be stopped. Clog the vein that feeds government war. Locate and destry multinational streams of revenue. Lawsuit or…

Direct action from the people.
Set fire to the oil reserves they want. Shut down the gold mines and release international press. You clearly aren’t benefitting from the revenue, better without. If the trade becomes too dangerous, people will divest and the money will leave. The crisis burns itself out.

My thoughts on how to solve crisis: Any resistance effort has to be led by the affected, charged by a will to survive. Donations could flow much more efficiently through the internet into organizer’s hands than through government or international aid channels.

Any largescale peace effort would instantly give itself away: white people, white vans, white weapons drive the war underground. Instead it needs to be escalated vs. Silent millions.

*SO…*
This is where I must leave you, dear reader. I am not going to be the one to organize for the solution to Darfur. I do know that more visibility is a waste of effort, and untargeted begging is unclassy. What can one person who really cares DO?

Organize! The internet gives us unlimited power of knowledge. Find out what’s going on, look at solutions and then make a better one. People are dying, but every crisis has a best plan of attack. Go, click, thrive.

Amnesty International
BU coalition to save darfur

A New Hope for Darfur (in Water) speaker tomorrow:
Thursday, November 20th
7:00 PM
COM 101 (640 Commonwealth Avenue)

Hope and change must dominate our thoughts, or else we will be lost.
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com

-Eddie Miller
BU ‘10
eddiemill@gmail.com

My reactions to change, the election, and Barack Obama

As a “mongerer of hope” myself, I see a lot of myself in Barack Obama.

In his practicality, vision, and opportunity this amazing campaign.

I hope that Americans understand what this means, this thing that
we’ve all done. The next 4-8 years of our country is in the hands of
Barack Obama and the democrats now– I feel, though, that He may be
the only one who truly knows what that change means. I realized that
this was possible on realizing that all eras must end.

The only doubt is that everyone might not be ready for this. It just
takes one racial bigot with a gun to cause a national tragedy, a
possibility that seems all too real to me.

Dark thoughts aside, its been great to be a part of our democracy.
From here out, anything is possible. we did our part!

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

For Obama’s acceptance speech:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/0510/83437/390/653543

Good morning.
-Eddie