Re: I agree very much with the thrust of rkm's draft manifesto

    12/17/2000, Geoff Holland  wrote: > I agree very much with
    the thrust of Richard K Moore's draft manifesto.
    
Dear Geoff,

Many thanks for joining in this discussion.  I subscribe to
IGFR and find it a good source of information.  I notice
that you published a critique of my 'manifesto' on IFGR, but
did you publish the manifesto itself?  (I didn't receive a
copy that sorted into my IGFR mailbox.)

Let me respond first to one of your later comments:
    > do people feel all this is directly relevant to the World
    Systems Network list ?  Not very theoretical.  I would hate
    to see the wsn list lose its own specific-theory focus. 
    Perhaps there is a more appropriate list, or we need to
    create one..

There are an infinte number of forums on the net, we hardly
need a new one.  I've snooped around a lot, and what I've
found is that there is _nowhere ideally suited to discussing
the heart of issues.  Some places are too theoretical;
others are too matter-of-fact; others are too focused on one
issue such as sustainability, or whatever.  The
conclusion I've come to is that you've got to ride the waves
wherever they happen to break.  _You might want to sample the 
cj list, which you can find out about on our website 
(http://cyberjournal.org).

WSN, although frequently academic and theoretical, happens
to be populated by real humans whose root concern seems to be the
salavation of humanity.  Is it so bad that we lapse into
practicality from time to time?  And is anyone stopping
others from continuing to post whatever they want?  Is there
a problem?

---

    > ... 'government-fearing', if like 'God-fearing' suggests
    respect for government. I think you mean 'anti-government'. 
    I don't know how closely they mesh with the broader
    progressive movement.  Non-violence is definitely a
    pre-requisite (with grey areas to be defined in terms of
    damage to property.  Probably Greenpeace criteria useful
    here).  I also don't believe the general movement is
    anti-government.  The survivalist anti-government militia
    types have fascist links.  The Oklahoma bombing came out of
    this stream.  They are not anarchists in the sense of an
    intelligent, educated and discerning anarchist tradition.

Thank you so much for articulating this issue so well.  Yes,
'anti-government' is what I was trying to say.  No they do
not 'mesh' with the broader progressive movement, far from
it.  But consider... are these people to be left out of a
new world?  Are we going to jettison them as so much
un-educatable flotsam?  Or would you like to win power and
then coerce them into politically-correct liberal ways?  No!
- they have as much right to help envision the new world as
you or I do, and as much right to be a part of it.  They may
be in fact the closest thing to 'proletariat' that we will
find in the modern Western world.

What I have come to understand is that the grass-roots right
is simply that segment of the population most susceptible to
nostaligic populist propaganda, and that segment with the
strongest yearning for a robust civil society.  In churches,
and in conservative populists, they seek anchors in the
face of the modern world's estrangement.  Such people are
indeed the potential consitutency for a fascist power grab,
because fascists know how to cater to the instinctual
fears and desires of these people.

If we do not include them in the movement, then they will
become the foot soldiers of our reactionary opposition, and our
nemesis.  In fact, the elite regime has long been exploiting
our differences, in anticipation of the movement whose birth
we are now discussing.  In the strategic game, we have been
under attack for years, even if we have yet to join the
battle.

The harmonization of the grass-roots right & left is the
single most momentous event that will spark the beginning of
the revolution in earnest.  When conservatives understand
that weaker central government and local democracy are one
and the same thing, that will be the turning point.  When
liberals step down from their elitism, and their paranoia of
a monolithic right, then dialog will become possible.


    > The broad movement for change is vulnerable to internal
    division, eg generated by sophisticated and well-resourced
    intelligence agencies with decades of experience in social
    maniplation and psychological warfare.
    
Duly noted.    
  
---  

    > activists constitute about 0.05% of global population, and
    perhaps 80% of the population don't even understand what we
    are on about let alone sympathise with the goals. 

.05% x 4.5 billion = 2.25 million!  That's plenty to get
things going.  I'm not at all discouraged by the 'apathetic
masses'.  Consider... they are deluged 24-hours a day with
99 digital channels of sophisticated propaganda.  They have
no alternative models before them, and they are told that
what-is is inevitable.  Alternative voices are
systematically discredited, and all events are woven into a
persuasive media illusion of 'progress'.

If 'the masses' were stupid, then that much propaganda would
not be required.  I talk to people in airports, and in
coffee shops.  I don't find empty minds; I find isolated
minds.  They don't like what's happening in the world, and
you might be surprised at how quickly their creative
political thinking can be aroused.  I suggest that our
primary obstacle is disharmony within the movement itself -
if that is overcome, then we can get on with the business of
outward communication.


    > As I see it the longterm goal is grassroots participatory
    democracy. I just think we are at least 50 years off. (Hope 
    I am wrong).

The truth, and I imagine you'd agree, is that you don't have
a clue how far off we are, or if we'll ever get there. 
You guess 50 years, in the way one might guess about an
earthquake or a volcanic eruption.  I say that a tree grows
when the seed is present. Until the seed is present, it will
never grow.  Once the seed is present, then growth can be
surprisingly rapid.

---

    > The good news is that the elite progressives/NGOs seem to
    be having a reasonable impact on the conventional capitalist
    elite.  The current regime is vulnerable to widespread
    debate, good arguments backed with solid studies and
    statistics.

I wish.  I suspect you may be referring to the fake "We hear
you" rhetoric that Clinton began even before he had left
Seattle.  Up until Seattle, the PR campaign for
globalization had only one rule: the less said the better.
Post Seattle we now have pro-globalization apologia as well
as pseudo anti-globalization sympathizing.   Meanwhile the
globalization steamroller moves forward as always, as the EU
gets its own imperialist military arm, and the OAS votes on a
hemishperical free-trade agreement.  We come forward with
statitics; they rebut us with an Emperor Bush II.


  > I don't see ascendancy of new political parties in the 
    medium turn.  

Notice that you are assuming a 'political party' is both
advisable and necessary, as a means of realizing popular
power - once it is somehow aroused.  You may be right, but I
suggest the assumption needs to be examined.  I submit that
factional parties are divisive, and that the
party-competitive system is designed specifically to enable
usurpation of power by central power brokers.  It was not
political parties which enabled the Eastern Europeans to
oust the Soviet-era regimes.

yours,
rkm