RetroRevolution

I have some questions for you today.

• How many butchers are in your hometown?
• How many cheese makers?
• How many mills to grind grain into flour?

While self sufficiency is great.  Can we realistically expect everyone to butcher their own chickens?  Grind their own grains?  Make their own candles?  I just don’t think we can be a great nation with a few million self sufficient islands that never talk to each other and need no help from each other to make it through the week.  Local farmers and gardeners are the first thought that comes to mind when people think “Eat Local”.  The reality is that the farmer is but one link in a local chain that needs to be reestablished if the local food movement is to gain any significant ground.  Small local bakeries, mills, deli’s and creameries need to be established and utilized if the movement if to gain ground.

As a community we need to find a balance between buying bread baked in Kansas City and shipped throughout the US, and everyone having their own little patch of wheat, grinding it into flour, and baking it into bread in their back yard.  Maybe if farming isn’t your cup of tea you need to consider becoming a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker.

I wanted to wait until the celebrations, picnics, car shows and festivities of the 4^th of July were over to share this.  My hope is that each and every one of you reading this has a satchel full of wonderful memories from this weekend, but I pray that you remember the men, women, families and God that have made this possible throughout the ages.

This weekend some remarkable fun was had by thousands of people across this blessed nation.  Parties, parades, picnics and potlucks dotted the countryside as we gathered together to celebrate the formation of a great nation.  We gathered with old friends and new acquaintances.  The gathering together helped us to relax and hopefully provided some comfort to those lonely or feeling apart from community.  The shallow end of the pool is relaxing and comforting.  It’s a path to the deep end.  Sometimes we use it as a means to test the water and gradually acclimate ourselves until we are ready to take the plunge.

This very weekend some remarkable work was done in the backyards, schools, schools, townships and parishes.  It takes the individual to move the brick, but it takes the group to form the building.  I personally witnessed two great events that both reached out to the local community and drew members of their organization closer together.  I can’t help but be reminded of 56 revolutionary thinkers gathering and debating with open minds, a plan to make the world a better place.  Their gathering and embarking on this journey locked them together in their lives and in history.  When we gather together in service today, we too grow closer together and secure a place in history as we assist in the construction of a building for those in need, or raise funds for the education of our children.

There are also times when we linger in the shallow end that we find ourselves slipping off the ledge into the deep end, much as I did when I decided to share some thoughts on Liberty and Patriotism.

A year from now as you begin planning for your Holiday of fun, service, and fellowship remember these words, “For where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them.” Set an example for your children and neighbor and come together in his name and let your actions show you as a follower.  Take a moment to remember those that came before you and risked everything so that you could gather in fun and fellowship: Soldiers and Sailors; Revolutionary thinkers like Martin Luther, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.; Writers like Thomas Paine and The Apostle Paul.  Liberty isn’t just an American tradition.  It’s a human one.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Spend some time in the deep end of a different pool next year.  Put down your beer and pick up a shovel.  Eat one less hot dog and serve a meal at a homeless shelter.  As you wait for the fireworks to start turn off the DVD player in the minivan and share the history of great people that risked it all for the liberty of their peers.  People like Rosa Parks, Tecumseh, or Mordechai Anielevich.  When you awake on the morning of the 4^th next year, well rested and ready to enjoy your day of vacation.  Take 5 minutes to gather the family and thank the One who gave their all for your eternal liberty.  This song and video might help you remember.

http://www.godtube.com/featured/video/4th-july-heroes-tribute/all

Over 200 years ago a group of men came together and formally recognized what was wrong with the country they were living in; put their thoughts to paper; and formalized action against an oppressive government.  This act of rebellion and what amounted to treason had begun over a year earlier.  The Royal Government had passed an act known as the Intolerable Acts.  Four of the five of these acts were in direct response to the Boston Tea Party.  One of the most egregious of these acts was The Massachusetts Government Act. The act took away the right of the people to elect who they wanted to their executive council and forbade town meetings without the express consent of the Governor.  Lord North explained to the British Parliament that the purpose of the act was “to take the executive power from the hands of the democratic part of government”.

There is a deliberate and methodical attack on everyone’s liberty in these united States today.  No one is attempting to quarter troops in your house, but they are attempting to prohibit your right to assemble.  In general people aren’t strung up in the stockades if they speak out against the government, but they are libeled and have their character and reputation assaulted as bigots and racists when they do.  People aren’t arrested for worshiping how they choose, but that very worship in public is admonished and disdained in defense of an illusionary right entitled Freedom from Religion, instead of the actual Freedom of Religion.

This continued erosion of your liberty happens every time you buy a can of food at the grocery store, sit in your car and stare at the air bag light as you wait for it to go out, and every hour that you toil away at work and you have 20-40 percent of your salary confiscated by the government as a means of securing your liberty.  You can revolt against this tyranny with simple acts of peaceful rebellion.

1. Grow some of your own food.  Every radish, carrot, tomato, or apple you grown on your own is one less opportunity for the government to tax you.  This simple step of independence scares world governments so much that bills are introduced regularly, federal regulations proposed, and additional bureaucratic burdens placed upon a simple and self-evident act like producing your own food.
2. Speak your mind.  Don’t succumb to the myth of confidentiality when you disagree with an organization or government.  Of course offer that organization the opportunity to correct the problem, but should they refuse after your reasonable case is pleaded, rally the like minded and represent the case again as a group of 10.  When that fails, come back again with a group of 100 individuals ready and willing to peacefully argue their point.
3. Find ways to become less dependent upon the government.  All governments seek to grow the dependency of the governed.  It is this dependency that they exploit to steal you liberty.  They extort additional funds from you with threats of cutting programs like police and fire protection.  They recognize that everyone wants those.  They never threaten to cut programs like building inspectors or zoning boards.  The governments realize the response would be a unanimous cheer of Please Do!

Your Right of Revolution is a well understood and documented right.  Some claim it is even a duty.  This isn’t a revolution with guns and bombs, but a revolution of skills and ideas.  Plant those seeds of independance today in your family, friends, and neighbors.  Show them that the Right of Revolution begins as an individual right and grows into a collective juggernaut.  Fight the peaceful battle and preserve liberty for your children and their children.  Lest we all forget the words of John F. Kennedy, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Iceberg lettuce is the best selling lettuce in the United States. It is a head lettuce.  It has almost no flavor.  It has very little fiber and a low nutritional value.  In fact, the most abundant nutrient in iceberg lettuce is water.  However, due to its superior shipping qualities, iceberg has been the most available and best storing in small commercial packages which accounts for it popularity.  Iceberg lettuce has become so invasive in mainstream American cuisine (an oxymoron?), that many people feel the flavor, texture, and color of leaf lettuce indicates that something is wrong with it.

Personally I prefer the flavor that leaf lettuce brings to the salad.  It doesn’t quite carry the crunch that a head lettuce does, but if you have some good radishes or celery in the salad, the missing crunch of the lettuce isn’t missed at all.  I particularly like the way the slight bitterness of the lettuce merges with the sweetness of the carrots.  Followed by the bite of the radish on the tongue.  Maybe I taste all these subtleties because I very rarely put any kind of salad dressing on my salad.  The closest I come to using a salad dressing is a bit of black pepper or a squeeze of lemon juice.

Unfortunately this marginalization of our food is happening in all of our natural food stuff.  Tomatoes that have been bred to store better and bruise less during shipping are selected over tomatoes that taste best.  Apples that are uniform in color and shiny to catch the eye are selected over apples that have the best taste.  We’ve even gone as far as sacrificing the taste of fresh watermelon for the convenience of eliminating the seeds.  Our arrogance in food production and selection stretched to fruit trees bred and selected that will not bear fruit.  Individuals that wanted the fruit tree as an ornamental were annoyed with the fruit drops throughout the season.

One of the scariest outcomes of the industrial produce revolution is a loss of genetic diversity in our crops.  Today eleven varieties of apples comprise 90% of our apples.  41% of those are Red Delicious.  According to Gary Paul Nabhan 86 percent of the apple varieties that existed before 1900 have been lost.  We will never get them back.  Why is this loss of variety sad and not just disappointing to our pallets?  A virus, mold, or other disease could come along and wipe out the narrowing plant diversity, with no alternatives that might be resistant to the new one.  Remember the American chestnut tree?  Probably not if you were not alive before 1940.  Chestnut blight destroyed about 4 billion American Chestnut trees, and reduced the most important tree throughout the American East Coast to insignificant presence.  what if that happened to the Red Delicious Apple, or the Beef Steak Tomato?  Slow Foods has put together an excellent brochure on Forgotten Fruits, it is well worth the read.  You can download the PDF here.  As part of RAFT’s 2010 “Forgotten Fruits” initiative, this brochure details the history, decline, nursery practices and local restoration efforts designed to bring back the most endangered heirloom apples to orchards, backyards, farmer’s markets, restaurants, and home kitchens across the country.

What can you do?  It’s easy if you are a gardener.

1. Plant an heirloom variety.
2. Enjoy the fruit of your labor.
3. Save the seed.
4. Share the seed.
5. Plant the variety again next year.

If you can afford the 40.00 fee, join an organization like Seed Savers Exchange (http://www.seedsavers.org).  There are sites run by generous people like Johnny Max for trading seeds that don’t cost a thing.  He has set up a site I’ve used a couple times. Heirloom Seed Exchange (http://www.heirloomseedswap.com/).  You can even buy heirloom varieties at the local hardware store.  Just look for them and try to plant a variety or two.  You won’t be disappointed with the taste and you may become addicted to the fun of preserving our food heritage.

I’ve known the story of The Ant and the Grasshopper since I was little.  I remember reading it in a big book of stories along with the tales of the Huckabuck family.  I hadn’t thought about it for a long time and then I saw a Pixar film back in 1998 called A Bug’s Life.  The film was basically a retelling of The Ant and the Grasshopper, with a bit of Three Amigos thrown in for comedy and a bit of Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven for a touch of class.  Again this classic fable by Aesop faded from my mind, until it was brought back to the forefront in a podcast by Jack Spirco.

I had just been through another 4th of July weekend storm and our small town had lost a bit of power.  There were people milling about the grocery store wondering how they would cook without power.  There were people wondering how they would get gas with the gas stations closed because of a power outage, even though 5 miles down the road there were stations open with power.  That’s when I decided that this was ridiculous.  I had been a subscriber to Backwoods Home Magazine for a few years and occasionally visited their forum.  Someone had posted a link to something called The Survival Podcast. I had never listened to a podcast.  I assumed they were about things like bands, TV shows, and which Star Trek cast was the best.  Boy was I wrong. Jack’s Podcast back then had only just started.  He recorded it in a car and talked about being prepared so you didn’t need to worry about being surprised. A couple months later in September he posted a podcast about The Ant and The Grasshopper. He went out of his way to point out that in the original story the grasshopper dies.  I cheered.  I hate sanitized stories.  But the tellling reminded me of the power of fables and parables.  Jack and the crew at The Survival Podcast have adopted The Ant as their unofficial mascot, so I don’t go more than a couple days without thinking of this fable anymore, but I saw it on another blog today and made me think it was time to talk a bit about it myself.

The story was retold today over at Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op: The Ant and the Grasshopper.  I’m not sure where the story posted there was sourced from, but the finale is the sanitized version where the grasshopper sees the ants handing out food and realizes how wrong he was.  I’m torn over the effort. I’m glad that the message is getting out, but I’m saddened that there is the possibility of people reading the fable and thinking that everything will be all right n the end because of he kindness of strangers.  But more on the positive.  The Simple Green Frugal Co-op is in my opinion a mainstream Green blog.  It’s at the other end of the spectrum from the Guns and MRE blogs of the survivalist community.  One of their contributors gets it.  Several of the comments to the post get it.  I see it as a coalescing of different agendas all with a common end in sight.

Remember the story of The Ant and the Grasshopper.  Checkout The Survival Podcast.  Read The Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op.  Learn the lessons of the grasshopper and be an ant.