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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hello Mark,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Your latest thinking on essential values and
democratic control prompts my hopefully useful response. The essence
of your splendid vision (08.09.09) closely reflects what I believe is the scope
and the promise of my work on spatial order. This defines
an underlying 'natural history' of human settlement patterns, in ordered
groups local to global, their consequential self managing dynamics contained and
defined by natural limits ( Chrystallers' Central Place Theory). These
limits demand readoption as a frame of reference for democratic change at
the lowest and subsequent delegated levels, to contest and to harness the
many forces beyond the comprehension and control of civil society today
(Subsidiarity Principle). The natural spatial disciplines so mapped must be
brought to bear on current disorder, bringing a scope for corresponding
social, political and economic reconfiguration.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The agents of change needed will I am sure be
already imbued with your agreed common values,of truth, justice and mutual
concern, but the wider public expression of such values might only be encouraged
and enabled by the initial prospect for, and hopeful realisition of, safe,
secure, therapeutic environments for family and community, for which historical
models abound. The patterns and the processes needed for that change are I
believe implicit in my evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee,
January 2007, to be found in Google under my name. The social mobilisation
called for to give life to such vision would not be practical however if it were
to look only to existing governance with its current
encumbrances.</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>The way forward however must instead
lie in the 'open source' web based dialogues of which you are already
part, ordered by local territories and their scope for 'virtual
communities', suitably mapped, platforms and arenas for local
action.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The most practical level of intervention in this
hierarchy of spatial territories must however be at urban townships, their
clusters and local catchments, the most tangible fixed points in an
otherwise continuous, unmanageable sea of urban variables. Such common
ground is the most stable and manageable citizen group, in common focus around
their High Streets and Market Places, within which the more fluid patterns of
local neighbourhood may then be enabled and activated. Giving voice to and
engaging local citizens through such processes has I believe a scope
for influence on existing electoral and representative processes in which local
power may soon be enhanced or </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>attained
through incremental, evolutionary change.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If wider,complex forces for change are however
to be fully harnessed in all their multiple forms,and in their diversity of
interest, a framework for consensus and for mutual action may I believe
only be found, in that same common focus, through the social
harnessing of market forces which spatial order makes possible, through
graduated sets of partial, communal autonomies. The gradual subordination
of wider authority to more 'local states' on common ground might
only become a reality if it is seen not as a threat to current
establishments but as a bulwark to and consolidation of those organisational
functions with which they otherwise struggle in a mass society, the better
achievement of a 'common good'.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Cordially yours,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Barry Fineberg.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=marknbarrett@googlemail.com
href="mailto:marknbarrett@googlemail.com">Mark Barrett</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=project2012@googlegroups.com
href="mailto:project2012@googlegroups.com">project2012@googlegroups.com</A> ;
<A title=campaignforrealdemocracy@lists.aktivix.org
href="mailto:campaignforrealdemocracy@lists.aktivix.org">campaignforrealdemocracy@lists.aktivix.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, September 08, 2009 7:43
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Campaignforrealdemocracy] New
World Values - Thoughts?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Sorry, my first attempt was a shockinly bad grammar.. Was
typing while at work and a bit distracted. Have edited and I hope made clearer
below.
<DIV class=gmail_quote><BR>
<DIV>Earlier, we agreed three 'new world' values: Truth. Justice and
Love/Compassion (we couldn't exactly agree on the last)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I'd like to propose a second, <EM>'the democratic control of resources'.
</EM></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This is huge, as by definition it starts at the bottom and goes right the
way up to the top. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So, 'democratic control of resources' would range from the
collective, inclusive control of each neighbourhood (but with decision making
/ morality operating, thanks to the first three values of T, J&C, with the
whole planet in mind) to the global. In this way, we would not only be in
control of our neighbourhoods but also, with other communities the world
over, we would also be powerful enough to set the overall direction of
globalisation. Think global act local, and the other way around too.
Obviously, there will be an important middle-step in the process of takinng
control of globalisation, which will be the seizing of control, by the
people, of the region, nation and continent too. These developments,
which would be driven from the bottom up by ordinary people in common
cause, would bring about a new era, which we might call 'democratic
globalisation'. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If each local community was seen to be a potential world in itself (many
other worlds, aswell as another world, is/are
possible) democratic globalisation could relate to the
process of including everyone in the local area in consensus and regular
decision making, aswell as, one day also being made to take the needs of each
and every community, and the planet in mind. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If truth justice and compassion can be seen as a kind of democratic
consciousness, meaning congnizance of the need to look after each other life
form, socially politically economically and in recognition of the fundamental
interconnectedness, but also with a very practical agenda to seize power and
thereby reduce carbon emissions by LOCALIZING, would that not
be essentially the knottiest part of the problem of environmental
degradation, solved? Aswell, presumably, poverty and war? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Isn't <EM>'the democratic control of resources'</EM> what the best of
both left (fighting corporate power ) and right (fighting the big state) agree
upon? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Obviously what it means in practical terms will vary depending on the
context. It might, for example, include the idea that rental income
on all privately owned land should go into the public purse, as suggested by
Robin, aswell as the necessary new political structures giving direct
control of neighbourhoods [Local Sovereignty] to people and, through
delegation likewise the policy of regions, nations, continents and the whole
world. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But to start with, can find this as a point of agreement?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So, to add to the first point:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>(1) Truth, Justice and Love/Compassion [already agreed]</DIV>
<DIV>(2) Democratic Control of Resources, on every level (from neighbourhood
to planet-wide)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What do people think - is this, <EM>the democratic control of resources a
</EM>good next step after Truth, Justice and Compassion?<BR>Can we start here
and build our ideas, for a democratic globalisation, on top?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Apologies of any of this is unclear - I don't have much time on-line
at the moment to finesse and edit.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thoughts?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Mark</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<P>
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<P></P>_______________________________________________<BR>Campaignforrealdemocracy
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