[P2P-F] [commoning] Global Marshall Plan and the Global Commons Rising: Who will be hacking who towards, at, around and beyond Montreal (or beyond the WSF in general)

Sun Mar 6 19:18:19 CET 2016

Silke, I just tried to clarify what I meant by pulling together two Wikipedia entries on GMP, and one promotional post for global commons from the GMP blog which was happened to be about your then new blog and Chico's appearance on a GMP event and promises to GMP audience to make commons more prominent within the WSF.  

Believing I did clarify that neither the problematic was panting threes or commoning around, but much more about structures of power and strange affairs between global  capitalists and global activists; and the impact it has been actually making in terms of thrust, alliances,  right wing extremist material about such relationships' reality so on. All these are more then enough to give a bit more clarity to what I was talking about in a broader sense. 

To clarify what I meant when mentioning having very much blood on hand, is about indirect role being played in the increasingly hardening 'real politic' power-game; between the western and peripheral global capitalists and between the productive and money capitalist fractions from the West. Logically one might think strengthening the hand of liberal and productive fractions with left and progressive ideas can serve for good; especially if it would also open doors of resources to those activists working on the alternatives sincerely. Yet behind the dark close rooms, windows, and revolving doors these relations and involvement of money turns things very destructive and negative; divides alliances, groups, friends, and so forth. All the history of class struggles are summary of these similar stories.  We all might have more or less blood in our hands wince we didn't and couldn't do anything when hundreds of thousands kids, women, elderly, animas and plants got massacred by the very same games of thrones; what can be enough to convince you, Chico, Susan and all the others that these people can be tricked in left-progressive politics; did we have any chance before unifying at the progressive and left side of the story.    

Tried several times to show argue how; in terms of the complex systems analysis perspective; determination of initial conditions as well as triggering more differentiation amongst the elements of the system that are leading the disintegration. This was the result of what has done by engaging commons-GMP-al gore-soros-Clinton-so on so forth circles. It is a big thing, requires big responsibility, to tell people how, and why. 

This is I think real politics of commons, and commoning politics; that can be allowing billions of people to trust your cause, generate p2p man power, material power, creativity power, network effect, transformative power; more than enough to build mega structures and organize all the process; only thing needs is pure trust, which was totally damaged along the way by these relations. 

I believe the only way to reverse and repair all the mistrust generated; not on the eyes of  activists, but more importantly larger masses that are being pushed to camp of fascism and authoritarianism in the old-heartland and may be more in the periphery; needs a radical opening up and confrontation. 

I really hope that Motreal, friends like Carminda and others would make such healing confrontation possible; from today till the day of meeting, on virtual and actual spaces  face to face.      

In solidarity,    

> On 6 mrt. 2016, at 11:07, Silke Helfrich <silke.helfrich at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> Dear Orsan,
> 
> I am not sure what exactly you had in mind when pulling diverse links and references together including those to my blog, those to Chico Whitaker's initiative many of us supported etc; and then warning us
> 
> "...; but who ever served to these goals and stranded together with the ruling class' agendas, should know that they have very much of a blood in their hand."
> 
> James already gave a pretty fair assessment of GPM (actually I think it was basically used to push the Plant for the Planet initiative; at least in Germany - which is not really an earth destroying project I'd say),
> 
> but anyway: whatever you had in mind; the context was hard to understand and make sense of, at least for me.
> 
> In solidarity
> Silke
> 
> 
> 
>> Am 05.03.2016 um 22:00 schrieb jbquilligan3 at charter.net:
>> Orsan, I headed up this effort in the US for several years. I also
>> worked in Amman for Prince El Hassan for a long time promoting the
>> Global Marshall Plan.
>> 
>> What I can tell you is that there is not much that is tangible behind
>> this movement. It's popular in Germany and Austria, which have fond
>> memories of the original US Marshall Plan for Europe, but has never
>> generated much interest elsewhere. In fact, the title 'Global Marshall
>> Plan' is often associated with the US and turns off people across most
>> of the world. I have a lot of personal experience in that regard.
>> 
>> Since the Global Marshall Plan started about 15 years ago, it has not
>> accomplished anything substantial. It has a lot of members, has held
>> numerous conferences and has published some materials, but little else.
>> It has never had any policy impact.
>> 
>> Global Marshall Plan is a brand name which has allowed a handful of
>> people to collect speakers fees and publish some books. What I observed
>> and experienced was several of its leaders jockeying for position as
>> King of the Hill. It became clear to me that all the German leaders of
>> this movement, including Finkbeinner and Rademacher, were out for their
>> own personal financial gain and influence.
>> 
>> As an economist who worked for the Brandt Commission on a new approach
>> to the international economy (see the report, North-South: A Programme
>> for Survival, 1980; or go to Brandt 21 Forum), I was deeply disappointed
>> that the Global Marshall Plan was remiss in covering key issues, such as
>> the reorganization of the global monetary system. I know that the Brand
>> Report was flawed, and I have written extensively about that; but no
>> organization since then has done anything as bold as the Brandt Report.
>> 
>> Organizers of the GMP like to say that Al Gore was the originator of the
>> Global Marshall Plan, because he called for such an initiative in his
>> book, Earth in the Balance. While I was working with the Brandt
>> Commission, I did a lot of research on this and found a lot of
>> documentation that the name dates back at least to the mid-1960s, during
>> the U Thant era at the United Nations.
>> 
>> In any case, I was the one who brought the idea of the commons to the
>> Global Marshall Plan. We even published materials about introducing the
>> commons into the global agenda for a new kind of economic, social and
>> environmental approach. After I left the GMP, I don't believe the
>> organizers pursued the commons idea much further. Frankly, I don't
>> believe they understood the meaning of the commons and couldn't see how
>> it would generate them much money.
>> 
>> There is still a vital need to create an international organization for
>> the commons. I don't see anyone really doing this with the insight and
>> scale that is necessary. There is a lot of educating going on, but
>> little genuine organizing at the international level.
>> 
>> James B. Quilligan
>> 
>> -----------------------------------------
>> 
>> From: "Orsan"
>> To: "squares"
>> Cc:
>> Sent: Sat, 5 Mar 2016 19:59:29 +0100
>> Subject: [commoning] Global Marshall Plan and the Global Commons Rising:
>> Who will be hacking who towards, at, around and beyond Montreal (or
>> beyond the WSF in general)
>> 
>> The below Wikipedia items are explaining what the hack is Global
>> Marshall Plan initiative and Global Marshall Plan operation -initiated
>> by interesting names, including those we were told being
>> radical-progressives:
>> 
>> "The idea of a “Global Marshall Plan” was first published in 1990 by
>> U.S. politician, entrepreneur and environmentalist Al Gore
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore> in his book “Earth in the
>> Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit”. The choice of name deliberately
>> recalls the historical Marshall Plan
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan> after the Second World
>> War (officially: European Recovery Program), a symbol for hope
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope>, solidarity
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity> and peace
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace>.
>> 
>> The idea of a Global Marshall Plan was not new but had already been
>> endorsed in the 1990s by personalities from a variety of sectors: Kofi
>> Annan <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Annan>, Al Gore
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore>, Hans Küng
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_K%C3%BCng>, Susan George
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_George_(political_scientist)>,
>> Mikhail Gorbachov, His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of
>> Jordan, George Soros <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros>,
>> Lutz Wicke, Georg Winter
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Winter> and many others (Global
>> Contract). As early as the beginning of the 1990s an ecological Marshall
>> Plan was established by prominent personalities such as journalist Franz
>> Alt and German Green politician Joscka Fisher. Along with many other
>> supporters, they called for the establishment of an eco-social market
>> economy, 100 billion DM put towards the environment every year and a
>> Kerosin tax."
>> 
>> [<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Marshall_Plan_Initiative>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Marshall_Plan_Initiative]
>> 
>> 
>> And
>> 
>> The *Global Marshall Plan* is a plan first devised by former American
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>Vice-President
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President_of_the_United_States>Al
>> Gore <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore> in his bestselling book
>> *Earth in the Balance
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_in_the_Balance>*, which gives
>> specific ideas on how to save the global environment.
>> 
>> Gore states: "The model of the Marshall Plan
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan> can be of great help.
>> For example, a Global Marshall Plan must focus on strategic goals and
>> emphasize actions and programs that are likely to remove the bottlenecks
>> presently inhibiting the healthy functioning of the global economy. The
>> new global economy must be an inclusive system that does not leave
>> entire regions behind. The new plan will require the wealthy nations to
>> allocate money for transferring environmentally helpful technologies to
>> the Third World and to help impoverished nations achieve a stable
>> population and a new pattern of sustainable economic progress. To work,
>> however, any such effort will also require wealthy nations to make a
>> transition themselves that will be in some ways more wrenching than that
>> of the Third World."
>> 
>> Source: Earth in the Balance, page 297-301
>> 
>> Global Marshall Plan: Five strategic goals "In my view, five strategic
>> goals must direct and inform our efforts to save the global environment":
>> 
>>  * stabilizing of world population
>>  * the rapid development of environmentally appropriate technologies
>>  * a comprehensive change in the economic "rules of the road" by which
>>    we measure the impact of our decisions on the environment
>>  * negotiation & approval of a new generation of international agreements
>>  * a cooperative plan for educating the world's citizens about our
>>    global environment.
>> 
>> The idea is based on the post-WWII
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II> Marshall Plan
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan> that saw the United
>> States send billions of dollars to European
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe> nations to rebuild their war
>> shattered economies.
>> 
>> In order to further the idea of a GMP and to coordinate the various
>> initiatives, NGOs, scientists, activists and groups in the field of
>> development cooperation and global social justice the Global Marshall
>> Plan Initiative was founded by members of the Club of Rome
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome>, the Club of Budapest
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Budapest>, the Eco-Social Forum
>> Europe
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eco-Social_Forum_Europe&action=edit&redlink=1>,
>> ATTAC <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATTAC> and other organisations in
>> Frankfurt, Germany in 2003. The two main objectives are to find new ways
>> and sources of financing in development cooperation, predominantly
>> pursuing the Millennium Development Goals
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Development_Goals> of the UN
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations> and the worldwide
>> propagation of the eco-social market economy
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-social_market_economy>, which is
>> considered to be one of today's key strategies of initiative. The *Green
>> Marshall Plan* is a policy initiative developed by Canadian greens
>> Constantine Kritsonis and Craig Hubley. It offers a basis for global
>> central banks to *bail out the planet* by creating new money to pay for
>> green infrastructure. See:
>> <http://nb.referata.com/w/index.php?title=Green_Marshall_Plan&action=edit>http://nb.referata.com/w/index.php?title=Green_Marshall_Plan&action=edit
>> 
>> [<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Marshall_Plan>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Marshall_Plan]
>> 
>> 
>> .....
>> 
>> and this is a blog post from GMP:
>> 
>> 
>>  "Global Commons Global Discourse on the Rise
>> 
>> 
>>     From blogs to international conferences, Global Commons gains momentum
>> 
>> Beyond the initiative of the Global Marshall Plan Foundation for a
>> Coalition for the Global Commons (the CGC coordination group and
>> discussion can be found here
>> <http://www.wiserearth.org/group/globalcommons>), champions of the
>> Global Commons are going public and spreading awareness for this new
>> global perspective.
>> 
>> Silke Helfrich and Jörg Haas have started a "Commons Blog
>> <http://commonsblog.wordpress.com/>" on Wordpress, an Open Source
>> Software that embodies the practicality of the Global Commons concept.
>> In it there is information on the commons, on-going discourse,
>> literature and stories on the commons meant to provoke thought and
>> hopefully prompt action.
>> 
>> In the latest posts on the Commons Blog, one of the Coalition for the
>> Global Commons’ partners, Chico Whitaker, founder of the World Social
>> Forum (WSF), was mentioned in a report on his speech to the latest WSF
>> international conference. For the remainder of the conference the
>> commons discussion was concentrated and passionate and to be labelled “a
>> discourse on vision, around which the political discourse is reorganized
>> ”. The immediate result was the creation of “Commons Sites” available in
>> the four official languages of the WSF (Portuguese, Spanish, English,
>> French), and meant to make the Commons a more tangible theme, while also
>> giving a platform for various projects and initiatives dealing with
>> commons issues. (The full posting, in German, can be found here
>> <http://http//commonsblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/weltsozialforum-fordert-wiederaneignung-der-gemeinguter/>.)
>> 
>> In October, we had the privilege of receiving Chico at a meeting for the
>> Coalition for the Global Commons in Hude, where participants (for the
>> most part leaders of international organizations) came together to find
>> better means of collaborating on a large network basis. During the
>> intense three days of small meetings, Mr. Whitaker made a pledge
>> regarding his personal commitment to the Global Commons, one of which
>> was to further promote the concept at the World Social Forum. Indeed he
>> kept true to his word.
>> 
>> 
>> To the WSF Manifesto pela recuperação dos bens comuns da humanidade
>> <http://samadeu.blogspot.com/2009/02/manifesto-pelo-resgate-dos-bens-comuns.html> (manifesto
>> for the recuperation fo the common goods of humanity)."
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> I am not thinking of the next system, not Morozov's critics of
>> solutionism, not platform cooperativism,... Right now I am just thinking
>> of the movie Snow Piercing... Especially the final scene; when our guy
>> finally reached at the locomotive and found the responsible enemy head!
>> Just before smashing him, the enemy reveals the truth saying that there
>> always be direct line between the back of the wagon (being where the
>> spiritual leader of insurrection reside) and the locomotive, in order to
>> balance the life and ecosystem in the train, and avoid the 'train
>> crash'. In this movie train is a closed system; there are no fractions,
>> one counter part at the end of the train and at the locomotive. Real
>> world is different..
>> 
>> In my opinion, looking at the information networks of the f..ing GMP, it
>> makes much more sense why the support for national capital, and extreme
>> right, fascism and authoritarianism backed by it increases since the 80s
>> and 90s; and we reached at the peak of facism and approached at another
>> world war; in the name of avoiding the train crash (as Susan George used
>> to say); also I know got why the racist and 'paranoiac' arguments that
>> claim that left and 'liberal' progressives are the same thing with the
>> mystified NWO.
>> 
>> Anyway, doesn't matter anymore; but who ever served to these goals and
>> stranded together with the ruling class' agendas, should know that they
>> have very much of a blood in their hand. No matter their intention was,
>> who well they thought their action and alliance with the evil, one or
>> other side of the global fractions of pathological capitalist classes
>> has triggered more and more violence since 2000s.
>> 
>> It is time to stand up on own feet and unite against the ruling class as
>> a whole (or  asshahole)!
>> 
>> Remember that force may or may not be with you, but doesn't matter! It
>> can not go worse then this...
>> 
>> Today it is about living or not living.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Silke Helfrich
> www.commonsblog.de