08-06-2021, 09:46 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-06-2021, 10:11 AM by Eric the Green.)
We need a new narrative, a new story, as George Monbiot says. An inclusive one that might even eventually win over some non-Democrats, and appeal broadly.
The new political story that could change everything
Perhaps I can write one in this space. I will work on it here, as if I can contribute to the "collective effort" Monbiot mentions toward creating the new story.
Today we are on a collision course with destruction. The policies of the last 40 years have left us up the creek without a paddle. We no longer have a working peoples' government we can trust. The last 70 years or more has revved up material growth and consumption beyond what our planet can tolerate. And yet most people get less and less from all this wild expansion of human power. Our society is broken; our sense of purpose and community is gone. Too many people look to sensational symbols and slogans, empty fantasies and false conspiracy theories to fill the void of distrust and explain what's happening, which only further disconnects us from realites. Plagues and pandemics, wildfires and floods, guns, crime and racial strife, drug epidemics, lonliness, despair, anger, closed opportunities, poverty and poor health, and spreading tyranny at home and abroad rage across the land.
Ever since the 1960s, the people of the USA and many countries have lost trust in their government and its politicians. The United States of America has waged wars based on lies that cost millions of lives. We spend so much on war and defense that we have no means to build peace. Since the 1980s, the ideology that says to unleash the market so that prosperity will trickle-down from phony job creaters has only served to create a grossly unequal and unhealthy society. The promised trickle was just a trick; it never arrived. We badly need rebirth and renewal now, in so many ways.
But riots, violent revolutions and occupations in the streets, although they might relieve our frustration or start conversations, do not build anything. Our democratic system has developed over two centuries, and we need to revive it and use it again now. We need to get political to overthrow the ruling oligarchy. Our laws and our government can only be of, by and for the people IF we rise up and make it so, and remain eternally vigilant and active. We need to believe in politics, government and society again, and rebuild democracy for all again, in which power and prosperity grows and rises up from the people, not trickles down from the top!
We will rise up and create this new world, and heroically and bravely defeat its enemies. We will by persuasion and law restore a decent society. This will happen because a new and higher value has arisen amidst all these years of chaos, mistrust and decline, like a new growth quietly bubbling up through the cracks. It is the ecological green principle and it will rule in place of the acquisitive and unending material growth principle.
In this green society all resources and power are recycled, and none are concentrated. Soon no resources will any longer be mined and extracted; no humans exploited. All our activities will be based on the ecological idea of inter-dependence on each other, all contributing to the whole. This is what we need to restore our lives!
We will see brilliant, inspired, inventive business leaders create the most incredible new enterprises that fill real needs. But the new green principle inspires mutual sharing and support, not ambitions for power over others. Labor-saving, productive technology will belong to everyone by law, as well as to patent holders; not to the owners alone, so that greater leisure and wealth can be guaranteed to all. We will band together in new local communities of common dedication to make our towns and cities whole again, and join idealistic political and cultural movements and peoples' organizations to uplift our nation and our world. We will use our political power to transform our corporations and businesses into contributors to a rich and fulfilling society in which workers and consumers have power within those companies. We will have vibrant public utilities, infrastructure, schools and services that lift people up, supported by generous public investment paid for by fair taxes and contributions. More and more we will hold our land and workplaces in common. Fairs and gatherings will proliferate.
The ecological principle invites us to let Nature back into our lives and create graceful living spaces. We will see restored and supervised forests and lands from coast to coast, new parks everywhere, electric-car highways, and fully-green renewable energy. We will build beautiful cities with great architecture, art and culture where people of all groups and incomes can live side by side and all can prosper. Our climate will be stable again soon too. No more floods and fires will destroy our cities after a while. We will rediscover the cycles of nature and the cosmos, and flow with them as ancient peoples once did. We will hold all of life as sacred, and act accordingly.
The ecological principle of restored life, means that we are all becoming more alive, more flexible, and more imaginative. We can depend on our limitless power of innovation, so we don't need an ever-grosser national product that our planet-home can't support. We'll have a national invention inventory instead. We'll be smarter, not bigger. In a society that provides for all, no-one needs to hoard money or capture it from others. If we can restore our own health through better, more youthful and more-natural diets and lifestyles, we don't need to spend so much for expensive health care.
Greed, racism, prejudice, superstition, fear, indulgence and anger may not be fully and forever abolished yet, so we still need fully-adequate rules and regulations, reformed police, multi-lateral foreign policies, fair taxes willingly paid, good education and spiritual guidance, and safety-nets for all in need, to keep our misbehavior in bounds. These will be developed according to the ecological, democratic principle in which all beings participate, and all are counted. We will think globally, in reverence of Planet Earth, our unique home, but act locally using local power and local politics as much as we can, growing and rising up from below among the people, and using national and state power too when we need it.
If we hold to the ideal of a decent, living, organic society for all people and all of life, and to the Spirit within us and among us as our foundation, there's no limit to how far we can evolve and grow creatively and personally. Our longing for belonging will be answered. Love and harmony will spread across the land, as we all feel a part of the greater soul connecting us-- like a sphere of consciousness that rises like a sparkling, pulsing fountain of fireworks in the sky above, and in all our hearts.
https://philosopherswheel.com/politics-a...ution.html
The new political story that could change everything
Perhaps I can write one in this space. I will work on it here, as if I can contribute to the "collective effort" Monbiot mentions toward creating the new story.
Today we are on a collision course with destruction. The policies of the last 40 years have left us up the creek without a paddle. We no longer have a working peoples' government we can trust. The last 70 years or more has revved up material growth and consumption beyond what our planet can tolerate. And yet most people get less and less from all this wild expansion of human power. Our society is broken; our sense of purpose and community is gone. Too many people look to sensational symbols and slogans, empty fantasies and false conspiracy theories to fill the void of distrust and explain what's happening, which only further disconnects us from realites. Plagues and pandemics, wildfires and floods, guns, crime and racial strife, drug epidemics, lonliness, despair, anger, closed opportunities, poverty and poor health, and spreading tyranny at home and abroad rage across the land.
Ever since the 1960s, the people of the USA and many countries have lost trust in their government and its politicians. The United States of America has waged wars based on lies that cost millions of lives. We spend so much on war and defense that we have no means to build peace. Since the 1980s, the ideology that says to unleash the market so that prosperity will trickle-down from phony job creaters has only served to create a grossly unequal and unhealthy society. The promised trickle was just a trick; it never arrived. We badly need rebirth and renewal now, in so many ways.
But riots, violent revolutions and occupations in the streets, although they might relieve our frustration or start conversations, do not build anything. Our democratic system has developed over two centuries, and we need to revive it and use it again now. We need to get political to overthrow the ruling oligarchy. Our laws and our government can only be of, by and for the people IF we rise up and make it so, and remain eternally vigilant and active. We need to believe in politics, government and society again, and rebuild democracy for all again, in which power and prosperity grows and rises up from the people, not trickles down from the top!
We will rise up and create this new world, and heroically and bravely defeat its enemies. We will by persuasion and law restore a decent society. This will happen because a new and higher value has arisen amidst all these years of chaos, mistrust and decline, like a new growth quietly bubbling up through the cracks. It is the ecological green principle and it will rule in place of the acquisitive and unending material growth principle.
In this green society all resources and power are recycled, and none are concentrated. Soon no resources will any longer be mined and extracted; no humans exploited. All our activities will be based on the ecological idea of inter-dependence on each other, all contributing to the whole. This is what we need to restore our lives!
We will see brilliant, inspired, inventive business leaders create the most incredible new enterprises that fill real needs. But the new green principle inspires mutual sharing and support, not ambitions for power over others. Labor-saving, productive technology will belong to everyone by law, as well as to patent holders; not to the owners alone, so that greater leisure and wealth can be guaranteed to all. We will band together in new local communities of common dedication to make our towns and cities whole again, and join idealistic political and cultural movements and peoples' organizations to uplift our nation and our world. We will use our political power to transform our corporations and businesses into contributors to a rich and fulfilling society in which workers and consumers have power within those companies. We will have vibrant public utilities, infrastructure, schools and services that lift people up, supported by generous public investment paid for by fair taxes and contributions. More and more we will hold our land and workplaces in common. Fairs and gatherings will proliferate.
The ecological principle invites us to let Nature back into our lives and create graceful living spaces. We will see restored and supervised forests and lands from coast to coast, new parks everywhere, electric-car highways, and fully-green renewable energy. We will build beautiful cities with great architecture, art and culture where people of all groups and incomes can live side by side and all can prosper. Our climate will be stable again soon too. No more floods and fires will destroy our cities after a while. We will rediscover the cycles of nature and the cosmos, and flow with them as ancient peoples once did. We will hold all of life as sacred, and act accordingly.
The ecological principle of restored life, means that we are all becoming more alive, more flexible, and more imaginative. We can depend on our limitless power of innovation, so we don't need an ever-grosser national product that our planet-home can't support. We'll have a national invention inventory instead. We'll be smarter, not bigger. In a society that provides for all, no-one needs to hoard money or capture it from others. If we can restore our own health through better, more youthful and more-natural diets and lifestyles, we don't need to spend so much for expensive health care.
Greed, racism, prejudice, superstition, fear, indulgence and anger may not be fully and forever abolished yet, so we still need fully-adequate rules and regulations, reformed police, multi-lateral foreign policies, fair taxes willingly paid, good education and spiritual guidance, and safety-nets for all in need, to keep our misbehavior in bounds. These will be developed according to the ecological, democratic principle in which all beings participate, and all are counted. We will think globally, in reverence of Planet Earth, our unique home, but act locally using local power and local politics as much as we can, growing and rising up from below among the people, and using national and state power too when we need it.
If we hold to the ideal of a decent, living, organic society for all people and all of life, and to the Spirit within us and among us as our foundation, there's no limit to how far we can evolve and grow creatively and personally. Our longing for belonging will be answered. Love and harmony will spread across the land, as we all feel a part of the greater soul connecting us-- like a sphere of consciousness that rises like a sparkling, pulsing fountain of fireworks in the sky above, and in all our hearts.
https://philosopherswheel.com/politics-a...ution.html