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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.<br>
<br>
peace<br>
<br>
Eric Brooks<br>
<br>
Don Eichelberger wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:200807130313.m6D3DXpw002521@dolorespark.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">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:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">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
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="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><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="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>
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 <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://slowfoodnation.org/"><http://slowfoodnation.org/></a>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
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3337"><http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3337></a>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
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us"><http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us></a><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us">http://slowfoodnation.org/contact-us</a>
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
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
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The Hegelian/Marxist goal is emancipation. Marx said it best in 1843:
"Human emancipation wll only be complete when the
real, individual man (sic) is absorbed into
himself the abstract citizen; when as an
individual man, in his every day life, in his
work and in his relationships, he has become a
species-being (politically accountabe to the
whole); and when he recognizes and realizes his
own power as social powers, so that he no longer
separates this social power from himself as political power."
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</pre>
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<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara</pre>
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