True
democracy is empowerment and begins within ourselves, living within the context
of our families and communities. Our
health and the community's health are not separate.
By
community, I'm not just speaking of people.
I mean the natural ecosystem that surrounds the house that a person
lives in as well as the human neighborhoods.
These all make up the larger neighborhood. Indeed, when speaking of neighborhood, we
should be speaking inclusively of foxes, soil, rabbits, trees, thorn bushes,
air, water and crows. Each of these is
instrumental in a well functioning neighborhood.
Can
you imagine what would happen to the oxygen you breathe in to live if all the
oxygen producing trees died due to deforestation. The trees are necessary to your functioning
and the deforestation of the planet will ultimately lead to yours and your
family's extinction. Alternatively,
imagine the air or water quality in your neighborhood turned toxic, or having
no access to natural foods.
In
modern day culture, we live under a philosophy called reductionism. In science, this is the breaking down of
phenomena (e.g., the weather) to its component parts. The world simply doesn't work this way. Reductionism is proof and has been challenged
by theoretical positions based on evidence such as chaos theory which posits
that everything is caused by everything else.
Life
cannot be broken down into parts.
Indeed, for us to live in a stable environment, we need a healthy planet
and the healthy planet requires healthy ecosystems. These include the neighborhood you live in
and, even, the house you live in. What
you do locally affects the planet. Even
a simple act such as breathing is necessary for a well-functioning system.
Yet,
there are many barriers to our redeveloping a healthy planet that has been made
sick by our industry and lifestyles that throw out chemicals that change the
makeup of the atmosphere, land and waters of our planet. One of the primary
barriers includes many who refuse to admit we have a problem and that our
lifestyles are killing us. The other
barrier is that there are powerful organizations such as the genetic
engineering firms who want to continue making money at the expense of the
planet's health and, in turn, our health and the health of those we love.
It
is this latter barrier that organizations like Maine Feeds Maine tries to
battle through education and encouraging communities such as Sedgwick to enact
local food ordinances. These ordinances
take the bite out of the power of megalithic food corporations such as Monsanto
and Cargill. In essence, local food
ordinances place power back in the hands of families and communities and out of
the hands of corporations and their bought and sold government underlings.
As
Bovine (March 7, 2011 reports ( http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/sedgwick-maine-declares-food-sovereignty/ )
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