Revolution & news and world government

sent to:
http://yoism.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/derrickjensen_discussion/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurCultureOurCapitol
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ishmael-dc

I'm attemping to make a quick post regarding Tom's reply
(way at the bottom), and the discussions about world gov't
on OurCultureOurCapitol.

This is a huge question and important, though I've avoided
it thinking there's little a possible answer would help me
with.

On one hand we have:
libertarians, religious right, anarcho primitivists,
right-wing militias, Amish

Who either are actively opposed to US abdication of power to
international organizations, or they don't care one way or
another (some don't care because the world's going to hell
and it won't matter)

On the other hand there are the Leftists (http://zmag.org),
Quakers, and the "integral politics," and "third way"
politicians, and planethood people. Who are actively working
to bolster things like the UN. (I'm really no expert on
this...)

And as Cal points out, we have the corporate interests
making their own special international govt's that gives
them even more special powers than they already have.



To respond to Tom:

> We should be less interested in revolution than in the
> pursuit of life beyond civilization. Revolution is an
> attribute of our dominant culture. In a way, your choice
> of words validates its futility, because in the long run,
> revolutions are better at producing future chaos than they
> are at "solving" anything.

> Why do we even need leaders in our effort to abandon a
> culture that does not merit our support? As DQ suggests in
> Beyond Civilization, our culture has effective mechanisms
> for defending itself against revolutionaries, but is
> relatively defenseless against abandonment.

> It starts with simple living.

In some ways that is the Amish approach.

here's something from two posts ago:

I would like to believe that anyone who listens to her
billion-year-old-self will choose to withdraw from driving a
car/eating pesticide food/using a computer, even if all
those around her are doing such things. But it is difficult
to reject a way of living if one has no awareness of
alternatives.


The key problem is awareness of alternatives! (combined with
a motivation to try the alternatives)


I was talking with the professor I used to work for, and he
mentioned a book- L. Festinger's _Human Legacy_ .
Um, He also mentioned the enormously long time it took for
early humans to "advance" from chipping an arrowhead one way
to chipping an arrowhead another way... Or maybe that was
something from Tom Elpel's books?

It doesn't matter-

The "revolution" I was talking about is very much related to
work of Quinn, Jensen, and even Wilber. (and A. Roy, and
Chomsky, and Elpel)

These people are speaking out, they are making people aware
of alternative ways of behaving.

Jensen in particular is saying that violence in defence of
non-human things is justified! That is pretty revolutionary.

When someone of his capability starts to advocate that in a
way that is accessible to non-rabid anarchist readers, that
is significant!

The revolution, if it ever occurs (I am skeptical), will
involve many people changing the way they look at things.
That will only happen because revolutionaries are making the
effort to present that other way of looking at things to
them. That event will be helped by conditions that encourage
others to look about for alternative ways of behaving (e.g.
a possible collapse of an oil-based economy).

For one last example of this: I sure don't know how to grow
my own food- but there are leaders in that revolution,
thankfully, that I can learn from.

(_cultural creatives_ covers this whole discussion of
revolution, I think)

Now, on the world gov't level, we can't all just walk away
into the forests! Or, eventually, others will be hunting us
or chopping them down.

this is where
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/iraq.cfm
Wilber, Quakers, UN, Planethood people come in.

As Cal points out- power has already been centralized on an
international level by corporations.

A similar buildup in power of corporations preceeded a
buildup in power of federal gov't in the US, partly to
"address" the power of the corporations on a national level.
(I'm not suggesting that it did--but people were revolted at
corporate actions, and politicians at least pretended to
address the problems)


----
Well that is a fair amount of late night babble.

Conclusions:

(1) Discussing this question does not help me (?)

(2) In my own life and actions, I try to follow Tom's
"Simple living is the best way." To some extent- for anyone
interested in a peaceful and fullfilling life, ignoring the
"red dust" and heading to the hills is the only way.... But
even the masters at doing that (Chinese hermits), said there
were times to be in the hills, and there were times to be
participating in more worldly affairs.

(2.5) I also allow for the reality that the way I am
thinking/see things will forever remain confined to a
minority view- just as not every person (or anywhere close
to a majority) in China became a religious hermit. Again
that is why I talk of "Our Culture and Our Capitol"-- like
the Amish, like the Hasidic Jews, we're creating ways of
living for our people, and to some extent, ignoring everyone
else.

(3) I continue to keep my eye on what Wilber, Quakers,
Planethood people might say, (and A. Roy),

Because just as there was a progression of separate European
states to a European Union, the same is concievably possible
on a world level, as Wilber describes (pasted below)

(4) At the same time, I am still a member of the libertarian
party (not sure if I'll renew), and my distrust in gov't as
the solution and in centralised power is the same as Cal's
and as Derrick Jensen's and as John Zerzan. But that doesn't
mean the rest of the world will agree with us. And quite
possibly enough people will agree with Wilber and the
planethood people to make it happen.

I really am not sure that global problems can be addressed
in a "laissez faire" way.

_If_ the POCLAD project http://www.poclad.org/ was
successful, and in accordance with Derrick Jensen's wishes,
corporations ceased to exist separately from the individuals
that worked for them, and there was no longer any such thing
as limited liability, and CEOs could be put to death for the
deaths their business practices caused,

_Then_ I could possibly consider the "Libertarian" reality
more likely to actually occur. (decentralized nation states,
free trade, would be all that is necessary to address world
problems)

But even then, what do you do about devastation of oceans?
Nuclear accidents? (presumably no individual would be
willing to take the risk of participating in such industry)
For the libertarian scheme to operate there must be
ownership of all resources. For ownership of the ocean to be
possible, there needs to be something to enforce the
preogatives of that ownership...


Now, like I said, I personally am not going to be
campaigning for a world gov't. But I have often thought
that the most effective response to the excessive display of
bloody American flags would be to replace the flags with
Earth flags!


Even though I have somewhat invalidated the libertarian
perspective in my mind, I may continue to support the party,
because they appear to be the only ones who do not believe
that our problems can be solved through more government.

This is a question that is on my list to better understand,
and to have a firmer position on, but as I'm not attending
Harvard's JFK school of gov't, but instead, "Colin's
UnSchooling UnUniversity" this sort of thing gets short
shrift as being less relevant to my future life than does
learning how to tan a fur, fish, or plant a forest garden.

Below is the Wilber excerpt.

Colin
http://j9k.org



http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/iraq.cfm
(read the whole essay at the shambhala site to get a better
understanding of the color references)

      A second-tier, integral, World Federation--in my
Utopian view--would therefore prevent any first-tier memes
from dominating, attacking, or exploiting any other
populations. If necessary, a World Federation would do so by
using force, just as all democracies today have an internal
police force to curtail murder, rape, robbery, extortion,
and so on. Somebody whose center of gravity is green will
not commit murder, rape, or robbery. However, somebody whose
center of gravity is red will do any or all of those,
sometimes happily. And because everybody is born at square
one, and must progress through purple, red, blue, and so on,
some sort of police will always be necessary to protect
others from those who do not evolve to a worldcentric level
of care and compassion.

      So any World Federation would have some sort of police
force, of necessity. Call them the World Cops. Needless to
say, the World Cops would be regulated by the World
Federation, not by any country (and certainly not by
America, Britain, France, Germany, etc.).

      This police force is NOT allowed to tell people what
level of consciousness they should be at; it is NOT allowed
to govern what individuals do in the privacy of their own
homes or dwellings; it is NOT allowed to coerce or
intimidate people who are not at the average level of social
development. It is, however, allowed to prevent (or punish)
those whose public behavior stems from a
less-than-worldcentric stance. For example, in the privacy
of my own home, if I wish to think about burning at the
stake all people who do not accept Jesus as their personal
savior, that is my right. However, if I actually shoot you
because you do not believe in Jesus, then the State--in this
case, the World Federation--can arrest and incarcerate me.

      The simple rule, which is already implicitly used by
all worldcentric governance systems (i.e., at orange or
higher, including Germany, France, America, Britain, Japan,
etc.), is this: in the Left-Hand domain, think what you
like; but in the Right-Hand domain, physically behave
according to worldcentric law or you can be removed from the
public sphere.

      As we were saying, in Western democracies, the "law of
the land" is largely orange; in the last 30 years, this has
been supplemented with an increasing number of laws drawn
from the green wave, including equality-in-the-workplace
laws, healthcare freedom laws, and (anti)hate laws. Those
mean, for example, that you are allowed to hate homosexuals
(in the privacy of your own Left-Hand mind), but if you
publicly (Right-Hand) express that hatred (e.g., through
hate speech), there are penalties for doing so. Thus, in
many Western democracies, free speech (a classic orange
value, and, in this country, a First Amendment freedom) has
often been supplemented with limitations on free speech (a
classic green value: green wishes to limit speech not in
accord with its values). My only point is that both of those
express the implicit rule I stated in the previous
paragraph.

      An Integral World Federation would therefore, in that
regard, be no different: one could think whatever one
wanted; but one must behave according to laws stemming from
the center of gravity of the governance system, in this
case, yellow. Thus, the values embedded in the "law of the
land" would not be orange or green but yellow or integral;
not first tier, but second tier. Accordingly, although
individuals are again allowed to think or believe whatever
they want (Left-Hand), their public behavior (Right-Hand)
would be regulated according to yellow (or higher)
standards. Because the major stance of yellow is
integrative, this means all first-tier value systems would
have a respected place, but no first-tier values would be
allowed to colonize others.

      This would mean, for example, that America is allowed
to despise Iraq (in the privacy of its own Left-Hand,
national, cultural space). America is not, however, allowed
to attack Iraq (in the Right-Hand, public, international
commons).

      But that is only half the story of what would not be
allowed by an Integral World Federation. Saddam Hussein, by
conservative and uncontested estimates, has murdered
approximately 200,000 Kurds and another 200,000 of his own
people, often after torturing, raping, or gassing them. Any
Integral World Federation would, through use of force if
necessary, prevent both of those actions. Neither of those
actions meet yellow standards and therefore neither would be
allowed under yellow world law. America's invasion of Iraq
meets certain blue-to-orange standards; and the action of
Saddam Hussein meets certain red standards. Neither of them
would be allowed by an Integral World Federation.

      Moreover, it goes without saying that the World
Federation would itself invade and police Iraq if
incontrovertible evidence of mass homicide was presented at
a World Federation hearing. Mass homicide anywhere violates
worldcentric values. Saddam Hussein is allowed to hate the
Kurds (in the privacy of his own red-meme mind); he is not
allowed to gas 200,000 of them. If he did so, the World
Federation police would use military action to prevent
Saddam Hussein from continuing to do so, if he did not
voluntarily cease and desist immediately.

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

On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Cal wrote:

> i'm in agreement about the news. we can all live
> without it. and i believe it is a virus of fear used
> by the establishment to keep the body politic immobile
> and promote consumerism at the same. "feeling anxious
> about drunk drivers? buy a gucci bag."
>
> i disagree totally about sandrine's conclusions about
> a world goverment. perhaps a world government will be
> put together by a few capable and ideal people, but
> once the power is centralized, corruption and abuse
> will be that much easier.
>
> this is what the lord of the ring myth warns about.
> any centralization no matter the degree of good will
> it starts with will eventually be used for control and
> slavery.
>
> biologically, we grow to a certain size then split off
> into different parts. this is where diversity comes
> from. diversity is a protection against unpredictable
> cataclisms. in our evolutionary history, we have met
> many catastrophes, but because of diversity some have
> survived and continued life.
>
> to capture all ways and means of life, political and
> economical, under some sets of regulation will make us
> volunerable to folly of one set of policymakers.
>
> is there a difference between this and the
> establishment's call for a "new world order"? i don't
> think so. but despite my disagreements, this is
> happening. it may not look like a political body such
> as the UN but it will be an economical body like,
> NAFTA, European Union, ASEAN. btw, just in case some
> of you don't know, NAFTA trumps the US court systems
> decisions.
>
> -cal
>
> --- sandrine christophe <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > And I believe that the only to stop the way society
> > is currently going, is by creating a world
> > governement (based on what I read in Planethood),
> > where just like here in the US, you don't have wars
> > between states anymore, but laws that regulate
> > everything. Which is a a more peaceful way in my
> > opinion.
> > When we have that settled, and people are all acting
> > towards someone who would violate the law (the law
> > is for everyone the same!) then we would soon be
> > able to leave without armies and war, and without
> > civilians being violated or killed and we could live
> > in peace again.
> >
> > That's that for today.
> >
> > Sandrine
> >
> > ---
> > Experience a miraculous and prosperous day!
> >
> > "Your environment is the physical picture of your
> > thoughts, emotions and beliefs made visible."
> > Seth
> >
> >
>

From: Tom Tomaka <twotom@>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [ishmael-dc] [derrickjensen_discussion] "Democracy is the
    Free World's whore" - Arundhati Roy (fwd)

Colin,
Thanks for posting those links, which contain very interesting and useful
information. They provide ample reason why our current way of life is
unwozkable -- never has and never will. We live in a culture of death and
destruction, lies and deception, ignorance and denial.

I am less enthusiastic about your statement "I am not planning to be a
leader in the new revolution, but I'm looking for the people
who will be (and curious to see how long until their assassination)."

We should be less interested in revolution than in the pursuit of life
beyond civilization. Revolution is an attribute of our dominant culture. In
a way, you choice of words validate its futility, because in the long run,
revolutions are better at producing future chaos than they are at "solving"
anything.

Why do we even need leaders in our effort to abandon a culture that does
not merit our support? As DQ suggests in Beyond Civilization, our culture
has effective mechanisms for defending itself against revolutionaries, but
is relatively defenseless against abandonment.

It starts with simple living.

- tom





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