Occupy Free Land: A Solution for the 21st Century by Mag Mogren

Max Mogren at www.oilfreerun.com has been churning out some awesome stuff as of late, here's his latest blog-post:

Occupy Free Land: A Solution for the 21st Century

November 16th, 2011

Protest Occupations in cities across North America and around the World are facing brutal repression. Coordinated police raids -- often under cover of darkness and behind media blockades -- are handing out beat downs and destroying encampments.

During these raids, Occupiers' equipment is thrown in the trash and their bloodied bodies are sent to jail.  Right now, protesters in NYC are routinely held for 72 hour stints without being charged with any crime.


Occupiers move back in and rebuild.

Authorities justify these raids and other less obvious but equally devious injustices as attempts to preserve "public health and safety".

Cracking civilian skulls for "public safety" is like bombing for peace: insane.  Brutalizing people who can't afford a healthy life in the name of "public health" is equally insane.


Cheap energy is over. Economic growth is dead.  Climate Change and Mass Extinction are taking place because Consumerism and Corporatism are twin cancers plaguing our dying Planet.


Our societal system is rooted in a deep disconnect from Natural Law.  As it breaks down, and control is lost, our leaders are acting even more insane than usual.  Things are going to get a lot crazier in the near future.

On some level, we all know these things to be true, but only the Occupiers are putting their bodies on the line and demanding a prompt return to sanity.

These Occupations are not a fad.  These Occupiers are not going away.  In fact, an growing number of dispossessed people have no place else left to go.

A rising tide of people are aware that the current system is failing and that direct action now is the only way to avoid decades of unimaginable human suffering and unprecedented environmental destruction.


If you think things are bad now, imagine what life will be like when twice as many people are out of options and losing hope.  Imagine what life will be like when YOU find yourself entirely out of options, drowning in debt, and short on hope.

Feeling trapped?  Feeling scared?  Feeling numb?  You are not alone.

We as a civilization -- as a species -- stand at a fork in History's road where the choices are simple: "the hard way" or "the easy way".  Please allow me to offer one simple direction...

Our predicament has been studied by government, military, and academic intelligence.  Their findings are all the same: we must transition to sustainable, local economies in order to successfully navigate the upcoming decades.  Sustainable, local economies are rooted in sustainable, local food production, so let's start there.

If local, state, and federal governments don't want urban encampments filled with the growing legions the current System has shed off and left for dead, why not work with Occupiers and make them an offer they can't refuse?  Nobody actually wants to sleep on the steps of City Hall, so why not encourage Occupiers to congregate elsewhere?  Why not give them the opportunity to succeed in the ONE sector where our economy actually can grow: sustainable, local food production.

As the global economy powers down, sheds jobs, and shreds lives, why not tweak the system so dissatisfied people have someplace to go and meaningful work to do.

If private landowners and local governments were to open up areas of "Free Land" for community stewardship, localized agriculture, and Sustainable Occupation, the urban occupiers will take their growing communities out into the countryside and will revitalize struggling farm towns.

As our industrialized economy dries up, America's agricultural future lies in small scale community farming.  With modern Permaculture and Aquaponics techniques, people can grow mind-boggling amounts of healthy, natural food on surprisingly small acreages.

The only limitations holding us back from opening up neglected and  underutilized land to a generation of American farmers, are legal constructs and the same faulty logic which has led us to the precipice on which we stand.

Occupy encampments are already turning into models for communal farming arrangements that are the next logical progression for post-growth civilization.  People can't succeed in the cities because there is no longer economic growth there, but there are plenty of barren cul-de-sacs and derelict subdivisions that could flourish with food: the people just need access to that land.


Free Land agricultural communities have sprung up all across America since the mid-1960s', but the government has shut them down, citing "public health and safety" considerations.  Does this sound familiar?


The government's actual motivations for shutting down what they deemed "hippie communes" was to force all Americans to pay rent or buy a home on the Banksters' terms.  The government acted to grow the economy and increase tax revenues by making life unnecessarily difficult and expensive for the rest of us.


Well guess what Government guys and gals?!  Economic growth is dead, and it sure as shit won't get us out of this one.  Tell your corporate tycoon overlords that their short-term schemes for personal profit are no way to run a successful civilization.

If governments get out of the peoples' way, the people will get off of the governments' lawns.