after the tipping point...
...will be the age of the hare brained geo engineering project. there are many corporations out there who are laying low until we pass the tipping point, then they'll pop out of the woodwork asking for billions to stop the inevitable catastrophe - and they'll get them. There'll be a few decades of the this period - between being committed to runaway climate change and actually passing the tipping point. we need to think now what we're going to say about this, pick and choose which schemes we like or resist this appraoch completely and demand we spend all the money on development and adaptation. of course we need to contine to argue to keep pushing renewables and low carbon options in order to slow down the inevitable, but we still need to decide if can we tolerate the kind of geo engineering schemes that will be proposed?
who are Greenpeace
i've heard a few grumblings around about Greenpeace not doing enough actions, i thought i'd wait until that had been comprehensively disproved (as it has been in the last few weeks here and here) before responding on the the general point of where i see Greenpeace fitting in.
when i first joined GP i was slightly surprised by how keen they were to be seen as respectable and respected policy thinkers, but it quickly became cear to me that years of hard work and detailed knowedge meant that that position was inevitable. There was still some way to go with getting the media and public to catch up (certain sections of the media were still cautious and much of the public still think it's all ships and whales) but the process was in it's final phase.
Then, after conversations with one or 2 staff and volunteers i wondered whether GP should be aspiring to be a mere 'think-tank' - it was more than that, and uniquely for such a large international NGO was about taking action rather than lobbying. If anything it should be going back to it's roots of concentrating on actions and allowing the others to do all the political, lobbying policy type stuff.
However, I now realise that this mis reads Greenpeace's historical and contemporary role. Greenpeace has always been first and foremost an organisation that puts pressure on the bad guys to do the right thing - in essence lobbying them, except it uses a lobbying tool that others don't - actions that are always highly visible and sometimes also act directly on the problem.
So, GP is not a direct action movement, it (almost) never has been - except perhaps the very first activities stopping nuclear tests, after those very quickly the action became simply a tool, albeit an important one.
GP is also not a 'movement' it is a really quite small organisation that has loads of supporters. This is one of it's strengths, it keeps it focussed and says 'we do what we do, if you agree support us, if not then don't'. movements involve everyone and are open and have certain strengths through that, but GP (in the the UK at least) is really no more than 20-30 people, giving it a huge amount of strategic integrity. This kind of centralisation isn't for everyone, but many people who support GP are also members of 'movements' as well, they support GP because it works bloody well at what it does, the mistake, made by the author of the link at the top, is to mis interpret what it does.
when i first joined GP i was slightly surprised by how keen they were to be seen as respectable and respected policy thinkers, but it quickly became cear to me that years of hard work and detailed knowedge meant that that position was inevitable. There was still some way to go with getting the media and public to catch up (certain sections of the media were still cautious and much of the public still think it's all ships and whales) but the process was in it's final phase.
Then, after conversations with one or 2 staff and volunteers i wondered whether GP should be aspiring to be a mere 'think-tank' - it was more than that, and uniquely for such a large international NGO was about taking action rather than lobbying. If anything it should be going back to it's roots of concentrating on actions and allowing the others to do all the political, lobbying policy type stuff.
However, I now realise that this mis reads Greenpeace's historical and contemporary role. Greenpeace has always been first and foremost an organisation that puts pressure on the bad guys to do the right thing - in essence lobbying them, except it uses a lobbying tool that others don't - actions that are always highly visible and sometimes also act directly on the problem.
So, GP is not a direct action movement, it (almost) never has been - except perhaps the very first activities stopping nuclear tests, after those very quickly the action became simply a tool, albeit an important one.
GP is also not a 'movement' it is a really quite small organisation that has loads of supporters. This is one of it's strengths, it keeps it focussed and says 'we do what we do, if you agree support us, if not then don't'. movements involve everyone and are open and have certain strengths through that, but GP (in the the UK at least) is really no more than 20-30 people, giving it a huge amount of strategic integrity. This kind of centralisation isn't for everyone, but many people who support GP are also members of 'movements' as well, they support GP because it works bloody well at what it does, the mistake, made by the author of the link at the top, is to mis interpret what it does.
what's the best way to start the process?
let's say that democratic communities are 100-150 people and that that they could possibly federate together through a 'spokes' system of 50-100.
what's the best way to start the process?
i think one good approach is to split up into areas of about 15,000 (borough wards are about this size) and find a group of people who are interested in starting out, then over time try to find people in each of the 100 or so communities and gradually build the capacity of what will eventually make these the sovereign communities. This approach gives a context for activists and residents that may live close by, but not live in the same street or block to make a start, they will be able to engage people from the whole community and then help to build core communities when numbers start to grow.
maybe we should aim to start by identifying and supporting a small group of ward size areas with a good concentration of interested people / campaigns / resources?
obviously this is all for discussion at the first meeting, but these are just a few thoughts
--
what's the best way to start the process?
i think one good approach is to split up into areas of about 15,000 (borough wards are about this size) and find a group of people who are interested in starting out, then over time try to find people in each of the 100 or so communities and gradually build the capacity of what will eventually make these the sovereign communities. This approach gives a context for activists and residents that may live close by, but not live in the same street or block to make a start, they will be able to engage people from the whole community and then help to build core communities when numbers start to grow.
maybe we should aim to start by identifying and supporting a small group of ward size areas with a good concentration of interested people / campaigns / resources?
obviously this is all for discussion at the first meeting, but these are just a few thoughts
--
why previous attempts at communes or intentional communities fail / succeed
answer to one of the questions and problems in bringing about real democracy
http://wordgravity.blogspot.com/2007/09/beyond-intentional-community-conscious.html
i believe that this is quite important - so much is put into building perfection, but this is unattainable and anyway - a group of people each of whom almost certainly have a slightly different view of what perfection is, which will change over time, means that these communities are brittle. communities that are diverse to start with and focus on pragmatic needs first are more more likely to thrive and last.
"One of the sticking points i had with intentional community was a sense that at its very core, it was all about control. If you just get the right people, the right place, the right leadership, the right processes, the right economy, and so on, you can have the nirvana-esque community experience of your dreams. Those folks who failed, well, they just made mistakes in judgement--poor planning--bad personality mix...you've heard it. I propose that the reason most intentional communities fail, is that the meaning of intentional, implies at its deepest (unconscious) level the belief in control. And anybody who has taken a look at living ecologies of relationship can see that they are complex systems whose order emerges organically out of chaotic conditions always present at some level. It is the confusion of harmony with changeless bliss. Harmony is NOT static. It is the dynamic tension within healthy ecologies of relationship."
http://wordgravity.blogspot.com/2007/09/beyond-intentional-community-conscious.html
i believe that this is quite important - so much is put into building perfection, but this is unattainable and anyway - a group of people each of whom almost certainly have a slightly different view of what perfection is, which will change over time, means that these communities are brittle. communities that are diverse to start with and focus on pragmatic needs first are more more likely to thrive and last.
20(ish) questions and problems in bringing about real democracy
- why previous attempts at communes or intentional communities fail / succeed
- how do we make real democracy something useful to groups working on local campaigns
- how do we move from democratic single issue campaigns where everyone essentially agrees, to geographically based democratic communities (DCs).
- should DCs be geographically based at all, what are the alternatives
- what size should DCs be
- how can DCs claim legitimacy when only a small proportion of people in an area are involved
- what can DCs do to try and be representative of people that are not yet involved
- how do DCs encourage people to get involved.
- how do DCs interact with existing structures (especially those that call themselves 'democratic')
- what can DCs actually do for their members and wider society rather than being talking shops
- how can we answer the critics who see small communities as backward looking, tribal, inefficient etc
- wont people be spending their whole life doing meetings and administration - leaving no time for productive work?
- should DCs aim for complete self sufficiency
- how do we prevent DCs coming into conflict with neighbouring communities
- what structures can we build to help democratic communities work together, without these larger scale structures becoming like current hierachies
- when we have truly DCs what's to stop them doing the things we criticise current states for (aggression, repression etc)
- who is a member of a community - residents, visitors, family/friends of residents - what rights should they have (IE should visitiors be welcome but denied the right to block) how do we define that?
- do all members have instant involvement (should people who move in have equal rights straight away, can new born babies block motions !?)
- how should DCs deal with dissent - should they exclude people (from processes or in extreme cases completely exile them) what alternatives might there be to this
- should decisions be binding
- how can people be 'accountable'
- how should communities deal with immigration, when more people might impede or eventually prevent consensus decision making)
- should democratic communities allow themselves to divide / combine - (surely combining could lead to building state or large corporation type structures)
local sovereignty developing into a campaign idea
after exchanging a few emails, the local sovereignty idea is starting to take shape into an actual, practical campaign idea.
name ideas -
campaign for local consensus government
campaign for real democracy
consensus works
twin track approach
1) giving people involved in local campaigns (who are almost certainly being frustrated by what passes for 'democracy') both a tool to help with their campaign and a broader goal that could stop the kind of things they're campaigning against happening again.
2) giving people who have seen true democracy working (such as climate camp) a mechanism for spreading it
and bringing these 2 groups together
firstly with a questionnaire / mapping project of campaigns in london
communicating with people with a general desire to achieve real democracy (anarchists and others that might have experienced consesnsus decision making at places like climate camp)
then a meeting / conference entitled something like 'from single issue campaigns to real democracy'
name ideas -
campaign for local consensus government
campaign for real democracy
consensus works
twin track approach
1) giving people involved in local campaigns (who are almost certainly being frustrated by what passes for 'democracy') both a tool to help with their campaign and a broader goal that could stop the kind of things they're campaigning against happening again.
2) giving people who have seen true democracy working (such as climate camp) a mechanism for spreading it
and bringing these 2 groups together
firstly with a questionnaire / mapping project of campaigns in london
communicating with people with a general desire to achieve real democracy (anarchists and others that might have experienced consesnsus decision making at places like climate camp)
then a meeting / conference entitled something like 'from single issue campaigns to real democracy'
what we need is much much more bureaucracy
as usual the talk around the budget includes promises of 'cutting back on government waste' and 'slashing bureaucracy' from all sides and to a point i agree - most of the current bureaucracy is a waste, but that's because there isn't enough of it.
The problem is the level it rests at - a nation of 60 million or borough of 100,000 with very little power means that any administration is either totally separated from the needs of real people or totally without influence. what people need is a bureaucracy they can see working and really be involved in that takes real decisions. Then people won't mind how big it is, because it'll be working for them and nobody minds working to make their own life / community better. If 'government' was done at this level (no more than a few thousand people and with real power equivalent to those currently held at the level of the state) then everyone would constantly be arguing and discussing 'politics' and 'governance' and 'budgets' only we probably wouldn't call them that - we'd probably just call it 'life' and 'community', and all the things that are part of that.
The problem is the level it rests at - a nation of 60 million or borough of 100,000 with very little power means that any administration is either totally separated from the needs of real people or totally without influence. what people need is a bureaucracy they can see working and really be involved in that takes real decisions. Then people won't mind how big it is, because it'll be working for them and nobody minds working to make their own life / community better. If 'government' was done at this level (no more than a few thousand people and with real power equivalent to those currently held at the level of the state) then everyone would constantly be arguing and discussing 'politics' and 'governance' and 'budgets' only we probably wouldn't call them that - we'd probably just call it 'life' and 'community', and all the things that are part of that.
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