Dear Friends and Citizens of the World:

I have been working hard for several weeks on this pamphlet I have entitled A Winding Path to Workers’ Gardens, which is Pamphlet No. 1 in what may become a series. [NOTE: link edited to substitute September 3, 2013 version of pamphlet.] It is quite lengthy, but I hope you will find it to be worth the read. The pamphlet project actually convinced me to start this website. (I don’t know what I am doing with handling website technical/logistical stuff, but it seemed and still seems the right thing to do.) I was going to try to have the material published as a traditional book, but I decided that at this stage in my life, I am a pamphleteer at heart, passionate about the cause I believe in and wanting to get my detailed personal and technical thoughts out as soon as possible for free to anyone interested.

The pamphlet contains a lot of personal information about why I am a democratic socialist. I am not only a democratic socialist soil scientist with an international focus but also a half-Hispanic Christian contemplative living in the Deep South of the U.S. in the early 21st Century. Although this website has an international focus, I am hoping that one result of my writing and publishing this pamphlet is that others will join me in the cause in my region. That is not a good way of saying that, because I know many are out there in my region working for a better world, but in the Deep South Heart of Darkness, for decades now we have been quiet and tend to not know each other. The world needs people in all regions to join hands in solidarity for the desperate. We need each other as allies for our efforts to be successful, and it also helps with our alienation to work together and render mutual aid.

The pamphlet has, among other personal things, a Meditation on Family and Alienation. I do not mean to be off-putting with it or anything else in the pamphlet of a personal nature. I explain in detail why I believe the journey I have taken is relevant to the writing and to the outreach and message of democratic socialism.

The pamphlet also contains a technical paper on Soils and Scarcity, so if you do not wish to read my personal stuff, just turn to that. I think that it could be useful information to any soil scientists focused on MDGs and sustainability, among other folks. But for now you have to come to this greenie/pinko website to get the PDF. Perhaps someone will cross-post it someplace else, but it always will bear my democratic socialist “stigma” because, as my introduction says and Orwell said, I want all my serious writing to be directly or indirectly about democratic socialism as I understand it.

I am sure that the pamphlet is far from perfect, and that if I had weeks more, days more, or even hours more, I could improve it, but I don’t, so I am getting it out now the best I can. One of my great concerns is the “land grab” issue. If only to honor those who daily are losing their ancestral lands, on which they depend for survival, to financial market and state sovereign wealth capitalist exploitation, I feel that I want to move NOW, and not wait another week, day, or hour to say which side I am on regarding that issue.

I was at all times writing from the heart and the mind as a species-being doing my best.

Solidarity,

Brother Francisco