Kermit O — Writer • Dreamer • Abolitionist

From Resilience Hubs to Resilient Networks: Self-Determination at Multiple Scales

Education & Research, Politics & Activism, Sustainability & Regenerationcommunity resilience, Dual Power, Energy, Food, Housing, resilience hubs, Resilient Networks, Water

One of the strengths of the resilience hub — control/ownership of a physical space — is also one of its key limitations in that where the facility is compromised, so too goes most of its capacity for resilience. What I hope to discover is how this same capacity can be distributed across a wider networks of ... Read More

Philadelphia Resilience Hubs: A Strategy for Long-Term Thriving

Politics & Activism, Sustainability & Regenerationclimate change, Philadelphia, resilience, resilience hubs, Self-Determination

The creation of resilience hubs in Philadelphia would not only do a great deal in meeting the city’s sustainability targets, it would foster short and long-term quality of life enhancements for local residents, and prepare us for inevitable stressors and shocks during the long march through the climate crisis.

After Eighty Years of White Supremacist Capitalist Mythology, it’s Time to Retire Batman Forever

General

Unlike the countless victims of Capital, Bruce Wayne is able to take it upon himself, by virtue of his inherited wealth — and through that access to near infinite resources — to get his own perverse form of justice. At the same time, one can reasonably assume he carries on his family's legacy of exploitation ... Read More

The Dangerous Delusions of Self-Directed Education

Education & Research, Politics & Activism, Society & Cultureschool abolition, self-directed education, symbolic gestures

In our “free” society, schooling became a replacement for the development of material and social skills young people once learned in community, through apprenticeship, through experience with the natural world. In order to maintain schooling as an institution, these young people’s needs are provided for by parents, by the state, other external agents, and further ... Read More

North Philly Peace Park and the Continuum of Black Struggle

Education & Research, Politics & Activism, Race & Racism, Sustainability & RegenerationBlack Struggle, North Philly Peace Park, Philadelphia, Self-Determination

All the things that North Philly Peace Park is, and will become, are part of a continuum of collective dreaming, striving, and will toward self-determination: the heart of all Black struggle. The life of Black people in this country has always been defined by the tension between our demand for sovereignty, and the violent refusal ... Read More

ADHD, Organizing, and the Tensions of Hunter’s Mind

Neurodivergence & Ability, Politics & Activism, Sustainability & RegenerationADHD, Hunter's Mind, Organizing, Philadelphia

Hunter's Mind — or ADHD if you must — allows me to glimpse both the underlying systems that reinforce domination, and the ley lines along which alternative lifeways might be built. The utter soup that is my mind under capitalism requires serious organizational structure in order to even function. And so my thoughts naturally gravitate toward ... Read More

The Cynical Manipulations of the Gatekeeper

Politics & Activism, Race & Racism, Sustainability & RegenerationBill Gates, climate change, conspiracy, farmland, gatekeeper, monopoly, pandemics, seeds, vaccines

Even as Bill Gates writes books laying out the "solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need", his cynicism prevents him from actually believing any of it. Not only does he have no faith in people to muster the collective will to prevent climate catastrophe, he has neither faith in corporations to abandon their centuries-long ... Read More

From COVID to Climate Change: Herd Immunity vs. Institutional Distrust

Society & Culture, Sustainability & Regenerationclimate change, covid-19, herd immunity

Whatever technologies, models, and organizational structures we develop, to orient ourselves toward social and economic justice, we must also make space for the unwilling and the unable to be independent, self-determined, and safe. This means insulating them against the violent death throes of our system of capitalism, white supremacy, and imperialism, as we replace it ... Read More

Net-Zero to Net-Positive: Toward a Real Education for Sustainability

Education & Research, Race & Racism, Sustainability & Regenerationeducation for sustainability, phennd sustainability, Philadelphia

The moment demands a mass mobilization of people and collective will. Which means bridging gaps: in knowledge, resources, understanding, and empathy. In our conversations, and in our work around sustainability, we have to integrate those things which support and affirm our rights to healthy, dignified lives, so we even have the capacity to take on ... Read More

One Educator’s Journey to Personal and Collective Liberation

Education & Research, Race & Racism, Society & CultureADHD, education for liberation, racial identity, teaching

At the end of last year, I published an article in the journal Transcontinental Human Trajectories, my first “official” publication. It is mostly a personal narrative — and I do mean personal — but it also lays out much of my educational philosophy, and sketches my initial trajectory from a school teacher to more of ... Read More