Newcentennials

of Clinton County
The Local Party


Who are the members of the local party?

They are people who take a generous and neighborly view of self-preservation; they do not believe that they can survive and flourish by the rule of dog eat dog; they do not believe that they can succeed by defeating or destroying or selling or using up everything but themselves.


They doubt that good solutions can be produced by violence.


They want to preserve the precious things of nature and of human culture and pass them on to their children.


They want the world's fields and forests to be productive; they do no want them to be destroyed for the sake of production.


They know you can not be a democrat (small
d) or a conservationist and at the same time a proponent of the supernatural corporate economy.

They believe--they know from their experience--that the neighborhood, the local community, is the proper place and frame of reference for responsible work.


They see that no commonwealth or community of interest can be defined by greed.


They know that things connect--that farming, for example, is connected to nature, and food to farming, and health to food--and they want to preserve the connections.


They know that a healthy local community cannot be replaced by a market or an entertainment industry or an information highway.


They know that contrary to all the unmeaning and unmeant political talk about "job creation," work ought not to be merely a bone thrown to the otherwise unemployed.


They know that work ought to be necessary; it ought to be good; it ought to be satisfying and dignifying to the people who do it, and genuinely useful and pleasing to the people for whom it is done.


--
Wendell Berry, "Conserving Communities"

17 Steps Towards Building a Local Community