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draft version 3.14
Chapter 7
ENVISIONING A LIBERATED GLOBAL SOCIETY
To the size of a State there is a limit, as there is to
plants, animals & implements, for none of these retain their
facility when they are too large.
-Aristotle
* The basic paradigm: harmonization and community sovereignty
A culture based on harmonization is the primary enabling
factor for a transformed global society. Humanity's yearnings
for the "brotherhood of man," and "turning swords into
ploughshares" are as old as civilization. The new piece in our
story is the knowledge that harmonization is achievable. We
know for sure that harmonization is achievable in face-to-face
groups, and by the time you are reading this I hope we are
beginning to see it in a larger and ongoing context -- in an
awakening community. If we succeed in transforming our
cultures, building a grassroots movement, and overcoming the
elite regime, we have the foundation on which to build a
democratic, equitable, and sensible society.
In such a culture, the standard way of resolving disputes and
deciding social policy will be by means of harmonization --
why would we use anything else, once we have experienced the
benefits? Whatever political arrangements we might set up, the
official deliberations and decision-making meetings will use
harmonization as their process. The "good of all" will be not
just a hollow slogan, but will be the outcome everyone will
seek, because they have learned from experience that they too
get the best result that way.
With harmonization as our process, let us move on then to
consider what kind of political arrangements would be
supportive of a democratic society. I argued in the previous
chapter that the empowered community is the appropriate focus
for a harmonization-oriented movement. I now suggest that the
community is the appropriate unit of primary sovereignty in a
democratic society, within a culture of harmonization. The
fundamental unit of the movement becomes the fundamental unit
of the new society. There are four basic considerations that
lead me to this perspective:
1) Scale and proximity. A community is the right size for
democracy to function effectively. In a larger unit the
day-to-day interactions, and the sense of face-to-face
involvement, are lost. It becomes impossible for everyone to
have their say, to feel part of the public conversation;
decision-making becomes indirect and remote. At the same time
a smaller unit makes little sense because a community has a
natural coherence as an entity, otherwise we wouldn't call it
a "community." As Goldilocks would put it, a community is,
"not too big, not too small, but just right." (In the case of
a large city, the equivalent of community would be a
neighborhood or borough, based on some kind of agreed boundary
lines.)
2) Commonality of interests. The people in a community tend to
have many concerns in common, concerns which are of little
interest to people outside the community. Things like parking,
traffic, parks, schools, crime, public services -- indeed
local quality of life generally -- concern everyone in the
community. This commonality of interests is recognized in most
of our societies, where the township or village is typically
an official unit of government jurisdiction.
3) Coherence and efficiency. Feedback loops in a community, if
it is operating democratically, are immediate and transparent.
If agreed policies are not leading to anticipated results,
people can get together, take into account the new
information, and develop a new harmonized response. A
community is "just the right size" not only for democracy, but
also for the optimization of operations.
4) Primordial social heritage. We evolved over millions of
years in cooperative social groups, where people interacted on
a daily basis. We even adapted agriculture and animal
husbandry, and established our first civilizations, while
still retaining our essential social heritage in partnership
societies. Only for the past 4,400 years have we been
subjected to dominator societies. I'm not sure how it is for
those at the top, but most of us are being forced to live in a
culture that is contrary to our natures. That is why we suffer
so much stress, and that is what Freud was talking about in
Civilization and its Discontents. In a community, with
harmonization, it is possible for us to recreate something
akin to the social milieu that is "home" for us as a species.
The community, I suggest, is where we can recreate our
primordial Garden.
Genuine, inclusive, direct, participatory democracy is
possible in a community. And it is possible without delegating
decision-making power to any centralized mayor or elected
council. The people themselves can decide fundamental policy
issues; that is what their harmonization process is about.
Agencies can be created to manage civic programs, but such
agencies have no authority to set or change policy, and they
can be disbanded or reorganized if they are not serving the
purpose for which they were established. We the People can run
our own communities ourselves. With the creative synergy of
the whole community awakened, we can expect to handle our
affairs wisely, and in the best long-term interest of our
communities (i.e., ourselves and our children.) Sustainability
is simply a matter of common sense.
If the community is to be the unit of sovereignty, we are left
then with the question of how larger-scale issues are to be
handled. In discussing the movement, recall the suggestion I
offered regarding its likely structure:
I imagine that the "movement structure" would naturally evolve
toward a tiered arrangement of councils, where communities
send delegates to regional councils, regions send delegates to
national councils, and so on up to global councils -- with
harmonization being used at all levels. Although this may
superficially resemble the hierarchical pyramids of our
current representative governments, power would flow in the
reverse direction, and there would be no permanent
decision-making bodies. After a council meets, it disbands and
the delegates go back to the communities and their regular
activities.
Each delegation to a council would come in with a consensus
perspective that was reached in its community, and it would
not be empowered to reach agreements outside the boundaries of
that consensus. If there seem to be conflicts among these
incoming perspectives, those conflicts would be addressed as
shared problems in the council sessions. Perhaps breakthroughs
could be found in the council, overcoming the apparent
conflicts, or perhaps delegates would go back home better
informed about the concerns of other communities. Each
community could then re-examine its thinking in the light of
that new understanding. Harmonization would proceed, perhaps
iteratively, while power, in terms of movement
decision-making, would remain based in the grassroots, in the
individual communities.
Again, I suggest that the structure of the movement becomes
the structure of the new society: the means are the
appropriate ends. The community is the unit of political
sovereignty, and the larger affairs of society, and the world,
are dealt with through dialog among communities, by means of
appropriate council sessions, harmonizing the concerns of the
communities.
That is the basic paradigm that I envision, as the basis of
liberated, democratic society. I believe that this paradigm
emerges naturally out of the dynamics of harmonization, and it
is from considering those dynamics that I have been led to
these ideas. The community has always been a natural unit of
society, and empowered by harmonization the community has the
ability to run its own affairs sensibly and democratically.
Why should it not be allowed to do so? In a culture of
harmonization, it seems to me that this is how people would
naturally view the situation. And similarly, when larger
issues arise in such a culture, the natural thing would be for
each affected constituency to send off a delegation to
harmonize their concerns with their sister delegations.
I believe this paradigm makes sense. It makes sense in terms
of "likely to be achieved" because it arises naturally out of
the dynamics of harmonization, in combination with our human
habit of living in communities. It makes sense in terms of "is
functional" because it puts political responsibility at the
local level, where feedback loops are shortest, where the
welfare of the people involved can be under their own control,
and where a direct democratic process is practically
achievable.
But even if it makes sense, as a basic paradigm, there are
still many questions to be addressed. How is peace to be
maintained? How can the global commons be managed? Who
controls globally scarce resources? How do we manage large
infrastructures, such a transport and communications? How do
we prevent the emergence of new hierarchies, which would be
taken over eventually by new elites? The rest of this chapter
will be looking into these kinds of questions. Our guiding
principle will be to keep in mind what it would be like to
live in a culture of harmonization, and to imagine how we
would naturally deal with the various kinds of challenges that
are likely to arise.
* Regional affairs
Let's start with the simplest problem, extending organization
beyond the community, but not too far. Let's use "region" to
refer to the next level up from "community." A region might be
the same as a county, province, or bioregion, depending on the
local situation. It seems natural to expect that the
communities in a region would regularly convene regional
council sessions to harmonize regional affairs. Just as in a
community, the citizens of a region have many concerns in
common that are of lesser interest to people outside the
region. A region is basically a community of communities, and
by means of regular council sessions, regions will be able to
manage their affairs harmoniously and sensibly. We could
expect "We the People of our region" to be an element of our
personal identities, along with "We the People of our
community."
In fact, a region is an important political unit in its own
right. The region is the natural unit to develop transport
systems, utilities, and other infrastructures, and to manage
waterways and other shared resources. In terms of
"optimization of operations," a region is perhaps more central
than a community. We would expect there to be a coherence and
continuity to regional affairs, just as there is in today's
counties and provinces. Presumably there would be various
regional agencies with the responsibility of managing the
various regional operations.
What I am describing here is very much the same as how our
current societies are organized, and how societies have been
organized throughout history: it's basically just towns within
counties. The dynamics of this familiar arrangement are
transformed, however, in a culture of harmonization. In
today's hierarchical societies, centralized agencies are given
the power to override local wishes, in the interest of
"efficiency" and the "larger public interest." Communities are
often destroyed in the process. In a culture of harmonization,
decisions will be made in quite a different way.
It seems to me that the natural role of "agency" will be one
of facilitation. Let me illustrate this with an example.
Suppose an agency is charged with the responsibility of
establishing a regional rail network. In a culture of
harmonization, the first task of the agency would naturally be
to meet with each of the communities, to find out their
concerns as regards rail transport. Presumably a delegation
from the agency would meet with a diverse gathering of local
citizens, in an effort to harmonize the objectives of the
agency with the concerns of the community. As the delegation
visits each community in turn, listening respectfully to local
concerns, it is acting as a kind of "roving facilitator."
Each harmonization session would not only raise local
concerns, but also people would offer their ideas about how
those concerns might be addressed. Creative breakthroughs
could be expected. As the delegation makes its rounds, it will
become gradually wiser about how rail can best fit into the
region's operations. By the time the delegation gets back to
base it will be in a position to draft a regional plan that
communities can then review and refine. Not only would such a
process be likely to develop creative, appropriate-technology
solutions, and fit in with community preferences, but also the
planning process would probably go more quickly than it does
with the bureaucratic, top-heavy agencies that our societies
employ today.
Now let's consider the actual building of the rail network. We
all know the hierarchical approach: a crew is assembled, and
they march through the region implementing a one-size-fits-all
system, according to their own schedule, often disrupting
local operations in the process. In a culture of harmonization
and empowered communities we can expect more ongoing
participation by the communities, acting perhaps through their
own local agencies. In some cases it might make sense for each
community to take responsibility for its own section of track,
so to speak. This would enable construction to go on in
parallel, expediting the project. It would also give
communities an opportunity to blend their section of the
project into the local environment and architectural style.
The regional agency would continue to facilitate among the
concerns of the communities, and would be responsible for
checking that all parts of the project match up to agreed
quality standards.
When responsibility begins in the grassroots, a tremendous
amount of creative energy becomes available, in contrast to a
hierarchical society. Centralized agencies are always
bottlenecks. They have a certain budget, and they schedule
their projects in some priority order. It seems to take
forever from the time a project is conceived until anything
really happens. When all the tax money that goes to various
levels of government is instead retained locally, the
community or region has the resources to initiate its own
local projects, and manage its part of larger projects, most
likely on a more efficient basis. There will be more
parallelism in the affairs of society generally, with
different creative initiatives rising up in different
localities. Democracy liberates popular energy and creativity.
* A model for global self-governance
I suggest that the regional scenario provides us with a
democratic model that applies to larger-scale affairs as well.
Policy setting is always the province of harmonization
sessions, involving councils of delegations from all
constituencies that are stakeholders regarding the policies
under question. The number of levels of councils depends on
the scale involved. If there are many levels, as with global
councils, the process may need to iterate, in order to enable
harmonization across such a large number of communities. In
this way every community participates in the decision-making
process regarding society-wide policy, all the way up to
global policies.
Once policy is decided, it is necessary to manage the mandated
projects and operations, and such activities must be managed
on a coherent basis. An agency can be established for that
purpose, and it must be able to respond quickly and
effectively to unexpected problems, without waiting for a
general council to be assembled. The "agency as facilitator"
provides us with a mechanism that can provide that kind of
management function without introducing centralized authority.
When a policy emerges from a harmonization process, that means
that all the constituencies involved support the policy.
Cooperation can be expected throughout the affected area in
the implementation of the policy. The role of an agency is to
begin with this pre-existing consensus on policy, and then
work with the constituencies to maintain harmonization
throughout the planning, implementation, and operational
phases of a mandated project.
By "roving" among constituencies, meeting with stakeholder
groups, and always using harmonization, the agency can
maintain an overall sense of harmony regarding the project and
ensure the necessary project coherence. If an unexpected
problem arises, that is a shared problem of everyone involved.
The role of the agency is then to facilitate a focused dialog
among the affected constituencies, so that a harmonious
solution can be found to the problem.
In a face-to-face session, the facilitator's role is to ensure
that sufficient attention is paid to what participants say. In
a large-scale project, the agency's role is to ensure that
sufficient attention is paid to the needs of the project. Just
as participants in a session may be distracted by their own
internal mental chatter, so the constituencies involved in a
project have other responsibilities on their minds. In the two
cases, the role of the facilitator and the agency is to bring
about the necessary focus of attention so as to enable a
collective activity to proceed successfully. Just as the
facilitator brings no agenda to a session, so the agency
brings no agenda to a project. In the two cases the role of
the facilitator and the agency is to help the participants
discover their own collective agenda.
* The management of the commons
Issues like fishing on the high seas, global warming, and the
exploitation of scarce resources concern everyone, and
policies regarding such issues must be the province of global
councils. Presumably localities affected most directly, such
as those where mineral deposits are located, would be
represented directly at such global councils, short-cutting
the standard tiered process. The concerns of such localities
would be central to the dialog, and the process of
harmonization would be expedited by their direct
participation. For commons on a smaller scale, such as
regional resources, the solution is the same, only with
smaller-scale councils.
In dealing with these kinds of issues, the people of the world
will be learning how to make strategic decisions together
regarding difficult tradeoffs. Petroleum offers a useful
example. A policy regarding how much petroleum will be pumped
from the ground and what it will be for used for affects
everyone. Such a policy affects global warming and pollution;
it affects the operations of societies, and it has long-term
consequences for future generations. Tradeoffs will be
required between the desire to reduce burning of fossil fuels,
and the need to keep society operating. In order to move
toward sustainability, we will need to budget our usage of
such finite resources, some for current operations, and some
dedicated to the construction of sustainable replacement
systems.
In today's world, such global tradeoffs are determined by
elites, based on their own self interest, or else they are
left to blind market forces, which amounts to the same thing.
Elites have been competent, even astute, in their pursuit of
their own self-interest, but wisdom has been absent from their
process. No one could be called wise who pursues such
destructive agendas. In a democratic society, based on a
culture of harmonization, the affairs of the world will for
the first time be managed both wisely and coherently. The
difficult tradeoffs will not be guided by the by the simple
metric of immediate profit and loss, but rather by the
collective wisdom of the world's people, considering not only
themselves but their children as well
We have harmonizing councils to help us make these kinds of
tradeoffs, and we can take the necessary time to enable the
harmonization process to converge. It is worth the investment;
we will to a large extent be deciding the future of humanity.
And when we've settled on our policies, we can establish
agencies to facilitate the necessary projects. If we find our
policies are flawed, as we try to implement them, we can
assemble councils at appropriate levels to address the
deficiencies. We can do all of this democratically, and
without establishing any centralized authorities, governments,
or bureaucracies.
* The maintenance of peace
In a culture of harmonization there is little reason to expect
hostilities to arise between societies. That would be as
unthinkable as Arizona invading California. People have never
wanted war; war has always been arranged by elites, as they
compete for territories and seek to expand their wealth and
power. When people are in charge, in a culture of
harmonization, war will be remembered as a regrettable part of
humanity's primitive history, like blood feuds among clans,
and slavery.
Nonetheless, one can never predict all eventualities. It is
possible that some deranged, charismatic leader, someday in
the future, might stir up some society to become aggressive. I
doubt it, but I can't deny the possibility. Just as people
have antibodies, to protect against potential invasions by
disease, societies will need to have defenses, to protect
against potential invasions by aggressors. We might recall the
case of Switzerland, which has avoided warfare, and which
maintains a state of military readiness in case anyone should
try to cross the Alps in anger.
Let us consider then some kind of "peace force," whose job
would be to maintain peace in the face of any kind of
aggression that might emerge. We must be very careful in these
considerations however, lest the peace force itself become a
source of tyranny or aggression. Military coups have been a
common occurrence, particularly in our recent history. If a
military organization exists, we always have to consider the
danger that it might be used against us.
With a peace force, as with all social structures, the path of
democracy requires that we avoid hierarchies. It is the
existence of a central command structure that enables a coup.
If there is no command center to seize, there is no
opportunity for a coup. It seems to me that the natural form
of a piece force, in a democratic society, is for each
community to have its own locally controlled militia.
Suppose then, that every community has such a militia, and
there are no other military forces. Presumably a global
council would agree on a level of armaments, so that all
militias would be comparable in their weaponry. Militia
members would be residents of the community, and the community
as a whole would need to agree before a militia could be
mobilized for action. The purpose of the militias, as set down
by the council establishing them, would be strictly to restore
order in the face of aggression.
There would be little danger of a coup scenario to arise with
such an arrangement. The local militia is hardly likely to
rise up against its own friends and neighbors, and there is no
central command that can order a militia into action.
Furthermore, a community is unlikely to use its militia to
initiate aggression -- even if we set aside the culture of
harmonization -- because all of its neighbors will have
comparable militias, and they would surely join forces to
resist such aggression.
The aggression scenario we need to guard against would be some
larger social unit that goes astray. Perhaps some society
begins developing weapons in excess of the agreed limits, or
joins its militias together to form an invading force. In the
face of such a scenario, the defending militias would need to
join forces and coordinate their activities in order to
respond effectively.
In a democratic society, I suggest that the appropriate model
for defense can be taken from the body's immune system. Our
antibodies normally circulate passively throughout our
bloodstreams; when a pathogen invades, the antibodies swarm to
surround and neutralize it. When the pathogen is eliminated,
the antibodies resume their normal passive circulation.
Similarly, if an aggressive force arises in the world, local
militias -- on whatever scale is required -- can swarm to
surround and neutralize it. When the danger is past, the
militias can all go home. No centralized military force need
be created, and we can avoid the risk of coups.
The hoopla about 'Earth Day', like the pious rhetoric of
fast-talking solar contractors and patent-hungry 'ecological'
inventors, conceal the all-important fact that solar energy,
wind power, organic agriculture, holistic health, and
'voluntary simplicity' will alter very little in our grotesque
imbalance with nature if they leave the patriarchal family,
the multinational corporation, the bureaucratic and
centralized political structure, and the property system
untouched.
-Murray Bookchin
* Economics
Centralization of power, in any form, is incompatible with
democracy. Power can be turned into tyranny, and if power
centers exist, someone will always come along and take
advantage of that opportunity sooner or later. So far in this
chapter, we have seen how harmonization can enable us to avoid
power centers in the form of governments, administrative
agencies, and military commands. We next need to understand
how we can avoid the excessive concentration of economic power
and wealth. This core of this problem comes down to finding a
proper balance between democracy and property rights.
Different cultures throughout history have had widely varying
attitudes regarding property ownership. In hunter-gatherer
societies, people owned their own weapons and tools, their
clothes and dwelling materials, and little else. The concept
of owning land made no more sense to these societies than
would the ownership of the atmosphere. Tribes might have their
territories, but within a territory nature was to be shared,
not owned.
As societies become more complex, with agriculture and fixed
dwellings, private ownership naturally comes into existence.
Each family owning its dwelling, and being responsible for its
maintenance, makes economic sense. And it makes economic sense
for a farming family to own its farmland, and to be
responsible for managing it. But it also makes sense for a
community to own agricultural land jointly, and to farm it
communally. Both models of agricultural land ownership have
been used throughout history, and are still being used today.
Under modern capitalism, we can see what happens when property
rights are placed above all other rights. In the name of
"property rights," corporations have more power than most
governments. This has gotten even worse under neoliberal
globalization, with its "free trade" treaties. Nations are
compelled to permit polluting additives in gasoline, because
to ban them would violate the "property rights" of some
corporation. In many parts of the third world, enabled by IMF
directives, corporations have purchased a nation's entire
water supply, which they can now use in whatever way makes the
most profit. It is illegal even for a family to dig a well in
their own backyard for their own use -- that would be stealing
from the corporation! If some agribusiness corporation begins
buying up all the water, there is no guarantee that the local
people won't die of thirst.
In a democratic society, economic arrangements must be under
the control of the democratic process. If a community wants an
economic system based heavily on private property, so be it;
if it wants a more communal system, so be it. And if a
community finds that its chosen arrangements are not working
satisfactorily, the community must have the right to modify
them. Economic sovereignty is in fact part of political
sovereignty. Economics affects every aspect of our lives; if
we don't control our economic system democratically, we don't
have a democratic society.
If a community is to have political and economic sovereignty,
then all property in the community must be owned by the
community residents, either individually or collectively. If
absentee corporations, landlords, or governments can buy up
the land and buildings in a community, then the community
would not have the power to control its own affairs and
determine its own destiny; it's sovereignty would be
meaningless.
If ownership of land and structures are localized in this way,
then we can avoid the massive concentrations of wealth that we
see in today's societies. A giant corporation could not exist;
a J.D. Rockefeller could not accumulate his fortune. We are
left then only with the problem of excessive wealth
accumulation within a community.
In this regard, permit me to share a story from my youth. One
summer at church camp the game of "coin toss" was all the rage
among us boys. A group of us would line up some distance from
a wall, and each toss a quarter (25-cent piece) up against the
wall. Whoever got his coin closest to the wall won all the
quarters that had been tossed. As you might imagine, it wasn't
too long before one boy had accumulated all the available
quarters. The camp counselor found out about this, made the
lucky boy return all the quarters, and told us not to play
anymore. As soon as the counselor left, and with our wealth
restored, we immediately resumed the game.
Free enterprise is like that. It's a game that some do better
at than others. Furthermore, when someone gains an edge, a bit
of excess wealth, then it becomes easier for them to gain
still more. And yet, most of us like to play the game. We each
imagine we too can get lucky, that we too can be rich. One way
or another, the game usually leads to the concentration of
wealth in a few hands.
Karl Marx thought the answer to this problem of accumulation
was to ban free enterprise. That's a very undemocratic
solution however, given that most of us like to play the game.
In addition, Marx's solution creates problems as regards
economic efficiency. When someone owns their farm or business
they have a strong incentive to manage it wisely, or at least
to the best of their ability. Communal enterprises, unless a
culture happens to be highly cooperative to begin with, can be
very inefficient. As regards private enterprise, we seem to be
damned if we do and damned if we don't.
Marx was seeking a solution in terms of economic rules: thou
shalt play the game this way, and thou shalt not play it that
way. We could seek more flexible rules than Marx did, but we
probably wouldn't succeed. People are too good at playing
games. No matter what the rules, someone will be clever enough
to accumulate wealth anyway. And who can blame them? Most of
us would do the same thing, if we were able. Besides, there's
nothing wrong with some inequality of wealth; that reflects
healthy efficiency. The problem comes in when the inequality
becomes excessive, when it leads to undue power over others,
or prevents others from earning a livelihood.
A workable solution, I suggest, lies not in economic rules
that attempt to prevent the problem, but rather in the ability
to correct problems when they arise. In the ancient Hebrew
culture there was something called the Year of Jubilee. Once
every fifty years wealth would be redistributed, and the game
begun again -- much like at my summer camp. This was a
political solution, a corrective solution, and it could work
no matter how the game is played in between Jubilees.
In the case of a sovereign, democratic community, we don't
need a corrective rule as rigid as the Year of Jubilee. If
someone's wealth becomes oppressive to others, the problem can
be addressed flexibly by the community's democratic process.
Perhaps some kind of direct redistribution would be
appropriate, or perhaps some system of local taxation.
Whatever solution might be adopted, everyone's interests would
be represented, including the one who will need to give up
some of his quarters.
The only fixed rule we need is to keep ownership local, and
that actually follows automatically if communities are to be
sovereign. Within a community, economic problems can be
settled democratically when the need arises. The
redistribution scenario is a worst case; we need to consider
it in order to ensure we aren't creating a system with fatal
loopholes. Most likely what would happen is that each
community would evolve a way of handling economics that tended
to work well for the local culture and residents. Democracy is
an ongoing process, and problems would most likely be nipped
in the bud before they become serious.
* Constitutions
Under a republican form of government, we are rightly
concerned about having a constitution and guaranteed rights of
various kinds. This is because we know from history that
centralized governments tend to be oppressive. And as
political conservatives often point out, citizens themselves
can be oppressive as well, through a "tyranny of the
majority." A constitution and its guarantees, in theory at
least, are the people's protection from tyranny, both from
governments and from majorities. Guarantees regarding private
property, for example, are supposed to protect us from
arbitrary seizure of our property by either kind of tyranny.
The situation is much different, however, when people have
sovereignty over their own communities, and when they use
harmonization instead of majority rule. Under such a
democratic system, there is no tyranny to protect ourselves
against: each of us participates equally in the harmonization
process, and our concerns are taken into account along with
everyone else's. Any set of pre-determined rules, or
constitution, simply becomes a restriction on We the People --
something set up in the past by people who couldn't be
familiar with current circumstances and problems. The only
fixed guarantees needed in a democratic society are guarantees
that communities have sovereignty, and that harmonization be
used to decide issues within and among communities. And the
best guarantee for these things is a culture based on
harmonization.
--
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"...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the
suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the
Reichstag fire."
- Srdja Trifkovic
There is not a problem with the system.
The system is the problem.
Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs.
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cj list archives:
http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj
newslog list archives:
http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog
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Informative links:
http://www.indymedia.org/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://www.MiddleEast.org
http://www.rachel.org
http://www.truthout.org
http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/
http://www.zmag.org
http://www.co-intelligence.org
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