Friends, I finally made my first edit to an entry in Wikipedia. I expanded the scope of the 'direct democracy' page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy#Direct check it out, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Richard Moore" To: "marc bombois" Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 9:42 AM Subject: greetings from ireland... Hi Marc, Thanks again for hosting me on Gabriola. A very beautiful place. I enjoyed the adventure with the fallen branch -- a real-world exercise in spontaneous collaboration and problem solving. Has there been any 'democracy talk' since? cheers, richard --- Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:09:44 -0800 From: marc bombois <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: greetings from ireland... To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••> Hi Richard, You're welcome, it was great to meet you and I'm glad youliked it here. I haven't heard a peep since then, but I'm sure people are thinking. I noticed that we're a fairly jaded bunch, hard to avoid that when you become well-informed. I think most of us appreciate the efforts to develop a method of governance beyond hierarchy, but there remains the problem of stopping the elite. While DF is fascinating and promising... there's still a rhinoceros in the living room. I know I don't need to tell you this. We need hope, Richard. We need clear thinkers like you to articulate and broadcast the reality of elite rule as widely as possible and to develop some way of stopping them. We've got to discover some way to mobilise the masses, some hook, some new method of getting us in touch with our desire for peace and love now. I'll help in any way I can. Warm regards, Marc ------ Hi Marc, The only way to 'stop them' is to take power away from them. We cannot accomplish that by means of our existing political systems. Those systems were designed to facilitate elite control, and that's how they have functioned everywhere for the past two centuries. Even in Switzerland, where there is considerable local autonomy, it is elites (primarily banking and pharmaceutical executives) who determine foreign policy, budget & finance, military affairs, corporate regulations, etc. etc. -- all the important national policies. I was led to my vision of non-hierarchical governance not by seeking to characterize an 'ideal society' or utopia, but by seeking a way to end elite rule. I have looked far and wide, and I have seen no other proposal for ending elite rule that I consider to be even remotely plausible. Some of the other proposal might be achievable, but they contain the seeds of their own undoing: they do not have robust mechanisms to prevent the rise of future ruling cliques. They are all based on a political and historical analysis that does not get to the root of the problem. I do my best to "broadcast the reality of elite rule" in my Chapter 1, and with this list, but I've come to the conclusion that 'understanding the current system' is not something that can be universally achieved in our media-dominated societies. I've also come to the conclusion that such universal understanding is not a prerequisite to moving forward with social transformation. In order for 'us' to stop 'them', our first task is to bring 'us' into existence as a coherent entity that can 'have understanding' and 'act'. This first task is about developing 'consensus generating processes'; it is not about pre-determined platforms, analyses, or manifestos. best wishes, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: •••@••.••• Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 11:35:25 EST Subject: Re: Escaping the Matrix: critique & response To: •••@••.••• excellent letter and response- clarifies your basic position in a very few words. Bravo. ---- Thanks Jim. You are my model for brevity. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: •••@••.••• Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:53:34 EST Subject: Re: newslog: 24 Nov - 2 Dec 2006 To: •••@••.••• Richard, There are a number of interesting articles in your latest News Log. Thanks for sending them. Here is another interesting article [?] indicating how the neocons intend to worm out of the mess they created. After picking Bush for the Presidency and putting him in office knowing he is ill-qualified and incompetent, but willing to follow orders, the neocons are now blaming Bush's incompetence for the Iraqi debacle. David From even boasts that he attempted to plant ideas in Bush's head by planting words in Bush's speech, but Bush couldn't grasp the ideas -- which may be the cause of the problem. (Recalling some of those ideas, this is an interesting twist.) In my view this is an attempt to place total blame on Bush, believing he will not admit to following orders, directions or suggestions, after having proclaimed himself to be the "decider". (The question now is, who put that idea in Bush's head.) Tom --- Hi Tom, Yes, clearly Bush is being set up to take all the blame. Unfortunately, we don't know yet whether his crimes will include a nuclear attack on Iran. And we must keep in mind that even though he will take the public blame, everything he is doing is what his handlers want him to be doing. If he were ever to act beyond his remit, he would meet with a sudden end. (He is, by the way, subject to the curse of Tecumseh, having taken office in 2000.) rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Brian Hill" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: RE: newslog: 24 Nov - 2 Dec 2006 Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 09:59:01 -0800 Organization: Institute for Cultural Ecology This keeps getting better Richard. Keep it up. Brian -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 09:04:26 -0800 (PST) From: Diana Skipworth <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: FYI: Community Empowerment Project Proposal - Version 2 To: •••@••.••• Dear Richard, For the last few years I have been thinking about Native Americans. It is my understanding they had these same things regarding egalitarian government and such. I am unsure whether all tribes had Wisdom Councils; I understand tribes would have disputes that would escalate into violence. It raises my curiosity and makes me wonder how peaceful Native Americans were. At first I consider the Iroquois Nation Charter was plagiarized by Ben Franklin and others. Yet, at the same time I hear there were many great wars. Have you studied the Native People of North America? I was wondering if overall they were peaceful or not. (It is very cold in Chicago and I make time to sit inside and wonder rather than go outside.) Diana ------- Hi Diana, (Yes, Winter can be a time of introspection and renewal.) There has been considerable diversity in indigenous cultures, in America and elsewhere. Some have been very peaceful, and some have been warrior cultures. No dispute was necessary to initiate combat among warriors: They would raid one another so that warriors could prove their manhood, and 'count coup' (enemy warriors slain). This served to maintain territories, which in turn served to enable sustainability, just as with other predator species. When the horse was introduced by Europeans, that caused some tribes to convert to the warrior modality. In some cases, these newly empowered tribes would displace other tribes from their traditional territories -- but it was 'displace', not 'massacre'. Daniel Quinn characterized this situation by saying that pre-civilized humans were dangerous -- "as dangerous as a hyena". The point being that hyenas take care of themselves with a vengeance, but do not engage in conquest, genocide, or imperialism. Native Americans did not kill 'the helpless ones' (women and children), if for no other reason than it would have robbed them of their honor as warriors. Honorable warriors only fight other warriors. All was not peace and light in indigenous societies, from our liberal, coddled, modern perspective. Older boys engaged in dangerous games, such as 'knock everyone else one off their horse', which sometimes resulted in death. The sexes had distinct roles, and from our point of view boys and girls were not given 'equal opportunities'. It seems however that neither men nor women felt oppressed by their gender-determined roles; they considered it to be both natural and fulfilling. We cannot revert to hunter-gathering or nomadic herding, nor would it make sense for us to copy indigenous cultures wholesale. Yet despite all these provisos there is much useful that can be learned from those cultures. In particular: (1) the focus on community autonomy and (2) the maintenance of community consensus, facilitated by the evolution of a community culture in harmony with its environment. I see these principles as the basis, the foundation, of a democratic and sustainable society. The Sioux Nation and the Iroquois provide us yet another lesson. They both found a way for autonomous societies to co-exist peacefully, without subordinating their autonomy to a centralized entity. They didn't have written languages, but they developed the equivalent of a written constitution, or grand treaty, which they were able to preserve orally. When conflicts arose, or the need for collaboration among tribes, tribal delegations would meet in council (pow wows), and would reach consensus on what should be done. This provides the third principle in my vision of a global democratic society: temporary councils of delegates, harmonizing their concerns -- instead of centralized government bodies -- as a way to provide large-scale governance. yours, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2006 20:35:26 -0700 From: Larry Victor <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: FYI: Community Empowerment Project Proposal - Version 2 Richard, Creating a viable and competent CORE team to plan and implement the experiment will be the most difficult task. Getting the attention of the whole community (from which the WC will be selected) will be the second most difficult task. So many variables can determine success or failure (or other vague outcomes). As an "experiment", multiple communities (experiments) should be used. The design of actions to achieve 1 & 2 above, and the selection of communities, might make a multiple community approach "as easy" as trying with just one community. This is a TREATMENT modality on existing populations. Analogous to drug studies. An alternative would be to create new exploratory communities that integrate these processes. As an "experiment", there should be an Experimental Design that is independent of the actual process. What size and type of "communities" are you considering? Have you proposed this with NCDD (National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation) http://www.thataway.org/ ? CAUTION: Exemplar successful community projects have been near impossible to replicate - there seems to be something "unique" in the composition of successful projects, that is not easy to identify. This has led me to a cliche slogan: Exemplars never enter main stream on their merits. Larry ----- Hi Larry, Thanks for your insights. Yes, finding a core team of activists who are capable and motivated is the main problem. That must happen before anything else can begin. As for getting the attention of the whole community, I imagine that will happen over time, as the process gains momentum. As regards community size, I'm thinking in terms of 3,000, as being possibly an 'ideal size' for a self-governing community. This is only a guess, to be tested, but it arises from Plato's statement that a society smaller than 3,000 is difficult to 'govern' (ie. difficult for elites to control). This experiment is more like the Kitty Hawk flight, than it is like a drug-testing program. We are still in the prototyping stage. It would have made little sense for the Wright Brothers to make two copies of their first plane before testing the design. Also, the proposal is not about 'doing something' to the community, but about giving tools to the community so that it can do something for itself. Thanks for suggesting NCDD. I'll post a copy of the proposal there. If the project succeeds, we will know a lot more about how to introduce it in other places. And we will surely improve the concept as well. cheers, rkm -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Blogs: cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/ Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/ Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/ Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html
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