are the Transition movement bods on the right track?
I'm in it. The very first statement you will hear any bod in the "movement" declare is: "We've no idea if we are on the right track".
Since no-one has ever piloted a hypercomplex industrial global political economy down a rapid energy depletion curve during a time of rapid climate destabilisation before, that is more or less an essential admission to make, and test of sanity. Anyone who claims they are on the right track should be avoided, in my view.
The Transition movement is less of a program, and more of a framework in which people experiment to find what adaptation strategies and practices works, succeed and fail safely at small scale, communicate successes and failures as rapidly as possible to minimise the learning time, and scale what does work (and is appropriate) as rapidly as possible. It has certain views ("themes") about where solutions are most likely to be found (permaculture, local currencies, energy conservation, localism, etc.) to serve as starting places, but it's pretty flexible.
My initial impression is that it all seems a bit like of a middle class, liberal life-style choice
I'm middle class, liberal, and I've made a life style choice. So are many (but by no means all) of the people I know that participate. So I'd have to agree. The question is: are the working class excluded, or do the working class exclude themselves?
This is a self-initiating movement. I've lost count of the leaflets and news letters I've stuck in people's letterboxes telling people what's on and how to get involved and I've stuck them in all sorts of letter boxes. It's not like the Jehova's Witnesses. We'll tell you what is going on and welcome you if you want to share your energy, experience and ideas. But if you don't want to play, then don't. The ayatollah's of this world are fine with us. If he has an alternative view, and it works, then great! We'll incorporate it. We are all Transitionalists, in that respect. But at some point, you actually have to get your arse off the sofa, switch off the telly, and do something. It would be naive to deny that some people are less self-initiating than others.
There is nothing inherently class based about the Transition movement. Hunger, cold, and disease won't discriminate between those with money and those without, when money ceases to have much value. Many of the initiatives in Transition don't require money (and it's remarkable, for example, what else you could do with your Sky subscription, car depreciation, insurance and road tax, and loan interest), and will reduce your expenditure. For what it is worth, it's hard to get toffs involved too. People with access to resources (specifically agricultural land and energy) will have disproportionate power in a resource scarce world and , ironically, one of our themes is re-establishing proper ownership of resources and the means of production - about the most realistic opportunity for modern Marxists to discover a workable form of politics and a vehicle for bringing it about. It would be sad if they missed the chance because they spent the time complaining it was a middle class movement.
whereby people sit around feeling good about themselves because they are using their weekends to knit Cous Cous or mend bicycles. There may be nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but I fail to see it's relevance to the experience of inner cities, especially that experience that will occur in these areas when Peal Oil begins to be felt.
Then the very best thing you can do is find your local group, and join or start the group that identifies and implements what
is relevant to the experience of inner cities, and share your experience and energy with it to figure it out (actually, you will find there is already work going on here). If there isn't a local group in your local transition movement - start one. If there isn't a transition movement in your area - start one of those instead. We start where we are, with what we've got and the skills we have.
It's now a global movement (because it appears to work far better than any of the current alternatives), and there are
plenty of resources to get you started. You will be very welcome.
Or you can exclude yourself. The choice is yours, but you do have a choice.
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