============================================================================ Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 11:38:32 -0800 To: •••@••.••• From: Tom Atlee <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: A movement without a program? Kudos, Richard! This comes very close to why I've focused on "co-intelligence." The movement I am hoping for is one that focuses on building the CAPACITY of people and human systems (institutions, groups, communities, etc.) to wisely co-create decent, sustainable, meaningful, satisfying futures. However, in the co-intelligence vision, I don't view "the movement" as the vehicle through which people find their common voice and common visions. The processes, understandings and institutions promoted by the movement are the vehicle. In my way of understanding all this, people take such powerful processes and understandings and institutions into their own lives and communities and organizations and, there, on their own home ground -- using those processes and understandings and institutions -- co-create the visions and realities they want. I don't see those people as "part of the movement", but as being served by the movement. This is "movement as catalyst or facilitator" rather than "movement as causal agent" or "movement as container" or "movement as the inclusive collective mind of the world". This may or may not be a semantic distinction.... -- Coheartedly, Tom http://www.co-intelligence.org http://www.co-intelligence.org/CIPol_Index.html ================================ Dear Tom, Thanks for your contribution. There are many movements going on, from the environmental to the gun lobby to anti-globalization. The particular movement you are fired up about is apparently the 'capacity-building' movement, which I would say is equivalent to what I call the 'harmonization movement'. Evidently your hope, - for the capacity-building / harmonization movement - is that it will transform civil society. I also have that hope. However in addition I have the hope that the harmonization movement can serve to build the capacity of yet another specific movement: the global movement to oust the capitalist regime. What are your thoughts on this? ciao, rkm ============================================================================ Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 21:12:14 -0800 To: •••@••.••• From: Rosa Zubizarreta <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: A movement without a program? Richard, i think this is very clear in many ways. One small quibble. I'm with you all the way till we get to this part... > In fact there are literally hundreds of individuals and groups advocating one or another plan for society. Some call for universal adoption of a new nature-based spiritual path; others continue to seek a worker's revolution and world socialism; still others seek global adoption of some strategic reform measure, such as the Tobin Tax. In this way potential energy in support of fundamental change is dissipated into myriad competing initiatives, none of which will ever be able to muster a dominant constituency. how can we make it a "both/and"? as i see it, the value of a harmonization movement, or a grassroots democracy movement, or whatever we want to call it, is that it provides the larger context within which all of these separate efforts begin to create a larger "patchwork quilt" effect. In some ways, all of those efforts ARE adding up already, in my mind... just not as effectively and powerfully as if we were collaborating more strategically, consciously finding the synergy, and maybe most importantly, having the vision of hope that can come from a larger picture.... the way i see it, and i think we agree on this, is that that vision needs to be formulated in a way that includes everyone, that is beyond left and right, that allows people to work towards resolving differences in creative ways, and building on common ground wherever possible... it's just important to me that people who are already working on their particular "piece", not feel that they are being "dissed", but instead that this is something that can help all of us feel more connected with each other and hopeful and work more smartly and strategically and etc. etc. etc.... **** i would really add a lot to your analysis along the lines of the whole "substance of WE feeling" (have you ever read Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos science fiction series??) I don;t mean you should neccessarily use the term!, just speak more about the whole divide and conquer thing, how we are set apart from each other, and how the movement is about learning how to work with each other as humans & find common ground, to create a truly human system... you know, in a funny way the conservatives deserve to be credited for their early awareness of the dangers of the "one world government" system... it's the progressives who've been slow on the uptake of the dangers of the whole Bretton Woods thing. (By the way, could you let me know why it is that everyone hates LaRouche? I just read something by them and found very few things (other than Star Wars) that i would disagree with, on one level... they have a huge focus on the real poverty that is taking place in this country, and a critique of global capitalism that seems pretty cogent. their faith in science is a litle naive i think, and their critique obviously doesn't go as far back as agricultural society! but it seems that they're pretty right on about a lot of stuff... also -- i just had an idea. what about writing something that focuses on the piece of the puzzle that each movement is RIGHT about? You know, the xxx's are right about this, the yy's make this valid point, the zzz's are right about this other thing... and here are some larger points that need to be thought of as well. it would be so refreshing from what's too often out there.... anyways, just some thoughts off the top of my head.... > For all of these reasons, I believe that no prepackaged 'plan for society' can be the basis for building a successful global movement for fundamental change. We must find some other means of rallying a movement together, and then the movement itself must take responsibility for developing its program, or programs, for society. If the movement is to be the vehicle by which the people of the world find their common voice, then it is entirely suitable that the movement also be the vehicle by which they reach a common understanding of what kind of world they want to create. it feels like it kind of ends on a tease.... cliffhanger ending! so, what IS this "movement as vehicle".... looking forward to the next installment! :-) ======================= Dear Rosa, Excellent. I'm so glad you (gently) pointed out the stupidity of my 'dissing' those who are working on 'programs'. Of _course they are already part of the movement, each working on their draft proposals to add to the collective effort. I _knew that paragraph didn't feel right when I wrote it. Yes, the 'divide-and-conquer' theme belongs in here somewhere. The part about the postive contributions of each part, including the right, will get mentioned, but in a later section. A centrally important item. I don't know much about LaRouche, but I have noticed that the only coherent anti-NWO sentiments that get reported are from right-wingers. If Buchannan says it, you read about it; if Chomsky says it you don't. The obvious inference for the 'intelligent' reader: the NWO is a right-wing conspiracy notion. Yes, the section ended on a tease. We want a pager-turner, right? (:>) I'm afraid I'll have to rewrite this section, however, before going on. many thanks, rkm ============================================================================ Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 15:50:02 +0100 From: Bob Ocegueda <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: A movement without a program? Hi Richard, I think you are correct on not trying to devise a program, for all the reasons you give below. However, I do think a set of principles, from which any individual and organization purporting to be part of such movement would not deviate, could and should be stated. These principles would establish the direction in which the movement is going as well as the means by which to achieve the goal. 1- The very first principle I would advocate would be "Non-violence", in the individual, organizational and societal levels. Not only is that the end in a society to which I would want to work for, it would also deny the opposition the means by which the members could be co-opted... the elimination of the "agent provocateur" (sp?). The opposition can not win in a non-violent setting. 2- The second would be the adoption of the non-hierarchical social/organizational system, as you've stated before. It would introduce a whole dimension of inefficiency, that is, members would have to be self motivated to the nth degree... but I'm sure it can be done... the American natives did it for several hundreds of years before the European tried to decimate them. We would need to learn the ways of the "ancients"... we are a smart species... we can do it. Other principles could be distilled from the moral lessons of all religions and philosophies of the world. There are actual real reason why they are here. We just need to find them and state them in a way that does not divide the peoples. I am certain that there are plenty of wise individuals that can delineate them properly. As a vehicle to provide the focus point to the movement, the adoption of a goal for a "30 Hour Work Week" (world wide), could be stated. This is something 'visible' and 'palpable' that people could rally around... a concrete idea that people can grasp and understand. If the elite keep telling us that progress is good for us, let take them at their word and use it to the advantage of everyone, not just the elite. I think it sounds terribly naive, in the face of all the atrocities committed by the CIA, KGB and all such organizations in the service of their masters, but I think that would be the ONLY way that they would not be able to co-opt the movement. They'd be trying to grab quick silver with their fingers. Sincerely, Bob ========== Dear Bob, Your suggested principles certainly make sense. You say: > However, I do think a set of principles, from which any individual and organization purporting to be part of such movement would not deviate, could and should be stated. I understand why you're saying this. At the Seattle demos, for example, we had the black anarchists destroying property, giving the cops and TV crews an excuse for the police excesses. How nice it would have been for the anarchists to be excluded in advance. Rigtht? But if you do this, then you (someone) is deciding in advance that a certain segment of the population cannot be part of the movement. Those excluded ones, if the movement succeeds, then would be coerced into the values of the movement. You're hoping to assemble a majority of 'right-thinking ones' and then coerce the rest of society to your agenda. It's a win-lose scenario, based on factionalism. I suggest we can do better than this. I don't think we need to exclude anyone from the movement, nor make anyone second-class citizens in the new society. We've all got to live together in the new society, and if it's a decent society, we'll need to find a way to live together harmoniously. Why not start learning now? Why not allow our differences to become a strength of the movement? Everyone has something to contribute, as Rosa talked about above. I was chatting with a fellow who works with IndyMedia and who was covering the Seattle demos. I told him I suspected the black anarchists were agent provocateurs, and he assured me they weren't. He knew some of them and they seemed very sincere about what they were doing. I'm not convinced that there isn't some kind of police collusion going on there, at some level, but I'm willing to believe most of the 'ground troops' are sincere. What I want to do is sit down with some of them, along with some of the non-violence advocates - plus good facilitation - and find out why they think destruction is such a good idea. One can, after all, justify their actions on strategic grounds. The violence of the police did a lot to strengthen the resolve of the movement, and the anarchists might credit themselves with helping that process along. I happen to think that is a non-optimal strategy, and I'd like to discuss that with them. But, to their credit, they see the movement isn't making much measurable progress, and they are seeking to 'extend the envelope' and get things moving. Their heart, in other words, might be in the right place. If so, then they should not be left out in the cold by the movement, imho. Thoughts? rkm ============================================================================ Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 15:59:31 -0300 To: •••@••.••• From: earthsea <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: A movement without a program? Dear Richard, Isn't the "Movement Without a Program" very like the way the UN is supposed to work? In fact the UN has managed against heavy odds to at least set some global benchmarks for government and civil behaviour such as a universal "guarantees" of rights and freedoms. The distance between agreed behaviour and actual delivery, as in for example,"no war", "all will be fed" or "CO2 outputs will be restrained" is the presenting difficulty. Without a program, each signatory develops its own, similiar to your suggested movement. And in fact it turns out that moral persuasion isn't enough to get the job done. Perhaps it is the internal & external politics and the militaries and the supernational corporations and religious fundamentalists (including the Pope), not to mention corporate capitalism, that are in the way as things stand. So "we" are saying: adopt a universal charter of rights and freedoms INCLUDING rights for all-our-relations and our great-grandchilderen; willingly lay down your arms(severely lower military spending), uncharter your banks and large corporations, create co-ops, decentralize decision making/taxation; agree within your territorial sphere to what you want (as long as the rights of all-our-relations and great grandchildren are maintained according to universally agreed benchmarks); set levels of mutual aid and assistance to help have-nots achieve equality without need of exploitation of their territory or members (the formula is based on a % of difference between haves & have-nots with collectively agreed upon priorities and time-lines for goals); entities that can show they meet the minimum standards can opt to be left alone (as in certain groups of sustainable indigenous peoples); all the forgoing attended to, order your affairs in the ways that suit your members. Some would go about implementing the agenda with socialist means, some with more anarchial means, some with more communal means, all democratic with universal suffrage. Some would be patriarchal & some matriarchal and some egalitarian. Perhaps in the universal rights there would be a mobility clause saying any person at a certain age can vote with their legs by moving to an area that better suits their temperment and will be blessed and aided to do so by both "sides". This is a nonviolent means of handling dissent such as I believe the Amish and Castro's Cuba (on occasion), have chosen. Do we expect the technophiles and the owner-elites to abandon their fortresses? Do we expect their minions to abandon them? Transitional visioning that looks after the interests of those currently benefiting most from the status quo is of the utmost importance. David Cameron ============= Dear David C, Please understand: I am not advocating a movment without a detailed program. I am only saying that the movement can _start without a detailed program. In fact, the movement has already started, and many people (like yourself) are already preparing draft principles to offer into the process, to be harmonized with others. The harmonization / movement process isn't visible yet, but it's beginning to consense out of the spiritual vapor, everywhere at once. By the time the movement achieves victory, its program will have harmoniously gelled - ready for implementation by the new regime, which is the movement, which is the civil society, which is everyone. Thanks for your comment about looking 'after the interests of those currently benefiting most from the status quo'. It is very important that we do not prepare the guillotines. The current elite and their lackeys should be welcomed as full citizens in the new society, and that's all - what more could they ask? If they're as smart as they think they are, they'll succeed very well, and probably become greener than Green. cheers, rkm ============================================================================ Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 23:53:25 -0500 To: •••@••.••• From: David Lewit <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: A movement without a program? > The answer to these questions begins with the nature of the 'problem' that our movement is intended to address. That problem is a very broad one indeed - the entire world system, from bottom to top, needs to be fundamentally transformed. chaos theory as well as the "keystone" concept suggests that a partial vision can be useful in getting people thinking about alternatives to the status quo, in "unfreezing" their commitments to it, and in considering not only the alternative presented but others which may be more palatable. those can be "tested" in discussion with others we trust, and this will help many in the movement to move together. when very many have moved to a particular vision, further discussion and efforts to proselytize will tend to "refreeze" commitments and consolidate actions to realize the vision. > In some sense, the organizers would be following in the tradition of utopian thinkers like Plato with his 'Republic', or Marx with his 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Such efforts have either been universally ignored by societies, or else when implemented they have turned out quite differently than the vision predicted. seems to me that marx was pretty successful in inspiring a lot of people who led millions in revolutions, even now continuing in various guerilla wars. i am no marxist, but my point is that models can be useful. > For all of these reasons, I believe that no prepackaged 'plan for society' can be the basis for building a successful global movement for fundamental change. will people flock to this movement, then, with no conceptual keys in their pockets? of course they will all have keys, which then have to be laid on the table and debated or tried in local actions, and then compare results taking local differences of conditions into account. > We must find some other means of rallying a movement together, and then the movement itself must take responsibility for developing its program, or programs, for society. If the movement is to be the vehicle by which the people of the world find their common voice, then it is entirely suitable that the movement also be the vehicle by which they reach a common understanding of what kind of world they want to create. i am very concerned about people clarifying the kinds of world they want. most will be ethnocentric, i.e., parochial and fully applicable only in spots. then there will be cultural diffusion and adopting of some of the new features here and there. there may also be some general understandings about such things as patents, basic rights, and weapons trade. the universal declaration of human rights may become as popular in diverse places as mao's little red book was in china. concretely, i do believe in my group's "common agreement on investment and society" (cais) as a useful discussion document. useful in the sense of a model to consider, to criticize, to oppose in small details (which can lead to better details) and reconstruing relationships among the envisioned international institutions (large details), changing those institutions as well, deciding to focus on the local system organizations, especially with reference to one's own locality and links with neighboring ones, and so on. the model will continue to change with such feedback. see it now at http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org . what is the role of models in general systems theory? =============== Dear David L, Many thanks for your comments - but PLEASE don't put them in all caps! I can't read them myself until I convert them, and that kind of stuff, believe me, gets very tedious. It takes literally hours to reformat the things people send in to make them postable. Every little bit helps. thanks. The fact is that people don't know what kind of world they want. Most have never even thought about that as an issue. And those of us who have thought about it a lot are only a few feet ahead of them - on a journey miles long. We will _discover what kind of world we want by talking to one another. There will be quantum breakthroughs in these discussions, big collective "Ah Ha's". Those who have never thought about these things may be the ones with the best ideas. My girlfriend, for example, finds politics dead boring - but every once in a while from her comments I can tell she knows _exactly how the system works. I'd trust her to help set up a community before I'd trust many of those who go around selling 'community power' as a philosophy. (All readers excepted, of course). The movement will grow as the merger of diverse tributaries, evolving separately from mountain streams, each merging, merging, and then all merging in one Movement river - before finally reaching the New Society sea. In each tributary will be specific stages... decision to work together, establishment of principles, gathering more people, refining the principles, outreaching to other groups, merging, etc. Keep that old Alliance tributary humming! (And say Hi to Ronny, and tell him I've finally got an answer to his question: 'how can we work together?') rkm ============================================================================ Delivered-To: •••@••.••• To: •••@••.••• From: "Bill Ellis" <•••@••.•••> Delivered-To: mailing list •••@••.••• List-subscribe: <mailto:•••@••.•••> Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 14:59:57 -0400 Subject: Re: [FixGov]A movement without a program Richard wrote: > To think that a movement must have all the answers before it can go ahead, is to me a recipe for defeat from the start. Yes, it would be a bit like thinking that the cells in your body had to have the final shape and substance of who you are before they started organizing into you. For millions and millions of years the cells indpendently evolved. Only in the last few eons have they organized, by the laws of general evolution, to become human bodies. Society works in the same way. No one sat down and said lets design the industrial age. But individual cells formed and linked together to create it. The cotton gin, the water mill, the loom, the railroads, coal mines, steamships, entrepreneurs, the capitalists were all there and they self-organized into the system that now dominates the world. If we want a different system we don't start at the top. We start with a new set of social cells. Bill Ellis ============ Dear Bill, Yes indeed, and we pay attention to harmonizing those cells. rkm ============================================================================ Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 16:20:02 -0800 (PST) From: Jessica Markland <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: A movement without a program? To: •••@••.••• I so much support what you are doing. I am in Florida at the moment and only have access to Internet through the local library. When I get back home I will spend more time on your stuff. Keep it up! ============== Dear Jessica, Please do, and send in your comments. happy sunshine, rkm ============================================================================ 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/ Please take a look at "A Guidebook: How the world works and how we can change it" http://cyberjournal.org/cj/guide/ A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon Capitalism is the relentless accumulation of capital for the acquisition of profit. Capitalism is a carnivore. It cannot be made over into a herbivore without gutting it, i.e., abolishing it. - Warren Wagar, Professor of History, State University of New York at Binghamton Permission for non-commercial republishing hereby granted - BUT include and observe all restrictions, copyrights, credits, and notices - including this one. ============================================================================ .
