The biggest Bangalow billy-cart derby ever reminds us all that the simple things in life are often the most fun. We do not need high powered engines, sophisticated electronics and mass marketing to enjoy ourselves. In fact, the opposite seems often to be true.
At the other end of the region, the good people of Billen Cliffs celebrated the opening of their community hall. Founders of the community, builders of the hall and the people who will enjoy it into the future danced, ate and sang their way into the night celebrating the simple act of building a common space where they can have fun.
I congratulated Billen Cliffs on the ingenuity, self sufficiency and cooperative spirit that made their community hall possible. The same accolades might go to the billy cart builders or, indeed, Jessica Watson.
The opening day at Billen Cliffs was dedicated, as is the whole community, to creating a sustainable future. I reminded the assembled throng that very similar values guided the pioneers 150 years ago, who opened up the area, built the roads and many of the buildings that we now take for granted.
They might have come here to exploit natural resources rather than preserve them, but they cared about their community and employed as much ingenuity, self sufficiency and cooperative spirit as any billy cart or community hall builder does today.
It is critical that the original settlers and the recent arrivals recognise these similarities because we all have a common enemy. That is the forces of global capital that would prefer to see us in debt than in control, consuming instead of cooperating and buying our entertainment instead of making our own.
Billy Carts might not rate a mention on the Greens policy website, but community values over the interests of commerce do, and no other political party dares go there. They are all too dependent on the corporate vote. The website democracy4sale.org accurately documents the extent to which the old parties are in hoc to the big end of town.
For years, elections around the world have been knife edge, now most countries are finding a third way to break up the old power cliques. In Australia that force is The Greens. A vote for The Greens is simply a vote for the good, old-fashioned values of thrift and common sense, of looking after the future instead of seeking short term gain.
Giovanni Ebono is the author and publisher of a number of books on sustainable living and was the candidate for The Greens in the 2007 Federal Election.
