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From: •••@••.•••
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:24:22 EDT
Subject: Re: cj#1107,rn> Heads up re * Citizen Consensus Councils *
To: •••@••.•••
7/17/00, rkm writes:
<< What is our strategy? How do we get from here to there? >>
More and more it is the only question that interests me. We
can whine forever, and we know we are right, but what would
happen for us to actually move forward is a far harder
question.
Think of Havel - he actually moved from radical playright
and critic to the presidency of his country. He banned the
production of weapons, and recognized Tibet among his early
moves. His country fell into two parts ( partly because of
the ban on weapons,) lots else. A good lesson to see what
happens when our side actually comes to power.
In South Africa, much good, much sorrow. Huge upsurge in
crime and disorder, and, also the reconcilliation comssion-
a brilliant breakthrough idea to stop the endless cycle of
revenge. Mandela fanned the hopes and aspirations of the
poeple, but didn't fan the flames of personal responsibility
at the same time.
The greens take control of the city council of Arcata, a
tiny town in Northern Califorina, split evenly between
loggers and eco-activists. What can they do locally to make
it work for both sides?
I appluad your keeping the dialog going and reporting
experiments, those that work and those that fail.
Just my opinion
Jim
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Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 23:03:38 -0400
From: "Rich Cowan" <•••@••.•••>
To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: for Richard K. Moore re: Org. Collaborative
MIME-Version: 1.0
This email is just to let you know about a low-volume email list we
have established this year, focusing on the use of computers and the
internet in organizing for social change. We haven't subscribed you
to anything; this is only an invitation to join.
The list "•••@••.•••" is a digest that comes out about
once per week, published by the Organizers' Collaborative.
ORG-C covers the use of the Internet to foster communication and
collaboration among social change activists, the creation of open source,
free software for nonprofit and activist users, social critiques of the
Internet, and occasional events we sponsor.
So far, 17 digests have been published, and an archive is available to
subscribers only.
To subscribe, just send a blank e-mail message to:
•••@••.•••
Thanks for your interest, and please forward this message to
colleagues or to listservs where it may be relevant!
-rich cowan
for the Organizers' Collaborative http://organizenow.net
P.O. Box 400897, Cambridge, MA 02140 617-776-6176
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From: "Roy Madron" <•••@••.•••>
Organization: The National Music Trust
To: •••@••.•••
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 19:29:20 +0000
Subject: A Revolutionary Global Political Movement
Dear Richard Moore
I think we e-mailed each other some time ago via gaiapc.
Over the past couple of years I have been trying to
articulate in an easily-understood way, the case for a
Movement for Global Justice and Sustainability.
I attach in MS Word a one page summary of the basic idea.
I have half a dozen chapters in draft and I'm delighted to
have belatedly re-discovered your ideas via the
cyberjournal.
As we're relatively near, and have some contacts in common,
it would be good to try to make this movement a reality.
Best wishes
Roy Madron
---- File information -----------
File: M.G.J.S. one pagerdoc.doc
Date: 27 Jun 2000, 15:26
Size: 23040 bytes.
Type: MS-Word
M.G.J.S. one pager
THE MOVEMENT FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE AND SUSTAINABILITY
The Movement for Global Justice and Sustainability aims to
re-invent our democracies so that our children and
grandchildren will be able to live in just and sustainable
societies.
Why do we need to re-invent our democracies?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Our existing democracies are designed to produce governments
that help the rich to get richer by making the poor poorer.
It is the way they are designed, that makes our existing
democracies collude with cynicalTrans-national corporations
to reduce nature's rich bio-diversity to the point where our
planet may be a more or less uninhabitable by the end of the
21st. century.
For years we have been led to believe that our existing
democracies are what Abraham Lincoln said they should be:
Government of the people,
by the people,
for the people.
But, in spite of Lincoln's noble sentiments, none of our
existing democracies have ever really been what he said they
should be. With virtually no public debate, generations of
politicians and their backers have consciously created sham-
democracies that can best be described as:
Government of the people,
by elected dictators,
for the benefit of influential national and
trans-national organisations.
Of course, this is an oversimplification, but it contains a
basic and brutal truth that we have to deal with if we are
going to reverse the tide of global injustice and
unsustainability.
Unless we can tackle the problem of our sham-democracies, we
will always have governments that do nothing to stop the
wholesale destruction of the planet's human societies and
biological systems. It is because we have these
sham-democracies that we seem to be helpless to prevent our
societies from betraying our children and grandchildren's
futures.
Once the sham-democracy penny drops, the key question we
find ourselves asking is, "What kind of democracies do we
need if our societies are to be just and sustainable?"
After a lot of thought and discussion, we believe that
genuine democracies can be described as:
Government of the people
by thinking, learning and acting together
for the creation of just and sustainable societies
for all of humanity
Another over-simplification, of course, but think about the
difference between our definitions of sham and genuine
democracies. Do they make sense to you? Did you say, "Yes,
basically that's correct. Looked at like that, we don't
have genuine democracies.. No wonder the our societies and
the natural world are going downhill so rapidly!".
We have tried to raise these issues with the existing
political parties and radical pressure groups but eventually
we have concluded that they are economically and
psychologically locked into a symbiotic relationship with
the existing sham-democratic systems. That is why we are
forming The Movement for Global Justice and Sustainability.
The Movement for Global Justice and Sustainability will be a
trans-national political movement that will build
mass-membership political parties around the world, contest
elections, form governments and implement the kinds of
genuine democracies that future generations will need if
humanity is to live sustainably on a healthy planet.
We have obviously set ourselves a very long-term, ambitious
and complex task, but if we want to stop betraying our
children and grandchildren, nothing less will do.
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Delivered-To: moderator for •••@••.•••
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 19:18:05 -0700
From: frank scott <•••@••.•••>
COASTAL POST
(415)868 1600 FAX (415) 868 0502
P.O. Box 31
Bolinas CA 94924
http://www.coastalpost.com
email: •••@••.•••
August,2000
Boom and Doom
We live in an era in which the financial market and the
earth itself are both over-heated at the same time .
Corporate capital's science tells us that there is no
connection between these two facts. They are supposed to be
understandable acts of nature. Especially our economics ,
which are the outcome of divine planning. You know, "the
invisible hand" and the triumph of capitalism.
If we accept this divine science, we must also accept that
our divinity seems to operate on a cycle of economic boom
that depends on ecological doom. The reports of poisoned
air and water, toxic pollution, acid rain , holes in the
ozone and especially climate warming have lead many to the
belief that we are condemned to death as a race. Of course,
corporate capital says it will all be good for some, even if
others lose. Warmer weather in one part of the globe will
lower heating bills, say, while increasing sales of summer
clothing. Not to worry, just sell utilities and buy
lightweight fabrics.
But seemingly more reliable science, not yet pimping for
corporate funds, calls for an alert on the part of humanity.
The danger is real, serious and demanding of our attention.
Unfortunately, many still attribute it to individual
evil, personal greed, private psychosis, or group
performance under the control of one of those things.
The workings of political economic systems are usually
beyond the concerns of everyday life, and kept that way by
our mind managers. That is why people can allow their
government to tear up its credit card and cut public debt,
while they get more credit cards and sink into the deepest
debt any public has ever carried, privately. That is why the
top 1 percent of wealthy Americans have as many after-tax
dollars to spend as the bottom 100 million, and there is
relative silence from a people manipulated by TV brain
candy, like the multi-million dollar Gush-Bore "survival"
show .
We move through life burdened by personal cares, governed by
consciousness controllers and often oblivious to nature ,
a force over which we have little personal power . We are
almost equally oblivious to social organization, a force
over which we should have complete control, in an allegedly
democratic society. That is hardly the case.
Our society's organization has been labeled industrial ,
then technological , and presently we are supposed to be in
a phase called globalization. But the controlling structure
of everyday reality is not one dependent on machines,
tools or finance; it is based on the political economic
system of capitalism, and its general acceptance as a fact
of life, very much like a religious dogma.
People may believe metaphysical legends explaining why we
act the way we do , but the system under which we perform
is governed by physical rules of profit accumulation. This
is accomplished through private control of nature, whether
that nature is human, animal or seemingly inanimate
resources .
We are told that this privately oriented economic-religious
system is the highest form of human development, partly
because it has created a wonderful material standard of
living for some people, and a state in which we pride
ourselves on having free elections with representative
governments. This , though hundreds of millions live in
desperate poverty, and most people do not vote, with few
really believing the founding myths of democracy except as
immaterial faith, having seen little proof of their material
truth.
For most citizens, supposed democracy operates exactly as
nature ; mostly beyond our control. We live the
contradiction of a bad system under the control of good
people, or at least innocent people, who rarely understand
that system. And that is because we are educated not to
understand, but to accept.
Most of what we learn, read, see, hear and ultimately think,
is a program produced by the private owners of nature, in
order to get their subjects' agreement to what is done with
that nature. In short, what they do to and with us , and our
environment.
Growing numbers of global citizens are criticizing this
system, and not merely one aspect of its performance, or
one villain. We still seem to need individual actors to
love and hate, like Clinton, Bush , Gates, Mother Theresa,
and other demons and saints. But we are beginning to
understand that these actors perform under the direction
of something other than mysterious forces, like god or
nature.
Once we realize that democracy means people must
collectively run their society and not depend or rely on
invisible authorities beyond their control, we may be on
the way to bringing about a better world for just about
everyone. The one we have now lavishes immense wealth on
some, a fairly decent life on others, and poverty, debt,
depression, misery and suffering on most. That enormous gap
cannot be excused simply by blaming it on personal greed
or an angry god.
The cycle of boom and doom is the cycle of humans under the
command of capital. The doom can only be avoided by a
democratic movement to control the cycles for the good of
all, not just a few. Such a democratic system would mean the
end of exclusive private control of political economics ,
the capitalism which is creating disaster as we allow it to
maintain its domination over humanity and the earth.
That disaster will become more deadly the longer it
continues. The way to spread economic boom to greater
numbers, and avert ecological doom , is to understand that
real democracy means the end of the political economics of
capitalism. Anything less will continue the present
accumulation of happiness and short term riches for some ,
but sadness and long term deprivation for all .
Copyright (c) 2000 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.
This text may be used and shared in accordance with the
fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be
archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that
the author is notified and no fee is charged for access.
Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on
other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the
author
frank scott
http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~frank
email: •••@••.•••
225 laurel place, san rafael ca. 94901
(415)457 2415 fax(415)457 4791
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Richard K Moore
Wexford, Ireland
Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance
email: •••@••.•••
CDR website & list archives: http://cyberjournal.org
content-searchable archive: http://members.xoom.com/centrexnews/
featured article:
http://cyberjournal.org/cj/rkm/Whole_Earth_Review/Escaping_the_Matrix.shtml
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,
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