============================================================================ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 14:16:41 -0500 Subject: <no subject> From: "Frank Van den Bosch" <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Great article in Whole Earth....thank you! Frank Van den Bosch ================ Dear Frank, Glad you found it useful. I'm publishing your note on our lists as a kind of advert for the Whole Earth issue. all the best, rkm ============================================================================ Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 14:05:12 -0500 From: aat <•••@••.•••> MIME-Version: 1.0 To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: cj#1097, rn> NAOMI KLEIN: "The Vision Thing" Dear rkm, Thanks for posting this excellent article "The Vision Thing" by Naomi Klein. I was only dimly aware of how the structure of the new movement is shaping up before reading it. It might be that nature, some higher power, is operating in a manner little understood to guide this and other human process. That this spider web, wheel and spoke construction parallels the structure of the internet is interesting. And the spider itself might have things to teach us. If one builds a web and the wind blows it down, he/she patiently builds another with a slightly different angle to the prevailing winds and keeps doing that until an angle is found where the web will survive the wind, but still be in good bug-catching territory. He/she is never discouraged, just keeps weaving away, trying things a little different each time. If I were to hear that the Cato Institute et al are feverishly working on anti-spider-web technology, I wouldn't be surprised. And I am reminded too of a method developed by an Italian some time ago which was reputed to be very effective (may still be) in guiding trading on stock markets etc. It was based on the mathematical formula that describes the shape of the shell of the sea creature Nautilus. This formula was used to predict swings in the markets which adherents believed were guided by natural forces. Maybe so. Naomi had this to say: >Most activists agree that the time has come to sit down and >start discussing a positive agenda--but at whose table, and who >gets to decide? And in your commentary: >What the movement needs next is to figure out how to get to >the next step beyond demonstrations. I think the next step is being offered to us on a silver spoon. And it wouldn't surprise me to hear that it's already in the works. Why not put the same energy we saw in Seattle behind getting Ralph Nader into the White House? That might make it possible for us to learn to say "We're in charge", and mean it, not right away, but a lot sooner than we might have guessed a year ago. Best, austin ============ Dear Austin, I don't think there is a realistic scenario by which Nader could get elected at this time. People are captured by the lesser_of_two-evil's mentality. Those who favor Nader would be afraid not to vote for Gore, lest Bush get in. Under such circumstances, the more energy that goes into a Nader campaign, the more is drained off of more useful projects, and the more we set ourselves up for defeat and discouragement. More important, we shouldn't put the cart before the horse. _First we need a massive grass-roots movement, and it needs to find a way to function democratically and come up with an agreed platform. _Then one can talk about implementing that platform by means of electoral politics. _If Nader were to be elected in the next election, that would be a testament to wonderful campaign organizing, but it would not put 'us' in charge. He would have some advisors and some policies, and some of them might be appealing, but there's no connection to any democratic, participitative process. No such process exists. Building the movement and building that process are the same thing. There are no magic bullets. rkm ============================================================================ Richard K Moore Wexford, Ireland Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance email: •••@••.••• CDR website: http://cyberjournal.org cyberjournal archive: http://members.xoom.com/centrexnews/ book in progress: http://cyberjournal.org/cdr/gri.html A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon Permission for non-commercial republishing hereby granted - BUT include and observe all restrictions, copyrights, credits, and notices - including this one. ============================================================================ .
