[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Peoples Assemblies Everywhere Fwd: [climate09-int] Video: The People's Assembly

[Mark Barrett]

 That is precisely the sort of proposals that came out of both CJA and CJN's
final evaluations. Organise Peoples' Assemblies locally and regionally
everywhere, then a simultaneous decentralised Assembly next summer. Also a
call for a global day of action in fall on Climate Justice principles. And
of course, mobilisations during COP16 in Mexico  in December. A great spark
of hope and a decisive year ahead.
 Olivier


Mark Barrett wrote:

Even more awesome and potentially world historic, would be a regular
People's Assembly held in every major city and rural neighbourhood of the
world, at every Town Hall, all at the same time. A visible, reachable new
society in the making, an unstoppable leverage against any decision making
that is not in the interests of the whole planet AND a low carbon footprint
rolled into one.

City and Rural Neighbourhoods of the World, Unite!!

2009/12/21 Jody Boehnert <jody at eco-labs.org>

> Here is a video of our awesome People's Assembly:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGY9ruYpx3o
>
> Jody
>
> Hi Anna
>
> Queries:
> > who decides where the barricades are set?
>
> Do you believe in radical localism (or 'local sovereignty') via inclusive,
> consensus decision-making as a key means to work our way out of the
> environmental crisis? I think that for the huge number that do, and -
> tantalisingly - for the very many others who (though not environmentalists)
> nevertheless also believe the better, freer, enlilghtened society begins
> with the same realisation, for us ( ie us vs. everyone who does not believe
> in that ideal) doesn't the barricade sets itself accordingly? People either
> believe that a vital solution to globalisation rests in ordinary people
> responsibly taking control of their immediate resources together, with
> collective stewardship and everyone equally included in decision-making, and
> with  federating support for other similar groupings across the communities
> who wish to do the same, or they do not, or they are not even aware of the
> possibility. The clear setting out of those barricades, on our terms not
> theirs as is the case with Copenhagen and all the other jamborees would give
> them the opportunity to decide who's side they are on. No?
>
> >how do we set these without enough information being given to the "grass
> roots"?
>
> The barricades would get set by a call out being framed in the terms above,
> so question could turn on "do you believe in an alternative society? Another
> world, built by the grassroots? If so, let's show what democracy really
> looks like.. if so, let's all get ourselves, and our groups down to our
> local town hall, for a global picnic / dance / festival / occupation / on
> such and such day at such and such time in response to such and such event.
> We could use this idea to create the space for more autonomy and network
> building in our local areas, while also putting the idea of a new global to
> local sovereignty, the free society in the making into the minds of the
> mainstream, boosting and building and joining up with all the other local
> areas in solidarity. For the environment, for the politics, for the
> economics, for the human rights, for all the socially controlled,
> downtrodden and oppressed.  The message is a new start, for a new people a
> new covenant. Maybe a blank placard could be our symbol..?
>
> >Who decides what this information should be.
> this is a lot more complicated than a simple call.
>
> But it's not THAT difficult, is it? As we know, everything, whether local
> or in an anti- conference setting needs to be done with groundrules, so why
> should a call for decentralised joined up organising be any different.
> Democratic inclusion, equality, consensus, independence, accountability,
> transparency etc are a given, right? Surely we are by now mostly agreed on
> what constitutes good, democratic practice, aren't we? If not now, after all
> this time, when?  Isn't that enough info?
>
> >Who decides whether the call is for 2degrees or 1.5 degrees or 0.8 degrees
> which is already bad enough if you are one of the communities who are dying
> of drought or flood.
>
> I'm not saying this is not important, it really is, and we need to keep the
> pressure on. But also I really don't think we can hope for a real
> democratization of the global process (and therefore a new urgency and
> openness to the needs of all in the embryonic global governance / regulatory
> process) until we ourselves get our act together as a people (we are the
> 'global justice people' right?).
>
> And what this means, for me is putting ourselves on the map as a people
> rooted in our communities and not just as a travelling circus of resistance,
> important though that may be. We've won most of the arguments about
> globalisation now, the only thing that's missing is the political will and
> we need to push for that, yes of course. But we are much more than this
> travelling conscience. Much much more. Not only are we 'everywhere'; but we
> always have been; so we are everytime too. As a people questing for
> universal justice we transcend space and time.
>
> "take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of
> the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty
> and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
> I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I
> was in prison and you came to visit me.’.. ‘I tell you the truth, whatever
> you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’"
>
> What is new is the force of global technology that allows us to
> communicate, mobilise and thereby publically constitute ourselves across the
> planet. And that is totally unprecedented. But until we start using the
> amazing technological tools at our disposal to create a genuinely
> democratic, visible 'Other' to the capitalist / interstate mode of
> globalisation I really do not think we can expect people power to come to
> its fruition as a force for real change in the world. As activists, we are
> in a ghetto. Maybe the biggest ghetto in human history, but a ghetto
> nevertheless. We need to break out by calling upon the highest, and best
> plan ever, and mobilising according to the principles of the society we want
> to see born. A decentralised, joined up movement for the best dream of all,
> rooted in local communities and thereby able to speak to everyone in the
> context of local conditions, would be very difficult to hold back, because
> people would begin to get what we are about. And, eventually this localism,
> pursued properly will reduce emissions as so much of what we burn is in
> transport. And we will become what we are destined to be the force for real
> change at the national, international and global level that transforms the
> world for the good of all. Of course it needs to happen quickly to save
> people, as you suggest, which is why I am writing with urgency.
>
> >Who has this right to decide that its Ok if some of us die? who decides
> who dies? sorry I dont think anyone is qualified to make that call. how can
> all be welcome when some of us think its OK to shift carbon from one
> accounting head to another for money : no matter how much money.
>
> Sorry I didn't mean to say that everyone is welcome in a simplistic sense,
> although I do think everyone is capable of hearing the truth about how we
> should live and act, and that no-one is damned until the final moment of
> truth either devours or save them. There are those who will fight us, as
> they always have done, and they will of course lose. But those who hear the
> truth of what we say, that the world's salvation lies in the making of a new
> society, built in every local community but joined up across the world, not
> state not market but independent civil society; they will come. And they may
> well come from unexpected places - just as the nay sayers will. And the nay
> sayers are the culprits for the deaths you speak of, those who put their
> store in the state and the market place to fix things, or who just don't
> care. And the longer those people drag their feet, the longer the process
> will take, and the more people will unnecessarily die, and it is their
> responsibility, and theirs alone, as it always has been.
>
> From the same passage: "All the nations will be gathered before him, and he
> will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep
> from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his
> left...Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are
> cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I
> was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me
> nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed
> clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not
> look after me.’ " http://niv.scripturetext.com/matthew/25.htm
>
> I know it's unfashionable to say it. But if we are believers we should pray
> for divine assistance to take us out of our ghetto. And if we are not, we
> should call upon whatever force we do believe in to come to our collective
> aid, and then, from there we should start trusting that history is on our
> side, and start mobilising for a new society, with completely different
> values, and new cultural engine at heart, and beginning in every community,
> because there are people dying, in all sorts of ways, everywhere.
>
> That's our calling, isn't it?
>
> A Salaam Aleykum
>
> Mark
>
>
> Queries:
>  who decides where the barricades are set?
>
> how do we set these without enough information being given to the "grass
> roots"?
>
> Who decides what this information should be.
> this is a lot more complicated than a simple call.
>
> Who decides whether the call is for 2degrees or 1.5 degrees or 0.8 degrees
> which is already bad enough if you are one of the communities who are dying
> of drought or flood.
>
> Who has this right to decide that its Ok if some of us die? who decides who
> dies?
> sorry I dont think anyone is qualified to make that call.
> how can all be welcome when some of us think its OK to shift carbon from
> one accounting head to another for money : no matter how much money.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Mark Barrett <
> marknbarrett at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> What we need for a paradigm shift is to organise ourselves under one
> banner, in which all are welcome, and across ALL the local communities in
> the world. How many times does it need to be said, before we make the simple
> call out for ALL local groups to converge on the local arms of the state at
> the same time, and then build our networks from there, and to do it again
> and again and again, to build local groupings across all th ideological
> divides, and thereby at last to carve out the visible, independent spaces,
> in every locality, where a new sovereignty - based on stewardship - can be
> realised, so then finally everyone can chose which side of the barricade
> they are on, and so the world can no longer misrepresent, or ignore what we
> really stand for?
>
>
> 2009/12/19 >
>
> Dear all
> I am not comfortable truly with the hype of considering anyone "winners" in
> this "game".  Please can we stop adopting the language of military strategy
> and corporate manipulation.  It affects how we perceive and think. We are
> all losers already.  every one has lost for the last 25 years at least since
> climate change was recognised: hundreds of species exterminated , already
> human death tolls and suffering have reached incredible levels. We are not
> trying to win : we are trying desperately to salvage life and lives from the
> wreck of greed and hubris.  Can we finally stop buying the spin and re-work
> our fundamentals, our approaches and our own thinking?  And stop being so
> manic or epressive about what we should have known would be a very hard
> struggle ?  We are talking of a paradigm shift here, people.  Do you really
> think it is going to come from those in power?
> Anna
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 3:51 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
>
>
> (You do the spotting of biases/ignorance.)
>
>
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6961367.ece
>
> 1830 Looking at the latest draft - which is the one Greenpeace must have
> been reacting to, and it does indeed read a bit like a G8 communique. Let's
> gut it a bit and try to see who's come out on top from the various tussles
> over the past fortnight. Remember it's only a draft.
>
> Firstly the name: Copenhagen Accord. That is stronger than the Copenhagen
> Declaration or somesuch, so it is an international agreement, which makes it
> binding in at least a moral sense.
>
> Winners: the Danes, unless this treaty is trashed in which case they might
> ask for its name to be changed.
>
> There's no explicit binding target on temperature - just a recognition of
> the "scientific view" that limiting temperature rise to 2C would "enhance
> our long-term cooperative action to combat climate change".
>
> Winners: Oil producers. Losers: Small island states, LDCs, the planet as a
> whole
>
> A new clause further down the document says later reviews of the Copenhagen
> Accord would look at a target of 1.5C.
>
> Winners: Tuvalu and the low-lying islands (if that review ever takes place)
>
> The parties agree that that deep carbon emission cuts are required,
> according to the science, and "with a view to reduce global emissions by 50
> per cent in 2050 below 1990 levels, taking into account the right to
> equitable access to atmospheric space".
>
> Winners: the emerging economies including Brazil will be pleased by that
> last clause.
>
> No specific target on "global peaking" (the point at which emissions peak -
> a crucial target for scientists) which the UK had wanted to be set at 2020.
> Instead the text says: "We should co-operate in achieving the peaking of
> global and national emissions as soon as possible, recognising that the time
> frame for peaking will be longer in develoing countires and bearing in mind
> that social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first
> and overriding priorities of developing countries..."
>
> Winners: Again, China, Brazil and other emerging economies such as India.
> There's no target on their peaking.
>
> Developed countries commit to reducing their emissions individually or
> jointly by at least 80 per cent by 2050. Individual 2020 targets to be
> listed in an appendix (which is still blank). Verification to be rigorous,
> robust and transparent. The EU was offering the 80 per cent target.
>
> Winners: In the longer term, the planet.
>
> But there is no overall target on emission limits or "mitigation actions"
> by major emerging economies, such as China, India and Brazil. An earlier
> draft today set a 15-30 per cent target. Instead individual country targets
> will be listed in an appendix to the accord. Countries will be asked to
> report on their progress every two years via national communications - but
> there's no comeback if they're lying.
>
> If countries want international support for their mitigation actions -
> China and Brazil have made clear that they don't - then they face
> international measurement.
>
> Winners: China and Brazil. Losers: US and EU
>
> Caveat: there is a square bracket [Consideration to be inserted US and
> China], which suggests that this battle is not yet over.
>
> Funding: developed countries are promised "scaled up, new and additional,
> predictable and adequate funding" to help them avert and cope with climate
> change. They will get $30 billion in "fast start" financing over the next
> three years and the developed countries also "support the goal of mobilising
> jointly $100 billion a year by 2020. This funding will be a mixture of
> public, private , bilateral and multilateral and "alternative" - ie
> market-based - finance. The multilateral funding will be channeled through
> trust funds on which developed and developing countries have equal
> representation.
>
> Winners: developing countries, especially the Africans and small island
> states. Developed world will be happy to have flexibility in funding
>
> There will be a review of this accord and its implementation by 2016,
> including the 1.5C target. But there is no commitment to making it a legally
> binding international treaty and no mention of the next COP meeting in
> Mexico City next year, which an earlier draft had suggested should be held
> within six months.
>
> Winners: China and G77 countries, which wanted to avoid new international
> treaty - but, interestingly, the only mention of the Kyoto Protocol, which
> they want to keep, is in the preamble, which endorses the decision that the
> KP working group should continue its work on a new round of commitments by
> developed countries under that pact. That omission could be read both ways.
>
> Overall winners: You do the math.
>
>
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