Genova, the Azores and our Common Future

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Genova - July 2001 - had a big impact on my life, probably on anybody's life here in Italy. Several hundred thousand protested the gathering of Heads of State - the G8 - and were brutally beaten by police who had been instructed, on Bush's orders, to "be tough this time". Some of my Italian friends, Ivan and Vitale, were there and they returned shocked at the unprecedented violence that had been unleashed, by all accounts unprovoked. At the time, I said war has just been declared on the people and I wrote, enraged, that the kind of progress the mighty are talking about is not really the progress we want. At the time, one of the recurring taints thrown at the emerging global movement for justice was that it had not come up with any positive proposals.

Fast forward to Azores - January 2003 - the passage from one year to the next. Wind outside, logs crackling in the fireplace. Someone asks the question: What is it we really want? If we don't want Bush's war, we don't want "their" globalization, what can we do about it? Good question. Difficult. Susan suggests that Justice is the major problem. Prohibitionism and the non-separation of Church and State, to be exact. Agreed, but what can we do about it and what about all those other areas of life that are messed up too? We started listing them up - justice, the economy, the energy monopoly, scientific progress, the environment, health, education, ideas in the straitjacket called intellectual property, the way society is organized and how the media manages not to inform us of what's important.

We somehow knew we were not alone, but we really had no idea how many were out there thinking about the same things we did as the world slowly but very deliberately was steered towards a major conflict. "Why the war" had been written by one of those courageous souls out there. It is a lucid analysis of the reasons behind the "war on terrorism", well worth re-reading.

Brainstorming what could be done about the sorry state of affairs on this planet, the three of us, Susan, Robin and myself decided that what was missing was organization - a new kind of organization for those resisting the developments we were witnessing. Networked intelligence, swarming, not really organization at all - rather something reminiscent of a swarm of bees or a colony of ants. After all, the high and mighty would hardly have to budge at our individual efforts to effect change.

But imagine people linking up all over the place pushing things along towards a common goal - what they could do! We felt we were at the very forefront of an important movement being born. Indeed, many others were already at work, imagining our common future just like we did and even starting to build it, as we since found out. But then and there, we just had to wrap our minds around that idea and work out where such a movement would likely have to go. That was the origin of the document I am appending here, describing the interconnected areas that we believe need attention.

Robin Good and his Communication Agents project were born. Robin had already been sharing the communication technologies that are available on the internet. Communication Agents are those who put these new technologies to use to bring about positive social change.

Now what exactly is positive change, is of course exquisitely a matter of personal opinion. Here's our outline, open to change, to criticism and to further input. I know that you, too, care about our common future - your comments are more than welcome.

Areas For Change

("Change is the only constant in this universe")

We are living in interesting but also very dangerous times. A world war is not a remote possibility any more. Religious wars are in again, one could almost say, if it wasn't so obvious that most wars are really fought for economic reasons. Although the current adventure of a clique around and behind the Bush presidency ostensibly finds its justification in "fighting terrorism", the religious undertones are quite unmistakeable.

Despite official protestations to the contrary, Jews and Christians are pitted in mortal combat against the Muslim world, while all three of these religions go back to essentially the same biblical tradition! The interpretations may be different, but the story is the same. And the laws and moral concepts of each one of those religions are used to justify - more even than the threat of terrorism - the violence that fills TV screens daily.

Something is awfully wrong here. Church and State seem to have melted almost imperceptibly into one glorious mess. Islamic jihad - holy war - against Bush and his crew of re-born Christians while Sharon's Zionist faction is working in the background to keep the two main players at each others' throats. Whatever happened to the concept of separation of Church and State?

Our whole Western culture has been infected by a serious virus, the confusion between worldly law and religious or moral law. One of the most widely known documents showing that confusion is what Moses apparently received and passed on to his people as the Ten Commandments. If you look at them, you will see that worldly law (also known by the Latin name "mala in se") is quite well mixed up with religious or moral law (which is known by the term "mala prohibita"). This confusion of mala in se and mala prohibita, which has entered the law books is what justifies a concept of "different" people who are natural enemies to be eliminated by violent action. Ultimately, it is the justification for violence and - as we are experiencing - even war.

Justice has been largely perverted into a system of control. Prohibitionism - the enforcement of moral rules through criminal law - is a case in point. All kinds of behaviour thought to be morally reprehensible is prohibited by law, while personal safety and security seem to count less and less in the face of a perceived threat of "terrorism".

The rules of justice are due for overhaul. What should be on the books are laws necessary to protect the individual from outside interference, both from the State and from individuals who do not respect life, health, property and the sphere of privacy of others. What should not be on the books are moral dictates that have nothing to do with our living together in harmony. Respect for the individual and for any communities we may form should be guiding principles.

The Economy is rigged today to funnel money away from productive use by a mechanism of interest, profit and return on investment, leaving most of us to do the work while the resources end up in the pockets of a few. Even countries are indebted up to their eyeballs, many of the developing nations are so badly in debt that foreign "money providers" have come to practically own their natural resources. Closer to home, taxes have become - at least in part - simply a way to make us foot the interest-bill, with the government doing the collecting and then paying interest on the "national debt".

The economic system should, by reason of its basic set-up, favour distribution of resources, not concentration in a few hands as it currently does. Speculation should be discouraged while free and direct economical exchange should be facilitated. The creation of monetary values by credit, currently a prerogative of commercial banks, needs to either be in the hands of the state or be organised directly by and for the members of smaller communities. The interest mechanism must be eliminated by re-arranging the monetary set-up so as to promote easy circulation of money created not as a debt but as a credit.

Energy production is based almost exclusively on burning or atomically disintegrating non renewable fossil resources, such as oil, coal, gas and uranium. Alternative technologies are deliberately sabotaged in order to maintain the status quo - and the energy monopoly by a handful of multinationals.

We need networked, distributed, non polluting energy production using abundant and/or renewable fuels. Candidates are out there in abundance. A breakthrough is eminently possible if funding can be somehow drummed up for serious research in the right direction. Hydrogen seems close to breaking through but is by no means the only option.

Science is not really helping to bring about this breakthrough due to certain tenets which are "fixed in concrete". Real innovation in the energy field is not possible unless science basics be re-examined in open discussion. This would be a pre-requisite to seriously advance our way of energy production and to develop non polluting and non destructive technologies.

Added in December 2007: What we need is real innovation in technology, where abundant natural resources are put to use that will make the need for oil and the wars for its control a concern of yesterday. Much work has been going into making those abundant resources available to us, and the work is being done by individuals, not by corporations or governments.

The more conventional technologies range from energy conservation to solar, wind and water - tides, waves and river hydroelctric without a dam. A lot of work goes into making hydrogen a viable option as a transportation fuel, and into using hydrocarbons more efficiently. Battery technology is taking quantum leaps. But what is really going to bring the needed breakthrough is the shift in thinking that is brewing in the undercurrents. Some are bold enough to think that such forces as gravity, magnetism, and even the energy inherent in space all over the universe can be harnessed for our purposes.

Whatever the breakthrough tech