Dear RN, Aug. 1 Carole Brouillet, who has put together the Community Currency Website (see RN posting of June 23, '99), found Richard's recent posting on "broad-based actions against globalization" most helpful, as her message below explains. And Hans Sinn, who has long been working to shut down the military-industrial complex AND to replace it with something which would truly foster security (Civilian-Based Defence) has some reflections to share with us about how we can see our work within the context of the wider effort to replace corporate globalization with sustainable, peaceful communities. all the best, Jan ******************************************************************************** Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 07:58:14 -0700 To: •••@••.••• From: Carol Brouillet <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: rn- broadbased actions against globalization Dear Richard, I greatly appreciated your posting this morning, especially since I just got an email yesterday from the Danish guy you mentioned who is trying to start the World Parliment and who is coming to the August Gathering and wanted to try his fingerprint technology out there. I just returned from over a month away (visiting family in Canada and Colorado). I had to put together the program and dirctory of participants and mail it out 2 days ago. I was going to work on a press release today. I received a $3465. grant to increase ethnic diversity at the Gathering. I've sent out over 300 invitations and scholarship offers to at least 60 people of color (non-caucasian). BUT I still haven't been able to give all the scholarships away, there are still 13 beds and scholarships available. The group is still predominantly male and white- with people coming from Australia, Japan, Sweden, (the guy from Denmark), Canada. Part of it is my own stupidity, I don't have much travel money available. Nonetheless, the ones who have faith in technology, and think they can participate in the global power game with the "big players," if they can win the endorsement of "the masses" whose interests they "hope to serve" seem to want to be in on this. There are also some really gifted visionary folk who feel the internet opens up radically new ways of reaching, organizing, and enlightening a large segment of the population. Me, I just am trying to do the best I can to "herd the cats" and create an alternative, nurture a movement, to change the system. In September the 50 Years is Enough Network will be having their big No Sweat-No Debt Conference in Washington,D.C. (and demos in front of the World Bank/IMF) and the theme this year is the alternatives. They expect 500 people to come. I'll be doing a workshop on Community Currencies. So that's the latest. I don't have time to read all my mail, but I appreciate your work and posts. I've also tried to keep up a calendar of events, including all the global conferences on this theme at my website http://www.communitycurrency.org. - it cheers me up to see how much organizing is going on around the world- our strength lies in the diversity of the groups who find that we are all together in our struggle against "top-down globalization" and empowerment at the the community level. Sending you and Jan, and everyone else who cares deeply about these issues much love, Carol ****************************************************************** Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 12:44:45 -0400 To: •••@••.••• From: Hans Sinn <•••@••.•••> Hi Jan, <snip> I agree, so far there there are no signs of a coherent countervailing movement. What I see instead, much like the founder of "attac" ( the Alliance for the Taxation of Financial Transaction ) is an international "archipelago" of individuals and groups. This archipelago of individuals and groups is gradually linking itself, largely by means of the WWW. It appears more and more of the groups and individuals recognize to themselves as pieces of a larger puzzle. The people and groups of the archipelago may not be listening truly to each other, they may not be listening to the same voice or adhere to the same doctrine, but nevertheless, they appear to be marching to the same drummer, albeit at a below verbal level. I agree that this global phenomenon may be too fractured, too disjointed and too disorganized to ever form an effective alternative. We may not recognize the various parts of the archipelago and many of the parts may never recognize each other. We appear to be too much pressed for time in our own minds and short lives. We are expecting order and coherence where there is disorder and chaos, but there is definitely no vacuum. <snip> Further on the positive side, yesterday, after more than a year, I updated my Civilian Peace Service home page. Now that the German government has actually in introduced a CPS the update was in order. ( In the process we lost for some reason the background colour to the site - but that be fixable in a few days.) So if you look at my revised web site you will notice that I added two more links, one to "attac" in France, whose enterprise I fully support and the other to the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Studies in Sweden. The Foundation's director is Jan Oberg, an old colleague of Karlheinz Koppe's. I am impressed by Jan Oberg's demonstration of the value of peace research. Four or five years ago Jan got personally involved in the Kosovo Albanian Serb conflict. Jan produced not only an exact analysis of the situation and a blow by blow account of its development, but also appropriate recommendations of how nonviolently resolve the conflict. Obviously no government followed Jan's recommendation. Another of the many instances of much understanding and no power. I first met Jan in Nov. 1963, in the course of a peace walk from Vancouver to Berlin which took us through Sweden. Jan is now warming up to the idea of an international Civilian Peace Service (or as David Hartsought put is "A Standing Peace Force")and will put the subject up for discussion on the Transnational web site. Also on my web site I established a direct e-mail link to Lloyd Axworthy. People who bring up my web site, can now read about the German Civilian Peace Service and ask Axworthy why the Canadian government is not doing something similar ( especially since the whole idea started 1981 in Canada with the founding of Peace Brigades International.) A last comment about the CPS project. By virtue of the origin and history of the discipline of non-violent action, Gandhi, Martin Luther King etc, there is a lot more to be said about the CPS enterprise. There is certainly more to it than a government saying yes to it. But it is a beginning and we shall see where it goes from here. Take care Hans. R.R.4 Brooke Valley Road 687 Perth, Ontario Canada Tel: 613 264 8833 Fax: 613 264 8605 Civilian Peace Service <http://www.superaje.com/~marsin/cps.htm>
