Empowerment and The American Dream
The American Dream subscribes to the collective drive for attainment through success. We'd like to think The American Dream suggests something more than the scoreboard of acquisition, but we understand the Manifest Destiny, the history of economic policy and capitalistic short term economic gain strategy has created a societal adaptation to a set of marketing icons and advertising slicks. For instance, despite global warming, petroleum wars and the desperate need for long term pollution standards, the high gas consumption SUV has become the American icon of choice.
When we began this project it we did not know we would have to redefine all of our terms, or assume nothing from pre-existing conclusions. We did not know we would have to start from the beginning with a new set of disciplines and strategies. Let's go back to The American Dream.
To become empowered by any dream or aspiration, you must become it. Since the fall of 2001 we have all been forced to re-evaluate even the meaning of The American Dream. Now, the recession, the increasing rate of joblessness and international refocus has provided ample opportunity for many to re-examine options and patterns. Let's begin here with "who deserves the American Dream?" Our work in sustainability has given us the opportunity to respond: "everybody" who desires it.
In "Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families" by the Economic Policy Institute, it was stated that two-and-half times more families fall below "basic family budget levels" than below the federal poverty line. USA census placed 19.9 % children below poverty level and 13.3% persons below poverty. Additionally, basic family budget levels include necessities: food, housing, health care and child care and the Institute claims that 29% of working families in the U.S. with one to three children under age 12 cannot afford basic necessities. The "median priced housing affordability index is at 147,500 suggesting an annual income of $54,000.
New Mexico is the nation's poorest state with 19% of it's households living below the poverty line. According to Children's Defense Fund, the children in these New Mexican households statistically are born poor and stay poor for generations. A report by the University of New Mexico states that a combination of larger families situated in the rural areas and the lack of skilled education maintain the poverty profile.
Southwest Desert Sustainability Project defines the American Dream as the ability for everyone to create and maintain an affordable, healthy, community-interconnected living environment. To do this we redefine affordability through the prism of sustainability.
- Living sustainably means living within your means and living within the planet's means. "...meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." - ‘Brundtland’ report
- "living off the interest and not the capital of natural resources" - EF Schumacher
- Sustainability means that human activities are part of and dependent upon the natural world. In scientific terms, the human ecosystem, or biosphere including the communities we build, is a subset of the larger ecosystem of the Earth.
We propose building with natural, indigenous materials; energizing with natural, indigenous resources and designing homes biospherically. (A biosphere can be viewed as a system or a set of functions that operate together while depending upon one another.) When systems all harmonize to heat, to cool, to provide energy, water and sewage systems and yes, even gardens, we have created a mircro within the macro; in other words, a living environment that reflects and satisfies one's personal needs and conditions while maintaining a balance with the surrounding natural world. This balance or attainment offers zero (or close to it) outside cost, in other words, self sufficiency and sustainability. We believe that one's home, or biosphere can reflect one's innate individuality, spirit and process while manifesting personal empowerment. We believe it is possible to grow your medicine and harvest your daily nutrients from converted waste water. We believe it is essential to develop sustainable communities now, as we speak and vibrate to the consciousness of collective wholeness.
We acknowledge the American Dream is comprised of self identity and self pride: where and how we choose to live and how body and spirit combine with nature and community to achieve a self actualized dream. The renewed American Dream expresses itself when we live in balance with nature, ourselves and community. We then have achieved a rarified existence. It is then the dream becomes an extension of self.
It is our hope and ideal to offer this dream to everyone who desires to achieve personal reality based on creativity, self expression, and sustainable skills training. When sustainability is applied to living, affordability happens: decreased labor, minimized materials cost and transportation costs, an elimination of inflated profit margins and living costs. We hope to enable affordable, sustainable living and education to all lower income lives.
So we begin to develop a new educational standard, work ethic and a renewed way of defining the American Dream. Indigenous, balanced, sustainable and self sufficient. We invite you to participate in developing sustainable communities and schools. Consider this the CLARION CALL that has awaited our attention and energies for much time. Consider this an opportunity for all of us to learn to gether, developing prototypes of health, living, self sufficiency and empowerment so that we might go out and do the same else. That is what prototyes are for.
