a new paradigm II

As we grapple with the muck spewed out daily by the BP spill, we can expect to see and hear a lot of protesting, but what good will it do? We are very small mice here, and BP is one of the world's most powerful global corporations. They can afford not to listen to us.

Unless, of course, huge numbers of people protest by refusing to buy their product. So really, the most effective way to protest against our Babylonian captivity by the oil giants and their toxic products is to buy a bicycle, then actually ride it. It won't do much good if it just sits in the garage while we drive to the store for our daily bread.

This is what my daughter and others have been stressing to me lately -- speaking out against accomplishes very little, but living in the alternative is ultimately the only thing that will work. If even very large numbers don't buy into alternative ways of living, life improves immensely for those who do.

The other crucial link besides oil that cements our dependency on the corporate state and all its auxiliary institutions is housing. In his book "The Hand-Sculpted House," Lanto Evans writes: The building industry and government regulation concentrate power in the hands of government and selected corporations by enforcing compliance with a limited set of options (p. 18).

The construction industry is a major cause of mining and industrial processing... (p. 19), producing synthetic amalgams that don't exist in nature...aluminum alloy, stainless steel, plastics, varnishes, particle board, drywall, and above all, cement. Those materials...are the source of our deepest misgivings...(and) we should expect that any synthetic material is likely to be toxic (p. 15).

Real earnings are declining, and housing costs continuing to rise, trapping people in lifelong mortgages. Many homeowners take jobs they dislike to pay for houses they do not love. They hand over control of their personal finances to banks, which are some of the most ecologically damaging institutions on the planet (p. 17).

Building with natural materials reduces the push for resource extraction and for industrial processing. It decreases pollution, deforestation, and energy use (p. 19).

Evans recommends that people opt out of the bank-based system of debt, credit, and mortgages, and instead save up enough money to buy a little plot of land somewhere, and learn to build their own shelters. In places where the climate is appropriate, he suggests cob, a form of construction using unbaked earth along with clay, sand, and straw, as the best option. Cob is an English term for mud building, using no forms, no bricks, and no wooden structure (p. 25). Cob houses are a lot more durable than you might imagine, and the results are beautiful as well as practical -- the picture above shows the interior of a snug cob cottage recently built in Missouri.

Want to know more? Read the book, which is a comprehensive how-to manual, among other things.

Just before he was murdered in 1948, Gandhi said "A non-violent revolution is not a program of seizure of power. It is a program of transformation of relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power." A genuine revolution need not involve the violence of bombs, barricades, and firearms, and a much more effective way to overthrow institutions, including governments, whose continued existence is incompatible with the existence of civilized society is to stop giving them money. That's all you need to know in order to understand why, as Gil Scott-Heron said in 1971, "The revolution will not be televised."

All quotes set in italics are from Lanto Evans, Michael G. Smith, and Linda Smiley, "The Hand-Sculpted House; A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage," illustrated by DeAnne Bednar; (Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, VT), 2002.

See also, "Year of Mud: Buiding a Cob House," a set of 180 photographs which shows the day-by-day steps in building the cob cottage pictured above.