dear George, yes, I agree with you, we have to operate at both these levels, and I'm guessing the grassroots level dialogues are already happening, but changing the thinking of people who have been working with one particular paradigm all their lives is much more difficult, if not almost impossible <g>, so I would suggest working through younger staffers, working with think thanks, organizing workshops with people in political movements that are open to commons ideas ... personally, I am also very happy with the progress of the Assemblies of the Commons in France, though most are not focusing on this political work, but they are in dialogue with municipal officials for their projects; and initiatives like the Commons Transition Coalition in Melbourne. The work of the European Commons Assembly which continues and develops after the meeting, is also heartening, and simliar initiatives are under way in germany, finland and the netherlands I heard I think a good question to ask is: what do they need that is related and compatible with the commons approach, and is there any way that we can assist them, so that goodwill and dialogue become possible, the UK is a bit of an outlier no, more like the USA than Europe ? apart from open and platform coops, I'm not hearing much that is specifically commons oriented ? Glad to be proven wrong though <g> Michel *** Message: 2 Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2017 13:30:22 +0000 From: George Pór <[email protected]> To: P2P Foundation mailing list <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected], Anna Betz <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Reflections on Trump, and the role of the commons as an alternative Message-ID: <CAHrdgzVwxXGNB3C6owYyDe51TFtNLZTcpOSHc38v+xCoDPn=UA@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" hi Michel, Huge thank you for the clear and a concise articulation of what I've been thinking in the last few weeks!

The p2p/commons approach has a crucial role to play in making the Sanders coalition more realistic, by offering new strategies for re-industrialization which are not based on going back to the old models, but on going forward towards a cosmo-local model of production, which offers solutions not just for the US workers, but for the populations of the world, and through its stress on mutualization and the commons, has solutions for the ecological and climate crisis.

The question I hold is, how can we most effectively play that role? Isn't it by opening dialogues, both at the thought leadership and the grassroots levels? *solidarity!* george -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/