These are buffelgrass times that we’re living in — and our job is to turn all these weeds into resources.
We’re doing that in a literal way at our brickyard in Tucson, working buffelgrass into high-strength adobe for sustainable, beautiful low-income housing. (This isn’t mutual aid: once our pilot projects prove viable, we’ll lobby the city to help us build housing at scale, for a fraction of the cost of commercial construction and a whole lot more benefit — social, ecological, and esthetic.)
But this project of ours is only the tip of the weedbag. In any domain, when public pressure can have zero effect at the top — and we honestly don’t know when it will again in our country — we can work with local government to help those whose lives have been cast off by oligarchism, and otherwise fix what’s been broken… using our hands, a few tools, and even ginormous mistakes as material!
The corporate takeover of farming and manufacturing killed rural economies, creating deep hardship that our tin-pot wannabe dictator turned into false grievances. Declaring independence from big corporations — and building the muscles we need to do that — might just help prevent future slides into fascism. (And yes, we still do need to stop this one.)
Next week we’ll tell you all about buffelgrass and why it was brought to our desert. (Spoiler alert: money!) After that, we’ll tell you all about what we’re doing with it, and invite you to join us. We hope our project inspires others, and not only because it’s more fun than the paths that have led to this mess.
But don’t wait! If you’re in Tucson, join a brick day, and sign up on our volunteer list to get latest hours.
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Our “boilerplate” is over here!
