[p2p-research] Fwd: A proposal seeking your Endorsement

[Michel Bauwens]

worth reading, the founding document is below,

though I could easily endorse most of their principles, and I trust a lot of
the people that signed it,

I feel that signing it would undercut the pluralism of the p2p foundation,
and also, I think that the direct connotation with socialism is probably
counterproductive. In addition, it's close association with the Chavez
sponsorship conjures up the image of earlier international's subservience to
powers that be ...

Comments very welcome,

Michel

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: michael albert <sysop at zmag.org>
Date: Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 10:25 PM
Subject: A proposal seeking your Endorsement
To:


Hello,
*

Two months ago, President Chavez of Venezuela announced intentions to host a
gathering to found a New International this April. If events proceed as
announced, there will be a gathering in Caracas in roughly ten weeks
implementing whatever plans emerge.

It seems desirable that voices from outside Venezuela be heard as well, and
that discussions occur widely before the April gathering convenes.

The following are the initial endorsers, thus far, of the Proposal seeking
that end presented below:

*

Ezequiel Adamovsky
Michael Albert
Daniel Chavez
Noam Chomsky
Jill Soffiyah Elijah
Ann Ferguson
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Mandisi Majavu
Boris Kagarlitsky
Cynthia Peters
John Pilger
Justin Podur
Nikos Raptis
Lydia Sargent
Stephen Shalom
Vandana Shiva
Chris Spannos
Marie Trigona
Fernando Vegas
Greg Wilpert


*
We are sending this message to various writers and activists including the
Reimagining Society Participants and former invitees, hoping to gather some
additional initial endorsers for the proposal. Once that succeeds, building
on the full list of initial endorsers - which will then hopefully include
you - we will seek far more support online. The web site for the project
will become public, after further refinements allow online endorsements, but
you can see it in early draft here:

http://ruby.zcommunications.org/newinternational.htm

So, would you be willing to become an initial signer of the proposal that
appears below and on the page linked above?

To endorse, please so indicate in your reply, and we will add your name. If
you would like to suggest changes in the text, we will incorporate
everything we can without violating the faith of the original endorsers.

*
*
Finally, on first reading the proposal many people have had three questions.
Perhaps quick answers will help your deliberations:

1. What has a new International got to do with the WSF?

*

A new International and the WSF would be mutually supportive, though
independent. Indeed, some would say inspiring such an International was one
key potential of the WSF, even as the WSF itself would remain an open venue
of discussion.

*

2. What is the relation between the proposal and the Caracas gathering in
April and what should I do it I have doubts about the April gathering, but I
like the points raised in this proposal?

*
*

This proposal hopes to inspire discussion by activists all over the world,
and perhaps contribute to the final choices in April and thereafter. While
some may be happy about an International forming this April and others may
be upset about it, either way, rather than be silent about features to
include shouldn't those concerned try to help inspire desirable results?

*
*

4. Why would endorsing this proposal affect outcomes?

*

The proposal will be delivered directly to people trying to form and likely
to participate in a new International and both those planning the April
meeting and those likely to belong to the emerging International are highly
likely to eagerly welcome participation and seriously engage with the
associated and evolving ideas.


If dozens much less hundreds of activists endorse a range of positions,
those positions will play an important role in the discussion of policies
and practices. A person can therefore endorse this proposal knowing that
doing so will have impact far greater than the time vested in appending
one's name.


*
So please, if you want to endorse, let us know as soon as possible so we can
move forward. If you don't want to endorse, to help us understand where our
assessments are wrong, can you please let us know why?



Here, then, is the proposal we hope you will endorse...



Proposal for A Participatory Socialist International

We, the undersigned, endorse the idea of a new International and urge that
its definition include assessing, refining, and implementing as many of the
following points as the International’s participants decide mutually
agreeable:

1. A new International should be centrally strategically concerned (at
least) with:

   - economic production, consumption, and allocation, including class
   relations
   - kinship nurturance, socialization, house keeping, and procreation,
   including gender, sexuality, and age
   - cultural community relations including race, nationality, and religion
   - politics including relations of law and legislation
   - international relations including matters of mutual aid, exchange, self
   determination, and immigration
   - ecology including relations with the natural environment and other
   species

And that the new International should address these concerns without
elevating any one focus above the rest, since (a) all will critically affect
the character of a new world, (b) unaddressed each could subvert efforts to
reach a new world, and (c) the constituencies most affected by each would be
intensely alienated if their prime concerns were relegated to secondary
importance.


2. Our vision for a Participatory Socialist future should (at least) include
that:

   - economic production, consumption, and allocation be classless - which
   includes equitable access for all to quality education, health care, food,
   water, sanitation, housing, meaningful and dignified work, and the
   instruments and conditions for personal fulfillment
   - gender/kinship, sexual, and family relations not privilege by age,
   sexual preference, or gender any one group above others in any realm of life
   - which includes ending all forms of oppression of women and sexual
   minorities while providing day care, recreation, health care, overcoming the
   sexual division of labor, etc.
   - culture and community relations among races, ethnic groups, religions,
   and other cultural communities protect the rights and identity of each
   community consistent with equally respecting those of all other communities
   - which includes an end to racist, ethnocentric, and otherwise bigoted
   structures while simultaneously securing the prosperity and rights of
   indigenous people
   - political decision making, adjudication of disputes, and implementation
   of shared programs deliver “people’s power” in ways that do not elevate any
   one sector or constituency above others - which includes participation and
   justice for all
   - international trade, communication, and other interactions attain peace
   and justice while dismantling all vestiges of colonialism and imperialism -
   which includes canceling the debt of nations of the global south and
   reconstructing international norms and relations to move toward an equitable
   and just community of equally endowed nations
   - ecological choices not only be sustainable, but care for the
   environment in accord with our highest aspirations for ourselves and our
   world - which includes climate justice and energy innovation


3. The guiding values and principles informing internal strategic and
programmatic deliberations of an International highlight at least the
following values which includes implementing whatever structural steps prove
essential to organizationally embody the values as well as possible in the
present:

   - solidarity, to help align worldwide movements and projects into mutual
   aid and collective benefit
   - diversity, to spur creative innovation, respect dissent, and recognize
   that minority views thought to be crazy today can lead to what is brilliant
   tomorrow
   - equity, to seek wealth and income fairness
   - peace with justice, to realize international fairness and fulfillment
   - ecological sustainability and wisdom, to seek human survival and
   interconnection
   - “democracy” or perhaps even a more inspiring conception of “people’s
   power,” “participatory democracy,” or “self management,” to foster
   participation and equitable influence for all


4. That a new International be the greatest sum of all its parts, including
rejecting confining itself to a single line to capture all views in one
narrow pattern. To achieve this the new International should:

   - include and celebrate “currents” to serve as vehicles for contending
   views, help ward off sectarianism, and aid constant growth
   - establish that currents should respect the intentions of other
   currents, assume that differences over policy are about substance and not
   motive, and pursue substantive debate as a serious part of the whole project
   - afford each current means to openly engage with all other currents to
   try to advance new insights bearing on policy and program.
   - guarantee that as long as any particular current accepts the basic
   tenets of the International and operates in accord with its norms and
   methods, its minority positions would be given space not only to argue, but,
   if they don’t prevail, to continue developing their views to establish their
   merit or discover their inadequacies


5. Members of the new International would be political parties, movements,
organizations, or even projects, where:

   - members, employees, staff, etc., of each new International member
   organization would in turn gain membership in the International
   - individuals who want to be members of the International but have no
   member group that they belong too, would have to join one
   - every member group would have its own agenda for its separate
   operations which would be inviolable
   - at the same time, each member group would be strongly urged to make its
   own operations consistent with the norms, practices, and agendas of the
   International,establishing solidarity but also autonomy
   - member groups would have a wide range of sizes - but since the
   International’s decisions would not bind groups other than regarding the
   collective International agenda, a good way to arrive at decisions might be
   serious discussion and exploration, followed by polls of the whole
   International membership to see peoples’ leanings, followed by refinements
   of proposals to seek greater support and to allow dissidents to make their
   case, culminating in final votes of the membership


6. Programmatically, of course what a new International chooses to do will
be contextual and a product of its members desires, but, for example:

   - a new International might call for international events and days of
   dissent, for support campaigns for existing struggles by member
   organizations, and for support of member organizations against repression,
   as well as undertake widespread debates and campaigns to advance related
   understanding and mutual knowledge...
   - more ambitiously, an International might also undertake, for example, a
   massive international focus on immigration, on ending a war or intervention,
   on shortening the work week worldwide, and/or on averting climatic
   catastrophe, among other possibilities. It might prepare materials,
   undertake education, pursue actions, carry out boycotts, support local
   endeavors, etc.
   - general program would be up to member organizations to decide how to
   relate to, yet there would be considerable collective momentum for each
   member organization to participate and contribute as best it could in
   collective campaigns and projects since clearly one reason to have an
   International is to help organizations, movements, and projects worldwide
   escape single-issue loneliness by becoming part of a larger process
   encompassing diverse focuses and united by agreements to implement various
   shared endeavors.

*




-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
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