Re: [Discussion] Revolution & news and world government

Colin,
Yesterday I was buying sneakers downtown, trying to find the cheapest pair
possible that were still comfortable enough to go running in (figuring that
cheaper goods use less resources and are more environmentally friendly
assuming no significant difference in quality, which is the case with
sneakers which are generally marked up due to branding and advertising
costs).
Still, I was wondering if I should know more about different sneaker
brands, their labor practices, and the chemicals used. On the other hand, I
wanted to go running, and exercise is esential, and it had already taken me
a week to work up the nerve to throw out my dilapidated pair and go to the
store for new sneakers. Ahh, that old trade-off between morality and
efficiency--but what are my options anyhow is Asics better than Nike, maybe
its a subsidiary?

Anyhow, on the way home I came across a parade in downtown Boston (which is
what propmts this email reply to your email about world government).  It
was a beautiful sunny day, and lots of people were milling about--but none
of the sepctators seemed to know what the parade was about or who was
involved. I was happy I had bothered to go downtown, otherwise I would have
missed this spectacle and I began to wonder what else I missed in the city
in the summer time. The people in the parade were mainly older white men (I
noticed a couple of women, but that was about it). All of them were dressed
in various uniforms--some looked like minute men, others like red coats,
others like Roman soldiers with shiny metal helmets and red capes, others
like facists with caps, mustaches, and medals on their shoulders. And then
the weirdest group of all were a bunch of really old men dressed in
business suits all with similar brown hats--marching military style like
all the rest as their commander barked out orders. Periodically, groups of
three men with rifles whould be ordered to shoot, and a loud deafening bang
would sound and soon the air filled with smoke. I was told they would end
up in the Boston Commons, and howitzers would be fired, and the Governor
would greet them.

Who were they? I was thinking that if a bunch of my friends got dressed up
in costumes and marched down the street playing drums and penny whistles
and waving flags, the Governor would not come out to greet us. A woman next
to me explained that this was the Election of the Ancients.
"The ancients?"
"Yes, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company--the oldest miltary
organization in the world, some of the men marching here flew over from
England to be at this Election of the new Commander."

Oh! So these are total weirdos. Why then is the Govenor greeting them? The
best I could make out is that this is one of several elite societies of
retired military officers and personnel, that it bridges at least two
nations (i.e., US and England) and that it has some clout in the world.

This got me to thinking that I really don't know much about the military.
Which got me to thinking that people like that really don't know much about
me or my friends.

I play a computer game when I get stressed out, because its addictive,
called Age of Mythology (used to be Age of Empires). The goal is to
manipulate villagers to grow enough food to support an army to conqueor the
world. One day, I noticed that the "village center" something I had taken
of granted. In the game, in the early stages (before I have an army) when
we are attacked by other cultures, I ring the bell and all the villagers
drop what they are doing and flock to village center, and shoot arrows out
at the invaders.

I did some research about villages in Europe (and in the book Ecocities by
Richard Register), I found out that this is historically acurate--the
center of villages was a walled off area with food silos.  Houses, temples,
farms, etc. were generally not in these village centers--only the well, the
food, and the walls. This makes sense, because after the invasion and
death, raping and pillaging, you can come out and rebuild and mourn your
loses. Of course, in the game, the goal is to accumulate enough resources
so you can sponsor a professional warrior class and inflict this suffering
on others instead of receiving it yourself.

So, studying the state of Afghanistan today (a war torn country for sure),
I realize that this is more or less their situation. Villagers depend on
Warlords for protection, the Warlords use their power to help those closest
to them (starting with their family) attain wealth and status--they assert
their control over a specific region, and they defend this region from
attack by other warlords. Perfect Hobbesian state of nature trying to turn
itself into a feudal situation. The Taliban were first welcomed by a people
sick of the chaos, they cheered the Taliban and celebrated its power to
unify the nation (of course this power was abused, and the Taliban set up a
fundamentalist religious state of terror). Then the Empire invaded and
destroyed that Taliban, and the Warlords re-emerged into the power vacuum.
(the empire being lazy cooperates with these mafia-kings at the expense of
the people).

Its almost as if human societies go through stages of evolution. Political
anthropologists assert that there is a driving tendency in human cultural
evolution towards increasing population size. From small family bands, to
clans, to tribes, to chiefdoms, to nations, to nation-states, to European
Unions, to World Government. In the process of this evolution, it appears
that those cultures which don't grow get clobbered (through invasion,
genocide and assimilation).

On the face of it this makes simple logical sense--all other things being
equal, the larger army wins. Any group that stumbles upon a new technology
of social relating that allows the group to be larger than those around it
will probably assert their power for their own benefit. Other groups will
either mimic them, or be crushed by everyone around them who is growing.

Population size is clearly not the only factor in determining relative
power--but it is a major influence. The United States of America is a huge
country--not sure where it stands statistically, but I can think of only
several rivals: China, India, Indonesia, Brazil.  Other successful world
powerhouses have figured out how to unify large populations into one
political force (i.e., the European Union--within this union, Germany and
France wield huge power and have huge populations). Anyhow, its an
intersting hypothesis this link between population, military power, and
economy.

SO back to what started this email, the silly parade. I realize that
"people on the left" often do not acknowledge the fact that we need a
military in the world as we know it. We don't want to always need it, and
we work for a time when military power is minimized and functional, instead
of horrific and abusive. But we still do need it. And perhaps we need to
express this if we want to be able to communicate with "people on the
right" who share our values of community, freedom of individual expression
and less paternalism from a coercive government.

The description of a World Cops below strikes me as scary and totally
unecessary. We do not need a police force centralized in a world
government--we need locally responsive and locally controlled policing. But
we might need a world military to ensure that expansive dictators and
empire building Presidents are kept in check. We certainly need
international cooperation among police forces to control international
criminal conspiracies, mafia, and terrorist organizations.

Without the relative peace and security provided by a military, Yo would
never have a chance to develop and flourish. The ecovillage would be
invaded by hungry marauders, and to protect ourselves, we would be forced
to establish a class of professional warriors.  In reality, the military
power of our American empire pushes these clashes to the fronteirs and
edges of our lives, allowing those of us inside the empire the chance to
experiment with "new religions," and non-conformist views and lifestyles.
Without the American Constitution and commitment to freedom of expression,
freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, our Empire would look a lot
like China--a coercive regime that mircomanges the lives of people and
outlaws new ways of thinking.

So what do I do with all this? Its not particulary a left-wing viewpoint,
or a right-wing viewpoint. I am not advocating increased military
spending--in fact I think we spend far far too much on our military. I am
not advocating increased military action. In fact, I want to create a
global non-violent peace force, and I hope that we can develop a technology
of waging peace that is at least as effective and efficient as our
technology of war--I want more money and more risk taking in this area.

I hope that the above was able to communicate my confusion and uncertainty
about government, global power, and military might--basically, I don't
think anyone anywhere on the political spectrum has it figured
out--everyone seems to be ignoring valid arguments and insights from the
opposite side of the fence, and this type of conversation is rooted in
fear. TO be truly creative we need to have a non-fearful exploration of an
incredibly scary and often times repulsize topic--we need to acknowledge
our own hunger/lust for conquest, and our own pride in kicking-butt, as
well as our disgust, as well as our glorious futurist visions of peace on
earth.

Which is why I return to what I can do in this life-time about an
essentially existential human puzzle: how do we move beyond our fear to a
world of love?
Many of us, living admist wealth and peace, have the privilege and the
ability to see past our fears to an amazing vision of a world in play. I
cry all the time, my frustration and anger turning to pain, as I wonder why
its so damn hard. the truth is we have enough food to feed the world. the
truth is we have enough medical technology and resources to end suffering
for everyone. We could repair the damage to the environment and restore
wilderness for all life. We could live with more free-time and less stress,
with more opportunity to find and express love in our lives, with more time
to play and explore, to make music, dance, paint, and raise children. Life
should be a glorious vacation for our traveling souls, a chance to play and
explore, to risk and love--the world should be a paradise--but it isn't!

Some thoughts:
1) Instead of Revolution why not Evolution? The truth is, evolution of
species is not a painless event--mass extinction hurts most of us. While
revolution in ideas is not the same as political revolution, if we take off
the "r" do we lose any real meaning? and will this allow us to escape the
metaphor of change through violence?

2) Speaking of Evolution--maybe not every human is going to survive the
coming cataclysm. Perhaps most of us will die for reasons as silly as the
fact that we are not genetically resistant to the latest plague. Will any
people be around afterwards? Will they somehow be different from the
humanity of the previous era--will we EVOLVE.

3) If we do EVOLVE, what is likely to be the principle of this
evolution--i.e., what selective pressure is at work, and what traits will
be favored? My hypothesis, or perhaps faith, is that humans who are adapted
for real community living will find ways to survive, nuture and take care
of themselves and the world around them. People who learn to repair and
remediate damaged lands, air, and water, who keep track of technology and
experimentation, will be able to thrive in a world otherwise ravaged by
extremes of terror, plague, and environmental catastrophe. Some people are
not genetically predisposed to enjoy group living, some people are not
genetically predisposed to have personalities that allow them to function
well as members of highly adaptive teams and creative learners. Such
communities will form of necessity, and these humans will survive.

4) It is possible that bands of males will prey upon unprotected
communities that are relatively wealthy, due to their ability to live in
harmony with the natural resources around them. Starhawks book, "The Fifth
Sacred Thing" is an amazing window into a bleak future--how accurate is it?
How does a peaceful ecovillage society handle the dying remnants of a
decaying war based society? What if that war based society is powerful
enough to overwhelm the fledgling ecovillages, and thus take out humanity's
hope as it dies?

5) Maybe there is a way to combine humans, machine technology, and natural
processes, in a lifestyle that forestalls disaster and invites a global
transformation before catastrophe strikes? Maybe, we can articulate,
implement, and live an alternative vision--that inspires rapid,
guided-evolution of human cultures? can an open-source truth process be
created, one that allows different expreiences of reality to harmonize into
commone creative purpose that is mutually nurturing and resotrative?

Love,
Orion




[email protected]
To:[email protected]@[email protected]
CC:

Subject:[Discussion] 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




_______________________________________________
Discussion mailing list
[email protected]
http://yoism.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion



_______________________________________________
Discussion mailing list
[email protected]
http://yoism.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/.DlolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]

 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/