[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] Fwd: invitation to sign multi author programmatic initiative

[Michel Bauwens]

there are not so many options ... one is state support, according to some ,
just as disqualifying as private support ... the alternative is membership
only,which requires old style political organizing ... I can think of 2
more mass fundraising and autonomous entrepreneurial activities

the russian revolution was parlly funded by German secret service money, it
was still a terryfying event for the powers that be ....


On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 5:02 PM, Orsan Senalp <orsan1234 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, I will have to disagree with your cateful response about the nature,
> intention, and politics of project-funding in the age of social system
> engineering and complexity management; which is the experitise of founders
> and providers of such political funds (David Rockefellar Studied complexity
> and governance, George Soros is expert of refiexive complex systems; Ervin
> Lazslo of Club of Budapest some of many).. The science of socialisation is
> the experitise of ruling class' organic intellectuals and such funds serves
> to set initial conditions or manage the complexity this certain classes
> encounter, not really for risky charity that can lead to qualitative
> rapture in the system that can transform these guys to one of many peer
> producer node.
>
> I bear most positive feelings and belief in sincerely of intentions, but
> political language, as in your response, is unfortunately not so figurative
> thus lessen the hope for future.
>
> The question I bear is, can it or should it be different? Especially now
> at the brink of yet another inter-ruling class war. Can we go beyond the
>  language of secondary relationships belongs to the anicient regime
> politics and practice peer to peer politics. This is a question to the next
> system thinkers..
>
> Örsan
>
> On 02 Apr 2016, at 20:56, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
>
> while I support Gar Alperovitz's specific Next Economy project as a
> necessary step forwards, and am also aware that there are various 'new
> economy' projects being circulated, funded by various players, I am
> personally not opposed to funded projects, and very aware that language
> cannot be controlled by any player,
>
> Thus, I judge each specific project on its own merits and the Next Economy
> project is one of the most promising initiatives, certainly in the US
> context, even though, from our very specific point of view at the P2P
> Foundation, it is missing out on the necessary aspect of changing the mode
> of production through commons-based peer production. It is often a bad
> strategy to focus on what is different between projects, rather than focus
> on commonality and seeking to build broad social coalitions for change,
>
> The source of financial support is an important part that should be
> transparent, but just one of the many elements that should inform our
> judgment. Many foundations with 'bad names' because the original funders
> were extractive or predatory, nevertheless end up funding many good
> projects. Important is the level of autonomy and integrity that projects
> can maintain in the context of such fundings,
>
> Michel
>
> On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 1:49 AM, Orsan <orsan1234 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Himm, although email comes from Micheal Alberts to you Michel, the text
>> is marked by the term 'new economy'. As I have been highlighting since
>> already sometime the term 'new economy' brand make the text called program,
>> that sells the politics propagated by Gar Alperovitz; who is the mostly
>> funded one amongst all the others, and then the text stats with:
>>
>> "Around the world powerful and diverse possibilities are in struggle. We
>> the signers of "Some Possible Ideas for Going Forward" think one high
>> priority for progress is activists developing, discussing, and settling on
>> priorities around which to organize multi issue activism in coming months
>> and years. We hope this document can help inspire more conversations within
>> groups and movements that, over time, come to some synthesis. We do this in
>> the spirit of self organization - and as a rejection of preformed
>> inflexible programs and agendas imposed on activists from above. We believe
>> only program that comes from below and is fully understood and owned by
>> grassroots participants can win lasting change."
>>
>> I would suggest to readers and signers to check the list of funders of
>> new economy coalition, new economy foundation, and the striking links and
>> similarities between the priority agenda items, as well as shared
>> terminology between this coalition and the elite club, Club of Rome.
>>
>> One would expect at this moment in history a little bit sincerity and
>> openness about the underlying relationships; if not from initiators at
>> least form the names like Alberts promoting and inviting other left wing
>> signers, and not promote such a top down agenda setting operation as bottom
>> movement.
>>
>> Solidarity, Orsan
>>
>> On 2 apr. 2016, at 19:46, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Michael Albert <sysop at zmag.org>
>> Date: Sat, Apr 2, 2016 at 8:52 PM
>> Subject: invitation to sign multi author programmatic initiative
>> To: Vijay Prashad <possiblehistory at gmail.com>, Leslie Cagan <
>> lesliecagan at igc.org>, Laura Flanders <flanders.laura at gmail.com>, Michel
>> Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>, Pauolo
>> Hi,
>>
>> Don't you want to sign on to the collective programmatic document we have
>> offered before it goes public? We have not heard your response... perhaps
>> you never received your invitation? Or maybe we missed your reply? If so,
>> there was an error and our apologies for that.
>>
>> At any rate, the document, included below, is hopefully self explanatory.
>> It seeks to inspire and assist a wide effort to arrive at shared left
>> program. It offers various ideas for possible program, culled from practice
>> and diverse sources, but it mainly seeks participation in a far reaching
>> discussion, debate, and exploration, that will hopefully refine, augment,
>> and interweave lasting multi issue, multi constituency, program for the
>> future.
>>
>> Please let us know by return email if you would like to add your name to
>> the effort. If so, please also indicate any affiliation you would like
>> listed.
>>
>> The current signers of the document are:
>>
>> Michael Albert, Z Communications / U.S.
>> Greg Albo, Centre for Social Justice / Canada
>> Gar Alperovitz, The Next System / U.S.
>> Bridget Anderson, COMPAS / UK
>> Kehinde Andrews, Organization of Black Unity / UK
>> Gordon Asher, Scholar Activist / Scotland
>> Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South / Philippines
>> Peter Bohmer, Economics for Everyone / U.S.
>> Noam Chomsky, Internationalist / U.S.
>> Savvina Chowdhury, Rachel Corrie Foundation  / U.S.
>> Marjorie Cohn, Scholar Activist / U.S.
>> Ben Dangl, Journalist/Editor / U.S.
>> Heather Day, CAGJ, / U.S.
>> Cindy Domingo, Electoral Activist / U.S.
>> Steve Early, Labor organizer / U.S.
>> Joe Emersberger, UNIFOR / Canada
>> Barbara Epstein, Scholar Activist / U.S.
>> Mark Evans, What About Classism / UK
>> Vincent Emanuele, IVAW / U.S.
>> Bill Fletcher, Talk Show Host / U.S.
>> Bill Gallegos, Environmental Justice Trainer / U.S.
>> Irene Gendzier, Scholar Activist / U.S.
>> Andrej Grubacic, Global Commons / U.S./Balkans
>> Thomas Herndon, Univ. of Mass. / U.S.
>> Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence / U.S.
>> Matt Lester, Economics for Everyone,  / U.S.
>> Joris Leverink, ROAR / Netherlands/Turkey
>> Rodolfo Leyva, Middlesex University / UK
>> Auset Marian Lewis, Journalist / U.S.
>> Mandisi Majavu, Activist/Negritude / South Africa
>> David Marty, Scholar Activist / Spain
>> Robert W. McChesney, Univ Illinois / U.S.
>> Suren Moodliar, Global Action / U.S.
>> Larry Mosqueda, Movement for Justice & Peace / U.S.
>> John Narayan, University of Warwick / UK
>> Immanuel Ness, CUNY / U.S.
>> Eugene Nulman, Critical Social Research / UK
>> Paul Ortiz, University of Florida / U.S.
>> Garry Owens, Kindle the Flame / U.S.
>> Leo Panitch, Socialist Register / Canada
>> Cynthia Peters, World Education / U.S.
>> Justin Podur, Activist/Scholar / Canada
>> Nikos Raptis, Scholar Activist, Greece
>> Jack Rasmus, St Marys College / U.S.
>> Jerome Roos, ROAR Magazine / The Netherlands
>> Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Internationalist / Portugal
>> Lydia Sargent, Z Communications / U.S.
>> Stephen Shalom, New Politics / U.S.
>> Marina Sitrin, Lawyer/Author / U.S.
>> Norman Solomon, RootsAction / U.S.
>> Sarah Stockholm. Showing Up for Racial Justice  / U.S.
>> Paul Street, Journalist/Author / U.S.
>> Verena Stresing, Scholar Activist, France/Germany
>> David Swanson, WarIsACrime / U.S.
>> Fernando Vegas, Retired Supreme Court Judge / Venezuela
>> Tom Vouloumanos, NDP / Canada
>> Greg Wilpert, Real News / Ecuador/U.S.
>> Florian Zollmann, Scholar Activist / UK/Germany
>>
>>
>> And here is the document…
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible Ideas for Going Forward*
>>
>>
>> Around the world powerful and diverse possibilities are in struggle. We
>> the signers of "Some Possible Ideas for Going Forward" think one high
>> priority for progress is activists developing, discussing, and settling on
>> priorities around which to organize multi issue activism in coming months
>> and years. We hope this document can help inspire more conversations within
>> groups and movements that, over time, come to some synthesis. We do this in
>> the spirit of self organization - and as a rejection of preformed
>> inflexible programs and agendas imposed on activists from above. We believe
>> only program that comes from below and is fully understood and owned by
>> grassroots participants can win lasting change.
>>
>> To try to help, we have assembled some familiar programmatic ideas rooted
>> in diverse movements and projects. We signers do not each individually
>> necessarily support every single programmatic suggestion given here.
>> Indeed, perhaps none of us supports every single suggestion much less all
>> the specific wording. Instead, we all support having a widespread
>> discussion of these worthy ideas and of other ideas that emerge from the
>> process, to arrive at widely supported program for left activists.
>>
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible Economic Programmatic Ideas*
>>
>> A left agenda might, for example, pursue four central economic goals -
>> better quality of daily economic experience, more fairness, better
>> production priorities, and increased mutual compassion.
>>
>> For example, new economic program might seek: (1) a law forbidding
>> capital export and relocation without community and worker agreement, and
>> (2) a law delineating punishments for employers who impede nationally
>> mandated economic reforms. Likewise, it could seek controls on work day and
>> work week length - for example seeking 30 hours of work for 40 hours pay.
>> It might demand that the maximum penalty for owners violating the spirit
>> and intent of such laws would be nationalization of their businesses under
>> the management of currently employed workers.
>>
>> Similarly, new economic program might propose: (1) reducing inequality,
>> (2) reorienting productive potentials to meet social needs, and (3)
>> enlarging economic democracy.
>>
>> For example, new economic program might propose sharply progressive
>> property, asset, and income taxes, with no loopholes, as well as a
>> dramatically-increased minimum wage, say $20 an hour, and perhaps a
>> guaranteed income for all, coupled with a new profit tax that would be
>> proportional to inequities in each firm’s pay scale. The more oppressive
>> the pay scale, the higher the profit tax.
>>
>> Due to a new minimum wage law, minimum pay would rise dramatically. Due
>> to a new pay equity tax, industries with a more equitable pay scale would
>> have more after-tax resources. Not only could more equitably structured
>> firms use these extra funds to further improve work conditions and increase
>> their social contribution, they could generally out-compete less socially
>> responsible firms. New property and asset taxes would dramatically diminish
>> differences in wealth.
>>
>> New economic program might usefully label all these innovations
>> redistributive and repeatedly explain why redistribution from the rich to
>> the poor is both morally justified and socially essential. Perhaps this
>> part of a new program could be called “reclamation of stolen riches.”
>>
>> New economic program could seek a comprehensive full employment policy
>> arising from campaigns to rebuild infrastructure and, in particular, to
>> attain sustainable energy policies, as well as via the shift to a shorter
>> work week. It could include comprehensive adult education and job training,
>> and a comprehensive social support system for those unable to work,
>> whatever the reason.
>>
>> Moreover, beyond material equity, new economic program could also
>> advocate that workers should all have work conditions and responsibilities
>> suitable to their personal development and to their responsibility to
>> contribute to society’s well being. Why should some people endure boring,
>> dangerous, subordinate, and rote conditions, a new movement might ask,
>> while other people enjoy challenging, fulfilling, empowering, and varied
>> conditions? New program could reveal that fairness is not only attaining
>> equity of wealth and pay, but also equity of conditions of work and life.
>>
>> Using this principle as a long term touchstone, new program could seek to
>> build and support workers’ councils empowered to conceive, demand, and work
>> to implement job redefinition as well as to win increasing say over the
>> pace, goal, and organization of work for the workers who do it. Such a
>> program could emphasize that work can and should be a demanding but
>> rewarding part of people’s lives, rather than an alienating, debilitating,
>> energy and dignity sapping affront to people’s life potentials.
>>
>> Regarding investment priorities, new economic program could propose tax
>> incentives for socially useful production and tax disincentives and indeed,
>> legal prosecution, for wasteful and socially harmful production. This would
>> help foster production to meet real needs and potentials. Indeed, such a
>> new program could indicate precisely how to successfully regulate, punish,
>> and even nationalize under workers control any business or industry deemed
>> by an independent citizens bureau and public plebiscite to be destructive
>> of the public good. While this might initially point at Walmart scale
>> businesses, in time, of course, it would get at capitalist institutions per
>> se.
>>
>> Of course, major change in economic priorities that a new program could
>> emphasize could include a massive cut in military spending. Further, new
>> program could propose that existing military bases be converted to centers
>> for ecological clean-up, to new schools for local communities, to
>> workplaces for developing low income housing, or to new centers of clean
>> transportation or energy production. Funding for the new centers of social
>> creativity could persist simply being the old military funding now put to
>> desirable ends and similarly resident GIs or others seeking new employment
>> could be retrained on site, to work in the converted bases.
>>
>> Regarding economic democracy and participation, new program could work
>> for the formation of consumer and worker organizations to watchdog product
>> quality, guard against excessive pricing, advise about product
>> redefinition, and participate in plant, industry, and community collective
>> consumption decisions with open books and full investigative rights. Beyond
>> these first steps, new program could clarify that the ultimate goal is the
>> full democratization of economic decision making and the initiation of a
>> national public project to develop new institutions for work, consumption,
>> and allocation.
>>
>> In short, new economic program could: (1) ratify the public’s suspicion
>> that the basic problem with our economy is that capitalist institutions
>> make capitalists prefer war production, persistent unemployment, and
>> homelessness to a working class able to demand a bigger piece of the pie
>> and control over what kind of pie is baked; and, (2) propose uncompromising
>> changes that redress existing grievances, create conditions more just and
>> humane, and establish a new balance of power conducive to winning more
>> fundamental changes, including new defining institutions in the future.
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible Education Programmatic Ideas*
>>
>> A new education program could note that existing schools create
>> subservient and exploitable future workers by providing most students
>> minimal literacy, virtually no dignity or sense of self worth, plus maximum
>> training in enduring boredom and obeying orders.
>>
>> New education program could explain that schools accomplish all this
>> destruction and distortion by incorporating differences in teacher-student
>> ratios, in resources per student, and in teacher expectations and
>> training—all on top of different conditions of home life, community
>> relations, access to information and comfortable learning conditions, that
>> simply multiply the injustice.
>>
>> To foster educational change new program could highlight the need to
>> overcome corporate agendas and existing institutional pressures with our
>> own alternatives. It could reveal that to have good education for all we
>> must have a society promising full employment at jobs that require and
>> utilize people’s full capabilities, including facility at decision-making,
>> ample knowledge about society, and expectations of success and
>> participation.
>>
>> New education program could also pressure for specific pedagogic changes
>> in how schools and classes are conducted both during school hours, and also
>> for surrounding communities in off hours. To enumerate these changes, new
>> program could advocate a national debate about curriculum reform, improved
>> teaching methods and enriched teacher-student relations, improved resources
>> for schools, and increased community involvement and benefit.
>>
>> New education program could also seek specific goals for education. For
>> example, to reduce class size to a maximum of 20 students per teacher in
>> all schools and to equalize resources per student across all schools,
>> including architecture, computers, books, and food, and, of course, to
>> guarantee free education (through college) for anyone who wants it.
>>
>> New education program could seek specific funds to staff all schools at
>> night for community meetings and remedial and adult education. Space to
>> meet, to engage with others, is a huge factor in successful community
>> organizing, and perhaps public schools, at night, could become that space.
>> And finally, new program could seek that funding for education comes from
>> corporate profit taxes and from private progressive taxes collected at the
>> national level to guarantee that regions attain educational parity.
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible Race Programmatic Ideas*
>>
>> New program addressing the pivotal problem of race in the U.S. and
>> societies around the world could seek to ensure that people can freely have
>> multiple cultural and social backgrounds and commitments, including
>> providing the space and resources necessary for people to positively
>> express their views, celebrations, languages, and values.
>>
>> New program addressing race could explicitly recognize that rights and
>> values exist regardless of race, religion, or cultural allegiances, so that
>> while society protects all people’s right to affiliate freely, its core
>> values are universal for every community.
>>
>> New program addressing race could guarantee free entry and exit to and
>> from all cultural communities in society including affirming that
>> communities that do have free entry and exit can be under the complete self
>> determination of their members, so long as their policies and actions don't
>> conflict with society's broader norms of equity and justice. This could
>> include amnesty for immigrants and open borders for all refugees.
>>
>> But, mainly, new program addressing race could prioritize directly
>> redressing violations of race equity and justice. For example, new program
>> could emphasize confronting the institutions of racist and national
>> oppression, seek community control of police, end mass incarceration, and
>> could seek to reverse the legacies of these same phenomena by way of
>> reparations for Black and Native American communities. New program might
>> categorically reject the notion that "...a rising tide raises all boats..."
>> and the notion that broad and progressive economic reforms such as those
>> supported elsewhere in this call ipso facto resolve racist and national
>> oppression.
>>
>> New Program addressing race could therefore go beyond universal aims to
>> highlight specific measures needed to repair the damage of hundreds of
>> years of oppression to racial and cultural communities. This would
>> necessitate examining all areas of life including the economy, education,
>> healthcare, politics and law enforcement, in each case seeking to determine
>> innovations required beyond those that are universal for all, precisely to
>> avoid bias that leaves racial communities with less than universally
>> acclaimed and sought benefits.
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible Gender/Kinship Programmatic Ideas*
>>
>> New program addressing the pivotal problems of gender and kinship could
>> emphasize the need to not privilege certain types of family formation and
>> sexuality over others but instead to actively support all types of families
>> and lifestyles consistent with society’s other broad equitable norms and
>> practices.
>>
>> It could promote children’s well-being and affirm society’s
>> responsibility for all its children, including affirming the right of
>> diverse types of families to have children and to provide them with love
>> and a sense of rootedness and belonging. It could minimize or eliminate
>> age-based permissions, preferring non-arbitrary means for determining when
>> an individual is old or young enough to participate in economic, political
>> or other activities, or to receive benefits/privileges.
>>
>> It could respect marriage and other lasting relations among adults as
>> religious, cultural, or social practices, but reject marriage as a way to
>> gain financial benefits or social status.
>>
>> It could respect care giving as a valuable function including making care
>> giving a part of every citizen’s social responsibilities, or pursue other
>> worthy means to ensure equitable burdens and benefits.
>>
>> It could affirm diverse expressions of sexual pleasure, personal
>> identity, and mutual intimacy while ensuring that each person honors the
>> autonomy, humanity, and rights of others.
>>
>> It could seek to provide diverse, empowering sex education, including
>> legal prohibitions against all non-consensual sex.
>>
>> And mainly, given the world we now live in, new program addressing gender
>> and kinship could fight to reverse decades of discrimination’s residual
>> effects and persistent elements, including protecting the rights of women
>> to control their own bodies on the one hand, and to enjoy equal benefits
>> and responsibilities throughout all parts of society, thus seeking abortion
>> rights, day care opportunities, and equal payment requirements.
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible International Relations Programmatic Ideas *
>>
>> Today's policy makers view foreign policy as a way to maintain a flow of
>> riches and wealth out of other countries into one’s own, while ensuring
>> fealty and obedience, and curtailing efforts at establishing new relations
>> of true national independence much less social renovation anywhere in the
>> world to avoid their having a showcase effect. In contrast, a proper
>> foreign policy for any country would respect the integrity of other nations
>> and simultaneously seek a human-serving society at home. New foreign policy
>> program could emphasize:
>>
>> • Cessation of all arms shipments abroad.
>>
>> • Cessation of any aid abroad intended for the hands of police or other
>> potentially repressive agencies, such as occupying armies.
>>
>> • Elimination of all U.S. or other nations's overseas military bases with
>> half the funds saved from such closings returned to the Home country for
>> solving domestic problems and half applied to aid to poor countries in the
>> form of no-strings attached infrastructure improvements, job and skills
>> training, equipment grants, food aid, and privileged buyer status for many
>> goods on the international market.
>>
>> • An end to the use of military force as an instrument of national
>> policy.
>>
>> • Use of aid and trade, and foreign policy in general, to demonstrate and
>> provide solidarity with struggles for social justice, democracy, and self
>> determination everywhere in the world to benefit all parties, but mostly
>> those who are weaker and poorer.
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible Health Programmatic Ideas*
>>
>> A new health program could emphasize that civilized health care and
>> conditions for our society must involve three main components: prevention,
>> universal care for the ill, and cost cutting. At a minimum a new health
>> program might seek:
>>
>> • Improved preventive medicine, including increased public education
>> about health-care risks and prevention, a massive campaign around diet,
>> laws against and penalties for corporate activity that subverts health in
>> employees, consumers or neighbors, and provision for community centers for
>> exercise and public health education.
>>
>> • Universal health care for the ill, including a single-payer system with
>> the government providing comprehensive and equally fine coverage for all
>> citizens.
>>
>> • Reassessment of training programs for doctors and nurses to expand the
>> number of qualified health workers and to better utilize the talents of
>> those already trained rather than simply aggrandize those at the top of the
>> pyramid of all involved.
>>
>> • And, as well, civilian review over drug company policies including
>> price controls and severe penalties for profit seeking at the expense of
>> public health up to and including nationalization under civilian control
>> and workers self management, plus similar attention to the medical impact
>> of all institutions in society—for example, the health effects of work
>> conditions and product definitions and components.
>>
>> Such a campaign could point out that the single-payer system would save
>> tens of billions on billing, collection, and bureaucracy, but, perhaps even
>> more important, would improve the quality of care for all and move us
>> toward a caring and mutual aid conception of life, rather than me firsts.
>> It could also advocate saving billions more, to be allotted to preventive
>> medicine and treatment, by establishing limits on the incomes of health
>> professionals and the profits pharmaceutical and other medical companies
>> could earn. If additional funding was required, it could come from punitive
>> taxes on unhealthful products such as cigarettes, alcohol, and unsafe
>> automobiles, etc.
>>
>> The overall guideline for health program would be that illness should be
>> reduced as much as possible, the quality of health care should be raised as
>> much as possible, and the costs of these improvements should be paid by
>> those who have gotten rich at others’ expense.
>>
>>
>> *Some Possible Ecology Programmatic Ideas *
>>
>> A new ecological program could establish a department of ecological
>> balance to develop a list of necessary clean-up steps, energy innovations,
>> and steps to reduce global warming and mitigate its impact, and, in
>> general, policy to preserve the ecology.
>>
>> Beyond this, new ecology program could argue that clean-up funds should
>> come from a reparations tax on current polluters and prior beneficiaries of
>> unclean industrial operations.
>>
>> The critical innovation in a new program’s approach to ecological sanity,
>> however, could be to open a national public debate about the relation
>> between our basic economic and social institutions and the environment. For
>> example, new program could begin the process of clarifying that we need
>> institutions attuned to ecological costs and benefits and that we must
>> experiment with non-market approaches to allocation, rather than trying to
>> police the inevitable ecological ill-effects that markets routinely
>> produce.
>>
>>
>> And, of course, new ecology program that was sane, much less highly
>> worthy, would have to formulate a truly massive campaign to turn the tide
>> against global warming, water depletion, and other life threatening trends.
>>
>>
>> *Conclusion*
>>
>> Obviously the above list of programmatic possibilities, culled from
>> projects and endeavors around the world, could be enlarged to include, for
>> example, immigration program, drug program, infrastructure program,
>> diversity program, arts and culture program, science program, and so on. In
>> addition, the programs should be refined, improved, and altered as
>> grassroots experiences require.
>>
>> Recent progressive electoral efforts and mass campaigns around the world
>> have revealed a huge reservoir of desire and of creative willingness on the
>> parts of large sectors of populations, and very especially young people, to
>> seek change. Many of those newly participating in progressive activity are
>> already within reach of supporting these and additional programmatic ideas
>> as they would be refined and augmented by a wide intervention of grassroots
>> voices.
>>
>> Ultimately attaining worthy new program will entail thinking outside the
>> box, as many emerging struggles around the world have urged, noting that
>> the box is capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and authoritarianism. The box is
>> the imposed mental straitjacket of thoughts and practices typical of all
>> too many countries' political life.
>>
>> As current prominent examples, why couldn’t the energy generated during
>> Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president in the U.S., Jeremy Corbyn's victory
>> as opposition party leader in the UK, or Podemos' electoral attempts in
>> Spain come over to sustained, militant commitment to the suitably refined
>> and improved kinds of programmatic ideas we propose in this document?
>>
>> Campaigns need money, often a serious stumbling block, but Sanders, for
>> example in the U.S. case, has reached 5 million donors giving an average of
>> over $25 each. Why couldn’t a program like that offered above, but adapted
>> and improved, attract all those 5 million people and many more, and do
>> comparably well elsewhere in the world, attracting aroused constituencies
>> to contribute creatively to plans for on-going mass activism?
>>
>> Similarly, in the U.S., as the current prominent case, Sanders has
>> suffered immeasurably at the hands of what he calls rigged elections, as
>> have others here and elsewhere, but another general problem, beyond the
>> structure of elections, is the corporately organized, profit seeking, and
>> horribly motivated media that operates in country after country. Why
>> couldn’t a prominent campaign built around new program include taking back
>> communications in countries around the world, which is certainly a
>> desirable aim in its own right, and also a bedrock step on the path to
>> larger programmatic successes?
>>
>> Despite current progressive electoral energy and, in some places, major
>> movement gains, there is a long way to go to win lasting fundamental
>> change. Partly this is because vile institutions at the core of our society
>> manipulatively and coercively twist our motives and awareness. Partly it is
>> because a right wing surge is also occurring. And partly it is because the
>> public has still not thrown off cynicism and a trembling fear of enduring
>> even worse outcomes if we try to seek better. However, it is not impossible
>> for people to take that crucial step. And the massive support many popular
>> projects have lately revealed could become a foundation upon which to go
>> further in the coming period.
>>
>> We offer the many programmatic thoughts in this document hoping to
>> encourage a movement-wide discussion of where we go and what we stand for
>> as we all attempt to counter the forces of darkness and irrationality with
>> light, hope, and vision.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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/
>>
>>
>> =
>>
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>> Show some love and help us maintain and update our knowledge commons by
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>
>
> --
> 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/
>
>


-- 
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/
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