Re: DRAFT FRAMEWORK

Response to Richard K Moore's:

At 08:45 PM 12/17/2000 +0000, you wrote:
>>    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

I don't think it is a question of leaving any one out, but to define 
the core vision - a flexible ideology or meta-ideology (based on 
democracy, human rights, minimum levels of equity, rights of future 
generations, environmental sustainability etc etc.)  

A 'meta-ideology' because it can encompass anarchism, socialism, 
social-democracy, various theocratic/spiritual political philosophies, 
deep ecology etc.

Where people differ from the core vision (eg elements of racism, 
fascism, advocation of violence etc creeping in) we can enter into dialogue 
to come to new levels of understanding, but we also need to differentiate, 
and say the ideals and philosophy that led to the Oklahoma bombing 
are misconceived in the same way as preditory capitalism, and 
corporate fascism are misconceived. 



>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.
>
>
>>    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.  

My observation of
- the level of political awareness at the grassroots levels
- the general interest in significant political change and 
- willingness to learn and participate

is that it is *not strong*.  My sense is that to construct grassroots 
democracy takes decades, much as constructing a national 
democracy in a traditional (eg historically tribal) society, or 
one distorted by colonialism, takes decades.

A revolution that manages to succeed by inflaming populist 
passions and hence popular support, no matter how worthy the 
leaders/vanguard - is not a true grassroots revolution.

I am not intending to be negative.  I hope to emphasise the enormous 
effort required to construct true grassroots democracy - aside from the 
resistance of the elite (who currently offer us tokenistic 'community 
consultation').  It requires new values, ethics, ideals, forms of 
communication, decision-making processes, futures thinking, 
commitment to community, new ways of organising time, work, 
lifestyles, remuneration, *to allow and encourage people to participate* 
etc etc etc.  If the politicians and bureaucrats turned around 
tomorrow and said, 'ok go for it', there would likely be a mute response.

The NGO networks we see today have taken at least three decades to 
evolve.  Grassroots democracy is likely to take at least that long again.

>  > 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.
>

I actually feel more can be done/ is being done outside the political 
party system.

Perhaps we are not moving from hierarchy/party-factional politics 
to network, spontaneous / consensus politics, but rather a blending 
of the two paradigms.  The rise of Green parties in Europe (and to a
lesser extent elsewhere) who generally espouse the emerging 
worldview, is not a mistake but a parallel complimentary phenomenon 
to the NGO/activist-network movement.

In this I sympathise with Warren Wagar - finally we are going to need 
spokespeople - ie leaders/representatives and (I add) some sort of 
bureaucratic machinery, as Green parties and large NGOs have.  
Perhaps the hierarchies are flattened somewhat, and the bureaucracy more 
flexible and consultative.  

Even something relatively simple as a Seattle protest rally requires  
core organisers and leaders, and is not the seemingly spontaneous 
manifestation that brought down the Berlin wall.

Best wishes,
Geoff Holland
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