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Economic Turning
It is fortuitous that the human species has achieved the means to collectively choose to free itself from Empire’s seemingly inexorable compete-or-die logic at the precise moment we face the imperative to do so. The speed at which institutional and technological advances have created possibilities wholly new to the human experience is stunning. The Values shift of the cultural turning leads us to redefine wealth - to measure it by family, community and environment health. It leads us from policies that raise those at the top to policies that raise those at the bottom, from hoarding to sharing, from concentrated to distributed ownership, and from the rights of ownership to the responsibilities of stewardship. (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o the UP! is a global edutainment round-up, broadcast weekly to =[14,126]= Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age// Peace folks recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity// Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since recipients forward it widely to their own lists & sites, we conservatively estimate 50,000+ direct recipients. A further 40,000 read it on the YOUniversity's site. And, because of its 'mix' of 'specialist' & 'general' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making an estimated total weekly readership of =[275,000]= (\o/)(\o/)\(o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o 60 YEARS AGO we created the United Nations, which, for all its imperfections, makes it possible for the first time for representatives of all the world’s nations and people to meet in a neutral space to resolve differences through dialogue rather than force of arms. 50 YEARS AGO our species ventured into space, from where we could look back and see ourselves as one people, sharing a common destiny, on a living space ship. IN 10 YEARS our communications technologies have given us the ability, should we choose to use it, to link every human on the planet into a seamless web of nearly costless communication and cooperation. Already our new technological capability has made possible the interconnection of the millions of people who are learning to work as a dynamic, self-directing social organism that transcends boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality, and functions as a shared conscience of the species. Let’s call this social organism Global Civil Society. On February 15, 2003, it brought more than 10 million people to the streets of the world’s cities and villages to demand peace in the face of the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Through social processes never before possible on such a scale, they accomplished this monumental collective action without a central organisation, budget, or charismatic leader. Forget that it failed to stop the Empire’s Dinosaurs, this was but a foretaste of the possibilities for radically new forms of partnership organisation now within reach. Break The Silence, End The Isolation, Change The Story
We humans live by stories. The key to making a choice for Earth Community is recognising that the foundation of Empire’s power does not lie in its instruments of physical violence. It lies in Empire’s ability to control the stories by which we define ourselves and our possibilities in order to perpetuate the myths on which the legitimacy of the dominator relations of Empire depend. To change the human future, we must change our defining stories. [cont below]WATCH THE DINOS FALL, ONE BY ONE AND IN GROUPS
Cheney Might Have To Testify in Leak Case Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday he might have to testify in the CIA leak trial of his former chief of staff. Cheney made the comment in a CNN interview, following last month's suggestion by prosecutors that he would be a logical witness in the case of I. Lewis Libby, who is accused of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062306J.shtml Story Power
For 5,000 years, the ruling class has cultivated, rewarded, and amplified the voices of those storytellers whose stories affirm the righteousness of Empire and deny the higher-order potentials of our nature that would allow us to live with one another in peace and cooperation. There have always been those among us who sense the possibilities of Earth Community, but their stories have been marginalised or silenced by Empire’s instruments of intimidation. The stories endlessly repeated by Empire’s scribes become the stories most believed. Stories of more hopeful possibilities go unheard or unheeded, and those who discern the truth are unable to identify and support one another in the common cause of truth telling. Fortunately, the new communications technologies are breaking this pattern. As truth-tellers reach a wider audience, the myths of Empire become harder to maintain.>> SO RECOMMEND SOMEONE for the UP! 2DAY!!!!!!!!!! The struggle to define the prevailing cultural stories largely defines contemporary cultural politics, particularly in the United States where a far-right alliance of elitist corporate plutocrats and religious theocrats has gained control of the political discourse. They have not done this by force of their numbers, which are relatively small, but by controlling the stories by which the prevailing culture defines the pathway to prosperity, security, and meaning. In each instance, the far right’s favoured versions of these stories affirm the dominator relations of Empire. Political Turning
The economic turning creates the necessary conditions for a turn from a one-dollar, one-vote democracy to a one-person, one-vote democracy, from passive to active citizenship, from competition for individual advantage to cooperation for mutual advantage, from retributive justice to restorative justice, and from social order by coercion to social order by mutual responsibility and accountability. The Imperial Story
The Imperial Prosperity Story says that an eternally growing economy benefits everyone. To grow the economy, we need wealthy people who can invest in enterprises that create jobs.>> heard that a couple of times? :) Thus, we must support the wealthy by cutting their taxes and eliminating regulations that create barriers to accumulating wealth. We must also reduce or eliminate welfare programs in order to teach the poor the value of working hard at whatever wages the market “can afford”. The Imperial Security Story tells of a dangerous world, filled with criminals, terrorists, and enemies. Only through major expenditures on the military/police can we insure our safety, and we can only maintain order by physical force. The Imperial Meaning Story reinforces the other two, featuring a Male God who rewards righteousness with wealth and power, and mandates that they rule over the poor who justly suffer divine punishment for their sins. >> we haven’t mentioned Xtianity, but that, as all UPpies well know, lurks behind and has ‘justified’ the whole thing for the past 1500 years. These stories all serve to alienate us from the community of life, and deny the positive potentials of our nature, while affirming the legitimacy >> and Inevitably of economic inequality, the use of physical force to maintain imperial order, and the special righteousness of those in power. >> the so-called “wealth producers”. The Earth Community Story
It is not enough to debate the details of tax and education policies, budgets, war, and trade agreements in search of a positive political agenda. Nor is it enough to craft slogans with broad mass appeal aimed at winning the next election or policy debate. We must infuse the mainstream culture with stories of Earth Community. As the stories of Empire nurture a culture of domination, the stories of Earth Community nurture a culture of partnership. They affirm the positive potentials of our human nature, and show that realising true prosperity, security, and meaning depends on creating vibrant, caring, interlinked communities that support all persons in realising their full humanity. Sharing the joyful news of our human possibilities through word and action is perhaps the most important aspect of the Great Work of our time. Changing the prevailing stories in the United States may be easier to accomplish than we might think. The apparent political divisions notwithstanding, U.S. polling data reveal a startling degree of consensus on key issues. 83% of Americans believe that as a society the United States is focused on the wrong priorities. Supermajorities want to see greater priority given to children, family, community, and a healthy environment. Americans also want a world that puts people ahead of profits, spiritual values ahead of financial values, and international cooperation ahead of international domination. These Earth Community values are in fact widely shared by both conservatives and liberals. [cont below] Web Accessibility Soon Mandatory In Europe?
America is on the wrong course not because Americans have the wrong values, but because of remnant imperial institutions that give unaccountable power to a small alliance of right-wing extremists who call themselves conservative and claim to support family and community values, but whose preferred economic and social policies constitute a ruthless war against children, families, communities, and the environment. The 25 European Commission member states and 9 accession countries have all signed up for an "Internet for all" action plan, designed to ensure that the most Web-disadvantaged groups can get online. The EC has pledged to increase broadband coverage across the continent to 90% by 2010. CNET news.com June 15, 2006 >> humanity needs everybody else to catch up a LOT more than it needs a few to get even faster. don’t bother mentioning the thought to most americans tho :( The distinctive human capacity for reflection and intentional choice carries a corresponding moral responsibility to care for one another and the planet. Indeed, our deepest desire is to live in loving relationships with one another. The hunger for loving families and communities is a powerful, but latent, unifying force and the potential foundation of a winning political coalition dedicated to creating societies that support every person in actualising his or her highest potential. >> the pursuit of happiness. In these turbulent and often frightening times, it is important to remind ourselves that we are privileged to live at the most exciting moment in the whole of the human experience. We have the opportunity to turn away from Empire and to embrace Earth Community as a conscious collective choice. We are the ones we have been waiting for. David Korten is co-founder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network. This article draws from his newly released book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. www.yesmagazine.org/greatturning Bishop Tutu On Palestine
“I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it so reminded me of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. . . I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. . . My heart aches. I ask why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden? Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice. We in South Africa had a relatively peaceful transition. If our madness could end as it did, it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world. If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land? http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,706911,00.html Chomsky On Iran A Fair & Negotiated Solution To The Iranian Nuclear Crisis Is Within Reach The US must take 3 basic steps to defuse this confrontation. The consequences of not doing so could be grim Till the end of the Shah 1979, Washington strongly supported these programmes. Today the standard claim is that Iran has no need for nuclear power, and therefore must be pursuing a secret weapons programme. "For a major oil producer like Iran, nuclear energy is a waste of resources," Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post last year. 30 years ago, however, when Kissinger was secretary of state, he held that "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals". Iran's nuclear programmes, as far as is known, fall within its rights under article 4 of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which grants non-nuclear states the right to produce fuel for nuclear energy. The Bush administration argues that article 4 should be strengthened, and I think that makes sense. When the NPT came into force in 1970 there was a considerable gap between producing fuel for energy and for nuclear weapons. But advances in technology have narrowed the gap. However, any such revision would have to ensure unimpeded access for non-military use, in accord with the initial NPT bargain between declared nuclear powers and the non-nuclear states. A reasonable proposal to this end was advanced by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2003: that all production and processing of weapon-usable material be under international control, with "assurance that legitimate would-be users could get their supplies". That should be the first step, he proposed, toward fully implementing the 1993 UN resolution for a fissile material cut-off treaty (or Fissban). ElBaradei's proposal has to date been accepted by only one state: Iran, in February, in an interview with Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. The Bush administration rejects a verifiable Fissban - and stands nearly alone. In November 2004 the UN committee on disarmament voted in favour of a verifiable Fissban by 147 to 1 (United States), with two abstentions: Israel and Britain. Last year a vote in the full general assembly was 179 to 2, Israel and Britain again abstaining. The United States was joined by Palau. There Are Ways To Mitigate And Probably End These Crises The first is to call off the very credible US and Israeli threats that virtually urge Iran to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent. A second step would be to join the rest of the world in accepting a verifiable Fissban treaty, as well as ElBaradei's proposal, or something similar. A third step would be to live up to article six of the NPT, which obligates the nuclear states to take "good-faith" efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons, a binding legal obligation, as the world court determined. None of the nuclear states has lived up to that obligation, with the United States far in the lead in violating it. Even steps in these directions would mitigate the upcoming crisis with Iran. Above all, it is important to heed the words of Mohamed ElBaradei: "There is no military solution to this situation. It is inconceivable. The only durable solution is a negotiated solution." And it is within reach. [Chomsky's Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.] so what will it be like in this new world then?
here’s one example. football. in the new world no contact of any physical kind will be allowed.deeply submerged as we are in this current competitive culture, when you first hear such an idea it sounds nuts. wouldn’t that take all the action out of the game?! well, no, actually, it would make for more action, but more of the ballet type and what’s wrong with that? more gifted young lads would join the game, why, women might be able to play! right now a whole generation of our kids are being educated to think that cheating (grabbing, shoving, tripping, kicking, pulling shirts all the things we teach our kids NOT to do) is the only way to win, and that it’s necessary to get ahead. (of course this is not only true of football but runs through every field of human endeavour.) FIFA, the body which manages the game, is already moving in this direction. it’s just a case of imagining this accelerating. think of how many wonderful players have to be retired early because of injuries sustained in a primitive, dinosaur-like version of a game that will obviously evolve and be with us forever. i have a friend right now whose son is brilliant at the game and has visited training camps where scouts watch for new talent. but did you know that anyone who’s smaller, less burly or just more sensitive, will not be picked because the scouts know he’ll be bullied and pushed out of the game by the ruff guys at some later stage? imagine a game free of all those ruff tuff blundering macho guys, allowing the truly talented ‘physical artists’ to play the beautiful game without the constant injuries and stoppages. get the idea? other examples to follow. up! NEXT UP!:- caravanseraiclub safari/morocco 2006 a l l g o o d t h i n g s c o m e t o a n e n d which don't justify nuttin' :) U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U UP P P P P P P P P P PP P P P P P P P P P P P P P P
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