* rkm issues a New Year’s Challenge *

2007-12-31

Richard Moore

Friends,

First I want to share with you the all-important prologue...a 
reader's thoughtful comments, followed by a response that evolves out 
of considering seriously what they have said. This is how our 
collective creative process works around here. We listen to one 
another, and through these dialogs our collective understanding grows.

But after that I want to hit you with my challenge. As I mentioned in 
our previous posting, "post-xmas dialog", I have a new mission, which 
I dubbed "Johnny Process Seed":
   http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=1369

In the process of responding to Mr. Addyson, I came to realize that 
this can be a collaborative endeavor, and that you all can play can 
important role, with very little effort. How, I will challenge you, 
can you pass up such a handy chance to contribute to saving the world?

rkm

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From: "JOHN ADDYSON"
To: •••@••.•••
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:40:58 -0500
Subject: Regarding your brilliant article, The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis
      http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7693

Dear Richard,

It was back in the spring of 2003 when I first came across your 
article, Escaping the Matrix.  At the time, I had never read such a 
clear and precise analysis of the invisible forces that were 
manipulating the major and political events that affect our lives on 
a daily basis.  As I had mentioned in my very first email to you, 
Escaping the Matrix became sort of a lens in which to "unpack" and 
interpret the manufactured events that are playing out daily on our 
television screens.

With the release of your latest article, The Post-Bush Regime: A 
Prognosis, you once again have your finger on the pulse of what the 
puppet masters have in store for humankind.  Again, thank you for 
your insightful analysis.

But I would like to share a few anecdotes with you, Richard, which 
may already confirm what you are hearing from others.

I travel extensively throughout the United States working on 
short-term projects as an engineer.  It's a good living, and it 
provides great opportunities to talk with folks about how they 
perceive the forces that are shaping their world.  Believe me, my 
audience has consisted of conversations with all kinds of folks: a 
rancher in western Montana, a postal worker in center city 
Philadelphia, or an architect in Lexington, Kentucky.  The list is 
long, and the conversations have been varied and revealing.

 From what I can best discern, I find that folks who come from 
disadvantaged socio-economic groups are the first to acknowledge that 
the system is rigged, and that the deck is stacked against them. 
Most of them know this from first-hand experience.  But the majority 
of them believe that there is little that they can do to correct the 
injustices.  They take a pragmatic approach to living--namely, 
keeping out of trouble, and maintaining a low profile.  I respect 
this approach to living, but it is merely a form of survival with the 
supreme hope that nothing drastic will befall them, such as the loss 
of a job, imprisonment, or a serious illness for which they are not 
insured.

The next group is the Sheeple.  This is the American Middle Class. 
This is the world that I was born into.  I can characterize Sheeple 
in a word: clueless.  Having surrendered their souls to bread and 
circus, along with the trappings of crass materialism, such as having 
that new flat screen television set, they are impervious to any 
suggestion that they are pawns in a game that will invariably bring 
them to financial ruin.  No matter how tactfully, Richard, I would 
try to broach a particular subject (like mentioning that the Federal 
Reserve is a private bank, or that the surplus cash in the Social 
Security trust fund has been looted and stuffed full of worthless 
IOU's known as Special Issue Treasury Notes), I generally receive 
some pretty nasty looks and am shunned from any further conversations 
at the proverbial water cooler.

Ignorance is enslaving us, Richard, and what I find alarming here is 
that the most obedient Nazis who support this new world order are the 
folks who have the education and the professional credentials.  It 
appears that they have the most to lose should they speak out against 
the injustices that are ripping the fabric of humanity into shreds.

So let me sum this up.  I realize that I have made some sweeping 
generalizations about specific groups of people, and I will be the 
first to admit that they are notable exceptions who are trying to 
make a difference.  To this special minority, I offer my deepest 
respect and appreciation.  But I will close in reaffirming my earlier 
observations, which is the result of dozens of conversations and 
thousands of miles of travel--and say that most Americans don't get 
it.  Should an economic or political crisis befall the sheeple here 
in the United States, most folks will not even have a clue what will 
hit them, and why it has hit them.  I suspect that they will turn to 
the usual talking heads (Bush II, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, et 
al) and get their daily dose of propaganda...you know, the terrorists 
did it; or, the Liberals did it; and on the list of excuses and 
scapegoats continues ad infinitum.

I often wonder if humankind is reaching a sufficient critical mass in 
its consciousness, so that "we" can act in sufficient numbers to 
effect the changes that will enable us to dismantle the 
institutiional and political scourges that are stealing the fruits of 
our labors, and enslaving us in return.

With a new year soon upon us, I want to thank you, Richard, for your 
significant contributions in analyzing the methodologies of 
oppression, naming the principle actors who benefit from this 
zero-sum game, and for also featurng in your email postings those 
individuals who are genuinely trying to make a difference. To this 
latter group of proactive individuals, I wish to extend a special 
word of thanks to them for their brave efforts.

The recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto along with all of the 
attendant misinformation concering her death certainly confirms that 
we have a lot of work in front of us.

Best wishes,

John Addyson
Pennsylvania, USA

--------------

Hi John,

Thanks for your thoughtful letter, and for your expression of 
appreciation for our list and its subscribers :-)

It is useful to analyze the system, and I must say I enjoy doing 
that. I've always enjoyed liked things out and solving problems and 
getting an A on my report card. But my conclusions these days are 
always the same -- there is no solution within the context of the 
system.  I keep saying the same thing, putting it in the context of 
the latest developments on the world stage. And always my point is to 
get people to give up on their reformist ideas, to realize the system 
is unfixable, and to turn their attention to their real world, the 
world of their communities, friends, and networks.

Fixing the system is not our challenge. Our challenge is to create a 
new culture, beginning with those around us, in our communities and 
networks. The problem is not numbers. The problem is that we are 
divided one from the other. We need to learn how overcome our 
differences and discover our common interests. We need to learn how 
to make wise decisions together in a way that takes everyone's 
concerns into account. We need to learn how to work together in 
pursuit of our objectives, like in the old days, when the people of a 
community would come together and build a barn for a new neighbor.

In learning these things, we will be raising our consciousness at the 
same time. We will come to realize that ordinary people can work 
together wisely, that we can govern ourselves, that real grassroots 
democracy is possible. We are the solution to our problems, and we 
have the capacity to solve our problems -- these realizations are the 
very 'consciousness raising' that we need in order to transform our 
cultures and our societies.

We will not learn these things in the context of a confrontation with 
the regime. That's too big of a task to contemplate at the beginning. 
We can learn these things in our communities, in the process of 
building stronger communities. We can learn these things in our 
movements and networks, in the process of making them more democratic 
and effective. We need to learn to walk before we can run, to work on 
small things together before we can contemplate large-scale endeavors.

If we want to change the system up there, our task begins with us 
down here. The only potential counterforce to the system is We The 
People. And We The People, unfortunately, does not exist -- not as a 
nation, not as world, and not even as a community at the local level. 
We are a bunch of individuals each going our own way, not even 
knowing our neighbors. As individuals we are completely powerless 
against the regime. Political apathy, given this situation, is a sign 
of intelligence: "Why bother with what you can't change?" Sheeple are 
Sheeple not because they're ignorant, but because they are powerless, 
and they don't want to admit it -- so they occupy themselves with 
jobs, entertainment, and consumerism, depending on TV news for their 
'information'.

Our task, if we seek to transform society, is to do whatever we can 
to facilitate the emergence of We the People consciousness -- to help 
bring people together, to help them discover their shared interests 
and learn how to work together wisely. This cannot be done on a 
large-scale basis all at once. It needs to begin in the small, with 
people in their communities and in their groups and movements of 
various kinds. Transformation must begin as local pockets, pockets 
that grow and join with others, evolving like an organism, until the 
new culture is ready to replace the old, like a snake shedding its 
skin. When a people are at last united in their purpose, no power can 
stand against them.

It turns out that there are ways of awakening We the People 
consciousness. There are relatively simple dialog processes that can 
transform the way people interact with one another. These processes 
are designed to enable people to 'really hear' the concerns of the 
other people, and to then go on and work together creatively to find 
solutions to problems that take everyone's concerns into account. The 
processes also enable people to tap into their inherent wisdom, so 
that the solutions turn out to be very sound ones.

When people go through experiences like this, when they use wise 
dialog processes together, two important things happen. First, if 
they solve some irksome problem, they have that immediate benefit. 
But more important, they experience 'collective empowerment' -- they 
see that it is possible for ordinary people to overcome their 
differences and work wisely and creatively together. They experience, 
in microcosm, the awakening of We the People. At the same time, they 
learn that 'appropriate dialog processes' are the key to this kind of 
awakening, to this new consciousness that We the People is possible, 
that real democracy is feasible.

In other words, when people solve problems together using wise dialog 
processes, their consciousness is raised. They have glimpsed the 
possibility of direct democratic empowerment. The have seen the 
Promised Land of liberation and they know it exists and is reachable. 
They also become conscious also of how to reach that Promised Land -- 
they have learned the value of wise dialog. This is the consciousness 
that needs to spread if social transformation is ever going to be 
achieved. This is how humankind can reach "a sufficient critical mass 
in its consciousness".

***

I hereby issue a CHALLENGE to you John, and to all of our readers. I 
challenge you to look around your environment, in your community or 
perhaps in some group you're working with, and identify a 'problem 
that needs solving'. In particular, we want to find a problem that is 
largely due to divisiveness. That is, there are competing camps with 
different solutions, and if they could all agree the problem could 
then be solved as a relatively minor technical issue. And it is 
important that people really care about the problem, that they are 
all motivated to find a solution and move on.

If you can find such a problem, then the next part of the challenge 
is for you to tell me about it so we can talk about it. I am 
connected in to networks of facilitators and process consultants, and 
I am confident that we could come up with a practical proposal that 
could lead to a solution to the problem. It would involve convening 
some kind of customized local dialog session, employing appropriate 
dialog processes and a skilled facilitator. The costs and logistics 
involved in such a proposal are minimal. A dialog session is not a 
big deal at all. It's really just a long meeting in a room somewhere 
with some flipcharts and coffee. if people really care about solving 
the problem, and if the proposal makes sense to them, the fees and 
expenses of the facilitator should be a negligible part of the 
equation. Anything I might do is of course on a volunteer basis.

My part of the challenge is to come up with a proposal for a session, 
with your help, designed so that it can succeed in solving the 
problem. I've got a pretty good sense for such things at this point, 
and I can also work on particular cases with my friends in the field. 
These people earn their living by their process and consulting 
skills, but their primary motivation is much the same as ours, so 
they are always happy to give their best objective advice, and to 
recommend the best facilitators for a given job.

If you can identify such a problem, and if we develop a proposal 
together, and if you can generate interest in the proposal, and if 
the session succeeds in solving the problem -- we will have made real 
progress toward social transformation.  We will have given people the 
experience of empowerment, and shown them the means of achieving 
empowerment. We will have sown the seeds of a new culture, of a 
raised consciousness.

I don't think I'm asking very much of you. How difficult is it to 
identify such a problem? And you don't even need to work on the 
proposal if you don't want to, you only need to inform me about the 
community and the problem, and review the proposal and suggest 
improvements or different ways of saying things. The proposal will 
speak for itself, as regards what benefit it promises to deliver and 
the costs involved, and as regards the credentials of those who would 
be involved in the project. You need only to present, nay just 
deliver, the proposal to the groups who care about the problem. The 
rest is between the local groups involved, and the folks whose names 
are on the proposal.

I'm serious here folks, and I'll be very disappointed :-( if I don't 
get a flurry of responses, as people begin to identify 'appropriate 
problems' in their environments!

Happy New Year to all :-)
richard

-- 

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Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/
Escaping the Matrix website: http://escapingthematrix.org/
cyberjournal website: http://cyberjournal.org

How We the People can change the world:
http://governourselves.blogspot.com/

Community Democracy Framework:
http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html

Film treatment: A Compelling Necessity
http://rkmcdocs.blogspot.com/2007/08/film-treatment-compelling-necessity.html

Moderator: •••@••.•••  (comments welcome)

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