Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gary Horvitz on October 26, 2011 at 10:08pm

 

 

Reply by Bob Slaughter greentheearth.org

 

Perhaps general consensus or at least a large majority agreement could be reached 

on a variety of issues presented as online referendums to vote on or as polls;

People’s Polls or Peoples Referendum. 

 

Should there be an immediate moratorium on home foreclosures?

Yes___   No___

 

Should we allow the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline to the Texas Gulf to be built?

Yes___   No___

 

Should we allow the license of any existing nuclear power plants to be extended?

Yes___   No___

 

Should funding of the US war in Afghanistan and Iraq be extended?

Yes___   No___

 

Should there be an immediate moratorium on “mountain top removal” coal mining?

Yes___   No___

 

Should there be an immediate moratorium on capital punishment?

Yes___   No___

 

Should there be an immediate moratorium on the use of drone warfare?

Yes___   No___

 

Should inalienable rights be granted to nature?

Yes___   No___

 

Referendums or polls could address issues such as: 

• rights of all people to clean air, food & water
• rights of basic health care
• accountability and liability of undue injury or death inflicted on world citizens by police, military, corporations, government officials, etc.
• conversion from oil, coal, gas and nuclear to renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, tidal, ocean thermal, etc.
• massive government infusion of capital investment into a new green economy

 

These are just ideas. Does anyone care to brainstorm?

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Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on October 27, 2011 at 9:39am

Unless I misunderstand our purpose here, while these are all about the fundamentals that we need to address, theye are too specific atthis point..beginning with agendas and specific positions never gets us to the underlying foudational principles.

Having said that, at TED Conversations we had a google moderator which allowed a running tally on a global values referendum..it was accessible.  Could you host that as part of Occupy Cafe and perhaps we could somehow keep it featured.  

I am dying to host /co-host a global conversation on the truth of the Keystone Pipeline.  Would you like to co-construct that for a TED Conversation ?

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Gary Horvitz on October 27, 2011 at 12:56pm

Lindsey, you are a fountain of ideas and your presence here is lighting the place up.

This thread was intended as a space for the entire conversation on the foundations of a new economy. It's getting alot of attention lately and  this is a great place to air it out--I hope.

Beyond that, I am not familiar with your other references, although of course we are open to hosting anything that grabs interest. Featuring? We are so new it's hard to say what featuring means or how much can be featured.

As for info on the pipeline, please feel free to bring any information here that generally serves the purpose of this site--I know that 350.org is a good source.

 

best,

gary 

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Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on October 30, 2011 at 9:21am

Gary,

 

My apologies for the gap in follow up .

Here is a link to a google moderator poll we set up at TED Conversation on  core values.  Very easy to set up and allows both for voting on what is posted as well as visitor additions to the list that then become part of voting.  I like your idea..not much trouble to set up a poll and we could publish the link to it at the home page...there were some surprises as you can see at the TED poll. 

http://www.google.com/moderator/#15/e=8649b&t=8649b.40&f=86...

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Permalink Reply by Vic Desotelle on November 7, 2011 at 1:12pm

Hi Bob,

Sounds like you have begun defining a charter for helping 'Occupy' move forward by initiating a set of inquiries and proposed guidelines that address the varied domains that make up a community, such as energy. I have an outline of community domains at this link to show you what I mean by domains, used as a way create a design ecology to help world reformation. Note I do not know how to include the issue of 'capital punishment'.You might have some ideas.

Anyway, how might you get input from others? You might try putting your questions into a poll or survey that brings in other's input? There are apps here in Ning to do that.

Vic Desotelle

 

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Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on October 27, 2011 at 10:26am

good idea Gary to start a separate thread and I like the title"Exploring the Heart of Sustainability"..but if we are talking "new economy" should we add "economic" to the title of the thread" Exploring the Heart of Economic Sustainability"

A huge topic and I know from my experience at TED Conversations it can get very hard for newcomers to track the devlopment of the conversation and join in  without clear sub threads.  Should we first work on developing a list of major headings or categories we could then develop further

e.g

 restoring and strengthening environmental protections(clkean air/clean water, protection of water resources, protection of ocean s and ocean habitats.

deprivatizing and dis aggregating food production( breaking down the big fod monoplolies, taking apart public  subsidies that do not directly reduce prices and provide food access;halting genetically modified seeds, looking to more organic less toxic methods of incresaing yields and building resistence to drougt & Insects); reallocating governemnet susbsidy toward  small local and organic.

dis aggregation of financial systems restoring pre-2000 protections, breaking up the too big to fail  banks/fostering and supporting community retail banks that focus on the credit needs of small businesses and local communities.; reformation of central banks to make then more accountable to 99% needs and economic opportunities; not allowing pure speculation in any public markets; rebuilding the wall beween banking and speculation ( ie bringing back glass stegall with a modernity that is compatible with global markets)

taking the fat and  excess profit out of health care through improved transarency and quuality control; disaggregating and refocsuing health care on preventive care and sound nutrition for the 100%.

preparing for tomorrow's jobs..reinvesting in education.with a focus on emerging technologes; .de privatizing student loans; reinvesting in pre-k and early childhood education

refocusing and expediting our transition away from from oil and towards endlessly renewable and universally accessible local sources of energy.( including changing our technology for building, changing our technology for mass tarnsit,phasing out oil dependent no recyclable platics et etc.removing all subsides for oil ..reallocating all fees from licences toward new energy technologies)

closing out the dominance of private interests in our legsltaive and regulatory processes through increased transparency, not allowing any camapiagn funds or donation sof any kind by lobbyists to government officias. ( when I was on the banking board we weren't even allowed, as board members) to accept dinners above a certain value and had to full out full disclsoure every year of our personal holdings that might conflict with our duty as board members); possibly a constittional ammendment to better insulate our constitution and our legilstaive processes from private control.

 Not a complete list by anymeans..just to illustrate what kinds of major categories for further development we might identify under "the heart of economic sustainabiity"..what do you think?

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Gary Horvitz on October 27, 2011 at 3:47pm

Lindsay, I have several intentions at work here. Aside from the fact that I am unable to edit the title of this thread-until admin access on this site is expanded -- I would suggest that including the term "economic" into the title would be redundant. My position is that in order to arrive at true sustanability, we must revise the financial system. So the heart of sustainability for me is the transformation of our essential orientation to our financial transactions.

As for the rest of your list, it reads like a litany of everything that's wrong or needs fixing. And we could certainly attend to that, though there is also tons of information to be found elsewhere. In the context of the emerging Occupy movement, though, my interest is more in the direction of creating something new. What would the foundation principles be? What are the alternatives to the money system we have now? Where are these alternatives being tested? How do we scale up?

All that. And more.

At the same time, I am also inviting  the conversation that was already occurring to continue here.

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Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on October 27, 2011 at 4:09pm

HI Gary,

 

The something new is implied n the theme of dis aggregating the big dominant forces..de funding them, defusing them..the redirection to  local community, true small business, local economies that can find thei own place on the global economy ( eg one of our local lobster dealers has made his own huge international contract with china for  lobster .he didn't have to be owned by a big food company to make this market and my little island community will benefit from it no tjust in jobs but in an enhanced boat price for lobster for evry fisherman out there on the water..we could with a little incubation  support and start up (venture capital money) maybe bring higher value added through pricessing here instead of shipping most of our lobsters to Canada for processing whether tey get the value added)..it's implied in the shift of focus to reinvest in our youth..preparing them for key future jobs..jobs that will grow and be central to future economies..reinvesting in them instead of burdening them with debt; it's implied in re-regulatingbanks and financial markets away from pure financialization ( increases in GDP with no increases in jobs) markets and a huge shift.

All of these are  part of "new democracy" a democracy that co exists  with and partcipates in global markets, a new democracy that transcends the two party system and serves the 99%; a new democracy that recognizes and embraces and finds creativity and transformation in our new pluralistic global reality, a new democracy that is fully trasparent and fully safe from mainpulation by outside interests whose ambitions and plans hurt rather than enhance the lives of the 99%..the future generations of us 99% ers.

In Maine we have a sying "you can't get they'ah from he'ah"

We can't get to the new democracy until we dismantle the present plutocracy.  

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Permalink Reply by Robert Riversong on October 30, 2011 at 9:58pm

"Should inalienable rights be granted to nature?" This question is predicated on the current human-dominated paradigm.

Perhaps we'd do better turning the question around: Should nature grant humans inalienable rights, or have we so completely misused them that they should be abrogated? 

I would suggest that "the heart of sustainability" has far less to do with economic structures or organization than it does with "the heart". Until we have a true change of heart about our proper place in, and relationship to, the Web-of-Life, there is no chance for creating a sustainable human culture. 

The structures and institutions will follow organically once we get out of our heads and return to our senses. 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Occupy Cafe Stewards on October 30, 2011 at 11:54pm

Precisely, Robert. Thank you. The heart of sustainability has something to do with the heart. That's why I put that word in there. It has something to do with the transformation of the individual in ways that embody our true relationship with the web of life, that put to rest the myth of separation that has been driving our economy and begin to  nurture the spirit of the gift.

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Permalink Reply by Lindsay Newland Bowker on October 31, 2011 at 6:53am

Aerin's essay, Hablamos de la Communidad, points to  the very heart of sustainable economies . what I mean by disaggregation (breaking up the control of food, medical care, etc.); what I meant in my post yesterday about this seed being planted that we should leave our communities and go where the jobs are.is the same thing Aerin is writing about.

Community is the furnace of the new sustaianable economy.  In the language of one of Aerins colleagues at her wonderful website..we have to walk out on privatization, on control by conglomerates and walk in on systems that build and serve community.

Aerin invites us to look at the ancient to build the new.  Wisdom there too on what sustainability means at its heart.  What the ancients worked out in separate tribal communities all pover the world does, as Aerin suggests hold the blue print for our new global tribe of the 99%.

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Permalink Reply by Aerin Dunford on October 31, 2011 at 12:37pm

Hi Lindsay,

Could you send me a link to the post that you made yesterday about the planted seed? I would love to take a look at that. As I read your post above, and what I think is implicit in the idea of comunalidad here in Oaxaca has something very important to do with scale. So the disaggregation piece seems to be at the core of many of the actions that you are referring to. I wonder if we need to take a look at some of our values ... for instance, do we hold underlying (perhaps limiting) beliefs that bigger is better?

I also have lots of questions about the nature of cities. I believe that the idea that we can (or would even want to) "disaggregate" cities is probably not all that likely at this point in human history. Where do we find examples of thriving communities (which demonstrate some of the qualities included in the ideology of comunalidad) in the heart of our cities?

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