Safety in a Failing Economy

[dykeumentary]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

What I keep thinking about as I read this thread is that most poor people simply can't do this kind of stuff. They have no land where they can grow food. They have no money to buy disaster supplies. They get by on so little that keeping a roof over their heads and food in their mouths is hard enough, let alone investing time and money into gardening and solar power, etc. I like the idea of community gardens, but they aren't enough to keep people regularly fed.

In disasters, it's always the poorest of the poor (and disproportionately, those people are POC) who get hit the hardest. I am thinking of Katrina here as an example. They couldn't prepare and get out because they had no cars/gas money, etc to get out before the hurricane hit. People who are poor and live in urban areas would have the hardest time pulling off sustainable living. It's sad but true.

Hi-
I do not mean to pick on your post. You just expressed what a lot of people think, because of a system that has an absolute interest in keeping people "victims".
The point is: There is no alternative. The way capitalism destroys earth, and everything on it can't continue. Having an opinion that "poor people can't live sustainable lives" not only takes away their agency and shows a lack of confidence in their resiliency and ingenuity, but it diverts attention away from the institutional systems in place that inhibit them (and or legally forbid) them from acting in their own best interest. Health department red tape about selling/trading food you've grown, anyone?

It's clear that poor people get hit hardest by everything, including situations like the levees failing in the poor neighborhoods of New Orleans. (I refuse to call it "katrina"- it was corps-of-engineered racism.) but it's also clear that there are millions (billions?) more poor people than rich people, so they must be smart enough to figure out survival techniques, no?

What I, as a white US citizen see my role as is this:
Consume less. Grow more, eat what I grow and help others do the same.
Support anti-oppression organizing at local, national and international levels.
Expose and dismantle systems that keep peolple from using their local resources in their own interests.
Use the information and resources so richly available to me as a US citizen to figure out ways to heal the earth, try to make sure this info is shared fairly.

I'm not some pie-in-the-sky intellectual. I build and fix things for an hourly wage. I think it's because of working at that level that is easy to see when shit needs to be ripped down and rebuilt, rather than patched. And also to see when structures can be repaired or re-purposed in service of a more worthy goal.