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From: "John Bunzl" <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>,
<•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: dialog : re : new posting policy
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:19:57 +0100
Hi Richard,
Yes, I'm aware of the Earth Charter and very much support
its goals. But as you rightly suggest, we need not just
goals but PRACTICAL MEANS TO ACHIEVE THEM. And this, as
you suggest, is where Simpol (Simultaneous Policy/SP)
http://www.simpol.org might come in.
What the Earth Charter and other movements for global
change are effectively aiming for is a form of
people-centred global governance. But in common with all
other existing levels of governance (individual - family -
local government - national government), any new
initiative seeking to achieve the objective of a
people-centred global governance - i.e. a new higher level
of governance - would, I suggest, have to embody 5
different 'attributes of governance'. These are:
1. The global and simultaneous exercise of binding
constraints over all other entities in the system (in
particular over national governments)
2. The ability to ensure an equitable sharing of resources
between peoples and nations
3. The ability to integrate the often-divergent interests
of trade, society and environment for the overall common
good.
4. The ability to ensure that individual citizens have a
proper say in their governance.
5. The ability to 'transcend and include' all existing
entities in the system and especially to MANAGE the
existing highest-level entities of governance (i.e.
nation-states) towards a new and higher level organisation
of global governance.
Simpol, I suggest, has the potential to meet all of these
5 criteria and they are indeed built in to its deep
structure. The fifth attribute, by the way, is fulfilled
by Simpol's voter-bloc process by which citizens can adopt
SP and thus can use their votes to increasingly make it in
politicians' and nations' interests to cooperate to
implement SP while making it electorally disastrous for
them if they fail to do so.
The Earth Charter, since it is essentially a goal or
vision, cannot be said to embody any of these attributes
as far as I can see but it is at least an excellent
starting vision and indeed it is referred to in the
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation's (ISPO)
Founding Declaration.
That's not to say, however, that ISPO cannot benefit from
cooperating with Earth Charter or certain other
organisations which, even though they may not manifest all
of those attributes, may nevertheless be more expert or
capable than ISPO in one or some of them. But the key
point to note is that genuinely fruitful cooperation can
only come when each of the organisations that are to
cooperate together has a proper understanding of these
attributes and of which ones they can fulfill and which
they can't.
Genuine cooperation, after all, is not a blind, warm
feeling of wanting, somehow, to work cosily together
regardless. Instead it is based on a hard-headed analysis
of what the PURPOSE of the cooperation is; what attributes
must be present to fulfill that purpose and a cold, hard
and honest study of which organisation possess those
attributes and which don't. Once that work is done, it
will then be quite easy to see which organisations can
most fruitfully cooperate and how.
At present, Simpol-UK, the UK branch of ISPO, succeeded in
getting 10 Members of Parliament from ALL the main
political parties to officially pledge to implement SP
alongside other governments. Furthermore, in some
constituencies, we were able to get BOTH the leading
candidates to pledge to implement SP so that, whichever
one won, Simpol won. In other countries we are not so
advanced but we have parliamentarians in Australia and the
EU who have also pledged. In this way, global citizens
can, for the first time, design their OWN set of global
policies (i.e. SP) AND they can use their votes in a new
way to drive politicians to implement those policies -
globally and simultaneously. And they can do so WITHOUT
needing to form a new political party. So this is how
Simpol operates IN the political systems of nations but is
not OF those systems.
10 MPs in the UK and a few elsewhere is an encouraging
start to a people-centred global governance. But it cannot
be completed unless many more people ADOPT SP and thus use
their votes in this new way. Doing so costs nothing and
can be done at
http://www.simpol.org/dossiers/dossier-UK/html-UK/
how_do_i_adopt_sp-UK.html. Furthermore, adopting SP does
not preclude you maintaining a party-political preference
if you wish.
As you suggest, Richard, it's no good expecting our
political leaders to save us from global melt-down.
Instead we, the people, must take responsibility and take
the lead ourselves, using our votes in this novel way to
drive our politicians in the right direction in the
process. Simpol, if only people will use it, is our common
tool for doing that.
all the best
John Bunzl - Trustee
-----------
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO)
http://www.simpol.org
Simpol: Rediscovering the Sense of Our Collective Humanity
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