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STRONG Salem is for everyone who wants to help and participate in getting Salem, Oregon, to quit chasing Growth Ponzi Scheme plans and instead become a resilient, fiscally responsible place that lives by the wisdom that "Communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit."
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It all comes down to one thing: the world is mismanaging contraction. The world will not solve the problems of massive over-complexity with more complexity. But scaling down is apparently not an option, though it will happen whether we participate or not. . . . One thing President Obama -- nor anyone else with an audience or a constituency -- will speak a word about is our massive, incessant purposeless motoring.Pretty soon, the oil missing from the Gulf will leave a message at the 7-Eleven stops in Dallas and Chattanooga, and before the year is out the cardboard signs that say "Out Of Gas" may hang on the pumps. A great hue and cry will rise out of the Nascar ovals and righteous lady politicians with decoupaged hair-doos will invoke the New World Order and the Book of Revelation in their rise to power. Reasonable men with moderate views will dither on the sidelines, afraid to offend one faction or another.Sometime this summer that ebb tide of events is going to reverse and we'll have more to contend with than just the shrieking wildlife suffocating in orange gunk, and the ruined spawning grounds of the shrimp, and the lost livelihoods of the sportfishing charter guides, and the tarball covered beaches and devalued real estate. We decided to de-complexify the hard way, the way that brings about as much pain and disorder as possible until we discover that the long emergency beats a path straight into a world made by hand.
Just like the Butterscotch Man couldn't run till he got warm and could only get warm by running, we're in a fix -- now that the easy oil is gone, the cost of getting the remaining (deeper, more distant, more sour) oil translates into a price that the economy can't sustain.
Excellent writeup on this in the mainstream press here.
Jan 19, 2008: LOVESalem reaches the web, bringing a vitally needed message to Oregon's capital city: We must Oregon-ize to put the needs of people before the needs of cars. This requires that we live our environmental values -- that we LOVE (Live Our Values Environmentally) Salem -- by working to stop the Sprawl Machine.
The Sprawl Machine is a ravenous beast that feeds on green space, close-in neighborhoods, and property taxes and that excretes monstrous, ugly road projects that pollute the air, increase mortality and morbidity, promote climate change, weaken families and neighborhoods, and help weaken the social fabric and civic participation.
The Sprawl Machine works by constantly luring its prey with promises that the problems created by cars can be addressed by doing more of the same -- building more lanes, more bridges, consuming ever more money. In other words, the Sprawl Machine promises that we can keep doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result this time.
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