So in Part I, I wrote a little bit about the fix we’re in – how our endless consumption on a planet of finite resources  is simply not sustainable in the long term (or even the short term if it turns out that a lot of very smart people are right). As Edward Abbey put it, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Of course, as with all predictions of the future, we can’t know for certain exactly how long resources will last or the climate will remain stable enough to support life as we’ve known it but I firmly believe in planning for the worst and hoping for the best. I think the scientists know what they’re talking about; the details may vary in how it all plays out but none of it is a hoax.

What’s interesting about moving toward a “post-growth” or post-consumer lifestyle is that it accomplishes a number of useful things all at once. And while I’d like to think we’re all on board for “saving the planet”, I know full well that for many people that notion alone isn’t enough to motivate them to start making changes. It’s too big and too abstract and besides, what can one person do? And so, the many people who would benefit the most from learning to live post-growth don’t do so because they think they don’t have time or can’t afford it – they’re simply trying to “survive” in these tough economic times.

And that’s a very expensive way to live indeed. Because survival these days seems to depend on the foolish notion that it’s all about money. That everything you need (and want) can only be had by purchasing it. Survival supposedly depends on the constant flow of cash through their lives and the only way they know to get it – short of robbing a bank – is to have a “good”, high-paying job so that mindless consumption can carry on unimpeded. This is why you hear people who make $100,000 (or more) a year  complain that they’re barely keeping their heads above water. Mix in a whole lotta ego – that life is a contest, you gotta get ahead (of whom???), your kids have to get into a top university, he who dies with the most toys wins – and you have the perfect recipe for debt slavery and unhappiness even in the best of times.

Of course debt slavery and unhappiness suits the 1% just fine. Because as long as they can keep us believing that the only “cure” for our misery is the endless acquisition of stuff, they’ll continue to bleed us dry – with our permission. So it’s up to us to wake up, see this system for the illusion it is and say, “No more!”

But how, exactly, do we do that?

We start to think for ourselves. And we get mad and get smart and realize that we do in fact have much more power than we’ve been taught to believe. Crony-capitalism is what the 1% practices, but we can still practice real capitalism. We can reward and punish, simply by how we (don’t) spend our money.

Inspired by the lists of “Ideas for living ‘post growth’ in a growth-oriented world” of the Post Growth Institute here’s my own list of changes I’ve been working on for the last several years. It’s not exhaustive and there are certainly more things I could do better. But we all have to start somewhere, don’t we? As we know better, we do better. And, miracle of miracles – life gets less expensive. A lot less expensive.

FINANCIAL

• Read Your Money or Your Life and implemented many of the suggestions
• Got out of debt: paid off all credit cards (2007) and then accelerated my mortgage payments, paying the house off about 4-1/2 years early (2009).
• I moved my money from an evil commercial bank to a credit union.
• Once the debt was gone, I kicked my savings into high gear. Instead of using the now “extra” money to buy more useless crap, it’s being stashed away toward early retirement.

CONSUMPTION

• Buy local whenever possible.
• Buy used whenever possible (we live in the most wasteful country on earth; you would be amazed at the perfectly good stuff people dispose of).
• “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” as much as possible
• Buy as an “investment” instead of short-term disposability; ie., the new 3 qt. double-boiler insert I just bought will enable cheaper, more efficient yogurt-making and will last for decades.
• Love the treasure-hunt of garage sales.
• Adopt a DIY attitude; things like making your own yogurt or a laptop lap board are good examples.
• Growing the majority of vegetables I eat. All produce is either fresh or frozen from the garden except for January – mid-March when I do buy organic salad greens.
• Buying cheap local fruit in summer and freezing it for use in the winter.
• Sourcing grass-fed meats and other locally grown foods.
• Re-learned to cook (and no, opening a box and popping a plastic tray of industrial food into a microwave is not “cooking”).
• Cut cable TV to the bare minimum.
• Installed a programmable thermostat.
• Replaced all light bulbs with CFLs; keeping an eye on the price of LEDs.
• So far have refused an automatic replacement of my cell phone from Verizon; while this doesn’t save me money it’s the principle of the thing. Why replace something that’s not broken? That’s the very definition of mindless consumption.
• Don’t own a “smart phone”. Haven’t figured out why I should have one. “Cool” isn’t a good enough reason.
• Don’t own any (overpriced) iThingies.
• Try to buy EnergyStar items when possible.
• Buy almost no packaged convenience food (the exceptions being condiments).
• I religiously carry a stainless steel insulated water bottle instead of buying bottled water.
• Don’t drink coffee or eat cereal. Your mileage may vary on this one. I despise cereal – for reasons that are probably worthy of a blog post – and I’ve never acquired a taste for coffee. Not buying both saves me a fortune. Hmmm…maybe there is a blog post there.

TRAVEL

• Got rid of old car that was becoming unreliable (and had a reputation for transmission problems) and replaced it with a new (yes, new) car that gets at least 25% better mileage
• New car is one of the top-rated small SUV’s for reliability and people routinely put 250,000 miles on them before they give up the ghost; at the rate I drive I should get 20 – 30 years out of it.
• New car is also versatile; it can tow my utility trailer (used for hauling compost and other bulky items that won’t fit in the car), carry two large dog crates, large paintings flat in the back. In other words, mileage was not my only consideration.
• Try to be very conscious of combining trips and otherwise driving efficiently.

PSYCHOLOGICAL

• Adopted an attitude of abundance defined not by my ability to buy crap but by all that I have already.
• Understanding that in not spending money, I end up with more rather than less. Counter-intuitive I know, but that’s how it seems to work.
• Coming to understand that none of this is about deprivation; it’s about creative resourcefulness and satisfaction.
• Knowing that even if sustainability weren’t a concern, all this these things would be worth doing anyway because of the psychological benefits they provide.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

• It bugs me that I still use quite a lot of paper towel. Need to find ways to cut back.
• My $19/month cable TV bill is still annoying. I need to research alternatives and develop new “entertainment” sources. A little of what’s on TV is worth watching; most of it is not and besides, I dislike Time-Warner’s corporate behavior.
• I spend over $1000 per year on landline, cell phone and Internet. That bugs me too. But in an emergency, will a cell phone do? How to charge it if the power’s out for some time? Research all this. If I dumped the landline, would I be sorry?
• I spend $30 per month on trash disposal. Would like to eliminate this completely. Composting, vermiculture, and recycling are all free. What little true trash I now generate probably could be disposed of once a month at my county solid-waste disposal facility for, I think, $5. Just need to design a system that will cover all the bases.
• This house has 80′s-era fiberglass batt insulation in the walls and attic and six 1950′s single-pane windows that need replacing. Need to get estimates and move forward on this even if I have to do it in stages. It will definitely result in heating/cooling energy savings.
• Develop a comprehensive permaculture plan for the entire property – food production, wildlife habitat, water harvesting, etc. This will further enhance my self-reliance, finances, and environmentally responsible life. And besides, it’ll be fun to completely eliminate my lawn.
• Create a water harvesting system for the garden. I already own ten 55 gallon food-safe barrels, now I have to get it all set up. This will save not only water from the aquifer but electricity because my well pump won’t have to run so much.
• Try to rein in my book-buying a little more. I usually buy used on Amazon (at least whenever possible) but really, I need to get into the habit of using the library for checking out books before I buy.
• Still buy Diet Pepsi too often. (Danged stuff.)
• Get better at buying used. When I decide to buy something, my mindset is still “new”.
• Focus more on maintenance to make things last.

So, how about you? Where can you start? What changes have you already made? What are your goals for the future?

This free documentary (watch here or on Hulu)  tells you everything you ever wanted to know about Monsanto and GMOs.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And be sure to occupy your garden this year with heirloom seeds.

The Future Of Food offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

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Carnegie party inspecting one of the moai (Easter Island's giant statues), 1916. Note the barren, completely deforested hillside

If you look up top there, you’ll see that the tag line for this blog is “Practical inspiration for simple, sustainable occupation of a finite planet”. I worked really hard on that, trying to come up with something that would encompass the huge variety of things I wanted to write about. And so there are a fair number of posts on here now, each one relating in some way – more or less – to this idea of sustainable living on a finite planet.

Earth as a finite planet: we don’t often hear much about that. Certainly, the mainstream corporate-controlled media rarely, if ever, mentions it. But realistically, common sense tells us the earth does have limits to what she can provide to endlessly satisfy our egos; and let’s face it – the vast majority of consumption these days is ego driven – at least in first-world societies. As the global population continues to grow (we surpassed the 7 billion mark last fall), the demands we’re making on our only home increases as well. More food, more water, more cars, more houses, more gadgets, more paper, more plastic, more, more, more. Where does it stop?

Let’s not forget, either, that as Americans we comprise only 5% of the world population but we suck up between 25 and 30% of its resources.

But no matter how much we wish it weren’t so, endless growth can’t happen on a finite planet. The mere notion that it can is just magical thinking. Because every bit of raw material needed to support endless growth comes from the earth. Sit and look around you right now. Every single thing you see – all the books and walls, furniture, computer, carpeting, TV, curtains, desk, what-have-you – started out as some natural substance or material that had to be harvested or mined, processed, shipped, formed, molded, woven, stitched or otherwise manufactured into the tangible stuff around us. That can’t carry on forever and according to a growing number of voices, we are reaching ‘peak everything‘ pretty rapidly.

Where does it stop? Well, if we’re stupid enough to let it happen, it will only stop when it’s all gone. It’s hard to step back and see the big picture, but the human population of the planet, particularly those of us in the “industrialized” nations, are behaving exactly as the Easter Islanders of old did. We are destroying the global environment and natural resources on which we depend for our very survival. The parallels are unmistakeable.

But, most of us don’t give it any thought. Or if we do, then like Scarlett O’Hara, we just figure – oh fiddledy-dee – we’ll worry about that tomorrow. In the meantime, we continue on, hell-bent for destruction – with the political-industrial-agricultural complex of the 1% now firmly entrenched and designed to literally use it all up, every bit of it; a scorched earth policy in the name of endless growth and profits. We, by our gullibility and endless consumption are every bit as guilty as the corporatocracy that dangle their bright and shiny things in front of us every day.

Enter the idea of a “post-growth” or “steady-state” economy, one in which we can all live a satisfying life based much more on real (non-monetary) wealth and a lot less on the endless acquisition of material things. This, of course, won’t be nearly as much fun for the 1%, but really, do we care? I don’t. I don’t care about them any more than they care about me. We need to move on ourselves, instead of waiting and hoping in vain that the 1% will suddenly wake up and do the right thing.

‘Cause that ain’t ever gonna happen, people.

If we’re smarter than I think we are, each of us will start moving in a post-growth direction ourselves. One by one, bit by bit, we’ll disengage from the growth economy as much as possible. Sure, there will always be some basic things we need; no one is suggesting that we go back to living in caves. But the vast majority of things we do and buy are simply mindless responses to advertising and the keep-up-with-the-Joneses mentality it sells. It’s not stuff we need; it’s stuff we’re goaded into buying (often going into debt to do so) on the promise that owning all this crap will somehow make us happier, more fulfilled, or give meaning to our lives. And no matter how much we accumulate, it’s never enough.

It’s a recipe for disaster on a personal as well as planetary level.

I’ll admit, that used to be my recipe too. Then ever so slowly, I became aware that it was all an illusion. The piles of crap had  nothing to do with happiness, fulfillment or life meaning. It was just stuff. It made me broke. It didn’t live up to its promises in any of the ways the ads implied it would. Gradually, I stopped falling for the con.

So, what am I doing differently? How have I changed? How might you follow suit?

In Part II of “Living Post Growth”, we’ll take a look. I’ve compiled a (hopefully inspirational) list of where I’m at, where I’ve got room for improvement, and my post-growth plans for the future. Stay tuned!

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Just got through watching a cheery (not!) episode of Bill Moyers’ new show on PBS and was reminded once again of how precarious our collective economic situation continues to be. Both his guests – Pres. Reagan’s former budget guru David Stockman and journalist Gretchen Morgenson – stated that because no meaningful regulation has been put in place to prevent it, a repeat of the 2008 economic crash is virtually inevitable, probably within the next ten years.

Sigh.

How do you get ready? How do we ensure that we don’t get caught with our drawers down again? Well, aside from becoming a cranky activist and demanding better of the government, you can add yogurt-making to your skills.

Yeah, that’s right. Yogurt.

That may seem a stretch, but making yogurt, whipping up your own simple cleaning supplies, growing at least some of your own food, making homemade vanilla – heck, just generally learning to do lots of things for yourself instead of buying more stuff or paying other people to do them for you – helps you become more resilient. It makes you a lot less vulnerable to the fallout from the criminal activity of the banksters and their ilk should that day arrive, because the more you can do for yourself, the less money you need to live. (Even if there were no criminal banksters, these sorts of skills will stand you in good stead anytime life blindsides you a bit.) There’s a lot more to resiliency than that of course, but it’s a mindset of can-do that can be a great confidence builder.

So let’s build some confidence and learn to make some very good yogurt.

Here’s what you need:

Yogurt making supplies

INGREDIENTS: (with prices)
1 quart of milk ($1.25)
1/2 c. of non-fat dry milk ($0.94)
2 Tbsp. of your favorite brand of plain live-culture yogurt ($0.33)

EQUIPMENT:
Towels
Heating pad
Quart jar with a plastic lid
Candy thermometer
Large soup pot or a big dough bowl

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Place 2 Tbsp. of your favorite yogurt in a small bowl and set aside to let it warm up to room temperature. This is your “starter”.

2. Pour the milk in a 2 quart pan and heat to 180 degrees (use the candy thermometer for this) over a medium-low burner. Stir frequently to prevent sticking or burning. If the milk starts to burn, you have to throw it out and start over as the yogurt will have a burned flavor. Heating the milk in a double-boiler might be easier and faster; I’m going to try that next time.

Cover the bowl of warm milk with foil or a plate

3. When the milk has reached 180 degrees, pour it in a bowl and stir in the non-fat dry milk. This step is actually optional; if you like thin runny yogurt you can leave it out. I prefer a thicker Greek-type yogurt and the non-fat dry milk powder helps with this. If the powder wants to be lumpy in the milk, you can use the hand mixer for a minute or so to disperse it evenly. This will help to cool the milk as well.

Add a couple more towels

4. Let the warm milk sit for awhile until the temperature has dropped to 115 degrees.

5. Put a small amount of the warm milk in the dish with the starter yogurt and stir until well mixed. Pour into the large bowl of milk and stir.

6. Cover the bowl with a plate or aluminum foil and place on the heating pad covered with a towel. Place a couple more towels over the bowl, and invert the big soup pot or dough bowl over the whole thing.

Cover everything with a big dough bowl or soup pot, set the heating pad on low, and leave the yogurt to incubate for 8 hours.

7. Set the heating pad on ‘Low’ and let the yogurt incubate for 8 hours. If you have a gas oven with a pilot light, you might try that as an alternative to the heating pad.

8. When the yogurt has set, pour in the quart jar, cover, and store in the refrigerator.

Generally, you don’t want to make more yogurt than you can use in about 5 days as it starts to get tart (unless you like that). You can use a couple tablespoons of each batch as starter for the next one but after every four or five batches you should start over with fresh store-bought yogurt. I’ve read that you can freeze your left-over starter yogurt and it will work just as well as unfrozen but I’ve never tried this.

So, how much do we save? A bundle.

Assuming you like thick yogurt, the ingredients listed above total $2.52 for a quart – that’s 32 oz. That works out to 8 cents an oz. or the equivalent of 48 cents for the standard 6-oz. container of store bought yogurt. Around here, 6 oz. of commerical yogurt goes for at least 99 cents (even store brands) so you’re saving more than half: 51 cents.

Now, if you’ve been eating one container of yogurt per day, homemade will save you $186.15 a year. If you live in a yogurt lovin’ household and go through, say, 4 containers a day you’ll save over $700 in one year if you switch to making your own.

Now, my favorite brand of yogurt is Chobani and it’s actually made here in NY State so I would love to continue supporting them, but it varies from $1.00 to $1.19 per 6 oz. in area stores. Compare that to a quart of milk for $1.25. If I were the 1%, I probably wouldn’t bat an eye at the idea of spending almost as much for one itty-bitty cup of yogurt as on a quart of milk . But, like most of us, I need to watch what I spend. And I hate to go all doomer-y on you but the more I can save now, the better position I’ll be in when (if?) that second crash comes.

There are other advantages to making your own yogurt as well. Once again, doing it yourself puts you in control. For starters, you get to use the milk of your choice. You could use 1% or 2% milk to make your yogurt. I find it annoying that almost all commercial yogurt is non-fat but also full of sugar – in fact it’s almost too sweet for me. If carbs* are your problem (as they are for me) you will want to make a whole milk yogurt that has a lower carb content. And you can use stevia or any of the alternative sweeteners if you desire.

Heck, if you can find a farm in your area that sells raw organic milk you can use that. And check your health food store for organic non-fat dry milk powder. It will probably cost quite a bit more, but my guess is that it would still be less than commercial yogurt.

My favorite way to flavor homemade yogurt is to mix in sweetener to taste and add a tiny bit of vanilla. I then mix in whole blueberries or strawberries that I bought locally and froze for winter use (20 quarts of blueberries and 16 quarts of strawberries if memory serves).

Making yogurt does take some time. It’s best done while you’re already puttering in the kitchen so you can keep an eye on the heating milk and give it a stir every so often. Then you need to keep track of the cooling. But after that, it just sits there yogurtizing for 8 hours. It’s up to you whether you want to leave the house with a heating pad plugged in – I always do it on a day that I have no plans to go anywhere.

I also like the fact that when you get into the habit of making your own yogurt, you’re generating far less plastic waste. It takes almost as much energy to make new plastic from old plastic as it takes to make new plastic from scratch so recycling it doesn’t help as much as we think it does. And even if you repurpose the little cups, there’s a limit to how many of them you can reasonably find a use for. Each batch of yogurt you make yourself generates, at most, a paper milk carton and envelope (from the powdered milk) plus one plastic yogurt cup every four or five batches.

Homemade yogurt really isn’t that hard or complicated to make. Give it a try – you just might find yourself adding yet another handy frugal skill to your repertoire.

*Side note on the carbohydrates in yogurt: at least half the lactose (milk sugar) in the milk gets transformed onto lactic acid in the yogurt-making process, cutting the carb count dramatically. This is not reflected on the label of commerical plain yogurts because the nutrient content is calculated from the tally of the ingredients, not analyzed from the finished product.

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After I blogged about the corporate ownership of my Congress Critters the other day, I kinda got a kick out of the fact that White Pines Whisper was visited by somebody at the House of Representatives, apparently checking out what I’d said about Richard Hanna, my “representative” in the House. So far, no sign of any visits from Gillibrand’s or Schumer’s staff. Darn! Check out the screen shot (click to enlarge).

Actual costs: Italian seasoning, $0.41; Peppermint leaf, $0.56; Basil leaf, $0.38; Spearmint leaf, $0.21; Paprika, $0.99. Total spent, $2.55.

As a gardener, I’m getting used to growing herbs and I have to admit I’m still not sure of the ideal ways to harvest and store them. Mostly on an experimental basis (which is an ongoing thing when you garden anyway) last fall, I cut a parsley plant off at the base, tied some twine around it and hung it upsidedown in an area that gets plenty of ventilation and warm air from a furnace vent. I left it there several weeks until the leaves were crispy-dry, stripped the leaves from the stems and stored the parsley in glass jars.

Wow. That was almost too easy! But it’s pretty much the technique described in all the books, uses no additional energy (like a food dryer would) and they taste great. Now I just have to hit the books and find out when the ideal harvest time is for each herb that I grow.

In the meantime, I buy my herbs and spices and I wanted to share a secret with you. Don’t buy them in the grocery store. Get thee to your locally owned health-food store (though not the kind that caters exclusively to the body-building crowd and not the chain ones like Whole Foods) and find the bulk bins. The prices you find will amaze you.

Yesterday, I picked up some herbs at my local health food emporium and then, while on a visit to my local MalWart (looking for a replacement cordless phone battery – but that’s another story) I wrote down some prices for the same things in the pretty little bottles put out by McCormick. Here’s a nifty chart I made to give you some idea of the unbelievable price differences.

As you can see, the McCormick prices are all over the map and all are considerably higher than the bulk items. Sure, when you buy the big name stuff you’re also getting the cute bottle but that’s a lot extra to pay for such convenience. I’m sure we all have a collection of small jars stashed away that would serve the same purpose – for free. (Not to mention that reusing those jars keeps them out of the landfill almost indefinitely.)

As I’ve posted previously, you do have to be careful when you enter the wonderful world of “health food”. The store that’s most convenient for me also is the most like a grocery store, so in addition to vitamins, minerals and other supplements its shelves are loaded with organic junk food, convenience food, single use items and other decidedly unsustainable goods. But if you shop carefully and know your prices, you can find some real deals. Buying from the bulk bins is an especially great way to save. Look for bulk granola, nuts, grains, and more in the same area as the herbs and spices.

The nicest thing about buying from bulk bins is that you can get as much or as little as you want. If it’s a new flavor and you just want a tiny bit for a recipe to see if you’ll like it, that’s all you have to buy. If it’s an item you use regularly, well then, fill up the bag. You don’t have some mega-corp telling you how much you have to buy, whether you think you’ll use it all or not.

So the next time you’re out and about, be sure and visit your nearest locally-owned health food store. Find the bulk bins and see what treasures they offer. Fill up some little bags (or bring your own containers if they’re willing to weigh them before you fill), support a local business, save money and – for good measure – bypass the corporatocracy yet again.

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Today is #J17 – the day Congress gets Occupied. Even as I try to live simply and more sustainably by consuming less and being more self-reliant, I believe it’s critical that We the People take back our government from the oligarchy that now owns it. So this is a blog post in solidarity with today’s action in Washington, DC. In it I take a look at who owns my Congressman and Senators. I would encourage all citizens to do the same with their so-called “representatives”. Let’s really educate ourselves and begin shining a light on the corruption in Washington.

So here we are in mid-January of 2012 and it’s government business dysfunction-as-usual. Our country is staring down Peak Oil, yet we still don’t have any sort of energy policy beyond “drill baby,drill” and  “frack baby, frack”. Climate disinformation continues unchecked even as we were hammered by a record 12 extreme billion-dollar weather events in 2011; yet our federal government remains silent on the facts. We’re allowing China and Germany to become global leaders in alternative energy development and production while our “leaders” continue handing out huge subsidies to Big Carbon to maintain the status quo. Our food is still not labeled as to GMO content. Lobbyists designed the most recent school lunch bill – the one in which Congress agreed that pizza is a vegetable. Farm policy is deliberately designed to benefit Big Ag at the expense of small farmers and local food. Monsanto still rules. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s not forget TARP plus the additional secret bailouts of the banksters. Then there’s the dearth of prosecutions of said banksters for the criminal activity that brought our economy to its knees in 2008 and from which we may never recover. Privatized profits/socialized losses (corporate welfare), mega-corporations that pay no income taxes, mortgage fraud that’s gone unaddressed, a 5-4 decision by the Supremes that says corporations are people and money is speech, smoke and mirrors Wall St. “reform”…

Sigh.

Our government is broken. Ninety-one percent of us know it; Congress has an approval rating of only 9%. A greater percentage of Americans approve of polygamy than the United States Congress, according to a set of polls. And I think we all know why: corporate money controls our government. Our elected (so-called) representatives no longer represent us; they answer to their corporate benefactors and the lobbyists that swarm in from K-Street. The rot is so common, so systemic, they no longer even see the need to try and hide it.

We know this intellectually; we see the results of this rotting system in the bills that are passed, the decisions handed down, the squabbling and disingenuous misinformation campaigns of corporate-owned media who spend millions to buy influence.

But it’s not my representatives that are the problem, right? It’s yours. And his. And hers. It’s those other people sent to Washington from the red states or the blue states that are to blame. But my reps are great! They are! Uh…right?

Well let’s take a look, shall we? Let’s follow the money.

I live in the 24th Congressional District, so my Congressman is Richard Hanna. He’s a Republican. He sits on the Education & the Workforce; Small Business; and Transportation & Infrastructure committees. Hanna’s a real newbie having just been sent there in 2010, which means he has no power. (Yet.) His two-year term expires this year. Take a gander, courtesy of Open Secrets, at Hanna’s 2010 top 20 contributors by “industry”:

Note that it’s a mixed bag of relatively small contributions; probably pretty typical for a candidate that is still an unknown quantity to the corporatocracy. At the time the contributions were made, his committee service was as yet unknown. To date, he seems to be rather mealy-mouthed in his statements but seems to be following the Tea Party line of blaming Medicare and Social Security for all our ills. Surprise!  In 2010, Hanna received $5,000 from Koch Industries, bankrollers of the Tea Party.

‘Nuff on Hanna. He’s pretty small potatoes at this point I think. Let’s check out New York’s big guns.

Over in the Senate, New York is “represented” by Kirsten E. Gillibrand and Charles E. Schumer. Both are Democrats.

Elected to the Senate in 2009 , Gillibrand sits on three committees: Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry; Armed Services; and Environment & Public Works. She is a politician of some experience having previously served in the House of Representatives from January 2007 – January 2009, when she resigned to fill the vacancy left by Hillary Clinton in the Senate.  Gillibrand’s six-year term expires in 2013.

Let’s see Gillibrand’s 2012 top-20 by industry:

Well now, this gets more interesting! Where as greenhorn Hanna’s contributions were all in the 4- and 5-figure range, none of Gillibrand’s campaign totals are less than six figures. And three – from the securities & investment, lawyers/law firms, and real estate industries – are in the millions.

And now for the Big Kahuna.

Senator Schumer is the real powerhouse of my three representatives. A career politician, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1981 after a 6 year stint in the NYS Assembly. He was first elected to the Senate in 1998. He currently serves on the powerful Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs commitee as well as the Finance and Judiciary committees. He’s also Chairman of the Rules & Administration committee. Schumer’s six-year term doesn’t expire until 2017.

Any guesses as to Schumer’s top 20? Take a look:

Note that Gillibrand and Schumer are neck-and-neck in the race for 2012 loot from the securities and investment, lawyers/law firms, and real estate industries with Gillibrand’s $6.9 million actually giving her a slight lead over Schumer’s $6.2 million. (I haven’t even counted the money from ‘Commercial Banks’ and ‘Miscellaneous Finance’!) Chuck needn’t worry though; he’s taken more money from Wall St. in his long career than any other politician who hasn’t run for President – $8.9 million. (Only Obama – yeah, that “change” guy, Bush 2, McCain, and Hillary Clinton have him beat.)

Now, pardon my cynicism here, but how in the world am I to believe that these two people – Senators Schumer and Gillibrand – can honestly vote their constituents’ best interests when the vast majority of those constituents cannot even come close to the influence that this level of campaign financing buys? Should we be surprised that neither of them has said a word about prosecuting the banksters whose corporate malfeasance sent our economy over the cliff in 2008?

And while we’re at it, take a look at their haul from the TV/Movies/Music and Computers/Internet industries. Should we really be surprised that Schumer and Gillibrand support the latest corporate scam: the badly conceived SOPA and PIPA bills that would censor the Internet?

Oy.

Oh and let’s not forget that our Congress critters regularly engage in insider stock trading based on the legislation they write (at the behest of their corporate masters); as you may remember from this 60 Minutes segment, nearly all of them leave Congress far, far wealthier than they were when they came in. If you and I did that, we’d land in jail so fast we wouldn’t know what hit us. Even “poor” Martha Stewart couldn’t escape that one!

The bottom line?

Party no longer matters. Spend some time on the Open Secrets website and you’ll see that corporations can and will buy anybody. Look up the top donors to your representatives’ campaigns, Dems & Repubs alike. I guarantee you they’re making out like bandits just as mine are. So I ask you, what’s in your elected representatives’ wallets? And who put it there?

I am the 99%. And I want my government back!

Don’t you?

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I normally don’t re-run posts here at White Pines Whisper, but given the events of the past year – the awakening of the global citizenry (aka ‘the 99%’) to issues of social and environmental justice – and the fact that it is the 83rd anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth I thought this one was worthy of a repost. It is one of my personal favorites and, I hope, offers worthy suggestions as to how each of us can go about making a difference whether we can actively protest or not. Originally titled “How to live simply & happily by ‘voting’ your values every day” it originally ran on January 10, 2011. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some folks refer to simple living as “voluntary simplicity”; the word voluntary indicating that we undertake this deliberately right-sized lifestyle of our own free will. Free will is a powerful thing for simplifiers; when we realize that it gives us choices, we can use it to change the world.

I truly believe we – the “little guys” – have a lot of power to affect change from the bottom up. But first we have to stop behaving like mindless zombies, overcome by the siren song of how “they” say we should live and the stuff we must buy in order to be happy.

Enter simple living. Combined with mindfulness, our voluntary choice to simplify gives us – collectively – a tremendous amount of power to affect change. How’s that, you ask?

We little guys can affect change by voting our values with our dollars. Every. Single. Day.

No matter how much or how little money we have, how we spend it – or whether we choose to spend it at all – really can make a difference. There are millions of us; our money is the basis of the free-market system, and I say it’s time we consciously start using it to vote for the world we want.

And here’s one of the secrets of simple living: the more you act in accordance with your values, the more peaceful, serene and satisfying your life becomes. And who doesn’t want a little more of that in their lives?

So just how can little ol’ you live your values and become an agent of change? Here are some ideas:

• If you don’t like the industrial food system and the contaminated food it produces, then don’t support it. Instead, vote forthe clean, healthy food you want by:
  • Starting a garden
  • Buying a CSA share from a local farmer
  • Buying local at farmers markets
  • Getting some chickens

• If oil spills and dead wildlife are a problem for you, then vote against Big Oil by:
  • Combining trips in the car
  • Making sure your next car gets at least 20% better mileage than the old one
  • Keeping your tires properly inflated
  • Slowing down
  • Buying or using less plastic
  • Living in a smaller house

• If news stories of dead coal miners and their grieving families weigh on you, then vote against mountain-top removal and coal-fired power plants by:
  • Turning out the lights when you leave the room
  • Turning off and unplugging (to cut your “vampire” losses) all your electronic gizmos and gadgets
  • Switching out your incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents
  • Putting up solar panels and selling your power back to the grid
  • Living in a smaller house

• If taxpayer bailouts of too-big-to-fail-banks still bug you, then fer cryin’ out loud vote by moving your money to:
  • A credit union
  • A local community bank

• If growth-at-all-costs on a finite planet is beginning to seem like sheer lunacy, then vote against business as usual by:
  • Swearing off “retail therapy”
  • Just generally buying less crap
  • Making “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” your mantra
  • Really learning the difference between wants and needs
  • Paying a little more and buying quality that will last

• If you’re not a fan of child slavery, then vote against it by vowing to only buy Fair Trade slave-free chocolate.

• If the loss of tropical forests (and the species that live there) bothers you, then vote for biodiversity by only buying Fair Trade shade-grown coffee.

• If deforestation weighs on your mind, then vote for nature by only buying products made from recycled paper.

• If you’re tired of the ugliness of endless development and sprawl in your community, then vote for small, livable neighborhoods by:
  • Supporting the remaining mom-and-pop stores
  • Buying a charming older home in an existing neighborhood instead of building in a new McMansion subdivision (named, of course, after the trees they cut down)

• If you object to the business and employment practices of Wally-World (or any other mega-big box), then vote your values by not shopping there.

• If you hate the predatory practices of the credit card companies, then vote for their demise by:
  • Getting out of debt
  • Never carrying a balance
  • Living within your means

• Likewise, if you object to the predatory practices of the mortgage lendersthen vote against them by buying a house the old-fashioned way:
  • Saving a 20% down payment so you’ll have equity the day you walk in the door
  • Figuring out for yourself how much you can really afford
  • Understanding that there’s nothing wrong and everything right with buying a small home that’s right-sized for you

I think you get the idea. The difference that any one of us can make by ourselves is miniscule, but collectively we can rock the world! There’s no need to become an angry radical; simply educate yourself and then quietly go about voting your values on a daily basis. And I’ll join you.

A very wise man by the name of Mahatma Ghandi called it being the change. Let’s create a tipping point or two, shall we?

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Eco Films Australia has recently released a terrific new Geoff Lawton video, Urban Permaculture: Sustainable Strategies for Urban Living. Eco Films naturally focuses on permaculture and similar subjects Down Under and since permaculture was first “born” there and enjoys wide acceptance, there seems to be no shortage of material to film. In addition to their conventional permaculture offerings they have a number of videos for those with an interest in aquaponics (fish farming/vegetable production systems).

Geoff Lawton is one of the better known permaculture teachers internationally, and his previous videos have dealt primarily with permaculture on a farm scale. According to Eco Films’ website however, they received lots of requests for a video dealing with sustainable practices on smaller urban properties and this video is the result. (Scroll down below the video for more.)

Permaculture isn’t about gardening per se; rather it’s a design approach that looks at relationships and uses nature’s elegant and efficient systems as inspiration. Food production is at the center of most permaculture systems but there’s much more to it than that.

This video takes us along with Geoff as he visits a number of permaculture properties, showing us how even the smallest spaces can be efficiently designed for beauty as well as functionality and abundance. The garden tours are chock full of ideas including raised beds, graywater and rainwater harvesting and reuse, swales, compost systems, wicking beds, worm towers, school gardens and loads more. A little garden whimsey has its place too; my favorite is the sign that says “Trespassers will be composted”. Eco Films also does a nice job on the animations that are used to explain key concepts.

A highlight of the video is a “permablitz” makeover of a client’s property; we see Geoff Lawton first design a plan for the property along with his explanation of what should go where and why (the relationships I mentioned previously). Then comes the demolition of the old, overgrown vegetation followed by the installation of new perennials and raised garden beds on level contour, stepping down a slope. A labor-free system for utilizing run-off (fertilizer) from the uphill “chook” (Australian for “chicken”) pen is also explained.

Special features include another design demonstration for a different property from the one mentioned above, and trailers for several other Geoff Lawton permaculture videos.

Unfortunately, the video doesn’t seem to be available for order in the US and it’s unlikely that you’d find it available at your local library here. I ordered mine through the Eco Films website, though if I recall the actual purchase is made through the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia. The DVD isn’t compatible with all players in the US – it won’t play on mine – but I have no problem playing it on my computer.

If, like me, you’re relatively new to permaculture and you own an urban or suburban property, there’s much inspiration in Urban Permaculture. I highly recommend it.

(Disclaimer: I have no connection to EcoFilms nor any financial incentive for recommending it. I just like this DVD a lot.)

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I recently ran across an interesting little video of Yes! magazine publisher David Korten (video posted at end of post),  discussing the idea of “walking away from the King”. He rightly states that any King derives his power from the acquiescence of his subjects. If, however, the subjects decide at some point to no longer play by the King’s rules – if they walk away – the King no longer has any power over them.

In today’s world of course, the “King” is the power of corporate money over our government. It’s the criminal malfeasance (for which there have been no prosecutions) of the King that led to the economic meltdown of 2008 from which most of us (the 99% in Occu-speak) have yet to recover.

I think the majority of Americans – and others around the world – would agree that the King wields far too much power over governments these days. SCOTUS says corporations are now people and their money is free speech. Consequently, corporate money pretty much buys our elections. Ninety-four percent of the time, the candidate who raises the most money is the candidate who wins the election. I’ve always been an advocate of the citizens’ duty to vote, but even I am starting to wonder why I bother.

It’s time to walk away from the King. I’m sick of the rot, I’m sick of the corruption, I’m sick of choosing between two or three stooges in the voting booth. What about you?

I love the Occupy movement. Something like this has been sorely needed for quite some time now. I would hope there’s no one left who still claims they don’t know what the Occupiers want. But just in case, I’ll restate the obvious. In a nutshell, they want corporate money out of politics. Depending on who you talk to, they want other things as well but that’s the biggie – where it all needs to start. It’s pretty clear that our federal government is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the corporatocracy and that needs to change. As one protester’s sign said: “I don’t mind that you’re rich. I mind that you’ve bought my government.”

In case you haven’t heard, there’s gonna be a big occupation of one of the palaces on January 17 as Occupy Wall St. will take their grievances to Congress. Given that our elected so-called representatives are tone-deaf when it comes to the complaints of the citizens, I don’t expect much to come of it – at least right away – but it promises to be a great start to what will surely be an interesting year.

It seems pretty clear by now that the corruption of our government comes from a capitalist system that’s gone awry but, other than the “move your money” action last fall, Occupy Wall St. has  paid far too little attention to this idea of walking away as a means of protest. I think that’s a problem. I think Occupy needs to give a lot more angry Americans something tangible to do besides camping in a park.

I also believe in capitalism. Capitalism – in its pure, non-corrupt form – gives me power. I don’t mind paying a fair price for a good service or product that’s well made. I have no problem with companies making a reasonable profit on the items they sell. But the marketplace should be responsive to my needs and desires. Not the other way around.

What I hate is corrupt crony capitalism. The kind we have today, where companies are subsidized with taxpayer dollars, jobs are shipped overseas, profits are privatized to the 1% while losses are subsidized onto the backs of the taxpayers. In short, corporate welfare. That capitalism has gotta go.

The thing about even crony capitalism is that we still do have considerable power over it, but too many of us don’t realize it. If enough of us stop buying a product or service or otherwise boycott a company or industry, they will respond when they notice their bottom line shrinking. And well, that’s capitalism for ya. Market forces at their most fundamental level.

As things stand now though, the 1% and their cronies – the politicians – will never stop destroying economies and the environment simply because Occupy Wall St. demands it. The protestors need our help. When enough of US also stop buying their cheap, shoddy made-with-slave-labor crap; when WE stop buying factory food, start buying local, join a CSA, or grow our own; when WE stop driving gas-guzzling land yachts and buying oversized, resource-sucking McMansions, only then will the 1% start paying attention. When we turn off our televisions and the siren song of the one-percent’s endless cacophony of advertising, then we the citizens will take back control. I love Occupy and I agree with almost everything it stands for, but until we look in the mirror and admit our culpability in all this, nothing will really change. The 1% may throw us the occasional bone, but as long as the majority of the 99% are willing to sleep on mall sidewalks in anticipation of owning the newest iPhone or “vintage” Air Jordans, financial and environmental plunder will continue unabated – until its all gone and then it’ll be a very, very hard landing indeed. Bottom line: nothing will really change until WE do.

We, the 99%, have given them their power. They dangled their bright, shiny things in front of us along with debt slavery easy ways to “pay” for it – and we took the bait. Then, while we played with our toys, the 1% got busy corrupting the system and all it used to stand for. They now own our government. It’s nice we’ve finally woken up and are starting to get cranky but until we focus on their entire modus operandi and work to undermine it, we’ll get nowhere.

And so, as best I can, I’ll continue continue to walk away from the King. And I believe, even as the palaces are being occupied, this is something we all have to do. I’d love to see Occupy Wall St. promote this aspect of protest in addition to the more visible actions like camping out in public places, and marching on symbols of corruption. Not everyone has the means or opportunity to physically join the protests. But we all have the means to walk away from the King by thinking about the ways we spend our money and the actions we take in our own lives that will begin to restore our homes as centers of production.

Mirella, over at the The Meaning Experiment blog puts it very well:

Each day we choose to participate in the society we have created for ourselves. If we change the way we participate, we will begin to change the structure. If we don’t like the establishment of big corporations, then we should stop buying what they sell. If we live our lives as consumers then we are advocating this current society with our actions and choices. If we instead decide to strip our lives down to the essentials we could then have ample financial resources to invest in what is important. Instead of enabling large corporations, we could enable women in developing countries, or scientists, or inventors, or artists, or engineers.

We have the knowledge to develop amazing and transforming technologies. These technologies could rapidly and successfully change the structure of society as we now know it. And each of us sitting here in the 99% have more power than we realise.

Asking the 1% to change their ways makes us the victim, when truthfully we hold the power. Maybe we just don’t fully realise it yet.

As long as we are primarily consumers, we support the King. As thinking, activist citizens, we can walk away from him. We need to start now.

David Korten: Walking Away From the King from Katie Teague on Vimeo.

To see more of David Korten’s ideas, Peak Moment television did a half-hour episode with him called Taking Back Our Lives from the Wall St. Mafia.

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