Shepparton's 'shed dwellers' showing the way

Shepparton’s “shed dwellers” are at the leading edge of how life will be in coming decades.

Shepparton's shed dwellers
 are another critical piece
 in the jigsaw in the picture
of life in the future.

Our shed dwellers, a metaphor for those who chose to live where they work, is more common than we might think.
Those who have chosen this approach have done so for a variety of reasons, from economic to convenience and from an interest in reducing their carbon footprint to just good sense.
Man’s voracious appetite for energy is eroding our finite fossil fuel resources so much that anything we can do to reduce the distance between where we live and our work will be critical.
Most of our shed dwellers leave home in the morning walk a few steps and start work.
Such beautiful convenience in our emerging energy starved world makes absolute sense, but is objected to by many who, despite repeated warnings about collapsing energy networks, are addicted to a way of life that only exists because of fossil fuels.
Beyond that, many say they simply don’t want to be so close to their work; they want a physical divide, they want their work and their homes to be in different geographical places.
The news about that, sad or otherwise depending on you stance, can just as easily be in your mind and so as expansive, or as distant you want it to be.
Drive around Shepparton and within minutes the opportunities for a “live where you work” life becomes apparent and just awaits the arrival of some creative and entrepreneurial person to exploit the opening.
For centuries humans have created living spaces in what at first glance seemed like most inopportune places, but which eventually evolved to become hugely comfortable, community building, personally satisfying and, importantly, a wise economic decision that greatly reduced energy consumption.
Home-based enterprises were once commonplace, but a few things changed that – humans learned how to access and exploit fossil fuels, bringing on the Industrial Revolution that saw the gestation of corporations, that profited from labour, which enjoyed the products made possible by those fossil fuels, leading to the motor car, that produced suburbia built around a detached home on a large block, often many kilometres from where the home owner worked.
These sumptuous neighbourhoods lacked intimacy and so the true sense of community that are mostly connected to intensively settled and developed places in which, in times gone, your neighbour could have been a blacksmith on one side and the other, a fellow who repaired and built, by hand, furniture.
Times, obviously, have changed, but the shed dweller next door might be an engineer, or a computer specialist, but whatever they might be, the intimacy of the living and working locally is a resource upon which our future will hinge.

We need thinking that will break ranks

Human imagination is faltering.

Albert Einstein became
famous for his curiousity.

Such an observation will undoubtedly draw criticism from many quarters, but in nearly every case that censure would come from those who are among the few, the measured minority, who enjoy the benefits of man’s imaginative innovations.
Many of the billions that tread the earth live each day on what most Australians consider small change and some live in countries of which they know not and nor do they have any idea what exists beyond a day’s walk.
Humankind has travelled on the back of imagination for millennia and sometimes that has been good and at other times, not so good. 
The 20^th century was alive with imaginative developments and that 100 years of innovative momentum has continued into the 21^st century with something new appearing on the human landscape nearly every other day.
What we have seen, though, has been somewhat linear, an almost expected, development of what already existed.
What we haven’t seen, a further example of the paucity of imagination, are ideas that have truly broken ranks; ideas that have sent humanity hurtling off on a refreshingly new journey.
Technologically the advances have been many, especially in the world of electronics, and while they have made much about life easier and more convenient, whether or not they have made life better is an open question and so any answer is subjective.
Danger lurks everywhere for even commonly used and understood terms such as “better” are subject to corruption and misunderstanding as one fellow’s better paradise is another’s hell.
Let’s agree that better is qualitative covering contentment and happiness rather than the quantitative measure of the accumulative life upon which success in the modern life is computed.
Abiding by that agreement we face our first challenge in stepping beyond contemporary understandings of success and launch ourselves into a whole new paradigm in which a better life is about kindness, sharing and collaboration; a way of living that, despite the protestations of our pedagogical politicians and corporations, is the antithesis of what exists.
Having freed ourselves from the straight jacket of existing thinking, we need to unleash our imaginations to consider iconoclastic utopias as opposed to their blueprint counterparts that are intimately, and generally, restrictive in every sense – they are totalitarianism by another name.
The stereotypical understanding is that most utopias are the foundation of tyranny or despotism, but we should note that none of the anger, violence and distrust the soak these ideologies are evident, in any way, in the qualities of genuine utopian thinking.
Nor will you find evidence of the manners that prevail in a civilized society in any form of government that has tyrannical traits and subsequently is devoid of kindliness, honesty and equality.

Barack Obama - likeable man, seriously distracted

I like Barack Obama.
He appears, and, to be a genuinely pleasant bloke with life-affirming values. I say “appears” as I have never met him and so depend on others to form my view.
That said, he is ensnared in an unsettling political structure deemed democracy, but which is really something quite different.
Should the fellow, described as “the most powerful man in the world”, be allowed to implement, unfettered, his ideas then America would unquestionably be a better place.
Sadly, the political intrigue in which he is entangled is worsened by irrational fanatical-like beliefs and divisive neo-liberal forces he confronts, his political survival is, at best, tenuous.
Whatever he may or may not be, the US president is heavily influenced, some say “controlled”, by the military/industrial complex that revolves around short-termism and gives precedence to corporate profit ahead of the broader welfare of people.
Australia has long supped at the US dinner table, or more correctly scrounged the scraps, and has sleeping with them, but now the electric blanket has been cranked up another notch.

US President, Barack Obama

A US military base will soon be a feature of the northern Australian landscape further implicating Australia in America’s hegemonic plans, something about which we should be remarkably cautious considering its successes, read failures, in the past century.
Americans generally, but not specifically, are arrogant about their lifestyle and resultantly so sensitive about them, that they undertake in other countries a style of social engineering that many see as simply a military invasion.
They are legendary for claiming their actions as self-defence and within that, helping build democracy.
Comforted by such self-congratulatory thoughts, they killed thousands in Vietnam, mostly children, women and peasant farmers, and despite some of the heaviest bombing the world has ever seen, the Americans, and us by implication, were chased out of the country by a rag-tag army – democracy, of a type, had won the day.
America has frequently steeped beyond its borders to “defend” itself and if other had acted similarly they would be guilty of war crimes and subsequently, we need to be cautious about aligning ourselves with such a questionable “friend”.
America should look to its own troubles before turning its attentions to the world’s dilemmas.
Considering the hierarchy of those matters on which a nation’s wellbeing is measured, America has much social engineering to do at home to help the legions of their own who are falling through the cracks in its societal structures.
American life may appear glamorous, but reality is different with millions struggling to maintain even the rudiments of life.
Obama is a nice bloke, but rather than accommodating America’s imperialistic ambitions, we should kindly suggest he invest his time, money and efforts at home.

The 'Responsible men' talk, but miss the point

The “Responsible men” gathered in Shepparton last week to consider national and global food security.
FoodbowlUnlimited and The Global Foundation combined to auspice what they deemed “a significant public conference” to benefit people ranging from your neighbour to others throughout the world.
Speakers featured Australia’s Federal Minister for Agriculture, Mr Joe Ludwig, who kept his talents well-disguised, and Visy Industries executive chairman of, Mr Anthony Pratt, who gave the keynote address.
Most conference attendees held significant influence in our communities and because of that were positioned to make decisions about the unfolding of our world, here and overseas.
Corporate and private agendas were obvious on Tuesday and it is unlikely any participants left with a sense that the security they sought was to be found in something quite different from what was advocated.
The business as usual paradigm is broken and the security discussed on Tuesday is not to be found in repeating what has obviously not worked, rather it demands society’s re-shaping to permit the dispersal of wealth, opportunity and within that, social access and equity; in fact a steady-state economy.

Federal Minister for
 Agriculture, Mr Joe
 Ludwig.

A film recently shown in Tatura, watched by 13 people, clarified the catastrophe of industrialising our food system, while Tuesday’s talks, in essence about the maintenance of that broken structure, attracted about 170 people, including a Federal Government Minister.
The urgent need for growth that sustains our corporate world has resulted in many sins, but corporate propaganda portrays those iniquities as societal benefits, but in reality they about enriching a few while marginalizing many.
Contrary to that, a steady-state economy is grounded in equity and access seeking sustainability, quality and wealth distribution in everything it does as opposed to the ultimately destructive and unsustainable binge on quantity that began in the industrial revolution and reached its zenith in the 20th century, but has begun to unravel in the past decade.
Tuesday’s conference had the honourable intention of searching for a way to ensure a reliable and ongoing food supply, but seemed to overlook, or purposely ignore, ideas that could solve the challenge.
The solution is in the creative destruction of what exists leading to a whole new way of doing business that is not solely about profit and growth.
The emphasis must be on doing things on a human scale avoiding the present distorted measure of success that clearly is quantitative as opposed to qualitative.

Neoliberalism puts profits ahead of people

A world order that profits on inequalities crafted to answer neoliberal desires is sliding into disarray.

Naom Chomsky

That paradigm, which enriches a few and financially, psychologically and physically cripples many, is bringing a disorder that most of Australia’s comfortable can’t understand.
Many in the Goulburn Valley stand among the comfortable and while just a few see the inevitable, many feel a shiver of uncertainty as “they” appear equally undecided about what to do next.
Neoliberalism is a notion that has surreptitiously swept up most political isms leaving nearly all vulnerable to an ideology that flourishes in a greenhouse-like magical aura that corporate financed public relations machinations have convinced us is right and proper.
The ideology is about smaller taxes for the wealthy, fewer limitations and restrictions on doing business, the dismantling of public education and social welfare programs and, of course, the removal of anything that might interfere with the working of the free market.
Writing in the preface for Naom Chomsky’s “Profit Over People”, Robert W.McChesney said: “At their most eloquent, proponents of neoliberalism sound as if they are doing poor people, the environment, and everybody else a tremendous service as they enact policies on behalf of the wealthy few”.
Neoliberalism is one of those places where democracy goes to die as its adherents are happiest when the citizenry is largely depoliticized and pre-occupied with various frivolities leaving it advocates unhindered as they continue to exploit the world for their private gain – in essence privatizing the profits and socializing the costs.
The arrival of neoliberalism has been so silent, and subsequently unannounced, that few have had the opportunity to attempt to understand the risk it brings to the broader well-being of our society.
Rarely can we point a finger at any one thing and argue that we are watching neoliberalism at work for it has permeated society to such an extent that its manoeuvres appear normal.
Its stratagems are not in the broader interest of society and so the responsibility falls upon each of us to step back from life’s distractions at least long enough to consider what is and isn’t in our best interests.
Having reached a workable conclusion, our task doesn’t end there for it is at that point we need to engage with democracy and have make our presence felt at the ballot box.
That, however, is not end of our involvement, rather it is really just the beginning of democracy and the casting of your vote should be little more than a prelude to involving ourselves in helping piece together ideas that will make our community more socially equal, and a collaborative and happier place that enriches communities, rather than individuals – that is the ideal, but the neoliberal doctrine delivers something quite different.

Tatura screening explores the disconnect in our food

The disconnect between the generous array of food in supermarkets and how it is produced was explored in a movie screened in Tatura on Wednesday night.

The movie - Food Inc.

“Food Inc”, filmed in 2008, showed the audience of 13 how the deception about our food arrives on our tables began with misleading advertising.
The image that our food came from traditional farms where chooks roamed free and cows grazed contentedly in open paddocks was shown to be a lie with the source of most foods being from industrialized farms in which the reverse was the norm.
Food Inc concentrated on the American market, but as one who watched the movie said; “It’s all scalable”.
“All those distressing American scenes are happening here, but to a lesser degree,” he said.
More detail about the movie, shown free by Transition Town Tatura, can be found here.

A coincidently understanding of the 'Royal road to chaos'

Coincidence is sometimes a little unsettling.

Sam Harris

The movement to “Occupy Melbourne” had reached something of a crescendo as I neared the midway point of the book “Lying” by Sam Harris.
The book had been closed for the last time when the media erupted with the news that Victoria’s former Chief Commissioner of Police, Simon Overland, had been treated less than honestly.
Although not described so honestly and blatantly, he had been lied about and to.
The OccupyMelbourne people were protesting about corporate greed, a hunger for profits assembled legally and within the bounds of democracy, but which are frequently the proceeds of mischievous honesty and questionable egalitarianism.
However, as with many things it is not that simple, for close examination will quickly and easily show, that many protesting are simply using the medium as a vehicle to express a private grievance. They are, in fact, also lying.
Harris claims he had no specific memories of his values about lying before he took a course at Stanford University “The Ethical Analyst” which was built around the single question “Is it wrong to lie?”
He said that course “profoundly changed my life” and his book subsequently had a significant impact on my thinking.
Harris discussed the difficulties we all experience in maintaining our fidelity to a life of non-lying and the first personal identifiable encounter came after the recent John Furphy Memorial Lecture.
Traditional politeness elicits a degree of “harmless” lying as when talking with others about such orations; diplomacy displaces honesty.
Professor Geoffrey Blainey is a fellow who I respect and was looking forward to an uplifting and inspiring address and there were some high points, but broadly I was disappointed as he had used his rich historical knowledge to inculcate doubts about the science that legitimizes climate change.
Adhering to the new personal measure, not lying, it was at the after-lecture refreshments my first test emerged when others who had been at the lecture asked my opinion.
Explaining personal conflicts with Prof Blainey’s views, I was surprised, and delighted, to find that many others felt the same confirming that sometimes the sense of the crowd is to be of more value than that of authority – I use the term ‘crowd’ with some disquiet as it was really only about six people.
Lies, from white to black and every colour in between, seem to be the superstructure upon which life is built right from the supposed democratically elected most powerful man in the world to the appropriateness of you wife’s latest outfit.
Harris has described lying as the “royal road to chaos”, an observation certainly confirmed by the first of those lies with the second being subjective, for all parties.