[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Localise Midlands Fwd: Tescos, Real Democracy & Planners Network UK

[Mark Barrett]

Fyi - this from a member of PNUK, Planners Network UK in response to my mail
about CRD below. David, on the lovely midlands/northern connection sorry for
no reply to your veg message. too many message not enough time. Did you see
that the anti-fascist crew are planning on kettling the BNP this weekend?
While we effete Londoners picnic on the hill. Sounds like a good connection!

FOE is Friends of the Earth so i think we should make some overtures here.
Will reply directly forthwith. Cheers all, Mark
---------- Forwarded message ---------

 Off list-  this is all VERY interesting to me and I have long wanted to get
more involved in PNUK activities.... but what you're envisaging here is much
broader and more ambitious than what I (and I THINK others) were talking
about.

You may not know (and I don;'t know how you feel about FOE anyway) but FOE
has long had an excellent, environmental justice- and rights-focused
planning team and unfortunately due to other priorities (climate bills
mainly!) FOE is now putting less resources into this sort of work, which
leaves a bunch of the sorts of FOE people who take that view a little
disenfranchised. So I suspect there'd be a lot of interest now in a broader
gathering to pick up some of the aspects that FOE has left off and explore
whether we can bring together some wider campaigns on 'planning and
democracy' and subcampaigns perhaps on specifically the local retail parts
of that, that might bring in those who are wary of visions and theories but
who firmly believe they and other communities should have a right to refuse
their local supermarket proposals...

I tend to think the only way forward is an initial meeting, but whether we
take the broader or narrower focus initially I'm not sure.

What did you mean by your last comment on us localists?!

What's your background/involvement in PNUK? I run
www.localisewestmidlands.org.uk and have a history of involvement in
Birmingham FOE on planning and economy issues, and a recent history of
lobbying FOE nationally to maintain its Rights and Justice work.

cheers


 ----- Original Message -----
*From:* Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>
*To:* Planners Network UK <pnuk at sheffield.ac.uk>
*Sent:* Thursday, August 13, 2009 11:50 AM
*Subject:* Tescos, Real Democracy & Planners Network UK

  Hi everyone

Yes, sounds great about a PNUK input into the anti-Tescos campaigning. But
how to add to what is already happening from a planning perspective?

There are so many angles to this, from anti-gentrification as Stuart points
out to anti-corporate control and the as others have mentioned the need to
preserve local trader economy and, possibly even to find common cause with
Local Authorities who don't like the fact that they go  into these
agreements due to forces outside of their control (although I am skeptical
about this).

Some of you may be aware that some of us are working on the conceptual and
practical development of a 'real democracy' campaign here in London,
although we do have comrades elsewhere.  I've set out some blurbs and links
about this below.

Obviously we are keen, as indicated by George Monbiot that the struggle
about democracy gets wider purchase. Our view is that for this to happen
(and my apology if this appears to be stating the obvioius) we need a joined
up movement that is not just 'against' this or that, but that is also
visibly 'for' something visible, a vision of real democracy. So we need at
least some sense of what that is going to have to look like as part of the
plans. But also, we think it needs to shape itself through democratic
processes in which all walks of life get to take part in its design. By
design I mean not just the movement's direction, but also the work of
putting together an alternative vision, and the putting forward of viable
policies to get us there.

Obviously we want as many of the good PNUK as possible on board in this and
we'd like to see groups affiliate to the CRD project in whatever way they
feel able to.

On the topic of Tescopolis, in my experience where I live, the most fruitful
line of attack would seem to be the one indicated by Ellie, as traders have
the most obvious degree of self interest from an anti-competition point of
view. Making common cause with LAs may also bear fruit, in terms of
centralisation, but I would guess this is more about identifying sympathetic
allies in the Council hierarchy than expecting a lovely revolution, at
leasto begin with.And that may simply mean losing one battle with that
recognition of what has been gained (an understanding of who are allies and
how the council works, and what residents and traders are interested to
struggle over, and so to fight another day, and better) rather than seeing
it as another nail in the coffin. Buildings can always be torn down -
metaphoriocally aswell as literally - and started again, and so can city
centres.

Considering  ways to join the struggle of traders with residents is tricky.
Alienating residents, many of  whom quite like their trusty Tescos as people
have indicated in their responses to the article, is quite easy. In my
experience, residents of even the more progressive political stripe often
end  up with  more of an ambivalence to tescos, for this reason.  Deep
down people like Tescos, COSTA etc where they basically know what they're
going to get, and it's cheap and quick. They may have misgivings because
of the negative changes to town centres they help bring, and a sense of a
real alternative such as a really well run locally owned market but really i
think we are up against  is about the need to persuade of the call of
democratic utopianism, the idea that things can and must be much better, in
an alternative society of our making in which TEscos will no longer hold
such  a sway on our collective imagination, aswell as wielding less power.
In the place of that, people need to be persuaded that tyhey will possess
more power, more freedom, and will have the opportunity for a happier, more
fulfilled and stress free existence. People's ambivalence and negativity is
about the TINA 'no alternative' feeling. Whereas traders have economic
incentive, not just moral / asethetic ones. We need to make the residents
see an economic, or perhaps a political economic incentive to join the fight
wholeheartedly. Don't we?

My LVT Henry Georgist colleagues tell me that this is good territory for a
campaign, as land owners like Tescos would have to pay a fortune for
their ownership if all economic rent went to the public and right wingers
proponents who feel that this kind of change (the collectivisation of land
values, with exemptions for 1st home owners of, say up to 200,000 pound
houses) could go with the effective privatisation of income (eg an extension
of the tax free band to, say 50,000) would be loved by all traders and
residents alike and of course the monies could be used to pay for the kind
of infrastructure that would make communities come back together again. But
all this requires a joined up campaign and the further development of a
peoples plan with lots of engagement in the discourse around it.

Anyway, here's the blurb about CRD, which (as you'll see from the blurb) is
not affiliated to LVT, although personally I am involved in both. The
Project 2012 list is discussing LVt along with lots of other issues on the
subject of cultural and political change, whereas the CRD list is solely on
the topic of democracy.

As I've tried to say above, my suggestion is that we need to focus ourselves
on is a wholescale manifesto project; something that is visibly *for* an
alternative, democratic planning system, or in other words an alternative,
parallel political economy.  If we are to beat these corporate beasts, of
which we all know Tescos is only one, I can't see any other way.

Would be great to have some more of you localists on board!

Cheers
Mark
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>
Date: 2009/8/13
Subject: CRD Blurb
To: campaignforrealdemocracy at lists.aktivix.org


Hi everyone

I've just updated the Ning site opening page for the Campaign for Real
Democracy blurb. Here's how it reads. Comments v.welcome. The location of
this blurb is at http://21stcenturynetwork.ning.com/group/CivilRights

Welcome to the Campaign for Real Democracy (CRD) group page.

What is meant by 'real democracy' is an open question, but our group
believes it must include local sovereignty (the importance of local,
democratic neighbourhood structures with real political and economic power),
greater use of consensus (horizontal) decision-making, and building a
viable, grassroots social movement.

So far the group has identified the following priorities:

(1) To map, and, where possible connect the various local and other
campaigns for real democracy already in existence. To provide a resource,
skills-share, cross fertilisation of ideas and raise awareness. You can find
a calendar of campaigns at People in
Common,<http://www.peopleincommon.org/>and please email us with any
campaigns, in London or elsewhere that you
think we should know about.
(2) To encourage campaigners to raise their aspirations to the level of
seizing power and ensure their own group's decision-making is really
democratic.
(3) To look for ways to encourage one really big, effective campaign for
democracy.
(4) To develop a 'real democracy' manifesto for an alternative democratic
political economy, a new political settlement to grow alongside the present
one, and eventually supplant it.#

One further priority is to encourage a 21st Century Network Social Action
group to affiliate with CRD and further support its aims in some way. We
hope this possibility will be explored at the meeting on August
19th<http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/calendar/10410683/>.


One interesting conceptual framework for all this is Henri Lebfevre's "The
Right to the City". This has been described as the "collective right to
shape the city to your hearts' desire, and be changed ourselves in the
process". This is essentially the democratic right to take part in decision
making and so create with your friends the political, social and economic
culture of the places and spaces you individually and collectively inhabit.
We think this fits well with the 21st Century Network's aim of opening up
public space to consider (and we would add, act upon) the great issues of
our time. We will be exploring this concept, aswell as looking at practical
campaigns, at a 21CN meeting on December
2nd<http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/calendar/10863366/>and we
hope to be able to build upon that for a bigger event in 2010.

In the meantime, this space will be used to collate the CRD manifesto. So
far this has been developed on a Wordpress site and on the Project 2012 and
CRD mailing lists, and I'm in the process of transferring the info across to
here. Sorry for the delay in getting this done.

Here are the Minutes from our first CRD
Meeting.doc<http://api.ning.com/files/wEmKpXpNPLiknsh9TPoHpNQcSm92*ThRc*gTku*ab436QAqzuQDIS2iM8qZozGwNRv1z7kG9ejVysyYcYt*wH-FQPSgcWWqr/MinutesfromourfirstCRDMeeting.doc>

And the second one...23rd July CRD
Minutes.wps<http://api.ning.com/files/eFEyqotybvr4a0pexZBT5TP723o-Ihve0D9jkwvQJ2R5biKCM3unfqWEFEZuE8KeQuRm4Nfz3SdXpfdf-UuqROY8hvqk8CfI/23rdJulyCRDMinutes.wps>

*NEXT (THIRD) CRD MEETING - TBC in September*

The next CRD (Campaign for Real Democracy) meeting will be in September. The
last meeting was held on the eve of Thursday 23rd July in the Guernica
Tapestry round table space at the Whitechapel Gallery. More info on this to
follow.

*Come to one of our meetings if:*

1. You think there are a few people in your area who might want to run their
own affairs in a really democratic way (for convenience we're defining
'local area' using council wards -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wards_in_Greater_London
2 .You've experienced something you think is real democracy-in-action (in
organisations like the climate camp) and want to see it spread
3. You'd like to see your area become democratic but don't really know
anyone else that thinks the same or even what real democracy might look
like.
4. You want to find ways to join up the campaigns.

*Also, come to the Democracy Picnic:* August 15th, Parliament Hill,
Hampstead Heath - an opportunity to get together for fun, plan the
London/wider campaign and make the point about the need for people to take
back control of their communities from the state and corporate hegemon. The
Facebook group for this is
here<http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=93829936659>

Here is a link to a new, independently written document to which we have
been invited to contribute, once it goes on-line for open source editing: A
Sustainable Economy for
London<http://www.brooklyndhurst.co.uk/media/A%20Sustainable%20Economy%20for%20London%20-%20Final%20June%202009%20version.pdf>

Finally, if you wish to join our wide ranging email discussion forum, please
do so at Project 2012 <http://groups.google.co.uk/group/project2012> or to
join the low-traffic, dedicated CRD list, pls email james at dogmanet.org





-- 
"We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet /Yet is there no
man speaketh as we speak in the street.”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aktivix.org/pipermail/campaignforrealdemocracy/attachments/20090813/0dc52348/attachment-0001.htm>