[Sustain] Call Mayor To -Demand- Permanent Victory Garden

Sat Jul 12 20:40:40 PDT 2008

I don't agree. It is total hypocrisy, not to mention really bad karma, 
to put in a living organic garden and then rip it out.

peace

Eric Brooks

Don Eichelberger wrote:
> I don't like the Gavin photo op part, but he's 
> the mayor and will get whatever photos he wants.
>
> But I don't see using city resources to put in a 
> temporary demo garden as bad, as long as part of 
> it is aimed at putting in more permanent gardens 
> in the neighborhoods.  I found Naomi Starkman's 
> case persuasive, and only hope they will allow 
> the garden to bear harvest before it is taken 
> up.  Or at least allow people to adopt the plants to take home.
>
> One day, when the whole city is a bio-garden, it will come back.
>
> Don
>
> At 01:23 PM 7/11/2008, you wrote:
>   
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Gavin Newsom is about to get the most 
>> hypocritical, fake enviro photo op of his entire 
>> term in office and we must challenge him -hard- on it this time.
>>
>> Please read the Guardian blog below and then 
>> call the Mayor's office of neighborhood services 
>> at 415-544-7111 to express your outrage at this 
>> sham, and demand that the City Hall local 
>> organic Victory Garden be made permanent, not 
>> ridiculously ripped out two months after it is put in!
>>
>> Please forward this alert widely!
>>
>> peace, Eric
>>
>> <http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/a_hollow_victory_for_urban_gar.html>http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/a_hollow_victory_for_urban_gar.html
>>
>>
>>
>> A hollow victory for urban gardening movement
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> When I first heard about current plans to build 
>> a "Victory Garden" in Civic Center Plaza -- 
>> which will be officially planted tomorrow at 10 
>> a.m. in a ceremony featuring Mayor Gavin Newsom 
>> and Alice Waters, the pioneering restaurateur 
>> who founded <http://slowfoodnation.org/>Slow 
>> Food Nation -- I thought it was a really cool 
>> idea. Here was the city of San Francisco giving 
>> some of its most prime and high profile real 
>> estate over to the urban gardening movement, 
>> which seeks alternatives to the fossil fuel 
>> dependent industrialized food system.
>> And the Victory Garden concept is great, 
>> conjuring up the collective commitment to our 
>> national interests that inspired patriotic 
>> citizens to plant gardens during the two world 
>> wars. Sure, the logistics of tending and 
>> securing the garden might be tough, but Newsom 
>> seemed to be making a commitment to put city 
>> resources behind this important symbolic statement.
>> Then I heard that they're going to rip out the 
>> garden in a couple months, in my mind reducing 
>> the garden to a mere photo op for our jolly 
>> green would-be governor. Ick. Just what this 
>> country needs, another hollow gesture toward 
>> environmental sustainability rather than the 
>> bold collective action that we actually need to 
>> tackle serious problems like climate change, 
>> resource depletion, and a wasteful, polluting, 
>> and ineffective global food system.
>>
>> "While we would love for the garden to be 
>> permanent,it is true that the Victory Garden is 
>> temporary, and is being used as a demonstration 
>> and educational centerpiece for Slow Food 
>> Nation, taking place over Labor Day Weekend," 
>> event spokesperson Naomi Starkman wrote to me 
>> when I asked about the temporary garden (the 
>> mayor's press office still hasn't responded to my inquiry).
>> She said the Victory Garden project will seek 
>> out about 15 diverse households to plant more 
>> permanent gardens, something that it will be 
>> incorporate into the event in August. And she 
>> sees value to even having a temporary garden in 
>> Civic Center Plaza, for which her group is 
>> covering the roughly $180,000 in costs.
>> "The goal and mission of the Victory Garden is 
>> to spur to action the future of urban food 
>> production. By having the support of the City, 
>> and presenting a garden in City Hall's backyard, 
>> we intend to inform, educate and inspire 
>> citizens to learn to grow their own food and to 
>> get involved with local organizations doing just 
>> that. It is a huge civic statement that we hope 
>> translates into city-wide programs, indeed, into 
>> a national trend for cities to support this type 
>> of agriculture," Starkman wrote.
>> Indeed, if Newsom and other city officials 
>> wanted to make a real commitment to support this 
>> effort, they would pursue a citywide program of 
>> supporting community gardens (which keep getting 
>> <http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3337>ripped 
>> up these days) and doing a survey of what 
>> surplus city properties could be turned into 
>> gardens that might still be there after the television crews have gone.
>>
>> By Steven T. Jones: July 11, 2008 12:16 PM
>>
>>
>> Comments (1)
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric Brooks:
>>
>> Right On! We should all contact Alice Waters through Slow Food Nation
>> <http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us>http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us
>> and ask her to insist that the garden be situated in a permanent location.
>>
>> This absurd and typically hollow Gavin Greenwash 
>> moment should be challenged vociferously!
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. 
>> The people liberate themselves." -- Che 
>> Guevara_______________________________________________
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>>     
>
>
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>
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